I read an article written by Mary Anastasia O’Grady and felt compelled to share it. She points out some of the troubling ways in which Chavez has attempted to consolidate his power by controlling the economy, political institutions and information.
It is true that popular discontent with chavismo has been rising as oil prices have been falling. The disillusionment is even likely to increase in the months ahead as the economy swoons. But having used the boom years to consolidate power and destroy all institutional checks and balances, Mr. Chávez has little incentive to return the country to political pluralism even if most Venezuelans are sick of his tyranny. If anything, he is apt to become more aggressive and dangerous as the bloom comes off his revolutionary rose in 2009 and he feels more threatened.
Certainly “elections” can’t be expected to matter much. Mr. Chávez now controls the entire electoral process, from voter rolls to tallying totals after the polls have closed. Under enormous public pressure he accepted defeat in his 2007 bid for constitutional reforms designed to make him president for life. But so what? That loss allowed him to maintain the guise of democracy, and now he has decided that there will be another referendum on the same question in February. Presumably Venezuela will repeat this exercise until the right answer is produced.
All police states hold “elections.” But they also specialize in combining the state’s monopoly use of force with a monopoly in economic power and information control. Together these three weapons easily quash dissent. Venezuela is a prime example.
The Venezuelan government is now a military government. Mr. Chávez purged the armed forces leadership in 2002 and replaced fired officers with those loyal to his socialist cause. Like their counterparts in Cuba, these elevated comandantes are well compensated. Lack of transparency makes it impossible to know just how much they get paid for their loyalty, but it is safe to say that they have not been left out of the oil fiesta that compliant chavistas have enjoyed over the past decade. Even if the resource pool shrinks this year, neither their importance nor their rewards are likely to diminish…
She continues:
One measure that Mr. Chávez relies on heavily is control of the narrative. In government schools children are indoctrinated in Bolivarian thought. Meanwhile the state has stripped the media of its independence and now dominates all free television in the country. This allows the government to marinate the poor in Mr. Chávez’s antimarket dogma. His captive audiences are told repeatedly that hardship of every sort — including headline inflation of 31% last year — is the result of profit makers, middlemen and consumerism.
Chavez said frayed ties with Washington were unlikely to improve despite the departure of Bush, who the Venezuelan leader has often called the “devil.”
“I hope I am wrong, but I believe Obama brings the same stench, to not say another word,” Chavez said at a political rally on a historic Venezuelan battlefield.
“If Obama as president of the United States does not obey the orders of the empire, they will kill him, like they killed Kennedy, like they killed Martin Luther King, or Lincoln, who freed the blacks and paid with his life.”
Venezuela is a leading supplier of oil to the United States and the two countries once enjoyed close ties.
Relations deteriorated after Chavez first won election in 1998 as he took on U.S. companies as part of his socialist agenda of nationalization of various industries and accused Washington of backing a brief coup against him.
Last year, he expelled the U.S. ambassador from Venezuela.
Chavez’s foreign policy is based on countering U.S. global influence and promoting countries like Russia and China as world leaders. He has close ties to U.S. foes Cuba and Iran.
In an interview shown in the past week on the Spanish-language network Univision, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said that Venezuela’s firebrand president, Hugo Chávez, has hindered progress in Latin America, and he expressed concern that Chávez’s leftist government has assisted Colombia’s biggest guerrilla movement, a group the United States considers a terrorist organization.
Obama said his administration is open to starting talks with Chávez to improve relations, which have frayed badly since the Bush administration celebrated Chávez’s brief overthrow at the hands of rebellious military officers in 2002. But in the 13-minute interview aired by Univision, Obama said Chávez had “been a force that has interrupted progress in the region.”
He then raised the issue of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a 45-year-old rebel group loathed by Colombians for carrying out selective assassinations, attacks on civilian targets and mass kidnappings. Last year, Colombian authorities released internal rebel documents that outlined how Chávez and his close allies had assisted the group in an effort to isolate Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, the Bush administration’s closest ally in Latin America. The Chávez government denies it helps the FARC, as the group is known.
“We need to be firm when we see this news, that Venezuela is exporting terrorist activities or supporting malicious entities like the FARC,” Obama said. “This creates problems that are not acceptable.”
On December 13, 2004, unknown persons captured Rodrigo Granda, international spokesperson for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Venezuela. They took him to Colombia, where he was arrested by the authorities and subsequently imprisoned. The capture of Granda led to a diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and neighboring Colombia. Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, claimed that national sovereignty had been violated.
On the morning of January 12, 2005, Venezuelan National Guard Lieutenant Colonel and Commander of the Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Unit in the State of Táchira, José Humberto Quintero Aguilar, was arrested without a judicial warrant. He was taken to the headquarters of the Military Intelligence Division (DIM), where he remained incommunicado for 7 days was denied access to legal counsel.
Quintero has told HRF that on his first night at DIM he was handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken by car to an undisclosed location. There he was beaten and tortured until he agreed to provide a video confession stating that he was responsible for Rodrigo Granda’s capture.
Quintero maintains that between asphyxiations he was told to say that United States and Colombian intelligence agencies were involved in the capture of Granda. He was told to say that he had received a cash bribe to kidnap Granda and deliver him to the Colombian authorities. Quintero denies that he captured Granda, but the torture he suffered made him give the unknown officials the answers they wanted. His confession was videotaped and only after its completion was he returned to a cell in DIM headquarters.
His torture continued upon his return to DIM. He was kept in a 7 x 8 foot cell in the basement of the building for seven days. His cell had no illumination except for a one-foot window facing the hallway. Quintero was stripped of all of his clothing except for shorts and sandals and was not allowed to have a watch or to know the time. His meals were provided at random intervals, and DIM agents routinely interrupted his sleep and subjected him to hours of interrogation. On January 19, 2005, he was transferred to Ramo Verde military prison to await trial for abuse of power, high treason, violation of military decorum, and illegitimate deprivation of liberty. In November of 2007, Quintero was convicted to 3 years and 8 months in prison. An appeals court annulled this decision on due process grounds: the court lacked jurisdiction and provided insufficient reasoning for its decision. Quintero remains at Ramo Verde, now undergoing a new trial for the same charges.
Quintero’s torture has resulted in lasting repercussions to his health. He was denied medical care for three weeks after the torture took place and, four months after his arrest, he sustained an internal hematoma (a blood clot in an organ resulting from a broken blood vessel). At least one year after the incident, he was still plagued by severe back pain that prevented him from sleeping. Lumbar and pulmonary resonance tests reveal that Quintero had severe injuries in his thorax.
According to Quintero, DIM agents have threatened to kidnap his family members and hand them over to the FARC.
HRF has verified the damage done to Quintero’s thorax. The Venezuelan government has not disproved these claims, choosing instead to ignore various formal complaints and requests for investigations filed by his attorney, even when Quintero has said that he is willing and able to identify two of the men who tortured him.
Quintero’s allegations of torture merit an inquiry by Venezuelan authorities. HRF takes no position on whether Quintero is guilty or innocent of the charges for which he remains incarcerated. However, evidence points to unmistakable violations of human rights, specifically the rights to due process under the law and to legal counsel, as well as the rights to be free from arbitrary detainment and torture.
The vote is set for February 15th, and if passed, would allow President Hugo Chavez to run for office again.
The announcement comes a day after MPs backed a constitutional amendment brought by Mr Chavez’s supporters.
A plan to lift term limits was defeated by the Venezuelan people last year. To Mr. Chavez the number one priority continues to be the consolidation of power around him rather than the garnering of support for his vision among all groups of society. He has openly stated that he believes he needs at least another 10 years to implement his socialist revolution.
If the revolution were about the poor in Venezuela, he would be focusing on engaging the opposition and finding ways for everyone to move forward together rather than further dividing the country with his attempts to stay in power indefinitely. Venezuela’s poor continue to be poor, crime levels have not decreased and the promised benefits of the revolution remain unseen. Worst of all, the political intolerance that grows daily in Venezuela may be opening the doors and windows of the country to violence and civil unrest.
Bolivia and Venezuela have become the first countries in the world to cut diplomatic ties with Israel over the conflict in Gaza.
President Evo Morales made the announcement in a speech to diplomats in the government palace in La Paz. He referred to the Israeli offensive in Gaza as a “genocide”.
Morales is a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who expelled Israel’s ambassador to his country on January the 6th, in protest over Gaza.
Caracas accused Israel of what it said were “flagrant violations of international law” and of using “state-sponsored terrorism” against the Palestinians.
Israel maintains the offensive is aimed at ending cross-border rocket attacks by militants in Gaza.
Ten Years On, Serious Social Ills Remain
Kidnappings and murder, unequal distribution of oil wealth, food shortages – yet the poor still believe things would be worse without Chávez.
Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of the Human Rights Watch has responded to a group of “experts” that had questioned some of the conclusions and statements made by Human Rights Watch regarding the situation of human rights in Venezuela. I found the report to be fair and accurate and was pleased to see HRW respond appropriately. Here is some context of the exchange from the HRW website:
In December, over 100 Latin America experts called into question the HRW report, “A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela,” stating it “is politically motivated, as well as grossly exaggerated, based on unreliable sources, and advertises broad and sweeping allegations that are unsupported by the evidence.” To support their allegations of political bias, the critics quote the report’s lead author, Jose Miguel Vivanco, who said: “We did the report because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone.”
“A Decade Under Chávez,” published in September 2008, “examines the impact of the Chávez presidency on institutions that are essential for ensuring respect for human rights and the rule of law: the courts, the media, organized labor, and civil society,” states HRW. Specifically, HRW charges Chávez’s regime with openly encouraging political discrimination and failing to live up to the standards of its own constitution, such as the separation of powers and judicial oversight. Moreover, adds the human rights monitor, “the Chávez government has engaged in often discriminatory policies that have undercut journalists’ freedom of expression, workers’ freedom of association, and civil society’s ability to promote human rights in Venezuela.”
“I would like to take at face value your own professed concern for promoting accurate reporting on human rights in Venezuela. But I do not see how disseminating a grossly inaccurate depiction of our report can possibly contribute to that goal. Given what’s at stake in Venezuela today, I think your letter is an unhelpful distraction. If anything, its unfounded allegations will only contribute to the climate of political intolerance that currently exists in the country, undercutting local efforts to promote democratic pluralism and greater respect for basic human rights.”
On his Sunday program “Alo Presidente” President Hugo Chavez announced the expropriation of an American style shopping mall situated in the heart of Caracas. The president announced his intentions to build a hospital or school in the expropriated land.
Over the years, Chavez has urged Venezuelans to shed their materialism and their taste for designer clothes, big cars, Scotch whiskey, plastic surgery and American consumerism.
In addition to 273 stores, Sambil Candelaria, the shopping centre, also was built to have 4,300 square meters of offices, a convention center with capacity for 2000 people, a 10-plex movie cinema, restaurants and a food court.
With this, Hugo Chavez has moved his attacks on consumerism beyond simple rhetoric and has delivered a hard blow to retail and corporate investors in his country in the middle of the most important shopping period of the year.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Chávez Paradox
As seen weekly on Aló Presidente, it’s not the opposition, but Chávez’s own supporters and cabinet members who most lack freedom of expression.
Part 4 of the documentary “The Hugo Chavez Show”. I consider chapter 4 of the documentary to be the turning point of the film. The end of this chapter begins to show some of the concerning traits of the Chavez government and what it has meant for Venezuela.
Enjoy.
I read an article written by Mary Anastasia O’Grady and felt compelled to share it. She points out some of the troubling ways in which Chavez has attempted to consolidate his power by controlling the economy, political institutions and information.
(reuters)
Humberto Quintero: 
The vote is set for February 15th, and if passed, would allow President Hugo Chavez to run for office again.
Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of the 
On his Sunday program 
