Pablo Keinman writes at Real Clear World today, Venezuela, Sad and Surreal
The unconcealed interest of the Chavista government, no longer accustomed to demonstrations of opposition or to free speech, combined with the constant harassment by the government to the organizers and participants of the event, served to turn what was originally meant as a simple gathering of intellectuals into a very high profile event. The whole country – and the whole of Latin America – ended up finding out about what was happening in Caracas and what our gathering was all about.
In the end, however, neither the organizers nor the participants were cowed by the thuggish behavior of the Venezuelan authorities. A parallel gathering of so-called “left wing scholars,” hastily put together by the government, came and went without generating any interest. If anything, it served to underscore the fact that there are still so-called progressives who, the same way they did with the Soviet dictatorship, are perfectly willing to defend and justify, however incoherently, a dictatorial, anti-democratic and repressive regime like the one led by Hugo Chávez.
Go read the rest of the article. It tells it exactly as it is in today’s Venezuela.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan goverment fined Globovisión 5million bolívares fuertes (close to US$5million), plus interest. The government claims that the station’s public service announcements are advertising, and that the station did not declare revenue on them.
