NY TIMES EXAMINER, October 1st 2013 Venezuelanalysis founder Gregory Wilpert critiques the New York Times’ coverage of Venezuela – U.S. relations following the expulsion of three U.S. diplomats from Venezuela by President Nicolas Maduro “Stepping up hostilities with the United States, President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela expelled the top American diplomat,” reads the first sentence of the New York Times’s coverage of the three diplomats President Maduro expelled on Monday (“With Accusations of Sabotage, Venezuela Expels 3 U.S. Embassy Officials,” by William Neuman, NYT, Oct. 1, 2013, p.A6). After explaining that Maduro accused the diplomats of fomenting sabotage and protest activity among the opposition, the rest of the article goes on to say, “The expulsions were the latest diplomatic swipe at Washington by Mr. Maduro since he took over for the country’s longtime president…” and that Maduro is intent on “painting the United States as an imperialist aggressor out to undermine his government.” In other words, it is the Venezuelan government that is worsening relations between Caracas and Washington and that the U.S. government is an innocent victim of Maduro’s verbal and presumably not-so-diplomatic onslaught. The fact that the U.S. first initiated almost every turn in the worsening relations between the U.S. and Venezuela is conveniently omitted in Neuman’s article. For example, it was ambassador-designate Larry Palmer, in August 2010, who first cast aspersions on Venezuela’s military and thereby torpedoed his acceptance as U.S. ambassador to Venezuela. Then, in May of 2011, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA for doing business with Iran. Later in that same year the Obama administration accused four Venezuelan government officials of providing support to Colombia’s guerrilla, the FARC, and levying sanctions in these officials. Shortly thereafter Obama himself accused the Chávez government of restricting human rights and of violating democratic principles in Venezuela. In January of 2012 Obama proceeded to expel Venezuela’s consul general in Miami for allegedly engaging in a spying operation against the U.S. while she was stationed in Mexico a year earlier. What happened was that she had met with someone connected to the Venezuelan opposition who tried to entrap her by claiming to have information about U.S. nuclear facilities. Other than meeting with someone who unsuccessfully tried to give her false information, she never actually engaged in any spying activity. Finally, the day that Chávez died, Maduro revealed that two U.S. diplomats were meeting with Venezuelan military officials, proposing destabilization plans. Reading the New York Times on U.S-Venezuelan relations, one could get the impression that either none of these above-named incidents happened".
Posted on: Wed, 02 Oct 2013 10:05:22 +0000
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