While Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez retains high levels of support and popularity in Latin America, a growing movement is forming against his power tenure and international interference.
On September 4, people in 98 cities around the world rallied against him. The protest, called “No más Chávez”—which means No More Chávez is Spanish—was organized entirely through Facebook and Twitter.
The idea of the protest first occurred to Alejandro Gutierrez, a 28-year-old Colombian who on August 24th decided he had had enough with Chávez. The day before, during his weekly television program, the Venezuelan leader had accused the Colombian government of treason because, in his opinion, “it’s disrespecting the dignity of the people in South America” and invited Colombians “to join his Bolivarian doctrine” and spread it through the neighbor country.
“Chávez words were the last straw,” says Sergio Prieto, one of the co-founders of the movement and Gutierrez’s childhood friend, while he explains that Gutierrez and other eight Colombians created three Facebook groups against the Venezuelan president.
“We decided to merge the groups and call for a massive march against Chávez injustices and interferences in Colombia and Latin America,” he says.
The No More Chávez group‘s followers grow beyond their expectations. On its first day they had around 300 followers. But in the second day the number increased to almost 3,000 and by the day of the event it gathered more than 377,000 followers around the world.
“We established a two week time period the held a symbolic and pacifist anti-Chávez rally on September 4th and to see what we could accomplish in Colombia, but in less than two days the project had crossed national frontiers and it became a global event,” says Prieto.
It was then when No More Chávez received the support and logistical advice of Un Millon de Voces Contra las FARC, a Colombian non-profit that in 2008 organized a worldwide protest against the largest guerrilla group in Colombia.
The Facebook group was followed by the creation of NoMoreChavez.org website and a Twitter account, which currently has almost 5,000 followers.
In United States, the Venezuelan community started to work on the organization “right away” and designated local coordinators in 14 cities. They also contacted radio and television stations to promote the rally. In Venezuela, the No More Chavez group partnered with opposition parties and the student movement.
Coordinators received a nomaschavez.org email, which allow them to stay in touch and “make them feel a part of the organization,” Prieto says. The email list was initially made public. But when the coordinators and organizes started to receive death threats, they decided to take it out and installed a comments and contact space in the website.
On September 4th, people in 46 countries—distributed along four of the five continents—held protests. According to media reports and data provided by No More Chávez, there were rallies in 98 cities, from Sydney, Australia passing by Madrid, Spain and all the way to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Thousands turned out for the protests in Colombia and Venezuela. But one of the biggest rallies was held in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where de facto president Roberto Micheletti joined the protest.
But the rally is not the end of this social movement. Prieto says that the American branch of No More Chavez has already started the proceedings to create a non-profit called Movimiento No Más. In Colombia, similar organizations are popping out.
“We always saw this protest as a seed so people could generate their organizations to continue protesting and create channels of communication against Chávez’ politics,” he says.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) is currently having a photography contest, which will end on October 31st. The winner photos will be displayed in major Latin American cities and they will also be use for a 2010 calendar.
Although the Facebook group has decreased to 245,000 followers since the global rally, the movement continues to use it to promote and organizes protests similar to the initial cause. For instance, they helped to organize a march held today in Miami because of the situation in Honduras, where Chavez is supporting the comeback of ex president Manuel Zelaya.
As for Twitter, Prieto explains that they use it as a channel to show their followers “the real news” of Venezuela. Through the 140 characters, they support Venezuelan journalists and retweet news that do not come from governmental media.
Regardless of their success, not all the co-founders of the No More Chávez know each other. “I talk to them but, besides Alejandro, I’ve never met the other seven organizers because I’m the only one who lives in the US,” says Prieto. It just happened to be random Colombians who were against Chávez.
Nonetheless, the network established remains active and it’s put into use every time Chávez travels abroad. During the United Nations General Assembly, the New York branch of No More Chávez organized a rally in front of the UN headquarters.
“It was small but meaningful, we were there,” the co-founder says. For now, the movement will continue to exist as long as Chávez is in power and his influence is spread in Latin America.
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Michael Cervieri
Compelling tale. Is there any way to account for the decrease in facebook followers. Down from 377,000 to 244,649 is significant. Have followers had any contact from Chávez’s government or more precisely, are they in any danger, having put their names and “faces” out into the ether for all to see?
So far, there haven’t been any reports about the Venezuelan government having used Facebook information to intimidate or threat people. Chavez’s government already has a list of those that don’t support him–to make the long story short, the list is based on the signatures collected to request the 2004 referendum against his tenure of power.
Also, people who work for the government, who are normally subject to that kind of intimidation because they could loose their jobs, probably didn’t follow the group on the first place. There is, however, a hint on why the number of followers went down: although it was created in Facebook as a group, the initial purpose was “the protest.” After it took place, it’s normal for people to leave because the objective was achieve.
This is very interesting. Has Chavez or any top officials commented on these Facebook/Twitter protests?
Chavez only comment on the protests during a press conference he held during his visit to Syria. “I’ve seen that some are organizing a world rally against Chavez. I say it’s a stupid thing!,” he said. He also said that the protest wasn’t against him but “the people.” Strangely, members of his government didn’t make further comments.
However, some journalists who work for the state own media have said that Twitter and Facebook were developed by the CIA “to recruit agents who are willing to promote imperial interests.”