Venezuelan elections - Dead Chavez Edition - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Venezuelan elections - Dead Chavez Edition

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Labradoodle posted:

Think about that, crime is so out of control that thugs didn't think twice about opening fire on a minister's caravan in the capital (my choice of words is very specific here because high ranking government members esentially travel in motorcades wherever they go, a bunch of bulletproof SUVs surrounded by motorcycles with bodyguards). On the topic of bodyguards, once you add their numbers to those of killed policemen you have an even worse figure than 11 per month killed on average; they're usually murdered to steal their firearms which of course sell for a whole bunch of money on top of giving a boost to the status of the criminals who take them down.

If I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a problem mostly separate from whichever government is currently in power, even though the Chavistas' disastrous economic policies and disregard for democracy certainly aren't helping matters. In most Latin American societies (perhaps with the exception of countries like Chile or Costa Rica), there seems to be a huge issue with a lack of social capital and mutual trust, exacerbated by weak institutions and the absence of rule of law. There's no sense of the collective and everyone from the poor to the rich seems willing to completely gently caress over their fellow citizens to advance their own interests even slightly. And I believe that any purely materialist analysis of this phenomenon is always going to be lacking because it appears to be a bottom-up cultural phenomenon that is only somewhat influenced by the top-down policies pursued by the government.

I'd consider this to be the fundamental problem of countries like Venezuela as in other respects Latin America is generally similar to the West and arguably a part of it.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 13:19

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 3, 2024 02:14

M. Discordia: Apr 30, 2003; by Smythe

No, it's not because there's "no sense of the collective." Murders have quadrupled, with constant year-by-year increases, since Chavez took power. It's because there was a political purge of the Caracas police, corruption is rampant, the government barely hides its longtime alliance with narcoterrorists, and the notion that if you're in the politically favored group ("the poor" for short, though this is an intentionally misleading name since it has little to do with actual economic status) you have an unlimited right to do whatever you want to politically disfavored groups ("the rich" for short, though again, this is a calculated deception since it refers to well over half the country, and if Chavismo actually had succeeded in establishing historically unprecedented levels of wealth equality, we wouldn't be having this thread). Allowing supporters to loot, kidnap for ransom, and thrill-kill at will is an intentional policy of Chavismo designed to create loyalty among the most violently antisocial and fear in opponents. You can say there's selfishness or economic problems in any country, but only one country (Honduras, which is currently in a nationwide gang war) has a worse homicide problem than Venezuela, and Venezuela did not used to be significantly dangerous compared to the world.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 19:28

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

Venezuela failed because Chavez and friends had the wrong idol. They modeled the country after the failed Cuba state thus received failing results.

M. Discordia posted:

No, it's not because there's "no sense of the collective." Murders have quadrupled, with constant year-by-year increases, since Chavez took power. It's because there was a political purge of the Caracas police, corruption is rampant, the government barely hides its longtime alliance with narcoterrorists, and the notion that if you're in the politically favored group ("the poor" for short, though this is an intentionally misleading name since it has little to do with actual economic status) you have an unlimited right to do whatever you want to politically disfavored groups ("the rich" for short, though again, this is a calculated deception since it refers to well over half the country, and if Chavismo actually had succeeded in establishing historically unprecedented levels of wealth equality, we wouldn't be having this thread). Allowing supporters to loot, kidnap for ransom, and thrill-kill at will is an intentional policy of Chavismo designed to create loyalty among the most violently antisocial and fear in opponents. You can say there's selfishness or economic problems in any country, but only one country (Honduras, which is currently in a nationwide gang war) has a worse homicide problem than Venezuela, and Venezuela did not used to be significantly dangerous compared to the world.

Lead is the main culprit to why crime raised so much under Chavez:

[url=]http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/could-it-be-that-the-venezuela-murder-rate-did-peak-in-2008[/url]

# ? Jul 18, 2015 20:50

My Imaginary GF: Jul 17, 2005; by R. Guyovich

punk rebel ecks posted:

Venezuela failed because Chavez and friends had the wrong idol. They modeled the country after the failed Cuba state thus received failing results.

Lead is the main culprit to why crime raised so much under Chavez:

[url=]http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/could-it-be-that-the-venezuela-murder-rate-did-peak-in-2008[/url]

Lead ain't the main culprit, the collapse of Venezuelan civil society and institutions under authoritarian rule is the main culprit behind the Venezuelan spike in crime.

It's the same in Venezuela as it is in South Africa.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 20:53

Nintendo Kid: Aug 4, 2011; by Smythe

punk rebel ecks posted:

Venezuela failed because Chavez and friends had the wrong idol. They modeled the country after the failed Cuba state thus received failing results.

Cuba, if nothing else, has done real well at keeping crime under control. It kinda sucks a bit to live there, but nowhere near the way it sucks to be an average Venezuelan, unless your only measure is "is the gasoline basically free".

# ? Jul 18, 2015 20:55

My Imaginary GF: Jul 17, 2005; by R. Guyovich

Nintendo Kid posted:

Cuba, if nothing else, has done real well at keeping crime under control. It kinda sucks a bit to live there, but nowhere near the way it sucks to be an average Venezuelan, unless your only measure is "is the gasoline basically free".

Cuba has done well to keep the perception of crime under control. Cuba has also deported its criminals to America, thus removing them from the island.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 20:58

Kurtofan: Feb 16, 2011; hon hon hon

My Imaginary GF posted:

Cuba has done well to keep the perception of crime under control. Cuba has also deported its criminals to America, thus removing them from the island.

I thought most of them were political prisoners.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 21:24

JeffersonClay: Jun 17, 2003; by R. Guyovich

Are you a Communist huh? How you like it? They tell you all the time what to do, what to think, what to feel. You wanna be like a sheep, like all those other people man, baa baa. You wanna work hey, ten loving hours. You own nothing. You got nothing. You wanna chivato on every corner man, looking after you, watching everything you do, everything you say man. You know I eat octopus three times a day. I got loving octopus coming out of my loving ears man. I got the loving Russian shoes, my feets coming through. How you like that? What you want me to do, stay there and do nothing? I'm no loving criminal. I'm no puta thief. I�m Tony Montana a political prisoner from Cuba and I want my loving human right, now. Just like the president Jimmy Carter says.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 21:48

Kurtofan: Feb 16, 2011; hon hon hon

say hello to my little friend

# ? Jul 18, 2015 21:52

PerpetualSelf: Apr 6, 2015; by Ralp

Is there a single opposition politician left in Venezuela?

I'm wondering what is going to happen to Borneo Retards posting when the military finally gets sick and goes full fascist with a military dictatorship.

Chavez pretty much set the ground work for this ages ago. What a loving retarded chucklefuck

# ? Jul 18, 2015 21:55

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

Nintendo Kid posted:

Cuba, if nothing else, has done real well at keeping crime under control. It kinda sucks a bit to live there, but nowhere near the way it sucks to be an average Venezuelan, unless your only measure is "is the gasoline basically free".

I was referring to Cuban society as a whole. Cuba's economies has been in taters and his never reached to its point of the 1950s after the switch to Communism.

My Imaginary GF posted:

Lead ain't the main culprit, the collapse of Venezuelan civil society and institutions under authoritarian rule is the main culprit behind the Venezuelan spike in crime.

It's the same in Venezuela as it is in South Africa.

Lead gives an impressive correlation that is almost 1:1. The crime has risen and fallen with lead trends.

My Imaginary GF posted:

Cuba has done well to keep the perception of crime under control. Cuba has also deported its criminals to America, thus removing them from the island.

Cuba has deported nowhere near enough criminals to America to keep the situation under control.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 22:14

M. Discordia: Apr 30, 2003; by Smythe

punk rebel ecks posted:

Lead gives an impressive correlation that is almost 1:1. The crime has risen and fallen with lead trends.

The same source you cited advancing this hypothesis ran another article a year later showing it isn't the case since the rate has continued to go up. http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/is-venezuela-becoming-the-most-dangerous-nation-in-latin-america

The worldwide data that the compelling lead hypothesis is based on shows a dramatic fall starting in the early 1990s, when people who would reach the prime age for committing violent crime (16-25) began to come from groups who were never exposed to lead in paint and gasoline as children. Venezuela starts going up in 1998 and just keeps going. It's also impossible that Venezuela's airborne contaminants would not affect its nearby neighbors like Colombia and Trinidad, but they aren't seeing the same trend.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 22:29

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

M. Discordia posted:

The same source you cited advancing this hypothesis ran another article a year later showing it isn't the case since the rate has continued to go up. http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/is-venezuela-becoming-the-most-dangerous-nation-in-latin-america

The worldwide data that the compelling lead hypothesis is based on shows a dramatic fall starting in the early 1990s, when people who would reach the prime age for committing violent crime (16-25) began to come from groups who were never exposed to lead in paint and gasoline as children. Venezuela starts going up in 1998 and just keeps going. It's also impossible that Venezuela's airborne contaminants would not affect its nearby neighbors like Colombia and Trinidad, but they aren't seeing the same trend.

The site's article was originally a blog post from Carcas Chronicles http://caracaschronicles.com/2014/01/30/could-it-be-that-the-murder-rate-has-really-been-falling/. The data directly shows lead exposion levels to Venezuela's population (lagged for age) and its homicide rate. There is a very strong correlation. The new article you linked is the site using data exclusively from one of the trackers of Venezuela's murders which tends to be very liberal with their homicide estimates.

TAnd yes lead was phased out in the United States of AmericaAlso to the bolded, that isn't how lead poisoning works.

punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Jul 19, 2015

# ? Jul 19, 2015 16:25

tsa: Feb 3, 2014

punk rebel ecks posted:

Venezuela failed because Chavez and friends had the wrong idol. They modeled the country after the failed Cuba state thus received failing results.

Lead is the main culprit to why crime raised so much under Chavez:

[url=]http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/could-it-be-that-the-venezuela-murder-rate-did-peak-in-2008[/url]

http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Every study I've seen on lead poisoning uses pretty awful analysis techniques that basically amount to curve fitting. Very unconvincing in general.

e: not surprised the article was done by someone without formal training in statistics.

tsa fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Jul 19, 2015

# ? Jul 19, 2015 17:14

beer_war: Mar 10, 2005

Chuck Boone posted:

The Comptroller General has just disqualified Enzo Scarano (another opposition National Assembly candidate) from holding office for a period of one year. Same thing that they did to Maria Corina Machado two days ago.

Scarano was the mayor of San Diego, Carabobo state, until March of last year, when the government removed him from office for failing to refuse an order to clear protesters from the streets of San Diego. He served 10 months in the Ramo Verde military prison where Leopoldo Lopez has been held since February of last year.

At the time, Scarano (alongside Daniel Ceballos, the mayor of San Cristobal who was also removed from office at the same time for the same reason) argued that municipal police forces are legally unable to act in protests scenarios, a role which is left to the National Guard and the National Bolivarian Police.

I believe that Daniel Ceballos was also elected to represent a district in Tachira in the December 6 elections, so we can all probably look forward to his disqualification sooner or later. (EDIT: My bad - it looks like he was disqualified back on July 6)

Now Pablo P�rez has been barred for 10 motherfucking years.

At this point they are just barring people because gently caress you, that's why.

beer_war fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jul 19, 2015

# ? Jul 19, 2015 17:32

Chuck Boone: Feb 12, 2009; El Turpial

beer_war posted:

Now Pablo P�rez has been barred for 10 motherfucking years.

At this point they are just barring people because gently caress you, that's why.

PerpetualSelf posted:

Is there a single opposition politician left in Venezuela?

There are lots, but four high-profile ones have been disqualified this month, three of them in the last week. There are some really serious legal questions regarding whether or not the Comptroller General even has the power to disqualify people from holding office, but here we are.

On a related note, Hugo Carvajal was elected in the PSUV primaries to represent a district in Monagas in the December elections. The same Hugo Carvajal who was arrested in Aruba last year on suspicion of being involved in drug trafficking.

Phlegmish posted:

If I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a problem mostly separate from whichever government is currently in power, even though the Chavistas' disastrous economic policies and disregard for democracy certainly aren't helping matters. In most Latin American societies (perhaps with the exception of countries like Chile or Costa Rica), there seems to be a huge issue with a lack of social capital and mutual trust, exacerbated by weak institutions and the absence of rule of law. There's no sense of the collective and everyone from the poor to the rich seems willing to completely gently caress over their fellow citizens to advance their own interests even slightly. And I believe that any purely materialist analysis of this phenomenon is always going to be lacking because it appears to be a bottom-up cultural phenomenon that is only somewhat influenced by the top-down policies pursued by the government.

I'd consider this to be the fundamental problem of countries like Venezuela as in other respects Latin America is generally similar to the West and arguably a part of it.

I want to touch on this topic a bit and the discussion it spurred because I think there's a danger of downplaying the very serious errors the government has committed in dealing with crime, errors which have without a doubt exacerbated the issue.

As you've pointed out, Phlegmish, I agree that it's important to ask "Where have we seen this before?" whenever we come across any phenomenon. However, I think that it's also really important to ask, "How is this different from similar cases we've seen before?".

Labradoodle pointed out that the assault on the Cota 905 coincided with an earlier attack attack on a government minister's caravan in the area. He also pointed out that the Cota 905 is designated as a "Zona de Paz" [Peace Zone]. These so-called Peace Zones have become a fairly contentious issue since they came into existence in 2013. There were originally 79 Peace Zones in areas selected because of their high crime rates. As Labradoodle said, the idea of the Peace Zone is that security forces agree to stay out of them (unless they give advance warning that they are planning to enter one), with the stipulation that the communities will in essence police themselves. What appears to have happened is that at least some of the Peace Zones have become safe-havens for criminals and criminal organizations who can operate without fear of coming into contact with the police.

This isn't the first time that a Peace Zone has been in the news this year. In April, ten people were murdered in a shooting inside a building in Lomas de Guadalupe, in Ocumare del Tuy, which is another Peace Zone.

In the case of the Cota 905, then, I'd argue that the government policy of deliberately not policing certain areas definitely has an immediate role in leading to the kind of violence that we saw on Monday. Certainly a much more immediate role than, say, regional social attitudes between socio-economic groups or environmental causes of crime.

Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jul 19, 2015

# ? Jul 19, 2015 22:54

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

tsa posted:

http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Every study I've seen on lead poisoning uses pretty awful analysis techniques that basically amount to curve fitting. Very unconvincing in general.

e: not surprised the article was done by someone without formal training in statistics.

If you are going to provide a reasonable critique you have to do better than "Correlation doesn't always equal causation so THERE!"

The relationship between lead poisoning and violence is found in pretty much every country:

Source posted:

Nevin collected lead data and crime data for Australia and found a close match. Ditto for Canada. And Great Britain and Finland and France and Italy and New Zealand and West Germany. Every time, the two curves fit each other astonishingly well. When I spoke to Nevin about this, I asked him if he had ever found a country that didn't fit the theory. "No," he replied. "Not one."

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline

Chuck Boone posted:

There are lots, but four high-profile ones have been disqualified this month, three of them in the last week. There are some really serious legal questions regarding whether or not the Comptroller General even has the power to disqualify people from holding office, but here we are.

Are many of them socialists or are most of them center-leftists? I'm curious to see how many of these left wing opposition figures are showing that Chavez's form of socialist ideology is cracking.

punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jul 20, 2015

# ? Jul 20, 2015 21:15

Chuck Boone: Feb 12, 2009; El Turpial

The Cota 905 raid last week is still in the news because some of the relatives of the people arrested have filed complaints with the People's Defender, Tareck William Saab. In a press conference today, Saab admitted that there appear to have been "excessive force" used by officers during the raid, but he justified the operation by saying:

quote:

That area was impossible to go through. They had checkpoints, and they dedicated themselves to murder not only police officers and National Guard soldiers, but they even shot at a Minister�s caravan. There was a lot of concern about what was happening there.

Saab said that while he hasn't received any complaints from the relatives of the people who died, he has received 20 complaints from people who had contact with police officers during the raid.

Some of the relatives of the people killed/arrested in the raid held a protest outside the Attorney General's office in Caracas last week. Here is a video of one of the protesters giving her opinion about the situation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MqY67a55to), and here's a translation of what she said:

quote:

They�re trying to hide what they did. This is a sham. And now they�re saying that they�re going to build roads, sports courts and homes in the Cota 905! This is a lie! They�re just saying that to hide what they did. They�re cowards! Maduro, you�re killing Chavez�s grandchildren! He says that we�re Chavez�s grandchildren, and he�s murdering them. He�s stepping over everything our Commander [Chavez] did for us. He needs to learn how to run this country, because he�s failing. We put him in office, and we�re going to remove him from office. We won�t give him even a single vote. He�s in office thanks to the poor. Being poor is not shameful, and it�s not a crime, and the only wrong we�ve done is being poor. We can�t afford to live in gated communities. The police say that everything that we own � computers �, that it�s all stolen. We got all of that by working. We earned that with our sweat! They [the police] stole computers, money, televisions, and house plants from us.

punk rebel ecks posted:

Are many of them socialists or are most of them center-leftists? I'm curious to see how many of these left wing opposition figures are showing that Chavez's form of socialist ideology is cracking.

I don't think any of the politicians in question would refer to themselves as socialist.

However, the post-Chavez PSUV has become fractured. The Marea Socialista [Socialist Tide] party broke away from the PSUV earlier this year and it's leader, Hector Navarro, has become an outspoken critic of Maduro. I can't find the article in which he said this, but Navarro has stressed that while he is a chavista, he is not a madurista. In this sense, the party claims to adhere to "real chavismo", not whatever Maduro's PSUV has become.

There are also rumours that the PSUV is split between two camps: Diosdado Cabello supporters and Nicolas Maduro supporters, but I've never heard any evidence of this beyond hearsay.

# ? Jul 22, 2015 00:33

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

I really, really hope Chavez won't end up casting a huge, eternal shadow over Venezuela's politics as Peron did in Argentina. The whole "No, I'm the REAL chavist" leads me to believe this will be the case, even if Maduro gets kicked out/the country collapses into itself.

# ? Jul 22, 2015 07:02

M. Discordia: Apr 30, 2003; by Smythe

It can be a necessary face-saving move after years of "dissenting from Chavez = traitor to Venezuela" rhetoric. Just like when Gorbachev brought the USSR out of communism by conveniently discovering that capitalism is the real socialism since it benefits the people, or even people selling gay rights to Christians based on novel readings of the Bible. When people are getting murdered or running out of food, you don't always have time to change their core identities and need to work your solution into the available framework.

# ? Jul 22, 2015 07:11

Tony_Montana: Apr 1, 2010

Phlegmish posted:

If I have to be perfectly honest, I think this is a problem mostly separate from whichever government is currently in power, even though the Chavistas' disastrous economic policies and disregard for democracy certainly aren't helping matters. In most Latin American societies (perhaps with the exception of countries like Chile or Costa Rica), there seems to be a huge issue with a lack of social capital and mutual trust, exacerbated by weak institutions and the absence of rule of law. There's no sense of the collective and everyone from the poor to the rich seems willing to completely gently caress over their fellow citizens to advance their own interests even slightly. And I believe that any purely materialist analysis of this phenomenon is always going to be lacking because it appears to be a bottom-up cultural phenomenon that is only somewhat influenced by the top-down policies pursued by the government.

I'd consider this to be the fundamental problem of countries like Venezuela as in other respects Latin America is generally similar to the West and arguably a part of it.

Yes, you captured it perfectly well. This is at the root of almost all the problems in Latin America since its conception, this was only a place for making a personal fortune regardless of everything else, starting with the Conquistadors. There was never any sort of grand scale national project except for some weak attempts. We should have had our independence granted in an organized and progressive way from Spain as it happened with some countries in the British Commonwealth, instead of taking advantage of the Napoleonic wars in Europe and the consequent weakening of Spain in 1810-1819. The elites have almost always been corrupt and incompetent or careless and pushed the rest of the population into becoming resentful assholes as well by denying them opportunities and a sense of purpose. We were unprepared to be free.

Chavez will cast a shadow on Venezuela forever, my worry is that the country will never actually collapse or have a strong enough crisis to change their ways. They may remain in an eternal lovely state as it is today, never really becoming unlivable but never improving either.

# ? Jul 22, 2015 17:53

punk rebel ecks: Dec 11, 2010; A shitty post? This calls for a dance of deduction.

I always felt that the tidal wave of Chavismo in Venezuela had little to do with "socialism" or "equality" and more to do with many Venezuelan's "sticking it to the white man." When ever I hear the reason why many Latin Americans support Chavez and co. it usually boils down to things like "Chavez being proud of where he came from and who he is" or "fighting against American imperialism" or some poo poo. It rarely has to do with equality and if it does it usually ties into the two reasons I listed. And as much as it may make some angry, the Venezuelan right is similar (though not as strong) as they often give stupid criticisms like how they complain that Maduro was once a bus driver. I find that many people don't really give a drat about left or right wing economics, they only care when they tie into cultural and social beliefs. Similar to in the US how many convservatives dislike social assitance because they see it as aiding people moving away from God and "family values".

Tony_Montana posted:

Chavez will cast a shadow on Venezuela forever, my worry is that the country will never actually collapse or have a strong enough crisis to change their ways. They may remain in an eternal lovely state as it is today, never really becoming unlivable but never improving either.

Time heals all things.

Chuck Boone posted:

I can't find the article in which he said this, but Navarro has stressed that while he is a chavista, he is not a madurista. In this sense, the party claims to adhere to "real chavismo", not whatever Maduro's PSUV has become.

Is he criticising the fact that Maduro is more authoritarian and corrupt than Chavez or that he doesn't follow the same exact policies?

# ? Jul 26, 2015 07:56

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Yes, Chavismo definitely ties into a sort of 'tercermundismo' that has had a strong pull in Latin America since at least the Cold War. It tends to place a lot of blame on capitalism, imperialism and American intervention, of course not entirely without reason. It's the world view promoted by books like Galeano's Las venas abiertas de Am�rica Latina.

I don't know about the racial aspect, while it's true that these people tend to vaguely promote the concept of 'la raza c�smica' (mixed-race mestizos and mulattos) being the future, for historical reasons some of the strongest anti-American sentiment can be found in Argentina, one of the most European countries in the Americas. Meanwhile, in certain overwhelmingly mestizo countries like Chile, it barely exists. So I would say it's more of a general distrust of 'Anglo-Americans'.

# ? Jul 26, 2015 12:29

Labradoodle: Nov 24, 2011; Crax daubentoni

punk rebel ecks posted:

Is he criticising the fact that Maduro is more authoritarian and corrupt than Chavez or that he doesn't follow the same exact policies?

It's a fantasy from those people who don't want to admit that supporting Chavez's policies was an error; Maduro certainly is bad, but for the most part he's done literally nothing except continue on the path Chavez laid out: no major economic policies have been reverted, widespread staggering corruption in the government is still being covered up and he's continued jailing opposition members for political reasons and suppressing protests violently, albeit both with much less regards to public or international opinion.

The main difference between the Chavez era and the Maduro era is lack of money. Right now they're in the tough spot of needing to implement urgent economic measures before shits gets really critical (which would mean that the big guys lose their lucrative side businesses involving smuggling and reselling dollars in the black market) or just doubling down on the policies that got them in this shitstorm in the first place. They've chosen the second.

# ? Jul 26, 2015 14:56

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

punk rebel ecks posted:

I always felt that the tidal wave of Chavismo in Venezuela had little to do with "socialism" or "equality" and more to do with many Venezuelan's "sticking it to the white man." When ever I hear the reason why many Latin Americans support Chavez and co. it usually boils down to things like "Chavez being proud of where he came from and who he is" or "fighting against American imperialism" or some poo poo. It rarely has to do with equality and if it does it usually ties into the two reasons I listed. And as much as it may make some angry, the Venezuelan right is similar (though not as strong) as they often give stupid criticisms like how they complain that Maduro was once a bus driver. I find that many people don't really give a drat about left or right wing economics, they only care when they tie into cultural and social beliefs. Similar to in the US how many convservatives dislike social assitance because they see it as aiding people moving away from God and "family values".

I think it's fairly typical in a lot of countries to use the race, class or ethnicity of a politician as a guide to whether or not they will help or hurt you and people like you. In a lot of cases it's probably not altogether inaccurate either given the way politics requires the generation of in-groups and out-groups. To build on your US example, a lot of opposition to welfare policies is tied up in anxieties about money going to people with the wrong skin colour.

# ? Jul 26, 2015 17:29

Tony_Montana: Apr 1, 2010

I think it's all more about "fighting American Imperialism" and "being proud of his roots" in the sense of his social class, but not of his race. In Latin America race (in the sense of general skin color and appearance) overlaps and is correlated to socioeconomic class and group rivalry because of historic reasons, but not always. "White people" translated into Spanish strictly makes reference to a fairish skin color as a description of someone's basic physical characteristics, but notto his or her ancestry or origins unless people are discussing history, in other contexts would sound strange and foreign. So someone could be "white" by chance even though one of his parents is more "brown". When discussing local politics people tend to think more in terms of nationalities, economic interest groups and social class.

Besides, there are plenty of Whites even in the Andean countries (mixed and not mixed), some of them in the Venezuelan government (Tarek El-Aissami looks kind of white for instance). And the regime has criticized Santos and Uribe in Colombia, both of whom look mostly white, but to my knowledge the criticisms have been purely political.

Common people criticize the rich or "the gringos", but "white people" as an identifiable group that could be identified as an enemy doesn't exist as a category IMO outside of history discussions. The imperialist gringos just happen to be "white". The whole "white people" thing is North American and European mostly.

There are some issues though with the October 12th festivities and bashing Columbus though.

# ? Jul 27, 2015 00:47

M. Discordia: Apr 30, 2003; by Smythe

Chavismo wants Venezuela to be as riven by racial divides and anti-American backlash as the rest of Latin America, because that's how authoritarian movements work -- constantly finding new conspiracies and traitors among the "other" group that the government must have your unconditional allegiance to fight. And even if you generally support a more left-wing government but you wish that there was more cooking oil on store shelves, or don't support the interference with people's voting, then hey you're probably one of those CIA plants that is everywhere and you're now an enemy of the people.

In a sense, it's a flight from responsibility and reality. Especially as regards the U.S., Venezuela really has almost nothing to complain about, historically. I still have to explain to Americans that there are over 20 countries in Latin America (exact number depending on which small islands in the Caribbean and which majority French-speaking states count) and they aren't all the same. That Venezuela doesn't grow a significant amount of bananas and was never under American military occupation. But I get the feeling that even some people in Venezuela want the easy excuse of having the "open veins" exploited to justify why they can't act like a liberal democracy. They don't want to remember when the U.S. stood up for Venezuela's democracy against Trujillo's interference in 1960, or that their history, for good and bad, has been in their own hands for more years than almost any other country in the hemisphere. There's a calculated decision to address real problems with Venezuela's economy in 1998 by appealing to uninformed leftists abroad and the coalition of every anti-American regime under the sun, that had a lot more to do with entrenching a power base and making any opposition into treason than it did with solving the real issues.

Just like with the great authoritarian movements of the twentieth century, the lure of the easily explainable world is powerful. Being a citizen of an open society requires understanding that there are multiple economic, climatological, and political factors swirling around, and a great deal of randomness controlled by absolutely no one, that can affect your country as a whole and you as an individual, and no one can perfectly predict what will happen tomorrow. Being a member of a totalitarian movement tells you that there's only two forces in the world -- the Leader, who is good, and the Jews/bourgoisie/socialists/CIA/satanists, who are orchestrating everything bad because it is their role to oppose that which is good. It gives a false sense of understanding to those for whom complexity and uncertainty are more terrifying than oppression. In a sense, Chavez and Maduro are not best explained by their supporters or opponents who focus on the minutiae of day-to-day events, but by Hannah Arendt and Karl Popper, who provided a still-relevant overall view of the psychology of those who join authoritarian movements.

# ? Jul 27, 2015 08:11

Borneo Jimmy: Feb 27, 2007; by Smythe

Here's a very good investigative report on Leopoldo Lopez
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/the-making-of-leopoldo-lopez-democratic-venezuela-opposition/

quote:

CARACAS � In the nearly year and a half since street protests rocked Caracas, the U.S. press has been kind to Leopoldo L�pez, the 44-year-old jailed leader of Venezuela�s radical opposition. He has been painted as a combination of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and his distant grand uncle, Sim�n Bol�var, for his magnetic brand of in-your-face politics. Newsweek wrote of his �twinkling chocolate-colored eyes and high cheekbones� and called L�pez a �revolutionary who has it all.� The New York Times published a photo of him, jaw out, fist in the air, in front of a crowd of screaming protesters and gave him a platform on its op-ed page. In New York, when the United Nations met last September, protestors rallied to show support for L�pez, and President Barack Obama listed him among a group of political prisoners from repressive countries such as China and Egypt who �deserve to be free.� L�pez, who has done interviews shirtless, came to embody freedom and democracy for audiences across the globe, with stars from Kevin Spacey to Cher rallying to his cause, while the hashtag #freeleopoldo rocketed across Twitter.

But in Venezuela the picture is far more complicated. L�pez has been in jail since February 2014 on charges of arson, public incitement, and conspiracy related to the first big anti-government protest that year, on Feb. 12, 2014, which left three protesters dead and kicked off weeks of rallies, street blockades, vandalism, and violence. The charges against him, which Amnesty International has called �politically motivated,� could carry a prison sentence of 10 years. Outside the courtroom, the public debate continues to swirl between those who believe L�pez is a freedom fighter facing trumped-up charges and those who believe he is the violent �fascista� the government of President Nicol�s Maduro claims.

Compared to that wave of street protests � which ultimately left a total of 43 anti-government protesters, government supporters, and national guardsmen dead � L�pez�s trial has proceeded largely without fanfare. The judge has been far from friendly to L�pez�s defense, rejecting all but one of the 65 witnesses his attorneys sought to call, while admitting 108 witnesses for the prosecution. �This isn�t a trial,� L�pez wrote from jail last summer. �It�s a firing squad.� Last September, by means of his official Twitter handle, he claimed that Maduro and his interior minister were �the ones truly responsible for the violent acts.� Still, when proceedings resumed this February, Venezuelan media barely took note.

L�pez�s court dates in Caracas have generally attracted only small groups of supporters outside the courthouse, led by Lilian Tintori, L�pez�s wife. Other key opposition leaders have stayed away, though they routinely voice support for L�pez�s release. A recent campaign by his party, Voluntad Popular, to convene an assembly to rewrite the constitution and reorganize the government attracted criticism, with the leader of a rival opposition party calling for �responsibility and maturity� and one opposition governor calling for an end to �anarchy or guarimbas,� the street barricades that were the preferred tactic of L�pez�s youthful followers.
* * *

During visits to Venezuela last year, it was clear that L�pez remained a rock star among young opposition activists, even after his arrest. �Leopoldo is a person of extremely high democratic and Catholic values,� Alejandro Aguirre, a member of JAVU (United Activist Youth of Venezuela), one of the main student groups behind the February protests, told me. �He�s also an athlete,� added Aguirre, who I met at a May 7 opposition forum called �Thinking Differently Is Not a Crime� that was hosted at El Nacional, one of the country�s largest newspapers. �Athletes are morally clean, unblemished, [and] more mentally sharp than other people.� He also talked about L�pez being a good family man. �Leopoldo,� he said, �is an example for youth.�

Later that day, the telegenic Tintori, a former model, kite-surfing champion, and reality show star, appeared at a rally for political prisoners held in Chacao, the Caracas district where her husband once served as mayor and which has been a center of anti-government opposition. It also happens to be one of the wealthiest localities in all of Venezuela. Vibrant in a bright orange windbreaker, with her flawless smile and long blonde hair, Tintori�s strengths as standard-bearer for her jailed husband�s message were on full display.

�They want to imprison our dream!� she shouted, posed next to one of the life-sized cardboard figures of her husband that had become ubiquitous in the opposition strongholds of wealthy eastern Caracas. She praised her husband�s record as mayor, mentioning a Chacao health clinic where doctors �treat you with love, as if you were someone special.� She continued, �This is what we Venezuelans are all like, all equal, rights for all people without distinction and without privileges! Today, the struggle of one is the struggle of all!�

The day�s events offered a glimpse of the media-powered populism that has helped L�pez and his political party gain traction where Venezuela�s established opposition, led by a coalition called the MUD, or Democratic Unity Roundtable, has failed. The opposition lost big in 18 of the 19 national and regional elections and referenda held since former President Hugo Ch�vez was first elected in 1998. Though rarely noted in the U.S. media, the deep-seated rifts between the MUD and its leader, Henrique Capriles, and the younger, more radical flank of the Venezuelan opposition led by L�pez are reported on with the excitement of a soap opera in Venezuelan media. �For the opposition parties, Lopez draws ire second only to Chavez,� Mary Ponte, a leading member of the center-right Primero Justicia opposition party, once said, according to a 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable. �The only difference between the two is that L�pez is a lot better looking.� In a section of the same U.S. embassy cable titled �The Lopez �Problem,�� U.S. State Department officials described L�pez as a �divisive figure within the opposition� who is �often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry � but party officials also concede his enduring popularity, charisma, and talent as an organizer.� Certainly no previous Venezuelan opposition leader has succeeded in projecting himself onto the international stage like L�pez has.

But the international embrace of L�pez has depended heavily on his image as a stalwart defender of democracy � someone at a safe distance from the highly unpopular coup attempt of April 2002, in which elements of the military and business leaders ousted President Ch�vez for 47 hours. A July 2014 white paper about his trial authored by two attorneys who have represented him and his family � Jared Genser and Jos� Antonio Maes � asserts that �L�pez was not a supporter of the coup and he did not sign the Act Constituting the Government of Democratic Transition and National Unity (�Carmona Decree�), the document that attempted to oust Ch�vez and dissolve the National Assembly and Supreme Court � nor was he allied with the business leaders who led it.� L�pez himself often points to his loyalty to the constitution, as in the New York Times op-ed which appeared in March 2014, in which he wrote, �A change in leadership can be accomplished entirely within a constitutional and legal framework.�

But interviews with key figures in the 2002 coup, a look at L�pez�s close associates, and a review of Venezuelan press accounts, videotaped events, and U.S. government documents paint a more complex picture about these claims.
* * *

Leopoldo L�pez was born in 1971 to one of Venezuela�s most elite families, a direct descendent of both 19th-century revolutionary leader Sim�n Bolivar and Venezuela�s first president, Crist�bal Mendoza. His mother, Antonieta Mendoza de L�pez, is a top executive at the Cisneros Group, a global media conglomerate. His father, Leopoldo L�pez Gil, is a restaurateur and businessman who sits on the editorial board of El Nacional.

�I belong to one percent of the privileged people,� L�pez said as a teenager, long before the Occupy movement popularized the term, during an interview with a student newspaper at the Hun School of Princeton, an elite private boarding school in New Jersey. It was at Hun, whose alumni roster includes Saudi princes, the child of a U.S. president, and the child of a Fortune 500 CEO, that L�pez said he experienced �an awakening of the responsibility I have towards the people of my country.�

L�pez went on from Hun to Kenyon College, a liberal arts college in Ohio, where he developed relationships that would serve him to this day. It was a former classmate and political consultant, Rob Gluck, who led the effort to set up Friends of a Free Venezuela, the media-centered advocacy group behind a high-profile U.S. campaign for L�pez�s release. As a testament to the �powerful impact [L�pez] has had on people,� Gluck, a spokesperson for the group, told me, �within days of the arrest, really within hours,� friends from Kenyon in influential positions in journalism, communications, advocacy, and government were �emailing, connecting, volunteering, [and] asking what could we do.�

Some of these classmates went on to found the Free Leopoldo campaign, a well-connected advocacy group that has run a vibrant PR and social media campaign on L�pez�s behalf. Among the Kenyon classmates helping to power Free Leopoldo in the United States is Republican Party operative Leonardo Alcivar, who ran communications strategies for the Romney campaign and the 2004 Republican National Convention and now works at a communications firm that advises companies on their online strategy. No other element of the Venezuelan opposition has anything resembling the U.S. media operation that L�pez has through Free Leopoldo.

Gluck is himself also a former Republican strategist who worked on Lamar Alexander�s presidential campaign and the successful campaign to recall California Governor Gray Davis, which resulted in the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is currently a managing partner at High Lantern Group, a Pasadena-based communications strategy firm. He said L�pez has �always been progressive,� and if measured on the U.S. political spectrum, he�d be �left of center.� Gluck runs Friends of a Free Venezuela pro bono � �personal time, passion, and connections� drive the work, he said � but his communications firm has also been retained by L�pez�s family, he said, to �get the message out about [L�pez�s] situation.�

After Kenyon, L�pez went to Harvard�s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he met another influential figure who would become a key supporter � Venezuelan national Pedro Burelli, a former JP Morgan executive and pre-Ch�vez-era member of the board of directors of PDVSA, Venezuela�s national petroleum firm, which controls the world�s largest crude reserves. The two first met, Burelli said, during a recruiting trip at Harvard while Burelli was still at JP Morgan. �Someone called my attention to this young Venezuelan who was at the Kennedy School where I had graduated many years before,� said Burelli, who is now a corporate consultant with B+V Advisors, �and I connected him.� L�pez went to work at PDVSA in 1996 and stayed there as an analyst for three years during Burelli�s tenure on PDVSA�s board. In 1998, L�pez�s mother joined PDVSA as well, as vice president of corporate affairs.

Burelli considers himself a �very good friend� of L�pez, and said he has provided informal advice to the opposition leader through his many contentious political transitions, from L�pez�s time at PDVSA to the most recent clashes with the Maduro government. Burelli explained that while he was at PDVSA, L�pez helped found a group called Primero Justicia � which led, in 2000, to the formation of an opposition party of the same name. In 1998, a comptroller general investigation found that L�pez�s mother had channeled $120,000 in corporate donations from PDVSA to Primero Justicia while she and L�pez were at the firm, in violation of anti-corruption laws. L�pez�s attorneys point out that Primero Justicia was a nonprofit at the time, not yet a party, and L�pez never stood trial on the charges. But the comptroller general nevertheless barred L�pez from holding office from 2008 until 2014.

L�pez left Primero Justicia in 2007 over disputes with other party members and then leapt from one political party to another, leading up to his quixotic run for president in 2012 on the ticket of his current party, Voluntad Popular. He was also, during these years, playing a pivotal role in Venezuela�s rising student opposition movement. A leaked State Department cable from 2007 reads, in part, �the young, dynamic opposition mayor of Chacao Municipality in Caracas, Leopoldo Lopez, addressed students during early demonstrations in his jurisdiction, and he is actively advising them behind-the-scenes�; another describes L�pez as �the best channel to the student movement.� Some JAVU leaders, including one mentioned in the cables, went on to become active in Voluntad Popular, the party that fueled L�pez�s rise to national prominence.

While L�pez was honing his political skills and building his base, he stayed in the shadow of his former ally in the Venezuelan opposition, Henrique Capriles, who remained the leader of Primero Justicia, running for president twice. But Capriles lost badly to Ch�vez, by more than 1 million votes, in 2012, contributing to catastrophic losses by the opposition coalition in governors� races later that year. In 2013, Capriles lost again to Maduro, albeit in a tighter race. These losses created new divisions among the opposition and � combined with Venezuela�s economic downturn and the long wait until Maduro�s term expires in 2019 � sparked L�pez and his student allies to take to the streets in February of last year, where they clamored for �Libertad!� and �Democracia!� They also began to call for the �salida,� or exit, of Maduro, a cry that was used widely against Ch�vez in 2002.
* * *

Democracy is at the heart of the new, more radical movement�s claim to legitimacy. And central to that claim is the ability of their charismatic leader to distance himself from Venezuela�s brief 2002 coup attempt, which remains an open political wound.

In mid-April 2002, in the midst of an opposition-led general strike against PDVSA and mass protests against (and in support of) President Hugo Ch�vez, a group of military and business leaders took Ch�vez into custody and appointed an interim president, Pedro Carmona, then-president of Venezuela�s Federation of Chambers of Commerce. The key document in which the plotters announced their new government was signed at Miraflores, the presidential palace, on April 12, 2002, the day Ch�vez was arrested and Carmona assumed power. Known as the �Carmona Decree,� the document dissolved the National Assembly and the Supreme Court, effectively nullifying the country�s 1999 constitution. The fate of the coup attempt hinged on the events that unfolded over the surrounding days, as the opposition movement mounted a general strike, mass protests, and a media campaign to bolster the legitimacy of the Carmona government at home and abroad. While the attempt was denounced by governments across the globe, former U.S. President George W. Bush�s administration declined to do so, putting wind in Carmona�s sails. For days, military leaders had been pressuring Ch�vez to willingly step down, and coup leaders then claimed, falsely, that he had done so. Meanwhile, pro-Ch�vez forces organized mass demonstrations of their own; riding that wave, pro-Ch�vez military officers threatened to remove Carmona, at which point he resigned, and Ch�vez was airlifted back to the presidential palace.

The attempted coup remains very unpopular in Venezuela, in no small part because of Carmona�s decision to throw out the constitution, a document that just three years earlier had been approved by an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans, including many opposition sympathizers. A September 2003 poll by Datan�lisis, one of Venezuela�s most prominent polling firms, found that more than 90 percent of respondents preferred that the country�s political crisis be resolved by legal, democratic, and peaceful means. The unpopularity of the coup was further confirmed by Ch�vez�s resounding victory in a 2004 recall election. And those two days in 2002 remain a �delicate� subject among the opposition, according to Datan�lisis�s president, Luis Vicente Le�n. �They did something they�ve tried to forget,� he said, �and they want to keep it that way.�

L�pez and his allies on the radical flank of the opposition have long tried to distance themselves from its memory. Over the years, L�pez has emphasized that he did not sign Carmona�s decree � no evidence indicates that he did � and that he had no role in organizing the coup attempt. �At no point was L�pez ever a proponent of the coup, nor was he allied with the business leaders who led it,� the white paper by his attorneys reads. The paper was released on July 21, 2014, at a National Press Club press conference that featured an emotional appeal by Tintori for �solidarity� and for her husband�s release from jail. �It breaks my heart,� she told the gathering of journalists and supporters, �having to explain to my daughter after every visit why her daddy can�t come home.�

But news reports, parliamentary records, U.S. government documents, video recordings, and interviews show that L�pez was not quite as remote from the coup attempt and its plotters as he and his representatives claim. Coup leaders and Carmona signatories included figures who were at the time, or are now, members of L�pez�s inner circle. Harvard-educated Leopoldo Mart�nez, for several years an opposition leader in parliament, led Primero Justicia with L�pez; he was designated finance minister of the short-lived Carmona government. Maria Corina Machado, L�pez�s closest ally, who joined him in calling for last February�s protests, was a signatory; as was Manuel Rosales, a former leader of Un Nuevo Tiempo, a party that L�pez joined and helped build in 2007 (and was expelled from in 2009). Also among the roughly 400 business, military, media, and political figures to sign the decree during a raucous ceremony in April 2002 at Miraflores � while Ch�vez was being held, not far away, at a military installation � was Leopoldo L�pez Gil, L�pez�s father.

Last May, at the rally for political prisoners in Caracas, I approached L�pez Sr. to ask about his decision to sign. �I didn�t, none of us who were there, signed any �decree,�� he said. �What they passed around was an attendance sheet that later was misrepresented. How were we going to sign something we hadn�t even seen?� But video of the Carmona signing on April 12, which only came to light in recent years, speaks to a different reality: A crowded room of men in suits cheer as the parts of the decree dissolving all branches of government are read to thundering applause by Daniel Romero, Carmona�s attorney general designate. The video also shows Carmona being sworn in as president, and Romero inviting the attendees to �sign the decree that was just read, in support of the process.�

At the time of the coup attempt, the younger L�pez, then 30, was mayor of Chacao, a Caracas subdivision. He supported both the general strike of April 9-10 and the massive opposition march on April 11 that immediately preceded Ch�vez�s removal. Both events were pivotal to the coup�s brief success, and L�pez and Primero Justicia offered its leaders both legitimacy and a crucial base of popular support.

At parliamentary hearings on the coup, convened in June of that year, video from a broadcast of 24 Horas, a news show on Venevision, was shown, in which the younger L�pez seems to be celebrating Ch�vez�s removal. (Venevision said that it could not locate any footage from 2002.) �That day, for me, from the beginning was a day of not turning back,� he says, according to the official parliamentary transcript. �That was a day where we said, here is where the mask of the dictatorship fell, and we bet it all.� (A member of L�pez�s legal team, asked to respond to these lines, said by email, �There is nothing in what Leopoldo said that indicates his support for a coup�. He never called for the removal or overthrow of President Chavez.� He added, �And you definitely cannot rely on what the Government of Venezuela has said he said.�)

Other contemporaneous video evidence seems to indicate enormous enthusiasm by L�pez for Ch�vez�s ouster. In one news broadcast of the pivotal PDVSA protest rally in Caracas on April 9, 2002, a baseball-capped L�pez steps onto the stage to lead the crowd of tens of thousands in a chorus of �Not one step backwards!� At the top of his voice, he yells: �We�ll be here all night and tomorrow all day until the president leaves!� (�The protests and march,� said L�pez�s attorney, �were not an attempted coup � they only were transformed into that later, and not by him.�) In a video communiqu� from Primero Justicia released as the coup was unfolding on April 11, L�pez and other party leaders flank their spokesperson, opposition parliament member Julio Borges, who says he and other MPs are ready to resign their positions and demand that Supreme Court, the president, and his cabinet �resign� their posts as well, a tactic to legitimize the dissolution of the Ch�vez government. L�pez repeatedly uses the same word, renuncia, or resignation, as well as salida, the favored terms of the coup leaders, during an April 11 interview on Venevision�s popular Napoleon Bravo morning talk show. According to available video excerpts from that interview, L�pez also briefly describes what a �transition government� might look like and proposes only two ways out of the political crisis: a coup or the dissolution of the government. �What are the possibilities we have in Venezuela?� he asks rhetorically. �Either we will have a coup, quick and dry, or another kind, or the proposal we�re making [for the Ch�vez government to step down]. There�s no other way to get past the deadlock being played out here in Venezuela.� Of course, Ch�vez never did resign. He was arrested instead.

In his book chronicling the events of April 2002, My Testimony Before History, Carmona indicates that the April 11 march was originally headed to PDVSA headquarters but was rerouted to the presidential palace, where pro-Ch�vez protesters had already gathered. When the two sides met near the palace, the conflict turned deadly, with 19 protesters � from both sides � shot and killed. Carmona writes that he �consulted with� L�pez and that the protest�s fatal route change was �authorized by Mayor Leopoldo L�pez.�

Yet a month and a half after that violent confrontation, during testimony before the parliamentary commission investigating the overthrow attempt, L�pez insisted that �at no moment did we have any contact with spokespeople of the transition government � the decisions we made were totally and absolutely autonomous.�

L�pez�s most controversial episode remains the April 12 arrest and detention of then-Interior Minister Ram�n Rodr�guez Chac�n. L�pez, mayor of Chacao at the time, and Capriles, then-mayor of Baruta (another Caracas municipality), saying they had been tipped off by neighbors, showed up at a house where Chac�n was staying, unguarded, to personally charge him with responsibility for the 19 shooting deaths that had taken place the previous day. As opposition supporters and media gathered outside the house in Baruta, the two mayors took him into custody. (The deaths remain unresolved; both sides maintain the other was responsible.) L�pez told reporters at the time that he and Capriles had obtained a search warrant of the house and had coordinated with the Baruta police on Chac�n�s arrest. Moments after Chac�n was taken away, news video captures L�pez telling a reporter that �President Carmona knows of the arrest,� another possible indication of coordination with the coup�s leader, something that L�pez has denied in general terms many times since. (After Ch�vez was returned to power, Capriles and L�pez were indicted for illegal detention in conjunction with the incident, but they were later pardoned as part of a far-reaching and controversial amnesty. Questioned on a pro-government talk show in 2012, L�pez conceded that the arrest had been an error.)

In March 2014, I sat down with Chac�n, now governor of the state of Gu�rico, to discuss that day�s events. �I had recently met with Carmona in his home, trying to negotiate with him to figure out how to reach an agreement to bring peace to the country,� he said. The arrest, just a week later, took him by surprise.

�Leopoldo L�pez began rallying the neighbors with his megaphone, saying I was a murderer, that I was responsible for the killings,� said Chac�n. �He was gathering them in, telling them I would be brought to justice for the murders of the past few days.� A news clip of the incident shows Chac�n being beaten by the crowd. But according to the transcript of those June 2002 parliamentary hearings about the coup, other news video from that day quotes L�pez claiming that the Ch�vez government is �in hiding, but here, justice will be imposed, because what Venezuela is calling for right now is justice.�

Chac�n continued, �They said they were going to detain me and that they were going to do it anyway because �this is a coup d��tat, and Ch�vez had resigned.� I told them, �No. Ch�vez did not resign.��
* * *

L�pez has never been formally charged with plotting a coup. But the fact that he played some role in the contentious events of 2002 is widely known in his home country and has likely colored how many Venezuelans view his role in the protests that erupted in Caracas last February. Last March, with the guarimbas, or street barricades, still in place in the city�s elite opposition strongholds, I spoke with Hermann Escarr�, a constitutional attorney and former opposition activist, who was one of the principal architects of the 1999 Venezuelan constitution. Though Escarr� is reviled by some Chavistas for his opposition to President Ch�vez and his supporters over their plan in 2009 to extend the president�s term indefinitely, Escarr� calls the events of 2002 a �rupture of the constitutional order.�

Escarr� said he respects L�pez personally but does not share what he calls L�pez�s disregard for the constitution. He sat next to L�pez at an opposition gathering in February 2004, an event captured on videotape, as the young politician declared, �We should feel proud of April 11, when we toppled Ch�vez with a march! � The man resigned on the 11th, he put his tail between his legs and he left� � a striking assertion, nearly two years after the coup, when it was no longer plausible to claim that Ch�vez had ever resigned.

I asked him to reflect on the protests that were then still roiling the city and on the government�s allegations that L�pez was responsible for some of the violence. Escarr� wouldn�t comment on the current charges against L�pez, saying he wasn�t familiar enough with the details of the case, and he defended the opposition�s right to peaceful protest. But he expressed grave concern about the recent opposition protests that had turned lawless and violent. �In the United States, what�s happening now in Venezuela would not have happened and won�t happen. No one would think to burn cars or tires, set fire to a street leading up to the White House, because the punishment would be truly serious,� Escarr� said. �Here, there are barricades called guarimbas where they�ve found armaments for war, where they�ve found Molotov cocktails.�

Over the past year, a series of fresh government allegations have begun to take the shine off 2014�s wave of protests. It began with a thinly sourced government report, issued in May of last year. Called �Coup d��tat and Assassination Plan Unveiled in Venezuela,� the report places the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Kevin Whitaker, and two close L�pez allies � Mar�a Corina Machado, now leader of the Vente Venezuela party, and L�pez�s old friend and mentor from Harvard, Pedro Burelli � as part of a conspiracy to �annihilate� Maduro and overthrow the government. The plot, according to then-Justice Minister Miguel Rodr�guez Torres, included political, business, and military leaders, who, he claimed, were the true forces behind the February 2014 street protests. Burelli, who currently lives in McLean, Virginia, is now considered a fugitive from justice by Venezuelan authorities.

To back its claims, the government released emails between the alleged plotters, as well as recorded conversations involving Burelli. Burelli denies all charges and hired forensic investigators who say that the emails were forged and that Google has no record of some of them having been sent. A U.S. State Department spokesperson called the allegations against Whitaker �false accusations in a long line of baseless allegations against U.S. diplomats by the Venezuelan government.� Machado has dismissed the charges as �a fantasy.�

But Burelli has not denied the authenticity of the voice recordings of his conversations released by two local elected officials, who say they took place between Feb. 20 and March 14 of last year, in the middle of the wave of protests that launched L�pez onto the international stage.

�What�s happened? I keep seeing lots of protests, lots of people in the streets. What�s happening inside your colectivo?� Burelli asks in one conversation with an unidentified military officer, using a term often used to refer to a political cell. (Burelli says the officer is retired and won�t name him.) �I think the world is extremely activated,� Burelli tells the officer in a voicemail. �All that�s missing is for this part of the military to make the decisions it needs to make.�

�I think that there�s another Leopoldo L�pez in the armed forces who understands that the time has come to clean the scum of Chavismo, the scum of complicity, the scum of corruption,� Burelli continues. �Any group that stands up and says this now will generate a crisis, I guarantee it. But it must be linked to the struggle of the people, to Leo�s struggle and in solidarity with Leo�. This is the moment. There�s no risk if it�s done right.�

When I asked Burelli about the recordings, he said, �Those are my recordings, but those recordings do not prove anything�. People who�ve read the whole thing say this is a conversation one could have with anybody.�

By September 2014, Lorent Saleh, a founder of JAVU, one of the student groups most closely identified with last year�s protests, was also facing charges. Venezuela�s Ministry of Justice arrested Saleh, accusing him of terrorism, and released videos in which Saleh can be seen talking about bombing discos and liquor stores, burning buildings, and bringing in snipers to kill grassroots leaders. Though barely reported in the U.S. media, last year�s protests were marked by several such incidents, including the firebombing of government ministries, child care centers, city buses, and television stations and the fatal shootings of security forces and Chavista sympathizers.

Finally, in February of this year, Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, who was, along with L�pez and Machado, one of the three leading figures behind the previous February�s upheavals, was arrested on charges of sedition and conspiracy as part of yet another alleged coup attempt. Both Saleh and Ledezma deny all of the charges; the latter�s attorney said the charges against Ledezma are �based on falsifications [and] evidence tampering.� (The two figures are linked by Saleh, who says, in one of the videos, �Ledezma is key�. The politician who has most supported the resistance has always been Ledezma.�)

The allegations against Saleh and Ledezma rattled the opposition. Both its moderate and radical wings closed ranks in defending Ledezma, whose arrest drew international attention and renewed calls for L�pez�s release. But Saleh�s case was more divisive, with some of L�pez�s closest allies in Voluntad Popular expressing concerns about the �violation of [Saleh�s] human rights� and others rapidly distancing themselves, saying Saleh �owes the country an explanation.� (When asked about L�pez�s links to Burelli, Saleh, and Ledezma, the L�pez attorney said, �There is every reason to have serious questions about the authenticity of these claims.�)

The arrest of Ledezma took place just a week after he, L�pez, and Machado had joined forces to release � on the anniversary of last year�s upheavals � a �Call on Venezuelans for a National Accord for the Transition.� It calls for a �peaceful transition� of the Maduro government, which, the document says, is in its �terminal phase.�

President Maduro responded by releasing, on March 4, what he claims is another opposition document; this one lays out a detailed 100-day transition plan whose blueprint contains echoes of 2002. He claimed, obliquely, that the document had been authored by the �violent ones who are in prison.�
* * *

Conspiracy and counter-conspiracy may be a constant in Venezuela today, but these left-right political dramas have been overshadowed by Venezuela�s mounting economic crisis and its pressure cooker effects on Venezuelan politics. On March 9, the Obama administration piled on, declaring the situation in Venezuela an �extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.� (The administration has since backed away from this statement.)

These winds would seem to favor the Venezuelan opposition. Luis Vicente Le�n, the Datan�lisis pollster, told me that recent polls show that the figure paying the biggest political price for the current crisis is Maduro, whose popularity dropped in January to 23 percent, his lowest ever, while, as of March, approval of L�pez and Capriles had each risen to 40 percent. (Maduro�s approval rebounded to 28 percent in March.) The governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela remains the best organized, and its support remains strong in Venezuela�s poor communities, a segment that will be key in the upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for later this year. But Maduro�s personal unpopularity has eroded the party�s base, which now claims the loyalty of only 17 percent of the electorate (from a high of 42 percent under Ch�vez), the same as the combined total of those who identify with one of Venezuela�s many opposition parties.

The figure who gained the most from last year�s upheavals, says Le�n, is, without a doubt, Leopoldo L�pez. Jail has boosted L�pez�s public image, Le�n says, with some seeing a �valiant martyr who was unjustly imprisoned, without a doubt unjustly � and without a doubt a political prisoner who generates singular solidarity.�

His rising star, however, may also contribute to a further �fracturing� of the opposition, Le�n says, as L�pez now �shares the stage and popular support on an equal level with Capriles.� Opposition standard-bearer Capriles finds himself struggling to keep his more moderate opposition coalition, the MUD, from fracturing further in the face of the growing influence of L�pez and his radical flank.

Just this past May, these schisms were on full display, following a hunger strike by L�pez and his call for a mass protest. �A year and three months on from our call [to protest], the situation is worse than last year,� said L�pez on May 23 in a video recording released from Ramo Verde prison. �Brother and sister Venezuelans, we want to call on you for a protest, a resounding protest, massive, pacific, without any kind [of] violence, on the streets of Venezuela this Saturday.� The hunger strike, joined by a handful of student supporters, �represents the suffering of all Venezuelans,� declared L�pez�s wife, Lilian. She was joined by Ledezma�s wife for the Caracas protest on May 30, which attracted an estimated 3,000 followers � a sliver of the mass actions last year.

The MUD coalition issued a statement declaring it would not participate (though Capriles tweeted that he would personally attend), even taking a jab at what they called L�pez�s �unilateral� approach: �The best decisions are those that are arrived at together, because unity has no substitute,� the release stated.

What becomes of the Venezuelan opposition may not be determined by the outcome of L�pez�s legal case, which appears to have no end in sight. Much will hinge on Leopoldo L�pez�s credibility: whether the court of national opinion will continue to see L�pez and his flank of the opposition as a serious new voice for democratic change or as a movement marked by unpopular strains of radicalism.

# ? Jul 28, 2015 02:57

Borneo Jimmy: Feb 27, 2007; by Smythe

Looks like that article ruffled some feathers
https://twitter.com/robvato/status/625787563752706048

# ? Jul 28, 2015 03:04

Vlex: Aug 4, 2006; I'd rather be a climbing ape than a big titty angel.

There are bigger issues: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/venezuela-about-run-out-beer-180956069/

# ? Jul 28, 2015 18:36

ugh its Troika: May 2, 2009; by FactsAreUseless

Last year, a doctor that works in Venezuela wrote a short article for Cracked about the working conditions there.

Things are even worse now :gonk:

# ? Jul 28, 2015 20:12

Chuck Boone: Feb 12, 2009; El Turpial

Borneo Jimmy posted:

Here's a very good investigative report on Leopoldo Lopez
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/the-making-of-leopoldo-lopez-democratic-venezuela-opposition/

There isn't a whole lot of new information here. Even if you think that Lopez is a monster in human form, the flagrant violations against his human rights and his right as a prisoner and to a fair trial should set off alarms. The case against him is a complete joke. When the government wasn't able to prove that Lopez had called for violence, the prosecution brought in some kind of expert to testify that he had used subliminal messages to incite people to violence.

A really good example of how absolutely ridiculous the Venezuelan justice system is how Maria Corina Machado and a couple of other people were charged with magnicide after some PSUV officials went on television last year and showed a bunch of screenshots of alleged e-mails sent from different gmail accounts in which Machado allegedly discussed assassinating Maduro. One of the co-accused, Pedro Burelli (who is mentioned in the article Jimmy copied and pasted) ended up contacting Google, and they confirmed that the e-mails presented by the officials were forgeries. Where did that case end up? Nowhere. The PSUV paraded so-called evidence on live television of a conspiracy to assassinate the sitting president and absolutely nothing came of it. Venezuela in general - and its legal system in particular - are a horrendous mess. Everything is broken. Being charged with/arrested for something in Venezuela means absolutely nothing.

On Saturday, the National Guard evicted at least about 113 families from makeshift huts along a stretch of the Panamericana highway in Caracas. Maduro went on television last night and said that they people who lived there were "horrible" and that they were involved in all sorts of crimes, including:

quote:

... driving down to Caracas and robbing everyone. They were horrible. Another thing is that they had links to slum mafias. We found out that a famous communal council was given financing through a municipality, and they built houses and they rented them out, and one of the houses turned out to be a � what�s the name of that thing with the cars? � they took apart cars, picked them apart in a house built with money from the communal council. These slum traffickers are already under arrest. They stole public water and they sold it at exuberant prices to families they brought from over there, the Andes, and they stole electricity and then sold it four of five more times to those families that they brought over here to be miserable� What should we do? Should we sit here with our arms crossed, or should we act?

Last night, La Patilla uploaded a video to YouTube that contains interview with some of the people who were evicted during the operation. If you're interested in seeing the living conditions of Venezuela's poor, it's definitely worth a watch. Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ESUuRa-v24. My translation is below:

quote:

People off-screen: Express yourself, man � that�s where your kids are.

Woman in Red: They evicted me from house. I have all my things � my kids have gone hungry the whole day, and I don�t have any kind of an answer from Maduro. I wish he would give me an answer because I�m concerned. I have a three year-old daughter who asked me for food at 4:00 PM because they weren�t able to give her food. Why? Because they [the authorities] wouldn�t let us cook, because they didn�t care about anything. How is it possible that we as human beings have to go through this? We need them to find us a solution, because we�re human beings and we need one.

Man in Black Hat: They evicted us through a presidential order, and others through a municipal order. In the end, no one knows where the order came from. Simply put, they attacked us and they threw [tear gas] bombs at us.

Man in Brown: We haven�t been here for a year. We�ve been here since 1998, when a cabilla [a wood or metal dowel used in construction] cost Bs. 1. Today, it costs Bs. 1,000. How can the government think that we can build a hut, or a house, on our salaries? They�re taking away from us what little we have. Now, we can�t exchange a hut for a home because they didn�t come here to exchange huts for homes, but they don�t have to take away from us what little we have, brother.

Woman Off-Screen: Look what Colonel Oscar Machuco signed. He wrote down his I.D. number. What did he tell us? We don�t know. [Several people speak at once: they appear to be saying, �he told us we wouldn�t be affected� by the evictions].

Blurred People: � against us, who live in the Bolivarian sector. [Another woman: "They took my phone because I saw a [National] Guard beating my neighbour. They even took my memory card with a lot of pictures". A man speaks and says, �Many people were robbed and beaten by the [National] Guards�. Another woman says, �Even journalists; they knocked the camera out of his hands so he couldn't record�. The man speaks again and says, �� these people bought their computers and cameras a long time ago and they don�t have the receipts, and they took them. They stole them. The officers who were here stole them�.].

Man in Green: � Venezuela needs to know this, and so does the world, so they can see the kind of government that we have here in Venezuela. Last night, [National Assembly] Deputy Jesus Faria � he was told that on Tuesday, the National Guard came here to attack us in front of our children. There were pregnant women, and they were pushing the pregnant women. Where are the human rights that they talk about? I�m asking, because they talk about the United States, but look at how they�re attacking us. Like they say, �the people rule�. But where?
So, last night, Deputy Jesus Faria was told that they would come here today to carry out the evictions. He said that he didn�t believe that it would happen, and that as a deputy, he thought it difficult to happen. Plus, he didn�t have any information that the [National] Guard would come. Well, they came. They came at 4:00 AM. It was like an army going to war. As if we were armed � but no. The only weapons we had were candles, because they were supposed to cut off our electricity and the water.
So, they came to carry out the evictions, and now we�re being evicted without the right to shelter and without the right for the children to go to school. We have to change their schools because we can�t live here anymore. This is President Nicolas Maduro�s arbitrary government: they don�t have the [unintelligible] to treat the people properly, the same people they say in the National Assembly form the Poder Popular [the power of the people to govern]. But we don�t know where � it must be in the government they have in their minds.

Woman Off Screen: And we�re not escualidos [a deragotory term for �opposition supporter�].

Man in Green: � and we�re not escualidos, we�re Chavistas. They can check at the CNE [Consejo Nacional Electoral]. I�ve always voted for them. Starting from Chavez up to now.

Maduro met with Ban Kimoon at the United Nations today to talk about the border dispute with Guyana. He had a press conference during the meeting, and when a reporter asked him if he would allow international observers [specifically from the Organization of American States] to witness the December 6 parliamentary elections, he said:

quote:

We will never accept them from anyone�. Venezuela cannot be � nor will it ever be � monitored by anyone.

Maria Corina Machado pointed out through Twitter that the observers wouldn't be there to monitor Venezuela, but rather to monitor "you and your corrupt, cheating regime".

# ? Jul 29, 2015 00:31

M. Discordia: Apr 30, 2003; by Smythe

Chuck Boone posted:

There isn't a whole lot of new information here. Even if you think that Lopez is a monster in human form, the flagrant violations against his human rights and his right as a prisoner and to a fair trial should set off alarms. The case against him is a complete joke. When the government wasn't able to prove that Lopez had called for violence, the prosecution brought in some kind of expert to testify that he had used subliminal messages to incite people to violence.

Well, if they had known that he once talked to a Republican in college, their case would have been airtight.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 01:34

My Imaginary GF: Jul 17, 2005; by R. Guyovich

Borneo Jimmy posted:

Here's a very good investigative report on Leopoldo Lopez
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/27/the-making-of-leopoldo-lopez-democratic-venezuela-opposition/

I'm glad that you bold individuals attending an accredited university where they won't be robbed in the classroom as if it was a bad thing, Borneo Jimmy.

Your posts are the justification for a Venezuela restructuring in line with Pinochet's Argentinia, Jimmy.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 01:43

Polidoro: Jan 5, 2011; Huevo se dice argidia. Argidia!

My Imaginary GF posted:

Pinochet's Argentinia

I thought the Pope prevented that war.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 02:11

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

I am very interested to hear more about Pinochet's restructuring of Argentina.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 02:50

Woolie Wool: Jun 2, 2006

The solution to brutal dictatorships is always more brutal dictators.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 15:33

beer_war: Mar 10, 2005

quote:

Man in Green: � and we�re not escualidos, we�re Chavistas. They can check at the CNE [Consejo Nacional Electoral]. I�ve always voted for them. Starting from Chavez up to now.

Nothing wrong with that sentence. Nope. Not at all.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 18:50

AlexanderCA: Jul 21, 2010; by Cyrano4747

So Venezuela just abstained from the mh17 tribunal vote (that ofcourse was vetoed by Russia) together with Angola and China.

So as someone with no stake in their internal politics, I would like to express a hearty gently caress you to the Venezuelan government.

Something about the company you keep.

# ? Jul 29, 2015 20:58

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 3, 2024 02:14

Ghost of Mussolini: Jun 26, 2011

Helsing posted:

I am very interested to hear more about Pinochet's restructuring of Argentina.

I don't really have anything to add it is just a wonderful picture

# ? Jul 29, 2015 23:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Venezuelan elections - Dead Chavez Edition

«‹›132 »