NOVANEWS
To The Guardian:
After the publication on Monday, 19 November of the article " ´Cages are more
dignified´: Colombia brings cold comfort for Venezuelans", written from Bogotá
by Joe Parkin Daniels, this Embassy calls on the editorial heads of the newspaper,
since this article, along with others about Venezuelan emigration also published in
recent days, presents biased considerations and notable simplifications and
omissions, not providing readers with an objective idea of events in Venezuela.
The other two articles are: "Venezuelan migrants live in shadows on Caribbean´s
sunshine islands" (13 November, by Bram Ebus) and "US navy hospital ship
stokes tensions by giving Venezuelan refugees free care" (18 November, also by
Joe Parkin Daniels); this last article, with a PR outlook, ends with a laudatory
declaration about the visit to Colombia of a US military hospital ship that attends
"Venezuelan refugees".
The texts respond to a same editorial, ideological and even editorial logic, coinciding
in the phrases and categories that they use when dealing with the subject of the
internal situation of the country and that of Venezuelan migration, both presented in
a distorted way. Thus, the complex and multidimensional reality of Venezuela is
simplified with repetitive phrases, such as "political repression" and "political turmoil";
"violent crime"; "economic collapse" and "economic turmoil".
From this repetition of clichés arises a big mistake in all three articles: one of using
the terms "migrants" and "refugees" indiscriminately, as if they were the same thing.
A minimal research shows that the United Nations defines refugees as those who
are outside their country of origin out of fear of persecution, conflict, widespread
violence, or other circumstances that have seriously disrupted public order and, as a
result, require international protection; none of these assumptions fits the
Venezuelan reality. It is therefore incorrect the qualification of "refugees" that The
Guardian repeatedly attributes to Venezuelan migrants.
The three articles also speak of "exodus". In the first of these, it is indicated that "the
extreme situation (in Venezuela) has caused an exodus of Venezuelans, possibly
the largest mass migration in the history of Latin America." Interestingly, the article,
by Bram Ebus, repeats again the mantra of the "unprecedented exodus in Latin
America."
These statements are a distortion of the phenomenon of Venezuelan migration,
which is not by far the greatest occurrence in our region. Making this statement
demonstrates a huge and intentional ignorance of the history of Latin America. The
displacement of the tens of millions of Latin Americans, which has been happening
for decades because of the poverty and structural inequalities suffered by the
Peoples of the region, did not receive any of the current international media
attention, including that of The Guardian, that´s been paid to the Venezuelan
migrants.
Only in Venezuela there are approximately 5 million 600 thousand immigrants and /
or Colombian refugees; part of a vast diaspora spread throughout Latin America,
product of the bloody internal conflict suffered for decades by the sister Republic of
Colombia. Additionally, in Venezuela there are about 400 thousand and 500
thousand Ecuadorian and Peruvian migrants respectively, as well as tens of
thousands of migrants from Central America and the Caribbean. All, absolutely all
have been received with warmth, dignity and full respect to their Human Rights.
As an exodus can also be described the huge Central American diaspora, which has
for decades migrated in waves to the United States, and continues to do so, as
evidenced by the so-called Migrant Caravan, increasingly bigger as it approaches
the US border. But none of these real exodus receive that kind of label from The
Guardian, because the purpose seems to be setting into public opinion the idea that
Venezuelan migration is an "exodus" without precedents.
It is therefore obvious the selective nature of these news, which show the intention to
stigmatise the Venezuelan Government and, thereby, to legitimise the aggression
that is underway against the Venezuelan People through sanctions imposed by the
US and its partners on both sides of the Atlantic. We will not see in The Guardian an
article either on the terrible impacts that the sanctions are having on Venezuela, or
on the severe economic and financial blockade that the US has imposed on
Venezuela since March 2015, that hinders the purchase of medicines and food,
pursues Venezuela's financial operations, and threatens to confiscate Venezuelan oil
assets abroad.
Nor does The Guardian inform readers about the economic warfare that is being
waged by the most reactionary part of Venezuelan business sector, identical to the
one applied against the government of Salvador Allende in Chile of 1973,
characterized by the induced shortage of products, manipulation of the exchange
rate and hyperinflation.
We regret that these very serious attacks against a People and a country,
catalogued by the UN expert, Alfred de Zayas, as a Crime against Humanity,
violating the Charter of the United Nations and International Humanitarian Law, do
not find space in The Guardian.
We also regret that these biased view point prevents the newspaper from seeing the
seriousness of this silent and cruel war, whose purpose is to overthrow the legitimate
Government of Venezuela, and seize the enormous resources of our country, carried
out, with calculated coldness, by the US Government and its regional partners.
The newspaper neither mentions, nor dwells on the ultimate causes of the social and
economic situation, nor on how these have been used to speak of a nonexistent
humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and thus pave the way for an intervention on behalf
of "humanitarian reasons."
None of the articles mentions the Return to the Homeland Plan launched by the
Venezuelan Government, an active airlift throughout Latin America that makes it
possible for any Venezuelan migrant wishing to return to the country to do so at no
cost. This Plan, in force for two months and without a deadline, has repatriated up to
now 9,263 Venezuelans who voluntarily decided to return. No international media,
including The Guardian, will mention the importance of this initiative, unprecedented
until now in the entire region, nor the long and generous Venezuelan culture of
reception, which for decades has received immigrants from all over the world,
without asking for international help and using only its own resources.
For future articles, the Embassy suggests that the newspaper include information on
the $ 25 million per month that Venezuela allocates to food subsidies for one million
migrant families residing in the country, or on the 438 thousand social housing
granted to these families, within the 2,3 million social housing units built in
Venezuela in the last six years. Can the governments of other countries in the region
say the same about the benefits they give to Venezuelan migrants? Can any other
country in the world do it?
For all the above explained, and because of respect for truth, the Embassy requests
The Guardian the full publication of this reply, while we encourage you to abandon
the development of media campaigns that pave the way for imperialist interventions
against sovereign nations.
