Was Luis Fernando Camacho ever a member of a national political body? No.
Was Luis Fernando Camacho ever in the military? No.
Did Luis Fernando Camacho run for president? No.
Did Luis Fernando Camacho someone become president? No.
Then what does Luis Fernando Camacho has in common with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro?
According to TeleSUR, it’s because he uses religious discourse…
Which – to me – begs two questions.
(1) Given these vast divergences in biographical backgrounds, what is a likely explanation as to why such a facile association would be made.
(2) Who are the other people claiming that Luis Fernando Camacho is “known” as Bolivia’s Bolsonaro.
Searching for TeleSUR’s Partners in Messaging
To answer why TeleSUR would have an interest in making such a connection the answer is pretty easy – Venezuela was surprised by the sudden turn of events in Bolivia, had limited knowledge about Luis Fernando Camacho, and needed a way in with which to quickly demonize him.
Making this facile analogy is appropriate from the perspective of a propaganda model (1) Given TeleSUR’s extensive portrayal of Bolsonaro as Hitler and (2) Bolsonaro’s pro-capitalist Alliance for Brazil replaced the Communist Workers Party out of power in Brazil and their attempt to simplify the situation in Bolivia as Camacho doing the same to MAS. It’s an incredibly poor analogy that doesn’t serve to inform the reader, only distort reality, but it’s understandable.
As can be seen from the above Google News Screenshot not many news outlets use that terminology. That this is so made me wonder a third question: Is it possible that there’s some deeper relation between TeleSUR and those using such a poorly-conceived moniker?
The answer is a resounding yes.
Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept appeared multiple time on TeleSUR in the early 2010s, has partnered with them in covering various matter, has met with Venezuela’s Public Relations manager on at least one occasion and – surely not just coincidentally – has expressed a number of political committmens that happens to align with Venezuela’s long term geopolitical strategies. Al Jazeera is TeleSUR’s former partner. The World Socialist Web Site has long been politically aligned with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela – much like TeleSUR’s favorite American political group, the Workers World Party.
mitu is a relatively new outlet, and but based a brief overview of a few of their Anti-ICE/ pro-immigration/trans-liberation articles – platforms that are held by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Workers World Party, etc. – and that they use slogans associated with People’s Power Assemblies and the Black Lives Matters movements within their coverage it seems likely that this is a sort of “soft propaganda” website. The purpose of such a culturally oriented website it to drive traffic to the website for content on, for example, vegan taco recipes, and then encourage viewers via suggested articles panels to content aligned with the Workers Party platform.
Another article that used the phrase Bolivian Bolsonaro which I didn’t include in a screen above was a BBC article with the title “Evo Morales renuncia a la presidencia de Bolivia: Luis Fernando Camacho, el “Bolsonaro boliviano” que protagonizó las protestas que forzaron la dimisión del líder indígena.”
The autor of the article is Boris Miranda, an “international analyst” that has also contracting with Iran’s HispanTV and Russia’s RT. The far right clip comes from Ojo Con Los Medios, which given it’s content and subscriptions seems to be associated with Venezuela state media.
Wikipedia and “Bolivia’s Bolsonaro”
I looked at the Wikipedia page of Luis Fernando Camacho and decided to do a search as to who made the effort at inserting the “Bolivia’s Bolsonaro” descriptor – and it’s someone with a lot of knowledge of communist theory and history and a whole lot of time on their hands…
That said, I think I’ve shown enough of a slice of how Venezuela not only promotes disinformation themselves, but through a network of partners, associates, allies and accomplices promotes certain messages.
