At 2AM on Saturday 3 January, the United States invaded Venezuela, killed at least 80 people, bombed multiple sites, and kidnapped the sitting President of Venezuela.
To any ordinary person looking at what happened, this was clearly an act of war: the President of an oppressed nation was abducted by the largest imperialist power on earth in the middle of the night.
This, however, is not how the British media described the events.
In fact, a leaked memo revealed that the BBC News editor sent clear guidelines to all news presenters and editorial staff, stating Nicolas Maduro can be described as having been “seized” or “captured” – implying legality – but explicitly to avoid the word “kidnapped”.
BBC journalists have been banned from describing the kidnapped Venezuelan leader as having been kidnapped.
The BBC News Editor has sent this to BBC journalists. pic.twitter.com/jn9qQZkVAH
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) January 5, 2026
But the BBC wasn’t finished there.
In the following days, drunk on power, US President Donald Trump openly threatened to invade and take over Greenland.
How did the BBC report this? Presenter Sally Nugent read out, “using the American military to acquire Greenland. The White House says it’s one of the options President Trump and his team are discussing.”
The logic is absolutely absurd.
After ‘seizing’ Venezuelan oil and their President, Mr. Trump will pleasantly move on to ‘acquire’ some property in the North Atlantic. We can only imagine how the BBC would report Xi Jinping ‘acquiring’ Taiwan, or Vladimir Putin ‘seizing’ the Estonian President.
Phantom of ‘Cartel de los Soles’
Prior to the abduction of Maduro, the BBC had been involved in legitimising US imperialism’s bogus campaign to invade Venezuela. Look no further than the completely false story around the ‘Cartel de los Soles’, an alleged drug cartel which had roots in the deep state of Chavez and Maduro.
The BBC claimed that since this organisation was a threat to US interests, it gave Washington legitimacy to invade and ‘dismantle’ it.
In an article published on 24 November, the BBC provided hearsay evidence as to the existence of the cartel and its links to the Venezuelan government. They condescendingly laugh at the Venezuelan government’s insistence that this cartel does not exist, writing:
“Not surprisingly, Venezuela’s interior and justice minister, Diosdado Cabello, has long called it an “invention”.”
But the US Department of Justice has now dropped all charges of Maduro being the head of this cartel – because it does not exist!
Per the right-wing Telegraph: ‘Cartel de los Solas’ was made up, the Americans now openly admit. Maduro was not the head of any narco-trafficking operation – that was just an excuse to nab the oil.
Well, that little fiction was debunked a lot more quickly than Saddam’s WMDs… pic.twitter.com/RAMQomvvUF
— Joseph Attard (@josephattard02) January 7, 2026
The Telegraph quoted a criminal defence lawyer that it was necessary to remove the claim from the indictment, because it would have been impossible to prove Maduro was “the head of an organisation that doesn’t actually exist.”
The ‘liberal’ Guardian
It is not just the BBC of course. The liberal Guardian newspaper has been vicious in its coverage of Venezuela for decades.
Prior to invasion, in 2019, the United States picked out Juan Guaido to become the official President of Venezuela, and the Guardian fully backed the campaign. Guaido had not run in the 2018 elections, had no mandate, and was directly chosen as President by the White House.
This did not stop the Guardian producing a puff piece on Guaidó, claiming “Guaidó is no stranger to adversity”. The article failed to include one line to highlight the absolute madness of a man declaring himself President in the middle of the street.
Further opinion pieces were commissioned to promote regime change, such as from Omar Lugo, who wrote a piece titled “Guaidó is brave. But Venezuela’s elite will not be easily overthrown”.
The Guardian, often viewed as a sensible and reliable source of news, was therefore a useful tool of British imperialism to portray a complete nobody as the legitimate ruler of Venezuela.
‘Autocrat’ Chavez
When popular left-wing leader Hugo Chavez led Venezuela with thumping democratic majorities, saw off coups from the United States, and had mass support, the Guardian’s Caracas-based Latin America correspondent, Rory Carroll, would constantly refer to Chavez as a ‘strongman’ or ‘autocrat’ to delegitimise his genuine popularity.
Carroll summed Chavez up in 2012 as “a hybrid: a democrat and autocrat, a progressive and a bully”, but then provides no evidence as to how he is an autocrat or a bully!
In the following days after the invasion, Carroll has penned an article titled ‘Venezuelan leaders’ fever dream of a US invasion finally becomes reality’ where he writes with glee of the US finally invading.
Last week, he had the gall to write Chavez’s rallying against US imperialism “was, in large part, theatre. A confection of claims to justify authoritarian rule, burnish anti-imperialism credentials and delegitimise opponents.”
Yet US imperialism was openly involved in overthrowing Chavez in 2002, when he was kidnapped and ousted from power for 47 hours. This was no theatre – it was reality.
Moreover, Caroll keeps denouncing Chavez as an autocrat despite winning 19 democratic elections between 1999 and 2013.
For over two decades, the ‘liberal’ British media have thrown distortions and lies at the Bolivarian Revolution, and have supported propaganda for US-backed coups – all in defence of western imperialism.
This all serves to underline again the importance of the revolutionary press, which can expose all the lies and distortions in the billionaire-owned media, and stands unequivocally on the side of the poor and oppressed masses of the world.
