EL PETARAZO: COULD THERE BE AN EPILOGUE?
June 25, 2003

Next Friday it will be two weeks from El Petarazo. These days in Venezuela one is not expecting any serious judicial action unless the government has clearly the upper hand, a rather rare occurrence these days too. But one would expect that after all the mess the official actors would know better and finally shut up. No such luck.

The Metropolitana Police department went to Petare to rebuild the police offices torn down on El Petarazo’s infamous Friday. Lo and behold, as they arrived there, some populace came to try to stop them and a group of workers from the ministry of Urban Development suddenly appeared claiming that they were the ones supposed to rebuild it. Never had that office acted so promptly. Idle gossip might think that some juicy commission might have been planned all along, since this promptitude from the government would not come from its civilian responsibility, as one can judge from its past. It is not for this page to decide.

Yet, it is not over. Another video showed up, and this one filmed from “inside” the chavista riot group! They really are going to have to forbid video camera among themselves! This video is not very clear as to who fired the first tear gas bomb. This is not a problem since other videos are quite eloquent on this matter. What this video brings to the realm of reality is the collusion between chavistas and the Army contingent sent. Not only fraternization is for all to see, but when the police station was been destroyed the soldiers and officers were a few meters away, chatting amiably with people as if nothing was happening.

Of course, we are still waiting for the governmental videos that supposedly will show that the violence came from the Metropolitana. They probably filmed them on film and the lab has not finished developing the films yet.