In the Guardian this weekend was a fluffy, myopic piece about Venezuela written by some left-wing student, named Pablo Navarrete, who has done some jobbing for the New Statesman's John Pilger and spent some time in Venezuela a few years ago. The article, entitled "Venezuela deserves a fair hearing" is so flawed it merits almost total clarification.

Venezuela- for obvious reasons (to those who know me) - is very close to my heart (I spend a great deal of time there and know the land well) and I'll not allow left-wing light weights to paint the place as some kind of haven when I know very well that its people  (and I tell you, I have mixed with the rich and poor, the weak and strong) are suffering there now far worse than they have ever been.

In his article in a section of the Guardian entitled Zeitgeist (this week as third class and spurious as the film) Navarette whines about how Western media outlets ("right-wing" outlets such as Murdoch's Fox News but even "liberal" outlets such as the BBC) offer distorted media coverage of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his government (which has now been in power for eleven years).

Navarrete despairs, for example, that of 304 BBC reports concerning Venezuela published between 1998 and 2008 only three mentioned any of the Chavez Government's positive reforms (here Navarette mentions Chavez halving the Venezuelan poverty rate from 46.5% in 1998 to 23% in 2009). Navarette talks of his own participation in a documentary on the contemporary political situation in the country and his desire to provide "a platform for the voices of the government's grassroots supporters, who the mainstream media (in the West) routinely ignores". Navarrete discusses how he visited in particular the government's grassroots supporters and community activists in the barrios (low-income neighbourhoods / shanty towns) that encircle Caracas and how these supporters insisted they, the people, were the true force behind Venezuela's process of radical change. Navarrete then goes onto discuss the "threats" from the US (lazily declaring US military support to Colombia's President in hisfight against drugs and FARC as "US militarization of Colombia" and then erroneously claiming that the Obama regime is supporting a return to US support of dictatorships in the region following the overthrow of the democratically elected Honduran Government of Manuel Zelaya last year - as if the Americans were behind Zelaya's overthrow in the first place). Navarette's main point is that he feels Venezuela gets a rough press and that (what he calls) "the other Venezuela's voice" is not heard as the media (in the West) refuses (as if in some conspiracy against Chavez) to air it.

Where do I start?!

Navarrete complains about Western media "propaganda" but the only propaganda coming out in the West about Venezuela comes from Chavez-supporting lefties like him who frankly are bound to have a coffee-table, idealised view of what Chavez has done to Venezuela because the Far Left lacks any other communist / radical socialist regimes on the planet with which to quote any kind of positive results from far left policies (I admit Chavez has a few fillips to his record, including the school orchestra system). Navarette's facts are outdated and need clearing up:

Navarette correctly claims that Chavez has a democratic mandate to run Venezuela and refers to the 2006 presidential election (which Chavez did win) with 62.8% of the national vote. Yet Navarette is wrong to claim that three fifths of Venezuelans now support Chavez or his government. When Chavez won the election in 2006 there were high oil prices and Chavez's government (in spite of giving away piles of cash to neighbouring failed left-wing countries like Ecuador, Cuba and Bolivia) had the funds to ensure that there was investment in key social projects in Venezuela which did help the large sections of Venezuelan society who still live in the countryside (generally in agri-based co-operatives). These people - far from being "Chavistas" - appreciated free electricity getting to their villages and farmsteads and were well-prepared todon a red Chavista cap and T-shirt and go down to the local mayor's office with a demand for a "credito" for hose, seeds, machinery or water holes. Indeed, some clearly voted for Chavez. Yes, Chavez in 2006 had the funds to invest in the barrios and funds made it into the barrios of some of the major towns. But these funds were a false dawn based on inflated oil prices at a time when the infrastructure of the Venezuelan oil industry was just about holding out to keep up satisfactory production.

Today,Venezuela is a very different place from 2006. In 2010, the country folk and agriculture are suffering from one of the longest droughts on record in Venezuela. There are power cuts which last most of the day every other day because of Chavez' mismanagement of the hydro-electricity programme in Venezuela. The "creditos" have run dry because Chavez failed to invest in the infrastructure of PDVSA (the Venezuelan state oil industry on which the country depends for income, which cannot even pay its own mounting bills). Food (always available in abundance in pre-Chavez days) like chicken, rice and dairy products is hard to come by. Local markets or mercals (run by Chavistas) recently ran out of butter.

Meanwhile in Caracas the barrios are suffering too. It is true the average barrio-dweller has more bolivares in his pocket now than he did before Chavez appeared but he can't find milk with which to nourish his kids - the rice he gets is of poor quality and sugar is non-existent. Violence has rocketed and sequestro (kidnapping for ransom) is commonplace - the papers in Caracas and even small countryside towns are daily full of murder, kidnap and robbery as delinquents run riot against the background of a hugely corrupt state and police force (many officers have been implicated themselves in running sequestro rackets). Those bolivares the barrio dweller has are worth less and less eachday - the recent devaluation did not help nor does rampant inflation, spurred on by a monopoly of Chinese supermarket owners who keep raising prices to the point where a packet of child's nappies or even a chicken are double what they in expensive Britain and basics like sugar are not available in supermarkets because Chavez, without thinking, set a fixed price for sale of sugar the supermarkets cannot meet. Water is scarce - more expensive than petrol(Venezuela has some of the cheapest petrol prices in the world but when you are paying more for a bottle of water in 40 degree heat than to fill your SUV you do start to grumble).

Navarrete handily visited the barrios encircling Caracas but failed to visit the barriosin Puerto de la Cruz or in Ciudad Bolivar or Callao (probably because he feared for his life even thinking about entering such places) where there are Chavez supporters but they are few and far between. Most of these people do not vote unless one of Chavez' paid gangs of thugs forces them to do so - they are too preoccupied with surviving, or at least trying to. (If voting was compulsory in Venezuela, Chavez would have no more than a third of the country's votes today). It is worth pointing out that the wealthier parts of Caracas are run by opposition mayors and that the Chavez government has made a point of investing in Caracas barrios more than any other barrios because there are more people there likely to vote at the ballot box or resort to violence. Thus Navarrete's choice of barrios was either unfortunately unrepresentative, biased or both. Because Navarrete's barrio people are right on the central government's doorstep in Caracas (important in a country with a history of street insurrection and coups centred around the Venezuelan capital) the Chavez government makes sure they are contented first.

The Chavez government is in disarray. It is not concerned with democracy - it is,for the most part, a self-preservation gang whose ministers are corrupt (housesin Europe to escape to are considered par for the course, as are Hummer cars, BVI accounts and Rolex watches) and trying to squeeze the last bolivar out ofthe population before they flee abroad. In Caracas' Hotel Melia lobby you see them changing their dollars on the black market for twice what they are worth to an average Venezuelan. They can see the attacks (which are now commonplace) on the local mayors' offices run by PSUV officials (Chavez' party) - attacks increasing in number as the people see that the cupboard is bare and that Chavez frittered away money in the good times (the afore mentioned payments to other left-leaning countries are referred to most in the street where resentment of the Chavez government rises).