Venezuela Rioting Spreads on Chavez News

[windansea]

CARACAS, Venezuela - Protests intensified across Venezuela Tuesday after the elections council ruled that government opponents lacked enough signatures to force a recall referendum against President Hugo Chavez.

Television news footage showed troops firing at anti-Chavez protesters, who fought back with rocks and Molotov cocktails in Caracas.

Rioting — which began earlier Tuesday as the opposition anticipated the ruling — was also reported in several of Venezuela's most important cities in the hours after the council's decision.

Chavez opponents say they submitted more than 3.4 million signatures. Some 2.4 million are needed for a recall election.
But council President Francisco Carrasquero announced Tuesday evening that just 1.83 million signatures were valid. Another 876,016 signatures may be valid — if citizens confirm that they indeed signed the petition, Carrasquero said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&e=19&u=/ap/venezuela_protests

[bluestateguy]

1. Is Darrell Issa funding it?

Maybe he can use some of that Hizbollah money he has laying around.

[Zhade]

6. Wha?

I don't catch the reference - what am I missing?

[Kolesar]

14. Issa financed the California recall of Gov. Davis

Then they pulled the rug out on him and told him it was going to be Schwarzenneggar, not Issa to replace Davis. "They" is the GOP, with Bush co's fingerprints on it.

[Zhade]

16. I knew that, I live in California - I meant the Hizbollah remark.

That's one I've never heard before.

[Just Me]

17. Perhaps he is tying in the similarity in funding of "terrorism",...

SUMATE funded the recall in CA (although, as far as I know, no funding went to a militant function). SUMATE and NED (National Endowment for Democracy - which is a complete misnomer) funds are being funneled to arm "terrorists" (in accordance with the "offical" definition of the term which is an individual or group which commits violence against innocents for political purposes). Similarly, the predecessor of organizations like SUMATE and NED (that would be the CIA) funneled money to arm "terrorists" for the last twenty-fiver or so years. Of course, the result of the covert CIA funding of "terrorism" by "Freedom Fighters", "Muslim Brothers", "Wahabbis", etc. are producing blow-back. SUMATE and NED are simply creating even more blow-back just so greedy corporate dictators can fill up their infinite black-holes. They suck *sigh*. If anyone wonders why there exists so much anti-Americanism, they simply are failing to pay any attention to our own military/corporate dictatorial actions around the world.

[Zhade]

21. Ahhhhhhhh - I didn't know the SUMATE/NED similarities. Thanks!

NT!

[daleo]

2. Bushco never gives up.

Tenacious as a rabid rotwieller. You can bet they are actively supporting the destabilization in Venezuela again.

[MrPrax]

13. Like a soap opera plot line

She sums it up quite well:

"But the modus operandi of (Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger)Noriega and company is unmistakeable: fund an opposition, report every clash as repression against the population, arm pliable thugs and mercenaries in exile, embargo the government, precipitate acute crisis, play up the discontent of a hungry population, and then happily leave it to internationalist liberals to lead the charge for military intervention on humanitarian grounds."

Rinse and Repeat...

http://www.counterpunch.org/williams03012004.html

Great piece about Haiti BTW

[burrowowl]

3. Well, I guess for

the time being, until the Draft.
The National Guard is sent to Iraq as 'bullet magnaets' and the Marines and combat troops are sent to Venezuela along with Colombia, etc., etc.,and soon CUBA!
Haiti only takes a few thousand Marines, the U$ has Avril to take care of any protesters, like before Aristide, used to have torture of 'folks' (as Bu$ likes to call people) tourtured on TV, like Mel G in the movies, for edification.:puke: :puke: :puke:

[LeftCoast]

4. Hugo shouldn't have threatened to blockade da oil

now the BFEE must have him eliminated...

[tedzbear]

5. This sure is a refreshing switch...

The upper classes are rioting in the streets and the poor people are supporting the government.

I think I like Venezuela. Magnifico!!!

:kick:

[nolabels]

7. People don't even turn the Tee Vee on over there, it's even more..........

B.S. ridden than it is over here.



The protesters are probably rioting in between the President Hugo Chavez supporters in that picture

http://www.indymedia.org/or/index.shtml

VENEZUELA : OPPOSING US IMPERIALISM - 01 Mar 2004
Hugo Chavez Tells Bush to BACK OFF

On the eve of the announcement on whether the U.S. backed opposition has enough signatures to force a Presidential recall referendum, hundreds of thousands of people turned out to support Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias. In his speech, Chavez said "Here is Venezuela in the spirit of the Liberator Simon Bolivar to say NO to Yanqui interventionism, to say no to Mr. Bush, to his invading, imperialist and colonial regime ... and we will tell him that here is the people of Simon Bolivar and we will keep on telling him."

The U.S. led opposition claims to have 3.4 million signatures with 2.4 million needed. Privately some opposition leaders have admitted that they do not have enough. Many of the signatures are fake. Some are from dead people, foreigners, forged, or stolen. Preliminary statistics predict only 1.4 million verified signatures.

National Elections Council (CNE) officials have postponed any announcement on preliminary results until tomorrow, Monday, claiming that there is an overwhelming need to preserve peace after repeated threats by the radical opposition to impose a unilateral decision that would mandate a recall referendum without the constitutionally required number of verified signatures.

In April 2002, the U.S. backed a failed coup attempt. In December 2002, U.S. corporate interests were involved in an economic lockout to force the ouster of Chavez. In September 2003, Venzuelan government officials claim the CIA intended to assasinate President Chavez during a planned trip to the U.S. Now the wealthy elite, along with the U.S. backing, are trying to force the referendum.
(snip)

[izzie]

8. Where are we going to get troops for this Bush War?

Does anyone really think Bush is doing all this or is it the men he has put in power and his Vice? I just feel Bush could not get his mind around all this and some one is behind him running it all.It looks like a take over of the worlds oil but that is so in your face I am most likely wrong. Haiti must be a Pain in the ass as he could use those men some place with oil.I have read that there are alot more men in So Am than is sort of put out in the paper daily.

[tedzbear]

9. Yes, Venezuela makes a better adversary for Cheney's genius...

Haiti is soooooooooo beneath him. After his success with Iraq, I'm sure it's just chump change.


Hey mad genius, how come you got our huge army sitting on all that Iraqi oil, and I'm STILL paying $2.13 a gallon for unleaded. Whaz up with that????????????????????????


Good nite folks.

[tom_paine]

18. Because the Bushevik Mission is to steal from both you AND the Iraqis

Mission Accomplished.

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

10. Is there anybody here who still thinks we're going to have fair elections

in November? :shrug:

[ze_dscherman]

11. There could be a backlash

See this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x396419#396467

But this won't stop oil companies from making the biggest profits ever.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

12. They should...

...GET OVER IT!!! BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[jmcgowanjm]

15. Three Days of the Condor

"But there is a deeper part of human nature which covers the planet in a sickly, light-sweet-crude blanket of denial. It is best exemplified from the closing lines of Sidney Pollack's 1975 Three Days of the Condor

Higgins: "Not now - then. Ask them when they're running out.
Ask them when there's no heat in their homes and they're
cold. Ask them when their engines stop. Ask them when
people who've never known hunger start going hungry.
Do you want to know something? They won't want us to
ask them. They'll just want us to get it for them."

What do you want?


http://www.newsgateway.ca/Three_Days_of_the_Condor.htm

[windansea]

19. Carter Center report on signature validation

We have had some discrepancies with the CNE over the verification criteria. In the case of the petition forms in which the basic data of several signers, but not the signatures themselves, appear to have been filled in by one person, we do not share the criterion of the CNE to separate these signatures, sending them to the appeals process in order to be rectified by the citizens. These occur in such large numbers that they could have an impact on the outcome of the process.

We recognize that in any such process there can be attempts to manipulate the will of the citizens, but it is necessary to evaluate the magnitude of the impact that these attempts could have on the total universe. We understand the concerns of the CNE, but the evaluation should start from the presumption of the good faith of the citizen as a universal principle. During the signature collection process, we observed that some collection agents assisted signers in good faith by filling in their basic data.

Those citizens who are erroneously or fraudulently included on the list (planillas) should be given the opportunity to remove their names during the appeals and correction period. In addition, the signatures themselves that appear to have a similar handwriting, which have also been found, should be carefully reviewed in order to reject those that are not genuine.

http://www.cartercenter.org/viewdoc.asp?docID=1631&submenu=news

[pescao]

20. this is the crucial paragraph

from the carter center report:

>The appeals and correction period was included in the process to provide, in cases of doubt, an opportunity for citizens to reaffirm their signatures, or to disavow their signatures in cases where their data has been used against their will. The CNE has accepted some of our recommendations in designing this appeals process. We support the efforts of the CNE and of the promoters to work together to establish the guarantees necessary to ensure that all of the citizens who wish to take advantage of this resource may do so. We urge them to continue in this direction.

sounds like they're down with the repair-period plan, good on 'em. and as for including for validation all the sheets in the same handwriting, well, the opposition were warned about that beforehand, but they didn't take any notice. given that many of the blank signature sheets went missing for a few days, and they didn't hand the completed sheets in to the CNE until two weeks later, it doesn't take a genius to figure out how the 'will of the people' could be twisted here. and the stuff about 'good-faith' is a bit rich: "we saw some people being helpful by filling in the forms for signers, so that means no-one else could possibly have done it dishonestly - yeah right!"

[Bandit]

22. Maybe Chavez and Aristide can share a room in CAR

I'm sure ths Bush* Administration is quite willing to fly him out as soon as possible. I'm sure another resignation letter can be drafted in a hurry. Won't be long til there is no Democracy left in all the America's. It is gone almost in the US anyway. Fascism is the rule now.