Venezuelan Tea Party? Freedom will not be denied, if you stand tall, question boldly. From the
Latin American Herald Tribune:
BOGOTA – Unknown persons threw stones at the southside Bogota residence of one of the organizers of marches against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to be carried out this Friday in more than 30 countries including Colombia, the man whose house was targeted said.
Miguel Fierro told reporters Thursday that the doors and windows of his home were damaged before dawn by unknown assailants throwing stones and other blunt objects.
He said that this was apparently a reprisal for his work organizing protests against the president of the neighboring country who accused Colombians of being “traitors.”
He said that the attack caused only material damages, and insisted that in spite of everything, he will continue with the project.
The marches against Chavez were slammed by the Venezuelan ambassador in Colombia, Gustavo Marquez, who said that the initiative represents “hatred” and that Bogota ought to be watching it carefully.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently said that “we must prepare for the rupture of relations with Colombia, that’s going to happen,” and reiterated his criticism of a prospective accord between Washington and Bogota that would give the U.S. armed forces access to seven Colombian bases, which he has been described as a “threat” to the “Bolivarian Revolution” that he has led for a decade.
For its part, the Colombian government complained recently that Swedish rocket-launchers sold to Venezuela in the 1980s – more than a decade before Chavez took office – ended up in the hands of the FARC, an insinuation that Venezuela is arming Colombia’s largest rebel group.
Demonstrations against the Venezuelan government are being held this Friday in more than 80 cities in some 30 countries.
The initiative arose from the indignation of four groups of young people after the statement Chavez made on Aug. 23 on his Sunday program “Hello, President,” in which he accused Colombians of being “traitors” and invited them to accept his “Boliviarian doctrine.”The marches were organized over the Internet, with the creation of Web sites, Facebook groups with almost half a million members, as well as on Twitter with more than 3,000 followers, according to the Bogota daily El Tiempo.The marches recall the February 2008 protests, also organized via Facebook, when millions of Colombians poured into the streets of the country’s main cities to protest against the Marxist FARC rebels, demanding that the guerrillas release their captives and abandon hostage-taking as a tactic.
On that occasion at least a million people demonstrated in Bogota, 500,000 more in Medellin and an equal number in Cali, according to the estimates released by different media outlets in Colombia’s three largest cities.
