Venezuela: The Forgotten Victims of April 11, 2002

[ChangoLoa]

Political intolerance and radicalism thrust upon the Venezuelan society have buried an episode that marked and changed the lives of hundreds of Venezuelan families forever. Nineteen families were forced to leave their homes in the middle of the night and wander through a city in turmoil to find their dead.

Some had to travel hundreds of kilometers from remote locations while others were haunted by TV images of bodies strewn on the pavement or covered with a Venezuelan flag. Others sought their loved ones amongst the hundreds of wounded and injured in hospitals while a brave few headed directly to the dreaded Bello Monte morgue fearing the worst. They are the forgotten victims of April 11, 2002. They never found justice, and their bodies have been vanished from the collective memory to give way to a parallel imaginary epic.

None of those 19 victims found justice. Politics outweighed institutions, and only two cases were heard: those of Erasmo Sánchez and Rudy Urbano Duque. Both cases were used by the government to sentence nine officers of the Metropolitan Police and three police chiefs in charge of that group to jail. No evidence was given to prove that they perpetrated those crimes. But, from a political perspective, these cases were used to fabricate a story in which the deaths of April 11, 2002 had culprits, though instead of being accountable for those actions, they were "scapegoats."

The stories of these victims speak volumes on the reality hidden by the government's denial to establish a "Commission for Truth" probing into the murders as an entity distant from the conflict affecting Venezuelans.


http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/120414/the-forgotten-victims-of-april-11-2002

[joelz]

1. whats wrong in Venezuela

This link answers this and gives a pretty good idea of whats wrong in Venezuela
http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-war-on-democracy

[ChangoLoa]

2. Welcome to DU. The video you're posting has been posted a hundred times here.

And as usual, it has nothing to do with the subject. Did you make your inscription on the site only for that?

Maybe you're able to elaborate your own ideas yourself, maybe not?

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thanks for posting that link. John Pilger is absolutely knowledgeable.

He's respected everywhere other than right-wing circle jerks for his scholarship and tremendous writing.

Returning to watch the video link later this evening, really appreciate getting the chance to see it again.

Welcome to D.U., joelz.

[Peace Patriot]

3. Interesting to read what the 1% think of their failed effort to overthrow Venezuelan democracy.

When they were hatching their plot to subvert the armed forces, kidnap the elected President and suspend the Constitution, the courts, the National Assembly and all civil rights, did they ever think of those who might be killed because of their lawlessness?

Now they think of advocating for the dead?

Such hypocrites!

El Universal speaks for the 1% just like the Corporate Press here. And they are not just full of crap, they are "Alice in Wonderland" nuts, presenting an upside down, inside out, backwards view of the world, in which the lawful government of Venezuela is somehow responsible for the violence unleashed by the oligarchs in Venezuela in cahoots with the Bush Junta.

-------------------------

This article is upside down, inside out, backwards and insane crapola from its opening phrase: "Political intolerance and radicalism thrust upon the Venezuelan society..."?

This fascist political tract reads like the attacks of "organized money" on FDR and the New Deal here, during the 1930s. Talk about "radical"! Fascists cannot bear it when democratic forces kick them out. They go on like lunatics, and, in Venezuela, took their lunacy as far as an attempted coup d'etat.

The people threw the oligarchs out of power in the 1930s, here, for their greed and malfeasance, just as the people of Venezuela threw their oligarchs out of power, in 1998, for the same reasons. That is not "radical." That is democracy. And the people of Venezuela went on to re-elect the Chavez government by big majorities in 2000 and in 2006, and to defeat a USAID-funded recall election in 2004, as well as defeating the fascist coup d'etat in 2002, the oil bosses' lockout in 2003 and every other fascist effort to destroy their "New Deal" and return greed and malfeasance to office. They are most certainly "intolerant" of greed, malfeasance and chaotic, violent, unjust, oligarchic rule.

Wall Street is radical. Our Corporate Rulers are radical--and seething with anti-democratic plots and mindboggling greed. The U.S. military-industrial complex, with its corporate resource wars, its torture, its thousand military bases around the world, and its trillion dollar price tag for U.S. taxpayers, is radical. Floating states like Exxon Mobil, with loyalty to no country or people, are radical. The bastards who are bent on looting Social Security, Medicare and all social programs in the U.S. are radical. Their counterparts in Venezuela, of which El Universal is one of the propaganda rags, are radical. They are radical fascists and neither we nor the people of Venezuela are obliged to have any tolerance whatsoever for their wars, their looting, their coup d'etats (whether by fascist coupsters or by Diebold), or their goddamned lies.

Upside down, inside out, backwards and insane fascist propaganda is what you are touting here, as worthy of our attention? Fascists weeping over those who died in the violence that they unleashed? Fascists calling universal free health care, universal free education through college, decent wages and benefits, vastly improved civil and voter participation, the biggest reduction of poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean and the many other achievements of the Chavez government and the people of Venezuela "radical"? We're supposed to take this seriously?

[ChangoLoa]

6. Pure reaction as usual.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Who can ever forget the scum who, during one of their "guarambas" (violent protests)

clown shows, as they plied their skills with their industrial sized slingshots, slammed a marble deep into the brain of a man on the street? Oh, wait! They were right-wing idiot anti-Chavez demonstrators. Bravo!
What a bunch of classic useless vicious idiots. The man died where he fell.

Graphic x-rays were published which clearly defined what the #### happened to this unarmed man.

That was different from the evil murder handed to the very prosecuting attorney who was assigned to look for the people who hired the snipers, etc. in the "demonstrations" prior to the filthy coup was himself car-bombed. More spectacular human touches from the hate-obsessed racist oligarchs who contrived the coup the people of Venezuela overturned.

[ChangoLoa]

7. It's guarimbas, kiddo

Do you have a link on these mass murderer fascist racist scum oligarch rats killing with their "industrial slingshots"?

[ChangoLoa]

8. Facing the slingshooters...

By the way,

1. snipers killed less than half of the demonstrators (opposition and chavista) in april 2002. Many people were shot (more than a hundred wounded and around 10-15 killed) by visible people/ cops in the streets, with normal 9mm handguns or FAL assault rifles which have nothig to do with the equipement of the invisible snipers.

2. when an attorney gets killed, it doesn't mean the case he was working on gets closed. Why did the government simply drop the case? What does that tell you? Have you ever stoped to consider that point?