April 13, 2002
DAY III:
Democracy Held
Hostage
in Bolívar's
Venezuela
Narco News '02
Coup
Questions
for
Journalists
Time for Civil Society
to Insist
on Accurate Venezuela
Coverage
A Narco News Press Briefing
By Al Giordano
With Barry Crimmins
They've
really overplayed their hand this time.
They, being the commercial media with their fictional coverage
of the violent coup d'etat in Venezuela.
Yesterday's Q &
A posed to Narco News by authentic
journalist Jules Siegel has brought some comments and further
questions into the Narco Newsroom, which we will answer today.
During that exchange, I said:
"But the sorriest group of all has
been the US news correspondents in Venezuela. Not a single one
of them has asked the right questions, much less answered them."
Our first question today comes from journalist
Ron Mader of the Latinscribes
mailing list -- a group of 268 reporters who cover Latin America
-- where the original Q & A with Jules Siegel took place.
Ron asks:
To Al and others --
"What are top three questions you
think should be asked?"
Narco News answers:
There are many more than three questions
that must be asked by the journalists covering Venezuela. Here
are some of them.
1. Where
is President Chavez?
2.
On what charges is he being held?
3.
What are the names and locations of the other political leaders
who have been rounded-up?
4. Where
are they being held?
5.
Why are they being kept incomunicado? Why can't we interview
them?
6. Why
have they been denied access to attorneys?
7. If
Chavez has "resigned" where is his resignation letter?
8. Are
you keeping us from interviewing President Chavez because he
has not resigned?
9. If
he did resign, why hasn't the Vice President substituted him?
10.
On what legal grounds does the military installed dictator Pedro
Carmona abolish Congress, the Supreme Court and even change the
name of the country?
11.
To the US Embassy: The Washington Post today reports, "Members
of the country's diverse opposition had been visiting the U.S.
Embassy here in recent weeks, hoping to enlist U.S. help in toppling
Chavez. The visitors included active and retired members of the
military, media leaders and opposition politicians." Who
are these individuals who, the US had prior knowledge, were organizing
a coup d'etat?
12.
Which US officials did they speak with?
13.
To the media: On what basis do almost all of you claim that the
shots fired on Thursday came from the government?
14.
How do you explain that Chavez supporters were also shot?
15.
Where did those shots come from?
16.
On what basis do almost all of you claim that Chavez "resigned"?
17.
Particularly after his daughter, his attorney general and his
ambassador to Mexico have proclaimed that he has not resigned,
why do you keep repeating this knowingly false lie?
18.
On what basis, since he is held incomunicado, do you claim he
asked for asylum in another country?
19.
Why do you refer to the military installed dictator Pedro Carmona
as president without at least placing the word in quotation marks?
20.
On what basis do you call this military coup a popular revolt?
21. On
what basis do you portray a relatively small effort by the "spoiled
brat" oligarchy classes in one city of a country of 24 million
people as at all representative of the national public will?
22.
Why is there no examination of the vested interests that the
military brass, the oil industry (including dictator Pedro Carmona),
the corrupt petrol workers union, the Church hierarchy and the
five TV networks had to stage a military coup?
23.
What were their real motives for imprisoning a democratically
elected leader?
Those questions may soon be bypassed by
events more grave in the days to come.
24.
What dishonest spin will the inauthentic journalists place on
the story when the Venezuelan majority begins to fight to restore
its constitutional government?
Anything can happen in the next 72 hours.
Anything.
And the US correspondents have showed
themselves, already, to be unprepared or unwilling to conduct
the most basic inquiries of journalism.
For more information, see:
(Thanks to Jules Siegel for yesterday's
Q & A, which is now published along with other analysis and
breaking news).
salud y abrazo,
Al Giordano
A Real
Coup for the
Bush
Administration
A
reader writes:
Dear Al,
I know that democracy has been defeated,
the CIA fired at those crowds in Venezuela and then blamed Chavez,
the jackbooted thugs are going house to house right now in Venezuela
to round up the democratically elected leaders, and the New York
Times is lying through its dentures -- you should see that corrupt
rookie asshole Forero's story today! -- but, jeez, Al, you sound
so angry and serious. Can't you have a sense humor about all
this, even if the joke is on We, the People?
Signed,
Laughless on Long Island
Dear Laughless,
Um, I'm going to have Barry Crimmins handle
that question.
Barry sent this commentary out to his
mailing list
this morning.
from somewhere in a country called América,
Al Giordano
Quips
& Comments 4-13-'02
by Barry Crimmins
This
Venezuelan thing is a real coup for
the Court-appointed Bush Administration.
If
you want to know what's going on in
Venezuela just read, and invert, the New York Times.
The
State Department's own newsletter contains
more material it objects to than can be found in a month's worth
of the New York Times.
It's
nice to see it didn't take long for
the CIA to make good use of its unchecked power and unlimited
budget.
The
Dulles Brothers are cackling in Hell
over the restoration of America's ability to reverse the democratic
will of sovereign nations, without so much even mild cross-examination
by the media.
William
Randolph Hearst is sitting in the same bonfire
as the Dulles boys, beaming proudly at the ease with which the
contemporary corporate media is able to mislead the public.
On
the other hand, Simon Bolivar is on
a rotisserie in his grave.
Remember
the Maine? Well keep it in mind when
you are reading anything in the corporate media concerning the
Venezuelan coup.
Remember the Latin American hoaxes!
The
new corporate junta in Venezuela so
loves freedom that it is now delivering it door-to-door, at the
end of a gun barrel.
The
US-backed Venezuelan coup installed
"President" Pedro Carmona who in just 24 hours dissolved
the legitimately elected congress, delayed elections and declared
he has the right to remove any elected official from power. At
this rate he should be naming John Ashcroft Attorney General
sometime later today.
Bush
and Carmona are forming a new group:
The Organization of Illegitimate Leaders or "OIL."
The
Venezuelan coup is about the drug the
US simply cannot kick-- oil. Fingerprints of the oily Bushes
and their family-owned subsidiary, the Central Intelligence Agency,
are all over this removal from power of a man who had the gall
to assert that Venezuelans should benefit from Venezuela's natural
resources.
Anyone
in the Court-appointed Bush Administration
will tell you, Chavez Frias' fidelity to the people of Venezuela
is proof positive that he is anti-American.
If
you think the snipers that killed the
people in Venezuela were doing so at the behest of overthrown
democratically-elected (by landslides) President Hugo Chavez
Frias, you probably believe Wag the Dog was a documentary.
I'm
not saying that there are a zillion
parallels to the overthrow of Allende in Chile, I'm just saying
that if Jack Lemmon has any kids in Venezuela, now would be a
good time for them to get the hell out of there.
That
figure of 150,000 protesters at the
anti-Chavez Frias rally in Venezuela includes 110,000 previously
uncounted participants from earlier peace, environmental and
civil rights rallies in the United States. When the Court-appointed
Bush Administration saw the need to make Pedro Carmona seem legitimate,
it immediately ordered the National Park Service to send down
a healthy amount of uncounted masses to help in the rationalization
of the installation of this
corporate junta.
The
actual figure of 150,000 was provided
to the Venezuelan Corporate Junta courtesy of Katherine Harris.
The
presidents of Mexico and Peru have
announced that they do not recognize the illegitimate regime
of Carmona but what do elected leaders matter?
And while we're at it-- for the best coverage
and analysis of the Venezuelan Coup and all matters concerning
affairs south of the Land of the Court-appointed Gringo, read
Narco News:
© 2002 Barry Crimmins
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Okay, Now Can
I Go Back to Being Bitter Again?