The Devil's Excrement

You have to love this picture from yesterday’s Tal Cual…….

I had tried to avoid the subject of the destruction last week in Plaza Altamira, mostly because religious issues are very emotional. But these pictures show what a barbaric incident it was, they need little commentary. Suffice to say that a pro-Chavez march went by Plaza Altamira (Altamira Square), which has been the icon of the dissident military against Chavez. An altar was placed there a year ago with two virgins. As the march went nearby, the Chavistas invaded the Plaza, destroyed the stand, painted graffiti on everything including the virgin and reportedly people even peed on the virgins, one of which was actually dessecrated. Even worse, Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel is seen (he is the older guy in red in the middle picture, seeing applauding in the next frame looking straight into the square as the destruction was taking place) cheering the crowd on. What a cynic. He later said the damage was caused by opposition terrorists, while he actually was right there applauding. To those that know Plaza Altamira, they can recognize exacly where this despicable character of this “pretty” revolution was, looking towards where the destruction took place. This is pure hate, led by the Vice-President of our country. Shame on him, shame on all of them.

Note added: I am glad to see that I was not the only one severely offended by these images, as friends at venepoetics, burtonterrace, vcrisis and venezuelatoday.net and the comments below have all expressed the same outrage.

Picture from Caricuao, in the Western part of Caracas. Caricuao voted for Chavez in the 1998 and 2000 elections.

Daniel who can not put pictures up in his blog asked me to put up pics from his sign up center. Three photos are from the collection center at Las Banderas in San Felipe, Yaracuy State, west of Caracas at 10 AM Friday the 28th. At that time, already more than 400 people had signed up The stand is clealy separated by the Army. Cheerful volunteers help people around, protecting them from the harsh sun.

One photo is from Plaza Teofilo Dominguez in downtown San Felipe. At 11 AM 600 had gathered there alreday. The situation there is more chaotic as the soldiers stand closer to the table.

By the way, Daniel has very nice updates on his site of what he is hearing from different parts of the country first hand.

This is big, really big. This morning when I saw the big lines I thought that they would become smaller as the day went on. The opposite seems to be happening. I have had friends that have been in line for five hours in order to sign. I have been uanble to sign, between taking pictures, working and going from here to there I have not been able to find a place where the line would take me less than an hour. The TV stations are sending a very subliminal message by showing not the lines in the East of Caracas, but those in the barrios, Catia, 23 de Enero, Caricuao, Chavez’ Barina state and many others. The message seems to be mitigating the effect of intimidation and particularly in these areas the lines seem to get bigger and bigger. As we speak, 5:30 PM the lines are still quite large. This morning I went around the city, I only found one polling station that did not have huge lines, I don’t know if they had a problem or not, every single other one had lines at least three blocks long. The locations were no different than what I showed last week for the pro-Chavez petition. The atmosphere is festive, people are honking, driving around with their emergency lights on and in Caricuao there are fireworks before sunset. These are my pictures:

Where I tried to sign in the morning. From left to right the line going around a plazacompleting 360 degrees circle, I gave up after half an hour

Line in Ave. Romulo Gallegos, a lower middle class neighborhoodfrom left to right note the building to get an idea about the length.

End of sequence from previous line.        Only polling station I found with no line in Petare, TV was showing big lines there at noon.

Page will get heavy as I want to show the images

Huge lines in anti-Chavez area in San Ignacio                        The rain did not stop the people in the East of Caracas

More lines                                                                                   Huge lines in La Carlota

Line (AP)                                                                 People wore flags (Reuters)

Kid watches the line in Los Caobos (AP)             Lines in Plaza La Candelaria (Schermbeek)             

Old lady bypasses the line (Schermbeek)                        Even the old had to wait (Schermbeek) 

    Chavistas heckle those in line in Carapita    The rain did not stop people (Schermbeek)

                                Flags in many ways (AP)

Lines in El Recreo (AP)                                                         

Went around the city taking pictures and checking out the lines. Pretty impressive so far. I tried to sign, but had to give up because it would take too long to do it. Went to the same areas where I took the pictures last week, except in one polling station, the lines were several blocks long everywhere. The lone exception had about ten times more people than the polling station last week that had the most people in the pro-Chávez drive. Very peaceful so far too. Cool!

Went around the city taking pictures and checking out the lines. Pretty impressive so far. I tried to sign, but had to give up because it would take too long to do it. Went to the same areas where I took the pictures last week, except in one polling station, the lines were several blocks long everywhere. The lone exception had about ten times more people than the polling station last week that had the most people in the pro-Chávez drive. Very peaceful so far too. Cool!

Went around the city taking pictures and checking out the lines. Pretty impressive so far. I tried to sign, but had to give up because it would take too long to do it. Went to the same areas where I took the pictures last week, except in one polling station, the lines were several blocks long everywhere. The lone exception had about ten times more people than the polling station last week that had the most people in the pro-Chávez drive. Very peaceful so far too. Cool!