The Ambush
by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual
One does
not know what can be more outrageous, if the attack, backed by shouts of “Viva
Chavez” of the rally of Manuel Rosales and his companions, on the part of a
bunch of people that since much earlier had congregated with their motorcycles at
the location where the rally was supposed to get started, or to listen to, much later,
to Minister of the Interior and Justice Chacon, “explaining” the events and almost
justifying them, with his two “hypotheses” about what may have happened. After a pathetic
and laughable rambling, with a dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Language
in hand, about the meaning of the word “ambush”, to ltell us of the stoning that
never was, Chacon went fully into his two “hypotheses”. The first one which was
phrased in a low and soft tone, was that some neighbors, upset perhaps with the presence
of the “coup plotter” Rosales, “spontaneously” had expressed their lack of
conformity using bottles and stones. Which is not right, he admitted, just in
case, but, nevertheless, the Minister implied with an innocent face, is it the
fault of the stick if the frog jumps and impales itself? The second one, and
here Chacon used a tougher tone, was that Rosales, given his lack of notoriety and
how squalid the rally was, had provoked the events to manufacture the “news”. Thus,
the Minister announced, the facts are going to be investigated in order to “determine
responsibilities”. Obviously, the diligent Prosecutor General must already be acting
on it and he will surely discover that Rosales self-stoned himself. That is, no
matter how you look at it, in the end, according to Chacon, Manuel Rosales is
the person responsible for the row. If nor for one, for the other. Either he penetrated
imprudently, given his “criminal record” in “Chavista territory” and, in some
fashion got what he deserved, because he was then responsible for starting the ruckus. In another
part of his talk, Jesse allowed himself some racist comments, when he pointed
to two or three people on a picture, that because of their physiognomy,
according to him, they could not be inhabitants of Catia. “I was born in Catia”
assured us Jesses, “and I know its people”. Thus, according to Jesse, the color
of the skin or your hair is what identifies the inhabitants of Catia. Not happy
with the lesson in philology that he had perpetrated on the matter of the meaning
of the term “ambush”, Jesse now transformed himslef into a racist anthropologist and ethnologist,
and informed us that there is a human type specific to the popular parish and that no
whites or blonds live there. But now,
you see the problem, Rosales’ rallies were attacked on two consecutive days. Coincidence,
or is this the tone that Chavez and his people are thinking of imposing on the electoral
campaign? When one
sees these things it immediately comes to mind Jose Vicente Rangel relating how when he entered politics and concretely joined the URD party, he saw “adecos”
ending a rally by Jovito Villalba in Barquisimeto in ’46 or ’47 of the last
century. Perhaps in that long gone era, someone surely said that who had informed
Jovito that he could enter “adeco territory” or that perhaps he himself had
provoked the events to become the news. As the world turns!
7:45:23 PM 
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