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US govt-linked PR firm ran fake news networks for right-wing Latin American regimes

A Washington, DC-based PR firm linked to the US government and Democratic Party, CLS Strategies, ran a fake news network on Facebook and Instagram, spreading propaganda for Bolivia’s coup regime and the right-wing opposition in Venezuela and Mexico.

by Ben Norton

Part 3 - US infowarriors pose as Venezuelan soldiers and call for rebellion

The majority of the Facebook pages in this CLS Strategies-led fake news ring published boilerplate conservative propaganda, with names like “Undone with Socialism” and “Die Oppression – Free Venezuela.”

But some of the accounts were more sophisticated disinformation operations, targeting disaffected leftists and even falsely posing as Venezuelan soldiers.

One CLS-run page, titled “Chavista FAN,” posed as a member of the Venezuelan military who had supported late socialist President Hugo Chávez but lost faith in current President Nicolás Maduro. 

This was echoed by another Facebook page, “Liberatory Soldiers,” which falsely claimed to consist of members of the armed forces seeking to oust Maduro.

The “Chavista FAN” page included a profile photo of an anonymous soldier proudly identifying as a supporter of Venezuela’s leftist Chavista movement. FAN is a play of words using the English word fan, which is common in Spanish, while also referencing Venezuela’s military, the Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana, or FANB (but by removing the B, which references the left-wing nationalist Bolivarian movement popularized by Chávez).

In one particularly insidious post disclosed by Facebook, the CLS Strategies-run account clearly claims to be operated by members of the Venezuelan armed forces. While making no mention of the suffocating US sanctions and embargo that have devastated Venezuela’s health sector and economy and prevented the government from buying medical equipment and medicine, the Chavista FAN page wrote, “After years of looting, the health sector is in shambles. Are we in the FANB (Venezuelan military) going to continue protecting the lie at the expense of the public?”

The use of “vamos” in the post (“are we going to”) expressly includes the publisher in the collective we, as a putative member of the Venezuelan armed forces.

Chavista FAN was targeted at patriotic leftist Venezuelans, but simultaneously spread disinformation on behalf of US-recognized coup leader Juan Guaidó.

Another post released in the report showed that the page pressured Venezuelan soldiers to rise up against their government, by reassuring them that Guaidó had offered “amnesty.” The post also implored soldiers to stop blocking the entrance of supposed “humanitarian aid” that Washington was using as a weapon in its coup attempt.

A similar Facebook page overseen by the DC-based PR firm was devoted specifically to supporting Venezuela’s US government-funded far-right opposition leader María Corina Machado, a close ally of neoconservative Senator Marco Rubio who has openly, repeatedly called for the US military to invade her country.

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