Late President Hugo Chavez used to call it "la revolucion bonita" (the pretty revolution), but the world looked at Venezuela last week and saw only ugliness. Protesters gunned down in the streets, barricades in flames, chaos. One of the dead was a 22-year-old beauty queen shot in the head.
With the government censoring and cowing TV reports, many of the images came from smartphones, grainy and jerky snippets filled with smoke and shouts. One fact loomed through them all: "Chavismo," a hybrid system of democracy and autocracy built on populism, petrodollars and quasi-socialism, was reaping the consequences of misrule.
Demonstrations in Caracas, Valencia, Merida and other cities turned lethal, with student-led rallies provoking a fierce backlash from national guard units and paramilitaries. They roared on motorcycles into "enemy" neighborhoods, guns blazing. Families piled mattresses against windows to shield against bullets.