276 "official" deaths are really a joke

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 02, 2003 By: Kira Marquez-Perez

Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 13:08:42 +0100 From: Kira Marquez-Perez Kira.MarquezPerez@uni-duesseldorf.de To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: The press MUST also do the same

Dear Editor: I just wanted to make a very short comment: I read the two articles published today by Mr. Patrick J. O'Donoghue, which I found both very interesting and good.

However, I was really astonished about the "official number of victims" of the Caracazo. That is exactly what I mean when I talk about censored information in Venezuela. This has been happening during all our governments.

Everybody knows that these 276 victims are only about 15% to 20% of the real number of personas that "dissapeared" during these days in 1989.

Because of this, each time you look for data related to the 27F you find a huge range.

Normally you find something like: "between 200 and 3000 persons were killed" ... see, for instance, this chronology of "Key events" presented by the BBC, where the range of victims was set between 300 (close to the official number) and 2000 (close to the realistic number): news.bbc.co.uk

The most reliable data concerning 27F can be surely found in the international press.

However, it is very sad to know that we will never find out how many of our fellow Venezuelans were really killed in these days... But one thing is for sure: these 276 "official" deaths are really a joke.

By the way... I hope the same thing doesn't happen with the events of April 11 to 14, 2002.

The Venezuelan State (in this case President Chavez) must give a realistic official report of the number of victims of the coup-d'etat promoted by dictator Carmona and the others...

The press MUST also do the same.

Best regards, Kira Marquez-Perez Kira.MarquezPerez@uni-duesseldorf.de