24 January, 2006

Censorship in Venezuela

I know a good number of my recent posts on Venezuela have come directly from Quico over at CaracasChronicles. This pattern betrays two things:

1. CC is the first place I go to for opinion on Venezuelan politics.
2. I have neglected the blog in recent weeks.

The first thing does not need further explanation. However, as to why I have been so neglectful of my duties to this blog, well, firstly I have gotten lazy and, secondly, I have been rather busy at work and on my own time, readying applications for professional programs in Computer Science.

That said, have a look at one of Quico's latest posts. It concerns the unfurling reach of censorship under the Chavez regime. This time it happened in the context of what may be the nation's most crucial legal case, the case of Danilo Anderson. Danilo, for the uninitiated, was the prosecutor in charge of investigations over the infamous 2002 coup. The investigation in question concerns the cause of his death by explosion, a little over a year ago. If you'd like to learn more about him, go here. The gag rule that was recently imposed prohibits media discussion of the key witness in the trial, Geovanny Vasquez de Armas, a shady Colombian citizen that claims he witnessed a number of clandestine meetings during which Danilo's murder, among others, were planned. It was recently confirmed that Vazques de Armas was actually serving a prison sentence at the time of one of the meetings he claims to have witnessed. For the record, he is still unsettled on the exact number of meetings he witnessed.

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