There are two things which are extremely difficult to find in Venezuela – government repression and opposition support. I am pretty long in the tooth and very experienced in understanding politics and people around the world, and I have found it difficult to locate either.
I would particularly warn you against accepting the political prisoners narrative. There have been excesses, particularly after the unrest following the last disputed elections, but the large majority of those claimed to be political prisoners have been involved in actual, physical attempts to overthrow the government by force, or are involved in drugs related gangs. A combination of credulity, disinformation and the activity of NGOs supported by Western security agencies has presented you with an entirely false picture. I am sorry to say that generally decent organisations like HRW and Amnesty have been particularly credulous.
I absolutely do not support the claim that the opposition achieved two thirds of the vote at the last election. It is an absurdity. There were one million people at Maduro’s closing rally and 50,000 people at the opposition closing rally. Many of the alleged voting tallies the opposition published were obviously fake. There simply is no groundswell of anti-government opinion here, below or above ground.
The bars in which I spend my evenings generally cater to the wealthier and are in the opposition heartlands of Altamira and Las Mercedes. People naturally assume a westerner is anti-Chavismo. The wealthy speak English so they are more or less the only people I can relax into conversation with. Talking to people in bars is my natural milieu. There is no domestic appetite for regime change and literally not one person has ever expressed enthusiasm for Machado.
I have now entered the phase where it is costing me more to be in Venezuela than we have so far raised to be here. As ever we need to spread the load and we are looking primarily to those who have never donated or contributed before. Our Gofundme link for the Venezuelan operation is here:
This is the same crowdfunding account we used for Lebanon so discount the first £35,000 raised as it was spent in Lebanon.
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Thank you, Craig. Excellent work as usual.
It seems your website is being very heavily suppressed, as there are still no comments (apart from this one)…
Neil,
From my location in the Caribbean I do not see any block or change to Craig’s website.
To clarify, I mean that any notifications of a new post on your site are being suppressed on all the main platforms. The site itself appears to be working OK.
(my main worry right now is that X has deleted the contents of the “View more” link on my X profile – that I have spent dozens of hours writing and polishing – and is refusing to let me type/paste in a replacement version; according to Grok this has been happening to lots of other people as well). Sorry for going slightly off-topic.
The site is working fine for me.
The site is also coming across loud and clear here in Toronto.
I have contacted local news organizations suggesting they make use of your material. They have not been of much use on past attempts, but who knows.
Thanks for your good work.
Nice going. Forwarded the link to your latest report to my MP.
Some comments on the video.
10,000 isn’t a very large turnout for a large city – where did the turnout estimate come from? The police?
The demo was I think Government organised?
The interviews were not really interviews, more addresses to camera by the interviewees.
And the interviewees seemed to be activists, not random vox pops. (The last interviewee was an exception I think.)
No awkward questions were put to the interviewees, such as the Acting President’s relations with the Trump regime.
We saw very little of the second demo, the camera operator didn’t pan around. And the sole interviewee was, to put it mildly, unsympathetic.
(Maybe they were all as unpleasant?)
Did the Camera operator provide the estimate of numbers? (Or did the police?)
Who were the participants, who organised the second demo?
And what were they protesting against?
I have been following events in Venezuela since the early Chavez days.
It continues to amaze me how little observers in particularly the European West understand what the real situation is there.
The constitution and particularly the electoral process there is one of the most democratic in the world, thanks in large part to the changes Chavez bought about. Way better I would say than our UK based systems.
Yes there was and still is strong opposition to Chavez social policies. Opposition politicians are well represented in the sitting government. The majority of Venezuelans appear to be solidly in favour of what Chavez and then Maduro have accomplished, despite the crippling sanctions and theft of their assets, such as their gold which was being held for safekeeping in UK vaults.
Life expectancy, education and living conditions for the poor have all improved significantly. I understand literacy in Venezuela is in the high 90s% . Match this with the US that has recently fallen below 80%.
I heard that the US invasion force hung around so long off the coast of Venezuela because US politicians were convinced that that was all that was needed to have Venezuelans rise up against their own government. Of course it never happened.
The Western governments always end up believing their own propaganda. That will be their downfall.
Consider applying this ultra-sceptical analysis to the infinitely more widely-viewed pro-regime change reports by the likes of the BBC. (You know, state broadcaster of the country still occupying your own.)
zoot
February 24, 2026 at 01:54
My comments aren’t “ultra-sceptical” just, I hope, analytical,
I’m making suggestions as to how Craig’s video presentations could, imo, be improved.
With which of my comments do you disagree?
“There are two things which are extremely difficult to find in Venezuela – government repression and opposition support. I am pretty long in the tooth and very experienced in understanding politics and people around the world, and I have found it difficult to locate either.”
I am afraid that there are those who will simply say that you are just not looking hard enough, implying either lack of effort or not wanting to find any. They, at their keyboards many thousands of miles away, are convinced that these things are there and that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Bayard
February 23, 2026 at 18:29
But it is true that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” though in Bayesian statistics inferences may be drawn.
I doubt it Craig is bothered by my comments, I hope not.
But if “government repression and opposition support” do exist in Venezuela, I don’t think that they would be detected by the approach that we see in the videos.
“But it is true that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” …”
Is it? Do you believe in leprechauns and, if not, why not? Obviously it wouldn’t be because no one has ever actually photographed one.
Bayard
February 24, 2026 at 08:51
Absence of evidence is just that.
In the case of Venezuela (your example of “leprechauns” notwithstanding), Craig’s videos show no policemen and very little evidence of opposition activity. The (we are told) small opposition demonstration is an example (rare?) of the latter.
Of course a reluctance to walk the camera past one of the well-known prisons where opposition members have until recently been held may help to explain the lack of policemen in the several videos posted.
A visit to an opposition HQ might also be informative.
Even here in peaceful Boulevard Leopold III (the “leprechaun” Rebellion has been crushed) a discreet police presence is maintained.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, it is important. Your reports display a sincerity that I’ve seldom detected in the licensed press, they are however merely apologist’s for which ever regime granted their license. It appears the saying, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” is their guiding principle.
Funnily enough I’ve just come across a Jeremy Bowen BBC report from a while ago which is hilarious.
In the video Jeremy Bowen is breathlessly reporting from a place in Ukraine ( don’t know where) lying on the ground beneath a small sort of pile of soil and grass.
He is ‘under fire ‘ from a Russian attack.
His cameraman or woman is filming his attack.
Suddenly into the picture an elderly Ukranian lady with a bag of shopping walks over to him and asks him if he is alright?
Let’s hope for the sake of doubters on here that Craig doesn’t resort to that type of theatrical reporting.
Of course not.
The problem for the MSM and its reporters they have the habit of doing Hit and Run stories so, once Trump kidnapped Maduro and his wife and they had landed safely into the ever loving arm of the US that was it.
I have not seen any reports from Venezuela in the MSM – except when Trumps speaks about it (he’s probably forgotten about by now) and Western MSM outlets seem uninterested as well.
As usual they are onto the next story because there is one thing the MSM do badly and that is to anticipate a story – they only react and then follow.
Kudos to Craig as, at least he is trying to find out what may be going on in that Country but, the US (for Epstein reasons ) and the British Media are busy trying to ride two horses at once vis: Andy Mountbatten and protecting the Royal Family at all times – no matter what.
It will be a complete shock to them if Trump is stupid enough to attack Iran.
Their story presentation hierarchy will be shattered.
The last gem I heard from the BBC was a description of Zionist Settlers ‘ Confiscating ‘ Palestinian Land.
Surely she meant nicking it armed with guns?
Or maybe not as that is not allowed.
Thanks for these, Craig. Powerful final point contrasting the lightly-policed, unmolested opposition rally in Caracus with the frenzied brutalisation of anti-genocide protesters in Australia.
Yes, and the contrast with the recent beating to death of a protester in France. In the west you are free to demonstrate but you’ll possibly be arrested and beaten by the police or opposition groups or zionists or all three. Western democracy !