Venezuela. Hundreds of thousands rally in victory celebrations.
sf.indymedia.org Vheadline.com by eco man • Saturday January 25, 2003 at 09:54 AM
I finally found a good article on the pro-President Chavez rally in Venezuela. The corporate media articles have so much spin against Chavez. Just check the corporate news sources indexed by Google News to see for yourself. www.vheadline.com
See the updated search form at the end after the Vheadline.com article. The progressive and comprehensive Venezuela news source Vheadline.com is now searchable at Google News!
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Posted: Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 4:04:10 PM By: Roy S. Carson
Hundreds of thousands rally in victory celebrations
Hundreds of thousands of pro=government demonstrators are filling downtown Caracas streets this afternoon as the almost 53-day opposition stoppage dissipates into the tropical hot air to the sound of drums beating and whistles blown.
Venezuelans are celebrating a major victory over opposition saboteurs who have held a virtual gun to the nation's head, crippling the oil industry and strangling the economic framework to reinstate the form of corrupt pseudo-democracy Venezuela had suffered through more than 40 years previous to 1999.
Even opposition loaded international news services are reporting crowds chanting "Hey, hey, Chavez is here to stay!" while FOX News Geraldo Rivero splutters from atop a transmission bus on Avenida Bolivar the usual cliches about "left-leaning President Hugo Chavez" and claiming that the Supreme Court of Venezuela is "Chavez-controlled."
FOX news cameras zoom in on several demonstrators carrying Cuban flags and pictures of Che Guevara as they persist in their anti-Venezuelan propaganda, attempting by visual innuendo to link Venezuela with the Bush-hated effigy of Cuba's Fidel Castro, on which the US media has a current fixation.
What is evidenced in Caracas today is that Chavez Frias is the champion of Venezuela's majority poor who have been driven into abject poverty by an elite corps of upper class exploiters unwilling to give up their Country Club lifestyle.
The opposition shutdown, erroneously described as a "strike" by opposition commentators, had choked the nation's oil exports, resulting in a financial fiscal crisis where the government has been forced to suspend foreign currency trading for five days and has already slashed the 2003 budget. The Venezuelan Central Bank is said to be preparing foreign exchange controls as the corrupt elite attempts to cash in hoards of local currency for US$ to flee the misery they have imposed on the majority.
Weeks ago ... as reported by VHeadline.com ... authorities had been forced to remove the nation's gold reserves to a 24/7 secured location ahead of threats that well-financed opposition guerrillas were about to force entry to the Central Bank vaults. Government spokesmen say the gold remains secure and that Venezuela has sufficient international reserves to ride out the current storm.
Speaking of today's developments re: Chavez Frias, Michael Gavin (head of Latin American Economic Research for UBS Warburg) has told Reuters "I think he's winning this round ... his strategy is to wear down the opposition and wait."
President Chavez Frias appears to have the 100% backing of the armed forces, and has sent troops to take over strike-hit oil installations and food plants that have been hoarding much-needed supplies. Chavez insists that the opposition must wait until August 19 when the 1999 Constitution allows for a binding referendum on his rule.
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*Venezuela oil coup-lockout. In 1974 80% of oil income went to the state. Today 80% of Venezuelan oil income goes to the rich, and to "operating costs." Only 20% goes to the state. Support President Chavez! Chavez reforms will help reverse this in 2003. This is why the coup-plotters are in such a hurry to overthrow the fairly-ELECTED Chavez government, to prevent these reforms, and to reverse others already-implemented. Reforms that help the poor and lower middle class. "All of Venezuela's private television stations and national newspapers are owned by the opposition, and all are employed to deliver an unadulterated flow of anti-Chávez propaganda." Massive corporate-media disinformation, destabilization campaign. Fight media disinformation, Cisneros media empire worldwide, etc.. Form at links below for Google-Searching progressive Venezuela news sites. Some good sites (such as Vheadline.com, MotherJones.com, NarcoNews.com, Guardian.co.uk, CommonDreams.org, and San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia) are indexed daily by Google News! News sites, search shortcuts, and many Venezuela news excerpts. sf.indymedia.org Older version. Comments add latest Venezuela news sites, search shortcuts. nyc.indymedia.org --Later version with more excerpts from articles. belgium.indymedia.org --Media war. Cisneros media empire, etc..
Google-Search Venezuela news sites. Some sites (such as MotherJones.com, NarcoNews.com, Guardian.co.uk, CommonDreams.org, and San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia) are indexed daily by Google News. Click the "News" tab in the Google search results page. Then click "Sort by date." Some sites (such as Vheadline.com) have search engines onsite that index daily. Google indexes some sites more often than others. So for the very latest info you may have to go to the websites directly, and browse there, or use their site search engines there if they have one.
www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=1762