Venezuela's Opposition

Recently, in response to my report on a visit to Venezuela, for which I have received a lot of very encouraging feedback, I got an email from a Venezuelan man telling me I had no right to be publishing my opinions, since I don't live in Venezuela. I'm going to have to assume he's a member of the opposition to Chávez, since my opinion was generally favorable to the government, but not unconditionally, which makes me curious that he would make the effort to silence someone who wasn't clearly condemning the Opposition nor whole-heartedly supporting the government. I wonder what he would have said to me had that been the case.

The same day I received that chastisement from the opinion Nazi, I read an article by VHeadline contributer Elio Cequea relating being told by an Opposition supporter that he had no right to spread his views on the referendum since he is not an expert (he is a Venezuelan). And then, a couple of days later, another VHeadline article by Oscar Heck quoted another Opposition supporter telling him to keep his opinions to himself.

I sent an email to Mr. Heck asking, "What is this? The Opposition mantra?"

Here's what he sent back to me:

Yup, these kinds of responses from the Venezuelan opposition (and their supporters) is typical. Those types of responses are mild compared to what we often get:

idiot, jerk, asshole, fucking asshole, fucker, brainless, retard, illiterate, etc.,

... or threats such as:

I know who you are, watch your back, and your family too, I will do everything to get rid of you. You are worth more dead.

...or the hacking and sabotage of our computers ... (I lost two computers and had to hire a hacker to fix everything and protect me from these saboteurs.

Vheadline itself receives over 1500 viruses daily since after the April 2002 coup. All Vheadline writers (except to recent ones) have received death threats and paying Vheadline advertisers had to drop their advertising because they received threats from opposition people.

Although it is quite exhausting to deal with all this crap, we have to keep on writing to educate the world as to what is really happening in Venezuela (I spend 3-4 month of the year in Venezuela).

Obviously that is easier for me than for the reporters in Venezuela, who risk their lives every time they speak out in favor of the Bolivarian movement. But maybe I would have gotten something a little stronger from the opinion Nazi had my report been more directly pro-Chávez.

The Opposition fashions themselves as the democratic ones. Chávez, they say, is a dictator. (Black is white - you'll recognize that approach.) And, our country supports the Opposition. But, that shouldn't surprise anyone, considering the vitriolic attempts to shut up objection to Herr Bush's foreign policy we experience here, and that 'black is white' thing they have going.

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