Selma in Caracas: Brown-Washing and the Abuse of History
Selma in Caracas: Brown-Washing and the Abuse of History
By Lucas Koerner- venezuelanalysis.com, August 5th 2015
Last week, I saw Selma at a movie theater in Altamira, located in Caracas' upper class eastern municipality of Chacao. Enthralled by DuVernay's stunning and horrifying portrayal of the "Bloody Sunday" civil rights march that saw 525 Black protesters savagely attacked by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I was suddenly offput by a comment from another audience member behind me.
"Just like Llaguno Bridge," whispered the voice. I stopped, struggling to process what I had just heard.
To my shock, my fellow audience member had just compared the "Bloody Sunday" march to the April 11, 2002 Venezuelan opposition march towards the Miraflores presidential palace, which allegedly came under Chavista gunfire from the Llaguno bridge above. The alleged massacre was seized on by the corporate media as justification for the US-sponsored coup that ousted then-president Hugo Chavez for 47 hours, installing the dictatorial Carmona regime, which dissolved parliament, the Supreme Court, the National Electoral Council, and all other appointed authorities, as well as perpetrated widespread human rights violations against Chavista dissidents.
In reality, the day's events were elaborately staged, with snipers from the opposition-controlled Metropolitan Police opening fire on Chavistas and opposition demonstrators alike and rightwing media reporting the incident as a government-authored massacre, despite knowledge to the contrary.
More:
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11464
