Reply #10: Have you seen "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"? [View All]

[snot]

From http://www.petitiononline.com/vendoc/petition.html :

"'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' is an excellent documentary made by two Irish filmmakers who had the luck to be at Presidential Palace at the time the coup d’etat against Venezuela’s twice democratically-elected President Chavez took place in April 2002. The many awards and excellent reviews that this documentary has garnered internationally can be seen at www.chavezthefilm.com. . . .

"The well-coordinated campaign to pressure Amnesty International and other groups to censor the exhibition of the documentary is part of an effort to silence those who have denounced horrendous human rights violations that were committed during the coup d’etat against President Chavez and during the dictatorship that briefly replaced him. These violations include:

"- arbitrary arrests,
- extra judicial killings,
- torture
- kidnappings
- persecution,
- violation of the rights of assembly and freedom of expression.

"All of this occurred under a dictatorial rule that abolished the Constitution, dissolved the elected National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and fired all state governors, the Attorney General and the Human Rights Ombudsman.

"Indeed, the film’s main arguments and its account of events can be validated by numerous international media reports and by Amnesty International’s own 2003 report on Venezuela. http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/ven-summary-eng "

During the coup, Chavez was abducted. In my own viewing of the documentary, it was unclear exactly who carried out the abduction--but the evidence indicated that covert U.S. forces may have been involved or may at least have abetted those responsible.

Such suspicions aside, the documentary made clear that Chavez is unusual among leaders in encouraging the people to read and understand their constitution and exercise their rights, that he is loved by the majority and that he was thoroughly democratically elected. His crime is that he is trying to help the vast, deeply impoverished majority of his people by nationalizing some of the resources and industries that have long been monopolized by a small, extremely wealthy and powerful minority.