Venezuela: The Game Changed Last Night

/ February 20, 2014
San Cristobal ayer

San Cristobal on Tuesday night

Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night. What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden.

What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood.

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. People continue to be arrested merely for protesting, and a long established local Human Rights NGO makes an urgent plea for an investigation into widespread reports of torture of detainees. There are now dozens of serious human right abuses: National Guardsmen shooting tear gas canisters directly into residential buildings. We have videos of soldiers shooting civilians on the street. And that’s just what came out in real time, over Twitter and YouTube, before any real investigation is carried out. Online media is next, a city of 645,000 inhabitants has been taken off the internet amid mounting repression, and this blog itself has been the object of a Facebook “block” campaign.

What we saw were not “street clashes”, what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.

After the major crackdown on the streets of major (and minor) Venezuelan cities last night, I expected some kind of response in the major international news outlets this morning. I understand that with an even bigger and more photogenic freakout ongoing in an even more strategically important country, we weren’t going to be front-page-above-the-fold, but I’m staggered this morning to wake up, scan the press and find…

Nothing.

As of 11 a.m. this morning, the New York Times World Section has…nothing.

NYTimes

NYTimes – nothing

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The Guardian’s World News has some limp why-are-you-protesting? piece that made some sense before last night’s tropical pogrom, but none after it.

Guardian

The Guardian: Fluff

So…basically nothing.
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The BBC is still leading its Latin America section on a Leopoldo story, as though last night had been just business as usual.

BBC Americas

BBC – Would you guess a sort of pogrom took place in Venezuela from looking at that?

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CNN is also out chasing the thing that was the story in the old Venezuela:

1964465_10152219869700325_463488673_n

CNN: Your breaking news is broken.

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Al Jazeera English never got the memo:

1939203_10152219838200325_311951454_o

AJE: NPI

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Even places that love to hate the Venezuelan government are asleep at the wheel:

Fox News

Et tu, Ailes?

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The level of disengagement on display is deeply shocking.

Venezuela’s domestic media blackout is joined by a parallel international blackout, one born not of censorship but of disinterest and inertia. It’s hard to express the sense of helplessness you get looking through these pages and finding nothing. Venezuela burns; nobody cares.

Let me put this clearly. Y’all need to step it up. The time to discard what you thought you knew about the way things work in Venezuela is now.

Quico

(Damnit, there’s just no way to stay retired in these circumstances…)

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112 thoughts on “Venezuela: The Game Changed Last Night”

    • They still think that Hugo Chavez is alive…well the mess he created and left is alive and kicking, but as I was told by someone with an advance degre said to me yeaterday: “Chaves spoke very badly about the US. I don’t think the US is going to get involvod”. I replied: Chaves Is Dead (he had no idea Chávez died) and why do you think my family and I are here? Most of Venezuela is not Chavista.
      Another person said: “the problem right now with the international community is that when Chavez was alive, he would make noise and create media attention it was bad press for Venezuela but it was still press, now who is making noise. You guys need to make some noise” Caracas Chronicles my question is now: How many letters to the editors do we need to send? Can you help with this?

      Like

    • Didn’t you guys vote this person into office, and also the one before him that he’s so much like?

      Maybe the reason nobody’s talking about it outside of Venezuela is a combination of “who cares?” and “you order crap, you eat it”.

      Like

      • Wooow….. you should inform yourself before posting a note like this. He was illegally instituted while Chavez was already dead. It’s said and with living proof that the Chavez government bought the company that owns the voting machines and when he was supposedly elected last year by popular demand he refused to have an actual physical count of votes and burned all the original voting valets. And this is just one of hundreds of ways that extremely rich and ignorant government has done.

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        • The fact that Chavez was voted into office in the first place is why no one here cares. Venezuela spent years and years supporting an anti-American leftist and every time a bad word was said about Chavez we were told to quit being Imperialists and get our nose out of Latin America. For years all we heard was that US interest in Venezuela was only because of oil and any involvement would simply be to benefit multi-nationals. Well, congrats! The People and Government of the United States received the message load and clear that we’re to stay out of Venezuelan affairs so they, in turn, have decided not to care.

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          • Everyone wants to have everything both ways making American Imperialists their favorite whipping boy. The U.S. is always at fault — if they get involved it’s wrong — if they stay out of it, wrong again. No matter what, the U.S. will be at fault, because even when we’re right we’re WRONG. SO What exactly is the rest of the world supposed to do about civil wars in countries on other continents ? Well said Michael Allen Moore above — when in doubt, DUCK. I think we have MORE than enough domestic problems of our own , we don’t need to look for trouble elsewhere. Why don’t some of the rich Venezuelans who play baseball in the U.S. or have otherwise made fortunes here have something to say OR better yet DO? They OUGHT to get involved, but are any of them doing so?

            Like

          • You do bring up a valid argument, unlike “Hera sent me”. I still think your argument is flawed though. Yes, we’ve taken the abuse as Americans, but that shouldn’t rule out our concerns. We have the benefit of being a Representative Republic and not a Democracy. But even if we were a Democracy, that still wouldn’t mean that the person we voted in was a representation of all. We may not be in a valid position to assist, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care. Americans (and other foreigners I associate with here in Colombia) are all worked up over the Kiev protests. But more people are dying daily in Caracas than Kiev can imagine at this moment.

            Is it our place to get involved? Aside from a brutal military attack, I don’t think there’s much we can do. And that wouldn’t end much better. So probably not. But let’s not forget that there are good people everywhere and objective reporting is objective reporting. I don’t think the reason it’s being ignored by the media has anything to do with our political stance. Personally, I think that telling the story of Caracas wouldn’t support the leftist agenda of the mainstream media. But that’s my personal opinion. I’d have to ask each reporter or chief why they weren’t covering it to have a better answer. It may simply be that violence is so common in Caracas that this really isn’t out of the norm. It may also be that the area is so dangerous that they don’t have their own reporters in the area to cover stories that won’t have copy-write violations. I honestly don’t know.

            No matter what the reason, we should all care. Even if there’s nothing to do about it, we should care. Caracas is getting out of hand and although I know there’s nothing I can do about it, it’s sad. A country with so much potential is being held back or destroyed. And the people of that country are being destroyed with it.

            So yes, let them live with their decisions. But if we’re going to grieve over Kiev and the Central African Republic… Then I personally think Venezuela deserves our best wishes as well.

            Like

      • Hmm. Hera Sent Me, did it ever occur to you that it’s likely that the person who wrote the comment you are replying to actually didn’t vote for either Nicolas Maduro or his predecessor, Hugo Chavez? No? Oh. Well then I’ll let that bit of absolute idiocy that you call your “two cents” slide. “You order crap, you eat it”. Wow, how profound. Well, thanks, unfortunately, I didn’t order the plate of bulls**t with the side of ignorance you’re feeding me and everybody else who stumbles into your post, but I had to eat it anyway, so if you don’t mind, I’ll feed you dessert and educate you on what happened with Nicolas Maduro in my country. Sit down and shut up for a second, kid.

        As things stood in the polls before Chavez died, Henrique Capriles had been able to get support from the people against Chavez up to 45%, which was an incredibly high number, but still not high enough. Some say that the government cheated on those elections, too, but I’m one of the guys from the opposition that believes that at that point in time, most the country was just in favor of Chavez cause he was still alive. But then he got sick. Before he died, he urged his followers to vote for Maduro should the worst case scenario arise. The way the government chose to handle Chavez’s sickness was pretty shady, too. They didn’t disclose any information on his condition, and nobody knew whether Chavez was alive or not for months. Venezuela was without a president for weeks while Diosdado Cabello and Nicolas Maduro tried to figure out what the hell to do. Finally, after endless campaigning and propaganda, Chavez’s death was announced (whether or not he had died earlier than that or not is unclear, as he had flown out to Cuba for treatment) and the elections were held. Henrique Capriles ran against Maduro. Maduro shot himself in the foot when he said on national TV “We know which one of you guys didn’t vote for me in these past elections, with ID number and everything!” effectively admitting (accidentally) that he knew exactly who votes and who doesn’t…
        The votes are being tampered with.
        In any case, what you are saying is that the Venezuelan people have no right to protest against a government who murders students or to wonder why there has been next to no intervention from the international community in this crisis because this was a ‘democratically elected government.’ Ok. So under any democratically elected government, the people would have no right to protest because they ordered the crap, now they must eat it? Come on, man.

        The reason that I write with so much animosity is this whole ‘who cares’ thing. ‘Who cares about the people getting killed, who cares about Geraldine Moreno, the young student who was playing soccer in her apartment complex and got shot in the face by the national guard while her neighbors were manifesting, who cares about the 17 year-old boy almost out of high school who got run over by a car from the national police during a manifestation, who cares about Genesis Carmona, 22 year-old student and model, shot in the head and killed while protesting, who cares about Juan Montoya, ex-leader of the Tupamaros (because although I’m not with them, he’s still a victim here, and he’s another dead Venezuelan), shot in the chest and then the head.’ That’s what you’re saying. Those are my people, man. Have some damn respect.

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  5. “Let me put this clearly. Y’all need to step it up. The time to discard what you thought you knew about the way things work in Venezuela is now.”
    Ehhhhh… yes.

    Like

  6. I started tweeting again this morning (after many months of inactivity!) maybe because of the same shocking discovery you are talking about – nothing on the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph etc etc. It was all about Ukraine yesterday. I was going to send an email to my coworkers – all English and blissfully ignorant of what’s happening in a remote land called Venezuela – but I stopped. I don’t want them to feel pity :(

    Like

  9. Media outlets in the U.S. have been criticized for only paying attention to what happens in middle eastern countries because they have lots of oil. I guess maybe this disproves that. Venezuela has the largest reserves in the world, and they aren’t paying any attention to this at all.

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    • While it is significant that this is being pointedly ignored by global media, that being said/acknowledged exactly WHAT is the rest of the world supposed to say, think or do beyond the obvious condemnation of a government’s fascist solution to conflict resolution with its dissident populace? If attention is paid, then what next? Should the UN try to intervene somehow as in the chemical weapons being used in Syria scenario or what?

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        • Given the level of corruption, you can probably find it a little here and there. The big money tho, have been stuffed away in huge parafiscal funds like Fonden and the Chinese Fund. Only god and handfull of ‘revolutionaries’ know what has happened with that money.

          Like

    • Agreed. The link to the Telegraph Quico put in the article actually leads to World > Europe. Then I went to the “World” front section and found out Venezuela is at the very very very bottom, with news and a picture of the death of Génesis Carmona, that’s it, nothing else. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ I resent the implication that us Venezuelans aren’t that bothered with violence, but “if you hurt our Misses, oooooooh don’t you dare touch our Misses!”

      It was sort of reported on a few news outlets here in UK when it first blew out on the 12th – I saw a few little snippets on the BBC, Sky and the Guardian, but nothing more. I have been pushing as much as I can, especially from here, onto Facebook, but so far I haven’t seen much interest from locals either. A few friends asked if my family was ok, but that was about it, from people who usually make rather big fusses about Ukraine, Thailand, Libya, Egypt and so on.

      Like

  13. Quico, te pican las manos.
    Its understandable that you cannot stay away, specially with what you have just posted. The game has changed for Venezuela.
    Let’s just hope Capriles’ recent message can connect with protestors, and it can be canalized in the right way, with an clear objective in mind.
    I couldn’t stop thinking about your “Spoiler Alert” post on his broadcast.

    Like

  14. outshined by the ukrainians? Thailand students are also out in the streets and also victims of this blackout, i think its a commercial issue (ukrainian protests with a lot of dead people and actual firefights sell more than our protests… plus they are happening simultaneously with the winter olympics, so it’s something to thrown in Putin’s face… which western media loves to do as well)

    Like

    • Well, there are over 130000 Ukrainians living in Germany alone. My educated guess is that there are less than 4000 Venezuelans, of which less than 800 are registered to vote at the Venezuelan embassy or consulates. That is also something.

      Like

    • As Ryszard Kapusinski said, there are a lot of places on earth where wars and conlicts appear, sadly, the world usually focuses on what EEUU cares. In this case, Ukraine. And it’s a sad thing, because in all this places people are fighting and dying because of what they think and belive.

      Like

      • So I guess if you wanna get into the news – fight more and die more (not a joke…)
        Wailing off balconies at the corrupt security forces and taking shots with your smartphone – its only big news if you live in Venezuela or are Venezuelan.
        They need to up the shit out of the ante

        Like

  16. As I have long sustained: Vz is severely infiltrated by Cubans — more than what most people believe.

    Berenice Gómez ‏@Tururunes · 30m
    ¡Última hora! Vecinos de Cabudare, Lara secuestraron a un guardia nacional y resultó que es un cubano vestido y armado como GN.

    Ana Karina Villalba ‏@ANAVILLALBA · 28m
    MIJ Miguel Rodriguez Torres desmiente q hayan traido a cuerpos élite cubanos “Avispas Negras”. “Aquí los únicos cubanos están en los CDI”

    Resistencia pacífica ‏@chinita1305 · 1h
    No recibí esta foto d ningún twitter es mi familia que trabaja en el aeropuerto d Maiquetia-Mas aviones con militares pic.twitter.com/qU2VW7LiW6

    http://periodismoenlinea.org/mundo/19987/denuncian-que-temible-comando-castrista-las-avispas-negras-llego-venezuela

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  17. I’m appalled by the NYTimes blatant indifference towards the Venezuela subject. Don’t get me wrong, I love my NYTimes. But they suffer from this typical liberal-intellectual leftist syndrome. Somehow, for them the left (especially the left in Latin America) represents something romantic, utopic, almost quaint. Let’s call them “Upper West Side socialists”. La revolución has always been a curious subject for them. They have even sympathized with it. But from the safety of an extremely safe Manhattan, from the abundance of obscenely stocked Whole Foods or Fairways, from the pluralism of thousands media outlets to choose from.
    You know what? In moments like this I would even prefer the coverage that the horrible Right-wing nuts of FoxNews are giving to Venezuela.
    In any case, to give my NYTimes the benefit of the doubt, I just checked their site.
    Venezuela? not much.
    Ukraine is the one making headlines.
    Oh, that and an OP-Ed article written by James Franco on Shia LaBeouf’s recent antics. Sigh.

    Like

  18. Quico,

    Welcome back. I kinda thought you would when things got “interesting”, and I figured that wouldn’t take long.

    Like

  19. Peruvian Newspapers are Reporting the truth on the Chaos in Venezuela. Opposition leaders there are attacking the Humala Regime for not demanding Lopez’s freedom. There are marches to the Venezuelan embassy in Lima(unfortuantely there are some, a few, Maduro supporters in Lima and those idiots were allowed inside the embassy), Capriles and others are supposed to come to Lima Friday. Have included below some feedback/comments from Peruvians.

    COMMENTS FOUND IN PERU’S EL COMMERCIAL REGARDING PRESIDENT HUMALA HIDING FROM VENEZUELAN CRISIS

    Brando Jaime
    un gobierno elegido por las urnas?? POR PURO FRAUDE DIRÁS, se ve que eres un seudo-socialista, simpatizante de la barbarie de este microbusero y del repugnante chavizmo, felizmente gente como ustedes no duran ni durarán.
    Hace 1 hora254
    Todos los comentarios
    Comentarios: 0TODOSREPUTACIÓNOrdenar

    Jose Porfirio
    Maduro es un genocida, dictador ignorante!!!
    Hace 8 minutosResponder

    Mario Antonio Flores Rios
    Están haciendo lo mismo que paso en Egipto. MADURO caerá tarde o temprano
    Hace 9 minutosResponder

    renzo tassi
    Evidentemente, la justicia no existe en venezuela, el dictador juzga y emite sentencias, inclusive, antes de que el presunto infractor sea capturado.Y la OEA, los democratas latinoamericanos, Ollanta Humala, la Villaran, la Republica.Si algo peor pasa en Venezuela, ellos seran complices .
    Hace 14 minutosResponder

    EASU M
    Ya que la UNASUR no se pronuncia…debería intervenir EE.UU. para retirar a este individuo del poder…o acabará siendo la segunda Cuba del continente americano.
    Hace 15 minutos1Responder

    Pedro Manuel
    Matón. Enfermo mental que hasta los pájaros le hablan según su distorsionada mente.
    Hace 15 minutos1Responder

    Javier Javier
    Fascista significa: “Autoritarista”, “Dictador”; entonces el único Fascista aquí es Maduro ..!! O está demente o esta poseido … es ilógico que toda una nación este equivocada o sea “fascista”, y que solo un “brabucón chofer”, tenga la razón ..!! FUERZA VENEZUELA ..!!
    Hace 20 minutos2Responder

    Martin Nuñez Vieyra
    No hay mal que dure 100 años, ya va a caer, Fuerza VENEZUELA.
    Hace 22 minutos1Responder

    Martin Nuñez Vieyra
    El eliminar a Maduro (Matarlo) no sera la solución, habrá un sucesor y seguidores de el q la pobreza y pobreza extrema q es el 50% de ciudadanos de la mayoría de países latinoamericanos siendo su referente, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina y Peru aun, Hermanos, si el Chavismo Cae, busquen la igualdad
    Hace 23 minutos1Responder

    Oscar Toribio
    Y Humala, calladito nomas
    Hace 24 minutos1Responder

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  21. I hate to say this, but the international press doesn’t care (and not with 30+ dead in Ukraine).

    It seems like Venezuela has been crying wolf for 10 years; always hoping someone bails them out. There is always someone who thinks “it can’t get worse, someone will do something to stop it”. Well, nobody is.

    But it’s a sad day when nobody is listening, and we’re finally rising up.

    Like

    • I don’t think bailing out is the right term. What we want is condemnation of a regime that portrays itself as “humanist” and it clearly isn’t.

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      • That’s understandable, but it also get us (as a country) nowhere. Having the satisfaction of the international press condemn the Venezuelan government will not get Maduro out of power.

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        • This regime is shutting down the domestic press so they can do things unobserved. They obviously see significant advantage in being unobserved. We know the things they are doing. They will lose that advantage if they are being observed, and there is some possibility being observed by foreign governments on whose good graces and trade they depend will curb their impulses (some). That is why Maduro,unintentional idiot that he is, was just talking about Bengazi.

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        • I don’t think it is true. Pinochet in part succumbed to international pressure. So did Egypt. There are other examples.

          The end goal doesn’t have to be Maduro per se, but achieving certain flexibility from the government in terms of policies.

          International condemnation is not going to be a silver bullet. But it will be one more thing.

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        • We as a country have been telling the world to look our way for years and years. I’ve lost hope that they will. It’s as if we’re not relevant enough, or violent enough, or wealthy enough. We as Venezuelans are an optimist lot. So I hope for my family’s sake you’re right.

          But I don’t think anything will change, until Venezuelans (of all political spectrums) rise up and create change.

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  22. Somethings gonna happen…” – I heard this the first month I lived in Vz back in 2005 and I have heard it so many times since then. But little has happened and now the crony govt are so deeply embedded into every facet of the country that tearing them in will be at he expense of catastrophic it will be harder and more painful than ever to tear them from power.

    The way I see this is the people behind the current Maduro regime are squeezing so much out of the coffers of this country – literally billions and billions of dollars, that they aren´t going to be giving it up anytime soon. Politics, elections, debate and international pressure have and will continue to achieve very little

    Blood will need to run through the streets, an organised and concerted uprising will need to occur and the death will rise considerably on both sides if there is to be any chance of overthrowing those in power.

    Do the Venezuelans have the stomach for it? Up until now, they have not had, even through all of the vocalising / uproar over the systematic removal of their freedoms. As the skies have darkened around them over the past decade, everyone has waited for and expected someone to do something. But nobody has. I hope it does happen and Venezuela can start on a very long road back to being the great country it should be, but sadly, I doubt it will.

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    • Caracas? Do BBC journalists ever go outside the Maiquetía-Caracas territory?
      There was lots of action elsewhere, not less.

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    • Senor, por favor! Es por que el BBC is pro-socialista. Es un “network” controllado por los socialistas. Claro que si, que ellos van a cubrir el conflicto con un “bias” por los socialistas.

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  26. Wow! Just discovered this site (via fb, I might add). I am married to a Venezuelan expat and feel I have just learned more in an hour than I have in the last seven years married to him.

    I am impressed at your sophisticated writing, style, and journalistic quality.

    I am a high school English teacher and currently reading Orwell’s 1984 with one of my classes… Venezuela seems sadly headed in that direction if the Maduro gov is not overthrown. Keep the masses distracted looking for their harina pan and leche, and they won’t look up to see their liberties being stripped. It appears that the country is finally waking up. As for the rest of the world… Wake up too! Hoy por Los Venezolanos, mañana quiza por nosotros!

    On a humorous note… One poster I saw said, “Maduro, crees que puedes cansar a unos carajitos que estan acostumbrados a rumbear 24/7 todo el año?” Let’s hope they can live up to it and resist!

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  27. Shit !!! We caught you with your pants down … hahahahahaha
    Get back to work. Mamaduro can’t be funnier than than the corpse but he is far more stupid and has far less money.

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  28. Los aviones Sukhois estan sobrevolando San Cristobal, volando bajito y amedrentando a la gente. Recibi un mensaje de una amiga llorando aterrada.

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    • YALMIRA ‏@yalmira · 55m
      @washingtonpost Sukhois fighter jets fly over Táchira,Venezuela.Sukhois a wide range of weapons and destruction power pic.twitter.com/sQDiN1zdX2

      Like

  31. As an American that actually lives in Venezuela, I have lived under this regime since it’s inception. My personal theory (please note that I said ‘personal’, I have no hard evidence to back it up) is that so many politicians want to lift the Cuban embargo that they don’t want to investigate what’s really going on in Venezuela, because the trail leads to Havanna. For whatever reason it is not being covered, I am sickened by the lack of attention to what could become the next genocide.

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    • It hardly has to do with ideological wings when the National Guard and armed thugs are shooting at your building. And don’t you dare to say “Deal with it”. You obviously haven’t experienced the horrors the people here have.

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    • People are not buying “right wing propaganda”… hmm, sure. Right. They also aren´t buying toilet paper, flour, milk, eggs, none of that neoliberal bullshit civilized people eat. Pueblo doesn’t need these kinds of shenanigans to survive… patria and chavez legado is faaar enough.

      They’re not buying bullets, scars, wounds, tear gas or even their bloody deaths… these come for free.

      Look, GNB will start a new “black-friday-esque” kind of deal. Due to shortages, shooting two heads with one bullet will become mainstream. Can’t wait to enjoy these offers!

      You stupid S.O.B

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  35. Crooked politicians, military drug exporters, colectivos, Guardia Nacional amateurs, Diosdado, army, Cubans, castroshite……………..
    If this lot stay together it will be very unVenezuelan. In fact if they do I will eat a toilet roll, if I can find one.
    So the longer this fiasco continues, escalates and hopefully spreads the more likely we will be approaching the Night of the Long Knives. And when that happens weekends at the playa will be in sight.

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  37. You know why there’s a parallel international blackout of what’s happening in Venezuela? Simple. A significant number of 1st world countries depend on Venezuelan oil but who controls the oil? – the government. Other countries and media worldwide won’t echo what’s happening in Venezuela just because they fear of a retaliation from Maduro in regards to the oil bans, etc… that’s my thought. While more people share stories and blogs and all of this media… the voice will be heard.

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    • No, not really. You’re way off base. It’s ideological. The U.S. and U.K. media (with the exception of the UK Daily Mail), are almost universally leftwing. Even Fox News has moved decidedly left in recent years hiring more liberal commentators, analysts, ect…

      It’s a simple situation of liberal media in the U.S. defending a liberal/progressive regime in Venezuela, and not wanting to be embarrassed by Maduro’s crack downs on libertarian/pro-capitalist protesters.

      In short, it doesn’t fit their template.

      Eric Dondero, Editor
      Libertarian Republican

      Like

  38. Well… my post was eliminated… not sure why. I was just showing you that international (portuguese) press is talking about what is happening in Venezuela. Sorry if I posted something that i shouldn’t. We are against any acts of violence and violation of human rights. We are against controlled venezuelan press by the government. Venezuelans’ protest has to be heard by everyone.

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  39. There are two reasons why nobody is covering it.
    1. Oil: Venezuela has a lot and sells it to everyone, even to the Nation’s supposed “enemy” the U.S. If they make a big deal out of the protests, Maduro might retaliate by not selling to them and of course none of the powerful countries want that.
    2. These are NEWSPAPER’s or TV News networks. They can’t afford to publish articles based on what people say on facebook or twitter. They have to publish Official and Confirmed information. Since the Government has censored everything against them, then this news outlets can’t find anything reliable. That’s why you see a lot of reports on Leopoldo Lopez. The official media in Venezuela reported that situation, therefore everyone else can verify the info. Otherwise they would probably end up publishing false reports and their credibility goes to shit. Let’s face it most of the things reported on social media are exaggerated and sometimes completely made-up.

    It is a slow process, but as long as people keep at it in the streets, the information will reach every corner of the world. Let’s do our part by not giving up.

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    • Nope. Actually, there’s only one reason why the U.S. media is not covering the Venezuela story: Liberal/progressive media bias.

      Maduro is their boy. They love the socialist dictator. And they are completely embarrassed by the libertarian/pro-capitalist protesters on the streets against socialism.

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  41. I was watching the news on channel “RTP Informação”, and the journalist interviewed a portuguese descendent that lives in Caracas via skype… He was saying that words on the street are that Venezuelan government is preparing to shutdown CNN’s broadcast all over the country (the only international and impartial channel currently broadcasting on Venezuela). He explained why venezualan students and citizens are protesting and why is so difficult to pass the word out of the country. All the press is controlled by the government and, at this moment, there are a lot of internet connections being shutdown.

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  42. Do you think for a second The United States government would put up with what the government of Venezuela is going through?
    We have waterboarding indefinite detention Guantánamo Bay Terror watch lists, NSA spying etc etc…

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    • If you have problem with US human right records, fight for it. We wish the best of lucks. Meantime let us fight for our rights without getting in our way.

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    • Hmmn, detaining Muslim terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11 in NYC and DC in a shithole barren Cuban desert is a bad thing? Maybe we should give them catered meals, cable TV, work-out gyms, and conjugal visits with their burka-clad wives, ‘eh?

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  44. My media outlet had a lot of stuff in it. But it’s only because I battled editors to put this news in. ‘Battled’ is not that big an overstatement.

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  46. This kinda disproves the popular belief that only oil-rich countries get media coverage :-)

    As someone with first-hand knowledge of what’s going on in Ukraine, I can only say that Western media coverage, although abundant, is mostly shallow and belated. Some outlets still mumble about pro- and anti-EU parties, although it was clear three months ago that the real story was a popular uprising against Russia-sponsored kleptocracy.

    I hope both Ukraine and Venezuela will get rid of the thugs that failed so miserably at governing them. I also hope that it will happen swiftly and without major loss of life. The only ones who deserve to die are the tyrants.

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  47. Quico. I am glad you didn’t stay retired. Here in Venezuela, reading thoughtful analysis on what is going on seen from afar is solace. Thanks.

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  48. Don’t expect the Guardian to cover it – they’re all Socialists wetting their pants with excitement for the Bolivarian revolution.

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  50. We have been giving the socialist attack on the Venezuelan people non-stop coverage at Libertarian Republican here in the U.S.

    Obviously, the leftist media in the U.S. – CNN, AP, NY Times, WaPo – are embarrassed that their boy Maduro is turning out to be a Hitler-like dictator.

    But it is entirely inexplicable as to why normally libertarian-conservative friendly Fox News is not covering the crisis more.

    You should be aware that other libertarian-conservative media in the U.S. are giving you all major coverage. We normally have at least two posts a day about Venezuela, yesterday on Leopoldo Lopez and the murder of Genesis Carmona.

    We U.S. right-libertarians stand with you in your fight against the brutal socialist regime!

    Eric Dondero, Editor
    LibertarianRepublican.net

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  53. The game changer, Quico, at least in Caracas was the capture of the 150 motorcycles used by paid assassins to shoot people dead in teh street. The owners of these bikes will be traced and jailed. They were recieving Bs. 300 per day according to the Intel audio palyed on VTV two nughts ago with General Rivero’s voice.

    Táchira is a dangerous place and if it does not calm down then there will be a state of emergency declared with tanks and tropos sent to combat the Colombian paramilitaries that are working in concert with the Voluntad ¨Popular maypr, Ceballos of San Cristobal, and the mayor of San Antonio and ex Plaza Altamira offender Simon Vargas.

    If Maduro does decide to declare “un estado de excepción” you can bet that both of these traitors will be arrested. In addition, next week MCM will lose her árlimentary immunitry and also be arrested and sent to the Womens Prison in Los Teques. ¡Escríbalo, pana!

    The guarimbas are dying now and what is left is terrorism against the population by foci of small paid groups trained outside the country. The pot of Bs. 120 billion the opposition has assembled to overthrow the government can go a oong way.

    If you think that the state and the armed forces are going to stand idly by while the cities are gradually detroyed, you are gravely mistakenn – especially after 16 gunmen were aprehended in Puerto Ordaz after firing on the remants of a chavista march from the rooftops and woundeding nine people.

    The only jope you have as a now confirmed fascist is US military intervention and if that is what you want. If it happens, then we will all be in danger of being killed as once the US gets its teeth into the country it will not stop until the oil supply is secured – fuck how many Venezuelans die in the process.

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  54. Here’s what we see on TV regarding Venezuela…how long can we continue to ignore the social justice issues that beset our neighbors?

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