The Truth Suffers in Human Rights Watch Report on Venezuela
By Venezuela Information Office
On September 18, 2008 Human Rights Watch released a report entitled “Venezuela: Rights Suffer Under Chávez.” The report contains biases and inaccuracies, and wrongly purports that human rights guarantees are lacking or not properly enforced in Venezuela. In addition, while criticizing Venezuela’s human rights in the political context, it fails to mention the many significant advancements made by the government on other essential human rights, such as access to education, healthcare, nutritious food, clean water, and housing.
MYTH: “Discrimination on political grounds has been a defining feature of the Chávez presidency.”
FACT: Human Rights Watch deems the 2002 coup against the elected government “the most dramatic setback” for human rights in Venezuela in the last decade, but criticizes President Chavez’s own public condemnations of the unconstitutional overthrow as examples of “political discrimination” against the opposition. On the contrary, President Chávez last year pardoned political opponents who backed a failed 2002 coup against his democratically elected government. “It’s a matter of turning the page,” Chávez said. "We want there to be a strong ideological and political debate -- but in peace.”(i) In this spirit, the government has often welcomed input from the opposition, for example, inviting the leaders of student protests to address the National Assembly.
MYTH: The Chávez administration has an “open disregard for the principle of separation of powers – specifically an independent judiciary.”
FACT: Human Rights Watch wrote in an earlier report that “When President Chávez became president in 1999, he inherited a judiciary that had been plagued for years by influence-peddling, political interference, and, above all, corruption...In terms of public credibility, the system was bankrupt.” Under Chávez though, Human Rights Watch admitted that access to justice in Venezuela was improved by the expansion of the court system.
Also, the World Bank found that “the reform effort has made significant progress – the STJ (Supreme Court) is more modern and efficient.”(iii) Testament to the strength of democratic institutions in Venezuela is the ability of the National Electoral Council to uphold decisions unfavorable to lawmakers, such as the “no” victory in the December 2007 referendum on constitutional reforms.
MYTH: “(Chávez) has significantly shifted the balance of the mass media in the government’s favor… by stacking the deck against critical opposition outlets.”
FACT: As was true at the time of the 2002 coup against Chávez, Venezuela’s media is dominated by opposition voices. The “anti-government” media mentioned by Human Rights Watch still maintains the largest share of the nation’s public airwaves, and their frequently extreme criticisms of the government have included calling for the overthrow of elected leaders (as in 2002). There are no major pro-government newspapers in Venezuela. The new government-funded television and radio outlets, such as TVes – Venezuela’s first public broadcaster – and TeleSur – a regional network with support from multiple countries – have a much smaller reach than the private outlets. Furthermore, the government has never censored or “shut down” opposition media. The private channel RCTV faced a non-renewal of its broadcast license due to persistent legal violations including inciting political violence, but the station easily made the switch to cable.
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7424/
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