Arena Space

This happened a few days ago. Just read on so that you can judge the two sides of the same story…

On October 27, El Nacional (see here) reported that there were tear gas bombs and shots the previous day at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), which is the largest and most important University in the country. The events happened after the attack on a march organized by Rosales’ supporters to promote going to vote on December 3. According to Stalin Gonzalez, the president of the Federation of Students, men in motorcycles, wearing red T-shirts from the Alcaldía de Caracas, started throwing artifacts to the marchers. One of them was shooting, then got into the School of Social Work where there were about 40 people armed with guns.

Narvaez, the vice-Provost of the institution was protesting on TV the presence of the armed individuals and saying that the DISIP (police) had not come despite being called by the authorities. While Narvaez was on TV, a group stopped a truck close the University, showed a gun to the driver and told him to stay quiet because they were the government. When they arrived at the entry of the University they asked the driver out, got themselves out of the truck and throw a Molotov cocktail to the empty truck.

Juan Barreto, the major of Caracas, rejected the accusation of promoting violence. He said that the Metropolitan police and the DISIP always give protection to the “supposedly unity candidate” and that “we ask our people not to get into violence and we do not promote it. We have no fear because we know that Chavez will win the Presidency and that the opposition is acting irrationally when confronted with its failure”. And then, in his usual charming words he said that “the coupsters are giving their last kicks”.

I wondered which coupsters was he referring to….

So this curious ghost decided to check out the “official news”, published by the government (see here). To my surprise it took me a while to realize that VTV was referring to the same news.

The events have become a “warning about a plan to destabilize the Venezuelan Universities”. The article says that according to “University leaders”, there is a plan devised by University authorities and students to “heat up” the Universities. The plan is rooted on the opposition desperation for the lead of Hugo Chavez in the forthcoming elections.

Interesting, in the VTV article there is not recount of what was going on, no Molotov cocktail, no truck in fire, just the opinion of the “University leaders” of what the plan is and why.

Also interesting is the corollary of the whole incident expressed by Hector Rodríguez, one of the student leaders interviewed by VTV. He said that there is a pretension of University support for Rosales taking the UCV as a pattern without accounting for educational centers like Universidad Simón Rodríguez, Bolivariana and Unefa. The UCV, he said, is no longer the “alfa” and “omega” of the academic circles in Venezuela.

The article then explains that there is a plot to initiate violence at the Universities for December 3 since it is well known that Chavez will win with 50 to 60% of the vote.

At the end, the article reminds the reader that the President proposes a deepening of the socialist doctrine during his mandate whereas Rosales is prone to neoliberal concepts and a rapprochement to the United States.

Quite a peculiar way to recount a violent event.

__________________________________________

Update. On the 28^th El Nacional reported that a preliminary inquest identified the individuals that attacked the march as students of Sociology, armed groups from El 23 de Enero and students from the Universidad Bolivariana.

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena

# posted by jorge arena @ 1:08 PM