In a speech today at the United Nation’s 73rd General Assembly, Maduro reiterated many of the same points that his regime’s propaganda machine has been repeating over the past several months.
Claiming to have traveled to the General Assembly to speak on behalf of “a fighting people”, Maduro based much of his speech on the assertion that he was personally the victim of a vast international conspiracy that was bent on “ending the Bolivarian revolution” in Venezuela.
While accusing the United States of being the mastermind behind the “permanent aggression” against Venezuela, Maduro also said that he was willing to sit down for talks with president Donald Trump, and that he would be happy to talk about “every issue” that the U.S. president would like to address.
Maduro’s most controversial claim came when he said, as he has in the past, that the Venezuelan crisis has been manufactured abroad simply to give his regime a bad name, and that in fact the situation in the country is not nearly as dire as reported by the world’s media.
Maduro said:
They’ve built, at the media level, a case against our country to make up a humanitarian crisis, so that [they] can use the concept of the United Nations [and] an intervention by a coalition of countries headed by the United States and with the support of its satellite states [sic].
Despite repeated claims to the contrary by Maduro and other regime officials, Venezuela is currently experiencing the worst socio-economic collapse in its modern history. Chronic food shortages caused Venezuelans to lose an average of 11 kilograms in 2017. The country’s inflation rate is expected to hit 1,000,000% by the end of this year, making food and other basic necessities all the more unfavorable for Venezuelans.
Maduro’s reign has been so disastrous for the country that it was precipitated the largest exodus in its history, with 2.3 million Venezuelans fleeing since 2013 in search of a life elsewhere.
Maduro also asked the UN to send a “special delegate” to Venezuela in order to investigate the August 4 drone attack against him.
Following the conclusion of his speech, Maduro was scheduled to speak to reporters at a press conference. However, Maduro cancelled the press conference shortly before it was due to start, citing “a last minute commitment”.
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