New Venezuela protests planned after rare calm
Source: AFP
Caracas (AFP) - Venezuelan protesters were preparing for a fresh round of anti-government demonstrations on Sunday following a rare peaceful evening in Caracas.
At least 18 people have been killed and 250 injured since a wave of protests began on February 4 against the government of President Nicolas Maduro, many ending in violent street battles.
The student-led protesters are angry over the soaring crime rate, spiralling inflation, the lack of basic goods in stores, and limited democratic rights in the oil-rich nation.
Protest marches began in early February and spread to the capital, where they have centered on the opposition stronghold of Chacao, a wealthy Caracas neighborhood.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-leaders-must-start-talks-stop-arrests-us-165905290.html
But it's a Holiday! Maduro decreed it!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Zorra
(27,670 posts)9 Things You Need to Know about Venezuela and the Recent Violence
1. The students marches are from the right-wing of the student movement
Unlike in places like Chile, there is no single or united student movement in Venezuela. Not only are students groups highly decentralized, but they are also divided along political lines.
snip---
3. There has been massive media manipulation
When the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, Catholic Church, Military High Command and trade union centre organized their coup back in 2002, there was no Facebook or Twitter. The media in Venezuela at this point, was completely in private hands except for the state-owned VTV (which the opposition stormed during the coup and whose signal they closed down). To justify the coup, the private media manipulated images and footage of street demonstrations to suggest that the government and its supporters had killed unarmed protesters (sound familiar?). It was through informal networks and word of mouth – what people in Venezuela call radio bemba – that people found out about the coup and organized against it.
snip---
4. There has been an active campaign to sabotage the Venezuelan economy
There is no doubt that there are real and legitimate grievances and issues concerning crime and access to goods. However, what has been missing from this narrative are the initiatives from the government and social movements to address these and, perhaps more importantly, the contributions of Venezuela’s opposition to creating and exacerbating these problems.
snip---
8. Fascism and imperialism are very present threats to Venezuela
As much as it would be great to characterize the current situation as a small group of privileged extremists against a 99%, that is not the situation. While the opposition is undoubtedly under right-wing leadership and there is no – this bears repeating – no left or revolutionary tendency within the political opposition, there is a mass of people that have been won over to the political opposition
EX500rider
(10,808 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)EX500rider
(10,808 posts)They don't have to lie anyway, innuendo, half-truths, supposition, character assassination etc.. will all do.
All I need to know is he is a pro-chavez toady blogger..
"Gregory Wilpert, a founder and editor, describes the website as "mostly pro-Chavez"; Wilpert's wife Carol Delgado was named Hugo Chávez's Consul General in New York in 2008.The Global Post described Wilpert as "perhaps the most prominent Chavista"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelanalysis.com
You'd have laughed at anyone who suggested that a self-described pro-Bush fan who's wife Bush gave a plum job to in NY to was any kind of objective source for info on the Bush administration.
EX500rider
(10,808 posts)Nice, have any proof or is that proof enough?
3. There has been massive media manipulation
I agree, though mostly by Venz., not the foreign mutli-national news org's.
4. There has been an active campaign to sabotage the Venezuelan economy
I doubt Maduro did this on purpose, but rigid price controls with rampant inflation is a bad idea.
8. Fascism and imperialism are very present threats to Venezuela
Yes, that's why the people march, afraid their govt is going down that road.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)On the students:
From the Washington Office on Latin America Venezuela blog: http://venezuelablog.tumblr.com/
Q & A Regarding the Venezuela Crisis
David Smilde
Below is a written interview I did with Isabel Fleck of Folha de Sao Paolo.
How do you feel about the last demonstrations in Venezuela and the government’s response?
The demonstrations began with students supporting Leopoldo López and Maria Corina Machado’s #lasalida mobilization. Machado and Lopez do not agree with the opposition coalition’s (called the Mesa de la Unidad Democratica) strategy of trying to grow their constituency through longer term groundwork, nor with their willingness to dialogue with the government in January.
They want a more aggressive and immediate strategy because they feel the situation is unsustainable and that in a couple years’ time there will not be enough democratic liberties for them to fight for power.
They have successfully tapped into the discontent of middle class students. The first round of protests in the Andean states two weeks ago were small. However student protesters were arrested and this motivated protests in Caracas. The February 12 protest in Caracas was impressive but not massive by Venezuelan standards, approximately 10 thousand. Here again there was violence and arrests and this motivated protests every day since. The February 18 concentration in support of Leopoldo López brought together a larger segment of the opposition base and was even larger, probably 20-30 thousand.
The student protests as currently formulated have little chance of developing a strong cross-class alliance. Their themes are the typical themes of the Venezuelan middle class focusing on issues of liberty: freedom of expression, freedom to protest, democratic liberties, and economic opportunity. Images of Cuban dictatorship are important symbolic foils. However, Venezuela’s popular classes are more responsive to messages of equality and the fight against poverty.
-----
This blog post suggests the student mobilization began in support of a rightist opposition mobilization, the most radical of the rightist opposition tendencies. And it suggests that they are class-based.
And then there's this. Who loves 'em some Venezuelan student movement? Why, the libertarian Cato Institute, of course:
http://www.cato.org/friedman-prize/yon-goicoechea/student-movement
Why, Cato even gave their favorite student leader a $500,000 "prize:" http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24282927/#.UxOa--OwJvA
On media manipulation: I have a post in this thread that lists a couple examples of that. There is other bullshit, too, especially on social media. Like the Venezuelan student tied to a tree and sprayed with a water cannon--except that footage came out of Colombia last year. Or the woman student being dragged across the ground in her blue bra--except that was actually from Egypt.
bitchkitty
(7,349 posts)Something our resident right doesn't want or need. They have their opinions and besides, Maduro is fat! And he's crazy! USA! USA! USA! USA!
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)1. Unsubstantiated. No evidence that it is only right wing groups. And it sounds somewhat silly for students who get free university education in Venezuela to protest with ... the right wing who would arguably take that from them and make them pay. It's rather absurd, actually.
2. Is just as easily debunked. The Venezuela government already arrested SBIN forces who killed students, including the murderous Tupamaros, Montoya.
There is no evidence that Carmona was shot by her own and in fact there is video evidence of the mayor of the town instigating his collectivos to shoot in that protest.
Vargas is the only student who died by accident as far as video details are concerned, he fell off a building while descending from watching the GNB terrorize the town.
edit: I'm still debunking, I accidentally pushed post as opposed to preview, will edit when I'm done.
3. Toro is an idiot, but there is plenty of video evidence of the paramilitary incursions into other neighborhoods, though no doubt they were mostly poorer neighborhoods, because the wealthy wouldn't dare go out at night anyway. They also wouldn't subject themselves to actual police brutality. These are people who drive armored SUVs around.
Twitter and Facebook exaggerations and manipulations occur on both sides, and therefore are not relevant. People repost bullshit, that is to be expected. When you get rid of the noise and when you look at the actual events on the ground there has not been one single GNB activity carried live over the air in Venezuela. If a bunch of students in the US were being razed by the local riot-police there would at least be a live video stream somewhere (yep, I watched and chronicled a lot of OWS protests).
4. Absurd victim blaming on its face. Blaming "hoarders" as opposed to unsound policy.
5. Wow, critical admission, a rarity for Venezuelanalysis.
But it's all the fault of Colombians and the drug trade (isn't that a reason to legalize that shit?).
It can't possibly be because of armed Tupamaros and collectivos, as shown in the videos posted in the Latin American forum, are part of the reason? Private gun ownership is banned in Venezuela. Yet the prison prans walk around with impunity and are heavily armed with not just machine guns but even military grade stuff.
Oops, collectivos are defenders of the revolution, you see, so they can't be disarmed. Except most of the deaths are due to their actions, unquestioningly.
6. The canned "state media only controls 5% of the market" excuse but the failed proof that Globovision or coup hosters Venevision showed even once these student protests live as they happened as the GNB shot at them or even showed once, just once, the state repression taking place or the public agency of students safe guarding their neighborhoods from future violence.
The 2013 violence was meager at best and lasted all of two days. This is an entirely different creature. And it's not looking to go away any time soon.
Street murders, of course, are showing restraint...
7. Dehumanization of the students. First, they start off with the students are all right wing (no proof, conjecture, implications). Then they ascribe opposition, far right opposition might I add, to the behavior of the students. It's not worth even going over this Emmanuel Goldstein if you can recognize it for what it is.
It's also of note that they throw out the Caracazo massacre, in an implication that, hey, our guys aren't so bad, they didn't kill 3,000 people. In Caracas it is well over 100 people die a day per 100k people (the national stat is lower because the violence in rural areas is lower). I suppose we should wait a month and see if the morgues are still packed with corpses and then claim those lives?
8. Imperialism is certainly a threat to Venezuelans, everyday Venezuelans, whose government gives oil to the US only to buy gasoline back at $200 a barrel to give to the 15% of people who have cars at $5 a barrel. What a deal that is, for the Venezuelan people, who each and every one deserve to have a part of the revenue from this oil. Don't even get me started on the Aban Pearl, the Fonden Fund, and how Chavez' family, a person getting paid a lowly pittance, is now living in the palace and partying away on yachts.
Of course, when the opposition does succeed, and it may not be next elections, it may be 10 elections from now, but once they succeed, they will be called imperialists and fascists, just as everyone uses the word to such an extent it has nearly become meaningless.
9. By 1.5% of votes. And that, my friends, is what scares these Chavistas more than anything, and why they even waste time on a bunch of students who in reality would probably go home if the Chavistas would just stop repressing them. Give them a week of unfettered play time and they'll go home. Some may even grow up to be proud chavistas. Continue fighting them, and they will radicalize, and they will turn.
BTW, video of these "separate marches"? I have tried oh so hard to find any that compare. In fact I think some chavistas are now afraid of marching in large marches due in no small part to their government telling them they are overridden by fascists.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)The international community should demand a cease and desist of all foreign intervention into Venezuelan affairs and support a peaceful solution of the crisis by the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro. Any and all other calls to action should be completely off the table until all meddlers have retreated back into their own affairs and clear steps have been taken to uphold Venezuela’s right to self-determination.
It is not that there is no inflation in Venezuela; it is not that the crime rate isn’t alarming; it is not that Venezuelan students have no legitimate grievances; the shortage of goods is no doubt real to the Venezuelan people. The problem is that while all those issues are real, they are by no means a justification for other countries, the United States in particular, to instigate violence and chaos to overthrow a democratically elected government.
It is not hard to discern right from wrong when we step into the shoes of Venezuelans. Take U.S. college students and graduates for starters: they are facing skyrocketing tuition costs, only to enter a comatose labor market, in which they are competing for jobs against their peers and against an under-employed professional class that has seen its professional platform be outsourced to cheaper markets overseas. And they are drowning in student loan debt. The difference between them and Venezuelan college students is that there is no powerful foreign government providing training and funds in the millions of dollars to toss them into the streets as a part of a violent plan to overthrow the government. Imagine the U.S. government’s response to a situation like that!
snip---
The violent protests in Venezuela do not represent a defense of democracy, but an attack against it.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Courtesy of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR):
http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/22/news-from-venezuela-but-where-is-it-coming-from/
News From Venezuela–but Where Is It Coming From?
By Jim Naureckas 38 Comments
There's a post from the blog Caracas Chronicles (2/20/14) that's been making its way around social media, called "The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night-–and the International Media Is Asleep at the Switch," written by Francisco Toro. It's not surprising that it's being shared widely, because it paints an exceedingly dire picture:
Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle-class neighborhoods, shooting at people and storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting.
Who is Francisco Toro? He used to report for the New York Times, but stepped down, saying he couldn't conform to the paper's conflict-of-interest rules: "Too much of my lifestyle is bound up with opposition activism," he wrote, adding that "I can't possibly be neutral" about Venezuelan politics (FAIR Action Alert, 6/6/03).
Despite the Times' rules, one doesn't need to be neutral to be a good reporter–in theory; great journalism has been done by the politically engaged. But how trustworthy is Toro's actual reporting? Are, in fact, "state-sponsored paramilitaries…shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting"? Two days ago, when Toro posted, the death toll stood at six (Reuters, 2/20/14). That's six deaths too many, certainly, but if paramilitaries were actually shooting at everyone who seemed to be protesting, there would be either very few protesters or the paramilitaries would have to be exceedingly bad shots.
And, in fact, not all the dead are protesters, or killed by pro-government forces. Yesterday, Venezuelanalysis (2/21/14)–a pro-government but independent website–put out a fuller list of people killed in the ongoing clashes, adding up to 10. Three people died after crashing into barricades set up by the opposition, and another person–the brother of a pro-government legislator–was shot while trying to open up a barricaded street. A protester was run over by a motorist trying to drive through a barricade; the driver was reportedly arrested. An intelligence service officer was also arrested in connection with a shooting incident on February 12 that left two people dead–one a protester, the other a government sympathizer.
<snip>
And this:
http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/02/27/nyt-corrects-venezuela-tv-falsehood/
NYT Corrects Venezuela TV Falsehood
On February 21, a report in the New York Times by William Neuman about a supposed clampdown on dissent in Venezuela started out with this bold claim:
The only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government was sold last year and the new owners have softened its news coverage.
This struck some observers, like Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic & Policy Research (2/24/14), as totally overblown, since opposition figures do in fact appear routinely on Venezuelan television. As he pointed out, the Carter Center studied media coverage during the country's presidential election last year, and found that opposition candidate Henrique Capriles received much more coverage than President Nicolás Maduro, whose campaign enjoyed an overwhelming advantage in state-owned media. Overall, Weisbrot wrote, it might be reasonable to conclude that Maduro had a slight edge in TV time when public and private TV channels are considered together.
As for protest coverage, Weisbrot shows that opposition leaders appeared on television as the protests were underway, in particular on Venevision, a widely watched outlet.
So it's not clear why the Times would suggest that there was only one channel that featured opposition voices, and that it seemed less likely to do so now.
<snip>
Read the whole thing to see how the Times bobbed and weaved before finally 'fessing up to inaccurate reporting.
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)There would be no need to protest. Why should they wait in line less than 8 hours to get food, or expect the government to crack down on crime? They could just suck it up and let their government continue to suck.
warrprayer
(4,734 posts)with new developments in the Ukraine for a while. The regular scheduled protests will resume momentarily. 
