This story sounds way too familiar to me – it was almost exactly 20 years ago that I went to Caracas, Venezuela, to become a wire editor, and later managing editor of the Caracas Daily Journal. I arrived just in time to witness Venezuela’s economy melt down and the resulting riots trigger mass bloodshed.
Hugo Chavez is increasingly looking like he’s getting into the whole dictator thing, no matter how much he gives lip service to being a “man of the peoples.” He throws just enough of a bone to the poor folks in the ranchitos to keep them on his side, while he and his cronies loot the treasury. It’s the same old song and dance, albeit updated and remixed, like an old rumba rhythm track given a techno beat and some synths during the bridge…
Chavez just shut down the last opposition TV station in the country, a move that marks a real watershed moment for anyone paying attention. Chavez has moved relentlessly to silence, co-opt or crush anyone critical of his (mis)rule. He and his crones have learned how to spin the PR machine, and they claim that the reason they denied the license to RCTV is that it was violating broadcast laws and “poisoning” Venezuelans with pro-capitalism programming. Nice.
There are still some people left in the country to take to the streets in protest, as this video shows, but they were outnumbered by the staged pro-Chavez rallies and bonfires. I think that this time, he might have gone too far. RCTV was very popular in Venezuela, and crushing it will start the fuse burning on a very large explosion.
The anti-Chavez information flow is now going to have to go underground, or onto the web…
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