Latin America
Related: About this forumVenezuelan Guarimbas: 11 Things the Media Didn't Tell You
Venezuelan Guarimbas: 11 Things the Media Didn't Tell You
By Tamara Pearson, Ryan Mallett-Outtrim, teleSUR
Thursday, Feb 12, 2015
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Destroying a Metro Bus station - Photo: Alba Ciudad
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At one year since the violence opposition barricades in Venezuela that aimed to bring down the democratically elected government, teleSUR reviews 11 things the media kept secret.
One year ago, three people were killed in unrest in Caracas, sparking international interest in a wave of violence that had gripped Venezuela. Across the country on February 12, 2014, anti-government groups took to the streets to roll out a carefully prepared campaign for la salida the exit from the elected government of President Nicolas Maduro. While the international media relied heavily on opposition-aligned private Venezuelan media outlets and anti-government groups for information on the rapidly changing situation, we - Ryan and Tamara - were on the ground everyday watching the unrest evolve, speaking to ordinary Venezuelans and getting the real story from the streets. While the international media described a spontaneous, peaceful protest movement that was quashed by repressive security forces, we saw something completely different. We drew conclusions based on what we could see on the ground, and burned the midnight oil researching our way through the fog of war to get to the tangible truth. Looking back on the unrest a year later, this is what la salida really was, what the media doesn't want you to know.
1. Despite constant harassment and attacks, the national guard were peaceful
(Ryan) As the unrest heated up in February, international human rights groups decried what they claimed was mass repression against peaceful protesters. On social media, photographs were proffered as evidence of widespread abuses. Most of the photos later turned out to be lifted from protests elsewhere in the world, such as Egypt, Ukraine and Yemen. While the government has acknowledged numerous cases of misconduct by police and the national guard (GNB) and arrested those allegedly responsible, the majority of security forces that did their jobs well were largely ignored. The hundreds of GNB personnel that spent weeks guarding social missions and media outlets while enduring verbal abuse and physical attacks from guarimberos, or violent barricaders, went largely ignored. This wasnt an accident, as activist Luigino Bracci explained in February 2014. In an article published online he said he regularly saw guarimberos in Caracas using a time tested tactic of goading GNB troops for hours on end, filming their targets in a coordinated effort.
If the guard makes a mistake and represses someone who is insulting him, in just minutes the video is doing the rounds of Youtube, it will be seen by millions of people and will form part of multimedia material that arrives at international chains such as CNN, NTN24 Caracol and others, he explained.
Yet these brief snippets aren't representative of the general conduct of the GNB. For example, in the second week of March 2014, El Nacional newspaper and opposition politicians spread a story of how the GNB supposedly repressed a peaceful protest in Lara state's National Poli-technical Experimental University. Luckily for the GNB involved, a local independent journalist filmed the entire confrontation. The video shows the GNB negotiating with guarimberos, before giving them a short workshop on human rights and releasing them.
More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_69350.shtml
MADem
(135,425 posts)"Brief snippets aren't representative?" Please--bullets are bullets and dead is dead.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)anyone actually point out how the so-called 'Bolivarian revolution' believes that the end justifies the means, including using thuggish tactics of injuring or killing demonstrators. Note also the latest decree permitting police to use deadly force against protestors (in direct contradiction to the Venezuelan Constitution). We can look forward to more 'reality' articles about how the government is just misunderstood and the protestors really just a mob under the nefarious control of whatever capitalistic/CIA/Illuminati Boogey Man Chavistas try to blame.
MADem
(135,425 posts)taking guidance from his Cuban bosses, who sent along a lot of those "National Guard" fellows in VZ uniforms w/Cuban accents, snatched that right away.
They shot this young lady in the head for exercising her right:
By any measure, what Maduro is doing is wrong. Chavez could have handled this with personality and promises, maybe a little mockery and some free stuff; Maduro doesn't have those skills, so he uses brutality and thuggery--he only knows a heavy hand.
forest444
(5,902 posts)The autopsy and forensics established that; even the photo on the right clearly shows she was shot from behind, the point of entry clearly on the occipital lobe (above the back of the neck).
Putting aside the merits - or lack thereof - of the Chávez/Maduro tenure, keep in mind that compared to the Dirty Wars still ongoing in Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras, there's no denying Venezuela has been quite restrained in its response both to the unrest, as well as to political opposition in general. Protesters on both sides have been killed or injured, to be sure; but the failed 2002 coup proved if nothing else that if the opposition succeeds in toppling Maduro, they'll probably make Pinochet look like Gandhi.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)look like Ghandi' is a fairly mild comparison to how they behaved. God forbid that the opposition succeed in Venezuela and that people might be able to buy basic foodstuffs without standing in line by the hour, hiding in parking garages and with numbers written on their forearms to see who will be allowed to buy flour today. That would be a tragedy.
Judi Lynn
(160,755 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)with all the brutality (and then some) used to break up demos way across the world in Iran, using the same nasty tactics. This is a classic move; they use it frequently:
One of the injured protesters who arrived at the hospital was Génesis Carmona, a 22-year old student, who had been shot in the head. According to a student who was near Carmona during the protest, a group of armed civilians who had arrived on motorcycles, some of them wearing red shirts, opened fire and hit Carmona. The student carried Carmona on a motorcycle to a hospital.172 According to the doctor who treated her,Carmona arrived to the emergency room with a bullet lodged in her head, which had fractured her cranium and caused severe brain injuries. Carmona died of the head wound the following day.
...Despite pictures published in social networks showing armed civilians allegedly pointing shotguns towards demonstrators, Justice Minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres said on February 19 that Carmona had died from a bullet that came from the protesters own
ranks.
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/venezuela0514_ForUpload_0.pdf
There are other witnesses who have told HRW the same thing. Yeah, sure--nothing to see here, move along, citizen! Don't believe your own lying eyes!
"The Big Lie" that the sweet faced and smiling (not) operatives of Maduro are innocent, and a bunch of young students in hipster clothing, barely out of their teens, were responsible for the violence, is LUDICROUS. Who is saying this? Only the agency with an interest in covering up the truth--there are no witnesses who agree with him.
Propagandists can't overcome the video evidence--and there's enough of it to horrify the world. Maduro's agents had guns, but the students had cellphone cameras.
It's not the first or only time they've tried to blame the victims--funny how we don't put up with that in USA, but it's "OK" if the stooge named by a dead, cancer-ridden dictator (and did he actually name him, or did Raul?) abuses authority, tears down the Constitution of the dead dictator that the acolytes seemed to like, and yet they still stick with the guy? What's up with that?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/venezuela-intelligence-agents-arrested-murder-protesters
Venezuelan intelligence agents arrested over killing of protesters
Five more agents from Bolivarian National Intelligence Service held on suspicion of shooting two protesters in Caracas clashes
But oh, they'd never do anything like that...why, they're PEACEFUL...
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)have been elected dog catcher. He has neither Chavez's charisma or cunning, just a bus driver who found he could yell "Viva Chavez" louder than the next sycophant.
Judi Lynn
(160,755 posts)and had to drive a bus to buy necessities.
Democrats don't "look down" on people who had to work for a living as young adults. Quite the contrary: the Democratic Party has ALWAYS been associated with the working class.
Your idea of coming here to a Democratic message board to hoot with glee regarding some leftist's low paying job in his young adulthood doesn't earn ANY respect. Despicable.
At least he wasn't as lazy as to resort to sitting on his colossal fat ass, whiling away is idle, idle hours invading someone else's message board to attack leftists.
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MADem
(135,425 posts)comment? It reflects poorly on you.
Marksman_91
(2,035 posts)Nothing more, and nothing less. He's demonstrated to be totally incompetent, uncultured, inexperienced, uneducated, disrespectful, inconsistent, idiotic, and inept. The country is in shambles now, and it's all thanks to his administration's poor handling of the economy, as well as the lack of any actual interest in wanting things to improve for people in general. The top Chavista heads are stuck between a rock and a hard place at this point; they know they will be persecuted the moment they're no longer in power, so they're doing everything they can to stay in it, even if it means using fear tactics and use of military force against civilians.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)but he was also stupid. And so he remains.
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)You can plainly see the chavistas firing on the protesters.
this video identifies two of the paramilitary chavistas during the murder of Carmona and, surprise, their chavista activities. Also, a snippet of Maduro saying arms are not permitted under chavismo.
forest444
(5,902 posts)But none of those show the victim at the moment of impact. The bullet entered just above the back of the neck, such that she would have had to be running from the direction of the Chavistas for your premise to be credible. The crowd, at 4:50, remained, practically to a person, facing in the direction of the Chavistas during the gunshots - which, barring film evidence to the contrary, clearly suggests Miss Carmona was doing likewise.
None of this, of course, overshadows the well-established fact that there has been violence - including lethal violence - on both sides of this unrest. And while Venezuela's response to both the unrest and to political opposition in general is a subject of debate and justly so, political opponents caught in the Dirty Wars still ongoing in Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras are rarely so lucky.
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)direction is really stupid. When you hear shots. Run forest run!
Marksman_91
(2,035 posts)Even all witness accounts point to the shot coming from them. And there's a reason why there hasn't been an investigation to find her murderer: obviously it's because they don't want the PSUV to be tainted by having the murderer of one of the most innocent victims of the 2014 protests among their ranks.
By the way, I'm Venezuelan myself, and regularly check up on a variety of news channels and sites from the country. So I sure as hell am more informed than anyone else in this forum regarding this topic.
MADem
(135,425 posts)On your side of the argument, we have a functionary behind a desk, who wasn't there, doing a cover up. Sorry--no sale.
MADem
(135,425 posts)without any compunction!
There is no question who the aggressors are on the streets of VZ--the bullets are coming from government operatives and, initially, they are mightier than the cellphone, but the cellphone resonates longer than the bullet, once you can persuade people to look. Thank goodness for YOUTUBE--they can't get away with spouting nonsense through propaganda arms any more.
Marksman_91
(2,035 posts)You're really persistent for someone who thinks they know about what's going on in a country they've never stepped foot in.
Judi Lynn
(160,755 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)Capriles is a centrist, and everybody knows it. In fact, Maduro (no liberal, he, given his anti-gay, anti-Jewish and anti-abortion stances) accused Capriles of being "gay" and "Jewish" in order to persuade people to not vote for him. Now, that's not the way a liberal acts, is it?
http://www.towleroad.com/2013/03/capriles.html
Judi Lynn
(160,755 posts)I encourage them, as I have for ages, to not give up looking until they know they have broken through to the truth.
Once they have broken through the propaganda, it will change their entire perspective, and they'll never take every thing that is shoved down their throats again.
Truth takes longer to find, as it has been so deeply hidden, and so widely denied by the military/industrial/political/corporate monsters running the show.
Best wishes to those who don't give up. Hi, humans!
MADem
(135,425 posts)Now, you can "call" Maduro a leftie, but as I said, his comments about Capriles' sexual orientation and religion were hardly progressive--in fact, they would be termed "hate speech" if uttered in the USA or most other countries.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/12/us-venezuela-chavez-idUSBRE92405420130312
Judi Lynn
(160,755 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/16/hugo-chavez-opposition-low-life-pig
"Now we have the loser, welcome! We're going to pulverise you," he told an audience of medical students. "You have a pig's tail, a pig's ears, you snort like a pig, you're a low-life pig. You're a pig, don't try and hide it." He avoided calling Capriles by name, referring instead to "el majunche", slang for "the crappy one".
The speech, which all radio and television stations were obliged to broadcast live, followed Capriles's victory last Sunday in opposition primaries. The state governor won almost two-thirds of 3m votes cast, a higher than expected turnout which jolted the government.
Since then state media have launched multiple accusations at the wealthy 39-year-old challenger, calling him, among other things, a mendacious gay Nazi Zionist.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)The hallmark of unthinking, ideologically invested people. You can see it on World Nut Daily. every day where you can learn that the Moon landing was faked, the school shootings are 'false flag incidents' and Alex Jones is the sole voice of 'truth' as he exposes one Obama 'conspiracy' after another. They too are absolutely convinced that have finally 'broken through to the truth'.
Marksman_91
(2,035 posts)First-world hardcore leftists, such as yourself, that have never stepped foot in nations run by states they admire so much or even tried to live in the conditions imposed by them and still think they know better than anyone from those countries, are truly sad. And even here you demonstrate just how out of arguments you are, having to rely on the same old propaganda-spitting sites to "prove" anything (as if it wasn't that hard to disprove it with modern technology.) Keep doing what you're doing, you're making it REAL easy to hurt the credibility of the Chavistas Abroad Club.
Marksman_91
(2,035 posts)How fucking pathetic can you get...
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