Showing posts with label Génesis Carmona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Génesis Carmona. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Remembering Génesis Carmona five years after Maduro's colectivos shot her in the head

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Lecture 1986

Génesis Carmona: 20 September 1991 – 19 February 2014
The headline in the February 20, 2014 edition of People Magazine read " Venezuelan Beauty Pageant Winner Killed in Anti-Government Protest." The beauty pageant winner's name was Génesis Carmona and she was 22 years old. She was a model who had won the Miss Tourism Carabobo beauty pageant in 2013. On her Twitter account Génesis described herself as “friendly, but not stupid!” and “passionate about life.” She was studying marketing at Center Technological University (UNITEC) and was in her last year of study. Her alma mater has announced a special service in her memory marking the one year of her untimely death in 2015:
UNITEC will officiate a Mass in memory of the student Génesis Carmona. Center Technological University will officiate a Mass in memory of the student Génesis Carmona on Thursday February 19 at 9:30 am at the Guacara Campus, after a year of her untimely death when she was overtaken by gunshots during a march in Valencia. The UNITEC authorities invite the entire university community to attend Mass to remember our alumn, who lost her life following some acts of violence.
What happened
Génesis Carmona was marching at approximately 4:00 pm on Tuesday February 18, 2014, near Cedeño Avenue and the intersection of Carabobo, when  a group of masked gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on the demonstrators. Génesis was shot in the head in the left occipital region. She was with her sister Alejandra Carmona at the moment it happened. Alejandra in a radio interview said "I was with her, when the motorized units (of the Government), we fled running. We were stopped on a street corner, looking up and then suddenly she fell."   

Genesis Carmona is evacuated on a motorcycle after being shot.
According to VOXXI the "22-year-old was rushed in a motorcycle to the Medical Center Guerra Mendez in Valencia, where she was operated and kept in intensive care. Less than 24 hours later on 12:14 p.m., the doctors announced that she had died from her injury. 


Jorge Ramos of Univsion interviewed Gabriel Cegarra,  the young man who was holding Génesis on the back of the motorcycle as they hurried to get her to the hospital. Below courtesy of John Sexton of Breitbart is a translation of an excerpt of the interview:

Ramos: The images of the students that have lost their lives in the protests in Venezuela are impressive because, in the majority of cases, they have been shot at and they have no way of defending themselves. To these images we add this impressive photo: beauty queen Genesis Carmona being carried away as she was dying. The student is named Gabriel Cegarra, who had her in his arms to try to save her life. He joins us now via satellite from Valencia, Carabobo state. Gabriel, thank you for speaking with us. What happened that day? Where were you?
Gabriel Cegarra: We were in Cedeño Ave, Valencia. We were protesting there– the protest concentration was there. There was a large group of us there protesting normally, peacefully. All of a sudden we began to see motorcycles on the north side of Cedeño Ave. That is a steep street, and at the top of the street we saw motorcycles with, um, they were armed and over there. At first they were not doing anything, they were just there
concentrated, and we were concentrated in our part and we took note of each other. Then, all of the sudden, there were gunshots, there were three rounds of gunshots. In the third, unfortunately, a bullet hit her in the head.
Ramos: The government said, without proof, that the shots came from the opposition group itself. Do you think the shots came from an armed Chavista group?
GC: Yes, because they were the only ones who were armed. We
do our protesting with a simple tricolor hat, a white shirt– which was what we
organized for that day—
Ramos: So the official version from the government is not true from your point of view? The bullets came from Chavista groups, not the opposition? This is very important.
GC: Not from the opposition, because among ourselves, I don’t think we are there to kill each other. We were just there peacefully protesting. The motorcycles that were shooting, you could see they were armed and they had red shirts, some were black striped, but there were people with red shirts.
Ramos: You already knew Genesis. At what time did you see her get shot through the head?
GC: Yes, I knew Genesis, she is my– was my “buddy” for all life. She was my friend for five years. I realized that she was shot in the head when… I heard the gunshots from where I was, I ducked, and then when I see that she is leaning on a friend’s arms.
The friend brought her to me– it was a short route, about 5 meters, something like that– and I see that when I touch her with her left arm, which I put behind my neck, I started to feel something cold on my arm, and a doctor who was there at the protests also told me, “get on your bike and get help, she’s been shot in the head.”
Ramos: That is precisely what you did. That image and that photograph traveled the world. When you were carrying her with you on the motorcycle, she was still alive, right?
GC: Yes, she was conscious.
Ramos: She was conscious. Could she talk? Did she say something?
GC: No, she didn’t speak to me but her eyes were open. With her right hand she was pulling my shirt, as you can see in the image, and with the left hand she was pulling the shirt of the motorcycle driver.
Ramos: What did you tell her?
GC: Stay still, everything will be fine, I would do everything possible I could to arrive quickly so they could treat her, not to worry, that nothing was going to happen.
Ramos: Then you arrived at the hospital. When did you find out she had died?
GC: I found out yesterday, Wednesday, around 12:50– I was making some declarations and was not at the clinic at the moment, but I got a message simply saying she had died. It was really very sad, that moment; reading that message was nothing good. I didn’t expect that to happen.
Génesis Carmona and friend posing with cover of her modeling.
Génesis Carmona's aunt, Martha Baron, who lives in Calgary spoke out in English concerning her nieces death on February 24, 2014 to the Calgary CBC: "I would like her to be remembered as a brave girl that died for her country. That's the only way I want her to be remembered." 

Génesis Carmona's last four tweets were re-tweets from others but give an insight into this young woman's state of mind and are reproduced below:


The first retweet (RT) is from Leopoldo Lopez announcing that he would be on CNN in Spanish and asking for a RT which she obliged. The second from VVSincensura said that "the opposition united should defend Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado before the intention of the government to jail them. The third from Reinaldo dos Santos gave technical advise stating "If they drop Twitter for Venezuela use a "hotspot shield" which is private navigation without restrictions. Spread the word." The last retweet from Evo Morales (not the president of Bolivia) said: "Stay with the one who tells the best stories. One day they will tell yours."  

Génesis Carmona's mother, María Eugenia Tovar, and sister left Venezuela and on December 10, 2014 revealed that they are seeking political asylum and continue to demand justice for Génesis. All evidence points to the Maduro regime and its agents being responsible for this young woman's death.  Maria Eugenia Tovar, emphasized on February 12, 2015 in a sentence what that day signified for her: "Forbidden to forget our children, forbidden to forget so much pain."

Five years later and her killers have not been brought to justice. In Venezuela she has not been forgotten. Yesterday at Florida International University Génesis's mom was interviewed and spoke about what had happened to her 22 year old daughter five years ago and she continues to demand justice.
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Thursday, February 22, 2018

Remembering some of the victims of Cuban communism: Génesis Carmona, Venezuelan fashion model, beauty queen, and college student

"Whoever destroys a single life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world." - Mishnah  (1135-1204)
Génesis Cristina Carmona Tovar, September 20, 1991 –  February 19, 2014
Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin put it more succinctly: "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics." In the case of Cuba the communist regime has killed tens of thousands, and many have become numb in the face of this horror. Therefore on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first communist regime in Russia, that caused so much harm around the world, will focus on an infinitesimal sampling of some of the victims of Cuban communism.

The fifteenth entry remembers a young martyr: a Venezuelan fashion model, beauty queen, and college student who was shot in the head on February 18, 2014 while nonviolently protesting the Maduro regime in Venezuela and died of her injury on February 19, 2014.

Previous entries in this series were about Cubans trying to change the system nonviolently, Cubans who tried to leave the island, a student shot to death for walking down the wrong sidewalk in Havana, a young Ethiopian woman murdered in a red terror in her homeland for unknown reasons in 1978, and the eleventh entry three young black men executed by firing squad in 2003 for having hijacked a ferry in an effort to reach the United States. The thirteenth entry remembered two young men shot by firing squad in La Cabaña on April 18, 1961. They fourteenth entry remembered a former seminarian, who became a nonviolent human rights defender in a movement founded by lay Catholics, and was killed together with the movement's founding leader on July 22, 2012. 

22 year old fashion model, beauty queen, and college student shot in the head.
 In this entry one explores how a 22 year old woman engaged in peaceful protest in her country was shot in the head and killed by pro-regime forces and how her death is linked to the Castro regime. 

Génesis Cristina Carmona Tovar was marching at approximately 4:00 pm on Tuesday February 18, 2014, near Cedeño Avenue and the intersection of Carabobo, when  a group of masked gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on the demonstrators. Génesis was shot in the head in the left occipital region. She was with her sister Alejandra Carmona at the moment it happened. Alejandra in a radio interview said "I was with her, when the motorized units (of the Government arrived), we fled running. We were stopped on a street corner, looking up and then suddenly she fell."  

Genesis Carmona is evacuated on a motorcycle after being shot on February 18, 2014.
According to VOXXI the "22-year-old was rushed in a motorcycle to the Medical Center Guerra Mendez in Valencia, where she was operated and kept in intensive care. Less than 24 hours later on 12:14 p.m., the doctors announced that she had died from her injury. 

The headline in the February 20, 2014 edition of People Magazine read " Venezuelan Beauty Pageant Winner Killed in Anti-Government Protest." She was a model who had won the Miss Tourism Carabobo beauty pageant in 2013. On her Twitter account Génesis described herself as “friendly, but not stupid!” and “passionate about life.” She was studying marketing at Center Technological University (UNITEC) and was in her last year of study.   

Jorge Ramos of Univision interviewed Gabriel Cegarra,  the young man who was holding Génesis on the back of the motorcycle as they hurried to get her to the hospital. Below courtesy of John Sexton of Breitbart is a translation of an excerpt of the interview:

Ramos: The images of the students that have lost their lives in the protests in Venezuela are impressive because, in the majority of cases, they have been shot at and they have no way of defending themselves. To these images we add this impressive photo: beauty queen Genesis Carmona being carried away as she was dying. The student is named Gabriel Cegarra, who had her in his arms to try to save her life. He joins us now via satellite from Valencia, Carabobo state. Gabriel, thank you for speaking with us. What happened that day? Where were you?
Gabriel Cegarra: We were in Cedeño Ave, Valencia. We were protesting there– the protest concentration was there. There was a large group of us there protesting normally, peacefully. All of a sudden we began to see motorcycles on the north side of Cedeño Ave. That is a steep street, and at the top of the street we saw motorcycles with, um, they were armed and over there. At first they were not doing anything, they were just there
concentrated, and we were concentrated in our part and we took note of each other. Then, all of the sudden, there were gunshots, there were three rounds of gunshots. In the third, unfortunately, a bullet hit her in the head.
Ramos: The government said, without proof, that the shots came from the opposition group itself. Do you think the shots came from an armed Chavista group?
GC: Yes, because they were the only ones who were armed. We
do our protesting with a simple tricolor hat, a white shirt– which was what we
organized for that day—
Ramos: So the official version from the government is not true from your point of view? The bullets came from Chavista groups, not the opposition? This is very important.
GC: Not from the opposition, because among ourselves, I don’t think we are there to kill each other. We were just there peacefully protesting. The motorcycles that were shooting, you could see they were armed and they had red shirts, some were black striped, but there were people with red shirts.
Ramos: You already knew Genesis. At what time did you see her get shot through the head?
GC: Yes, I knew Genesis, she is my– was my “buddy” for all life. She was my friend for five years. I realized that she was shot in the head when… I heard the gunshots from where I was, I ducked, and then when I see that she is leaning on a friend’s arms.
The friend brought her to me– it was a short route, about 5 meters, something like that– and I see that when I touch her with her left arm, which I put behind my neck, I started to feel something cold on my arm, and a doctor who was there at the protests also told me, “get on your bike and get help, she’s been shot in the head.”
Ramos: That is precisely what you did. That image and that photograph traveled the world. When you were carrying her with you on the motorcycle, she was still alive, right?
GC: Yes, she was conscious.
Ramos: She was conscious. Could she talk? Did she say something?
GC: No, she didn’t speak to me but her eyes were open. With her right hand she was pulling my shirt, as you can see in the image, and with the left hand she was pulling the shirt of the motorcycle driver.
Ramos: What did you tell her?
GC: Stay still, everything will be fine, I would do everything possible I could to arrive quickly so they could treat her, not to worry, that nothing was going to happen.
Ramos: Then you arrived at the hospital. When did you find out she had died?
GC: I found out yesterday, Wednesday, around 12:50– I was making some declarations and was not at the clinic at the moment, but I got a message simply saying she had died. It was really very sad, that moment; reading that message was nothing good. I didn’t expect that to happen.
Génesis Carmona's aunt, Martha Baron, who lives in Calgary spoke out in English concerning her nieces death on February 24, 2014 to the Calgary CBC: "I would like her to be remembered as a brave girl that died for her country. That's the only way I want her to be remembered." 
 
 Her last four tweets were re-tweets from others but give an insight into this young woman's state of mind and are reproduced below:


The first RT is from Leopoldo Lopez announcing that he would be on CNN in Spanish and asking for a RT which she obliged. The second from VVSincensura said that "the opposition united should defend Leopoldo Lopez and Maria Corina Machado before the intention of the government to jail them. The third from Reinaldo dos Santos gave technical advise stating "If they drop Twitter for Venezuela use a "hotspot shield" which is private navigation without restrictions. Spread the word." The last retweet from Evo Morales (not the president of Bolivia) said: "Stay with the one who tells the best stories. One day they will tell yours."  

Castro regime's man in Venezuela, Ramiro Valdez with Chavez and Maduro

Castro regime's repressive role in Venezuela
In 2007 Chávez had declared that Cuba and Venezuela were a single nation. “Deep down,” he said, “we are one single government.”  When Hugo Chavez died in 2013 the succession to Nicolas Maduro was planned in Havana. The Maduro regime is a puppet regime controlled by Havana.

The name of this "single nation" is Cubazuela and is a term that has been used by mainstream press publications such as The Wall Street Journal. The consequences to the people of Venezuela are well known. Violence has escalated during the Chavez-Maduro era to levels never seen before. There is widespread hunger now in Venezuela. Civil liberties and the rule of law are rapidly disappearing, replaced by the Cuban model.
In addition to domestic repressive forces there is a foreign presence heavily embedded in the Venezuelan military and intelligence services. The head of the opposition National Assembly of Venezuela on May 15, 2016 complained, over social media, of the presence of 60 Cuban officers. This included a Cuban general, who he identified by the last name Gregorich, who had a leadership role that included issuing orders to Venezuelan troops. Capitol Hill Cubans identified the Cuban General as Raul Acosta Gregorich. 

Cuban involvement in Venezuela reaches into the highest levels of the military and intelligence apparatus. In February of 2010  Ramiro Valdes, then age 77, was hired "as a consultant for that country's energy crisis" but his expertise is not in energy. He is viewed by some Cuba experts as "the No. 3 man in the Cuban hierarchy" and the architect of Cuba's repressive machinery. Afro-Cuban scholar Carlos Moore offers the following background information on Commander Valdez :

"Ramiro Valdez was an inflexible, totalitarian and brutal person. He was the most feared man in Cuba. The repressive policies of the regime were crafted by him. Valdez struck fear into the hearts of Cubans (even revolutionary ones). Today, he apparently continues to be the same dogmatic, sectarian and brutal person he was at the height of his power."
 The use of political terror to impose totalitarian control is straight out of the Castro regime's playbook, and the Cuban dictatorship, if not the material authors of the murder of a high profile figure such as Génesis Cristina Carmona Tovar, are the intellectual authors of this extrajudicial execution.

Four years later, those responsible for her killing remain at large, and her mother, María Eugenia Tovar, as well as her sister, Alejandra Carmona fled to the United States in December of 2014 and remain there to the present day.

Meanwhile the situation in Venezuela continues to deteriorate and Cuba is making it worse.
Nicolas Maduro and Raul Castro

 
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Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Déjà vu surrounds progressives' failures to be in solidarity with pro-democracy movement in Iran

Solidarity with Iranian pro-democracy demonstrators.

"An unveiled woman in Iran stands defiantly at anti-government rally." - Andy C. Ngo

Protests broke out in Iran in the city of Mashhad on December 28, 2017 and have spread to 50 cities and towns including Tehran. The regime is threatening demonstrators with the death penalty. The protesters demands are clear unambiguous and familiar to democrats everywhere.

The rhetoric of some commentators and political leaders about the Iran protests is reminiscent of what Cuban pro-democracy activists heard over the years about "reformers" and "hardliners" to justify marginalizing the democratic resistance or create a false equivalence between victims of the regime and the dictatorship. In the case of Cuba, some "experts" claim that Raul Castro is a reformer, despite the rise in repression and the murder of dissidents on his watch.
It was Secretary Kerry who on August 20, 2015 said, "the United States and Cuba are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis." This implied that the U.S. was on board with Maduro continuing in power in Venezuela while trying to find ways to stabilize the country. This is a top down approach that ignores the pressures emerging from a dissatisfied populace and that the Castro regime bears a fair amount of responsibility for the deteriorating situation in Venezuela. An approach that prefers to preserve a terrible status quo rather than support democratic aspirations. It also ignores the changing situation on the ground and the nonviolent tactics of the protesters.
In the effort to reach an accommodation with an outlaw regime all too often Western democracies make unacceptable deals. Newsweek reported on December 18, 2017 that the "Islamist militant group Hezbollah, backed by Iran, exploded into a major cocaine trafficker for the United States over the past decade—and it happened under former President Barack Obama's watch to help score a nuclear deal with Iran."

The Obama White House had a poor track record of politicizing reports to pursue political objectives. In the case of Cuba this meant watering down reports on human trafficking, looking the other way on connections to drug trafficking, terrorist groups and downplaying Cuba's role in Venezuela's crisis and attempt to smuggle tons of heavy weapons to North Korea. It now appears that the practice has also been repeated with Iran. What is often ignored is that the Castro regime is a crucial linchpin to relations between Venezuela and Iran. The dictatorship in Cuba has had close relations with Iran's revolutionary Islamic regime for decades.

Iran's Hassan Rouhani (Left) shakes hands with Cuba's  Raul Castro in Havana, Cuba 9/19/16
Human rights have been downgraded internationally with the rise of China as an international power over the past twenty years. Dissidents and victims of repression have joined together in nongovernmental networks of solidarity. On 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Amnesty International produced a video at the United Nations titled "The Price of Silence."

The past decade has found the United Nations failing all too often to protect victims of human rights violations while honoring their oppressors. It  is being repeated now in Iran. The regimes that systematically violate the human rights of their nationals now share worse practices.

Neda Agha Soltan and Génesis Carmona
The Basij, formed in 1979 in Iran, murdered nonviolent demonstrators like Neda Agha Soltan in 2009 during the Green Revolution. Hugo Chavez copied the Basij and formed Colectivos in Venezuela. Both are pro-government militias with long track records of repression and murder. The Colectivos in 2014 did the same thing in Venezuela murdering nonviolent protesters like Génesis Carmona during mass anti-government protests.

Furthermore the mistake of replacing short wave radio transmissions of uncensored news with internet broadcasts is revealed a mistake once again, as it was in Egypt during the Arab Spring, as the Iranian regime shuts down the internet. As a result, the images of nonviolent protests slow to a trickle but some continue to emerge, along with reports of the price paid by protesters for their courageous dissent. We cannot remain silent when students are being rounded up by secret police.

Former political prisoner and journalist Ahmad Batebi ‏reported over twitter on protesters gathered front of Evin prison, one of the most horrific in Iran, to put pressure on the Iranian government to release political prisoners on the sixth day of anti-government protests in Iran.

This is a time for people of good will to get the message out about what is happening in Iran and to demonstrate solidarity with the democratic aspirations of millions of Iranians. Russian chess champion and human rights defender Garry Kasparov is right, now is a time to be counted.
We cannot, must not remain silent. The price in lives lost and the stain on our character is too great. Spread the word on what is happening and use the hashtag #IranProtests.
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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Black Ribbon Day 2017: Remembering some of the new victims of Communist and Nazi totalitarianism

 "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

78 years ago on August 23, 1939 Josef Stalin and Adolph Hitler signed a treaty that was called a non-aggression treaty but it had a secret additional protocol that divided up Eastern Europe. It was a an aggression treaty were Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia plotted against their neighbors leading to the outbreak of WW2 on September 1, 1939 when Poland was invaded and occupied.

Today in Europe, Canada and the United States many observe Black Ribbon Day in remembrance for victims of totalitarian regimes. Sadly, this body count continues to rise in 2017. Even in democracies totalitarian movements attempt to sow chaos and try to destabilize and undermine free societies.

Germany recognizes the evil of the Nazi regime and has sought to pursue reconciliation through truth, memory, and justice. Sadly, in Russia today the Putin regime has backtracked and denied Soviet complicity with the Nazis in the start of WW2. This is dangerous because communist regimes continue to ally with fascist regimes and engage in systemic racism when it suits them.

Neo-Nazis are not in power at the national level but their movements wreak havoc around the world. Communists remain in power in 2017 in China, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, Cuba, and in Venezuela with a rising body count of victims.

Susan Bro holds up photo of murdered daughter Heather Heyer
Last week I heard the heart breaking testimony of Susan Bro whose daughter Heather Heyer, age 32, was run over and murdered by a white supremacist on August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia while 19 others were badly in the attack.

Earlier today I listened to the heart breaking testimony of Venezuelan exile Maria Eugenia Tovar whose daughter Génesis Carmona, age 22, was shot in the head and killed in Venezuela in 2014 by the Maduro regime and talked about her loss. 
Maria Eugenia Tovar holds up photo of murdered daughter Génesis Carmona
In light of events over the past few months more citizens of good will should organize events on Black Ribbon Day, write letters to the editor, and opinion pieces reminding the world of the need to remember what happened on August 23, 1939 and to denounce totalitarianism of all stripes. I hope that next year there will be a high profile Black Ribbon Day event in Miami.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article168971367.html#storylink=cpy
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Sunday, July 30, 2017

Maduros's debacle in Venezuela: How noncooperation triumphed over brute force and intimidation

The power of noncooperation on display in Venezuela today along with the failure of brute force.

Bolivarian National Guard firing at protesters in Venezuela
Today in Venezuela the power of noncooperation was on display. Despite threats of reprisals from the Maduro regime for those who did not go out to vote only 12.4% of Venezuelan voters took part in the sham election and 87.6% abstained from taking part in the sham election.What follows are impressions gathered over social media and does not pretend to be an exhaustive report of what took place in Venezuela today, but does provide some snapshots and insights into what happened.

 
Journalist Leonardo León captured the above moment this morning when two priests from Tovar faced off with armed government forces in what he described as an effort "to try to mediate to contain the repression." León also reported that there were serious injuries.

Snipers killing opposition members in Tachira, Venezuela (El Nacional)
In the opposition stronghold of Tachira reports have emerged of snipers of the Bolivarian National Guard members and paramilitary forces targeting and killing opposition members. Video emerged over twitter at 1:30pm of pro-regime snipers firing from a rooftop in Tachira.

At least four dead in less than 24 hours reports the publication El Nacional. Former student leader and now member of the National Assembly Juan Requesens posted over twitter images of paramilitary snipers photographed in Tachira and reported "They denounce presence of paramilitaries in Rubio, sector Fiqueros, the Blocks besieging our town Táchira."


 In order to try and carry this out the Maduro regime has used a combination of intimidation and terror to intimidate Venezuelans to vote or fear that they will suffer reprisals beginning with the loss of employment. Opposition officials have had their offices and homes raided with some being arbitrarily detained and in other cases family members taken away.

Photographer Daniel Blanco in a series of tweets outlined some of the carnage and escalation in violence by Maduro's repressive apparatus. At 4:29pm Blanco tweeted: "Adrián Rodríguez (13) was assassinated in Capacho, Táchira. Army sniper shot him in the head from the roof of a school."  At 8:18pm he tweeted: "Ender Peña died (18), shot by bullet during protest in Táchira. Transferred to a polyclinic, he didn't survive the operation." A few minutes later at 8:36pm Blanco tweeted: "Conflict escalation is very obvious. Weeks ago military fired tear gas into the chest, now firing with rifles to the head." 

Génesis Carmona: Shot in the head by a sniper on February 18, 2014
Beginning in February of 2014 the phenomenon of young Venezuelans being shot in the head while peacefully protesting was first widely documented. On February 12, 2014 regime agents shot Bassil Alejandro Dacosta, age 24 in the head.  One of the young students who carried Bassil off  after he was shot was Robert Redman, age 28, who reported later that day over twitter: "Today I was hit with a rock in the back, a helmet in my nose. I swallowed tear-gas, Carried the kid who died, and what did you do?" That same day he was also gunned down by Maduro's colectivos, working in concert with his security forces, and murdered. The killings continued.  A high profile killing that shocked the world was the murder of a local beauty queen. Génesis Carmona was just 22 years old and nonviolently expressing her desire for a better Venezuela when she was shot in the head on February 18, 2014 and died a day later on February 19, 2014.  The Maduro regime's repressive apparatus shifted to using tear gas and buckshot to maim and kill so as not to be as obvious after some bad press.

 Nevertheless on May 18, 2017 The Miami Herald reported that it had a recording of a Venezuelan general advocating for the use of snipers against street demonstrators "in the future." It appears that "the future" has arrived.
 
 The Maduro regime banned protests and put them down with brutal force. Caracas Chronicles identified the following individuals killed during the Maduro government’s fraudulent Constituent Assembly elections today as of 8:15pm.
  1. Eduardo Olave, 39. Libertador, Mérida. 
  2. Angelo Méndez, 28. Libertador, Mérida. 
  3. Luisa Zambrano, 43. Barquisimeto, Lara. 
  4. Ricardo Campos, 30. Cumaná, Sucre. 
  5. GNB officer Ronald Ramírez Rosales. La Grita, Táchira. 
  6. Luis Ortiz, 16. Tucapé, Táchira  
  7. Adrián Rodríguez, 13. Capacho Viejo, Táchira. 
  8. Iraldo Gutiérrez, 38. Chiguará, Mérida. 
  9. Albert Rosales, 53. Tucapé, Táchira. 
  10. Wilmer Smith Flores, 21. La Grita, Táchira. 
  11. Juan José Monjes, 42. Aguada Grande, Lara. 
  12. Julio Manrique, 22. Ureña, Táchira.
Caracas Chronicles also reported a total of 14 killed today, but opposition figure Henry Ramos Allup places the number at 16. Either way today was the bloodiest day during this cycle of protests that began four months ago and has claimed over 100 lives.

 Venezuela has been a full blown dictatorship since the Maduro regime on October 20, 2016 illegally suspended a recall referendum because the dictatorship knew that it could not obtain a favorable result.  The so-called vote for a Constituent Assembly today is to do away with the last vestiges of the old democratic order following the Cuban Stalinist model as the end goal. This is why it is so profoundly unpopular. 

 The democratic opposition in Venezuela has been successful to the degree that it has been able to maintain nonviolent discipline. By remaining nonviolent the opposition has been able to mobilize large numbers either to take to the streets, or to withdraw from them in an act of non-cooperation with the dictatorship as was demonstrated today. 

 "Violent flanks" and the use of the so-called "diversity of tactics" reduces mobilization and decreases the probability of success for a resistance movement. Strategic thinker Gene Sharper put it succinctly when he said: "using violence is a stupid decision." Violent resistance is not a short cut to ending the regime but prolonging its time and power while undermining the international legitimacy of the opposition.

This would explain why the Maduro regime manufactures evidence and constantly accuses nonviolent activists of being violent ignoring evidence to the contrary.  First and most importantly if the charges are believed it helps to reduce popular mobilization against these regimes which is the greatest threat to their power.  Secondly, it raises questions that can impact international solidarity and support. Third, it allows these regimes to infiltrate agents to carry out violent acts that delegitimize the movement placing it on the defensive in damage control mode.

At the same time the brutality of the Maduro regime against Wuilly Moisés Arteaga, a violinist who played the Venezuelan national anthem during protests first having his violin destroyed, then later shot in the face and now arrested and tortured for simply playing music and dissenting against the government exposes the true nature of the Maduro dictatorship. This brutality is even more evident and fuels international outrage when the opposition is nonviolent.


Today the impotence of brute force was demonstrated with the Maduro regime getting 12.4% of Venezuelans to participate in the sham election while noncooperation achieved an 87.6% of Venezuelans refusing to take part in the fraudulent exercise.



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