Venezuela Conspiracy Theories

I'm quoted in this Associated Press article on the Venezuelan government's conspiracy theories. What I was trying to get at was that Nicolás Maduro uses domestic conspiracies a lot more than Hugo Chávez and apparently feels he needs to rely on them more. This is not to say Chávez didn't talk about them because of course he did--but under Maduro they are coming fast and furious and are aimed more at domestic opposition specifically rather than, say, the CIA.

And I love the end of the article, which cites Hugo Pérez Hernáiz:

But Hugo Perez, a sociology professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, says activists have reason to worry. When a government starts talking about opposition plots, any target "is no longer a political adversary - it is the local agent of a foreign conspiracy and therefore an absolute enemy," he said. 

For two years, Perez has run a blog devoted to tracking Chavista conspiracy theories. Lately, he's had enough material to post several times a week.

Indeed!