For example, if I recall correctly, the video makes no reference to how in the midst of the conflict the government decided to broadcast a (pre-recorded, as can be inferred by discrepancies between the actual time and the time Chávez said it was) network public address, which all media outlets , public and private, were forced to broadcast, as required by law. I'm not sure if it mentions how some private media then decided to split the screen and show the conflict on the left side and the presidential address on the right side. When the government then decided to cut all national private signals, satellite television (which I was watching) allowed still the conflict to be seen. The voice of the woman reporter seemed to show disbelief as then unidentified shooters unloaded gunfire from a bridge into a crowd of people walking below.
The video said this was staged, alleging that the cameras never showed who the shooters were shooting at (the video then cuts to a scene of an empty street). However, judging from the intensity of the shadows between the empty street scene and the scene with the shooters, it is clear that they correspond to different times of day. Some have speculated that the empty street was, in fact, a recording of the street before the demonstrators had arrived.
I'm sure the people that saw the actual shooting themselves remember it better than I do. I remember scenes of a group of people carrying bloodied bodies or running in disarray. I remember scenes of tear gas. My father was in that demonstration, although not where the bridge events happened (a few blocks away), and he suffered from it.
It does not mention, either, Chávez's direct orders to activate Plan Avila, a city defence plan that would have involved deploying the military in the city and quashing unrest (this against a largely unarmed civilan population) had not most of the high ranking officers refused (those who did not refuse, such as Jorge Luis García Carneiro, now sit in one of the higher posts of the military structure, were decorated or were lauded by Chávez as patriots). This is where the military decide to intervene and demand Chávez's written resignation, which was declared publicly through radio (although no such document has been clearly found) by one of his ranking officers (Lucas Rincón, the person that is now Minister of Domestic and Judicial Affairs). It also does not mention how the rebelling military seemed to have changed their minds and gone back on their word and, instead of letting Chávez go, held him in the military island of La Orchila, just off the Venezuelan coast. Here he was held during the events that ensued until the very same military who rebelled against Chávez withdrew their support for Pedro Carmona Estanga, the then president of the Confederacy of Venezuelan Workers (a union), after he stepped up, took power, and proceeded to dissolve all institutions formed under the Chávez regime in hastily drawn list of decrees. Loyalists in the army, among them Carneiro, calling for Chávez's supporters to "come down from the hills", a reference perhaps to the calls made in the 1992 coup attempt, then stormed the presidential palace. While Chávez was being returned by those who held him, the then vice-president Diosdado Cabello stood in as president.
The video also exaggerates the amount of people that came to show their support for president Chávez, as well as their role.
The video also fails to mention how the only helicopters allowed to fly that day were government helicopters. No other helicopter was allowed.
The video also fails to mention Chávez's reconciliatory and quiet tone just after the events when addressing the nation, apologising for publicly firing the PDVSA executives on TV and calling for peace and understanding, a tone which days afterwards flared up again in the racy, inflammatory rhethoric that so characterises him.
The video is also blatantly vilipendous in stereotyping the opposition as "a small group of rich ladies defending their privileges", and in downplaying its size, ridiculing its stance and ignoring its importance.
What do you think of this image? It dates August 12 2004, three days before the presidential recall referendum.
http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0oQCbAjwtflRZSt0RMa!aoPsXauOrX!5oIIk0Fwg7KWFox0rOJ8REAVQqJLFls!t2!
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wY0fbSFPSK4pyZDOHkg6mppPpM/Imágenes%20de%20los%20días%2012%20y%2015%20de
%20agosto%20006.jpg?dc=4675536306195236395?click
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