Venezuela News And ViewsVenezuela News And Views: Another day of repression in Caracas
Venezuela News And Views
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Another day of repression in Caracas
(Updated) The students marched to the electoral board of Venezuela, CNE.
First, a small commentary, but important. Where in the REAL democratic world do we see people marching against electoral commission of the country in such huge numbers? we might want to ponder that for a dew minutes.....
The armed forces and the police used the repression that we have already seen, while some small groups of pro Chavez hecklers were protected and allowed to do pretty much as they pleased. The images are quite sobering about he state of repression that Venezuela is going into, fast. El Universal even now publishes its articles with video amateurs included!!! It seems that now we must always travel with a video camera so we can film when the "authorities" descend on us! The young Vivas was the notorious victim of the day when the videos caught more than a dozen cops brutalizing him alone, in the most cowardly fashion and where forced to stop when they realized that they were being filmed by the media. The kid lost two teeth and the government says, coldly, that there was no violence from their cops, in spite of the videos, eye witness and victim declaration.
A group of students returning from the CNE march was agreessed by a group of chavista "students" who ambushed them near offices of the UCV administration. Besides the fight, the offices were partially destroyed by the weaponry manipulated by the chavista "students". By the way, who are these chavista students? Which campus has elected them? How come they look everyday more like fascist red shirts than students? And I am not talking about that UCV group, I am talking about those that the government is parading everywhere.
But that was not the only violence in Venezuela. Today was the first day with the 1.5% surtax on ANY business transaction, sure to propel inflation next month by a few points. But today we also got the announcement that the inflation of October was 2.4%!!! That not only trashes once and for all any effort, any goal by the government to control inflation this year, but it is violence tot he wallet of Venezuelans.
And speaking of the wallets of Venezuelans. Yesterday a group of Primero Justicia pols decided to protest at the high court. They were allowed to spend the night in an internal area, without access to bathrooms or water fountains. Fair is fair in political struggles. But what is not fair is that at 4 AM the Nazional Guard came in to remove them form the spot, against the word given previously. And once outside they were ROBBED by the policemen and secret service of the regime.
And if that was not enough we got again confirmation that death penalty exists in fact in Venezuela. The total of prison violence this year so far is 370 murders and 781 injuries.
Everyday the bolivarian revolution gets more blood on its hands, and it is only starting.
--- --- --- update: the video of the aggression to Vivas is up here.
There were other aggressions elsewhere: the Tachira university campus was taken over by the Nazional Guard. Video here.
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.
