Empresas Polar part of terror media campaign and economic war

Mario Silva, in his weekly public television show La Hojilla, has accused Lorenzo Mendoza, president of Venezuela’s private food products corporation Empresas Polar, of being “linked to the financing of a dirty war media campaign based on [producing] psychological terror against Venezuela, for which it has used 7,200 million Bolivars, with the purpose of generating hopelessness [desesperanza] and chaos [zozobra] among the people [by using] the supposed scarcity of basic products.”

According to the Agencia Venezolana de Noticias (AVN), Silva said that the media terror campaign against Venezuela also includes other Venezuelan businessmen living in Miami, the “rightist” party Primero Justicia, and “recently created digital media outlets, which are in charge of taking to the masses the contents of the dirty war in order to create an negative environment, not only in Venezuela, but also in international circles.” 

Later during the show the CIA, Álvaro Uribe, Armando Briquet, Julio Borges, and Maria Corina Machado, were also included by Silva as part of the plot.

Silva quoted three webpages as the main vehicles of this “terror campaign” against the country: pordavidnci.com, infovzla.com, and cambiavenezuela.com. These webpages are, according to Silva, each financed by Empresas Polar, “Miami based businessmen,” and the Primero Justicia party, respectively.

Facebook and twitter were also included by Silva in an “open alliance with the most terrible sectors of fascism.”

Yván Gil, Minister of Agriculture, also recently accused Empresas Polar of being part of the “economic war” against Venezuela. Gil argues that the evidence of Polar’s participation in the economic war is that the company has been importing corn instead of producing it in the country.

The Minister said: “The position of Empresas Polar is to maximize its earnings through the oil revenues we have been transferring to them, this allows them to generate distortions in the local market, and thus they can preserve that model [of maximizing earnings], and keep that vicious circle turning. This is what we have been seeing and it is the maximum expression of the economic war.”

Gil also explained what the economic war actually is and responded to those who “trivialize and make fun” of the idea that an economic war is actually being waged against the country: “It has been proven that the economic war responds to a methodology designed by the most powerful empire on earth. It [the Empire] uses the worldwide media control to manipulate the basic needs of the human being. It uses its control over the means of production, and even with all that power, we, a country of only 30 million and modest capabilities, have resisted together with the president [Maduro] in good shape and they have not been able to put us up against the ropes.”