HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: "Venezuela is basically democratic"

[El Pinko]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/401909.html

Rights group: Venezuela is basically democratic
Human Rights Watch said Venezuela was actually more democratic than many nations, contrary to some popular U.S. perceptions.
Posted on Fri, Feb. 01, 2008

BY PABLO BACHELET
WASHINGTON --
Human Rights Watch on Thursday said Venezuela does not belong to a group of nations like Pakistan and Russia that use the veneer of democracy to mask autocratic rule -- directly contradicting U.S. government assertions.
The New York-based group's position also runs contrary to allegations by many opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez that he is undermining democracy at home and around Latin America.

Chávez and his government have long argued that Venezuela is fully democratic, with regular elections, a free news media and an organized opposition. The president accepted his defeat in a close vote on constitutional revisions last year.

''We did not include Venezuela in the list of closed countries because it is not,'' Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said, unveiling the organization's 2008 World Report, which highlighted leaders who claim to be democratic but take autocratic measures.





Umm.... shouldn't that read "Bushco assertions"?


As is so often the case, Bushco merely saying something over and over again does NOT make it so...

[TahitiNut]

1. Uh-oh .... here come the madding crowds! (The Hugo-bashers swarm on DU.)

:popcorn:

[donheld]

6. Do you have room for me

:beer::popcorn:

[High Plains]

2. Yeah, but can you smoke in bars there?

[El Pinko]

5. Ha ha. Touché.

I guess that's gonna be my rep here from now on - "the anti-smoking zealot".


Wish I'd never posted that damn thing...

[malaise]

3. People who read already know this

MSM can't fool all of us.

[devilgrrl]

4. That can't be... Chavez is supposed to be evil, how can evil breed democracy?

:sarcasm:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. What do they mean by "basically"?

Venezuela is certainly massively, incomparably better governed than Pakistan or Russia, but that doesn't alter the fact that there is widespread abuse of government power to ensure support for Hugo Chavez.

There has been no evidence that Chavez rigs elections (and I think it very unlikely that he does). He certainly does, though, use the apparatus of state to try and tilt the playing field a great deal when campaigning.

I would agree that "basically democratic" is a fair assessment, but that "basically" can cover a multitude of sins.