Today across Venezuela many marches were held to commemorate International Labor Day. Chavismo and anti-chavismo all held marches and all went well, except the one in Caracas which was unnecessarily, unjustifiably, brutally repressed. True, the march tried to reach the National Assembly, access which was refused (unconstitutionally) by chavismo. But unlike previous such events, the government did not even offer for a delegation to go through the lines to bring a petition to the alleged house of the people. Caracas downtown only belongs to chavismo and opposition cannot even visit anymore the Bolivar square.
Chavez in an infamous speech (in cadena) from the chavista rally confirmed this reality that there is a political apartheid in Venezuela when he said that the streets belonged only to the people, meaning that only the chavista people is allowed to go wherever it wants in Venezuela.
The picture here is taken by a citizen reporter where you can see the red shirted assault troops of chavifascismo . You can observe that they are wearing weapons with all the intention to use them. You may find more material here.
El Universal has its own photo gallery here (in English here). It also carries pictures of Chavez march in Caracas and the words of hate he spewed, here.
Globovision carries a full coverage with videos on its national news section. Of course Chaevz puts all the blame on the opposition as he is preparing the terrain to crack down on political opposition once and for all. Note that opposition and workers marches in the rest of the country went peacefully and outnumbered governmental rallies, chavismo preferring as usual to focus all of its energies in Caracas to crate photo op for the beloved leader.
The Reuters summary here.
Will the world notice today's repression in Venezuela? Will Lula speak again of "local democratic flavor" or some bullshit of the sort? Will Sarkozy keep trying to sell Total at the expense of Venezuelan liberty (as he is not unwilling to do in Africa when needed)? Will the State Department notice, or where all the campaign words of Obama and Clinton mere words (after all Chavez did find time to criticize Obama today)?
-The end-