Chavez's Orweillian propaganda campaign

AP/Washington Post:

University leaders accused the Venezuelan government Thursday of provoking violence to justify military occupations of campuses where students are leading protests against President Hugo Chávez.

Gunmen opened fire on students returning from a peaceful march Wednesday in which 80,000 people denounced a constitutional referendum, planned for December, that would expand Chávez's power. At least eight people were injured in the incident in Caracas, including one by gunfire, officials said.

Justice Minister Pedro Carreño blamed students, opposition leaders and the news media for the violence. "We want to urge the media to reflect, to stop broadcasting biased news through media manipulation, filling a part of the population with hate," Carreño said in an address Wednesday night.

Higher Education Minister Luis Acuña, meanwhile, offered to send in troops to quell the violence, but university authorities quickly rejected the offer as an attempted power grab.

"We won't fall into the trap," said Eleazar Narváez, rector of the Central University of Venezuela.

Chávez's opponents say the president has long wanted to end the autonomy of Venezuela's public universities, most of which are run by rectors associated with the opposition who defeated Chávez followers in campus elections.

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The Chavez government's offer was one that was easy to refuse. The schools remain one institution that he does not yet control, but he eventually will because he has control of their purse strings. Right now he is just clumsily pushing the wrong levers in an attempt to control the situation. He is not very smart and so far he has been using the lever he is most familiar with, the use of police and army force. Eventually someone in his government will figure it out and they will crush this remaining institutional dissent.