Venezuelan police sentenced for 2002 violence

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Venezuelan police sentenced for 2002 violence
AP
15 mins ago

CARACAS, Venezuela – A Venezuelan court has sentenced nine former police officers to as much as 30 years in prison for the killings of demonstrators during protests before the failed 2002 coup.

High-ranking police officials Henry Vivas, Lazaro Forero and Ivan Simonovis were sentenced to 30 years for "complicity" in the deaths. Six other officers got terms between 17 and 30 years for homicide and complicity. That's according to a lawyer for some victims, Antonio Molina.

The 19 people killed on April 11, 2002 included both allies and adversaries of President Hugo Chavez. The deaths happened when police controlled by an opposition mayor clashed with a pro-Chavez demonstration in Caracas.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090403/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_venezuela_police_sentenced

[fascisthunter]

1. wow... now that is JUSTICE!

[cali]

2. huh? How many times have you railed against using the AP as a source?

That said, good to see the outcome of the trial.

[Tempest]

5. What a small, petty person you are

She could have used any number of sources and still gotten the facts.

It's not like it's an opinion piece.

[cali]

10. tough. Every piece that she doesn't like, she rails about the source.

I don't like dishonesty or hypocrisy. You see that as petty. I don't. Oh, and I don't give a rat's ass what the likes of you, thinks of me.

[ret5hd]

13. Aren't you the poster that delights in stirring the pro-anti chavez shitstorms...

just 'cause you think it is hilarious?

What a twit.

[d_b]

14. *twat

[Judi Lynn]

3. Former police commissioners sentenced to 30 years in prison

CARACAS, Friday April 03, 2009
Former police commissioners sentenced to 30 years in prison


Former Metropolitan Police commissioners Iván Simonovis, Lázaro Forero and Henry Vivas, as well as former officer of the Metropolitan Police (PM) Erasmo Bolívar, were sentenced to 30 years in prison in a trial related to the events that took place in Puente Llaguno, downtown Caracas, during a failed coup d'état on April 2002.

On Friday, the Aragua state court presided over by judge Maryori Calderón made also a ruling against former PM officer José Salazar, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison. According to the judgment, only two of the defendants were released, private TV news network Globovisión said.

Nubia Vivas, sister of Henry Vivas, said that they will use all the possible legal remedies for "exposing the true nature of the farce" staged by judge Calderón. She said that Vivas' trial was a political trial.

http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/04/03/en_pol_esp_former-police-commis_03A2282333.shtml
Opposition newspaper

[Judi Lynn]

4. Here's an earlier story from 2004: Police Officers Accuse Police Chiefs of Ordering them to Shoot at

Police Officers Accuse Police Chiefs of Ordering them to Shoot at Demonstrators in April 2002
Tuesday, 14 December 2004

Caracas, December 13, 2004—Caracas metropolitan police officers say they were ordered to fire at Chavista demonstrators on the day of the coup against President Chavez, on April 11, 2002 at Puente Llaguno. The four officers who testified before the Fourth Court of Aragua coincided in their accusations against the ex-directors of the metropolitan police, Henry Vivas and Lázaro Forero.

The Fourth Court of Aragua is currently investigating the actions of Henry Vivas, the former Caracas Metropolitan Police Commander, and Lázaro Forero, the former Chief of Security for Caracas’ oppositional former Metropolitan Mayor, Alfredo Peña, as well as other police officers during the march that preceded the temporary overthrow of President Hugo Chávez.

The shots that the police fired at pro-Chavez demonstrators that day caused some of these to fire back. Venezuela’s private mass media captured the Chavista gunfire and falsely claimed that these were firing at unarmed opposition demonstrators, not at the metropolitan police, who had started shooting at them first, according to many eyewitnesses. These images of Chavistas shooting were a crucial element in the April 2002 coup attempt, as these were used to justify the coup on the grounds that Chavez had issued an order for his supporters to fire at opposition demonstrators.

A series of radio conversations between police officials presumed to be recorded on April 11, 2002 were turned in to Metropolitan Police Inspector Leonardo Navas from an unidentified source last year. The tapes implicate the commanders of the Metropolitan Police as having given orders to fire on the pro-Chavez demonstrators, which resulted in the deaths of about seven civilians.

More:
http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/police_shoot_demonstrators.htm

[Judi Lynn]

6. You may remember originally RCTV accused Chavez supporters of being the shooters

who laid out the victims in the street, and claimed the victims were all anti-Chavistas.

IF you saw the documentary with the clips taken of the people in the street you saw how the private tv stations presented a completely MANIPULATED, TOTALLY MISLEADING view of the shootings to the people of Caracas, and were exposed in short order.

Here's a response from the filmmakers to charges made by anti-Chavista Phil Gunson which cover that shooting of protesters:

DOCUMENTARY
Director's Cut
Who's Right? The Filmmakers Respond

BY KIM BARTLEY AND DONNACHA O'BRIAIN

~snip~
Gunson accuses us of propaganda and suggests that we failed to understand the complexity of the Venezuelan situation. We spent nearly a year in Venezuela researching and filming this documentary, and were eyewitnesses to the coup.

Gunson may obsess about de-contextualized details. He fails, however, to ask the key questions any journalist would ask:

Did elements in the military threaten force in the effort to make Chávez resign? They did. Did Chávez resign? No. Were the people who illegally seized power representative of some of the most retrograde political tendencies in Venezuelan society? Yes they were. The first action of the Carmona regime was to abolish the democratic institutions, including parliament. These facts are simply glossed over, or worse, omitted by Gunson. Some further points:

* The fact that not all the military were involved — as is the case with most coups — is irrelevant. By late on the night of April 11, the coup plotters did threaten to unleash an attack on the palace. The infamous Vice Admiral Ramírez Pérez even stated that night, on privately owned TV, that “Either he takes this opportunity, or we’ll launch a military operation.” Were they bluffing? Who knows? Did those who remained inside the palace fear an attack? Yes.

* The idea that Chávez supporters in 2002 were broadly poor and dark-skinned and the opposition broadly white and middle class may seem simplistic but it’s one we share with a number of commentators including the Guardian newspaper (December 10, 2002), Professor Dan Hellinger of Webster University in Missouri, and indeed Gunson himself. (See The Christian Science Monitor, April 16, 2002.)

* On one of the most crucial events — the shootings of April 11 — Gunson is guilty of omission and inaccuracy. Nowhere in the film did we say that only chavistas were shot on April 11. Nobody can say with certainty who orchestrated the shootings that day. Our focus, rather, was on the way the private media rushed to judgment, without any corroboration, stating as fact that the chavistas who were filmed on the Llaguno Bridge were shooting at the opposition march. These alleged shooters subsequently were tried in a court of law and absolved of all charges; indeed the court established that they had been firing in self-defense at snipers and police. This fact, important to any understanding of these events, is conveniently omitted from Gunson’s article. That the opposition march did not pass below the bridge is attested to by many eyewitnesses, including the deputy editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, who was on the bridge that day. The documentary Anatomy of a Coup, broadcast on Australian TV (SBS) in October 2002, came to conclusions similar to our own. Again these key testimonies are omitted from Gunson’s own constructed narrative.

He tells us nothing of the evidence, commonly known and presented in the same SBS documentary, which suggests that the violence that day was provoked and choreographed. That documentary quotes a CNN correspondent describing how on the evening of April 10 he was invited to film a press conference at which Vice Admiral Ramírez Pérez denounced Chávez for the deaths — this before the shootings had even taken place. (See also The Battle of Venezuela, published by the Latin American Bureau)

As for Wolfgang Schalk’s so-called “shadow analysis”: it is surely not insignificant that Schalk has led the well-resourced campaign, linked to the Venezuelan opposition, to discredit and suppress our film. His claim that the high shot of the empty street was filmed before the march ever neared the palace is untrue. The footage is contemporaneous with the exchange of fire between chavistas on the bridge and snipers and police.

More:
http://74.125.93.104/search?q=cache:FhWisEJGLJwJ:cjrarchives.org/issues/2004/3/bartley-docu.asp+Venezuela+coup+false+image+shooting+bridge&hl=en&client=firefox-a&gl=us&strip=1
Colombia Journalism Review

~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you haven't seen this documentary yet, put aside some time to watch it:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144

Published on Saturday, November 22, 2003 by the Guardian/UK
Chavez Film Puts Staff at Risk, Says Amnesty
Recriminations after documentary on Venezuelan coup attempt is dropped from a Vancouver festival
by Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles


An award-winning documentary about the coup last year that briefly ousted the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, has become the subject of a bitter dispute. Last week, it was withdrawn from an Amnesty International (AI) film festival because Amnesty staff in Caracas said they feared for their safety if it were shown.

The film, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, was made by two Irish film makers, Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain. They were preparing a documentary about Mr Chavez, with his cooperation, before the coup and were inside the presidential palace in April 2002 when the events unfolded.

The film has since been shown on television by the BBC, by RTE in Ireland, and elsewhere in Europe. This week it won two prizes at the Grierson documentary awards in Britain.

Mr Chavez was briefly removed from office by a military coup but returned to power after 48 hours. The political situation was then, and remains, highly polarized. The president as portrayed by his opponents is a dangerous, anti-US communist, while Chavez supporters see the opposition as the privileged seeking to preserve their powers from the underprivileged.

The film portrays Mr Chavez in a sympathetic light. It was shown on the public television channel in Venezuela earlier this year. The private television channels are all opposed to Mr Chavez.

Last week, the film was due to be shown at the AI film festival in Vancouver. The organizing committee came under pressure from Chavez opponents in Venezuela and eventually decided not to show it.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1122-10.htm

[elise11]

16. RCTV was the FOX of Venezuela

Understandably shut down.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Still very much in business, just as Fox is here. They are much worse than Fox,

having been deeply involved in the run-up to the coup, and the oil workers lock-out strike which crippled Venezuela's economy for the duration, and they still spew pure venom 24/7 on cable and satellite just as Fox News does here.

Their contract for VHF ran out, as you may have heard, FIVE years after the coup. Had that happened here, they would NEVER have been allowed to keep operating five years after participating in anti-government operations.

[pattmarty]

7. Jesus????? In (Communist) Venezuela they put police officers...............

........in jail??? Shit like can't and won't happen in the USA!!!!!:sarcasm:

[Pastiche423]

8. I am so glad they finally got their due!

[Mudoria]

9. Hopefully these government thugs will get the same treatment..

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3884

[Judi Lynn]

11. You don't have any clue about what happened there, do you?

Google translation of article posted in opposition newspaper, El Universal:

CICPC said that selling tickets was the motive for the murder of Soto

Maracaibo .- "The mobile phone that so far it appears from the investigation into the murder of Julio Soto is the illegal sale of student tickets," revealed on Tuesday at a news conference the director general of the Corps of Scientific Research, Criminal and, Marcos Chavez, as outlined the daily Panorama on its website.

The police chief explained at the headquarters of the security agency in Maracaibo, that the investigation is directed in accordance with three lines: drug trafficking, car theft and illegal sale of student tickets. In the end, he said, all converging on the same criminal organization and in the same cell phone.

Said the ballistics tests and the results of the expert performed on Soto and his pickup truck, among others, are the elements that sustain the initial request for arrest warrants that were issued Monday afternoon by the Tenth Court of Control Zulia.

Among those mentioned are police officers, civilians and businessmen, all related to the sale of student tickets. "Those who are requested to reside, work and operate in Maracaibo. We assume that others will soon be issued arrest warrants," he said.

A source linked to the investigation said that among the eight required three policemen last name Alvarez, Creole and Monroy, two brothers Mendez, a few brothers Gaza, and another subject named Godoy.

http://www.eluniversal.com/2008/10/15/sucgc_art_cicpc-dice-que-venta_1095243.shtml
OPPOSITION NEWSPAPER

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More, also google translated from the opposition, anti-Chavez newspaper, El Universal

CICPC: Mob murder of student leader is the illegal sale of student tickets

09:27 AM Maracaibo .- The mobile so far emerged from the investigation into the assassination of the president of the Federation of Student Center at the University of Zulia, Julio Soto, is the illicit sale of student tickets.

This was stated by the director general of the Corps of Scientific Research, Criminal and (CICPC), commissioner Marcos Chavez, during a press conference hosted in the capital Zulian, ABN reported.

In that sense, commented that according to investigations so far, three elements are handled in the case, such as: drug trafficking, vehicle theft and illegal sale of student tickets.

The director of police agency, explained that the results of the expert who conducted a leader in life outside of the Social Christian party Copei, as well as the respective inquiries, represent the elements that support the application of the first arrest warrants that were issued by the Tenth Court of Control of Zulia, on Monday.

He noted that the investigations continue, given that in this case, allegedly linking police officers and civilians, as well as businessmen, all related to the sale of student tickets.

"Those who are requested to reside, work and operate in Maracaibo. We assume that others will soon be issued arrest warrants, "he said.

http://deportes.eluniversal.com/2008/10/15/suc_ava_cicpc:-movil-de-ases_15A2070853.shtml

On edit:
I'm adding at absolutely no cost to you whatsoever, a fine photo of your little 33 year old "schoolboy," the former skinhead lump Julio Soto, a man of many talents:

car theft, drug sales, blackmarket sales of government provided bus passes meant to be used by students. Cool!

[EFerrari]

18. Julio Soto was killed by his thug pals working the black market

just as he was. Sorry!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x8848

[Judi Lynn]

19. I just took another look at Mudoria's link, and whaddya know, it mentioned his involvement

in blackmarket activities already!

Earlier this month, investigators discovered evidence that Soto’s murder was linked to Soto’s illicit selling of government-subsidized student bus tickets.

How anyone would make a leap from that article to the fantasy the Venezuelan government was all caught up in assassinating this fool is a mystery for the ages.

I remember within a couple of days after Julio Soto stepped off the curb, they started checking up on his finances, and discovered he had a VAST bank account, far, FAR BEYOND ANY 'SCHOOL KID'S' bank account, over a MILLION. That's what tipped them off he they should start digging into his contacts immediately.

You probably notice that ALL news on this thug dropped completely out of the news within a couple of weeks, and NOTHING was written about the case at ALL after that, after the investigation turned up his criminal connections.

He could have gotten a lot of money from the U.S. right-wing, too, for his anti-Chavez activities, like that little gentleman Yon Goicoechea got $500,000.00 from the Cato Institute:

Venezuelan Opposition Student Leader to Receive $500,000 Award from U.S. NGO
Written by James Suggett
Thursday, April 24 2008 14:30

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com.nyud.net:8090/files/imagecache/medium/files/images/2008/04/goicoechea1.jpg

The libertarian, U.S.-based Cato Institute awarded the $500,000 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to Venezuelan opposition student leader Yon Goicoechea for his leadership in student protests against the non-renewal of the public broadcast license of Radio Caracas Televisions (RCTV) and against the constitutional reform in 2007.

Goicoechea was chosen because he is “a passionate opponent of the erosion of human and civil rights under the government of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez,” according to the Cato Institute website.

The Cato Institute , which was founded in 1977, espouses a libertarian free market philosophy, supports the privatization of social security, and is opposed to environmental regulations to halt global warming, but has clashed with the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush over the Iraq War.

Venezuelan opposition student leader Yon Goicoechea to receive $500,000 Milton Friedman award from the libertarian Cato Institute.
Goicoechea organized “massive, peaceful student marches” which “successfully prevented President Hugo Chávez`s regime from seizing broad dictatorial powers in December 2007,” when the constitutional reform lost the popular vote by a slim margin in a nation-wide referendum, Cato says.

Goicoechea, a 23 year-old law student at the private Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, told the press Wednesday that “this award is not only for me, but for thousands of young Venezuelans who came out to struggle for freedom.”

More:
http://www.medialeft.net/main/index.php/venezuela-and-colombia-medialeftsections-183/551-venezuelan-opposition-student-leader-to-receive-500000-award-from-us-ngo

http://www.globoterror.com.nyud.net:8090/files/images/goicopremio.jpg http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com.nyud.net:8090/j/msnbc/Components/Photo_StoryLevel/080511/080511-student-hmed-9a.hmedium.jpg

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/0asUb5eaSF8Op/340x.jpg



Yon Goicoechea, proud recipient of $500,000.00 for his anti-Chavez activities.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.radiomundial.com.ve.nyud.net:8090/yvke/files/img_noticia/t_julio_soto_402.jpg http://2.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_m7dDvVYKO2c/SOVrj467gpI/AAAAAAAAFBw/QNFt2hVt9NM/s400/JULIO+SOTO.jpg

Gone, but apparently not forgotten, that sweet youth, Julio Soto

[Vidar]

12. Real justice achieved in Venezuela, still lacking in the US.

[ret5hd]

15. kick

[Judi Lynn]

20. Convictions in Venezuela over coup

Convictions in Venezuela over coup
Published: 11:02AM Saturday April 04, 2009
Source: Reuters

A Venezuelan judge has convicted nine police officers for involvement in violence linked to a 2002 coup that toppled leftist President Hugo Chavez, the first convictions related to the brief putsch.

Chavez was briefly forced from office by military officers and opposition leaders after clashes between demonstrators in downtown Caracas killed some 20 people in events that bitterly divided the OPEC nation for years along political lines.

Relatives of the victims celebrated the ruling as a long-overdue act of justice, while Chavez's critics and the officers' families condemned it as a political witch-hunt that singled out those opposed to the self-styled socialist leader.

~snip~
Yesenia Fuentes, wounded on the day of the demonstrations, called the 30-year sentences "short for the massacre they committed."

More:
http://tvnz.co.nz/content/2617399