VENEZUELA: WHAT IS HAPPENING?
The commercial media almost without exception continues to support the United States and dozens of its allies in its attacks on Venezuela. Hardly a culture of peace!
In order to present an alternative to this “war propaganda,” we review here a series of articles that give the other side.
We begin with critiques of the commercial media coverage.
CBS News claims that 82% of the people of Venezuela want President Maduro to quit, but they do not provide a source. Instead, when we seek reliable polling data, we find that 57% of poll respondents consider that the government of president Maduro, is legitimate and 86 percent would disagree with international military intervention. A majority are disatisfied with both the government and the opposition, but this is common in many countries now, including the United States.
Commercial media in the US, including the New York Times and the Washington Post continue to support a US overthrow of the Venezuelan government. They point to the country’s economic crisis as a justification for regime change, while whitewashing the ways in which the US has strangled the Venezuelan economy.
Here are some of the stories that are not covered by the commercial media, presumably because they do not support the American economic warfare and threat of military intervention
On 3 August 2018, the UN General Assembly received a report from their Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, concerning his mission to Venezuela and Ecuador. The report criticized the US economic warfare against Venezuela, suggesting that it could be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.
While the US, its allies and media claim to be delivering humanitarian aid to Venezuela, the Red Cross and the United Nations have refused to join in. They express concern that the aid is being offered for political rather than humanitarian reasons.
While the US and its allies attacked Venezuala at the UN Security Council, a number of countries objected, including China, Russia, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, Nicaragua, Cuba and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The delegate from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines said, “The history of Latin America and the Caribbean is indelibly scarred by military interventions and imposition of dictator Governments. The need to triumph over its lingering remnants drives the countries in the hemisphere “to be viscerally abhorrent to any semblance of its re-emergence”. Constitutionally, Venezuela has an elected President in Mr. Maduro, but an unconscionable crusade against the legally elected President, orchestrated by OAS, aims to erect a parallel unelected Government. “
Bolivian president Evo Morales wrote that “the US threats against Venezuela are threats to peaceful coexistence in Latin America, they want to provoke confrontation between brothers with war and violence.” He accused the US government of seeking that Venezuela “be devastated and impoverished as Iraq and Libya”,
The Jamaican Peace Council condemned the threat of military intervention by the US and wrote that “the US has no history of promoting democratic governance in the Caribbean. Cuba in 1961, Grenada in 1983, and Honduras in 2009 are examples of their imperialist intervention and paramilitary violence. We say: ‘No more interference and no more coups!'”
Close to 700 conferees from 65 countries came to a conference in Havana, Cuba, from January 28-31, for peace and “world balance. An overarching theme of the conference was the urgency for international solidarity with the democratically elected Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Finally, President Maduro wrote a letter to the American people, concluding that “We appeal to the good soul of American society, victim of its own leaders, to join our call for peace, let us be all one people against warmongering and war.”