The Venezuelan minister of information and communication (MCI), Andrés Izarra called upon the Venezuelan people and its allies worldwide to be alert in the face of the “media and political offensive” that the Bush administration is carrying out against the bolivarian revolution, in an attempt to de-legitimatize and isolate the government.

He explained that the national government has been keeping track of the president’s denouncement over “the escalation of the media offensive against Venezuela by the Bush administration“

As he displayed several documents, Izarra expressed his concern about the systematic publication of falsified and/or distorted information and of groundless allegations through different mass media linked to the neo-conservative right wing of the Bush administration. “The reiteration, as well as the time span of the information, has lead us to conclude that, in fact, we are in the face of a new political and media offensive by the U.S., a new dirty war campaign being executed in our country; very similar to that which, back in the 80’s, Mr. Otto Reich launched, as the head of a diplomatic office, which was closed in 1987, precisely for launching dirty campaigns”

Manipulation of public opinion

The Venezuelan government analyzed the use of different techniques of pseudo-journalism, intended to deceive, say half-truths, confuse, exaggerate, claim false information sources, and distort facts; these techniques include improper use of anonymity, reports out of context, and the manipulation of figures and statistics.

Citing a study published by FAIR, minister Izarra explained that 84% of the sources that inform about Venezuela through the international media, particularly those from the U.S., take spokesmen of the opposition as reference, while only 16% of these sources sympathize with the bolivarian project.

“We have identified three fundamental points of an opinion atmosphere that the private U.S. media have been propitiating, in an attempt to de-legitimatize and isolate the Venezuelan government:

– President Chávez is an accomplice of international terrorism
– Chávez is an imminent threat to democracy in the Western Hemisphere
– Chávez’ government is quickly heading towards either an authoritarian democracy or an elected dictatorship.

These terms have been used by spokesmen of the State Department and intelligence agencies, and have been repeated by the U.S. media, including the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Fox network, and the Wall Street Journal.

“We are sure that the Bush administration is behind this type of propaganda, disguised as objective information, one of whose main vehicles is the Miami Herald, along with its Venezuelan replicas: “El Universal” and “El Nacional”, said the minister as he referred to the denunciations made in recent months with respect to the Bush administration paying off journalists in order for them to advocate his political guidelines. “In the last few weeks, a total of 45 articles following these adverse and malicious guidelines have been published”.

The threat of a Contagious Good Example

This campaign is complemented with a series of declarations by high-rank spokesmen of the Bush administration. With respect to this, he warned against the intention of preparing some kind of action through the OAS(Organization of American States), eventually related to the modification of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, to facilitate destabilization and thus U.S. intervention in the country.

As he explained the reasons for this crusade against Venezuela, the minister pointed out that “the bolivarian alternative project is a ray of light for the peoples of Latin America”. With the figures in hand, Izarra explained how some macroeconomic figures had improved during the periods of political stability of president Chávez’ government. Such improvement was again evident at the end of 2004. It is a humanistic model that is proving that it is possible to attain development with social investment.