Venezuela Fast Facts
The economy of Venezuela is in shambles, and the country’s leaders have been accused of trying to create a dictatorship.
Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, yet the government has been struggling to make a profit from them. In addition, the government has been accused by the opposition of failing to pay the public sector workers’ salaries, in violation of the workers’ rights.
The government has also been accused of failing to collect the oil revenues, and the president, Nicolás Maduro, has allegedly used the oil revenues to buy up private property and use it to enrich his family and his regime. According to some calculations, Maduro has amassed $30 billion in assets.
The government is also accused of using a state-owned gas company to enrich the president, and of using state-owned oil companies to enrich the president.
For many years, the United States and other Western nations have labeled Venezuela’s government illegitimate, because they have condemned Venezuela’s socialist policies, and they have condemned the government’s refusal to respect the Venezuelan constitution.
The United States is also attempting to label Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism, due to Venezuela’s support of the opposition and its opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, a US-hating billionaire.
How Do We Label a Coup?
Most of the Western media have labeled Venezuela’s government as illegitimate, citing the failure to respect the constitution.
That claim has been used to label the people of Venezuela as coup-plotters, despite the fact that the opposition did not start a coup, but rather opposed a coup orchestrated by the government of Nicolás Maduro – and that the opposition did their best to support Juan Guaidó.
The people of Venezuela have opposed the coup attempt, and their efforts have been supported by the West and other nations.
The United States claims that Maduro is not an elected president, but rather a “dictator,” however a coup against an elected president’s government can be labeled as “a self-declared ‘dictatorship.’”
A Coup Is Not A Revolution
The term “revolution” has been used to characterize the revolution against the dictator in Venezuela, but they used different terms for the same thing. In their eyes, the Chavez socialist revolution was a