Media Blackout In VenezuelaHome, News, world truth February 20, 2014 0 Comments
Dear International Editor:
Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night.What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden.
What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood.
Throughout last night,
panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on
motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and
storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like
he might be protesting. People continue to be arrested merely for
protesting, and a long established local Human Rights NGO makes an urgent plea for an investigation
into widespread reports of torture of detainees. There are now dozens
of serious human right abuses: National Guardsmen shooting tear gas
canisters directly into residential buildings. We have videos of
soldiers shooting civilians on the street. And that’s just what came
out in real time, over Twitter and YouTube, before any real
investigation is carried out. Online media is next, a city of 645,000 inhabitants
has been taken off the internet amid mounting repression, and this
blog itself has been the object of a Facebook “block” campaign.
What we saw were not “street clashes”, what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.
After
the major crackdown on the streets of major (and minor) Venezuelan
cities last night, I expected some kind of response in the major
international news outlets this morning. I understand that with an even bigger and more photogenic freakout
ongoing in an even more strategically important country, we weren’t
going to be front-page-above-the-fold, but I’m staggered this morning
to wake up, scan the press and find…
Nothing.
As of 11 a.m. this morning, the New York Times World Section has…nothing.
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