Venezuelan Opposition Mayor, Alias “The Vampire,” Arrested for Role in Blue Coup Plot
Last week, Ledezma, who is current Mayor of the Metropolitan Capital District of Caracas, signed a statement calling for a “National Transition Agreement” alongside opposition politicians, Maria Corina Machado and currently detained leader of the Popular Will party, Leopoldo Lopez.
The document calls on Venezuelans to unite behind a plan to remove elected President Nicolas Maduro and sets out an action programme for the would be provisional government. This includes facilitating the return of “exiled” Venezuelans, prosecuting current members of government and reaching out to international financial lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund.
Circulated on February 11th, the statement was disclosed just a day before the attempted coup was set to unfold and was reportedly the signal to set the plan in motion.
“It has no base in any juridic text, it is a putschist act of conspiracy that is unfortunately to the liking of thousands of opposition militants who have been indoctrinated to attack democracy,” Constitutional Lawyer, Jesus Silva, told Venezuelanalysis.
Popularly known as “the vampire”, Ledezma began his political career in 1973 as a member of the “Democratic Action” Party. In 1989, he infamously became Governor of the Federal District of Caracas, when he oversaw one of the most violent periods in the history of the Caracas Metropolitan Police.
The police body, which was since disbanded in 2010 due to its human rights violations, regularly opened fire on unarmed student protests, systematically repressed street vendors, pensioners and the unemployed, as well as regularly disappeared political activists.
During this period he also oversaw the “Caracazo,” when up to 3000 people were killed and disappeared by security forces in the wake of violent protests against a government imposed austerity programme.
This particular period of Ledezma’s career earnt him the reputation of “student killer” amongst working class Venezuelans. He is founder and current leader of the rightwing party known as the “Brave People’s Alliance”.
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/venezuelan-opposition-mayor-alias-the-vampire-arrested-for-role-in-blue-coup-plot/
* these right-wing freaks and their attempts to ruin yet another democratic country.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1018663
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1018984
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1019489
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=1019654
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By John Pilger Interviewed by Michael Albert
February 16, 2015
1. Why would the U.S. want venezuela’s government overthrown?
There are straightforward principles and dynamics at work here. Washington wants to get rid of the Venezuelan government because it is independent of US designs for the region and because Venezuela has the greatest proven oil reserves in the world and uses its oil revenue to improve the quality of ordinary lives. Venezuela remains a source of inspiration for social reform in a continent ravaged by an historically rapacious U.S. An Oxfam report once famously described the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua as ‘the threat of a good example’. That has been true in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez won his first election. The ‘threat’ of Venezuela is greater, of course, because it is not tiny and weak; it is rich and influential and regarded as such by China. The remarkable change in fortunes for millions of people in Latin America is at the heart of U.S. hostility. The U.S. has been the undeclared enemy of social progress in Latin America for two centuries. It doesn’t matter who has been in the White House: Barack Obama or Teddy Roosevelt; the US will not tolerate countries with governments and cultures that put the needs of their own people first and refuse to promote or succumb to U.S. demands and pressures. A reformist social democracy with a capitalist base – such as Venezuela – is not excused by the rulers of the world. What is inexcusable is Venezuela’s political independence; only complete deference is acceptable. The ‘survival’ of Chavista Venezuela is a testament to the support of ordinary Venezuelans for their elected government – that was clear to me when I was last there. Venezuela’s weakness is that the political ‘opposition’ — those I would call the ‘East Caracas Mob’ – represent powerful interests who have been allowed to retain critical economic power. Only when that power is diminished will Venezuela shake off the constant menace of foreign-backed, often criminal subversion. No society should have to deal with that, year in, year out.
2. What methods has the U.S. already used and would you anticipate their using to unseat the Bolivarians?
There are the usual crop of quislings and spies; they come and go with their media theatre of fake revelations, but the principal enemy is the media. You may recall the Venezuelan admiral who was one of the coup-plotters against Chavez in 2002, boasting during his brief tenure in power, ‘Our secret weapon was the media’. The Venezuelan media, especially television, were active participants in that coup, lying that supporters of the government were firing into a crowd of protestors from a bridge. False images and headlines went around the world. The New York Times joined in, welcoming the overthrow of a democratic ‘anti-American’ government; it usually does. Something similar happened in Caracas last year when vicious right-wing mobs were lauded as ‘peaceful protestors’ who were being ‘repressed’. This was undoubtedly the start of a Washington-backed ‘colour revolution’ openly backed by the likes of the National Endowment for Democracy – a user-friendly CIA clone. It was uncannily like the coup that Washington successfully staged in Ukraine last year. As in Kiev, in Venezuela the ‘peaceful protestors’ set fire to government buildings and deployed snipers and were lauded by western politicians and the western media. The strategy is almost certainly to push the Maduro government to the right and so alienate its popular base. Depicting the government as dictatorial and incompetent has long been an article of bad faith among journalists and broadcasters in Venezuela and in the US, the UK and Europe. One recent US ‘story’ was that of a ‘US scientist jailed for trying to help Venezuela build bombs’. The implication was that Venezuela was harbouring ‘nuclear terrorists’. In fact, the disgruntled nuclear physicist had no connection whatsoever with Venezuela.
All this is reminiscent of the unrelenting attacks on Chávez, each with that peculiar malice reserved for dissenters from the west’s ‘one true way’. In 2006, Britain’s Channel 4 News effectively accused the Venezuelan president of plotting to make nuclear weapons with Iran, an absurd fantasy. The Washington correspondent, Jonathan Rugman, sneered at policies to eradicate poverty and presented Chávez as a sinister buffoon, while allowing Donald Rumsfeld, a war criminal, to liken Chavez to Hitler, unchallenged. The BBC is no different. Researchers at the University of the West of England in the UK studied the BBC’s systematic bias in reporting Venezuela over a ten-year period. They looked at 304 BBC reports and found that only three of these referred to any of the positive policies of the government. For the BBC, Venezuela’s democratic initiatives, human rights legislation, food programmes, healthcare initiatives and poverty reduction programmes did not exist. Mission Robinson, the greatest literacy programme in human history, received barely a passing mention. This virulent censorship by omission complements outright fabrications such as accusations that the Venezuelan government are a bunch of drug-dealers. None of this is new; look at the way Cuba has been misrepresented – and assaulted – over the years. Reporters Without Borders has just issued its worldwide ranking of nations based on their claims to a free press. The U.S. is ranked 49th, behind Malta, Niger, Burkino Faso and El Salvador.
3. Why might now be a prime time, internationally, for pushing toward a coup? If the primary problem is Venezuela being an example that could spread, is the emergence of a receptive audience for that example in Europe adding to the U.S. response?
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/john-pilger-interviewed-by-michael-albert-2/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Here's a larger assortment of his photos you get when you put his name in "images":
Francisco Solorzano Frasso caracazo
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4TSND_enUS566US566&q=Francisco+Solorzano+Frasso+caracazo&tbm=isch&gws_rd=ssl
These are by no means all the images taken of that debacle, and a few of them are stills from a commercial studio movie with actors which was made regarding that time.
There are always others you will find which are bogus, of COURSE, and you will be able to spot them on sight. They have that bogus, dirty look which almost smells, as well.
The English google from this link will probably make you snicker:
Against the walls
The photograph as reference for the senses
[font size=1]
A little about me
I am Venezuelan journalist and El Universal of Caracas
and contributor to the magazine Playboy. Graduated
from the University Monteávila, I have a Diploma in
International Terrorism Studies.
[/font]
Since ancient times, the first inhabitants of the world sought to portray the daily happenings, leaving a tangible legacy of his existence on earth so that dust and oblivion not catapult the weight of time. The invention of photography in the nineteenth century It was a step forward for humanity, in a historical period where intellectual and spiritual creation were the framework. Lately classical photography has enjoyed great recognition and the growing interest of the general public. The modernization of the cameras in the last 100 years, has enabled poor people to acquire them and thus build their stories. The most important thing is that photography is perceived as a legacy, not as a childish tool. It is an art, and not all dominate it. From the twenties, cunning and courage of many reporters were allowed to portray the course of history: the parallels of World War II and the holocaust of the Second, who undoubtedly were recorded on the collective memory of the world. Some may remember the images of Joe Rosenthal in which a group of American soldiers bravely tries to bolster his country's flag at Iwo Jima, or the little Jewish boy who raises his hands to be threatened . by a Nazi soldier while walking through a neighborhood in Berlin Since the invention of television, photography began to be relegated to second place, by the desire for immediacy that produced the effect on people wanting to have everything faster; However, photography has become something poetic, more conceptual and difficult to explore art, for what that "a picture is worth a thousand words". A color, sepia or black and white, their passivity contrasts with wild whirlwind of video clips and television pictures, where modernization is letting go of old chemical laboratories and whitish, by the enormous and complex computer printers. In view of the splendor that has this art as a replacement, somewhat exaggerated the new ways to portray reality, the name Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Dali or Botticelli Corot, open spaces to mention now famous photographers as Yevgeny A. Chaldei, Ansel Adams, Nan Goldin or Sebastian Salgado. Each of them, sure, inspired by the paintings of these great men of the past. Unlike the images transmitted by television, where speed is the frame of reference, after such escalabrozo facts, such as the fall Twin Towers in New York, or the killing of Tutsis in Rwanda, photography occurs in that very fact where the video camera is capturing reality, its static nature requires concentration when performed and perceived, to devour acorazadamente as . the tiger antelope time error Photography has great responsibilities in their hands: the return of memories, speak for itself and immortalize the spirit. One of the big problems that emerged in the nineteenth century and continues today in the minds of many "conceptualist" is that photography only mission is to reproduce reality, be a mirror of it, when its meaning is as diverse as music, painting or writing. You can play with it, as George Orwell did with his book "Animal Farm" or Charles Chaplin film "The Great Dictator", where more than represent disease he power of Adolf Hitler used it to demonstrate the state of madness and perhaps mocking, the last tyrant of Germany. Maybe the statement that "all photographers do photojournalism" exaggerated. Nevertheless, the idea is not in itself a chaos, because if we analyze the task at each photographer when going outside to capture reality, it is the same. Today all are reporters for an integrated society by people seeking full beauty through a portrait, a fact, an action. What if journalism seeks to report on the daily happenings? From birthdays to a fashion show in Paris, never more raw events as detonating a bomb or the pain of a mother for the death of a child. Photography has been there. Machiavellian those situations with a lens have to be perfect. With the real emergence of photojournalism, some were quick to start traveling around the world. Henri Cartier Bresson with snapshots of communist China. Salgado with his works on work in the world. Touhami Ennadre with the mixture of the realities of Africa and America. Alberto Korda with immortal images of Ernesto Che Guevara after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. All this without overshadowing the famous Robert Capa, with his photographic documentary about the Spanish civil war. In Venezuela, images of Francisco Solorzano, Frasso, who went around the world when portrayed the events of the Caracazo in 1989, and under the same geographical area, the Mexican Enrique Metinides with his coverage of road accidents or suicide. As for modern times the Venezuelan press was delighted with famous images of Creole sport inmortalizas by Vicente Correale , a photojournalist for The Universal ; self Gil Montaño , Gustavo Bandres, Nicola Rocco, or Kisai Mendoza , also photographers in this medium, through its bare imagination have been absurd and reflective of what is now Venezuela art. It is also in this worthy profession where Roberto Mata or Iván González, have gained recognition within and outside Venezuela for their contributions to this immortal art. However, the "mass" phenomenon that definitely stands as standard practice photojournalism press is with the appearance of not only the Leica camera 1924, but the magazine Time in 1929, and after her twin Life in 1936, in the United States -both founded by Henry Luce, whose scope is set around the sociological dimension to perform their covers on the magnitude of the News and characters. Symphony arts Today many photographers despise the technological advances that have brought the violent acceleration of time, and even striking to themselves, for their refusal to adapt to progress, continue working on their old laboratories with those heavy machines and clock indicating despotic necessary to expose the negative to the role fractions. What's photographs represent the mixture between man, time, matter and form. Many things were erected yesterday forever with an image. It is evident, it's like the test that indicates the mobile of a crime. Thus, whoever photography, but above all, good picture, it is an artist, a reference sensitivity. And in a society that grows so abruptly where the latter seem to run faster and war and hunger to be the qualifier reference for many, the interpretation of reality through an image will help raise awareness of what we are and want to be. With camera in hand, in color or black and white, can that television is winning the race of the immediate and the Internet is seconds away from the goal, but the mix between functional and creative, imaginative implemented and what will remain the guarantor for photography continue devoting time. In photojournalism may be the case that historical events cause the creation of relevant images, but should not be assumed to cause the same effect on all people. The important thing is and will be working on now, absorbing the moment and attracting the situation. The photograph will be silent, but allow to freeze a moment of joy or an eternity of suffering. When this happened, we can truly say that time has stalled and memories are eternal.
http://contralosmuros.blogspot.com/2010/06/la-fotografia-como-referencia-de-los.html
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Oh, jesus! 
Apparently he sees himself in the same light as the world's great photographers! He works for El Universal, which supported the coup against Hugo Chavez:
Let’s take a look at print media. Venezuela has three major newspapers: Últimas Noticias, El Nacional, and El Universal. Últimas Noticias is pro-Chávez; El Nacional and El Universal are anti-Chávez. El Nacional is owned by Miguel Henrique Otero, a founder of the anti-Chávez organization Movimiento 2D. As for El Universal, this is what it published during the failed 2002 coup d’état against Chávez:
Note that ¡Un Paso Adelante! means “A Step Forward!” in English.
More:
http://my.firedoglake.com/inoljt/tag/television/
