The First Day
The events here in Caracas, Venezuela have kicked off with quite a bang. Today was the first day of the 25th anniversary celebration of CEDICE, a Venezuelan based think tank.
Starting at 9am, CEDICE inaugurated their week long events with a special mass, followed by a reception in their headquarters based in downtown Caracas. It was during this opening ceremony that we were informed of the possible cancelation of the Cato University taking place in the outskirts of city. The Minister of Education along with military force and police entered the private property where the Cato event was taking place. They threatened to shut it down as Cato was using the term UNIVERSITY, as this was not verified by the minister, it was violating the law. The event was allowed to continue, so long as the word “university” was removed from the Cato website.
Hours later, Rocio Guijaro (Executive Director of CEDICE) and I made our way to the airport to receive Alvaro Vargas Llosa, known author and senior fellow at the Independent Institute. Moments after arriving, we were informed that Vargas Llosa was detained by military personal. We were told that he was approached by 4 uniformed individuals, who asked for his passport. He was then taken and detained for over 2 hours. They broke the lock of his suite case and searched through his personal items. Local and International media were informed, and they have been covering this story since.
Thankfully, Vargas Llosa was released. Tensions are particularly high here in Venezuela, as freedom of press and expression are being greatly compromised. Click here to read an article that better explains this:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/05/23/venezuela.globovision/index.html
There is certainly a long week ahead of us!
