Former Venezuela minister charged (El Caracazo massacre 1989)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

Page last updated at 05:27 GMT, Saturday, 18 July 2009 06:27 UK
Former Venezuela minister charged
By Will Grant
BBC News, Caracas

Venezuela's former defence minister is facing charges over his alleged role in violent clashes between police and protesters in Caracas in 1989. Italo del Valle Alliegro is accused of having played a role in ordering the violent repression of the protest.

The protests, sparked by a series of economic restructuring measures which included price rises on fuel and public transport, left hundreds dead. The retired general denies all the charges against him.

The street riots of February 1989 in the Venezuelan capital are known as the Caracazo. Government-imposed price rises, particularly on the cost of fuel, provoked several days of looting and clashes with the military which left an official figure of 274 people dead. Some groups say as many as 3,000 people were killed.

Very few public figures were put on trial over the violence and it has stained Venezuela's reputation ever since.

Since coming to power, Hugo Chavez - who was a lieutenant in the army at the time - has described the event as a massacre by the state, and ordered a tribunal to investigate the Caracazo.





Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8157088.stm

[The abyss]

1. It has taken this long?

Wow!

by now they must have all their ducks in a row.

[Judi Lynn]

2. We never heard a word about this here, not one flipping peep. Carlos Andres Perez was "in" with our

Republican President.



Speaking of the devil.....

Carlos Andres Perez and his friend.

[Judi Lynn]

3. It's important people know there were TWO coups launched against this monster.

It's also appropriate people know Venezuela impeached him.

He retains homes in New York and Miami, of course! Also Colombia.

[Vidar]

12. What international criminal doesn't have a house in Miami?

[RedCloud]

4. This is in the same year as Tienanmen Square

And look at the major difference in coverage when a government is viewed as "friendly" they get away with murder. My Venezuelan sources told me the hospitals could not stay sanitized with all the blood that was flowing down the hallways.

When I lived there I heard rumors which I thought were crazy about there being warehouses full of commodities and the government was helping its business friends jack the prices up as the people were paying desperation prices. Apparently the warehouses actually existed.

K & R

[Judi Lynn]

5. That hoarding routine exists to this day. Since Chavez was elected, they use their

hoarding to prove there are "shortages" caused by the Chavez administration.

Thanks for pointing out the astonishing contrast with China. Staggering, unbearable bit of deception, fully maintained and manipulated by our corporate media.

[bjobotts]

7. With all the propaganda surrounding Chavez it's hard to get the truth here in America

[Judi Lynn]

14. It's nearly impossible anyone will EVER see a less than totally derogatory article on ANY

of the elected leftist leaders in Latin America.

If you think about what Americans really have been able to learn through conventional corporate media reports over the years, you'll realize there has been almost total silence, other than scathing condemnations of the leftists, and CONSTANT reference to them all every time their names are mentioned as "leftist President," or "socialist President" or "self-declared socialist," or "firebrand socialist" or "outspoken socialist" or "strongman."

Do you EVER see reports of Colombia's President Uribe as being anyone who runs a county with the SECOND LARGEST HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN THE WORLD? Nope. The President of a country which has been the most dangerous for union workers? Most dangerous for journalists? Is the US current lapdog, as violent as his administration really is, ever noted as being "death-squad-connected?"

The truth has been hopelessly lost for so many years. We didn't ever even hear about the military junta and the tortures and dispappearances of 30,000 people in Argentina in the Kissinger-assisted rule of terror, or the 11 individual torture centers in Chile, under the Nixon-installed butcher puppet Pinochet,torture and murders of leftists in Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, or the bloody reigns of people like the US-backed Somozas in Nicaragua, Rios-Montt in Guatemala, etc., etc., etc. It's a miracle we know anything now, as our own media completely stonewalled these raging nightmares right here in the Americas. A lot known now has come to us only through ceaseless attempts to retrieve information from US official records under FOIA.

[David__77]

13. And they call this "riots," but not what happened in Beijing.

Why is that?

[Judi Lynn]

15. You'd think our slower citizens (right-wingers, usually) would eventually notice this peculiarity!

It appears self-hynosis can be permanent with too many people.

People just don't question what they hear as children, and never even stop to think any of it over as adults. They assume it's true. They proceed to build their world-views on that foundation while never having questioned any of it. Amazing.

[Wednesdays]

6. K&R

:kick:

[lexanman]

8. This guy

is a Fascist stooge. Big time in with Bush Sr. Im suprised this was posted here. Usually its just bs propaganda articles against Chavez.

[EFerrari]

9. You might check out the Latin America forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=405

[lexanman]

10. thanks.

I do check it out. Its one of the more interesting forums where a lot of right wing disinformation is spread. I try to counter it with facts.

[dipsydoodle]

11. K & R

I'd only just noticed this on the Beeb's site, in my Sunday morning trance...lol, and then looked to see if you'd noticed it too. :thumbsup:

[Judi Lynn]

16. Funny thing, dipsydoodle: that story doesn't appear in ANY U.S. media whatsoever!

I presume this isn't a big shock to you, either.

I just ran a search for "Italo del Valle Alliegro" to see what turned up. NOTHING in corporate US sources. Not one word. Nada. Zip.

We'd have to call this lying by omission, I would think!

[The abyss]

17. 10-4

Well noted and well called!