Un cacerolazo

The first thing to post about then:

outside the window right now is a cacerolazo which is a sort of impromptu protest where you grab a pan (una cacerola) and keep hitting it. And then when you hear the noise, if you agree with the protest, you pick up a pan and hit it too. It can go on for up to an hour, I think. And cars driving past honk their horns (and nearby dogs will start barking, as well. There are a lot of dogs on this street so this is a FACT.) And I can hear shouting and crowds, I think.

It's started because the government just now took the only major (I think) Venezuelan anti-Chavez/critical of government channel remaining - RCTV - off the air. They'd been stopped transmitting as a public television channel previously (the government refused to renew their license to keep transmitting), but then they moved to cable. Last month, there was a new regulation created that said that all channels must broadcast Chavez's speeches ('government programming') on cable (alongside what we would call terrestrial TV). There was a rally and a speech by Chavez yesterday morning, which RCTV didn't broadcast - and neither did many local stations. (I'm guessing it doesn't apply to overseas channels, only Venezuelan broadcasters - Fox didn't show the speech either!)

It's interesting because these are private channels - paid for by subscription, advertising and donations - whereas these rules have previously only applied to national TV. I say interesting - I possibly mean disturbing, or worrying, or very-much-removing-of-free-speech-ing. (I can't really think of the correct word for that last one. Dictatorial?)

And also at the same time I was told that hundreds of workers from Exito - which was a French/Colombian-owned supermarket taken over by the government last week for 'price-fixing' - were also protesting.

(I say 'price-fixing' because the Bolivar was devalued around the same time so it's really difficult to know what prices are, what they should be, and what they're worth. How anyone would know if they were price fixing is beyond me. There's now three different exchange rates from dollar to Bolivar!)

More about RCTV here and here.
More about Exito here.

It's strange to be here whilst this is going on, and know that I can go back to the UK in a couple of months and not have to deal with it in every day life. And it's also interesting to see how quickly news of protest spreads and how quickly people mobilise, even though the government won't be listening.