Peaceful march in Venezuela!!
By Miguel Octavio
Caracas 06.03.04 - Thanks God it was a peaceful march today. Why was it peaceful? Simple, there was no National Guard or military out in the streets which goes to prove who is violent between the two opposing groups. Huge, absolutely huge march today. Despite the fears, the threats, people went out in huge numbers. In fact, I was surpried at the number of kids present, as well as the number of people in wheelchairs.
There were five marches. I was in one, the same as my brother. I listened to speeches for about an hour and a half, when they were over I starting going back. After about 45 minutes I met him walking in the march that was still arriving. To give you an idea of why people should fear I will post later in the pictures section some photos taken from the same bridge that the National Guard repressed us from last week. Even my mother marched, she is close to 80, but she felt she had to even if just a little bit.
Speeches were good, lots of emotions. There was one of the injured, one of the jailed, one of the tortured (the one whose arms were burned in a picture below). Then there was fiery Andres Vesaquez, giving his usual good speech. Then new found hero, Elinor Montes, the lady that challenged the National Guard last week. But the best was 80 year old MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo) leader Pompeyo Marquez. He told us about the people shot and killed in the past, how this is much more repressive than anything he ever saw and he said, "we were using real weapons against the military and we never saw anything like this". He was great, very calm, using simple language to explain what we should expect going forward.
I have lots of pictures, I will add them to the pictures section so that this page is not so heavy. I will process them slowly (I am beat).
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