VENEZUELA

Mag sich noch jemand an den Putsch-Versuch dieses Jahr erinnern? Sieht ganz so aus als gäbe es bald einen Teil 2. Die Massen Medien wiederholen Ihre Angriffe gegen Chavez und schreiben Propaganda. Regime Change nicht nur im Irak? Erinnerungen an Nicaragua, Kolumbien, Argentinen oder El Salvador? Ein Schelm wer denkt die USA hätte da Ihre Hände im Spiel.

Tages Anzeiger: Venezuela: Regierung offenbar verhandlungsbereit

Heise: Wie provoziert man einen Putch?
Die Ereignisse in Venezuela weisen verblüffende Ähnlichkeit mit dem von den USA unterstützten Putschversuch im April auf

ZMAG: Bush Administration Pushes "Regime Change" in Venezuela
It's 10 p.m. -- do you know what your government is up to? It seems that Iraq is not the only "regime change" that the Bush Administration is working on. The US government has apparently decided that President Chavez of Venezuela must go, one way or another.

ZMAG: Why are the coup plotters so impatient?

ZMAG: Chavez Hangs On
Four employer-led "general strikes" and a coup attempt later, The two parties seem further apart than they did when negotiations started

Narconews: Gunmen in Venezuela Tried to Provoke a Crisis After "Strike" Failed




What's Really Happening in Venezuela

"I will not give in to blackmail nor pressures of any kind. I swear to you
that I will be with the people my entire life. You brought me here and you
are the only ones who can get rid of me. Nobody else is going to take me
out of here."

- Venezuela President Hugo Chavez
Saturday, December 7, 2002
==================
Dear Colleagues,

To read the commercial news reports from Venezuela, one might almost think
there is a popular "strike" that has brought an "authoritarian" regime to
its knees, threatened U.S. oil supplies and that the Chavez government is
not allowing the people to vote on its continuance.

None of those above statements are true in the slightest, but the
simulating behavior of most English-language correspondents from Caracas
is, as ever, over the top and knowingly false.

To help clear up the haze of lies and distortion with some facts, Narco
News publishes the analysis by three correspondents on the scene in
Venezuela, including two professors from the Narco News School of
Authentic Journalism: Thierry Deronne, the Belgian journalist who works
with Tele-Tambores Community TV in Venezuela; Max Arvelaiz, the
French-Venezuelan communications consultant to the Chavez government, and,
Paul Emile-Dupret, observer and official of the European Parliament, all
eye-witnesses to events in recent days.

You can read their factual accounts at:

http://www.narconews.com/

Other late-breaking news items:

- The Venezuelan Navy today regained control of the hijacked oil tanker
from its mutinous captain. The last effective maneuver of the upper-class
"opposition" was thus foiled and the "strike" (management imposed lockout
of workers from their jobs) that began last week has now fracased on every
front.

- Friday night's contemptible shooting of civilians in an opposition
demonstration by gunmen, resulting in the capture of Portuguese national
Joao Gouveia, has taken a shocking turn:

"Congressman of the MVR party (Fifth Republic Movement) and journalist
Juan Barreto reported today that Joao Gouveia, the Portuguese citizen
accused of having assassinated various members of the opposition
concentrated in Plaza Francia of Altamira (the wealthy section of Caracas)
entered the country (Friday) at 5:40 p.m. coming from Lisbon. Barreto said
that Gouveia confessed that he had been contracted by pro-coup General
Medina Gomez to cause a massacre in Altamira, for which he was paid 35
million bolivares.

"Congressman Barreto said that as a journalist he has contacts in various
agencies and information that the accused was acting as if he were
paranoid, faking that he was mentally ill, but after examined by different
psychiatrists who determined he was lucid, finally confessed this morning.

"Barreto reported that in a few hours the video of Gouveia's confession
will be made public."

Source: http://www.aporrea.org/

- If this is true, and such a video confession exists, as the congressman
and journalist reports, the "opposition" leaders who have, without a shred
of evidence, blamed Chavez and his supporters for Friday's shootings (3
dead, 28 wounded), will have to face facts that one of their own top
leaders is capable of ordering his own supporters shot in order to create
destability and mayhem in order to justify another coup attempt by rogue
uniformed forces. General Medina Gomez, like clockwork - we remind -
moments after Friday night's shootings called on military officials to
overthrow the elected government by force. The Armed Forces -
significantly cleaned-up after last April's two-day military coup - have
remained solidly on the side of the constitution this round (as evidenced
by today's smooth retaking of the hijacked oil tanker).

- This video would also raise very clear questions about who was behind
the sniper attacks last April that created the first pretext to try and
take power by upper-class coup. As previously reported by Narco News and
others, the snipers captured last April 11th were freed on April 12th by
Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona (a fact still not reported by the
simulating commercial correspondents).

It is difficult for many to believe that there are interests so cynical as
to order their own supporters shot to gain sympathy for their "cause," but
to close observers of the Venezuelan reality this possibility is not
surprising at all. Stay tuned as we hunt down the facts.

- Finally, after months of turning the other cheek, Venezuelan President
Chavez today announced that middle and upper level managers of the state
oil company who participated in this week's sabotaje and hijacking
maneuvers will be fired: a decision that is reasonable by any standards,
and, in fact, overdue.

- Meanwhile, today, two million Venezuelans took to the streets today to
defy the "strike of the spoiled brats" and defend their electoral choices.
The mood is still tense but all the momentum and factual information
continues to cumulate on the side of constitutional rule and against
destabilizing coup attempts.

- One of the losers of this week's skirmishes is U.S. State Department
fixer Otto Reich. (We note that Secretary of State Colin Powell was,
surprisingly, not accompanied by Reich in his trip last week to Colombia,
an indication that Reich's extremist brinkmanship in South America is
increasingly viewed as counter-productive even among moderates, like
Powell, in the Bush administration.)

The events of the next few days could accomplish the "two-fer" of putting
to rest delusional coup fantasies by anti-democracy forces in Venezuela
and also be the final nail in the coffin of Reich's reign over U.S. Latin
America policy.

It was the Venezuelan electorate in 1998 (and five times since) that
started the ball rolling for a united Latin America against outside
impositions. The Venezuelans withstood and turned back April's coup
attempt, and appear to have the current one well in hand. In early
January, Brazil will inaugurate president Lula de la Silva and Ecuador's
Lucio Gutierrez is walking through the same door in his country.

There will no doubt be cynical commercial media correspondents who
continue to "cry wolf" with their hysterical predictions of the overthrow
of Venezuela's democratically elected government. But their wolf-crying
has diminishing effect after having been so wrong so many times.

What they don't admit, at least not in their simulated reports, is that
the coups fail precisely because democracy in Venezuela is so
extraordinarily healthy, compared to that of any other country in the
hemisphere. It is vibrant. It is strong. It respects human rights and
voter control. And it has been exemplary in its tolerance displayed toward
a bratty and disruptive upper-class "opposition."

As Venezuela has lived some very trying moments in recent hours, the truth
that shines through is that democracy and constitutional rule endures even
the harshest most cynical provocations.

The hour has come for the commercial media - in Venezuela and among U.S.
and English language correspondents who have been feeding a false picture
of events there - to grow up and cease the dishonest reports that get
proved wrong again and again and again, and again today.

>From somewhere in a country called New York City,

Al Giordano
Publisher
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com/
narconews@hotmail.com