Dear International Editor: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.
Here at Caracas Chronicles we're doing what it can to document the crisis, but there's only so much one tiny, zero-budget blog can do.
After the major crackdown on the streets of large (and small) 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.
| They're not going to have anything either if they can help it. If Maduro is toppled they'll have to mention it but in the same breath they'll explain how 'fascist' or 'reactionary' forces or the 'rich' did the dirty work. Perhaps they'll blame the Koch brothers. This is exactly the line the NYT and other news outlets are taking about the Ukraine -- it's those neo-fascist western Ukrainians who are causing all the trouble for the peace-loving eastern, Russified citizens. That the demonstrators in Kiev are far too numerous to be explained by allegiance to some splinter group is never mentioned and never, ever shown on video. It's part of the playbook for the Left: always attempt to atomize your opposition. Convince the opposition that they are alone, marginalized, without friends, without support, and can't possibly succeed. Then perhaps the opposition will put down the stones, pick up their tools and get back to doing their work as part of the 'toiling masses'. And that's why you won't see the NYT talk about what's happening Venezuela. They can't afford to give the people there hope. |