Venezuela News And ViewsVenezuela News And Views: Chavez is a liar, part 2
Venezuela News And Views
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Chavez is a liar, part 2
I did write my last post as the transcript of the Chavez BBC interview was not available. Now it is. I paste below the question to Chavez as to the Tascon list a question the reader can read, the brief outright lie and the following unrelated nonsense to try to distract the attention and make people forget about the question, which was about political segregation as a Venezuelan state policy. Further comments are useless.
Presenter (Robin Lustig):
There was a referendum in Venezuela last year, your political opponents gathered many thousands of signatures to force a referendum which was designed to force you from office. They lost, you won, you are still in office. Now it is said that people whose names are on those lists, calling for the referendum, can’t get government jobs, are sometimes disqualified from social welfare programmes, and find themselves discriminated against?
President Hugo Chavez:
That’s totally false. Those who say that are the very people who were trying to demonise my government. We have a fully democratic country, I went to Brazil recently and Lula, a good friend of mine, said in a speech, Venezuela does not only have a democracy, but perhaps there is an excess of democracy in Venezuela. That’s what he said. In Venezuela you can say whatever you want. There are a group of people who lost the referendum, if you go to Venezuela they will say that we had a fraud, we won six million against four million, and those elections were observed by the Organisation of American States, the United Nations, the (?) organisations and international observers from all over the world. And they said, these are fair elections, except those who lost, they said it was a fraud and they have never admitted that they failed. They said that those who signed have no rights but that is totally false, that’s part of a campaign going around the world, they are trying to present me as a tyrant, present my government as one that protects terrorists and violates freedom. I invite you, as I said before, to come to Venezuela and spend the time you wish, and talk to whoever you want, so you see the reality. Recently the Spanish President Zapatero went to Venezuela and went to the palace and said to me, Chavez, I’ve been told that recently you have had some restraints of freedom of speech, but I have just watched TV for an hour and I have realised that this is totally untrue.
Written from the Venezuelan provinces, this blog started as private letters to my friends overseas, letters narrating the difficult days of the 2002/2003 strike in Venezuela. These letters became this mix of news, comments, pictures of the Venezuelan situation. Unknowingly, I have written the diary of Venezuela slow descent into authoritarianism, the slow erosion of our liberties, the takeover of the country by a military caste, the surrendering of our soul to our inner demons.
Click logo above to go directly to the English language blog. Click here to go to the Spanish language mirror.
Estamos en Venezuela, nunca se sabe. In spite of its Spanish title, an irregular blog about a French student observing Venezuela. Interesting pictures.
General info and discontinued blogs but with good archives
Venezuela Crisis has a visual and textual record "hors pair" of the recent electoral campaign in Venezuela, the first blogger to have covered live a Venezuelan campaign. Seems to be on a resting phase for a few weeks.
Digital papers with Venezuela and LatAm in mind (in Spanish)
There are two major digital papers with forums and all, for a permanent clash between factions. Noticiero Digital is the oldest one and Noticias 24 is giving it a run for tis money.
And a new comer:Venezuela es noticia.
Ciudadania Activa has a large selection of articles on Venezuelan politics and civil rights issues.
Relevant info to expose some of the regime's propaganda and human rights violations
The lies of April
The famous "infamous" video "The revolution will not be televised" has been duly analyzed and shown to be in large measure a crass manipulation. Counter-video in Spanish here, and summary of main points here.
There is a documentary that follows the April 2002 events from the perspective on what Chavez did that April 11, "La Cadena". It is about the forced broadcast made by Chavez to hide the massacre of the pacific march on Miraflores.
The infamous apartheid like system of the Tascon and Maisanta lists
The compilation of various documents from Miguel.
The video "La Lista" and my reviews in English and Spanish by invitation at Hispalibertas.
The El Nacional review of Perez Oramas.
The original video itself can be seen here.
Diverse Human Rights pages
Of course, from Amnesty International to the Human Rights Watch page, without forgetting local organizations such as prestigious COFAVIC, the Venezuelan government comes only too often lacking in its Human Rights record.
OTHER FOLKS WITH VENEZUELA MORE OR LESS IN THEIR MIND (Please send links that should be added here)
And of course to be fair there must be links to pro-Chavez sites. I do pride myself of having been the first opposition blog to have listed pro Chavez links; a situation that has now changed. However extremely rare is the pro Chavez page or blog that links to any of the sites listed above. The readers might draw their own conclusion
Aporrea (Beat up, bruise! as in the imperative mode of the verb; the only interesting one if you can read Spanish. Predicts the future)
And of course the full time propaganda agencies, ALL at tax payer expenses, the National Radio coverage, RNV, and the rather deficient official news agency, ABN (both in Spanish).
Without forgetting the "official" newsletter in English.
Some blogs, more or less sycophantic.
Yosmary, campaigning for Mario Silva, quite something.
Less sycophantic, even critical on occasion Terreno baldio.
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Map of Venezuela to help you locate the different locales mentioned through the blog (click here for a more detailed map)
For the memories. The picture below dates from the epic days of the December 2002/January 2003 "El Paro", when the opposition was strong and decided, and when Chavez was low in polls.
Then came the "misiones" and the worst populist episode of our history. Through pacific protests and strikes we tried to preserve democracy.
History proved us right even if we lost that battle.
Marching toward Hotel Melia, 01/31/03, 5 PM.
Small yellow square under the Pepsi ball is the big stage.
A special thanks to JoAnne Schmitz for the suggestions and help in setting this blog up.
