Gill AndCo

I have attached this 74-minute documentary film at a time when America is once again threatening to depose the Venezuelan government, this time by advising aircraft to avoid Venezuelan skies. It is a timely reminder of how foreign powers manufacture narratives, engineer crises and justify intervention under the guise of protecting democracy or fighting drugs. In 2006, I won a British government scholarship to study documentary filmmaking at Master’s level at Brunel University in London. One of my lecturers, Prof Michael Wayne, who is still at Brunel University today, introduced us to the concept of propaganda and how film and television are used to shape public perception. One of the films he brought to class for us to watch and dissect was The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. It was made by two Irish filmmakers who happened to be visiting Venezuela in 2002, and before they had even begun their planned filming, a coup erupted. They suddenly found themselves at the centre of the crisis with their cameras rolling. The coup was inspired and encouraged by elements linked to the American government, which had long viewed Hugo Chávez as a threat to its geopolitical interests. The filmmakers captured how the opposition, parts of the military, the private media and external actors collaborated to remove a democratically elected president. They also documented how ordinary Venezuelans and loyal sections of the army mobilised, pushed back and returned Chávez to power within 48 hours. It is one of the most important documentary records of a coup taking place in real time. Today we are witnessing Donald Trump going after Venezuela again, a country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Surprise, surprise, the excuse this time is “drugs”, the same way “weapons of mass destruction” were used as an excuse in Iraq. Yet this is the same Trump who is preparing to pardon the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in the United States and sentenced to 45 years for drug trafficking. US prosecutors proved that Hernández helped move hundreds of tonnes of cocaine through Honduras into the United States, undermining Trump’s claim that his crusade against Venezuela is genuinely about fighting drugs. Watch this film to understand how coups are engineered, how narratives are manufactured and how the media is used as a weapon. All the visuals you see in the documentary are real, filmed as events unfolded. It is a powerful reminder of how foreign interests destabilise nations, and how the people of Venezuela resisted manipulation and restored their democracy through collective action.

This is the type of Africa we all want.

“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” —Malcolm X