Jason Mitchell

Friday

25 Jan 2019
Jason Mitchell

The flaw in Donald Trump’s plan to oust Nicolás Maduro

Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan opposition leader, as the rightful head of state will have little impact unless the country’s top military brass turns against the socialist dictator, Nicolás Maduro. Sadly, they show little sign of doing that. Guaidó – aged 35 and president of the country’s opposition-controlled National Assembly – had himself sworn in as head of state on Wednesday. Trump formally recognised him minutes later; this was followed in quick succession by Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Panama. Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, joined these calls, saying “the United Kingdom believes Juan Guaidó is the right person to take Venezuela forward.” The EU is calling for new elections but its member states have not yet recognised Guaidó.

The flaw in Donald Trump’s plan to oust Nicolás Maduro

Thursday

23 Aug 2018
Jason Mitchell

Maduro’s madness

Imagine if Theresa May suddenly announced that her government was going to devalue the pound by 96 per cent; increase the minimum wage by 6,000 per cent; pay the wage increases for millions of businesses for three months; tie the pound to a mythical cryptocurrency; prepared for petrol rationing; and impose a 0.7 per cent tax on big financial transactions. It would be seen either as an act of lunacy, of a collapsing country — or both. For the long-suffering people of Venezuela, it’s just the latest stage of their country’s grand socialist experiment. President Nicolás Maduro has just issued a new currency, called ‘sovereign bolivars’. The original idea was that the currency would be like the old one, but with three zeros lopped off.

Maduro’s madness

Thursday

1 Feb 2018
Jason Mitchell

Inside out

‘I murder people!’ says Elanger matter-of-factly in response to my question about what he does for a living. From the comfort of my home in the UK, I have managed to get in touch, through contacts of contacts on Facebook, with someone serving 19 years in prison for double murder in Venezuela. The country has some of the most notorious jails in the world. Inside one of them, Elanger has got hold of a Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo. Between 2010 and 2014, I lived in a student city called Mérida in the Venezuelan Andes. It is a beautiful old colonial town and was a fun place, full of bars and discos. In the end, I left because of an extortion attempt against me, and I have been curious about Venezuelan crime and prisons ever since, especially after meeting a German man who had spent three years inside one for trafficking cocaine.

Inside out

Wednesday

15 Nov 2017
Jason Mitchell

When will Jeremy Corbyn admit he was wrong about Venezuela?

The socialist thugs who run Venezuela have made such a pig’s ear of running the economy that the country has now been declared in ‘selective default’ on its international debt. This week, Standard & Poor’s, the credit ratings agency, said Venezuela had failed to make $200m (£152m) in repayments on its foreign debt and that it was in ‘selective default’. Fitch and Moody's have declared PDVSA, the country’s state-run oil company, in default, as well. Venezuela's regime has already indicated that it wants to restructure its £100bn of international debt, including the £30bn or so that it owes Russia and China. Investors fear the worst and the haircut could be more than 50 per cent. The government of Nicolas Maduro ­– the former bus driver who became the country’s president in April 2013 upon the death of socialist superhero Hugo Chavez – has reduced Latin America’s richest nation to the brink of bankruptcy through idiotic economic policies and out-and-out corruption.

When will Jeremy Corbyn admit he was wrong about Venezuela?

Saturday

30 Sep 2017
Jason Mitchell

Jeremy Corbyn’s silence on Venezuela speaks volumes

Jeremy Corbyn’s reluctance to condemn the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, shows just how weak and mealy-mouthed he is. The Labour leader was asked in an interview with Channel 4’s Jon Snow to speak out against Maduro. Once again, Corbyn turned down his chance to do so. He said he deplored ‘abuses of human rights and free speech by anyone’ but he was silent on what he thought of opposition leaders being rounded up and protesters shot. He also stopped short of telling the thugs who run the country to start abiding by the 1999 constitution that Maduro’s beloved predecessor, Hugo Chavez, spearheaded. Nothing seems to rattle Corbyn quite like Venezuela (in a short segment, he told Snow to ‘look’ twice). Perhaps this is because his effusive praise in the past is now coming back to haunt him.

Jeremy Corbyn’s silence on Venezuela speaks volumes

Friday

11 Aug 2017
Jason Mitchell

Jeremy Corbyn has no idea how hard life is in Venezuela

And so Jeremy Corbyn has decided not to condemn the thugs who run Venezuela and instead would like us to recognise the regime’s ‘effective and serious’ attempts at reducing poverty. Try telling that to my skeletally thin friend, Tyrone, who lives in a city in the Venezuelan Andes, almost in tears on skype. Ty is a student, aged 23, and has been living on nothing but potatoes for the past couple of weeks. Like millions of others he is desperate to leave the country but he does not have the money to buy his passport. It costs around 130,000 bolivars to obtain – in other words, around £9,900 at the official exchange rate (13.1 bolivars to the pound) or a snip at £7.70 at the black market rate (16,900 bolivars to the pound).

Jeremy Corbyn has no idea how hard life is in Venezuela

Sunday

19 Feb 2017
Jason Mitchell

Britain under Corbyn? Just look at Venezuela

Twenty years ago Venezuela was one of the richest countries in the world. Now it is one of the poorest. Venezualans are starving. The farms that President Hugo Chavez expropriated, boasting about the great increase in production that would follow, have failed. Inexperienced management and corruption under both Chavez and the current president, Nicolas Maduro, mean that there is less of each crop each year. Across the country, supermarkets are empty and most ordinary people queue for hours every day just for flour. Many of the animals in Caracas zoo have starved to death, but even those who survive aren’t safe — Venezuelans have taken to raiding the cages to butcher and eat whatever they can find: horses, sheep, pigs.

Britain under Corbyn? Just look at Venezuela

Thursday

16 Feb 2017
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