Today's best moments

Best Line: Geraldine Alvarez, from the UCAB.

" We reject the cadena of today. We reject that the country was forced to watch us at the National Assembly. We support that people watch us if they want or not."

Or something like that. They APOLOGIZED for the National Assembly making a cadena of the show!!!!!! Beautiful!

Best Image: When the students removed their red shirts in the middle of the National Assembly. They all came in with a red t-shirt above their clothes and at some point Douglas Barrios said they should not be required to wear a uniform to speak up. And then, they removed their red shirts. (video here, hat tip B.; you need top wait for the very end when the red shirts are removed)

Scariest moment: one of the students carried a video camera and she filmed her exit from the National Assembly. She filmed the people insulting her, threatening her, throwing things at the trucks she was put in for protection. And yet she filmed and filmed.

Best shock expression: too many to decide but all from Cilia Flores. The petard she planned to throw today blew on her face. Oh, sure, chavismo will accuse the students from cowardice to anything lower and claim victory. But the grimaces of Cilia Flores, the N.A. president, tell us that in spite of her intellectual limitations she knew quite well what happened and that she blew it.

Best new leader: well, so many keep appearing among the protest movement that one has a hard time to follow up. Today it was the turn of Douglas Barrios and Geraldine Alvarez. But more important perhaps was that the leaders of last week are able to share the spotlight. It is nice to see that Yon Goicochea or Stalin Rodriguez have no problem sharing the center stage. No chavismo autocracy here, plenty of fresh new voices coming. There is no rush to the microphone.

Best sign that chavismo is hurting after today: at 18:03 a new cadena is starting, to silence obviously Globovision (how long until they close it? should we make a poll?). And guess what, the cadena opens with the national anthem while the camera pans people dressed up with a red shirt which has printed on it UBV for the chavista university. and guess waht? the excuse is the "aldeas univesitarias", proving if need be, that all of today was staged by the government, hoping to crush the students this morning and then pretending to prove that students had no reason to protest. Heck, he is buying them with scholarships and "aldeas", so it is a small price to pay but to lose a little bit of freedom of expression, no?

Most cynical moment of the day: a tough decision since we must chose between Tascon saying that he has nothing to apologize for, and Chavez current cadena. I am sure that by the end of the cadena Chavez will have won handsomely. So, the cadena excuse, inauguration of some "aldea univesitaria" is all bull shit. To begin with, an inauguration from inside Miraflores? Gimme a break! But guess what, Chavez took the speech of Douglas Barrios and attacked him! The president of Venezuela dishing the speech of a student!! Amazing. Bull's eye for Barrios!

But that was not all: the students of Chavez that were at the N.A, this morning are in the attendance and Chavez is congratulating them individually. Now, does anyone at this point thinks that the event of today was not a trap? Was not organized for pro Chavez propaganda purpose? It did not work out quite well for chavismo but they have at least the merit of forging ahead with their agenda.

PS: 19:29, the cadena still goes on. Clearly designed to shut up Globovision and any of todays students to be interviewed. since it started I did my exercises, watched the French news and will go now to take my shower. Meanwhile all of Venezuela is subjected to the cadena, we cannot escape it. Did Chavez hear the best line of today? Or is he doing his cadena to piss her off? Where is freedom of expression when the freedom of information is grossly and vulgarly killed through constant cadenas?

Worst creep of the day: no contest, Hugo Chavez. It is 20:07 and the cadena keeps going on, now shutting up Grado 33. I name the Globovision shows because they are the only ones on TV where today's event would be given a fair presentation. And Chavez gets the top creepiness award of the day because of his two cadenas and because he called the students that refuse to submit to his will "peons of imperialism". Now, how much more creative can Chavez get? So, what is he planning to do with the students? Will he go to the logical end of his thoughts and jail them? I mean, if he has the evidence to prove their association with the "imperialism", Chavez has to arrest them, has to repress them. So when are you going to do your work Hugo?

-The end-

The Students leave the National Assembly

[final update done 8PM]

The cadena finished at 2:45 and immediately Globovision (the only news channel left with independent coverage) showed what happened when the protesting students left. They had to be loaded in Metropolitana armored police trucks and in Nazional Guard trucks, just as criminals, so they could leave safely the National Assembly area. Why? Because chavista hordes were waiting outside screaming and throwing things at anything looking like a student, or looking not quite chavista, or looking like a press journalist.

The brave students did not blanch, they climbed in the trucks and kept holding through the interstices of the iron bars their messages of peace and freedom. A stunning image!!!!!!!!

It is fit to remember that while all of this took place, outside of the National Assembly that is supposed to be the assembly, the place of meeting for ALL Venezuelans, the pro Chavez students were having their sycophantic display where their hate for the near lynched brethren was hardly concealed.

Thus, the foreign press in Venezuela could see first hand the level of hatred that chavismo has created in 8 years. It was for all there to see, and more than anything else it justified why the students decided to leave early.

This did not stop one of the main student leaders, Goicochea, to remind the country that the National Assembly is not representative of the country, while he was walking out of the Capitolio. Thus he said that the only thing the assembly deserved was to be read a statement, in consideration of their legal status, but no debate. Debate will take place outside, directly with the people. A la Chavez? :-)

Kudos to these kids! The most bravery we have seen in years!!!!

Addendum: Later took place in the USB gardens an open air press conference where we heard more complete information as to why they stepped out of the National Assembly.

1) they had asked for a right to reply to the insults that had come earlier from the National Assembly. They never asked for any debate of any sort.

2) The National Assembly did reply but it is the one who had the initiative of a debate. Not only that but they set the way it woudl be held, etc... Students were simply notified.

3) Thus the protesting students did not want to play the game of the National Assembly which was to politicize the student marches and rallies by pitting a "them against us" scenario, by clearly separating the good students (the bolivarian ones) from the bad students paid by Bush... the same old story upon which chavismo builds its strength, division and more division.

That is why they left and refused to stay. They stated clearly that any student debate must be held among students, chavistas or not, in student assemblies, far from any political limelight. I wonder how many bolivarian revolutionary students are going to show up at those debates...........

No wonder Cilia Flores blanched.

New Blogs (in English) following the situation

Julia tells us about her won experiences goign to marches and stuff.

Eric is a gringo who happens to be around during all of this mess.

A certain Tank gives more pictures.

New Addendum: Tal Cual was already reporting today that the N.A. was stting a trap at its meeting this morning, BEFORE the students showed up. I am putting the text below in Spanish.

Emboscada en la AN
En vez de prestar su tribuna a los estudiantes universitarios para formular sus reclamos desde la sede del Poder Legislativo contra el cierre de RCTV, los diputados rojos-rojitos de la Asamblea Nacional, decidieron jugar posición adelantada y sacaron bajo la manga un debate con supuestos delegados del movimiento chavista de educación superior.Por añadidura, varios diputados comenzaron ya a reinterpretar el sentido y propósito de la presencia estudiantil en el hemiciclo, esbozando explicaciones sobre la naturaleza política de su lucha, mientras otros voceros gubernamentales se esfuerzan en aclarar que se trata de los estudiantes de las universidades privadas.

Por si fuera poco, la vicepresidenta de la AN, ya definió de antemano el temario de la jornada prevista para hoy, que a su juicio versará sobre los modelos de país que quiere cada sector.

-The end-

The students go to the National Assembly

[final update done 4 PM]

Right now I am listening to yet another cadena, except that this time it is the student intervention at the National Assembly. Well, in fact the speeches of the "bolivarian" students as the students who are protesting in large numbers in the streets made a statement and left the room.

I am not too sure exactly what happened and why the students decided to leave the ring. After all, this is what happens when you have a cadena, you have to wait until the abusive power finishes the blackout on news that a cadena means so that the normal media can come back in the air and tell you what happened.

But I have a pretty good idea of why the protesting students left the arena: the students felt that a trap was set up at the National Assembly, that they were going to be used so that the scandalously monochromatic assembly could pretend that it is a democratic one. They were not going to play "tonto util", useful fool, and let the totally discredited N.A. win easy points at their expense. Cilia Flores, who probably panned the trap, was duly upset and showed yet once more how much she is lacking in everything that should be required in the chair of a National Assembly. As the emcee of the event she did not mis a chance to drip her anger and resentment at any chance, even if only through the tone of voice.

So far their move looks brilliant. Why would it look brilliant for them to step down form what is supposedly the most august tribune of Venezuela? Listen to the speeches of the pro Chavez students that remained. The National Assembly is giving them all the time they want to speak, and on cadena. And what are their doing with their time? Attack the other students, discredit them, offer no novel proposal, read lists of the "revolution achievements" (that was particularly pathetic coming from a high school student that reminded me some of those kids trained by Castro to sing his lauds; he even ended his intervention with the now infamous "patria socialismo o muerte"). And along the way they show what happens to students when they submit themselves to the ideology of power. No originality there, just mean and vicious attacks, coupled with the bolivarian cassette that is now firmly ensconced in their brains and which allows them to repeat the same old message with the same old and stale words, picked directly from any of Chavez rant.

It is in fact, as I keep watching, a truly sad spectacle, to see how the regime is preparing its lame nomenklatura of the future.

I am putting below the main speech in Spanish of the representative of the protesting students, as I have already received it. Later, if I have time, I will put an English translation (some of the other speeches are appearing here, or at least excerpts):


Douglas Barrios, Universidad Metropolitana
(Primera intervención)

"La bandera de RCTV la mantendremos hasta que la señal del canal 2 vuelva a su frecuencia".

"Los estudiantes no somos socialistas, somos seres sociales. No somos neoliberales, somos libres. No somos oposición, tenemos proposición".

"Hemos conquistado una voz plural en la AN".

"No luchamos por intereses de grupo empresarial o tendencia politica".

"Promovemos la reivindicaron de derecho civiles".

"Exigimos y promovemos la reconciliación nacional".

"No criminalicen de antemano la protesta".

"Que se dé respeto a quienes han sido perseguidos y vejados públicamente, como es el caso de Nixon Moreno".

"Que se garantice el derecho a elegir".

"Los jóvenes estamos armados con conciencia, garra, solidaridad, optimismo, humildad".

"Estamos en la calle haciendo política sin los políticos tradicionales".

"Nuestras medidas de calle responden a la amenaza a la libertad de expresión que representa la medida sobre RCTV (…) Responden a la apropiación indebida de las antenas de RCTV".

"Estamos convencidos de que todos los venezolanos deberían ser tratados del mismo modo, sin discriminación".

"Consideramos que todos los venezolanos tenemos el derecho de ir a Miraflores".

"Consideramos que se debe rechazarse cualquier injerencia internacional venga de Nicaragua, Estados Unidos o Cuba".

"No creemos en el autoritarismo ni en la hegemonía de las minorías ni las mayorías".

"Reprochamos toda forma de gobierno pasado o presente que atente contra el derecho de la ciudadanía a vivir".

"Permítannos expresarnos y manifestarnos libremente".

"Tomen en cuenta nuestra propuestas en temas de interés nacional porque es nuestra generación la que enfrentará las consecuencias".

"Que no se menosprecie ni insulte la iniciativa estudiantil".

"El derecho a elegir es lo que hace al hombre verdaderamente humano".

"Llévamos una lucha sin pretensiones golpistas ni desestabilizadoras".

"Soñamos con un país donde podamos ser tomados en cuenta sin tener que estar uniformados".

"Sin más nada que decir nos retiramos ¡Por ahora!"

PS: earlier on today I had the following exchange with a reader.

[reader]

do you think the students will be given a fair chance at the AN?

J. W.

[me]

9:24 am
of course not but i do not think it matters much. if the assembly does not treat them well, it is the assembly that will suffer most.

Premonitory no?


-The end-

Settling into a protest routine, Venezuela style

The Chavez administration probably hoped that after a week end of partying students would finally go back to school and study for their finals. Not only it did not work, but the protest increased to a huge march today, now with faculty included. And what is even worse for chavismo, all in a peaceful mood which has forced the near brutal repression to downgrade itself to your average normal order service.

Oh, there were a few glitches of course. For example, now that we are under a not that veiled military regime, some stupid Captain, thinking he had more power than he really did took upon himself to stop buses coming up to Caracas full of students wanting to join the march. So, this lout thought he would scare students but these just decided that if they could not go up to Caracas no one else could. Soon, as the ARC was falling into a deadly lock everyone was allowed to Caracas. I wonder what that Captain learned today: democracy or shooting first? And that sad scene repeated at many exits of the ARC. Funny detail: Iris Varela claims that the students were sabotaging, "esos niñitos" she said, while Globovision showed the Nazional Guard trucks blocking highway access! Then again Varela has been living in a parallel universe for quite a while.

Creativity has been marking this week. Students do not have the hang ups of traditional political parties, which by the way are not only told to stay away from them, but seem to be as creative as chavismo in dealing with the situation. Some students decided that the downtown areas of Caracas could not be “chavista only” areas. So they started haunting the subway stations with placards and taped mouths. The picture I chose is just of many doing the rounds, and even made as a section in El Universal here and here.

And speaking of uncreative measures. Today to counter the huge, beautiful and successful student/faculty march Chavez could not find anything else but to call for yet another cadena. Even the little bit of Globovision that reaches the country is too much for him now. Chavez cannot tolerate to be upstaged by anything, not even students who paint their hands in white so that the word peace shows better. In this cadena he announced the same old, old canard with a slight new twists: now Bush is making a slow motion coup against him. I agree, it is obvious that through e-mails George Bush spends his days telling students what to do and when. Apparently these students are just something before something bigger comes in two weeks. Or some other crap that only the pro Chavez lunatic fringe is able to swallow bait, hook and sinker. Someone should check out the medication dosage of Chavez.

But chavismo is not doing much better. The faces of chavistas officials and their inner contradictions show every minute as they switch positions not knowing well what to do. Of course it might be all a strategy to gain time while they come up with some credible option. But right now they seem to be realizing that their own staged pseudo student defense rallies, all red shirted, singing the new version of Heil Hitler, “Patria, socialismo o muerte”are failing to convince the opinion when multicolored students place flowers on the weapons of the Metropolitan Police.

Clearly , on the image war chavismo is losing big time these days. And it certainly does not help when COFAVIC trashes the nation’s Ombudsman who refuses to act his part in protecting civilians by daring to say that whoever Chavez government jails is no one else business. I can see Mundarain in some choice seat someday at the International Court of The Hague.

And let’s not even touch the trashing received by chavismo after the fact finding mission of Reporters Without Borders, exposing clearly the strictly political motivations in closing down RCTV. That report is sure to rouse soon another set of insults from a discombobulated Chavez. A little paragraph is worth quoting, just to give you the idea (my emphasis):

"Widely condemned abroad, RCTV’s closure was much more than just an administrative measure. It was a political move without precedent in Latin America, a key element in a government takeover of the broadcast media that is part of a determined effort to control and occupy the entire public arena."

All quite fascinating. I am not sure if this will be enough to unseat Chavez anytime soon, even though something new has started. After all when you read what some of his supporters in public offices are capable to say, geeeee, you wonder how come they have not shot students yet. These people are rally losing all sense of measure. The question is: are there enough people with common sense left inside chavismo to stop the extremes before something terrible happens? Sometimes I am afraid not…

-The end-

A few things in no particular order

I am on the road and have just a few minutes to update.

Students. They went to the High Court. There they asked to have their right of protest be recognized. They also asked for the High Court to help the students form inside Venezuela to reach Caracas. Right now the Nazional Guard is diligently stopping any bus arriving with a boat load of young people. At least, for a change, probably sensing the wind, a chavista official received them: The High Court Chief, Morales, received the students for an hour.

To be continued.

Freedom of expression. We had a priceless exchange between Condi Rice and Maduro at the OAS meeting (video here). Condi Rice had very pointed words about the freedom of expression in Venezuela reminding the audience that in the US any of the accusations that the Venezuelan foreign minister had levied were discussed every night. Not to mention that she blew away the attempt of Venezuela to remove freedom of expression from the meting agenda.

So, how did Maduro reply? The cassette inserted in chavistas brain was working fine. He went on Guantanamo offering to send a crew from the new Tves which killed RCTV. Now, let's move beyond the anecdotal and that self inflicted injury for the US that Guantanamo is. Focus instead on the attitude, words and intonation of Maduro. And observe how he compares Guantanamo with the worst of Hitler days. Granted, Guantanamo is not a nice place but I for one would trade happily that place for any one offered at Auschwitz. The thing is that from the tone of Maduro you do detect the primitive level of education and even more backward level of understanding of the man. this is simply a parrot sent over to repeat a few clichés lines, whether or not they are relevant to the topic of the day. I think Condi Rice was right in leaving the room and ignoring such an asinine comment from Maduro. Such stupidity should not be rewarded: when Venezuela decides to discuss issues seriously, serious people will pay attention.

Besides Maduro would be well advised to allow students to protest in peace in Venezuela before worrying about Guantanamo, no? Why is it that chavista feel free to comment on any of other people's internal affairs but develop deep rashes when any one even slightly wonders about what is going on inside Venezuela?

Freedom of the press. A personal experience from a journalist that got a job at the Daily Journal, once the very respected English only paper in Venezuela with a circulation of 20 000 and now a propaganda rag for Chavez with barely 1000 issues sold (probably to embassies to help them write their reports). A paper that has no proper income anymore but has managed to renew its facilities, courtesy of propaganda money. A priceless reading from Rachel Jones.

The Wall Street journal latest by O'Grady. The video of Anastasia O'Grady posted earlier was accompanied by an article and I finally got it. For those like me who have no access tot he WSJ, you can read it here. And if you have access you can try here.

(hat tips to Pedro, Al.Ma. and Ed)

-The end-

Maria Anastasia O'Grady on video

You know that Venezuela and Chavez are getting center stage again when the Wall Street Journal does a video on Venezuela for its web site. This morning you can watch Maria Anastasia O'Grady talk for 4 minutes on the current situation in Venezuela. As usual she shows us that "she gets it" as she can explain things clearly, dispassionately. Watch this video, you will understand more about what is going in Venezuela more than after reading the pages and pages you read this past week. Unless of course you were reading this blog diligently :)



-The end-

Fiasco at the chavista march?

I was on the road today so I cannot evaluate quite well how the chavista march went on. However I saw two things:

1) before leaving home I noticed on TV that the image coming from VTV at the height of Chacao showed plenty of red shirts BUT THEY WERE NOT MARCHING. That means, they had stopped the march for a while to let laggards fill up the blanks and give the illusion that there were a lot of people. Can someone confirm? That would be crass because they are trying to deliberately compare their march with the one supporting RCTV two weeks ago. Lame, so lame....

2) I did not see many buses parked around La Bandera, nor on the road for that matter. So maybe it is an excellent sign, or rather as I speculated yesterday that the chavista march was called too fast, as an emergency, and they did not have time to hire and fill up enough buses to come from the inside the country.

The answer anyway comes from the photo montage of Globovision, comparing their take and the ones from VTV, the state propaganda voice. We will see if the government dares to counter those pictures. But does it matter? Chavez already announced that TV concessions could be revoked before time. Gee, I wonder who does he have in mind..... anyway Huguito, look at what happen when you closed RCTV. Go ahead, make our day and close Globovision, we will thank you for ever.

PS: note added Sunday. There were buses. TV showed plenty of buses but they were not parked in La Bandera as they are often parked. This time they were around the Libertador. I suppose that there were less buses than usual so they could park closer to the marchers. Or as a wit said, more buses than marchers. Thus it makes the march even more pathetic.

It seems that it might have been one of the worst chavista marches! Chavez still spoke, but there was a time that for such a small group he would not have shown up.....

-The end-