The New York Times, which has obtained unpublished footage and previously released clips, has exposed the inconsistency in reports on the burning trucks with humanitarian aid filmed on the Venezuela-Colombia border on 23 February.
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While the majority of mainstream media advanced the official narrative that the convoy was set afire at President Nicolas Maduro’s order, the video presented by The New York Times, in fact, appeared to show an opposition protester hurling something akin to a Molotov cocktail at the convoy, which was most likely the trigger for the blaze.
The NYT published an article and a detailed video two weeks after the incident, proving that this entire story was an elaborate lie, but the media outlet was not the first to debunk the US and Colombia’s claims that Maduro was behind the fire.
On 24 February, the day the story hit world headlines, several independent journalists pointed out that it was fake news.
American journalist Max Blumenthal penned an article for site Grayzone, in which he noted that “the claim was absurd on its face”.
The fact that the NYT dispelled the myth pushed forward by the US government and a number of media outlets, has garnered much praise from those, who were originally advancing the initial version.
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For instance, CNN, which claimed it had witnessed the incident firsthand: “a CNN team saw incendiary devices from police on the Venezuelan side of the border ignite the trucks”.
On 23 February, a truck laden with US humanitarian aid was filmed burning on the Francisco de Paula Santander Bridge spanning the Venezuela-Colombia border, with Vice President Mike Pence tweeting that “the tyrant in Caracas danced as his henchmen burned food and medicine” heading to Venezuelans.
Senator Marco Rubio accused President Nicolas Maduro of committing a “crime” by torching the convoy, while White House National Security Adviser John Bolton doubled down on his previous calls for Maduro’s ouster, claiming that the Venezuelan president had sent “masked thugs” to set the cargo alight.
The incident took place the day the Venezuelan opposition, led by self-proclaimed interim President Juan Guaido and backed by the United States, attempted to ensure deliveries of humanitarian aid to the country from neighbouring Colombia.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro voiced strong opposition to the convoy, deeming it a pretext for a US invasion of the South American country, and ordered the closure of the nation’s borders in a bid to halt the deliveries.
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Maduro has stressed that the country is able to cope with its hardships and that US “concerns” over the so-called humanitarian crisis had been "fabricated by Washington over the last four years to justify intervening in our country".