Venezuela’s man in Belize says don’t believe hype over assembly vote

In international news, the South American country of Venezuela has been a noted supporter of Belize in the area of trading for petroleum and social missions established under the presidency of the late Hugo Chavez. But Venezuela is currently going through political upheaval. There have been mass protests in the wake of an economic and political crisis since 2015, when opposition legislators took control of the national parliament. On Sunday, approximately eight million Venezuelans voted to establish a new national constituent assembly designed to review and update the country’s constitution, last changed in 1999. The poll has been denounced as rigged and unwanted by the majority, but Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro believes that that is due to misinformation being spread internationally by its opponents. Today, Belize’s Venezuelan embassy representatives called reporters to a press conference to give their country’s side of the story.

Miguel Castillo, Charge d’Affaires, Embassy of Venezuela (Translation by Rudy Aguilar)

Miguel Castillo

“Regrettably, not only in Belize but in many countries in Latin American and the Caribbean, most of the newscasts use these [major] networks, CNN and others; they use it as a source so that they can just give all their propaganda. Obviously this generates a negative image of what is really going on in Venezuela. On the topic of the National Assembly or Parliament in Venezuela, at no time has it been dissolved; at no time has supreme electoral tribunal disabled them. That was the starting point which was used by the media campaign to say that in Venezuela, there is more dictatorship. This had two objectives: to justify the so-called peaceful demonstrations – in fact they are violent demonstrations – and two, try to encourage foreign intervention in Venezuela. So from there the matrix around this – they are trying to say that dictatorship is going on. What is really going on in Venezuela is that more than eight million Venezuelans voted for President Nicolas Maduro’s proposal of peace.”