Venezuela: truths and lies about democracy, poverty and emigration

While the global media reinforces labels, electoral, economic and social data paint a picture of a more complex country than the dictatorship’s discourse suggests

By José Manzaneda, coordinator of Cubainformation

The mainstream media silence all voices that support the Venezuelan government and its president, kidnapped by the US, Nicolás Maduro.

The murder, to carry out this kidnapping, of more than a hundred people, is either censored or reduced to a mere informative detail (1). Meanwhile, television and radio talk shows, articles and press reports justify the barbarity, terror and destruction of international law by Donald Trump’s government (2).

The support for state terrorism enjoys such impunity thanks to the fine rain of lies, for years, on international public opinion (3). Let’s recap.

Also read: Roblox: ‘none of this happens off screen’

1. Venezuela is a dictatorship. False.

Venezuela is the country with the most electoral processes in the world, 32 during the Chavismo period (4).

In May’s legislative elections, for example, 54 political forces competed, with open campaigns and full freedom of expression (5).

Venezuela develops one of the most participatory models of democracy in the world. In addition to conventional elections, there are four annual popular consultations that, in each community, directly decide the projects and public works that the State must carry out (6).

2. Chavismo destroyed the economy. False.

Since 2015, the US government has applied around a thousand economic sanctions to Venezuela, expropriated public companies and frozen their accounts and assets abroad (7). In 2019, the country had lost 99% of all its revenue in foreign currency (8), with a 70% decline in GDP (9). Nothing more like a war.

However, after six years of social catastrophe, Venezuela managed to build new national and international economic alliances and, since 2022, the economy has been growing at a rate of 6%, with tangible achievements, such as almost total food sovereignty (10).

3. Poverty is the government’s fault. False.

In the first stage of the Bolivarian Revolution, with Hugo Chávez as president, poverty was reduced by 47% (11). The cause: new sovereign laws, such as Hydrocarbons, which gave the State real control over oil revenues (12). These revenues began to finance the so-called “social missions” in the areas of popular economy, housing, education, culture or sport, many of them in collaboration with Cuba (13).

But the economic blockade destroyed the oil funds that financed these programs, causing a notable increase in poverty, the loss of the value of salaries and pensions, massive inflation and the paralysis of the economy (14)

4. The opposition is persecuted. False.

The extreme right, led by María Corina Machado, opted to boycott most of the recent electoral processes (15).

It is an anti-democratic opposition, which not only supports sanctions and the US invasion of its country (16) (17). Furthermore, he organized several coups d’état (18) and assassination attempts (19), and promoted extreme violence in the streets, against the constitutional order (20). In 2024, these acts caused the death of 27 police officers and Chavista activists (21).

Their violence and their collaboration with an enemy power (not the expression of “opinions”) are the cause of the imprisonment of those who are presented as “political prisoners”.

5. Maduro stole the presidential elections. False

In July 2024, the far-right opposition and the US intelligence services orchestrated a major operation to steal the presidential elections: they launched a major cyber attack that paralyzed the counting of votes and, simultaneously, publicized the lie of their electoral victory in the world press (22).

Days later, the Supreme Court of Justice began an investigation, for which it requested electoral records from all political formations. 38 parties of all ideologies presented them, except the Democratic Unitary Platform of Edmundo González and María Corina Machado (23).

These days, millions of people fill the streets of Venezuela in support of Maduro (24), without a single act of support for the US intervention. Donald Trump himself stated that Machado “has no support or respect” within Venezuela (25). But didn’t they say that your organization won the elections?

6. China and Cuba invaded Venezuela. False.

China is one of the keys to the US attack against Venezuela. These are the oil extraction and sale agreements, using the yuan, the Chinese currency, that Trump is trying, by all means, to destroy (26).

In the case of Cuba, since 2000 there has been a Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement with Venezuela, a paradigm of South-South collaboration.

Cuba receives oil and, in return, provides services, mainly health, to the benefit of lower-income Venezuelan communities (27). Furthermore, help in matters of security: on January 3, 32 Cuban soldiers who were protecting Maduro were murdered by the US during his kidnapping (28). But it is completely false that there are Cuban troops in Venezuela (29).

If they existed, they would have been photographed years ago by North American satellites.

7. The government caused the expulsion of millions from the country. False.

Before the economic blockade, in the midst of Chavismo, Venezuela was a receiving country for immigration. For example, five million Colombians have fled poverty and violence (30). But the US blockade, just like in Cuba, meant that millions of people had to leave the country in search of a better life (31).

Just as in the Cuban case, the White House and the media at its service constructed a victimistic and false narrative about “refugees”, “persecuted” or “fleeing” people from their country (32) (33).

The Venezuelan and Cuban women are forced emigrations, without a doubt. But not for Caracas or Havana, but for Washington. Although, due to psychological warfare in the media and social networks, a part is now applauding their own executioner.

An executioner, in fact, who still… hasn’t won the war.

Originally published in Cubainformation