19F – The Night Venezuela Finally Imploded

caracaschronicles.com ^ | February 22, 2014 | Audrey M. Dacosta

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19F – The Night Venezuela Finally Imploded

Audrey M. Dacosta / 1 week ago February 19, 2014

Penned-in protesters in Altamira, awaiting their fate.

Tonight, Venezuela is seeing a spasm of violence that’s unlike anything the country has experienced since 1989. Information is fragmented, since an almost complete media black-out is in place, but you don’t need the media to hear your neighbor’s screams.

Caracas, Valencia, Merida and San Cristobal in particular have become virtual war zones: National Guard units and National Police have been shooting tear gas canisters and buckshot sometimes directly at protesters, sometimes into residential buildings and, raiding any place they think student protesters may be hiding. Alongside them, the government backed colectivos (basically paramilitary gangs on motorbikes, a tropical basij) shoot at people with live ammo.

But of course, this is no war zone: in a war zone you have two sides shooting at each other. Tonight one side is doing all the shooting, the other side is doing all the being shot at.

The videos that are starting to come out are simply shocking. It’s as though the denouement we both sides have either feared or looked forward to for so long is finally coming to a head. See the arrival of the colectivos at Altamira square earlier tonight:

As these videos were being shot, president Maduro was on a live TV and radio cadena broadcast saying “I can give you guarantees that what those colectivos are doing is working, producing.”

Here we see the Tupamaros, perhaps the oldest and best established colectivo, at work in Los Ruices.

It gets worse. In this video, you can see the National Guard murdering a civilian in La Candelaria (at 1:52)

Here, we see National Guard troops shooting a civilian in Av. Panteon – there are conflicting reports about whether he survived:

Some Twitter streams are genuinely scary. JGpunto writes, while hiding from police and collectives in one a residential building in Altamira: “They found us”, his next tweets are mayhem and beatings of the students hiding with him.

https://twitter.com/JGpunto

Others post a picture of the National Guard beating down a building’s door:

Here is Catia tonight – the one glimmer of hope is that everyone has a camera ready phone these days – there will be plenty of evidence:

Here we see the guy shot at Avenida Panteon, above:

After midnight, a fire was set in an apartment in El Marqués , (Romulo Gallegos Ave.)

The Petare-Santa Lucia Road:

Here we see soldiers shooting into residential buildings in the Caracas neighborhood of Santa Monica:

And this is not Kyiv, not Baghdad…it’s Valencia tonight:

Here’s Barquisimeto earlier today:

And this was San Cristobal yesterday. (We’re hearing reports that the internet has gone down in San Cristobal now.)

Of course it’s not just the big cities. This is Acarigua tonight:

Ramon Muchacho is working with Polichacao to evacuate students from their hidding places. You read that right, the municipal police is scrambling to keep national security forces from killing protesters.

A grave line has been crossed. Real, physical violence is finally catching up with the huge reserve of pent-up rhetorical violence we’ve suffered through since 1999.

We’ve spent 15 years fearing this.

Now we’re living it.

[DanielRedfoot]

Maybe we should send Sean Penn to explain again how wonderful communism is. That should work.

[cripplecreek]

This is what we should be concerned with but I’m really not sure how we should deal with it or whether we can trust our current administration with it.

[Vendome]

I’d send him on a slow boat to China....shanghai seems appropriate

Then again, I’d play him a round of billiards, again and twenty years since I bested him and his brother last, to give him sumb humble pie.

He was fun and gracious but, “He is his father’son”....

[NormsRevenge]

Maybe Putin has some ideas.

He must have studied the Monroe Doctrine.. a lot more than certain recent Presidents.

Sad to see the people of Venezuela dragged thru the blood baths of socialism..

[Louis Foxwell]

Our current administration would like nothing better than routing patriots and putting them before firing squads.

[Rusty0604]

Thanks for posting. Seems as though there is a lack of concern from our gov’t and media about what is going on there.

[Rusty0604]

I saw that Jimmy Carter may go down there, probably to support the socialist gov’t.

[Nuc 1.1]

I wish the freedom loving citizens of Venuzuela the best. The communists will kill you if you seriously threaten their power or the communist elite get tired of tolerating the protests. Get them first. Good Luck. If you win eradicate communism anywhere you find it. Using whatever means are necessary. And don’t shed one tear for them.

[captmar-vell]

Please pray for the good people of Venezuela,

Pray that evil spirit ruling over their country is broken, and freedom and liberty returns,

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 2 Corinthians 3:17

We are in a war, a war with principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places, both for this country and for the world,

[vette6387]

“I saw that Jimmy Carter may go down there, probably to support the socialist gov’t.”

We can all hope if he goes, that he somehow never comes back.

[Rusty0604]

There’s always hope.

[Vinylly]

Strange, all is silence from O’bummer. But there are a lot of words to Putin that just makes him an idiot to the world.

[jocon307]

“I’m really not sure...we can trust our current administration [to deal] with it.”

We can’t.

[coloradan]

Fortunately, Venezuela has gun control, so we can be sure no one will get hurt.

[Fred Hayek]

I have worked with some people from PdVSA back in 1999. Engineers, operators, maintenance techs. Not one liked Hugo Chavez. These were some good people, great to work with. I taught some of the maintenance techs PLC programming when they knew hardly any English, and I know no Spanish. We found our workaround on the language barrier because these techs wanted to learn.

[Nuc 1.1]

If I was president the freedom loving people of Venezuela would get what they need to stand up and throw off the commies. I also concur with your assessment generally. In my work with foreign nationals as a younger man, green card folks, good decent honorable people. But it is a bell curve.

[trebb]

Maybe we should send Sean Penn to explain again how wonderful communism is. That should work.

Just give him a big enough bull horn and watch him go about getting this "minor spat" smoothed out.