Chavenezuela

Updated throughout the day

Chavenezuela, my latest article, is up at Pajamas Media, with videos.

Please also listen to my Blog Talk Radio podcast with guests Thor Halvorssen, President and CEO of the Human Rights Foundation, award-winning bloggers Daniel Duquenal of Venezuela News and Views and Miguel Octavio of The Devil’s Excrement, and oil industry expert Gustavo Coronel, and please also visit their blogs and websites.

Miguel Octavio will be P.V. Radio‘s podcast guest tonight at 9PM EDT.

The protesting Venezuelan students have a website (in Spanish) Resistencia Estudiantil Por La Libertad with live radio feed.

This is what the Avenida Francisco de Miranda, one of Caracas’s main thoroughfares, looked like last night:

I’ll update this post with the latest developments througout the day.

Morning round-up:
Demonstrations were reported in some 100 different municipalities across the country
Chavez declares Globovision an enemy of the state, an “enemy of the homeland”.
Venezuela’s Totalitarian Turn
Chile defends freedom of expression in Venezuela TV row but the Brazilian government is keeping quiet. At least the Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) refused in a meeting held last week in Asuncion a request from the Venezuelan government to back its closing of RCTV.
An Overwhelming Momentum
Another Cow Put Out To Pasture: Cindy Sheehan’s Last Dance
Gustavo Coronel writes A letter to Danny

Noon update:
Adam Housely is back, reporting from the streets of Caracas,
Students from two more universities join in the protests.
Cato Institute: Chavez’s Actions Eroding Venezuela’s Credibility, Economy
More video, via Oliver

Daniel Duquenal was on a Radio Five Live podcast

3PM update
Gustavo Coronel was interviewed in today’s Cato’s Daily Podcast
College students in Chacaito filed a civil complaint and are demonstrating (link in Spanish, via Mora.
Pelosi Calls on Venezuela’s Chavez to Reconsider TV Shutdown. How do you spell t-o-o l-a-t-e, Nancy?
Venezuelan Revolt

The ruling Chavistas are in a panic. They do not know what to do. Chavez himself mocked the protestors Tuesday and implied they were CIA agents – but Venezuelans noticed that he spoke from the naval airport near Caracas, a place from where dictators are known to flee the country. Venezuelans wondered if he was really that scared because it was an odd location. Meanwhile, other Chavistas have bared their fangs at other TV stations, vowing to shut them – Globovision, the last Venezuelan dissident station, a very tiny one that takes subscriptions and commands only a 5% market share, and CNN, whose fearless Kitty Pilgrim and others have done award-worthy reporting exposing the reality of Chavez’s Venezuela for the past few years. Chavez has loudly cursed that reporting.

Venezuelans think that those stations will be shut soon. They don’t want any more coverage of the protests that are engulfing Caracas. In their minds, shutting the stations will make information much harder to get. But there’s too much momentum to really stop it – Caracas will just become a city of added tropical intrigue with people acting on rumors.

Venezuela Local Debt Plunge Amid Fifth Day of Street Protests
Overreaching Autocrat
Chavez abolishes freedom of the press to stop the spread of soap operas

5PM update
Monkey see, monkey do: now Correa in Ecuador and Morales in Bolivia want to do as Hugo Protests in Venezuela; One Hundred High School Students Arrested; Attacks on Media Continue; Bolivian and Ecuadorian Governments Announce Media Crackdown

Adam Housley at Fox News