Which is all the more reason to believe he was simply making a documentary.
Hell, for all the paranoid chavistas know his final product would've put the opposition in a bad light (certainly the two clips shown could make the opposition look bad with a certain narrative). We don't have his film though, particularly uncut film without very neatly done editing. (Reminds me of the parliament bashings where we have yet to have access to the raw, uncut, film of the incident.)
The idiots arrested over the bridge bomb plot in the Occupy protests don't represent Occupy nor do those guys who were arrested for throwing Molotovs. Likewise, it's specious at best to accuse thugs who want to make money of representing the opposition and since Rivera's comments are in direct contradiction to Capriles' public statements against violence, it makes little sense to connect him to the opposition as well. A case could be made if it was systemic but I suspect if it were we'd have a shitload more videos being shown. It'd fill state TV and cadenas daily. Seems in the end that's all they found.
A video was posted here of protesters running on roofs and throwing ... water bottles at the national guard. They were called violent protesters wanting to overthrow the government. That's how absurd discussion about Venezuela has become. People throwing water bottles. I suppose they were filled with hydric acid, too...
edit: I will concede one thing, after watching and rewatching the Rivera video it seems as if the guy who's assisting him (Tims Spanish is poor) was a Capriles supporter. It's possible, even probable, that he was getting assistance from opposition youth groups to film which is why it's being pegged the April Connection and all that foldera. Young kids seeing an American with a camera and equipment and who has paid some guy to take him around, that'd be interesting to be involved with. We saw this in Libya (uh oh, am I about to get derailed?) where western film makers would get embedded in rebel groups and they saw them as their own. So with that in mind certainly I can concede that Tims actions could look insurrectionist.
If you took the camera away.
= new reply since forum marked as read