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FIRST OFF, SOME facts about Venezuela.
That is the background for the violence that kicked off in recent weeks. As Ukraine’s crisis escalated in Europe, the coverage of what is happening in the capital Caracas, Valencia and other Venezuelan cities has been scant.
So, we’ve taken a look at the key things you need to know to catch up on the situation.
Hugo Chavez died on 5 March 2013 after ruling for 14 years. His vice-president Nicolas Maduro won the subsequent election, beating candidate Henrique Capriles by just 1 per cent. That tight margin may have been the start of his political woes, according to some commentators, as it flamed an anger in some young people across the country.
Just eleven months into his term of office, Maduro was hit with the biggest protest he has faced.
An injured protester who was shot in the head.
On 12 February – National Youth Day – violence at demonstrations escalated and three people were killed. Many, many more were injured.
Students had taken to the streets because of food shortages and growing levels of crime.
Their demands were many and varied. From more protection for freedom of speech to an end to the goods shortage and better policing.
An opposition demonstrator holds a poster that reads in Spanish “They are killing us” outside the Venezuelan Military Industries.
The situation began to spiral even further out of control when officials blamed external elements for the unrest. For one, they pointed a finger at the US, which they say is trying to destabilise the Venezuelan administration.
Maduro and his supporters say the escalating protests against his socialist government in the oil-rich but economically struggling country are part of an attempted coup sponsored by right-wing and “fascist” opponents in Venezuela and abroad, particularly America.
Three US diplomats were expelled from the country last Sunday before the President went on live State television to tell citizens he was determined to defend their country.
A police water canon sprays demonstrators during a protest in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, Feb. 14, 2014.
Although initially made up of mostly students, the protest groups now feature a wider representation of the population.
Police forces have used water cannon, gasses and firearms against demonstrators.
However, some pro-government movements have also been seen in recent days. And there is expected to be duelling rallies taking place over the weekend.
Some neighbouring countries – Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina to name a few – also support the current rulers. They don’t like how the Opposition and activists are running their rebellion.
A woman yells at members of a pro-government “colectivo,” or “collective,” writing graffiti on her home that reads in Spanish “Socialism or nothing” in downtown Caracas.
Three opposition leaders have come to the forefront of the student-led movement.
Capriles, who lost last year’s election so narrowly, warned at the time that there would be violence if people took to the streets to protest the results.
However, this week he held a news conference to outline plans for marches across the country today. He wants to protest against the jailing of a second Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez.
He was taken into custody in front of his watching parents and wife on Wednesday. He had called on people – through a YouTube video – to take to the streets and protest against the current leadership. He had promised to attend, even though he knew he would be detained. Venezuelan authorites have blamed him for masterminding a revolution.
His wife, Lilian Tintori, continued to spread her husband’s message using social media – just as he has done – despite the upsetting events of 18 February.
LilianTintori/Instagram
Maria Corina Machado, the third of the opposition leaders, is also at risk of being arrested despite congressional immunity. She discussed recent events with Al Jazeera Thursday, pleading that the media helps get the word out about how violent the situation has become.
Among the death toll, which now stands at eight, is former beauty pageant contestant Genesis Carmona. She was shot in the head and was carried away from the scene of the rally on 18 February. She died the next day from her injuries.
Carmona was allegedly struck by a bullet Tuesday when unknown gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on opposition protesters, said Enzo Scrano, mayor of a Valencia district.
The 22-year-old was buried yesterday.
There were reports then on Thursday that the government had taken CNN off the air because of so-called war propoganda.
Coverage of the earlier protests was completely blacked out locally and viewers of private channel NTN24 (which is based in Colombia) were also deprived.
Threats have also been made to suspend fuel supplies to areas hit by the opposition.
“We will be obliged to suspend the supply of fuel to areas under fascist siege in order to preserve the security of all,” Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez warned on Twitter, in the latest move to squelch more than two weeks of growing anti-government demonstrations.
And then last night, reports came through that a man was 'raped with a gun' following his detention.
Officials then put the number of arrests at 100 and the wounded at 137.
Both sides have vowed to fight on. The t-shirt worn by Lopez below says, "He who tires, loses."
This explanatory video, being shared on social media over the past two days and watched by almost 2.5 million people, was made by a Venezuelan living in the US.
(YouTube: Andreina Nash)
All pics PA Images
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Thanks for that.I needed to know.
Before anyone goes dismissing as paranoia the idea that these protests are backed by foreign elements (especially from America) in an attempt to destabilise or overthrow Maduro’s government, don’t forget that it’s been proven that the exact same thing happened before in 2002, which briefly overthrew Chavez in a US backed coup.
There are legitimate complaints about the United Socialist Party government of Chavez and Maduro (cronyism, crime, waste of public funds, creeping authoritarianism) but the majority of these protests are not made up of an oppressed majority speaking out but of middle class and wealthy students and their families who want the Venezuelan state to be run in their interests (the business class) rather than those of the poor majority who have largely benefitted from the reforms.
I have never heard such rubbish. A message to all you people who love to bla bla bla….go live there. I did for nearly 2 years. I witnessed the most horrific oppression, ignorance, brutality, corruption and abuse of power. You people sicken me, talking politics to back up your own theories and opinions. If you had to live under Chavez or Maduro for 5 minutes you would run home and never open your mouth about politics again.
Evidently you didn’t bother to read what I actually wrote.
I agree that Chavez and Maduro have problems; especially with regard to the creeping centralisation of state power. But these protests are little but a bunch of spoiled teenagers and twenty somethings from Venezuela’s wealthy elite who are sick of the government spending money on the poor instead of on them.
Before Chavez things were arguably even worse, with the same level of government cronyism and corruption but without even the pretence of concern for the nation’s majority living in poverty and with the state being a virtual plutocracy under the finger of elites in gated communities.
(Continued)
By far the best thing Chavez did when president was decentralise a great deal of economic and political power by supporting the creation of cooperatives and communal councils made up of people from local communities deciding how money was spent in their areas directly.
It should have been more of these kinds of policies he focused on instead of consolidating power in his own hands in the belief that he, like a latter day Lenin, knew what was best for the people and could use the state to take care of them like a paternalistic grandfather.
How dare you say that these protests are spoiled teenagers. Let me tell you something, the only elite left in Venezuela are connected to the government. They must be in order to operate. The wealthy elite teenagers are nowhere near any protests. The housing projects you speak of – when I lived there, I was offered one of these houses!!!. It is seriously corrupt – I’m not left wing right wing any wing. I’m human wing – I have seen insane poverty continue for years there. My brother in law was shot dead there – he nor his fellow students were not rich, elite, not even middle class. So please don’t talk like that with such ignorance.
Tom I know people in Venezuala 2 on the wealthier side one on the poorer side. One of them got beaten off the streets by police who are too afraid to go after real criminals. But lets call a space a spade There is an ENTRENCHED superelite 1% who live in absoloute palaces up in the hills and have community meetings on how best to deal with their servants when they get uppidy and ask for a pay rise…really. In a famous documentary one of these meetings these snobs said ”they just get it all handed to them they don’t know the value of work” then proceeded to talk about how many servants she had…without irony.
The 1% control the political agenda in most of the world because we have privatly funded elections and a revolving door between the financial sector and regulatory bodies, but in Venezuala this 1% v 99% is taken to almost cartoon like levels it’s really extraordinary at least in Europe there is a broad middle class, lots of social mobility etc
If someone who grows up in a big house with wealthy parents in Ireland goes to college with people from a low income background they won’t be that diffrent and may even hang out, there the class divide is far more stark.
These people are protesting against a govt that gave them free education so why would they protest that? Well they are from well off backgrounds and didn’t need it, a lot of them are pissed it’s let the unclean unwashed into their campus.
But many of them are protesting other policy failures like inflation and CRIME, they are NOT saying they wanna go back to the bad old days where the country was a US colony
The only people who claim to be “neither left nor right” are right-wingers.
At least if you were honest about it a substantive discussion could take place about the political situation. Being disingenuous makes this impossible.
I don’t agree with that, theres plenty of ‘third way’ types who have loads of right wing ideas and not a left wing idea to be found but there are loads of us out there who think a blend of both worlds is the best balance.
Golden mean fallacy in a nutshell (comment above).
“In politics the middle way is none at all”.
Thank you not a lot of news about this ,,,so wrong when an army turns on it’s own people
Chavez the Gerry Adams of South America
Adams thinks he’s the Chavez of Ireland ! The question is it SF’s intention to impose the same discredited & failed system on Ireland?
I think their manifesto is entitled “discredited & failed” but in Irish
It’s a terrible situation. But one disturbing fact mentioned in the report above is that the current government won the last election by 1%. Therefore it clearly looks like a country divided in two and with a homocide rate at 24,000 pa, whoever takes ‘control’ will have a nightmare to deal with.
Keep in mind context, always. The things they portray in the west as dictatorship are quite normal outside south america, they used to point out hysterically that Chavez wanted to abolish term limits, the US president didn’t have term limits until the 1950s, and most parliamentary countries have no term limits for either parliament or the PM.
Barack Obama won reelection by a farily narrow margin, Clinton never got over 50% of the vote, no party here ever gets more than 40′% these days.
One might say our country is ”bitterly divided” because were fragmented into 7 parties ”oh they have it so bad they can’t make up their minds”. It’s very easy to do bias reporting when you are determined, you can make innocent facts look suspicious.
The reality in Venezuala is it’s the 1% v everyone else, that’s no diffrent to anywhere else tho they don’t have much of a middle class, the 49% or so that are not in the 1% who don’t support the govt are usually people who like those students don’t think the govts doing enough about crime, or are less radical (more moderate social democrats) and still wanna keep more of a market based economy etc
If you ask them in polls if they wanna get rid of the advances they’ve made in policy in the last 15 years they say no.
I notice the usual SF trolls who normally flood the Journal on a daily basis red thumbing anything that’s not SF are missing – Strange? No not surprising when you come to think of it considering they had a motion at their Ard Fheis recently that stated ” to congratulate the president & government of Venezuela on their excellent achievements ! Speaks volumes of their intentions……..
Maduro offers Obama talks today to end his 5 million dollar backed violent protests I hope they succeed and America don’t get the oil resources for the companies there after and they don’t try kidnaping the President again
Absolute bull & pure deflection of the real situation in Venezuela – i.e. 56% inflation & chronic food shortages!
America bad, socialist nutbags good
America already have access to Venezuela’s oil
They have access but pay a far greater price when there is a Democratic Socialist Government they want it for next to nothing
Western media tend to portray most of the protests as being over economic issues when they’re really over the staggering violent crime rate, and some of their economic policies are very innovative stuff that we could use here, everyone there get’s free university education (if a third world country can do it why can’t we?) but surely the govt controlling prices by executive decree and a 53% inflation rate is madness…
People seem to think it’s one or the other, either all the policies Chavez had were evil, or they were all amazing and flawless. The reality is more 3D. Most of those protestors don’t wanna give up their social services, they just want inflation under control and crime dealth with, but the elite there are using them as pawns in a bigger game.
The govt there is starting to play right into the US’s hands by trying to control prices with decree and putting restrictions on social media.
Socialism, IMO, is dead, and it’s not the answer to our problems. Chavez was trying to find a third way and new approch when he was alive but his successor seems to be falling back on tired stale ideas proven not to work like price controls.
Everyone be careful with news from Venezuala , it’s usually biased in one direction or the other you really need to look into the facts yourself and it’s hard to trust what you read. One time the worlds media was alive with outrage over the President saying something outrageous, when you looked at a copy of the actual speech he didn’t say what they were all quoting at all! Be wary of cooked info.
Correction – there are no social services there. University education is not free. Whatever you read or wherever you got your information is incorrect. The conditions people are living under and have been for years is horrific. Anyone thinking that these conditions came about under Maduro is also incredibly naive. What we are seeing here is the results of years and years of corruption under Chavez. I have witnessed first hand the a political regime doing what Mugabe done in Africa. And then I read rhetoric and politics from people who know nothing if the situation because they are getting their information from Professors in Harvard or socialist journalists. Look at the facts. Look at the proof.
Don’t tell me what I know, Education has been free since the 1999 constitution was passed, as has healthcare. I’m not gonna allow facts to be ignored, the main reason I contribute here is to try to help people who don’t have as much time to look into things get informed about the facts, then I give my own opinnion on what should be done with them.
People should be aware that there is intentional misinformation sent out about this place all the time, I never understood that, there are plenty of legit disagreements u can have without resorting to lies.
I don’t want to portray them as being like a Nordic Social Democracy, they are still a very poor country with a low quality of life, but that has been improving.
Economic conditions have vastly changed over the last 15 years
In Ireland, our ‘absolute poverty’ % is around 11%, over there it’s 27% that may seem like a lot but that’s down from 48% in 2002, now you show me any European govt thats had a 50% drop in the poverty during the recession years.
I believe in facts not political propaganda, I don’t like everything they’re doing, but I would trade their govts policies for ours in every area except crime and certain parts of economic policy 2moro if I could
They have oil, the yanks will set them free with their special brand of democracy.
Daniel, the US is the biggest market for Venezuelan oil. Chavez had no problem taking American dollars for Venezuelan oil.
It is funny how the EU and the US are flying their DEMOCRACY flags with no shame themselves…….everyone knows the US want in on Venezuela’s Oil……….USA FREEDOM……lol what a f***** joke !!
As pointed out above, America doesn’t need to be in on Venezuela’s oil – they already buy most of it.
John, I would like to back avina up here and as I said above- the US is Venezuelas biggest market for oil!!!! Always has been. Chavez had no problem taking American dollars for it.
US ain’t gonna see a penny of Venezuelas oil. It goes straight to individuals sitting on top of the pyramid….banksters.
What a strange view of the world you have Derek.
Ditto..i find your views equally baffling :)
Touche :-D
But the money the US buys Venezuelan oil with goes straight to the Venezuelan people no? (at least in theory, unless of course – shock, horror – there is corruption in the Venezuelan socialist government!)
You find my views strange cause they don’t teach it in school or in the corporate media..where does the education system come from, especially 3rd level. The courses come from the Rockefeller and Carnegie institutions. Do u know who owns them?…….Who prints money in the world and makes interest from everything they print?….It ain’t governments or people. Its private banks and the individuals that own them. Try to comprehend how much money they have made from that scenario. They own this world and designed the system we live in and its exactly the way it was designed to be. Read some of Edward Bernays work, especially his book propaganda and how they shape society on how the human mind works. Bernays who was Sigmund Freunds nephew has probably had more influence on this world than any public figure in history. Note that the central bankers aren’t public figures.
How do u think they took most of the population out of poverty? The same money was coming into the country before Chavez took over and the country was a complete hellhole. Venezuela is actually one of the major success stories for humanity over the last decade and they hate that. Even Jimmy Carter admits that. Whose side are u people on? There’s only a few of them and billions of us.
I hear you Derek, and US style capitalism has a lot of characteristics which ordinary people should justifiably be angry about. But for all the problems associated with it, most open economies are far stronger than most far left economies, and their citizens generally have more freedoms and a better standard of living. The sad reality is that many socialist-marxist countries are economic basket cases riddled with corruption and repression, and with severely restricted press freedom and personal freedom of speech.
Personally I’m a centrist believer in responsible capitalism where wealth generators are incentivised by being rewarded to a point but the pie is shared more equally between the population as a whole, and wholesale greed is prevented from becoming the dominant factor, as it is in the US.
The world could learn a lot from countries like Sweden etc. and I think there is also a strong argument towards wage linking between the highest and lowest paid to prevent some of the outrageous salaries we have seen here and elsewhere.
Derek, can you please explain what and where these Rockefeller and Carnegie institutions are?
Do you just spend your time making things up?
Anyway let me explain something to you- Andrew Carnegie amassed a huge fortune in his life but then spent a better part of 20 years giving that money away to philanthropic causes. One of the things he did was fund the building of libraries throughout the United States. There is one in my town. Now are you going to say that you are against libraries? If you are suggesting that these two individuals funded all or some of the universities in the US you are indeed a crackpot.
These are all places of higher learning and generally are considered to be liberal. Do I don’t see where your conspiracy is coming from.
As I said yesterday- you are deluded!
Do those posting anti chavista stuff here seriously think the opposition have the best interests of the whole of Venezuela. the U.S. government and media have been portraying Venezuela as a basket case ever since Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, this is far from the truth. Indeed, if we look at the UN’s Human Development Index, which measures several key indicators of the health of a country’s citizenry (e.g., life expectancy, income, education, equality), we see that Venezuela has actually experienced a steady growth in such human development indicators since Chavez took office with a total Human Rights Index score of .662 in 2000, and rising to .748 in 2012. See, Table 2 at p. 149 of the UN Report. Significantly, Venezuela had a huge relative increase in this index during that time, jumping nine (9) rankings in the HDI chart from 80 to number 71 in the world. If we compare this to Venezuela’s neighbor, and chief U.S. ally in this hemisphere, Colombia, that country has been stuck at position 91 in the world during that time same time period. Moreover, in terms of human rights, there is no comparison between these two countries with Colombia, one the largest recipients of U.S. military support in the world, having the dubious distinction of leading the world in forced disappearances at 50,000 and internally displaced peoples at over 5 million. As we speak in 12 dead, 485 injured, 24 crippled, 4 disappeared, 262 arrests … no, not in Venezuela, in Colombian agrarian strike. No mention of this in the western/international media. Why? Lets look at this article about coverage Haiti and Venezuela protests http://nacla.org/blog/2014/2/21/protest-coverage-haiti-and-venezuela-reveals-us-media-hypocrisy
As an actual Venezuelan i beg u to stop speaking non sense go back and study the history of venezuela anf then u’ll realised that venezuela was much better before chavez even came around only country in south america that could have been a developed country oh and fyi petroleum was nationalised by Carlos Andres Perez in the 80′s when vzlas currency was actually the stronger currency in south america. So before u pretend to know. Read and then comment. And also u want to know who the 1% of filthy rich people is in the country look no further than the actual goverment that having no carriers or means of making legitimate money live like kings. U are welcome
Thanks Susana I’ll leave this here from the Economist about Carlos Andres Perez …The Economist not exactly a noted leftie publication. http://www.economist.com/node/17848513 .
Here are some facts for you to look.
Using data gathered from sources such as the World Bank, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Reuters, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the US Energy Information Administration (eia), the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and the Instituto Nacional de Estadística, There are a variety of key indicators that show how Venezuela has changed since 1999 when Chávez first assumed office.
• Unemployment has dropped from 14.5% of the total labour force in 1999 to 7.6% in 2009
• Population has increased from 23,867,000 in 1999 to 29,278,000 in 2011. The annual population growth was 1.5% in 2011 compared with 1.9% in 1999
• GDP per capita has risen from $4,105 to $10,801 in 2011
• As you can see in the graphic chart, Venezuela’s inflation has fluctuated since 1999. Inflation now stands at 31.6% compared with 23.6% in 1999
• Venezuela has a complicated history concerning currency exchange rates. Compared with 1999 when the exchange rate was under one bolivar to the US dollar, the latest figures from Reuters place it at 4.3 Bolivars to one dollar
• Poverty has decreased – in 1999, 23.4% of the population were recorded as being in extreme poverty, this fell to 8.5% in 2011 according to official government figures
• Infant mortality is now lower than in 1999 – from a rate of 20 per 1,000 live births then to a rate of 13 per 1,000 live births in 2011
• Violence has been a key concern in Venezuela for some time – figures from the UNODC state that the murder rate has risen since 1999. In 2011 the intentional homicide rate per 100,000 population was 45.1 compared with 25.0 just twelve years earlier
• Oil exports have boomed – Venezuela has one of the top proven oil reserves in the world and in 2011 Opec put the country’s net oil export revenues at $60bn. In 1999 it stood at $14.4bn
In fact in 2012 oil exports brought in $94bn, while imports (at historically high levels) were just $59.3bn. Today there are some $22bn in reserves at the Venezuelan Central Bank. There is also an account surplus that is currently at 2.9 percent of GDP. Given these very positive indicators, US-based economist Mark Weisbrot is quite certain that Venezuela will not face a future balance of payments (debt) crisis. His confidence is shared by US banking multinational Wells Fargo, which recently produced a report declaring Venezuela one of the emerging economies most protected against the possibility of a financial crisis and by Bank of America Merrill Lynch which has recommended investors purchase Venezuelan government bonds. Hardly looks like an economy in ruins?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdGJadDZCOGE4RjJQYmtESHc1Z29BaUE#gid=2
You can see that poverty levels and illiteracy have fallen but violent crime and inflation has increased. As I said before food scarcity has been a problem, and insecurity is a massive problem in Venezuela. And both of these are real problems that the Maduro Government is facing and has to tackle. It is more that the government failed to confront problems in certain ways, but also to the action of various other actors. In the case of crime, the infiltration of mafias has been problematic in recent years. High crime is not unique to Venezuala, it is a wider issue in South America. And in the case of scarcity, the role of private capitalists in withholding and hoarding goods, as well as currency speculation, has been a massively destructive force. This has echoes of the kind of Chile scenario of helping to destroy an economy . Venezuela is facing significant problems in the form of shortages of specific consumer goods and lengthy queues for some of what is available. But this is not so much an economic problem as a political one. The Venezuelan business elite has responded to the uncertainty surrounding the Maduro government by taking money out of the country (capital flight) and deliberately creating chaos.
I would prefer if people countered my arguments with facts and proof rather than ad hominem attacks on me. It is rather petty and doesn’t aid your cause.
sorry error inflation is now 56%
Ok Lets examine the facts, food scarcity has been a problem, and insecurity is a massive problem in Venezuela. These are major problems that the government hasn’t tackled, government failed to confront them , but also to the action of various other actors. In the case of crime, the infiltration of mafias has been a powerful force in recent years. And in the case of scarcity, the role of private capitalists in withholding and hoarding goods, as well as currency speculation, has been a massively destructive force that really echoes the kind of Chile scenario of helping to destroy an economy as a preparation for the government being overthrown.
But you see these two factors, which the students are claiming are driving these protests, don’t explain why these protests are emerging now. Why? Crime is actually going down in Venezuela and because food scarcity is not nearly as bad as it was earlier in the year. What explains what’s going on now, is that after December elections, in which the opposition fared very poorly, the right wing of that opposition decided it was done with elections. Instead going to go to the streets, and try to topple the government. Lopez is an opportunistic politician. His Party basically stands on the periphery of the voting public. In other words, he does not have a mandate from the Population. He represent in the number of people that want to vote for him, the equivalent of the Liberal vote or even the Independent vote in the United States. Lopez basically wants to take responsibility for the latest Protests and basically he is a pretender of having the support of the electorate. He said that he does not negotiate with dictators, but, in essence he wants to be a de facto Right Wing Dictator, like we have seen all along in Latin America.
The slant of the Venezuelan private media and the international media on what is happening in Venezuela is clear: The government is responsible for the violence. In the first place government-ordered gunmen are shooting at demonstrators and the violence generated by the opposition is just a response to the brutality of police and military forces. But there is considerable evidence that shows that the violence, including that of unidentified motorcyclists against the demonstrators, is being carried out by the opposition. Consider the following:
1. Violent actions have been carried out by the opposition since the time of the 2002 coup. The “guarimba” which means urban violence (or “foquismo”) was publicly advocated by opposition leaders in 2003-2004 as the only way to prevent the establishment of a dictatorial regime in Venezuela.
2. On April 11, 2002, the day Chávez was overthrown, the Venezuelan and international media and the White House used juxtaposition of images of Chavistas shooting pistols in downtown Caracas, on the one hand, and peaceful anti-government demonstrators, on the other to justify the coup. However the Irish-produced documentary “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” and other documentaries demonstrated by the flow of the camera that the demonstrators were far away from the Chavistas and that they were shooting in response to sniper fire against them. If snipers were responsible for the 15-20 killings (of opposition demonstrators along with Chavistas) that justified the coup of April 2002, is there any reason to doubt that the unidentified individuals who are attacking demonstrators are not acting on behalf of sectors of the opposition?
3. The violence that has rocked Venezuela during the last two weeks has targeted public buildings, such as the headquarters of the Fiscalía General (Attorney General), the public television channel (Channel 8), the state-owned Banco de Venezuela, the house of the Chavista governor of Tachira, trucks of the state grocery store chain PDVAL, and dozens of metro buses in Caracas.
4. None of the opposition leaders have explicitly condemned the opposition-promoted violence. Opposition mayors in Caracas and elsewhere have refrained from using their police force to contain the violence.
5. The so-called “peaceful” demonstrators engage in disruptions by closing key avenues in an attempt to paralyze transportation. Where I live, on the main drag between the twin cities of Barcleona and Puerto La Cruz, the demonstrators occupy two of the three lanes on both sides and as a result traffic backs up for miles. A number of tragedies have been reported of people in a state of emergency who were unable to make it to a hospital or clinic on time.
6. The term “salida,” which has become a main slogan of the protesters, implies regime change. Obviously the opposition is not calling for a constitutional solution in which Maduro resigns and is replaced by the president of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello, as the constitution stipulates. Regime change is a radical slogan that implies radical tactics.
7. Political scientist and Venezuelan specialist David Smilde of the University of Georgia, who is not pro-Chavista but rather evenhanded in his analyses, has stated that the Venezuelan government has nothing to gain by the violence.
8. The government has nothing to gain by the violence because the media is largely on the side of the opposition and present a picture of the violence which directly and indirectly blames the government. Consider the following front page article titled “Capital City Suffers Night Violence” of El Universal (February 20), one of Venezuela’s major newspapers:
“Anoche la Guardia Nacional Bolivariana y la Policía Nacional Bolivariana arremetieron casi simultáneamente contra las diferentes manifestaciones que se producían en distintos puntos de la ciudad capital, mientras el presidente Nicolás Maduro hablaba en cadena nacional de radio y televisión. En los enfrentamientos hubo perdigones, bombas lacrimógenas mientras las cacerolas sonaban desde las ventanas.”
Translation: “Last night, the National Guard and National Police attacked almost simultaneously different demonstrations that were taking place in distinct areas of the capital city,,, In the confrontations there was gunshot [and] tear gas while people banged on pots and pans from their windows (in protest of the government).”
9. The Venezuelan government has shown great restraint in the context of opposition- promoted violence and disruption. In nearly any other country in the world, the disruption of traffic in major cities throughout the country would have resulted in mass arrests.
10. Governments, particularly undemocratic ones, which lack active popular support and completely control the media effectively use repression against dissidents. This is not the case in Venezuela. None of the non-state channels and newspapers (that the vast majority of Venezuelans get their news from) supports the government and most of them are ardently anti-government. Furthermore, unlike governments that use massive repression (such as Egypt under Mubarak), the Chavista government and movement has a greater mobilization capacity, particularly among the popular sectors of the population, than the opposition. As Smilde says, the use of violence by the government makes absolutely no sense.
Eamonn, where do you find the time for such long comments?
Zzzzzzzz
Copy and paste Declan.
I hadn’t seen someone so wrong with so many statements
All i have to say is go live in vzla. I bet u dont even know people from my country. Were i have live for 31 years. Where my father has to work from 7 am to 7pm every day where my mother has to queue for HOURS to get TOILET PAPER. Where my sister is working for a penny. The money she get does not reach for her monthly food. Oh lets talk about my friends. Petroleum engineers graduated cum laude from venezuelan universities earnjng a miserable 300 euros a month. I bet u would love to work for that money. Or how about the months they dont get pay because the goverment has no money to pay then yet. But they never miss a cuote of petroleum to CUBA. Want more. Did u know that Maduro current president of vzla was pictured shooting inocent people from a bridge. Did u know chavez use to acusse him of beinh ignorant. Wich i have to agree is one of the few things chavez was right about. Did u know my cousin is married to adam chavez’s Son. When they got married they did not have a penny i was at that wedding i didn’T HEARD it in a news paper. And know the have mansions in miami. Spain.chalets in Switzerland. U know what as i said when u walk in mu shoes i would consider listening to anything u have to say. Otherwise i think u are out of order. Have some respect. Oh and if u think u are talking to a child or an ignorant i am an economist not a book and newspaper reader
Where’s petr tarasov? His socialist paradise is falling apart and was a illusion in the first place.
Venezuela vs Chile-Marxism vs free markets
What exactly has the leader done to pi$$ people off so much? Taxes? Or is it just because of the nationalised oil? Article isn’t really more informative than any others that I’ve read.
As in what is causing the rise in crime and food shortages? Or is it best we aren’t told incase we get ideas… Typical Irish media.
Nothing to do with the oil. That’s funded a lot of good stuff that’s v popular.
While Chavez was v popular and passed a lot of popular policies there are still 3 issues that the govt has failed on:
1. Corruption
2. Crime
3. Inflation
Violent crime is VERY bad there people are afraid to go onto the streets at night.
well chavez obviously didn’t do a whole lot either, so why are they going to the dogs on violent outbursts now, not that it ever went away. if you ask me, nothing ever changed over there. anyone i spoke to here from there didnt like chavez. when he died “ah my poor chavez”. nothing has changed much. guess it was ‘cool’ at the time when he died from typical angry ‘would be’ protesting types and anti-US types, to say “ah chavez, great guy”
yea right, theyre all the same.
Misinformation and lies and more lies. The current government in Venezuela are saints compared to what they will be replaced with if they fall and the wealth of their country will be stolen once again. But hey, no gives a f**k, they do it everywhere including Ireland and people love it. “”It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere” – Voltaire. Keep watching that tv and reading their media that they brainwash u with folks. Sure its only your kids future at stake.
Derek. For a So Called Anarchist. You have views that go completely against your supposed Political stance. Isn’t Anarchism about refusing to accept ANY authority/government of any type? Yet you readily support Socialist/Communist regimes and Totalitarian Governments. Are you a paper Anarchist or a real one?
Derek, it says a lot about a country when you have to queue for toilet paper. That’s one big massive failure. I am well stocked with cottonelle while you will have to wipe your arse with a newspaper.
For you Derek.
All I know about Venezuela I’ve learned from ex-pats. It appears to me that Maduro’s government has failed on a massive scale and has resorted to divide and conquer tactics as well a brutally suppressing free speech and public demonstration.
I am married to a Uruguayan woman and have spent a great deal of time there. I know in comparing Uruguay with Venezuela I am not exactly comparing like with like but there are many similarities:
Uruguay has a democratically elected socialist government which enjoys lower and middle class support but opposition from the right and upper classes.
Uruguay enjoys free education all the way through to third level and universal healthcare.
Uruguay suffers from high violent crime rates and a massive gap between the haves and have nots.
The government’s tactic to deal with the crime rate is urban renewal through public works and rehousing as well as decentralisation. This is no quick fix but I’ve never come across armed paramilitaries firing on the populace as is happening in Venezuela.
In the 1970s a US sponsored coup overthrew the democratically elected socialist government in Uruguay. The current government is often arguing with the USA however there is no evidence of the USA destabilising the current regime, this might be because Venezuela is oil rich and therefore more worthwhile but if the US is in the business of destabilising left wing governments then why Venezuela and not Uruguay?
The video is clearly disinfo from the ‘usual sources’
For anyone with an open mind, an americas based site with critical pro ‘Bolivarian’ analysis
http://venezuelanalysis.com/about
14 years of nationalized Oil. 100′s of Billions of dollars. And what have this Socialist got to show for it. Rampant Inflation, A Murder Rate as high as any War, Power Shortages from lack of infrastructure, Empty Shelves in shops, No Press freedoms. No wonder people are taking to the streets. The country that should Britain the country richest in South America is wallowing in an Economic disaster. And while the country goes up in flames the Government instead of trying to fix this disaster are blaming everyone else for their mistakes. They have run the economy into the ground. Nobody else.
Mick, Chavez spent some of it on military hardware. Btw, the riot police are well kitted out. I love it when socialists run on a platform of feeding the hungry but then spend millions on their own private army. ;)
Venezuela had a $2.2 billion arms deal with Russia before Chavez died.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/russia-to-finance-22b-for_n_285577.html
For all the slow learners out there please watch (maybe again) – http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-revolution-will-not-be-televised/
Particularly how the right manipulate media images. The video linked to this article is a perfect example, with pro-government marches shown as anti-government ones. The ridiculous statement that the protesters are unarmed, when the first sniper fire killed a Maduro supporter. Watch also the role that CNN and other private stations played in the previous coup attempt. One commentator mentions that Venezuela was a much better country before Chavez. I would ask for whom? Consider that 50% of Venezuelans did not even exist in official statistics before he came to power. In a country of about 29 million people, 11 million had to added to the electoral. Here’s a link to how the previous government dealt with demos ;- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDZNNPvBsRM
In 2002 we had the same lies told, that it was pro-goverment followers that killed innocent bystanders that led to the failed coup d’etat to oust Chavez. It’s the exact same tactic. Simply to try and get the Wests sympathy, so there will be no opposition, for an American backed coup, to take control of Venezuelas assets and wealth and screw the poor.
The reality in Venezuela has become one that of diabolical proportions full of anxious chess players, each watching each other’s move, waiting to see what back door deal will be orchestrated, waiting to see if the US will fund another tacit campaign against the socialist government as it has been accused in the past, waiting to see if the industrialist will capitulate (as Maduro has been testing), waiting to see the strength of the resolve of citizens who have had enough of corruption, the inability to even buy basics like toilet paper and waiting to see how President Nicholas Maduro will respond as he continues to use ‘strong arm tactics in the name of upholding democracy’ against a society that is daring to call him out.
And yet if we are to understand who may win this struggle and move ahead one needs to step back and appreciate the dichotomy of the Venezuelan struggle and how it arrived there and how the players will now move forward……?
It’s a common misconception that Venezuelan oil was nationalised by Chavez but it was actually nationalised back in the 70′s.
But otherwise a good summary
have your say