26 Jan 2026
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2026/01/being-there-in-venezuela/

I have now been in Caracas for 48 hours and the contrast between what I have
seen, and what I had read in the mainstream media, could not be more stark.

...

In all of this I have not seen one single checkpoint, whether police or
military. I have seen almost no guns; fewer than you would see on a similar tour
taking in Whitehall. I have not been stopped once, whether on foot or in a
car. I have seen absolutely zero sign of "Chavista militia" whether in poor,
wealthy or central areas. I drove extensively round the opposition strongholds
of Las Mercedes and Altamira and quite literally saw not a single armed
policemen, not one militia man and not one soldier. People were out and about
quite happily and normally. There was no feeling of repression whatsoever.

Again, nobody stopped me or asked who I am or why I was taking pictures. I did
ask the Venezuelan authorities whether I needed a permit to take photos and
publish articles, and their reply was a puzzled "why would you?"

The military checkpoints to maintain control, the roving gangs of Chavista armed
groups, all the media descriptions of Caracas today are entirely a figment of
CIA and Machado propaganda, simply regurgitated by a complicit billionaire and
state media.

Do you know what else do not exist? The famous "shortages." The only thing in
short supply is shortage. There is a shortage of shortage. There is no shortage
of anything in Venezuela.

A few weeks ago I saw on Twitter a photo of a supermarket in Caracas which
somebody had put up to demonstrate that the shelves are extremely well
stocked. It received hundreds of replies, either claiming it was a fake, or that
it was an elite supermarket for the wealthy and that the shops for the majority
were empty.

So I made a point, in working-class districts, of going into the neighbourhood,
front room stores where ordinary people do their shopping. They were all very
well stocked. There were no empty places on shelves. I also went round outdoor
and covered markets, including an improbably huge one with over a hundred stalls
catering solely for children's birthday parties!

...

The African festival was instructive. A community event and not a political
rally, there were nevertheless numerous spontaneous shouts and chants for
Maduro. The Catholic priest giving the blessing at the festivities suddenly
started talking of the genocide in Gaza and everybody prayed for
Palestine. Community and cultural figures continually referenced socialism.

This is the natural environment here. None of it is forced. Chavez empowered the
downtrodden and improved their lives in a spectacular manner, for which there
are few parallels. The result is genuine popular enthusiasm and a level of
public working-class engagement with political thought that it is impossible to
compare to the UK today. It is the antithesis of the hollowed out culture that
has spawned Reform.

I am very wary of Western journalists who parachute into a country and become
instant experts. Although the stark contradiction between actual Caracas and
Western-media Caracas is so extreme that I can bring it to you immediately.

Pretty well everything that I have read by Western journalists which can be
immediately checked - checkpoints, armed political gangs, climate of fear,
shortages of food and goods - turns out to be an absolute lie. I did not know
this before I came. Possibly neither did you. We both do now.

I had lived for years in Nigeria and Uzbekistan under real dictatorships and I
know what they feel like. I can tell sullen compliance from real engagement. I
can tell spontaneous from programmed political expression. This is no
dictatorship.

I am, so far as I can judge, the only Western journalist in Venezuela now. The
idea that you should actually see for yourself what is happening, rather than
reproduce what the Western governments and their agents tell you is happening,
appears utterly out of fashion with our mainstream media. I am sure this is
deliberate.

When I was in Lebanon a year ago, the mainstream media were entirely absent as
Israel devastated Dahiya, the Bekaa Valley, and Southern Lebanon, because it was
a narrative they did not want to report.

Disgracefully, the only time the BBC entered Southern Lebanon was from the
Israeli side, embedded with the IDF.

The BBC, Guardian or New York Times simply will not send a correspondent to
Caracas because the reality is so starkly different from the official narrative.

One narrative which the Western powers are desperate to have you believe is that
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez betrayed Maduro and facilitated his
capture. That is not what Maduro believes. It is not what his party believes,
and I have been unable to find the slightest indication that anybody believes
this in Venezuela.

The security services house journal, the Guardian, published about their fifth
article making this claim, and flagged it as front-page lead and a major
scoop. Yet all of the sources for the Guardian story are still the same US
government sources, or Machado supporters from the wealthy Miami community of
exiled capitalist parasites.

What is interesting is why the security services wish you to believe that Delcy
Rodríguez and her brother Jorge, Speaker of the National Assembly, are agents
for the USA. Opposition to US Imperialism has defined their entire lives since
their father was tortured to death at the behest of the CIA when they were
infants. They are both vocal in their continuing support for the Bolivarian
Revolution and personally for Maduro.

The obvious American motive is to split and weaken the ruling party in Caracas
and undermine the government of Venezuela. That was my reading. But it has also
been suggested to me that Trump is pushing heavily the line that Rodríguez is
pro-American in order both to claim victory, and to justify his lack of support
for Machado. Rubio and many like him are keen to see Machado installed, but
Trump's assessment that she does not have the support to run the country seems
from here entirely correct.

A variation on this that has also been suggested to me is that Trump wants to
portray Rodríguez as pro-American to reassure American oil companies it is safe
to invest (though exactly why he wants that is something of a mystery).

Ctd ...