The anti-Venezuela election campaign

[Judi Lynn]

The anti-Venezuela election campaign

Venezuela's election is not until September, but the international campaign to delegitimise the government has already begun

Mark Weisbrot guardian.co.uk
Thursday 18 March 2010 19.00 GMT

Venezuela has an election for its national assembly in September, and the campaign has begun in earnest. I am referring to the international campaign. This is carried out largely through the international media, although some will spill over into the Venezuelan media. It involves many public officials, especially in the US. The goal will be to generate as much bad press as possible about Venezuela, to discredit the government, and to delegitimise the September elections – in case the opposition should choose to boycott, as they did in the last legislative elections, or refuse to recognise the results if they lose.

There's no need for conspiracy, since the principal actors all know what to do. Occasionally some will be off-message due to lack of co-ordination. A fascinating example of this occurred last week at when Senator John McCain tried to get General Doug Fraser of the US Southern Command to back his accusations that Venezuela supports terrorist activities. Testifying before the Senate armed services committee on March 11, General Fraser contradicted McCain:

"We have continued to watch very closely … We have not seen any connections specifically that I can verify that there has been a direct government-to-terrorist connection."

Oops! Apparently Fraser didn't get the memo that the Obama team, not just McCain, is in full campaign mode against Venezuela. The next day, he issued a statement recanting his testimony:

"Assistant Secretary Valenzuela and I spoke this morning on the topic of linkages between the government of Venezuela and the Farc. There is zero daylight between our two positions and we are in complete agreement.

"There is indeed clear and documented historical and ongoing evidence of the linkages between the government of Venezuela and the Farc … we are in direct alignment with our partners at the state department and the intelligence community."

Well it's good to know that the United States still has civilian control over the military, at least in the western hemisphere. On the other hand, it would be even better if the truth counted for anything in these Congressional hearings or in Washington foreign policy circles generally. The general's awkward and seemingly forced reversal went unnoticed by the media.

The "documented and historical and ongoing evidence" mentioned by General Fraser refers to material alleged to come from laptops and hard drives allegedly found by the Colombian military in a cross-border raid into Ecuador in 2008. Never mind that this is the same military that has been found to have killed hundreds of innocent teenagers and dressed them up in guerrilla clothing. These laptops and hard drives will continue to be tapped for previously undisclosed "evidence", which will then be deployed in the campaign against the Venezuelan government. We will be asked to assume that the "captured documents" are authentic, and most of the media will do so.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's attacks on Venezuela during her trip to South America were one of the opening salvos of this campaign. Most of what will follow is predictable. There will be hate-filled editorials in the major newspapers, led by the neocon editorial board of the Washington Post (aka Fox on 15th Street). Chávez will be accused of repressing the media, even though most of the Venezuelan media – as measured by audience – is still controlled by the opposition. In fact, the media in Venezuela is still far more in opposition to the government than is our own media in the United States, or for that matter in most of the world. But the international press will be trying to convey the image that Venezuela is Burma or North Korea.

In Washington DC, if I try to broadcast on an FM radio frequency without a legal broadcast licence, I will be shut down. When this happens in Venezuela, it is reported as censorship. No one here will bother to look at the legalities or the details, least of all the pundits and editorial writers, or even many of the reporters.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/18/venezuela-election

[polly7]

1. Thanks for that. Chavez isn't stupid, he knows the score and so

do the people who will ensure the gov't stays. I didn't realize Cindy Sheehan had just been down there until this morning. Granted, she's not a politician with any power, but has more stones than most of them combined and imo just happens to be one honest lady.

"The reasons I went down to Venezuela with my team of two cameramen were two-fold.

First of all, I just got tired of all the misinformation that is spread in the US about President Chavez and the people’s Bolivarian Revolution. In only one example, the National Endowment for Democracy (another Orwellian named agency that receives federal money to supplant democracy) spends millions of dollars every year in Venezuela trying to destabilize Chavez’s democratically elected government."

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_58779.shtml

......"About 98% of the organizers were women who spoke very articulately and passionately about how their lives have improved since Chavez arose to power from the people’s revolution and how they would defend Chavez and the revolution with their very lives."...


......"I asked both the presidents if they had any words of inspiration for the people of the US. They both emphasized the need for grassroots unity, but they especially wanted to stress their affection for the people of the US.

With President Morales standing by his side and nodding vigorously, President Chavez said: “We are NOT anti-American, we ARE anti-Imperialism.”

Yo tambien, mis hermanos."

Cindy Sheehan' Soapbox

[HelenWheels]

2. Take back from the wealthy

who have gutted Venezuela for decades and enjoyed the high life at the expense of the poor. Chavez is trying to remedy this by giving back to the poor what was taken from them. The US has been after Chavez because the wealthy oil people in the US don't want "their" oil taken from them.