A Saturday of marches in Caracas, Venezuela

Saturday 6, March 2004

Today Caracas is marching. This time plenty of folks are coming from other cities too, although some of them have had marches yesterday and some will do tomorrow (there is a big one in Yaracuy scheduled for tomorrow 10 AM). Today I am in Caracas. Below I have borrowed El Nacional diagram of the march. Thus people can see how things work out here on march days. You can see the different starting points, the info of time and security, the rallying point, etc... I am scheduled to leave from point C, Chuao though I might still switch to Parque Cristal, point B, depending on which group of people I end up going with. It is still too early to make a decision.



Chavismo is of course trying to minimize the impact. VTV is transmitting declarations from the female Nazi-onal Guards saying all sorts of incredible things. I hope for them that they are deliberate liars, because the other explanation is that they are brainwashed. Chavismo again organized a megamercado, that is, the usual subsidized goods market that appears at Avenida Bolivar whenever the opposition calls for a big march, transforming these marches indirectly into a big social program... The contradictions of chavismo!!! And of course in the scare tactics at Plaza Morelos, close by the Libertador rallying point, they set up an "event" in the hope of scaring people further as they might think that Lina Ron hordes might be close at hand.

But at the end it will all be a show to "prove" to their followers that the opposition march will have been a failure. I am sure that right now they are filming the incipient gathering of people and show it as if taken at the peak time of noon. Just watch out for the shadows on the VTV signal and you will see...

See you tonight, hopefully with a couple of nice pictures! I trust the there will be no violence. It would be very negative for Chavez to have a single injury today! Specially after yesterday's "punition" to the diplomatic corps!