{"id":127730,"date":"2019-02-11T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=127730"},"modified":"2019-02-18T10:56:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T10:56:59","slug":"us-media-ignore-and-applaud-economic-war-on-venezuela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/02\/us-media-ignore-and-applaud-economic-war-on-venezuela\/","title":{"rendered":"US Media Ignore\u2014and Applaud\u2014Economic War on Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

6 Feb 2019 –<\/em>\u00a0The US media chorus supporting a US overthrow of the Venezuelan government has for years pointed to the country\u2019s economic crisis as a justification for regime change, while whitewashing the ways in which the US has strangled the Venezuelan economy \u00a0(FAIR.org<\/strong>, 3\/22\/18<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A UN rapporteur declares that \u201csanctions kill\u201d (Independent, 1\/26\/19)\u2014but few in Western media are listening to his message.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sister Eugenia Russian, president of Fundalatin<\/a>, a Venezuelan human rights NGO that was established in 1978 and has special consultative status at the UN, told the Independent<\/strong> (1\/26\/19<\/a>):<\/p>\n

In contact with the popular communities, we consider that one of the fundamental causes of the economic crisis in the country is the effect [of] the unilateral coercive sanctions that are applied in the economy, especially by the government of the United States.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While internal errors also contributed to the nation\u2019s problems, Russian said it\u2019s likely that few countries in the world have ever suffered an \u201ceconomic siege\u201d like the one Venezuelans are living under.<\/p>\n

While the New York Times<\/strong> and the Washington Post<\/strong> have lately professed profound (and definitely 100 percent sincere) concern for the welfare of Venezuelans, neither publication has ever referred to Fundalatin.<\/p>\n

Alfred de Zayas, the first UN special rapporteur to visit Venezuela in 21 years, told the Independent<\/strong> (1\/26\/19<\/a>) that US, Canadian and European Union \u201ceconomic warfare\u201d has killed Venezuelans, noting that the sanctions fall most heavily on the poorest people and demonstrably cause death through food and medicine shortages, lead to violations of human rights and are aimed at coercing economic change in a \u201csister democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Zayas\u2019 UN report<\/a> noted that sanctions \u201chind[er] the imports necessary to produce generic medicines and seeds to increase agricultural production.\u201d De Zayas also cited Venezuelan economist Pasqualina Curcio, who reports that \u201cthe most effective strategy to disrupt the Venezuelan economy\u201d has been the manipulation of the exchange rate. The rapporteur went on to suggest that the International Criminal Court investigate economic sanctions against Venezuela as possible crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n

Given that de Zayas is the first UN special rapporteur to report on Venezuela in more than two decades, one might expect the media to regard his findings as an important part of the Venezuela narrative, but his name does not appear in a single article ever published in the Post; <\/strong>the Times<\/strong> has mentioned him once, but not in relation to Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Economist Francisco Rodr\u00edguez (WOLA, 9\/20\/18) points out that oil production in both Venezuela and Colombia dropped when oil prices fell in 2016\u2013but Venezuelan production plummeted when the US imposed financial sanctions in 2017.<\/p><\/div>\n

The economist Francisco Rodr\u00edguez points out<\/a> that the sanctions the Trump administration issued in August 2017 prohibited US banks from providing new financing to the Venezuelan government, a key part of the \u201ctoxification\u201d of financial dealings with Venezuela. Rodr\u00edguez notes that, in August 2017, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network warned financial institutions that \u201call Venezuelan government agencies and bodies\u2026appear vulnerable to public corruption and money laundering,\u201d and recommended that some transactions originating from Venezuela be flagged as potentially criminal. Many financial institutions then closed Venezuelan accounts, concerned about the risk of being accused of participating in money laundering.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez says that this handcuffed Venezuela\u2019s oil industry, the sector most crucial to its economy, with lost access to credit preventing the country from obtaining financial resources that could have been devoted to investment or maintenance. And whereas previously the Venezuelan government would raise production by signing joint venture agreements with foreign partners who would finance investment, Trump\u2019s sanctions \u201ceffectively put an end to these loans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mark Weisbrot (The Nation, 9\/7\/17): \u201cThe Trump administration has made an open and firm commitment to regime change through the destruction of an already debilitated Venezuelan economy.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Mark Weisbrot (The Nation<\/strong>, 9\/7\/17<\/a>) , also an economist, raised a related issue:<\/p>\n

If we step back and look at Venezuela from a bird\u2019s-eye view, how does a country with 500 billion barrels of oil and hundreds of billions of dollars\u2019 worth of minerals in the ground go broke? The only way that can happen is if the country is cut off from the international financial system. Otherwise, Venezuela could sell or even collateralize some of its resources in order to get the necessary dollars. The $7.7 billion in gold<\/a> held in Central Bank reserves could be quickly collateralized for a loan; in past years, the US Treasury department used its clout to make sure that banks who wanted to finance a swap, such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, did not do so.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sanctions have kept the Venezuelan government from accessing financing and dealing with its debt while hamstringing its most important industry. Given that US media are writing for a principally US audience, the damage done by Washington and its partners\u2019 sanctions should be front and center in their coverage. Exactly the opposite is the case.<\/p>\n

Virginia Lopez-Glass of the New York<\/strong> Times<\/strong> (1\/25\/19<\/a>) uses 920 words to describe the challenges facing Venezuelans, but \u201csanctions\u201d isn\u2019t one of them, even as she writes about matters to which, as I\u2019ve shown above, sanctions are directly relevant: \u201cFood and medicine shortages are widespread. Hundreds have died from malnutrition and illnesses that are easily curable with the appropriate treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weaponizing hunger in Venezuela in this manner is dishonest and misleading. Christina M. Schiavoni, a doctoral researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, and Ana Felicien and Liccia Romero, both of whom are Venezuelan scholars, wrote in Monthly Review<\/strong> (6\/1\/18<\/a>) on \u201covert US aggression toward Venezuela\u201d in the form of<\/p>\n

the intensifying economic sanctions imposed by the Obama and Trump administrations, as well as an all-out economic blockade that has made it extremely difficult for the government to make payments on food imports and manage its debt.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Torture advocate Bret Stephens (New York Times, 1\/25\/19) mocks the idea that sanctions, and not \u201csocialism,\u201d are responsible for Venezuela\u2019s economic crisis.<\/p><\/div>\n

Bret Stephens\u2019 column in the Times<\/strong> (1\/28\/19<\/a>) only mentions the word \u201csanctions\u201d to complain that the media supposedly isn\u2019t blaming \u201csocialism\u201d for the crisis in Venezuela, alleging that<\/p>\n

what you\u2019re likelier to read is that the crisis is the product of corruption, cronyism, populism, authoritarianism, resource-dependency, US sanctions and trickery, even the residues of capitalism itself.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After dismissing the idea that the sanctions are a key part of the problems in Venezuela, Stephens went on to advocate using them to bring about regime change in the country, writing that the Trump administration<\/p>\n

should enhance [Guaid\u00f3]\u2019s political standing by providing access to funds that can help him establish an alternative government and entice wavering figures in the Maduro camp to switch sides. It can put Venezuela on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These \u201cfunds\u201d presumably refer the money that the US has seized from Venezuela, and adding the country to list of \u201cstate sponsors of terrorism\u201d automatically entails hitting it with further sanctions.<\/p>\n

The editorial board of the Washington<\/strong> Post<\/strong> (1\/24\/19<\/a>) alleged that Venezuela\u2019s government has \u201csubject[ed] the country\u2019s 32 million people to a humanitarian catastrophe,\u201d without referring to what scholars whose research and writing focuses on Latin America\u2014such as Laura Carlsen, Sujatha Fernandes, Greg Grandin, Francisco Dominguez, Noam Chomsky, Aviva Chomsky, Gabriel Hetland and Venezuelan-born historian Miguel Tinker Salas\u2014describe (Common Dreams<\/strong>, 1\/24\/19<\/a>) as sanctions<\/p>\n

cut[ting] off the means by which the Venezuelan government could escape from its economic recession, while causing a dramatic falloff in oil production and worsening the economic crisis, and causing many people to die because they can\u2019t get access to life-saving medicines.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later, the editorial said that \u201ca US boycott of Venezuelan oil could endanger ordinary Venezuelans already coping with critical shortages of food, power and medicine,\u201d an absurd remark given that the sanctions they are occluding have had precisely these effects.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A Washington Post op-ed (1\/24\/19) urges Trump to \u201cratchet up pressure\u201d on Venezuela, while insisting that the country \u201chas been driven into the ground by the repressive socialist policies pursued by Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Henry Olsen in the Post<\/strong> (1\/24\/19<\/a>) wrote as if sanctions are a benign tool that can be used to usher in a brighter future for Venezuelans, rather than a key reason that so many of them find themselves in such a grim condition:<\/p>\n

Trump has many levers to pull short of military intervention to topple Maduro. He could use US pressure on the global financial system to cut off regime access to international banks, freezing access to any secret accounts that the regime \u2014 and, probably, its highest-ranking leaders \u2014 established offshore. He can, as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has suggested, work with American oil companies that purchase Venezuelan oil to provide the profits from those purchases to accounts controlled by Guaid\u00f3\u2019s National Assembly. He can also pressure China, which has a far more valuable relationship with the United States than it does with Venezuela, to withdraw its support. Any or all of these measures would ratchet up pressure directly on the regime, decreasing its ability to finance itself and buy support from security and military figures\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

Odds are that increasing financial pressure on the regime will finally bring about its collapse.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even if one momentarily sets aside that the sanctions are illegal under international law<\/a> and violate<\/a> the charter of the Organization of American States, and that the US has no right whatsoever to decide who governs Venezuela, these measures don\u2019t just \u201cratchet up pressure\u201d on \u201cthe regime<\/a>,\u201d they also kill and immiserate ordinary Venezuelans.A<\/p>\n

The Post<\/strong>\u2019s Charles Lane (1\/28\/19<\/a>) wrote:<\/p>\n

Apologists for the regime blame US sanctions and destabilization for Venezuela\u2019s problems. The truth is that, with the exception of the George W. Bush administration\u2019s brief, halfhearted support for a coup attempt<\/a> in 2002, Washington\u2014learning the lessons of ill-fated Cold War interventions\u2014has shown restraint in dealing with the Caracas regime.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He went on to write that, until the Trump administration announced limitations on imports of Venezuelan oil that day, \u201cthe United States had traded with Venezuela and focused economic pressure on regime leaders and key institutions,\u201d which suggests that the sanctions exclusively harm the \u201cregime\u201d\u2014again, even if that were true, it would still be illegal\u2014and amounts to a lie, given the evidence that the sanctions are crushing the Venezuelan masses.<\/p>\n

Unlike Lane and the rest of the media\u2019s regime change choir, the US government has acknowledged what it\u2019s doing to Venezuela. Schiavoni, Felicien and Romero point to a telling remark<\/a> that a senior State Department official made last year:<\/p>\n

The financial sanctions we have placed on the Venezuelan Government has forced it to begin becoming in default, both on sovereign and PDVSA, its oil company\u2019s debt. And what we are seeing because of the bad choices of the Maduro regime is a total economic collapse in Venezuela. So our policy is working, our strategy is working and we\u2019re going to keep it on the Venezuelans.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus, the US government acknowledges that it is knowingly, consciously driving the Venezuelan economy into the ground, but US media make no such acknowledgment, which sends the message that the problems in Venezuela are entirely the fault of the government, and that the US is a neutral arbiter that wants to help Venezuelans.<\/p>\n

Call this elision what it is: war propaganda.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Gregory Shupak teaches media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto. His book, <\/em>The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media<\/a>, is published by OR Books.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Feb 2019 – The US media chorus supporting a US overthrow of the Venezuelan government has for years pointed to the country\u2019s economic crisis as a justification for regime change, while whitewashing the ways in which the US has strangled the Venezuelan economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":127737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,62,53,55,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","category-media","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","category-capitalism","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}