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Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Another Open Letter to the Dishonest BBC
By Arturo Rosales | Axis of Logic
Axis of Logic
Saturday, Jan 12, 2019

Comments on your usual misinformation and manipulation:

Claims of vote rigging
This has been claimed since the referendum against Chavez in 2004 and no concrete evidence is ever presented. So why do you mention it? It's easy to say these things but more difficult to provide evidence.
"The US and 13 other countries in the Americas said last week that they would not recognize Mr Maduro's presidency"
But you do not say that 112 nations sent high level delegations to Maduro's swearing in, thus recognizing his mandate. In fact, 148 nations recognize Maduro as President of Venezuela. No mention of that either.
"opposition groups called for pot-banging and the sounding of horns in protest during the ceremony"
None of this happened, not even in the most right wing areas of Caracas, in the municipality of Chacao.
"The re-inauguration took place before the country's Supreme Court instead of its opposition-run Congress, which has been stripped of its powers since Mr Maduro's ruling Socialist Party lost control of it in 2016."
This is completely misleading. The opposition controlled National Assembly was declared in contempt of a ruling by the Supreme Court. In November 2016 the Court declared the National Assembly in contempt of their ruling that it should not have sworn in three deputies from Amazonas state while an investigation into vote-rigging in those elections for the National Assembly were investigated. The then president of the National Assembly, Ramos Allup, disobeyed this ruling and caused the whole Assembly to be ruled in contempt and all its legislative decisions declared null and void until it obeyed the ruling.
"The Organization of American States also approved a resolution declaring his second term "illegitimate."
This ruling is illegal as it does not exist in the statutes of the OAS. The OAS can only apply the Democratic Charter against Venezuela and to do this it needs 2/3 of the votes - that is, 24 votes in favour when it only had 19.
"Why is Maduro's re-election controversial?"
In this section the BBC does not say that for more than two years the opposition had been calling for early elections due to the "crisis". Finally this request was granted by the National Electoral Council at the behest of the National Constituent Assembly (ANV). But the main opposition parties then refused to participate despite the fact that the opposition claimed that it had 70% - 80% voter support against Maduro and the ruling Socialist Party.

The US embassy played a significant role in convincing opposition candidates not to stand against Maduro based on the plan of making the elections look illegitimate. On voting day, the opposition told its supporters not to vote, thus scuppering any chance that the one opposition candidate, who DID run, Henry Falcon, had of winning.
Why has his government been criticized?
In this section about alleged human rights abuses by Maduro, no specifics are given. In fact, there are no human rights abuses except for hyperinflation promoted by the commercial class that controls the food and medicine distribution network.

No mention is made in this section by the BBC that US sanctions against Venezuela has made it impossible to make food and medicine purchases in dollars. The money Venezuela earns from CITGO, its oil company in the US, cannot be sent to Venezuela as Trump has prohibited this. No mention is made that Venezuela is banned from getting international loans to buy food and medicines or to issue debt in dollars to generate cash flow. Add to this that Trump has also threatened sanctions against companies and people who deal in the Venezuelan cryptocurrency, the Petro.

In other words, there is an economic blockade against Venezuela as against Cuba plus an attack on its currency to spark hyperinflation which has failed to topple the government. This attack against the economy began in December 2012 when President Chavez was dying of cancer.

***

The last part of this fiction about Venezuela says that inflation reached 1,300,000% in 2018. In fact, it was 13,000% - terrible but not as great as the big lie spun by the National Assembly.

Finally, this week family dwelling number 2,615,000 was handed over to its occupiers by the government. Why is no mention ever made of this Social Mission? Or the fact that there are now more than 3.5 million pensioners receiving money (equivalent to the legal minimum wage) every month? Or any other of the social missions that continue to function despite the economic war?

It's sometimes difficult to recall, but there was a time when the BBC was honest.


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