IKN

You should all know by now that it’s Hugo Chávez himself, in person, that’s forcing your children to smoke crack cocaine by selling it to them just round the corner from their own school gates. But what happens when, contrary to everything that has been said about Venezuela facilitating drugs smuggling, helping the traffickers, not cooperating with those fine upstanding fellas in the USA of A etc etc, a big story shows that the English language media coverage of Venezuela, cocaine and stuff is basically a crock?

Here’s the link to a report about a major drugs bust that arrested five Venezuelan nationals and confiscated 925kg (i.e. nearly a tonne) of cocaine this week. The boat involved was Venezuelan registered and sailed out of Isla Margarita, Venezuela, and was in international waters, but unbeknown to the narcos was being tracked by both US and Venezuelan authorities. When the US coastguards decided to move in they asked for and immediately received permission from Venezuela to board the boat, thus the bust happened.

In the words of Venezuela’s Interior Minister, Tarek El Aissami, “It is another demonstration of the effective government policies against narcotrafficking. The coordination was done in an immediate way and gives lie to all the slanderous campaigns that try to make people believe that Venezuela does not collaborate.”

Lastly, three things to note:

• Firstly, the five people arrested were Venezuelan, so there’s no special treatment going on for their own nationals.

• Secondly, the English media have completely ignored this big drugs bust and the Venezuelan/US cooperation that went on. Ask yourself why.

• Lastly, as the bust was made in international waters by the US Coastguard, Venezuela will get no “credit” for the tonnage confiscated. But that’s not the point here, is it?