Memoria y cuenta by government media

As has been commented during his annual report to the National Assembly President Maduro delivered a speech that departed little from the government’s conspiracy arguments about an “economic war” waged by the Empire and its local lackeys are responsible for Venezuela’s economic collapse.

During the President’s speech Telesur supported the arguments by repeatedly publishing via Twitter these three “infographics.”

In the first, Telesur informs about the “four main factors that have affected Venezuela” in 2015. These, mentioned by Maduro in his speech, are: 1, the collapse of oil prices and Venezuela’s source of income; 2, the absence of a productive apparatus capable of substituting the “incomes of oil income;” 3, “the absence of a national spirit of cooperation for the economic development of social peace by important sector of private business;” and 4, “the monstrous attack on the currency and the exchange system, and the imposition of mechanisms which damage (vulneración) the monetary life of the country.”

The second infographic is about a term that is gaining ascendency in the government’s discourse: the “Non-Conventional War” (NCW), which includes the Economic war. “This type of war,” explains Telesur, “is an attempt to blame the government of President Maduro for an unbearable and degraded (level of) life as never seen before.”

Behind this non-conventional war are: 1, the international corporations, including multilateral capitalist agencies and governments of the international right-wing; 2, the government of the United States, as the head of an hegemonic world domination plan; 3, the imperial geopolitics of coercion (a directive of the NCW), materialized in the military commands of the USA; and 4, border countries that lend their territory and international political actions to the NCW against Venezuela.”

The third infographic is taken from the Venezuelan Central Bank’s (BCV) report published hours before the President’s speech. The BCV explains the causes of the economic crisis thus: “Apart from the collapse of the oil prices, Venezuela is suffering from a new generation Economic War which is promoted by web pages. These pages show an open political will for economic destabilization, together with external meddling [injerencista] in the national political activity. An attempt is made to impose a dynamic that destroys prices and stablishes savage rules typical of speculative capitalism.”