U.N. Condemns Violence In Venezuela After Government Breaks Up Protest

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/12/venezuela-un-violence_n_5310432.html


The United Nations condemned the continued violence in Venezuela Friday, highlighting the government’s use of force to quell protests, even as it criticized all sides in the conflict.

The U.N. statement came after the Venezuelan National Guard and police expelled more than 200 youth protesters who were demonstrating peacefully at a campsite in front of the U.N. development Programme offices in the capital of Caracas and other parts of the city last week. Most of the protesters were detained, according to the U.N. The Venezuelan government accused the demonstrators of using the camps to incite violence.

A series of anti-government protests have persisted since February, motivated largely by the leftwing government’s heavy handed dealings with the political opposition, out of control crime, and the Nicolás Maduro administration’s economic policies, which have resulted in shortages of food staples and basic items like toilet paper. The protests have led to 44 deaths and more than 800 injuries, according to La Opinión, including both demonstrators and government supporters.

“We unequivocally condemn all violence by all sides in Venezuela,” spokesman Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement. “We are particularly concerned at the reported excessive use of force by the authorities in response to protests.”

[merrily]

1. I can't recall if the UN condemned government overreactions to the Occupy protestors.

[Marksman_91]

2. This isn't about the US

Are you trying to derail the topic at hand?

[merrily]

4. No, it's about the UN. So was my post. Your post, though, was not about the thread topic.

Here's a tip. If you think a poster is trying to derail a thread, the wrong thing to do for the sake of the thread is respond to it as you did--unless you'd rather make a personal attack on a poster than let the thread take it's natural course. BTW, what was your great contribution to the thread topic?

[EX500rider]

3. Maybe because the number were nowhere near as bad?

Since February in Venz., 41 people have been killed and 785 injured during the protests and at least 2,200 have been arrested.

The US has roughly 10x's the population so the number's are easy to extrapolate.

So to be close to equal the crackdown on Occupy in the US would have to have killed 410 people, with 7,000 injured and over 20,000 arrested.

[merrily]

5. That is certainly a possibility and a valid point.

My point was that I don't think UN condemnation is that evenhanded and objectively arrived at, though.

On the secondary point, the number of casualties, overreaction by government to protest was excessive in both. However, it became apparent in the US very quickly that Occupy was not trying to topple the government and would not succeed if it tried. If the USG had perceived a serious threat of that, even a threat down the road, I think the reaction would have been as excessive as Venezuela's, if not more so. But, that was not my main point. My main point was the behavior of the UN.

BTW, I do not think that the way you determine whether a government's reaction to protest is excessive is by percentage of the population killed. IMO, four college kids killed at Kent State for protesting a war was excessive. Even calling out the national guard to deal with that was excessive. But, that was not my main point, either.

[EX500rider]

6. Well I think a starting point would be was anybody killed?

And if the Venezuelan's were attacking armories and the Presidential palace then I would fear of a overthrow in progress but that was not the case.

[Bacchus4.0]

7. They've only asked that Maduro resign. I recall lots of people here saying Bush should have been

impeached. I've never seen anyone claim that a Bush resignation or impeachment would have constituted a coup or overthrow.