"The Price of Dissent in Venezuela"

www.chronwatch.com Posted by Kevin Willmann Tuesday, February 25, 2003

     Venezuela has been a volatile powder keg for the last couple of months. There has been loud dissatisfaction with the presidency of Hugo Chavez, and some have paid the price for their dissent against Chavez.

     Thor Halvorssen wrote the following for The Weekly Standard about one dissenter in that South American nation.

     VENEZUELA IS NOW an abyss where there is no rule of law. A rogue government tortures innocent civilians with impunity while paying lip service to democracy and buying time at the ''negotiation'' table set up by the Organization of American States. Venezuela's foreign minister, Roy Chaderton, has funded an effective multi-million dollar public relations campaign to smear the opposition as coup-plotters and fascists intent on bringing about violence.

     Jesus Soriano has never met Roy Chaderton or Hugo Chavez. Soriano supported President Hugo Chavez's meteoric rise, volunteered during the election campaign, and is now a second-year law student in Caracas.  His law-school peers describe the 24-year-old as a cheerful and happy young man.

     Soriano, a member of the Chavez party, is part of a national student group called ''Ousia,'' a group that brings together moderates who support the government and opposition members seeking a peaceful resolution to the current crisis.

     On December 6, Soriano witnessed the massacre that occurred during a peaceful protest in Altamira, a neighborhood in Caracas where the opposition has a strong presence.  The killer was Joao De Gouveia, an outspoken supporter of Chavez who has an unusually close relationship with mayor Freddy Bernal, a Chavez crony.  Gouveia randomly began shooting at the crowd.  He killed three--including a teenage girl he shot in the head--and injured 28 people.  As Gouveia kept shooting, several men raced toward him to stop the killing. Soriano was one of the men who wrestled Gouveia to the ground and prevented further killing. Soriano also protected Gouveia from a potential lynch mob that swarmed around the killer.

     Soriano's heroic accomplishments did not cease that day. He became a national figure in Venezuela when he brought a small soccer ball (known in Venezuela as a ''futbolito'') to a sizable protest march organized against the rule of Lt. Col. Chavez. Soriano and other pro-Chavez partisans made their way towards the march intending to engage the opposition members in dialogue.

     That hot afternoon, Soriano kicked the futbolito across the divide at the members of the opposition.  They kicked it back.  The magical realism of the event is evident in the extraordinary television footage of what occurred next.  By the end of the match the anti-Chavez protestors and pro-Chavez partisans were hugging and chanting ''Peace!  Unity! We are Venezuela! Politicians go away!  We are the real Venezuela!'' In one particularly moving part of the footage, Soriano and a member of the opposing team trade a baseball hat for a Chavez-party red beret.

     In one hour this sharply divided group of strangers accomplished more than the high-level negotiation team that seeks to defuse a potential civil war.  Chavez was reportedly furious with the televised soccer match and even angrier that the reconciliation was a product of the efforts of one of his supporters.  Soriano was declared an enemy of the revolution.

To read the entire article, go to: www.weeklystandard.com