For the four-minute report<\/a>, CNN correspondent Nick Paton Walsh went \u201cundercover\u201d amidst what the network described as the \u201cdeepening crisis in Venezuela\u201d in order \u201cto capture the desperation gripping the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n The segment highlighted hyperinflation at grocery chains, Venezuelans lined up in queues for fuel and food, particularly in Caracas, and opposition demonstrations on January 23, when opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president of the country.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was the day when change was meant to come,\u201d Walsh stated.<\/p>\n It suggested President Nicolas Maduro\u2019s government has given \u201chandouts\u201d to Venezuelans for years to buy their loyalty, but now \u201chandouts\u201d are no longer enough. Opponents like to equate social programs to \u201chandouts\u201d because corporate elites favor de-nationalization and privatization of services.<\/p>\n Walsh interviewed a rank-and-file officer in the Venezuela military and granted him anonymity. The officer stated, \u201cI would say 80 percent of soldiers are against the government. Some even go to demonstrations. But the big fishes, the senior officers, are the ones eating, getting rich while the bottom we have it hard.\u201d<\/p>\n Video showed the opposition throwing stones at a military airfield in a standoff that apparently has lasted \u201cfor months.\u201d One part of the barricade was on fire.<\/p>\n Sitting with his back against what appeared to be a concrete barricade, like he was part of the opposition hurling objects, Walsh declared, \u201cThey may be throwing stones here, but what they really need is the army to switch sides.\u201d<\/p>\n Walsh offered no comment on what it would mean for democracy in Venezuela if the military played an instrumental role in helping Guaido and a U.S.-led group of countries oust Maduro.<\/p>\n Another part of the report featured street children in Caracas. A 14 year-old boy recounted how his brother was killed in July by a member of a gang. He said he has to go through the garbage for food and beg so he does not go hungry.<\/p>\n Walsh did not show a cause-and-effect relationship, yet the boy\u2019s poverty was wryly attributed to a \u201csocialist utopia that now leaves nearly every stomach empty.\u201d<\/p>\n On the surface, the report may have seemed balanced and neutral because CNN spoke to citizens caught in the middle of the political crisis. Yet, there was no clips of the tens of thousands of Maduro supporters who marched through Caracas the same day that Guaido claimed he was the country\u2019s interim president.<\/p>\n CNN also omitted the role of U.S. sanctions and other measures in making Venezuela\u2019s economic recovery nearly impossible.<\/p>\n According to Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), sanctions did not create hyperinflation in the country. However, they have made it incredibly difficult<\/a> for the government to restructure their debt for a recovery.<\/p>\n In 2017, weeks before the Trump administration imposed new sanctions, a former top State Department official predicted<\/a> they would cause the government to \u201cdefault on their bonds and a collapse of internal investment and oil production.\u201d They would spur \u201ccivil unrest, refugee flows across their borders, and a cutoff of Venezuelan financial support to Cuba and Haiti that could lead to migration flows to the United States.\u201d (Note: It was estimated<\/a> in June 2018 that about 35,000 refugees were crossing from Venezuela to Colombia each day.)<\/p>\n The same day that CNN aired their report the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the country\u2019s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA). The company is a \u201cprimary source of Venezuela\u2019s income and foreign currency,\u201d including U.S. dollars and Euros, according to the Department.<\/p>\n National security adviser John Bolton said the sanctions would block $7 billion in assets and result in the loss of $11 billion in proceeds from exports over the next year.<\/p>\n Even after the Trump administration announced oil sanctions, CNN still largely ignored the potential effect of sanctions when it aired this \u201cundercover\u201d report another time.<\/p>\n Oil sanctions are likely to intensify the suffering for Venezuelans, not make their lives better. In the 1990s, Iraq faced<\/a> sanctions from the United Nations on their oil exports as well as restrictions on other foreign trade. To many, it was \u201cone of the decade\u2019s great crimes\u201d because the sanctions contributed to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.<\/p>\n In Iran, the poor bear the brunt of sanctions on oil that were re-imposed by the Trump administration. Financial Times reported<\/a> in October on millions of Iranians, who were already stretched as \u201cthe value of the rial\u201d had \u201cplunged more than 70 per cent against the US dollar over the past year.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe sharp drop has pushed up import costs and stoked inflation, eroding purchasing power and leaving the most impoverished struggling to pay for basic goods such as meat, dairy products, and fruit,\u201d FT noted.<\/p>\n As journalist Gregory Shupak previously highlighted<\/a> for Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), \u201cWhen Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in November 2017 proposed a meeting with creditors to discuss a restructuring of the country\u2019s public debt, the Trump administration warned U.S. bondholders that attending this meeting could put them in violation of U.S. economic sanctions against Venezuela, which can be punished with 30 years in jail and as much as $10 million dollars in fines for businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat same month, the U.S. government added further sanctions that prevent Venezuela from doing what governments routinely do with much of their debt, which is \u2018roll it over\u2019 by borrowing again when a bond matures. The sanctions also made it difficult if not impossible for Venezuela to undertake debt restructuring, a process wherein interest and principal payments are postponed and creditors receive new bonds, which the sanctions explicitly prohibit.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, Francisco Rodriguez noted<\/a> for Foreign Policy in 2018, \u201cNinety-five percent of Venezuela\u2019s export revenue comes from oil sold by the state-owned oil company. Cutting off the government\u2019s access to dollars will leave the economy without the hard currency needed to pay for imports of food and medicine. Starving the Venezuelan economy of its foreign currency earnings risks turning the country\u2019s current humanitarian crisis into a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n This is not the first time that the opposition in Venezuela has destroyed the economy to help it win power. Back in 2002, the same year that President Hugo Chavez faced a coup backed by the U.S. government, his opponents \u201ccalled for a massive strike in the country\u2019s oil sector.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe strike brought oil production to a standstill and caused a double-digit recession in an attempt to get Chavez to resign,\u201d Rodriguez recalled. \u201cThis event single-handedly convinced Venezuelans that they could not trust a political movement that was willing to destroy the economy in order to attain power. In a recall referendum held two years later, voters resoundingly backed Chavez.\u201d<\/p>\n None of this history seems to matter to CNN anchors, who subscribe to the Washington bipartisan foreign policy consensus on Venezuela. Nor do they mention that it is not only Maduro\u2019s security forces that commit violence. The opposition was involved<\/a> in lynchings, burning people alive, and erecting barricades that cause deadly accidents in 2017. Some opposition leaders, including exiles like Lorent Saleh, have ties to neo-fascists<\/a>.<\/p>\n When CNN anchor Jim Sciutto introduced the report, he mentioned Guaido had again urged the people of Venezuela to \u201chit the streets to demand new elections\u201d in an effort to oust Maduro. It is easy to see how playing the report after this statement might help gin up sympathy for Guaido\u2019s calls to action.<\/p>\n But apparently there is reason to believe the opposition may have the support of leaders from several Latin American and Western countries but still be struggling to win over the people.<\/p>\n Walsh noted the country is not seeing daily mass street protests. Guaido\u2019s message may be resonating with some of the middle class, but it is not a message that inspires those in the slums, who have their own \u201cpoverty-based fight.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, it is likely that lower classes in Venezuela remain skeptical of the opposition because they fear it will mean inviting outside corporate interests to raid government assets and natural resources so they may enrich themselves. This would potentially lead to cuts or an end to social welfare programs that they utilize to help them survive.<\/p>\n This skepticism toward the opposition among Venezuelans is not something CNN wants to feature in its limited coverage of the attempted coup. But it should be viewed as a key reason to doubt the consensus around support for the opposition, which news networks are working to manufacture.<\/p>\n ___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/em>Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of <\/em>Shadowproof. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, “<\/em>Unauthorized Disclosure.”<\/em><\/p>\n