Mexico and Venezuela: A Study in U.S. Bias

[Judi Lynn]

By Miguel Tinker Salas on March 05, 2015
Mexico and Venezuela: A Study in U.S. Bias

The U.S. reaction to events in Venezuela has been highly partisan.

The government of President Nicolás Maduro is depicted as losing popular support and purportedly relying on repression to stay in power. Meanwhile, in Mexico—where, according to a recent study, thirteen Mexicans disappear every day, and President Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration has violently repressed public protests—Washington and the U.S. media have remained largely silent.

The recent killing of a student in Venezuela, for which a policeman has been arrested by authorities, drew an immediate response from the State Department and criticism from Secretary of State John Kerry. Later that week, however, the murder of a teacher by government forces in Acapulco, Mexico, during a protest by educators received virtually no attention.

During protests in March of last year in Venezuela, when forty-three people were killed on both sides of the political spectrum, including police officers and military personnel, the United States asked the Organization of American States for an investigation and Hollywood movie stars condemned the government for allegedly violating humans rights. In Mexico, where the government is responsible for the forced disappearance of forty students in the state of Guerrero, Washington has remained largely silent. Except for the statement of director Alejandro González Iñárritu (who is actually Mexican) at the Oscars, U.S. artists have yet to express their concerns over events in that nation.

Since Hugo Chávez was first elected in 1998, the American media has continually depicted Venezuela as a country in crisis, or worse, an authoritarian government moving toward a dictatorship. In contrast, Mexico, where elections are often fraudulent and which faces a real humanitarian crisis, gets a free pass from Washington and the mainstream media, with the blame for the violence being typically placed on the drug cartels.

Most U.S. reporting seldom acknowledges the fundamental political and social changes that have occurred in Venezuela in the past sixteen years or the empowerment of millions of people. This political reality continues to provide the current government an important base of support.

More:
http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/03/188028/mexico-and-venezuela-study-us-bias#sthash.8pU9RfBw.dpuf

[geek tragedy]

1. Venezuela's problems are a lot simpler, they usually break down on partisan, class,

ideological lines.

Mexico is more like northern Central America, a narco-fueled dystopia where the government is alternately oppressive and impotent, and always corrupt, at every level, under every party.