Chávez Reaches Out to Obama Ahead of Vote

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

February 15, 2009
Chávez Reaches Out to Obama Ahead of Vote
By SIMON ROMERO

~snip~
“Any day is propitious for talking with President Barack Obama,” Mr. Chávez said at a news conference here with foreign journalists ahead of a referendum on Sunday that could open the way for him to hold on to power indefinitely. Mr. Chávez said he would be willing to meet with Mr. Obama before a summit meeting in April of Western Hemisphere nations. The White House has not yet responded.

Mr. Chávez initially expressed optimism over Mr. Obama’s electoral victory and a willingness to re-engage with the United States. But Mr. Chávez cooled to Mr. Obama in January after the American leader voiced concern over reports of Venezuelan assistance to Colombian guerrillas. Ties between the two nations had deteriorated sharply in 2008.

The Obama administration seems to have adopted a nonbombastic approach to dealing with Venezuela, even as it was faced with questions over a referendum campaign here which had been marked by attacks by pro-Chávez partisans on institutions viewed as critical of Mr. Chávez, like the Israeli Embassy and the Vatican’s diplomatic mission, and threats against prominent opponents of the president.

“That’s an internal matter with regard to Venezuela,” Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman, said when asked this month about the referendum.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/world/americas/15venez.html?_r=1&ref=world

[byeya]

1. “That’s an internal matter with regard to Venezuela,”Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman

That statement would not have been made, in my opinion, if there were not solidarity among the nations of South American. The moderates, Brasil, Argentina, and Chile are standing with the more progressive nations and presenting a united front. The USA doesn't want any more of its ambassadors shown the way home from a SA country.
It's interesting to note that Lula is enjoying such great popularity in spite of his length in office and the scandals that have been associated with his administration.

[Proletariatprincess]

2. This article takes some unfair verbal punches at Chavez.

Firstly, the referendum is to end term limits in Venezuela. Only Anti chavez/US media propagandists refer to it as "the way for him to hold power indefinitely".

Next, "Columbian guerrillas" is the FARC. The FARC are no more or less corrupt than the right wing government in that beleaguered country, and, given that it has more support among the working people, I would suggest that it is less corrupt and it's mission more egalitarian and just.


Then there is the reference to attacks by "pro-Chavez partisans". Let's remember that the USA supported an unsuccessful Coup against Chavez and is still up to dirty tricks in that country aided and abetted by the MSM propaganda campaign here. The "Pro-Chavez partisans" are much better aware of that than is reflected in the US media and, unlike here, Venezuelans have a tradition of demonstrating and civil disobedience. Not a bad thing at all. But always twisted in US propaganda as threatening and violent.

We can't trust the NY Times to get this story straight. We have to keep an open mind when reading stories in the MSM and look for weasel words that show bias.

BELIEVE NOTHING BUT CONSIDER ALL POSSIBILITIES.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Simon Romero has made a name for himself twisting news on Chavez.

He's a standing joke with some people who seriously watch news regarding Latin America. You'll find tons to examine in any search on Romero.

The New York Times has had three fanatically spiteful anti-Chavez reporters: Francisco Toro, Simon Romero, and Juan Forero, who went to work at the Washington Post. The first one had to leave the Times when it became known he is totally immersed in anti-Chavez activity in Caracas, belonging to several anti-Chavez NGO's which survive on hand-outs of US taxpayers' dollars through agencies like the N.E.D.

The New York Times just doesn't like Chavez, but then, that's typical for the paper which loved Judy Miller until she was outed.

~snip~
Yesterday, the Times published an article by Romero titled, "Chavez Supporters Suffer Defeat in State and Regional Races."

The article's lede:

President Hugo Chávez’s supporters suffered a stinging defeat in several state and municipal races on Sunday, with the opposition retaining power in oil-rich Zulia, the country’s most populous state, and winning crucial races here in the capital.

Today, the Times ran a follow-up piece penned by Romero under the headline "Once Considered Invincible, Chavez Takes a Blow," as well as an editorial that argued that "In Sunday's state and municipal elections Venezuelans showed just how fed up they are with his government's authoritarianism and incompetence."

Over at Narco News, Al Giordano takes on Romero's peculiar alternate reality of Venezuela's vote:

Imagine if elections for all 50 state governors in the United States were held on a single election day and 74 percent of those seats (or 37 out of 50 governorships) went to one political party's candidates. Imagine also that the victorious party's candidates had won 52.5 percent of all votes to just 41 percent for the opposition (the technical definition of an electoral landslide is a victory of ten percentage points or more).

If a New York Times reporter--or any reporter--then wrote the story of the election results and called it a "stinging defeat" for the victorious party, wouldn't he be laughed off of his beat?

But then again, if the New York Times had any journalistic standards when it came to reporting on Venezuela, Romero likely would have been laughed off his beat long ago....

http://www.fair.org/blog/tag/simon-romero/

~~~~~~~~~~

~snip~
Romero’s hostility toward Chávez was also obvious in the run up to the presidential election. In a story two days before election day, he chose to highlight a crime wave in Venezuela, and quoted the opposition presidential candidate Rosales (without providing any balance) blaming Chávez for the phenomenon.

“Chávez nourishes the anarchic forces that are tearing Venezuela apart with a discourse advocating aggression on all fronts,” Rosales told the Times. And the Times accepted this tendentious sociological analysis without question.

Romero is not the only person at the Times with an anti-Chávez agenda. After all, the editorial staff at the Times gleefully supported the 2002 U.S.-backed military coup against Chávez, a duly elected leader. In a classic case of doublespeak, the Times stated that “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.” The Times gently explained to its readers that Chávez “stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader.” Chávez’s triumphant return three days later forced the Times to eat crow.

More:
http://www.progressive.org/mag_apb120606

[loudsue]

5. Well said. The corporatists are totally against Chavez, and that

seems to pass for foreign policy for this whole country.

What's wrong with that picture? Better question: Can anyone find anything right with that picture?

[ooglymoogly]

6. Great posts...I personally have held fast to the belief (LINK)

from way back when our propaganda mills began the campaign to destroy Chavez that our part in this story is sick to the bone. The story of the coup against him by this country and the elite of Venezuela is a real eye popper and gives anyone who cares to investigate and take a real look at just how closely our crooked media, C-eye-A, state dept and right wing government in general have sold their souls and are connected at the hip to corpworld and care not about anything but protecting an ability to steal power, money and resources; Working the world like a lopsided, crooked chessboard. Woe betide any people getting in the way of that end both here and anywhere else in the world. For those who have not seen this eye opener here it is

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144

It might well have been called 'how a courageous people saved its democracy from vultures'.

Every red blooded American should watch and weep for democracy.

[EFerrari]

7. Simon Romero is a propagandist and in general, an @ss.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Chavez supports FARC materially. Those butchers Bush and Uribe cooked up a story about thousands of emails found on a FARC laptop. We said it was bullshit and sure enough, it was bullshit. Nada. Not one. Nothing.

[Zorro]

9. Your "given" about FARC popularity is incorrect

Support for FARC in Colombia was polled last year at ~1%, and is probably less than that now.

[EFerrari]

11. "It has become general knowledge in Colombia that the state has actively under-represented figures

and information related to the civil conflict to present a picture of internal stability."

August 1, 2008
Examining FARC Resistance in Colombia: Not the end of Guerrilla Warfare
by James J. Brittain

In the spring of 2008, three significant blows were dealt to the FARC when not one but two of the insurgency’s most recognizable leaders were killed and the group’s Commander-in-Chief, Manuel Marulanda Vélez died of a heart attack. Echoing official quotes, the Washington Post’s correspondent Juan Forero declared, “Colombians are for the first time raising the possibility that a guerrilla group once thought invincible could be forced into peace negotiations or even defeated militarily. Weakened by infiltrators and facing constant combat and aerial bombardment, the insurgency is losing members in record numbers.” Also relying on government and military sources, one of Colombia’s most popular newsmagazines claimed that desertion and a lack of internal support had caused a devastating decline for the FARC. Even Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez voiced the opinion that the era of organized class struggle through the medium of guerrilla warfare had passed. However, while the death of three of the insurgency’s primary leaders was of great significance, such reports of the FARC’s decline and possible imminent demise are not new.

At the beginning of the 1970s, early in the FARC’s formation, the guerrilla group was dealt a devastating blow when the military launched massive counterinsurgency offensives against specific guerrilla-controlled regions. In 1973, the Colombian state, with the assistance of the United States, launched “Operation Anori,” which destroyed much of the FARC’s military supplies and sections of its leadership. Following these and other counterinsurgency campaigns conducted during the early 1970s, it was documented that the FARC had lost seventy percent of its ammunitions and had as few as one hundred and fifty armed combatants left. Extensive press was given to the FARC’s demise, but in a few short years such assessments were proven to be premature. The insurgency quickly bounced back from the counterinsurgency campaigns and, according to political scientist Daniel L. Premo, was able to “regroup and conduct sporadic actions on an increasing number of fronts” by the mid-1970s.

Meanwhile, E. J. Hobsbawm noted that the FARC not only survived the US-backed counterinsurgency campaigns launched against them in the early years, they “succeeded in maintaining their activity, in spite of the initial errors, in spite of the severe handicap of having to arrange for the evacuation, dispersion and resettlement of a civilian population, in spite of the strength of long anti-irregular experience of the Colombian army, and in spite of the deep political divisions in the countryside … succeeded not merely by tactical and technical adjustments, but above all by a profound understanding of the political base of guerrilla warfare.”

Following the counter-insurgency campaigns under Plan Colombia (2000-2005) and Plan Patriota (2003-2006), premature victories over the FARC were again claimed. As time passed it became evident that the insurgency had not witnessed a decline, but rather experienced a significant influx in combatant growth and attacks against corporate and state infrastructure. Similarly, the FARC responded to the recent impulsive claims of decline by destabilizing Colombia’s most important oil infrastructure facility while defeating entire military battalions.

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia289.htm

James J. Brittain is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Canada and the co-founder of the Atlantic Canada-Colombia Research Group.

[Zorro]

12. Jan 08 Gallup polling of Colombians IRT FARC: 1% favorable 96% unfavorable

See page 80.

http://ciponline.org/colombia/0801encuesta.pdf

[Judi Lynn]

13. Imagine, people not telling strangers who poll them they support the rebels,

when even any suspicion you support the rebels will get you killed, sometimes after being tortured.

Fascinating.

[Zorro]

14. So are you asserting the Gallup poll is inaccurate?

Care to point to any reliable metric that would contradict that poll result?

[EFerrari]

20. You mean, excluding common sense?

[Zorro]

23. So do you have any reliable metrics that contradict Gallup's poll?

Making shit up and declaring must be true because it's "common sense" is a Republican/authoritarian trait.

[EFerrari]

15. Even you can't possibly believe that number. Were it true

FARC would be completely unable to operate at all.

[Zorro]

16. FARC certainly seems to be on the ropes these days

and the recent massacres of indigenous natives probably isn't going to increase its popularity.

1% of a population of 45 million is a substantial number -- so it's not a particularly unreasonable percentage, especially in lieu of any credible contradictory data.

[EFerrari]

18. Right. FARC is building a dirty bomb to give to Evo to explode

on Chavez's stolen oil rig on Fidel's birthday. ETA: I'm going to stop giving you links because you obviously aren't interested in them.

Venezuela just wrapped up their perfectly peaceful voting. But, nice try.

[Zorro]

22. Get whiplash from avoiding a relevant response?

Guess you have no credible evidence of massive support for FARC in Colombia, since you chose to change the subject.

[EFerrari]

24. Get whiplash from trying to spin your right wing talking points?

[Zorro]

25. Why can't you identify a credible source of data that contradicts Gallup?

You seem to have a problem confusing rhetoric with reality.

And labelling the Gallup poll I referenced as "your right wing talking points" is heading in a direction you would be well advised (yet again) to avoid.

[stlsaxman]

3. Anyone who so easily uses the word "propitious" has a special place in my heart!

:loveya:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

21. Yes, it was a propitious occasion to use that word. -nt

[bertman]

8. I was hoping Preznit Bush would try to pass an amendment saying an American President

could hold office as long as the people wanted him instead of for two terms. But he didn't. Oh well.

Hugo ain't perfect but if the Venezuelans want to elect him that's their bidness.

[RedCloud]

10. So many gringos are brainwashed against Chávez

Yes he is someone to fear, if you only want two old corrupt political parties vying for power.

AD
COPEI

No longer in power and in danger of extinction!

Well played Hugo, well played.

[Eryemil]

26. Y esto te sorprende? You'd think the so called "liberal wing" of the country...

...would know better.

This man has done nothing but help his people for ten years and people still expect him to suddenly turn evil and start drowning babies.

[Peace Patriot]

17. I've analyzed Simon Romero's corpo-fascist bias in this article elsewhere today.

I just want to comment on gist of it. I'm glad that Chavez has made a second effort with Obama. Somebody got Obama off on the wrong foot entirely, during Obama's inauguration week, when he spoke to Globovision (a virulently anti-Chavez, corporate 'news' monopoly), and made two very uninformed, stupid statements--that Chavez has ties to the FARC (Rumsfeldian bullshit; not true; disproven), and that Chavez is "bad for the progress of the region" (or similar language). This latter is just hilariously funny, unless you're talking about Exxon Mobil's "progress in the region," or the World Bank's, or the U.S. 'war on drugs.' Chavez is a significant hindrance to those evil enterprises. But as for halving poverty in Venezuela, providing health care to the poor, dramatically improving education and literacy, and other progressive advances in Venezuela and in the region, and as to use of Venezuela's oil profits, at long last, to benefit the region with specific development projects and other forward-looking policies, the activities and influence of the Chavez government has been a powerful force for good.

Ignorant, informed, ridiculous comments of our new president--under whose tutelage? I don't know. Mark Penn's?

So, after getting insulted and hearing more of this lying bullshit from Obama, the brand new president--with the Associated Pukes, Rotters and the lot, breathlessly taking Chavez the quotes and pissing in their pants, so happy were they to stir up a controversy on Day #1 of the Obama administration--Chavez said something negative (can't recall what it was--not too bad), then apparently thought the matter through, as did the U.S. State Dept. apparently.

I'm still not sure what Obama hoped to gain by this, if he was aware what a bad diplomatic move it was. Scare a few Venezuelan voters (in what was then predicted to be a very close vote on term limits), into thinking that Chavez wouldn't be able to get along with the new U.S. government? Maybe he wanted a lameduck Chavez, and did his part to bring it about. But I'm finding it hard to believe that Obama would take the time, out of his busy and surely exhausting inauguration week, and with all the shit in the world he had to deal with--two wars, economic meltdown--to throw this molotov cocktail at Hugo Chavez.

I expect that Chavez began thinking the same thing--and so he has tried again.

For Obama's sake, and for oursake--and not for Venezuela's sake, or Chavez's sake, whom I believe can take care of themselves--for the sake of our country, I want to see Chavez's peaceful intentions and the rest of South America's peaceful intentions (all the new leftist governments, most of the continent) answered by peaceful intentions of the United States. Because we will be missing out on the future of the western hemisphere, for the rest of this century, if we keep up this hostility to the peaceful democracy movement that has swept South America and is moving north into Central America.

Bushwhack behavior in South America has been disgraceful--not just toward Venezuela, but also toward Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba and others, along with arm-twisting and disgusting "divide and conquer" efforts toward Brazil, Chile and others. Is Obama's administration going to be more of the same? If it is, we lose--big time. We are already well on our way to becoming the biggest "banana republic" of all, due to entities like Exxon Mobil and the various barons of the "military-industrial complex." South America has rejected this status. They will not be our corpo/fascists' "banana republic" any longer. And the only question that remains is: Is our government going to respect that democratic decision by the people of South America, or is it going to disgrace us further and get the U.S. entirely evicted from the region?

[EFerrari]

19. Very well said, exactly.

:applause:

And we can notice that with Bush out of office, no one bothered to come here to DU to register and disrupt over this last referendum. The American press has still been stupid but only minimally -- unlike the weeks of bs we read in the run up to the 2007 referendum. Without Bush behind their sails, they seem to have lost most of their "interest".

That in itself tells us a lot of what this demonization of Chavez and of other democractic leaders in South America has been about -- Bush cronies seeing their cash cows disappearing as those peoples set about democratizing their nations.