Rights group slams Venezuela's Chavez

[Pavulon]

Source: CNN/HRW

The government of President Hugo Chavez has chipped away at human rights in Venezuela during the 10 years he has held power, says a report released Thursday.

The report, presented in Caracas by Human Rights Watch's Americas director, Jose Miguel Vivanco, cited lack of autonomy among the nation's democratic institutions and loss of autonomy of the nation's high court as examples.

The organization said Chavez has sacrificed Venezuelans' fundamental rights to further his political interests.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/18/venezuela.rights/index.html

---

HRW is a credible source. Che Jesus proves your enemy's enemy...you know the rest..

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. This is a case of the U.S. as always interfering in Latin America

And of course, Repukes love that.

[Pavulon]

2. HRW is not the CIA

they are a credible source. We have been manipulating LA politics for decades under all administrations.

However that does not speak to hugo's actions here.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. I understand what you're saying, however.....

The other side of the coin is that the media in Venezuela was 100% run by the elite, who are tight as bugs on a rug with the U.S. This same elite felt free to broadcast that Chavez had cheated on the elections, that Chavez was wrong, yada yada yada. Until the U.S. and the elite of Latin America, take their filthy claws off Latin American countries, it will be necessary to interfere with the monopolies these elite have.

And of course, as I've said to many people before, the only reason people fight for socialism, is because they're so impoverished that they have nothing left to lose. Countries which are legitimately fair, do not have people struggling to fight off an unfair government. (And I don't count the elite as exploited. The elite ARE the exploiters everywhere).

[subsuelo]

67. As an ardent Chavez supporter, I still take HRW's criticisms seriously

I agree with everything you said above but that does not lessen the criticism either

[Sarah Ibarruri]

240. Not me. Research the HRW and you'll see that it is based ONLY in the U.S. and it was started ONLY..

... to watch the Soviet Union. Plus, is HRW in the White House trying to stop U.S. human rights violations? No? Well then they can KMA.

[struggle4progress]

258. By the 1980s, Helsinki Watch had spawned a number of other Watch Committees that

covered human rights issues around the world. You might find it worth your while to review Americas Watch publications on (say) Guatemala or El Salvador during the Reagan era: they were informative and useful

Eventually, all these Watch Committees were renamed Human Rights Watch. HRW does discuss issues in the US, as you can easily verify by a quick tour around their website www.hrw.org

[Sarah Ibarruri]

302. I think HRW needed to have been here in the U.S. watching OUR human rights violations...

Why weren't they here?

[struggle4progress]

305. As I suggested in my last post, why don't you look at the HRW website?

[angstlessk]

5. where is Chavez 'gitmo'?? where does Chavez send the enemies of Venezuela

for torture? DOES HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH SAY??? We know where BOOSH AND CHENEY'S ARE...oh...AND are we talking about the POLITIZAITON OF THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT OF THE USA???

[Pavulon]

6. HRW has said plenty about the US

pretty weak response.

[angstlessk]

10. link me to your post about what HRW said about the US..please

since you are so 'fair and balanced'

[Behind the Aegis]

12. ...

http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usa_detentions

[Pavulon]

13. Aww, only like news when it fits your POV. Googled for ya

http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/20080610135908/wire/world-news/u.s.-group-sues-pentagon-over-two-guantanamo-suicides.html

plenty more on the google.

Big fat PDF "hatin" on the good ol USA from HRW.

http://hrw.org/pub/2006/us063006_iccpr_submission.pdf

[redqueen]

121. No... the question goes toward YOUR agenda. If you haven't posted

about their issues with our own country... but instead choose to post only the things they say about Venezuela... then what does that say about you?

[joeglow3]

160. Red Herring

Who cares? This is LBN and this article fits the bill. You are just trying to change to topic and/or deflect the conversation.

[redqueen]

187. No, I was following up on a comment by someone else.

And though you think it's not worthwhile or meaningful, others disagree.

[joeglow3]

209. No. It is the third grade argument

of trying to deflect blame from your own faults by saying "Well Billy did it first." We are all well aware of the issues with Human Rights in the US. This topic is discussing a recently released report on human rights in another country. I question why someone cannot admit that there are issues down there and instead resort to the "Well the US does it too" arguement.

[redqueen]

211. No, you're misunderstanding...

see, the thing that raises eyebrows (or should) is how little these "news" outlets tend to talk about HRW's complaints about other countries' activities... and how oddly fixated they seem on dishing out whatever they can dig up on Venezuela.

This doesn't imply that I think everything done in Venezuela does that's worthy of criticism should be ignored, because bad things are done by our country too... all it means is, people should think about why the anti-Venezuela news gets so much coverage.

Every country has good and bad... but the fact that that country has fair elections and is trending in a leftward direction... that is why they are demonized in the press to the extent they are. That's all that I'm saying. Be aware of why the US media is so fixated on Venezuela... and maybe consider not assisting them in their catapulting.

That's all.

[Judi Lynn]

212. No, we're NOT all well aware of HRW reports on the U.S. Our coporate media has NEVER trumpeted

anything from those reports, and they are far, FAR more serious than anything they've attempted to throw at Hugo Chavez. You know that.

Americans who want to know what HRW ever has found regarding U.S. policy must LOOK IT UP. Otherwise they're not going to know.

[redqueen]

232. Exactly. Is it too much to expect people posting here to consider WHY that is the case?

I guess so.

[Name removed]

301. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[angstlessk]

26. I NEVER said HRW did not report on the abuses of the US..I was wondering where YOUR

report on DU was regarding same..or do you only care about Chavez and the leftist democracies in Latin America?

[Codeine]

89. But EVERYONE here knows

about the human rights abuses at Gitmo and disagrees with them; I've yet to see a single DUer defend that horror.

The DU Chavista Corps, however, is an active and vocal element here, and will thus engender a different response.

[redqueen]

123. So you're saying Venezuela has its own version of Gitmo?

What "horror" is it that you think people are defending?

What is irritating is that CNN doesn't publish HRW's claims about Gitmo... no, they are cranking out the anti-leftist info ONLY. And people here play along... whether it's out of ignorance or complicity I don't know.

[Bacchus39]

162. no, the prison conditions in Ven are much worse n/t

n

[redqueen]

188. Worse than Gitmo?

Is that in the HRW report?

[EFerrari]

199. You are so full of it. Link? Give a source if you can.

lol

[EFerrari]

200. dupe

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. Exactly. Chavez merely removes them from the radio station where they're broadcasting....

.... whatever Bush tells them to. This has been happening in Latin America since time immemorial.

[Pavulon]

17. I doubt all 237 pages are about radio

again try a realistic approach. Sure we flip governments but that does not control his actions. I mean unless he is our guy.

[redqueen]

125. You "doubt"? So you don't even know what you're talking about?

Just blindly accepting that if CNN is choosing to crank up the anti-leftist propaganda, that it must have a good reason, so why not help?

Is that it?

[Pavulon]

215. Did you read it??

237 pages are not covering media...

Please.

[redqueen]

229. Since you didn't read it yourself, you have no standing at all to expect anyone else to.

:rofl:

[Pavulon]

231. I read 40 pages to get the drift

the TOC is great. Hit it up. Sorry for insulting your god, I know that offends.

[redqueen]

233. Just like a republican, all you can do is insult and mock.

Avoid admitting you didn't in fact read it... just dish out the insults and hope people don't notice that you're intentionally missing the point people are making.

Thankfully, DUers are more intelligent than conservatives, or else that bullshit tactic might work on readers here as well as it does with that type of non-thinking reader.

Good luck with your catapulting. You'll have better luck on AOL or places like that though you know.

[Pavulon]

235. Chavez Underground?

I have posted thousands of posts, most have nothing to do with chavez. Your attacking me as conservative, freeper, whatever proves you have ZERO interest in addressing fact in the report.

Shitty logical fallacy you are running.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy

[redqueen]

236. I said you're arguing like a conservative.

Sorry you didn't catch that before.

And you are. Insult, mock... anything to detract from the point being made.

The point is this, one last time:

There is a reason that these "news" outlets print anything and everything anti-Venezuela... it's the same reason they tried to overthrow the democratically elected leader there.

It's the same reason why these same "news" outlets will never print a single story about their complicity in assisting that coup, by printing lies about the leader having voluntarily stepped down.

If you feel comfortable playing along with that little charade, more power to you.

Just don't fool yourself into thinking that anyone who disagrees with your assisting in that catapulting is disagreeing because they "worship" the democratically elected leader of that country.

The reason we disagree with seeing that propaganda catapulted here is because we see the pattern, and disagree with the catapulters' goals.

Good day.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

239. Well, I'm going by what HRW is, and HRW is....

.... a U.S.-based organization that was started to watch the Soviet Union. HRW needs to be doing something about human rights violations right here in the very U.S. where it is based out of instead of playing a role not unlike the CIA.

[hack89]

58. There can be more than one bad leader at a time you know. nt

[leftynyc]

83. Very republican response

Look over there!! Look over there!!! Pretty weak. How about staying on topic.

[bitchkitty]

30. Are they credible?

I admit I don't know much about the org, except I recall reading about them in regards to Haiti - some question about where their agenda lies. Don't know the details, I'll google and see what I can find.

[bemildred]

66. Sort of.

It's pretty thin gruel served up in this report. OTOH, it is perfectly correct that Chavez is at war with his opponents; but he has been circumspect about the means used, so as not to give his enemies too much ammunition. Chavez does have his flaws as well as his virtues, I'm not going to try to dissect them here. It is sufficient to me that he looks great compared to those that went before him, and the Venezuelans and his neighbors (excepting Colombia) seem happy with him for the moment.

HRW/Americas tends to focus on Colombia, and of course is tepid in it's criticism of the USA, but to be fair it tends to criticize almost everyone, at least occasionally. I view them with skepticism, but I think they serve a useful purpose. They run largely on foundation and government money, so there is a certain incentive not to step on certain toes very hard, and a corresponding tendency to find other toes in need of being pounded with a hammer.

What I would find most interesting WRT Chavez would be if his opposition were to give it up and stop trying to destroy him. Would he then find it expedient to invent some new enemies? Or not?

[ronnie624]

49. I haven't read the "report",

but the quotes of Vivanco in this article say nothing about "hugo's actions". His accusations are vague and bombastic. There are no specific examples of government activities that have resulted in "democracy and its key institutions" becoming "seriously weakened", or how "civil society has less space" (whatever that means). he seems so eager to vilify Chavez, he has misused the word 'aggressivity', which is really a term used in chemistry, and refers to the ability of water to dissolve atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Like I said, I haven't read the "report", but I can easily envision it filled with similar nonsense, especially after reading other of Vivanco's "reports" and speeches.

The fact that you see credibility in HRW's "reports" is not surprising in the least, given the history of your posted messages on DU. I've always found their "reports" the be rather sophomoric and overblown , and terribly inaccurate (very similar to your own sloppily composed scratchings). They also seem to always augment the geopolitical agendas of a certain "superpower".

[Mika]

174. HRW gets funding from a bunch RW neolib/neocon foundations

Including the NewsCorp Foundation (Rupert Murdoch), not to mention some Mellon Scaife foundations.

http://www.hrw.org/annual-report/2006.pdf

HRW = Fair and Balanced.

[New Dawn]

192. George Soros is a right-winger and he has worked for the CIA past.

Only in a far right country like the US would he be mistaken as anything other then that.

[New Dawn]

193. Everyone should read this article about Soros:

http://www.oilempire.us/soros.html

[ananda]

3. If HRW were truly credible..

Bush, Cheney, and the USA would be at the top of their list...

and they would be proclaiming all their rights violations
every day everywhere.

[Pavulon]

7. So no HRW?

hugo is is more credible? Interesting.

[ohio2007]

8. interesting

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=RYpaOlJrH7U
what throwing rocks will do

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov3GFjPsDZ0

[Sarah Ibarruri]

11. The U.S. uses CIA-trained Colombians to infiltrate Venezuela and try to topple...

... a democratically elected government and does this constantly. But you're not interested in that.

[Pavulon]

15. Yep I read Legacy of Ashes

but am no expert. However it is pretty common knowledge that EVERY administration has manipulated LA politics.

Now how is that related to hugo's actions here?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

238. Well, given our history and given the fact that HRW is a U.S.-based organization...

... and an organization that was started by the U.S. to monitor the Soviet Union, frankly, I trust HRW about as much as I trust the CIA.

Why doesn't HRW monitor the U.S. human rights violations?

[AlphaCentauri]

20. Who is behind Human Rights Watch?

Under President Clinton, Human Rights Watch was the most influential pro-intervention lobby: its 'anti-atrocity crusade' helped drive the wars in ex-Yugoslavia. Under George W. Bush it lost influence to the neoconservatives, who have their own crusades. But the 'two interventionisms' are not so different anyway: Human Rights Watch is founded on belief in the superiority of American values. It has close links to the US foreign policy elite, and to other interventionist and expansionist lobbies.

HRW Donors
Taken from an older version of the HRW website, this 1995 list is apparently the only information available. In the United States, HRW is not legally obliged to disclose who donates money. About half its funds come from foundations, and half from individual donors, in total about $20 million.
In its Annual Reports, HRW always claims that it "accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly." However, that was a lie according to the 1995 list, and it is still a lie. The Dutch Novib - now part of the Oxfam group - is a government-funded aid organisation, and in turn it funded the activities of Human Rights Watch Africa in the Great Lakes region and Angola. Oxfam itself is primarily funded by the British government and the European Union, see their annual report. It is also funded by the United States Agency for International Development, USAID. Oxfam in turn partly funds Novib, so some of that money finds it way to HRW. Both Oxfam and Novib funded the HRW report on the Rwanda genocide. So, if it is as accurate as HRW's claim not to accept any indirect government funding, look elsewhere for the truth.


DONORS OF $100,000 OR MORE
Dorothy and Lewis Cullman
The Aaron Diamond Foundation
Irene Diamond
The Ford Foundation
The Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett Fund
Estate of Anne Johnson
The J. M. Kaplan Fund
The Fanny and Leo Koerner Charitable Trust
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The John Merck Fund
The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation
Novib, The Dutch Organization for Development Corporation,
The Overbrook Foundation
Oxfam
Donald Pels
The Ruben and Elisabeth Rausing Trust
The Rockefeller Foundation
Marion and Herbert Sandler, The Sandler Family Supporting Foundation
Susan and George Soros
Shelby White and Leon Levy


DONORS OF $25,000 - $99,999

The Arca Foundation
Helen and Robert Bernstein
Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Bronfman, Jr.
Nikki and David Brown
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Compton Foundation, Inc.
Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Davis
The Dr. Seuss Foundation
Fiona and Stanley Druckenmiller
Jack Edelman
Epstein Philanthropies
Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L'Homme
Barbara Finberg
General Service Foundation
Abby Gilmore and Arthur Freierman
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund
Katherine Graham, The Washington Post Company
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation
Hudson News
Independence Foundation
The Isenberg Family Charitable Trust
The Henry M. Jackson Foundation
Robert and Ardis James
Jesuit Refugee Service
Nancy and Jerome Kohlberg
Lyn and Norman Lear
Joshua Mailman
Medico International
Moriah Fund, Inc.
Ruth Mott Fund
Kathleen Peratis and Richard Frank
Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation
Ploughshares Fund
Public Welfare Foundation, Inc.
Anita and Gordon Roddick
Edna and Richard Salomon
Lorraine and Sid Sheinberg
Margaret R. Spanel
Time Warner Inc.
U.S. Jesuit Conference
Warner Brothers, Inc.
Edie and Lew Wasserman
Maureen White and Steven Rattner
Malcolm Wiener and Carolyn Seely Wiener
The Winston Foundation for World Peace

http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html

[Pavulon]

22. The Debil? Is this a dismiss source post too?

just trying to keep track.

[AlphaCentauri]

25. just a clarification and information for the passionate anti Chavez reader

After all they need to know who is on their side

[bitchkitty]

34. I think he already knows.

More on HRW from HaitiAnalysis.com

Giordano's words could also be used to summarize how HRW responded to the US backed coup in Haiti in 2004.

HRW used the 2008 World Report to criticize, yet again, a judicial reform law that was passed by the Chavez administration in 2004. In contrast, HRW's summary about Haiti said nothing about the coup that ousted Jean Bertrand Aristide's democratic government in 2004; nothing about the subsequent murder of thousands of people who supported Aristide's Lavalas movement (the word "Lavalas" does not even appear in the summary); nothing about the fact that Haiti's police and judiciary remain stacked with appointees from the dictatorship of 2004-2006; nothing about Father Gerard Jean Juste, the most prominent political prisoner of that period, who continues to be hounded by Haiti's legal system. <5>

Even if HRW's criticism of Venezuela's judicial reform law of 2004 were reasonable (and it isn't) it cannot deserve more attention than the coup in Haiti that led to a human rights catastrophe. <6>

On a positive note, the 2008 World Report belatedly gave some attention to the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre Antoine, a prominent Haitian human rights worker and opponent of the 2004 coup. HRW stated:

"In August 2007 a well known human rights advocate, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, was abducted. At this writing his whereabouts remain unknown."

Again, the absence of the word "Lavalas" is telling. Pierre-Antoine disappeared days after he had announced that he would run for the Haitian senate as a Fanmi Lavalas Party candidate. The goal of the 2004 coup and the bloodbath that followed was to eliminate the Lavalas movement - the same goal with basically the same perpetrators as during the 1991-1994 period about which HRW reported extensively. <7>

[ronnie624]

311. An excellent article,

that offers an accurate perspective. HRW is a fraud, and anyone with genuine interest and a propensity for reading knows the truth.

It is a matter of public record that the US funded groups who were involved in the coup of 2002 and continued to do so after the coup took place, but rather than denounce or even acknowledge US destabilization efforts in Venezuela, HRW continues to complain about the non-renewal of RCTV's public broadcasting license. <2> RCTV was one of the big television networks that aided and abetted the coup. HRW objects that RCTV's involvement in the coup "was not proven in a proceeding in which RCTV had an opportunity to present a defense." It is impossible to imagine a non-farcical proceeding that would conclude otherwise, especially when the coup's perpetrators thanked the private media, of which RCTV was a major part, for its help. Before the coup was reversed Vice-Admiral Ramirez Perez told a Venezuelan reporter:

"We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have the opportunity, let me congratulate you."

Judging by its reports, HRW is completely uninterested in whether the broadcaster that replaced RCTV on the public airwaves, TVes, offers viewers a wider variety of views. <3>"Freedom of the Press Barons" to perpetrate coups appears to be HRW's concern, not freedom of expression. It is worth remembering that HRW's response to the coup in Venezuela was appalling. Al Giordano summed their response up well in an exchange with an HRW intern:

"They recognized an illegitimate 'authority' as legitimate. They failed to call for the removal of that dictatorial regime. They failed to call on other nations and the OAS to refuse to recognize it. They failed to call for invoking the OAS Democratic Charter for the one event it was intended to prevent."

Thanks for the article.

[Judi Lynn]

56. Notable study of Jenin, of course: Massacre in Jenin, Human Rights Watch & the Stage-Management of I

Massacre in Jenin, Human Rights Watch & the Stage-Management of Imperialism

Article contains a first hand account of the massacre at Jenin. It then proceeds to give a detailed account of the political maneuvering by the US-Israel to derail any investigation, and to whitewash the IOF’s actions. Finally, it gives a detailed description of the sordid role played by Human Rights Watch – in essence, it works in tandem with US policy, and is completely tainted.

»Who is Human Rights Watch and how were they able to gain access to Jenin for an inquiry at the very time that Israel was denying entry to a delegation chosen by the UN Security Council? Human Rights Watch was supposedly created to monitor “human rights abuses” worldwide. In reality, it is an institution that has acted at every turn to reinforce the policies of the United States and justify its “humanitarian interventions.” It is composed almost entirely of US citizens and its board includes multimillionaires, former U.S government officials and mainstream academics.

Human Rights Watch began as Helsinki Watch in 1975. It was a powerful Cold War instrument against the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc countries of Eastern Europe. Its network became a web of support for pro-capitalist forces and political dissidents in every country.

Multibillionaire George Soros has played a major role in the development of Human Rights Watch and in linking it with his own personal NGO network. Open Society Institute. Aryeh Neier, the director first of Helsinki Watch and then Human Rights Watch moved on to head the Open Society Institute. Many other directors share positions and change titles within a small world of US-based NGOs. «

http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=3220

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Human Rights Watch (HRW) came into existence in 1978 as the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee. Early documents affirmed that its purpose was to "monitor domestic and international compliance with the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act."<1> But though a private U.S.-based organization whose vice chairman once stated "You can't complain about other countries unless you put your own house in order,"<2> its main focus was on Moscow. Thus its literature also affirmed that founding the Committee "was intended as a gesture of moral support for the activities of the beleaguered Helsinki monitors in the Soviet bloc," and its early work was well geared to advance the U.S. government's policy of weakening the Soviet Union and loosening its ties to Eastern Europe.<3> While the organization has broadened its horizons and grown enormously since its $400,000 seed money from the Ford Foundation, it has never sloughed off its close link to the Western establishment, as evidenced by its leadership's affiliations,<4> its funding,<5> and its role over the years. Because of its institutional commitment to human rights and its broad purview, however, HRW has done a great deal of valuable work, as for example in helping to document the character and effects of the Reagan era wars across Central America, where its Americas Watch reports on the U.S. support for the Nicaragua Contras, the Salvadoran army and death squads, and Guatemalan state terror were eye-opening and led to intense hostility on the part of the Reaganites and Wall Street Journal editors.<6>

But despite these and countless other constructive efforts, the organization has at critical times and in critical theaters thrown its support behind the U.S. government's agenda, sometimes even serving as a virtual public relations arm of the foreign policy establishment. Since the early 1990s this tendency has been especially marked in the organization's focus on and treatment of some of the major contests in which the U.S. government itself has been engaged-perhaps none more clearly than Iraq and the Balkans. Here, its deep bias is well-illustrated in a March 2002 op-ed by HRW's executive director, Kenneth Roth, published in the Wall Street Journal under the title "Indict Saddam."<7> The first thing to note about this commentary is its timing. It was published at a time when the United States and Britain were clearly planning an assault on Iraq with a "shock and awe" bombing campaign and ground invasion in violation of the UN Charter. But Roth doesn't warn against launching an unprovoked war-though wars of aggression had been judged by the Nuremberg Tribunal to be the "supreme international crime" that "contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."<8> On the contrary, Roth's focus was on Saddam's crimes, and provided a valuable public relations gift to U.S. and British leaders, diverting attention from and putting an apologetic gloss on their prospective supreme international crime.

Three years earlier, when the NATO powers had begun the bombing of Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999, HRW said nothing critical about that action; as we shall see, it focused mainly on the crimes of the target country then under attack. In a 1998 commentary for the International Herald Tribune, Fred Abrahams, an HRW researcher whose major focus has been Kosovo, urged regime-change for Yugoslavia, either through President Slobodan Milosevic's indictment or a U.S. war to affect the same outcome. "At what point will the Clinton administration decide that they have seen enough?" Abrahams asked. "he international community's failure to punish Milosevic for crimes in Croatia and Bosnia sent the message that he would be allowed to get away with such crimes again. It is now obvious that the man who started these conflicts cannot be trusted to stop them."<9> This line also served the United States and other NATO powers well, and both cases show a clear adaptation of HRW definitions of human rights and choice of worthy victims to the needs of the Western powers and institutions that nurture the organization. (In Part 3, we deal with the mind-boggling misrepresentation of history in Abrahams' statement about Milosevic's unwillingness to stop these wars-in fact, Milosevic signed-on to every major peace proposal 1992-1995, whereas Abrahams' favorite state regularly sabotaged them.)

More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/HRW_Yugoslavia.html

[bitchkitty]

31. Jesus, that's all you've got to say?

You did read the post, right?

[freedomnorth]

54. It is definitely the dismiss source post

And a very good one. Thank you Alpha Centauri. :toast:

[bitchkitty]

33. Funded by USAID?

Then they are definitely in cahoots with the CIA. My dad was in AID in Indonesia (to the best of my knowledge it wasn't called US-AID then, but I was only 7).

[davidinalameda]

42. The Dr. Seuss Foundation?

we all know that he was a fascist from the get-go

[Larkspur]

14. If Chavez is such a monster, why are New Orleans Katrina victims seeking his financial help?

[Pavulon]

16. HRW is the source

take it up with them. However anyone with half a brain could read the news in context from different wires and come to a similar conclusion.

He held a vote for president for life. He was a coup leader.

Get real and grow up. He is not made it red poster in the dorm status quite yet.

[stillcool]

27. He held a vote for President for life?

I missed that one. Their elections and their voting systems are far, far, superior to ours.

[stillcool]

28. whoops! double post.

[Larkspur]

35. You need to get your facts right.

Chavez was using the Constitutional process called a referendum to remove a restriction on term limits for Presidents. Like in the US because of the 22nd Amendment, Venezuela has a 2 term limit for Presidents. His referendum was narrowly defeated because the wealthy elite with US help ran a smear campaign to confuse people about what the referendum was about.

Hugo Chavez is a democratically elected president with around 65-70% approval ratings. He almost lost his position due to a US backed coup that was foiled by Chavez's supporters who rallied the poor people to Chavez's side.

[angstlessk]

36. AND Uribe in Columbia did the same..and guess what...HE FUCKING WON!!!

[AlphaCentauri]

38. With the help of Yidis Medina

Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe rejected bribery accusations on Thursday when he appeared before a probe by a congressional commission that has raised questions about whether his 2006 re-election was tainted by corruption.

The investigation followed a Supreme Court ruling in June that a former lawmaker was offered bribe to support a constitutional amendment allowing Uribe to run for his successful second election two years ago.

Former congresswoman Yidis Medina charged Uribe was aware that government representatives had offered to allow her to name friends to posts in her home state in exchange for changing her vote to support the re-election amendment.

http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnN20478760.html

[angstlessk]

40. I was unaware of that...but I know Uribe is CROOK AND A MURDERER

why people here hate Chavez is beyond me?? they are Miami democrats??? who knows???

[Larkspur]

46. Unlike Chavez, Uribe is a murderous thug whose death squads

murder union activists. This is why US Labor groups have been fighting the Columbia Free Trade deal that Bill Clinton is championing.

Chavez did not murder those who plotted the coup against him. He allowed them to be tried through the court system.

Also Chavez has done for the poor in Venezuela what FDR did for Americans during the Great Depression. He's given the poor and minorities hope and a better life. That's why the wealthy elite hate and despise Chavez. And of course they are racists too.

[LynnTheDem]

37. And HRW was such a great & credible source about those "incubator babies" Saddam's troops

tossed onto the hospital floors to die.

[struggle4progress]

256. IIRC, HRW never promoted the "incubator babies" story -- and later pointed out the story was false

[LynnTheDem]

260. HRW originally reported the story.

Then they retracted it later.

[struggle4progress]

267. "... The story, improbable from the start, was first reported by the Daily Telegraph in London

on September 5 1990. But the story lacked the human element; it was an unverified report, there were no pictures for television and no interviews with mothers grieving over dead babies.

That was soon rectified. An organisation calling itself Citizens for a Free Kuwait (financed by the Kuwaiti government in exile) had signed a $10m contract with the giant American public relations company, Hill & Knowlton, to campaign for American military intervention to oust Iraq from Kuwait.

The Human Rights Caucus of the US Congress was meeting in October and Hill & Knowlton arranged for a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl to tell the babies' story before the congressmen. She did it brilliantly, choking with tears at the right moment, her voice breaking as she struggled to continue. The congressional committee knew her only as "Nayirah" and the television segment of her testimony showed anger and resolution on the faces of the congressmen listening to her. President Bush referred to the story six times in the next five weeks as an example of the evil of Saddam's regime ...

It was not until nearly two years later that the truth emerged. The story was a fabrication and a myth, and Nayirah, the teenage Kuwaiti girl, coached and rehearsed by Hill & Knowlton for her appearance before the Congressional Committee, was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. By the time Macarthur revealed this, the war was won and over and it did not matter any more ..."

Analysis
The disinformation campaign
Western media follow a depressingly familiar formula when it comes to the preparation of a nation for conflict
Phillip Knightley
Guardian
Thursday October 4, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4270014,00.html


So HRW was NOT the original source of the story: the story first appeared, planted in the wingnut Daily Telegraph. If you search the FAS website, you can find a pre-war AI press release indicating that AI was briefly taken in by the propaganda campaign; but I haven't found any analogous HRW material. Are you sure you're not confusing HRW with the Congressional human rights caucus?

[struggle4progress]

277. Look at Second Front by John R. MacArthur and Ben H. Bagdikian, pp 66-75

You can probably get a preview of the pages from Google Books, since that's my access right now. I can't easily copy sentences from the PDF preview, and I'm not going to just copy paragraphs by hand, so I'll summarize the key points:

AI got sucked it (despite pressure from the Executive Director of Middle East Watch to keep some distance) and actually testified before the Foreign Affairs Committee on 8 January. But Seattle Times on 30 September and USA Today on 10 December had already published reports from visiting doctors who said the stories weren't true, and on 18 December ABC's Peter Jennings had already noted that ME Watch hadn't confirmed the tale. There's also a 6 January memo (a few days before AI testified on the Hill) from a ME Watch researcher to the Executive Director, pointing out that nobody had been able to obtain any names of families whose infants allegedly died in that way and adding "What is not possible is deaths in the numbers reported by AI, or even close to them"

[Peace Patriot]

60. "He held a vote for president for life."??? That is just plain disinformation, Pavulon.

No such thing occurred. But your assertion of it tells us a lot about YOU. This is the sort of stupid, lying, warmongering, rightwing garbage that comes out of the mouths of the fascist coupsters in Venezuela, the Bush State Department and their lapdog Corpo press.

The question to ask is: WHY? What is this intense, relentless, increasing disinformation and psyops campaign leading up to?

The assertion that Chavez is any kind of "dictator" or even tends toward being one is utter bullshit, disprovable in a thousand different ways, with overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Anyone who knows the facts of the situation knows this isn't true. For instance, Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, recently said, of Chavez: "You can criticize Chavez on a lot of things, but not on democracy."

You'd think that the president of South America's biggest country, adjacent to Venezuela, would kind of know what's going on next door, eh? "You can criticize Chavez on a lot of things, but not on democracy."

So, why are the Bushwhacks and collusive "liberal" organizations keeping this up--and, indeed, intensifying this campaign against Chavez?

My guess involves Big Money's reasons and Bushwhacks' reasons, which may or may not be coordinated:

1) Big Money's reason is that their vast looting and plunder of the U.S. is going to lead to a movement for socialism here, and they really, really, REALLY don't want our people to know that innovative socialism is an option or that it is succeeding in South America. Poverty is being addressed with socialist measures without harming the economy! Venezuela has experienced a nearly 10% economic growth rate over the last five years, with the most growth in the private sector (not including oil). Socialism is in fact good for the economy. It taps into the wealth of talent and energy at the bottom--with education, health care, housing, land reform and assistance to small businesses and co-ops. That's Reason #1 for the unfrackingbelievable lies they are telling about Chavez and his government (which are really lies about the Venezuelan people, who have elected that government twice, with big votes, and turned back a Bushwhack-funded recall election). They don't want our people to know that the Chavez government is successful, and has in fact sparked a peaceful, democratic, social justice movement throughout Latin America, which could be a model for our own recovery from Bushwhackism.

2. The Bushwhacks's motive is Oil War II-South America. Their war plan likely involves instigating civil war in Venezuela's oil rich province of Zulia (as they are doing in Bolivia), with the fascist cabal there declaring their "independence" from Venezuela's national government, and the newly reconstituted U.S. 4th Fleet then taking "swift action" in support of "our friends and allies" in South America, as Donald Rumsfeld urges, in his Dec 07 op-ed in the WaPo. Zulia is on the Caribbean (where the 4th is now maneuvering). It is also adjacent to Colombia ($6 BILLION in Bushwhack military aid). Colombia's fascist military and closely tied paramilitary death squads, Blackwater and U.S. special forces could cross the border into Zulia, while U.S. gunboats hold off the Venezuelan military. The Bushwhacks thus grab the biggest pot of oil in South America, perhaps with a goal of setting up a leftist-free zone in the Caribbean/Central America, using the oil for blackmail, as well as to enrich themselves.

Whether these two motives--Big Money's motive, and the Bushwhacks' motive, in relentlessly dissing Chavez--are coordinated, with Big Money's motive, in slandering Chavez, intended as the preliminary psyops to outright war, is an unknown, although it surely looks that way. In other words, Big Money, whether Democratic or Republican--it doesn't really matter--may be hellbent on another Oil War.

To that end, Big Money lapdog groups like HRW play their part--suddenly issuing a "report" once again promoting the goddamn lie that the Chavez government is somehow harmful to the people of Venezuela--and the lapdog Corpo press laps it up. Meanwhile, the Bushbot U.S. attorney in Miami is getting headlines with a ridiculous prosecution (star witness named 'Guido'--Miami mafia/Bushbot CIA) aimed at smearing the Chavez government as corrupt, and the Bushwhack DEA comes out and says that Venezuela--Venezuela!, not Colombia--is helping drug traffickers.

The Bushwhacks are running the most corrupt government in the history of world, while Big Money loots us blind--and they have the nerve to dis Chavez, who is using Venezuela's oil profits to benefit the poor?! And they're spending our non-existent tax money, borrowed from China, to dis Chavez, to arm Colombia, to destabilize Bolivia, to stoke a world arms race, to torture prisoners, to occupy an entire country, to rip off our banks, our savings, our pensions and our children's futures?!

FDR had a phrase for these people. He called them "organized money."

"Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred." -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

They are the enemy, not Chavez. They are the "dictators," not Chavez. They are the lying fuckwads who are trying to blind our people to the truth. And they are the same sort of filthy rich bastards who called FDR a "dictator"!

[Larkspur]

63. Wrong, he did not hold a vote for President for Life. You are wrong.

The referendum was about removing the term limitss. He would still have to run for re-election. It was not a coup. You are wrong.

[subsuelo]

73. "He held a vote for president for life."

Any person paying the slightest bit of attention to the truth could not possibly make that claim without intent to disinform.

[ima_sinnic]

84. wow, you just revealed how ignorant you really are.

try informing yourself before you start spewing ASININE bullshit like "He held a vote for president for life." It makes the rest of your posts lose all credibility.

[Pavulon]

216. HRW is the point, focusing on me or my post is ignorant (logic error)

[clixtox]

313. You wish!

You have been called out numerous times, just on this thread, as clueless. You prove it when you actually try to make a point using the blatant, cynical, lie about Hugo Chavez attempting to become president for life. That "big lie" is usually known as a "Republican talking point".

You don't respond with an apology or offer a reason for your disinformation. No one except "DU newbies" believe that you posted that abominable, fascist-serving lie ingenuously. You have been on these threads long enough to know exactly what has happened during all of the relevant recent Venezuelan elections. Your lame attempts at bamboozling rubes on DU with bullshit posts are beneath contempt. Your snide, sophomoric responses to those attempting to post their sincere thoughts only drives away posters who you willfully antagonize.

Shame, and worse, on you for your phony interest in what HRW reports from Venezuela, or anywhere else. You are just a barefaced, transparent propagandist for fascist corporatist, greedy, homicidal insects who live only to suck the life blood from poor, weak and other victims of our deteriorating world's various and glorious political/economic systems.

When the campaign of lies and propaganda has the goal of rationalizing meddling in the affairs of another sovereign nation then such duplicitous perfidy must be relentlessly exposed. Propagandists know that many poorly educated people will believe absolutely anything if they hear it enough, or in certain contexts, like in church.

That pretty much explains why this is such a ridiculously long thread about a predictable quibble concerning very little in the grand scheme of things!

[Pavulon]

320. I will be sure to discuss with the other Directors

at CIA on Monday morning while setting policy for the region. BTW this is the internet, you are a poster, just like me. (/sarcasm)

I have commented on dozens of hugo threads. Consistent point in each one. He is stacking the deck in his favor.
Feel free to search for "the water is warming little froggies". I stuck that in some of the most telling hugo threads.

My OPINION (not jack shit more valuable than yours) is that he is lining up government resources to consolidate power. I am not trying to change your mind. My mind will change when hugo hands over power to a successor elected by the people.

The us government is and has been meddling for decades.

What EXACTLY does US and Soviet meddling in LA have to do with the HRW content??

[bitchkitty]

334. Since you raised the point,

it has everything to do with you and your ignorance.

Face it, Pavvy, you blew it this time - not that much of what you say has any credibility, ever.

[Pavulon]

350. HRW blew it?

I did not write the report. Nor did I expel them from the country. So everyone has determined HRW is a CIA front.

WHERE DO I GET DATA? From the government, at face value? So Red Cross, AI, who is on the approved list?

This is am INTERNET FORUM, no one has credibility here, the content is the point.

Credibility is earned in reality, not behind a keyboard speculating on events you have zero control over. Credibility being how many people agree with your opinion is not credibility.

Credibility will be a transition of power in caracas. I'll be surprised if that happens. And no a putin like transfer does not count!

[IndianaGreen]

360. Credibility is two of my comrades going to Venezuela last year for an international youth congress

and then visiting rural communities being helped by the Chavez government with new roads, hospitals, health care, etc.

A factory that had been closed by its owners, was reopened by Chavez, and he funded a workers' cooperative that is now producing uniforms for school children.

There is a lot of unhappiness among the Caracas well-to-do, and students attending exclusive private schools, but that's just too bad. Screw them all!

[MinM]

18. 'Human Rights Watch' in Service to the War Party

Hijacking Human Rights

In a similar vein to HRW's controversial actions in Palestine, Heather Cottin (2002) questioned the way HRW "equates the actions of the Colombian guerrilla fighters struggling to free themselves from the oppression of state terror, poverty and exploitation with the repression of the U.S-sponsored armed forces and paramilitary death squads".<9> Taken together these recent examples clearly illustrate that there is more to HRW than first meets the eye. However, it is their promotion of foreign interventions in the name of 'human rights' that is potentially their most dangerous activity - as revealed by Edward S. Herman, David Peterson and George Szamuely (2007) in a devastating critique, titled Human Rights Watch in Service to the War Party, which examines HRW's role in supporting the dismantlement of Yugoslavia. They conclude that:

"Sadly, HRW has... been an important contributor to human rights violations in the former Yugoslavia. HRW helped stir up passions in the demonization process from 1992 onward and actively and proudly contributed to preparing the ground for NATO's 'supreme international crime' in March 1999."<10>

The first full-length investigation of the people working behind the scenes at HRW was undertaken by Paul Treanor (2004), in which he methodically worked through the elite linkages of their Europe and Central Asia Advisory Committee. Treanor noted that:

"...human-rights interventionism became a consensus among the 'foreign policy elite' even before September 11. Human Rights Watch itself is part of that elite, which includes government departments, foundations, NGO's and academics. It is certainly not an association of 'concerned private citizens'. HRW board members include present and past government employees, and overlapping directorates link it to the major foreign policy lobbies in the US."<11>...
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/14804

The timing of the CNN story in the OP is interesting .. coming on the heels of this story:

Democracy Now: Conflict in Bolivia over land, US right wing groups
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x192902

[Pavulon]

One more vote to shitcan the source..

so all the gitmo information is for shit? Or just the stuff you dont like.

[bitchkitty]

32. Find a better source. n/t

[EFerrari]

139. And here is the response from the Venezuelan government to the HRW report:

(Detailed analysis at link below.)

CONCLUSION


The Human Rights Watch report “Venezuela: Rights Suffer Under Chávez,” provides an incomplete and biased account of Venezuela’s human rights record during the last decade.



It overstates the issue of political discrimination, accusing the Chávez government of targeting opponents, when in fact it has pardoned supporters of the coup and promoted open dialogue. The report is also wrong on the separation of powers and the media. The branches of government provide strong checks and balances, and institutions have improved since Chávez was first elected. No censorship of the media occurs, and the opposition still dominates the airwaves. In terms of civil society, labor organizations and community groups enjoy more support from this administration than ever before.



Venezuela has a strong record on human rights. Many of the important guarantees set out in the 1999 Constitution have indeed been enforced, particularly those relating to the fundamental needs of citizens, such as food, shelter, healthcare, access to education, employment, social security, and the right to participation in cultural life.



Human Rights Watch details none of the impressive progress made in these areas. For example, the UN Development Programme has found that Venezuela has already achieved some of the Millennium Development Goals, and is on track to complete the others by 2015. Notably, the country has seen a 54% drop in the number of households living in extreme poverty since 1998, and its overall poverty has fallen by 34%. Facts such as these provide a much more complete picture of the human rights situation in Venezuela.



http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/HRW%20Myth%20Fact.htm

[happyslug]

19. The actual Report:

Human Rights Watch:
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/09/18/venezu19844.htm

The Report on Chavez:
http://hrw.org/reports/2008/venezuela0908/

Brief reading of the report shows that Chavez is a huge improvement over the previous Governments of Venezuela, but has since the beginning of his Presidency, Chavez has demanded that Government workers by loyal to him AND not oppose the government (Neutrality seems to be acceptable, but the complaint seems to be Chavez's demand for loyalty, Chavez's demand for loyalty is to a lesser extent then previous Governments but a demand that still exists).

As to Chavez's use of force or jail, not mentioned, does NOT seem to be a problem, the Concern of HRW is the lack of independence of Government bureaucrats, Judges and other Government workers (and unions) nothing more.

[AlphaCentauri]

23. Like our Government bureaucrats won't practice loyalty to whoever is in the white house

other wise we wouldn't be in this mess

[Larkspur]

48. Chavez has a right to demand loyalty to the democratically elected government

Chavez, a democratically elected President, was a temporary victim of a US backed military coup and was saved by some of his aides who rallied the Venezuelan people to his plight.

[Peace Patriot]

71. When the fascists kidnapped Chavez, and suspended the Constitution, the courts,

the National Assembly and all civil rights, they argued, in front of their prisoner, Chavez, whether or not they were going to kill him.

That could make you just a bit sensitive about the loyalty of the people in your government.

Chavez's reactions were extraordinarily mild and aimed at peace in the country. Only a few people were prosecuted for that coup attempt. And he later denied a license renewal to RCTV, the big fascist/Corpo TV monopoly that actively participated in the coup (hosted meetings of the coupsters, doctored video footage to make it appear that Chavez supporters were killing people, and broadcast the outright lie that Chavez had resigned).

Really, the noteworthy thing about Chavez is how non-vengeful he is, given the provocations, and how LIBERAL he is, in the face of constant danger from Bushwhack assassination plots and every kind of Bushwhack menace--from Exxon Mobil trying to grab $12 billion of Venezuela's assets, to the reconstitution of the U.S. 4th Fleet right off Venezuela's coast and its richest oil province (Zulia--where the rightwing opposition's last presidential candidate is now governor).

Chavez's solid commitment to democracy is what should be talked of--and praised and encouraged. Instead, it's as if they're trying to drive him insane with non-stop lies. There's a name for this: psyops. It is a war strategy. And this remarkably SANE man has resisted it, and remained sane and totally confident that democracy and social justice will win out, in the end.

There isn't a government in the world--good, bad or indifferent--that doesn't have some concern about the loyalty of government employees. How can you have disloyal people working to implement your programs? And, in Venezuela, disloyalty can mean...a violent rightwing military coup, plotting to kill the president, colluding with Bushwhacks, dirty tricks, subversion, sabotage (as with the oil professionals who sabotaged the state oil industry's computers), and more. Like I said, what is surprising is that the Chavez government isn't more paranoid. In fact, it doesn't seem paranoid at all. It seems quite confident in what it is doing--and why shouldn't it be, with a 60+% approval rating?

Anyone in power--and also majorities who come to power (like the vast poor and middle class majority in Venezuela who support Chavez)--can abuse power, can oppress the minority, can inflict "loyalty tests," can try to silence the opposition, etc., etc. Being in the majority doesn't necessarily translate into open government and real democracy. And you can have abuses even in a government that, overall, is beneficial. Running a fair, just and open government that is constantly under Bushwhack/Corpo attack is not an easy business, I'm sure. But the criticisms of the Chavez government that I've read--and I've read them all--have not only often been ridiculous (just outright lies and absurdity), they are often vague. The specifics, the details, don't hold up.

Example #1:

The RCTV incident is an excellent example. TV airwaves are PUBLIC property in every country on earth. No one has a "right" to use them. They have to get permission to use them--a license--and most governments require that the station be operated in the public interest. Is active support of a violent rightwing military coup in the public interest? I guess if you're a Bushite you might think so. If it had happened here, though, the perps would be in jail for treason (and lucky to get a trial). All Chavez did was deny them a license renewal. He did not storm the studio and arrest everybody--which he would have been within his rights to do. The RCTV perps were not even prosecuted, when there is hard evidence of their participation in the coup. They merely lost their license--just as derelict TV stations in dozens of other countries have lost theirs, for much less cause, over the last decade.

Why do Bushwhacks and Corpos make such a fuss about RCTV? Because Corpo news monopolies are committing treason all over the map--here, and everywhere--subverting and assaulting democracy and relentlessly pushing fascist/Corpo propaganda. You think we have "freedom of speech" here? Get real. The Corpos own our once-public airwaves, and shut out all dissent. They are brainwashing tools for war and global corporate predator looting. Chavez called them on their bullshit, on one instance of blatant treason. And that really bugs them.

"Freedom of speech" benefited from RCTV losing their license. That is the truth of the matter. The station went to independent producers, with encouragement to produce programs by excluded groups, such as the indigenous and racial minorities. Corpo news monopolies are not good for democracy--and, in the case of RCTV, were an outright menace to it. More than half of Venezuela's airwaves are still in rightwing Corpo control. That is sufficient voice for Venezuela's minority (20%-30%) rightwing rich elite.

The Corpo-funded NGOs and Corpo newswhacks that criticized this Chavez action left all the relevant detail out. They tell you only what they want you to hear. They don't want you to be reminded that TV/radio airwaves are PUBLIC property and that we can seize them back, and demand that our PUBLIC airwaves be operated in the public interest.

Example #2:

Bushwhacks often cite Chavez's "rule by decree" as evidence that Chavez is a "dictator." But, when you look into this, you find out that "rule by decree" is not only a common practice in Venezuela, pre-dating Chavez, it is a common practice in South America (probably related to the inefficiency of legislatures). Lula da Silva, Brazil's president, for instance, just issued a "rule by decree" protecting the last 15 uncontacted tribes in the Amazon. Alan Garcia, in Peru, just issued a "rule by decree" suspending civil rights in an area of Peru where indigenous farmers are protesting "free trade" policies.

"Rule by decree" can be good and it can be bad. Chavez's powers of "decree" were specific, and time-limited, and voted on by the National Assembly. They had mostly to do with economic matters (for instance, the government buying back the Bank of Venezuela, when its private owners put it up for sale; and settling a long-standing and potentially crippling labor dispute in the steel industry.) Chavez did nothing that was illegal or arbitrary. He used temporary powers, granted him by the National Assembly, to solve certain problems according to his own, well-known policies, for the protection of Venezuela's economy.

---------

I'll tell you who hates national governments that have strong presidents acting in the interest of the country and its people: global corporate predators like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. They hate strong leftist presidents and call them "dictators." But you don't see them hating Bush and his shredding of our Constitution! No, they pick on Chavez, because he's actually doing some good for ordinary people.

The uber-rich and the Corpos who are absolutely looting us right now, and bringing on Great Depression II, and who have designs upon Venezuela's oil--and their propagandistic news media and lapdog 'non-profit' groups like HRW--have repeatedly lied about the Chavez government, on virtually every item of criticism. They leave out essential facts. They leave out essential context. They "paint a picture" that is the opposite of the truth.

And this, as we have learned, to our grief, is the preliminary to war. I don't think it's merely fear that our people will get socialist ideas, and merely hatred and fear of the coming economic powerhouse, the new South American "Common Market" (UNASUR)--that is, hatred and fear of Latin American self-determination. I think it's more than this. I think it's a war plan. I think we are seeing a test of their war strategy (fascist secession) in Bolivia, and next we're going to hear of those "freedom lovers," the Venezuelan fascists, and their "autonomy" movement, in the oil rich state of Zulia, and how we have to support those "freedom lovers" with the 4th Fleet and Colombian death squads. And what will people here think? 'Oh, it's just that dictator Chavez.'

[Pavulon]

217. Example 2 : chavez is a former coup leader..

[Judi Lynn]

218. Chavez led one of two coups against a monster who ordered his military to fire directly into crowds

of unarmed protesters, killing around 3,000 of them in the massacre which became known as "El Caracazo," which became the turning point in Venezuelan history, February, 1989.

The filthy monster Carlos Andres Perez was impeached for massive corruption, and Hugo Chavez was pardoned by President Rafael Caldera.

I know you know the truth, as you've been corrected before, but you're not willing to respect it.

[Pavulon]

221. Coup leader

simple. Whats your take, you seem well versed. Disregard HRW or the messiah may need to take a few steps to avoid the mugabe route?

[Name removed]

21. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[L0oniX]

24. I'm calling bullshit on HRW ...pffft ...the nations high court ...bought by big oil interests?

[jzodda]

39. Wow Crapping even on HRW? Hugo can do no wrong with some of you people

Amazing. Yet when they put out reports critical of our own country's actions I am sure you are all over it. So what now, HRW is an organization in Bush's pocket now? Are there any organizations you would trust? If you don't trust them then its going to be hard to find one you would.

How come its so hard for some of you to point a critical eye at Chavez? Regardless of what good he has done, can he do no wrong?

[WriteDown]

41. There are some on DU

who even defend Stalin and Mugabe so this should be of no surprise. What amazes me is the willingness to destroy and vilify any source of criticism.

[clixtox]

45. Please read the whole thread, and links, before putting your foot...

in your own butt.

HRW is not above criticism by a long shot! HRW abets human rights violations when they are perpetrated by the Neo-Cons nowadays.

No one is in Bush's pocket, no one! Bush is nothing but a stupid, although barely useful, puppet, ala Palin/McLameBrain. bush is pathetic!

Hugo Chavez is an absolute saint compared to all of the previous fascist regimes in Venezuela.

[subsuelo]

95. "HRW abets human rights violations when they are perpetrated by the Neo-Cons nowadays"

That, sir, is entirely untrue. (My saying that is not an endorsement of putting HRW above criticism either)

[clixtox]

314. The timing of the release of this report is proof enough!

I appreciate your point and the M$M has to be, once again, charged with prejudice and toadyism for their lack of context and historical perspective.

I haven't heard from HRW with any attempt to place this report in context and reveal how relatively petty these supposed diminutions of Venezuelans Human Rights actually are.

This your first post I've seen that I don't heartily agree with...

[ladjf]

29. We don't know what is happening in Venezuela. And until we do,

we need to leave Chavez alone.

[davidinalameda]

43. bullshit

I think that most of us can see what's he's up to allying himself with Iran and China-two paragons of progressivism

and let's not forget his mentor Fidel Castro-another shining example of a true democrat

[Larkspur]

47. Chavez is allying himself with Russia, China, and Iran because the Bust regime

is giving him plenty of reasons to do so. Chavez is playing Russia, China, and Iraq against a weak but still influential Bush regime, who backed a military coup against him. If I was Chavez, I would not trust the United States either, especially the Bush regime.

[davidinalameda]

51. you're giving Chavez way too much credit

he's not that clever to play anyone off against anyone else

he's looking for the biggest bullies on the block to go up against the US bully

[Larkspur]

61. It's called self-defense

the US does it with our NATO allies as well as corrupt regimes in thrid world nations.

[Pavulon]

226. It ends poorly

in the bad old days we picked a guy from his general officers staff or intelligence community and gave them a shitload of money to just kill them. Pretty simple.

Russia and china are not going to start ww3 over a coup in LA. Well they never did for any of the others we overthrew.

[Judi Lynn]

227. They are learning from history. Time marches on, not backwards as right-wingers would have it.

Those "bad old days" are going to be buried, and you'd better get used to it.

[Pavulon]

228. I am not the Director of Operations

at CIA. I do not set the policy that put many like Mr Chavez in the ground. And you know it.

EVERY congress and Administration has overseen the death LA governments that create problems for the US. It is standing policy.

Hugo is a nit in the grand scheme of us policy. The US will, under ANY administration, take positions that serve our interest.

If that mean hugo is ousted in a coup, that will happen. However that is not the point.

The actions of the messiah is the point. Why consolidate power?

[EFerrari]

230. You state flatly that every Congress and administration has overseen death

in Latin Ameicca and then you ask why it's important to consolidate power?

Are you on drugs? Do you not see any connection between always being under attack and circling the wagons? Holy shit.

Myself, I'm impressed with how much the Chavez government has managed to avoid simply reacting to the multi nationals fronted by Bush.

"Messiah" is just right wing bullshit. You should know better than that.

[Pavulon]

234. Well he has them circled.

lets see what he does with his power. Over the last 6 years I have traveled to caracas several times. Hugo seems not to be kicking his oil dollars down like the UAE does. I dont talk politics on trips but I get the sense that hugo is not a water walker there.


Russian jets aside, caracas is still a place you would want to leave if you got sick. Trust me,Sloan-Kettering is the place you want to be treated for cancer.

[EFerrari]

253. Since I have no health insurance, Sloan Kettering might as well be on the Moon. n/t

[Pavulon]

276. They accept medicare and medicaid..

and like all hospitals can not refuse treatment. They also take payment plans.

Your average hospital here is decades from where the average in caracas is. Just in imaging and labs two decades.

Cheers.

[EFerrari]

280. US hospitals are only mandated to provide emergency treatment. n/t

[Pavulon]

290. Yes but they do accept payment plans

John Hopkins will take payment plans for treatment.

[EFerrari]

291. Yeah, tell me about it. They couldn't find the check we sent for Andy

and they canceled his surgery.

I'm sorry, Pavulon. I don't mean to be mean but it just doesn't work for me. :(

[Pavulon]

308. He did get treatment though right?

I dont want to discuss a persons personal care but if I remember correctly they did treat him after some internet problems created by others.

[EFerrari]

336. Their "payment plan" was "Give us everything up front".

And they canceled the surgery when they couldn't be bothered to look for his check on the desk of a mailroom supervisor. That cost Andy two weeks. Who knows what those two weeks meant to the outcome of his surgery.

[EFerrari]

165. How do you know how clever Chavez is, exactly?

Have you read a single word he's written? Studied his policy or his interviews?

What is it precisely that leads you to believe he's "not clever"?

[WriteDown]

91. He has other friends too....

Laugh it up Mugabe :grr:

[clixtox]

50. Venezuela allies itself with any country that is not trying to destabilize it!

As does the USA!

Iran and China have not done anything to Venezuela to preclude their close relationships.

What destructive, criminal hubris the USA suffers from to meddle self righteously in the domestic affairs of other countries.

These sorts of criticisms of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela require ignorance of the realities on the ground to gain traction. Endless repetition, on this board, of lies and neo-con propaganda bare the true corporation fawning politics of the perpetrators, nothing else!

Far from "most of us can see what's(sic) he's up to allying himself with Iran and China", most of us have a clear understanding of what is going on in "Latin America". We are thrilled to see progressive changes supplanting a sordid history of every sort of exploitation, atrocious human rights violations, inhumane treatment of indigenous peoples and natural resource raping and pillaging.

[davidinalameda]

52. you're criticizing human rights violations?

maybe you should take a look at his allies and their sterling reputations

[clixtox]

55. Why should I... Apropos of what...

What does it matter to me or you who Hugo Chavez allies himself or the the country of Venezuela with...

You don't have a cogent point or the basis for a reasoned position so you persist in inanities!

What's up with that...

Your post really doesn't really deserve a response because it is too stupid and desperately grasping!

Get a life and think for yourself, don't continue parroting Neo-Con talking points and propaganda on a site for reasoned discussion using facts and logic. Your beating of this old nag is cruelly obvious, the only one losing face is you!

Yes, I was criticizing human rights violations perpetrated for centuries by the ruling oligarchs in Latin America. Wouldn't you if you were actually posting informative or interesting ideas...

Maybe not, but I sure would hope so.

[davidinalameda]

245. think for myself?

I'd strongly suggest those members of the Church of St. Hugo on here do the same

it should matter who he allies himself with; he's supporting regimes that kill their citizens

but that doesn't matter to you and yours now does it

[davidinalameda]

312. don't you get tired of parroting the same old "must protect St. Hugo" shit?

He support totalitarians regimes just like Bush does

he supports destabilizing governments, just like Bush does

he attempts to use economics weapons against other countries, just like Bush

go back and stick your head in the sand with the other ostriches on here

I really hope that you all are still around when he shows his true colors

I doubt you will be though; you're cowards

[EFerrari]

358. Cowards? Look at this thread and compare and contrast.

Don't you get tired of repeating the same old insults and unsupported allegations?

[Larkspur]

62. It was the United States the tortured innocent Iraqis in Abu Graib

That's a far worse violation of human rights than anything Hugo Chavez may have done.

The United States committed a war crime against Iraq. chavez has not invaded any nation that was no threat to him.

[spoony]

70. How the bloody hell is that a valid defence of Chavez?

If Bush is your benchmark, then you're letting a lot of slightly lesser psychos and assholes off the hook.

[Peace Patriot]

85. Venezuela is also allied with Brazil, whose president said, of Chavez:

"You can criticize Chavez on a lot of things, but not on democracy."

Venezuela is allied with Argentina, whose president, when told by the Bushwhacks that South American leaders must "isolate" Chavez, replied, "But he's my brother!"

Venezuela is also allied with Chile, with Uruguay, with Paraguay, with Nicaragua, with Honduras, with Ecuador, with Bolivia, and with many other countries, in addition to Brazil and Argentina.

Bush is allied with Saudi Arabia. While that stinks, would you say that a U.S. president doesn't have a right to ally with other governments, even bad ones? Well, maybe Bush ain't so great an example, cuz, unlike Chavez--who won two elections, the latest, in 06, with 63% of the vote, and turned back a recall, in 04, getting 60% of the vote--Bush was never elected here, either time, has a 20% approval rating, and is the worst president in the history of the world. I wouldn't grant that he has the right to do anything. He is a fucking war criminal and usurper.

What about France? Would France have a right to ally with Iran, in its own interest?

Venezuela is a sovereign country. Its president has been democratically empowered to do the country's business, and to ally with any other sovereign government that he chooses, for any legitimate purpose--economic, political, to give aid, to receive it, to plan mutually beneficial projects, to influence world affairs, to foster trade, to encourage cultural understanding. To pick out two Chavez alliances--China (a non-democracy U.S. ally) and Iran (a U.S. target), and ignore all the rest is extremely biased and incomplete.

How is Iran any worse than Saudi Arabia? In fact, Iran is a better country than Saudi Arabia, in many ways. And it has great potential to become a progressive country--which will never happen in Saudi Arabia. If I were to pick the best trade partner in the Middle East (outside of Israel), it would be Iran. This is one of the tragedies of Bushwhack policy--driving Iran to the right with fearmongering and warmongering.

As for "Fidel," Mexico had good relations with Cuba, until recently--and may again. Many Latin American countries--as they have thrown off the U.S.-domination yolk--have either established relations with Cuba, or are seriously considering it, as have other countries around the world. If diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba is to be a litmus test that "proves" that someone is "bad" or "authoritarian," then a third to a half of the world should come under your ire. And, while you're at it, what do you make of U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia and China--two of the most undemocratic countries on earth?

Your conspiratorial statement, that "most of us can see what's he's up to," is not only presumptuous--who are you speaking of, when you say "most of us"?--it is vague, like the Bushwhack allegation against Chavez that he is a "dictator," which falls apart, when actual facts are added in.

I don't know what you mean, anyway. What I think he's "up to" to is achieving Venezuelan independence from the economic and political dictates of Washington DC and its Corpo masters. He has sought allies and trade partners all over the world, and throughout Latin America. Venezuela is a member of UNASUR, of ALBA, and a pending member of Mercosur, as well as a member of OPEC. Most of the countries Venezuela is allied with are democratic. Some are not. So what? The same is true of every democratic country.

It seems to me that you hold this dangerous Bushite attitude that the U.S. has a right to tell other countries what to do, and to interfere--and even kill tens of thousands of their people--when they don't obey. As for Venezuela, we really forfeited any right we may have had to judge its democracy when we permitted the Corpos to take over our own voting system with machines run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. Know anything about Venezuela's voting system? If not, you should look into it. Transparent vote counting is, indeed, a litmus test of democracy. It is the fundamental condition of democracy. A good--transparent, open, reliable--voting system bespeaks a good--transparent, open, reliable--government. And a bad, non-transparent, unverifiable voting system run by private partisan interests bespeaks...fascism. Bad, bad government, such as we have been cursed with.

Facts, Dwickham. How has Chavez's alliance with "Fidel," Iran or China hurt anybody? No way that I can see. Bush's alliances, on the other hand, have resulted in massive looting of our government coffers, impoverishment of our people, and other people, and mass slaughter of the innocent.

Has Venezuela done this? The Chavez government is totally innocent of repression, and of aggression--and has done just the opposite--it has empowered and improved the lives of its people. Cuba, Iran, and China have some things to answer for, but, really, how do these compare with the U.S. and its "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad, and its wanton looting of our economy?

It is the U.S. government that needs to be sanctioned, and boycotted, and held to account for its crimes, and its leaders prosecuted and imprisoned. No one compares to them for sheer carnage and violations of human rights. No one! If you want democracy, start here at home. Venezuela is completely undeserving of your venom. We should be so lucky as to have the transparency of Venezuela's elections, and be able to elect leaders who see to our interests and our welfare, and not that of the sheiks of Araby and their Corpo brethren.

Chavez's real crime is that he kicked Exxon Mobil out of Venezuela. Some crime. Give me a president who will dare to do that--fairly and squarely, as Chavez did. That is a president who, with FDR, can say: "Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred"!

That's the president I want. Who do you want?

[AlphaCentauri]

44. Nothing is happening there, only over 3,000 schools built, 8,000 clinics, 20,000 doctors

and many more gadgets

[WriteDown]

68. Yep....

And price controls, lopping zeros off currency, no milk or meat in the markets, just chicken feet and gizzards. Awesome! :sarcasm:

[AlphaCentauri]

72. Oh Yeah! Alvaro Uribe from Colombia is promoting the food black market in Venezuela

venezuelan authorities have seize 5000 tons of food begin illegally smuggle into Colombia by the opposition creating a fake food shortage in Venezuela

[WriteDown]

75. Link?

And you don't believe price controls or currency manipulation have any effect. If you lower the price of a chicken in the market, below what it costs to raise that chicken, you may encounter a few problems.

[AlphaCentauri]

77. sure

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3153605

http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/13161/Inflation_food_scarcity_roil_Venezuela

[WriteDown]

78. The 2nd link you provided...

proves my point exactly. Its the classical response to price controls. Ticket scalpers are a good analogy.

[AlphaCentauri]

80. "The contraband was sugar, and the seizure of at least 184 tons "

http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/5000_tons_food_seized_during_2008.htm

[WriteDown]

86. Makes perfect sense....

If you are forced to sell your goods below cost, you will start to look toward the black profit as an attractive alternative. If your chicken costs 3$ to raise and you are forced to sell it at 2$ then what are you going to do?

Posted this in the wrong spot initially somehow.

[AlphaCentauri]

246. I'll put it this way

If you pay the farmer 75 cents for the chicken then you sell it for 3$ and the government say that you are making so much money while the poor can't afford the chicken and force you to lower the price to 2$ and still you make money while you help the poor and increase the volume of your sales,
that would be a good act of compassion and patriotism, because helping the poor, helps the nation.

Trying to make the extra buck in the black market is just an arrogant act.

[WriteDown]

252. That kind of logic is faulty though...

Has any regulation stopped ticket scalping? You can set price ceilings all you want, but it will ALWAYS lead to the creation of a black market if people are willing to pay more for a product. Proven again and again in real world practice.

[AlphaCentauri]

293. Regulation in Europe and in the US has worked for decades

deregulation of the market has been proven again and again in real world practice as a failure.

Argentina, Chile and Mexico have suffer the consequences of their economic meltdown caused by the deregulation of the market, the market with out government intervention only works for the small business.

Argentina, Chile, Mexico and the US economies depend on the government intervention.

[WriteDown]

294. Regulation and price controls are very different things...

Price controls were popular with Nixon and the old Soviet Union. You are talking about preventing monopolies and price manipulation through regulation which is a good thing

[AlphaCentauri]

307. Yep, price manipulation can be a sign of speculation too

Slowing production, creating fake product shortages or hiding the products, are examples of price manipulation when there is no price control or regulation.
Thats how ENRON got millions of people to pay more for their electricity.

[WriteDown]

327. Yes....

but you can only do that with limited competition such as oil, electricity, etc. Would not work on something like power drills.

[WriteDown]

82. Makes perfect sense...

If you are forced to sell your goods below cost, you will start to look toward the black profit as an attractive alternative. If your chicken costs 3$ to raise and you are forced to sell it at 2$ then what are you going to do?

[struggle4progress]

259. Venezuela is not a closed or inaccessible society, and information is not hard to get

[ladjf]

306. Most of the information I read about Chavez and Venezuela

is from the American media which I distrust. But, from what I pick up here and there I admire a lot
of what Chavez is doing for his people. Yet, some of the moves he as made seem to be heading toward
a quasi dictatorship. I am trying not to judge him too harshly.

[0rganism]

53. OK, Pavulon, I have a few serious questions for you

You clearly have a strong interest in the topic of Latin American governments, especially when they're in the hands of socialists. I don't recall ever seeing you holding out for human rights in threads concerning Colombian death squads, or the uncovering of mass graves in El Salvador, or CIA-backed thugs raping and murdering nuns in Honduras, or the tragic police-state violence in Oaxaca. How much more atrocious must this president of Venezuela be, to merit such a degree of your time and energy, when the others don't seem to concern you at all!

So what's your angle? Now that we've been informed, thanks to your links to certain HRW and Amnesty announcements over the years, what do you recommend progressives and Democrats in the United States do to help our disadvantaged neighbors in Venezuela, to save them from this dictator, this monstrous Hugo Chavez, who concerns you and about 30% of the Venezuelan electorate so very much? What is your proposed solution for the problem?

Would you agree that it's preferable for the Venezuelans to handle the situation without direct intervention? From the US's perspective, how much of a threat does he really pose? Is it worth sending in a special forces unit to knock him off, or is dropping a few million annually into locally-run propaganda campaigns adequate? Could we perhaps bypass the whole problem through a sincere, benevolent diplomatic effort?

I'm curious as to what sort of resolution you'd like to see applied to this pressing situation. Thanks.

[Warren Stupidity]

59. Good luck on getting an answer. nt.

[spoony]

69. Here's a better question

What does any of that have to do with whether the information presented is true, and if so what it means? And why is it that anytime Chavez etc. are criticised, that the poster or group, rather than the information, is attacked? And it is often with this silly "well the US is bad too, blah blah" as if an absence of equal scorn directed at the US is a valid response.

[Warren Stupidity]

143. Perhaps because the same people repeatedly heap

scorn on democratic socialist governments in latin america and are completely silent about right wing authoritarian regimes in the same region. If it were just once, you would have a point, but there is a long history here, and that posting history, and the players in it, are well known and their ideological positions are well known. Is Chavez immune to criticism? Of course not. However, his country and his government should be held to the same standards as other nations in the region, and it seems that is simply not the case. Colombia, for example, with its death squads and its dubious institutions of representative government, is not held to the same high standards to which our right wing reactionary friends here on DU hold Venezuela. Why they have such a double standard is of course a legitimate question.

[subsuelo]

87. You expect seriousness from someone that stated "(Chavez) held a vote for president for life."? nt

[Pavulon]

222. Sleep, some of us have jobs lives etc

that require time as well.

What did he hold a vote for? Sum it up for me.

[Pavulon]

220. None. This is aimed at the cult of personality

che jesus hugo crowd who wonders why hugo cant run things here. He is a water walker to some.

I am fully aware of the US and Soviet actions in the region. I am aware we killed people and paid to have them killed under EVERY administration since 1946. (before we did not hide it)

Information has no angle, I dont think we should pay one of his generals to blow his brains out and ally with us (pretty much the standard).

So no resolution is required unless other powers become involved.

[0rganism]

375. Thanks for the answer, it helped me understand your concerns

I think you raise a good point, insofar as every public leader deserves fair public scrutiny, whatever their political stripe. When that leader seeks to stifle that process through his own hand, it doesn't behoove us to offer endless apologetics, regardless of how much we support his ideology or his image. It's easy to admire Chavez for the big FU he threw at the capitalists and power brokers in DC, but that shouldn't earn him a permanent free ride from anyone, here or in Venezuela or anywhere else.

Thanks again for getting back to me.

[Satyagrahi]

57. Venezuela expels U.S. human rights campaigners

Venezuela expels U.S. human rights campaigners
Last Updated: Friday, September 19, 2008 | 6:01 AM ET
CBC News

Venezuela's government expelled senior members of U.S.-based Human Rights Watch late Thursday after the group released a report saying President Hugo Chavez's government was undercutting democracy and fundamental rights in the country.

Officials in Caracas said Human Rights Watch Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco had made unacceptable remarks against the country's institutions.

"We aren't going to tolerate any foreigner coming here to sully the dignity" of Venezuela's institutions, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro told state television.

He said Vivanco and a Human Rights Watch deputy director, Daniel Wilkinson, were forced to leave the country on the earliest available flight.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/09/19/venezuela-humanrights.html

El Gobierno de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, habiendo conocido y evaluado las declaraciones públicas hechas por el ciudadano José Miguel Vivanco, habiendo establecido que con ellas este ciudadano portador del pasaporte chileno 8634760 – 1 ha violentado la Constitución y las Leyes de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, agrediendo a las instituciones de la democracia venezolana, inmiscuyéndose ilegalmente en los asuntos internos de nuestro país y con base en los valores constitucionales de defensa de la soberanía nacional y la dignidad del pueblo venezolano, ha decidido expulsar del territorio venezolano al referido ciudadano, al igual que a su acompañante Daniel Wilkinson, portador de pasaporte estadounidense 710821A39.

Es política del Estado venezolano, apegado a los valores de las más avanzada y democrática constitución que haya tenido nuestro país en su historia, hacer respetar la soberanía nacional y garantizarle a las instituciones y al pueblo su defensa frente a agresiones de factores internacionales que responden a intereses vinculados y financiados por las agencias del gobierno de los Estados Unidos de América, que tras el ropaje de defensores de los Derechos Humanos, despliegan una estrategia de agresión inaceptable para nuestro pueblo.

Es por eso que, en el pleno ejercicio de la soberanía y en nombre de pueblo venezolano, le notificamos a los referidos ciudadanos la obligación de abandonar de manera inmediata la patria del Libertador Simón Bolívar."


Nicolás Maduro Moros
Ministro del Poder Popular para Relaciones Exteriores

Tarek El Aissami
Ministro del Poder Popular para Relaciones Interiores y Justicia

http://www.rnv.gov.ve/noticias/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=78997

[Odin2005]

65. Get ready to be flamed by the rabid Chavezistas... n/t,

[EFerrari]

88. Good. n/t

[Odin2005]

64. Gee, this is all the Chavez supporters have? Bash any source that disagrees with them as...

Neo-Con propaganda, even it's from HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH? My god, some of you people are as thick-headed as the Freepers.

[AlphaCentauri]

74. well the last thing we would expect from HRW is a report of Wall Street

HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION of the poor around the world, that would give them some credibility

[subsuelo]

90. You obviously have not paid much attention to HRW

(And I'm a fierce Chavez supporter)

[EFerrari]

92. How is Chavez supposed to trust any NGO based in the US

right now, especially one that seems unable to read Venezuela's efforts to deal with corruption and that favors intervention? That would be a very stupid thing to do, imo.

[subsuelo]

94. I think that's a good question

but it's an irrelevant response to my comment.

My comment was merely correcting the false insinuation that HRW ignores human rights violations of the poor around the world.

That being said, I believe it is entirely possible to simultaneously defend Chavez overall *and* HRW's record (how many *better* groups reporting on human rights issues around the world can you name?).

[EFerrari]

96. I don't know enough to have an opinion on who is better or best.

And, there seems to be so much corruption among the NGOs, it doesn't seem like a good idea to me to take any one reporting agency as gospel, in any case. But HRW has gotten Venezuela consistently wrong.

Who does that leave? The International Red Cross and Amnesty International? If there's anyone else, I don't know who they are.

[Bacchus39]

99. so you can make no informed judgement on HRW then can you?

other than you don't like what they report.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/americas/south-america/venezuela

keep shopping!!!

[EFerrari]

100. Reading comprehension continues to be a problem for you, I see. n/t

[Bacchus39]

104. face it, you just don't want to believe it

you said Chavez was your hero after all.

[EFerrari]

126. This has nothing to do with belief. n/t

[subsuelo]

102. The question for me is this - how credible are the claims made in the report?

For example, there is mention of workers being fired for exercising their right to strike. If that's true, then the HRW report has some merit. It would be the duty of any serious human rights organization to challenge such firings, wouldn't you agree? If untrue, however, then we have to ask - is HRW biased? Uninformed? Deliberately falsifying? My personal opinion of HRW is high enough that it would take alot for me to entertain the idea of deliberate misinformation. (That being said, I'm open to any possibility really)

At any rate, you state that HRW has consistently got Venezuela wrong. If I may press for details... where, and how so?

[Bacchus39]

103. do you and others express the same level of skepticism when they report on other countries?

It doesn't seem so.

[subsuelo]

108. Of course the better question we should all be asking is -

Does the corpo/fascist propaganda system display the same level of trust when reporting on other countries?

The answer - obviously, no. As one glaring example, please direct me to the CNN articles highlighting reports on Israel's indiscriminate attacks on civilians and use of cluster bombs in Lebanon? I'll spare you the time consumption - you won't find it.

Maybe it's time to start considering why that is.

[Bacchus39]

109. and I repeat, that doesn't change the nature of the Ven report

HRW and Amnesty among have ample critcism on Israel.

despite what Chavez lovers here say, the credibility of HRW could be called into quesiton if they did NOT report on certain countries. no countries have a free pass no matter the level of infatuation.

[subsuelo]

122. You're right that no countries have a free pass

I've looked at the summary of the HRW report and there does appear to be some credible criticisms of the Chavez government. That being said, there is hardly enough here to lessen my support for Chavez. Unfortunately I think he has to take certain measures in the face of a hostile corpo/fascist empire, obviously intent on replacing him for some puppet that will serve the master's bidding. But perhaps more importantly -- I simply *trust* in the end result Chavez is leading his country (and the rest of Latin America) towards.

What is of greater interest to me, however, is the way the corpo/fascist propaganda system selectively uses the credibility of an organization like HRW as a matter of serving their own interests.

Obviously, portraying Chavez in a negative light works in the interests of benefactors of American empire. How does it do so? By rallying the support of US citizens towards anti-Chavez efforts.

[EFerrari]

128. I agree with every bit of that. You state the fundamentals very clearly.

:thumbsup:

[Bacchus39]

133. what is of interest to me is the subject of this thread and the amusing reactionaly defense of Hugo

deciding which stories to cover is another topic.

Chavez uses anti-american rhetoric to rally support for his own benefit.

[EFerrari]

137. Yes, he's a pol. And unfortunately, 90% of what he says is true!

:rofl:

[AlphaCentauri]

297. At least he doen't use the axis of evil thing n/t

[EFerrari]

118. That's what I mean about reading:

"And, there seems to be so much corruption among the NGOs, it doesn't seem like a good idea to me to take any one reporting agency as gospel, in any case."

[Bacchus39]

120. quoting yourself as gospel???? yeah that carries alot of weight

and you said you didn't know enough about these NGO groups to make an informed decision but that didn't stop you from stating that the NGOs are corrupt.

[EFerrari]

124. Wrong again. I'm showing you the skepticism you asked about

after you should have read it. There it is. How did you miss that?

And, I didn't say I didn't know about corruption in NGOs, I said I couldn't make a generalization about the ranked quality of their reporting.

[Bacchus39]

130. and I believe I questioned whether the same level of skepticism is shown towards reports on OTHER

countries.

so you are implying that HRW is corrupt?

[EFerrari]

135. Skepticism expressed in that sentence does not limit itself

to VENEZUELA. I said, as if it needed to be said to people who know how to research, that we shouldn't use only one source for anything.

And no, I'm not implying anything. I said outright that there is corruption in the NGOs. They are routinely used as vehicles by State and La CIA to manipulate other governments. And HRW has a pattern of releasing negative reports at interesting times. Perhaps it's as subsuelo says, and it's more that our media highlights the negativity of BushCo's enemies. That may be true.

Having said that, I want to spend more time with this particular report.

[Bacchus39]

138. when is the appropriate time to release negative reports on human rights?

"skepticism" in my sentence refers to countries OTHER THAN Venezuela indeed. thus, I repeat the question, is there the same level of skepticism shown on this thread for HRW reports on other countries??

[EFerrari]

144. And I will again refer you back to my original statement

which you have yet to understand.

In particular, we should be very skeptical of negative statements from US based organizations that are made against the opponents of BushCo at politically convenient times. Whether it be Venezuela or Bolivia or Ecuador or Nicaragua or anyone, but especially the nations that have managed to crawl out from under US domination while our government was busy sacking Iraq.

[Bacchus39]

167. "politically convenient times" how so?? I suspect HRW will be critical...

of Venezuela and numerous countries under an Obama administration as well. again, I would be very much more suspicious of HRW if they did NOT criticize certain countries and only criticized those nations who have friendly relations with the US. and if HRW failed to criticze the US, which they have, your skepticism might have merit.

[EFerrari]

170. I don't need your approval to be skeptical, thanks. n/t

[EFerrari]

110. Well, look at this matrix: HRW criticizes the Chavez government

for not addressing corruption, for not supporting existing unions and for setting up parallel unions that may be politically favorable to the administration. Is that a fair statement?

But, looked at in another light, not supporting existing unions that are corrupt down to their shoelaces is a way of dealing with corruption, as is setting up new institutions that don't (yet) have a culture of corruption.

HRW also got the RCTV flap as wrong as possible, and iirc, they were the source quoted by US officials who wanted a club at the time. Obama still says Chavez suppresses free speech, for pete's sake, and that opinion is largely based on the misreporting of that event.

[Flanker]

129. HRW is not above criticism

They are being provocative, extremely provacative, where is their report regarding 8 years of Bush? you know a few months before the election? They go around stating that a few minor violations (if accurate) somehow merit a report? humiliation? I opposed his expulsion on principle, but seeing the surprised mug of Vivianco as he was being told to leave the country really made my day.

That said here is how they are wrong, the govt is way too pro-union, so they would have to substantiate how they were fired. That said the rest is just spoiled sports, the parallel unions were created, and guess what workers moved there en mass because the previous traditional unions represented political parties not their interests. Apperantly that is wrong according to HRW.

The Judges, the Supreme Court (prior to having its numbers increased) determined that it was a constitutionally acceptable move, meaning that that same institution supported what Vivianco calls becoming irrelevant pfft.

Last but not least political discrimination job wise, always unproven, and even when an isolated case can be proven it has NEVER been proven as systematic. There are always an infinite of examples of oppositionists still working in a govt institution. But according to Vivianco it is Chavez's fault because he has verbal diarrhea? Please.

AI has credibility they do not do publicity stunts, HRW does not.

[Bacchus39]

134. no they are not but being "provocative" on human rights issues certainly is not grounds

criticism.

please direct yourself to the HRW web site where you can find voluminous material on abuses of the Bush administration.

[Flanker]

142. They ARE being provocative

Is any of this new? Is any of this that important that merits its return to the press? They set up a report of 10 years of Chavismo (5 months early), create a massive press theater in Caracas, for what? political discrimination in the workforce?

Please, read AI, they are a serious human rights org, they concentrate on the REAL human rights issues in Venezuela such as violence against women, police brutality, daily violence. But since HRW cannot pin them all on the govt they concentrate on the political small potatoes.

AI a human rights org
HRW a political org.

I know your boy Uribe hates Vivianco, but heck at least people are dying in Colombia, and at least the criticism is relevant to the times. So while I cannot call Vivianco a rightwing stooge, I can certainly call into question his methods.

[subsuelo]

148. both HRW *and* Chavez are not above criticism

... and HRW has been critical of the Bush administration all along.

*More* critical would admittedly suit my tastes, but if you think they have been uncritical, well... you are mistaken. (Just go to their site and click United States, for starters)

I gave my position on the report on Venezuela above, but I'll restate it here - the criticisms that HRW has come up with regarding Chavez's handling of his government, are relatively minor in my opinion, and nothing I've read will lessen my support for Chavez. I also agree that there is some defense for some of the measures being categorized here as 'undemocratic'.

Overall, what interests me the most out of this is CNN's selection of this report as something they felt should be passed along to their readers. Has CNN been out there reporting on all the *good* that has been done by the Chavez government? In my opinion, Americans would feel quite favorable to Chavez if they had any real knowledge about the great things he's been doing. But because he's a threat to American empire, the corpo/fascist system intentionally spreads disinformation, lies, and keeps the truth hidden.

OTOH not every report by a Western organization critical of Chavez is part of the corpo/fascist system. I believe it wise to keep that in mind.

[Flanker]

152. I don't even support Chavez

I support ideas not people. That said as I posted above it was really really skewed RE-interpretation of minor events deliberately done so that the CNN type media picks it up? Right before an election? (if it is ten years then release it after the ten years)

HRW lost credibility with this, it is ok for a random protestor throwing pies at condi, another for a human rights org to pull such a media stunt.

[EFerrari]

158. I'm glad you pointed that out because it wasn't obvious me

having been focused on other stuff right now.

So, did they give any reason for the change of release date?

[Flanker]

153. I don't even support Chavez

I support ideas not people. That said as I posted above it was really really skewed RE-interpretation of minor events deliberately done so that the CNN type media picks it up? Right before an election? (if it is ten years then release it after the ten years)

HRW lost credibility with this, it is ok for a random protestor throwing pies at condi, another for a human rights org to pull such a media stunt.

[Bacchus39]

101. Venezuela's corruption is rampant isn't it?

At the bottom -- most corrupt -- end of the scale, with scores below 3, were Indonesia, China, Pakistan, Venezuela, Brazil, Philippines, India, Thailand and Italy.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE6DE153CF930A2575BC0A963958260

[AlphaCentauri]

296. HRW has done some good work but it's been used as an instrument for propaganda

If they advocate interventionism in other countries why they don't do the same to Europe or the US, why they don't promote nuremberg trial for the genocide in Iraq and other countries. Making just reports that favor some countries and lite critics of their supporter is an offense to the people with an average IQ.

I'm not against criticizing Chavez but the intension behind the funding of this reports make it suspicious, just like paying 500 000 dollars to the student who was serving as a leader of the Chavez opposition, it's ridiculous to support that type of corruption.

[Judi Lynn]

298. I'm still burned about this, as well. Unbelievable.

Saturday, May 10, 2008
Who Pays the Opposition Students in Venezuela?

By Pablo Roldan and Mauro Vanetti
Thursday, 08 May 2008



It is not true that US imperialism does not help the Third World! One of its agencies, the Cato Institute based in Washington DC, just signed a cheque for $500,000 (yes: half a million bucks!) to a young Venezuelan. Yon Goicoechea has been awarded the "Milton Friedman Liberty Prize", for his merits in the promotion of "Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace".

Well, we have to admit that Mr Goicoechea is not exactly a poor boy from a Caracas slum. He is a law student at the expensive Andrés Bello Roman Catholic University in Caracas, whose fees are 5,820 Bolivares Fuertes (officially equivalent to $2,710) per year, a very high price in Venezuela. Nevertheless, this badly needed financial aid was honestly earned by Mr Goicochea for the good job he did in the cause of the free market (i.e. capitalism) and democracy (i.e. conspiracy against the elected government of Hugo Chávez). The reason he is considered a hero by the Cato guys is that he is the leader of the "students' movement" that opposes the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela.

Right-wing and Anti-Democratic

The main activities of this movement have been organising demonstrations (and clashes with the police), with the typical display of inverted Venezuelan flags and an overwhelming presence of white-skinned people, on the following issues:

*In favour of the private right-wing TV channel RCTV, that supported the coup against Chávez in April 2002;
*Against progressive reforms in the universities (e.g., equalising the weight of students' and teachers' votes in elections for
university institutions) and promotion of affordable universities for the poor;
*Against the progressive reforms proposed by the Constitutional Referendum held on December 2, 2007.

There is no need to comment on the recurrent accusations about "erosion of human and civil rights" or "a constitutional reform that would have turned the country into a dictatorship". In the current war that the US ruling class and the nation's government are waging against the Bolivarian government of Venezuela, those statements have the same character as the old stories told by the British and American governments during the First World War about German soldiers cutting off the breasts of Belgian women - they are purely war propaganda fabrications.

Fabrications that our free and independent media, watchdog of democracy and freedom, waste no time in reproducing: "Venezuelan student leader who challenged Chávez wins prize", says Associated Press; "Student who challenged Chávez wins $500,000", announces US Today; and CBS tells us "Venezuelan student leader wins award for challenging Chávez". The movement has also been defined as "non-violent" in the award ceremony, but first-hand accounts by revolutionary students tell quite a different story (see Opposition Violence at Venezuelan university - What Really happened at the UCV).

More:
http://advant.blogspot.com/2008/05/who-pays-opposition-students-in.html

[JetCityLiberal]

163. Wish I could nominate this post

You nailed it Odin2005.

Paul

[Odin2005]

164. Thank you! n/t.

[EFerrari]

171. Because the argument that HRW has no agenda is so transparent?

Odin has some reading to do. And so do you, apparently.

[Satyagrahi]

76. Interesting criticism of both Chávez and the HRW report here:

Dear Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro: "Oh, the sheer criminality of it all! Oh, dearie me!"

VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson
-snip-

The conclusions are opinions, pure and simple. But MAduro takes it a step further and seemingly claims that the right of free expression as guaranteed under Venezuela's 1999 Constitution apply selectively and exclusively to Venezuelan citizens?
-snip-

We at VHeadline don't necessarily agree with HRW or Vivanco's analysis although previous editorials on the subject will have indicated our very own concern over the current state of affairs with rampant sectarianism, exclusion on top of the malfeasance and corruption we have highlighted as detrimental to President Hugo Chavez Frias' central theme of returning participative democratic power to the Venezuelan grassroots who, by virtue of their citizenship, have the electoral mechanism at their disposal to decide the country's fate.

Admittedly, as foreigners, even as foreigners who have plighted our troth to Venezuela and the Venezuelan people's ultimate destiny, we do NOT have the right to vote and have no electoral mandate to decide anything ... however, our right to freely express opinions across national and international borders is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of December 10, 1948, www.un.org/Overview/rights.html and subsequently ratified by the Venezuelan government to wit: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

-snip-

That Chavez, personally, has "undercut established unions and favored new, parallel unions" neglect to address the fact that the "established unions" were nothing more or less than jobbing gang masters ruled by a political Mafia that, as well as enriching its top brass with impunity, had already shown its distain for the democratic process by adamantly refusing to submit to democratic secret leadership ballots, preferring to impose gang bosses rather than true representation of the membership.

They say that the Chavez government "has pursued an aggressively adversarial approach to local rights advocates and civil society organizations" ... which is true, though mostly because the so-called NGOs are largely at the dictate and subversive funding of foreign interests (US National Endowment for Democracy?-NED!) and that the legitimate government of Venezuela has quite rightly sought to legally restrict their access to international funding.

More:
http://www.pr-inside.com/dear-venezuelan-foreign-minister-nicolas-r815743.htm

[Satyagrahi]

79. BTW, is a report about US involvement in a Venezuelan coup plot not newsworthy?

This thread

Venezuela releases recordings of purported plot
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3499165

has been moved here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x7676

And I don't understand why. The article in question was published 11 hours ago by the International Herald Tribune.

Is US involvement in a coup plot in Venezuela not considered newsworthy??

[subsuelo]

81. That is quite a valid question you have

[Pavulon]

225. Because it can not be verified

however if hugo brings russia in to the equation he will be as dead as Ngo Dinh Diem. The steps that make that happen are easily traced. The fact he is alive means we did not try that hard. (no castro was different, he has no mother russia protecting him)

[Judi Lynn]

244. Can not be verified? Wonder if they tried to keep it a SECRET, for some reason, like Nixon

attempted to keep the people paying his salary from knowing what he was doing in Chile. It would have taken even longer to find out what he did had he not been vain enough to tape his conversations:

DECLASSIFIED DOCS REVEAL NIXON’S OBESSION WITH ALLENDE
Friday, 12 September 2008
U.S. Role In Chile’s September 11, 1973 Coup Documented In Declassified Transcripts

~snip~
Only ten weeks later, Chile’s military did move to overthrow Allende in a bloody coup on September 11, 1973. On September 15, Nixon called Kissinger again. They commiserated about what Kissinger called “the bleeding {heart} newspapers” and the “filthy hypocrisy” of the press for focusing on the Chilean military's repression and the condemnations of the U.S. role.

In this telephone conversation -- which was declassified in May 2004 -- Nixon noted that "our hand doesn't show on this, though.” “We didn't do it,” Kissinger replied on the issue of direct involvement in the coup. I mean we helped them. {Deleted} created the conditions as great as possible.”

On September 16th, 1973, in their first substantive conversation following Chile’s military coup, Kissinger and Nixon discussed the U.S. role in the overthrow of Allende.

President Nixon: Nothing new of any importance or is there?
K: Nothing of very great consequence. The Chilean thing is getting consolidated and, of course, the newspapers {are all over the story} because a pro-Communist government has been overthrown.

RN: Isn’t that something. Isn’t that something.
K: I mean instead of celebrating - in the Eisenhower period we would be heroes.

RN: Well, we didn’t - as you know, our hand doesn’t show on this one.
K: We didn’t do it. I mean we helped them. {censored} created the conditions as great as possible.

RN: That is right. And that is the way it is going to be played. But listen, as far as people are concerned, let me say they aren’t going to buy this crap from the Liberals on this one.

According to Peter Kornbluh, Director of the National Security Archives’ Chile Documentation Project, Kissinger never intended for these transcripts to be made public. Kissinger “bestowed on history a gift that keeps on giving by secretly taping and transcribing his phone calls,” said Kornbluh. The conversations allow us to “eavesdrop on the most candid conversations of the highest and most powerful U.S. officials as they plotted covert intervention against a democratically-elected government.”

More:
http://www.santiagotimes.cl/santiagotimes/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14644&Itemid=1

[subsuelo]

93. Interesting that CNN chose to highlight this report

Where has CNN been when HRW condemns Israel for "indiscriminate attacks on civilians" and use of cluster bombs in Lebanon? Or for attacking civilians and collective punishment in Gaza and the West Bank?

It is not HRW that is to be viewed with mistrust. It's CNN and the rest of the corpo/fascist propaganda system

[EFerrari]

98. That's an excellent point. n/t

[Bacchus39]

105. that is a CNN decision and doesn't diminish the report from HRW

HRW reports on just about every country, its not up to them what makes the "news"

[subsuelo]

115. So you have no defense for ignoring reports on attacks on civilians

while highlighting a report critical of aspects of Chavez' government (which does not indiscriminately attack civilians).

I guess it makes sense... there really is no excuse

[Bacchus39]

116. nope, I am not here to defend CNN

nor am I here to defend attacks on civilians. what and when to report an issue by the media is a completely separate issue from the HRW report which speaks for itself.

p.s.

I also read Spanish language news which reports on issues in Latin america of course. you know, the kind of news items that some believe the US media is "hiding" from them.

[WriteDown]

112. Does CNN...

report on the daily rocket attacks on civilian targets each day by Israel's neighbors? They would need a lot of ink.

[EFerrari]

136. I haven't seen anything on the collective punishment in Gaza lately.

Every now and then Amy Goodman covers the story, though. TG for Amy.

[Zorro]

97. Quite a shitstorm you've stirred up, Pavulon

It's brought most of the usual Chavez toadies out to sing their typical "Chavez good, US bad" chorus.

Now I'm waiting to hear them sing how Hugo's expulsion of HRW's director today proves that he's a champion for free speech.

[Bacchus39]

106. HRW is an excellent source with the exception of reports on Ven and Cuba

c'mon everyone knows that.

[WriteDown]

114. Speaking of which...

Has anyone seen any live shots of Fidel recently? :)

[EFerrari]

140. Interesting. The hinges of democracy in Latin America. What a shame. n/t

[subsuelo]

107. Damn the toadies

for not falling for lines like "He held a vote to become president for life"


:eyes:

[JonQ]

111. It's remarkable

and tragic how many people came out in defense of chavez. He isn't a good guy, he doesn't represent freedom, democracy, equality, justice, all those nice things we're supposed to care about.

Sorry but hatred of bush does not defacto make you a good person.

[EFerrari]

113. Well, I'm glad that's settled. lol

[redqueen]

127. It's sad how many seem to be fooled by this schtick.

STILL.

[EFerrari]

169. I'm very disappointed in HRW for feeding this cr@p. n/t

[redqueen]

189. And I'm disappointed in our elected Dems for hopping on the "demonize the left" bandwagon.

Doesn't help at all... we could do with some discussion about the coup and why it was wrong in Chile, and wrong in Venezuela.

[EFerrari]

196. One of Obama's first gestures to the "Latino community"

was a speech to a Miami group that sponsors terror in Cuba.

He and the Democrats have a long way to go. That's how far right we've gone.

[Bacchus39]

243. should HRW not report on rights violations in Ven or any other country?

it seems like that is their purpose.

[subsuelo]

117. JonQ have you seen Pilger's The War on Democracy?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3739500579629840148

[JonQ]

119. As I said

or implied, our misdeeds do not make saints of our victims. It's possible in a conflict to have two bad guys. You can't merely identify one group as the bad guy, so it logically must be concluded that the other group is the good guy. The real world doesn't work like that.

For instance, during WWII Hitler was most definitely the bad guy. That didn't make Stalin a good guy simply because they were at odds with each other.

Would you be happy with Chavez in power here, with the exact same level of authority and the exact same lack of real limitations? I wouldn't be.

[EFerrari]

131. What same level of authority? And what lack of limitations?

Could you give a single concrete example?

There are more than several posters to this thread that have put in time studying Venezuela and Chavez. Based on that study and not some kind of binary thinking, I've concluded that Chavez is indeed a "good guy". And he has done a lot to democratize not only Venezuela, but Latin America.

And that is what makes him a "bad guy" that needs to be hounded and demonized in the whore media as often as possible.

[WriteDown]

141. I seem to remember a poster who was actually FROM....

Venezuela who argued with Judi Lynn in one thread. Wish I could remember her screen name.

[EFerrari]

145. You don't need to be FROM Venezuela to study it

By that logic, we should shut down our universities because they teach courses on material not under their physical foundations.

[WriteDown]

149. So....

you trust people who read articles and editorials as opposed to actual people on the ground?

[EFerrari]

154. Why should I need to trust when I have a brain and the function

of critical thinking?

[WriteDown]

155. Hope you are not a lawyer....

3rd parties and hearsay can get kind of dicey.

[EFerrari]

157. LOL.

[WriteDown]

146. Got it...

Actually found the thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3335471#top

[EFerrari]

147. Have you read that thread?

lol

You can always find people predicting doom when Latin American countries move toward democracy. The first question you need to ask is, how much was your daddy making on the backs of the poor and the indigenous people before he decided to bail out?

[WriteDown]

150. Sure I did....

Posts like this. Also, she was from Bolivia and not Venezuela, my bad.

Edited on Mon Jun-02-08 10:19 PM by ann_american2004
He was a dictator and there is graffiti all over La Paz to remember his terrible deeds. Many of those "White' middle/lower-upperclass Bolivians mentioned, many of them and their children ended up in prison or shot on the spot for protesting his dictatorship. It was the students mostly that protested against him. From all walks of life. People I know recall the curfews and running home before the tanks rolled in. Hundreds of students and human rights activists died protesting, people from both the private schools and UMSA the Mayor de San Andres de La Paz University. This is NOT the same fight.

edit: on further review of that article you blurbed, I'd wonder where those South African ever ended up. We didn't see them. Actually, many people from South America ended up doing the reverse - immigrating to South Africa, for example miners from Bolivia and Chile, for work...

ps. third world traveler should really cite his/her sources. ie. wiki. nearly verbatim which actually sources Prado Salmon "Poder y Fuerza Armadas" except for that South African part of which I am a skeptic. If anything that jerk Banzer (may he rest in hell) was trying to get land for his friends in Santa Cruz, where he was from. He was NOT a Paceno.

[EFerrari]

156. Track "ann" down and you find a privileged family who has made

its living from the sweat of others. Look at this:

"My first reply to this thread was to say Evo is a communist, which I believe he will prove to be. He uses this division for his benefit. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. he did not need to place these people in harm's way."

My family is also FROM Latin America. The unreconstructed ones ALL sound exactly the same way. There's nothing new here. This is class panic. These are the people that support Bush supporting that butcher in Colombia.

Evo is a COMMUNIST?!!! Oh, noes! She couldn't be any more obvious unless she had a tattoo on her forehead.

[WriteDown]

159. Interesting....

I did not realize the Incans and the Aymaran were so privileged.


ann_american2004 (70 posts) Tue Jun-03-08 01:48 PM
Response to Reply #24
28. Hah!
That made me laugh. Now I really know you are clueless. You think all these papers are run by European-descendants? Tell me you think the largest University is too? Lol, hahahahaa. I think I peed myself. Okay now I know you deserve 'ignore'. I'm done here. European descendants? My ass! hahahaha. My family is descendants of Aymaran and Inca. Or maybe they are too arrogant, too? Maybe too ancient. Scummy. Hahahahaha! Too funny.

ps. I doubt you can even read those papers you critize. A regular Jua jua. In all my time there those papers were the most socialist! The MOST Anti-American interference. The only pro American paper was in English and published by a Brit. LOL!

I'm done here. This is worthless. You have your beliefs, I have mine. And then there are those beliefs that you are trying to paint me into which I do not stand for at all. Paint away, silly girl. Whatever makes you happy. This is a waste of time.

[EFerrari]

161. That's as naive as possible.

So, on an internet board, someone lays out the case against democratizing Bolivia, against social justice for the poor and for indigenous peoples AND claims to be of indigenous extraction and you just, what? Believe that?

Good grief.

[WriteDown]

166. About as naive as trusting...

whatever Chavez says and claims as gospel. Works both ways. I will say this. "Ann" cited some very specific info and experiences so I tend to believe she grew up there, but the rest is up for debate.

[EFerrari]

168. Who is trusting whatever Chavez says and claims?

Wow, nice straw man. lol

No, it doesn't work both ways. You are trusting someone's anonymous post to the internets, and posts that are self-contradictory, not to mention hilarious at that. I'm not. And in addition to my own study, I bring to bear the experience of every right wing whacko I've ever met who sounded exactly the same way.

There really aren't two sides to every issue unless you work for Fox News. Evo isn't a communist and he's not a dictator and the whole leadership of democratic Latin America just stood up to defend him against US incursions this week.

I guess you and "ann" missed that.

[Judi Lynn]

172. They've got his back, for sure! It was great seeing they made it understandable

to anyone who might be in the dark about it, wasn't it?



This photo was taken May 23, 2008. He's flanked by supporters on both sides.

[EFerrari]

173. This is a great moment for Latin American democracy.

:toast:

eta: I stole the image for my sig line. Thank you, Judi Lynn!

[Judi Lynn]

175. It's wonderful to be present to see it happening!

Excellent idea for that photo!

Maybe even better than this one:

http://cache.daylife.com.nyud.net:8090/imageserve/04M3aN61Mw8cW/610x.jpg

[WriteDown]

176. He has lots of supporters...

[EFerrari]

177. It's called "diplomacy". Look it up.

[WriteDown]

178. Hmm...

Kind of like that picture of Saddam and Rummy that is tossed around. Neither are right. Mugabe and Chavez look like they are having a good old time. Doesn't look like a formal diplomatic negotiation to me.

[EFerrari]

179. And your expertise is?

[WriteDown]

180. Business, economics, and

reptiles and amphibians.

[EFerrari]

184. Exactly.

[WriteDown]

248. And with economics I know....

that price controls are ALWAYS a bad idea. Bad when Tricky Dick tried them. Bad when St. Hugo tries them. That is how I know he is destined to fail. People will only put up with chicken feet and no chicken in that markets for only so long.

[EFerrari]

250. You're holding the elephant's trunk and calling it a snake.

There's a much larger context here than just price controls.

[WriteDown]

251. No, there really isn't

If you start controlling prices and lopping off zeroes off your currency, you end up with no food in the markets, worthless currency, and a restless populace. It can only go on so long. I actually like a lot of Hugo's social policies, but his economic policies can appropriately be called "bone-headed."

[EFerrari]

254. There were and remain a number of problems

with food supply alone when the Chavez government came into power. One of them was as basic as transportation and in effect, the supply stream was in the hands of the opposition. And despite that, Venezuela has made big gains in food security for its poorest citizens.

Inflation, corruption, sabotage, the United States, the government has a lot of challenges. I'm surprised they've been as successful as they are.

[WriteDown]

255. No doubt...

But I still stand by my assertions on price controls and currency manipulation.

[Judi Lynn]

181. Racists can't keep their hands off that photo, but they all forget to include photos of Bush

warming up to his lovable puppet Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan whom has been celebrated for boiling his political prisoners alive:

[EFerrari]

182. We're going to find that the objections to Chavez and Morales are race-based.

The idea that inditos could be smart, effective, out-smart the empire and prosper is just too horrible for a segment of the American public.

Too bad. The brown hords are living better and participating in democracy and that's just the way of the future.

[Judi Lynn]

191. They've learned very well what happens if a powerful nation finds a way to divide and conquer them.

Looks as if they don't feel any temptation to let history repeat itself. More power to them! They've got so many allies within the United States already.

The constant stream of venom from right-wing administrations, amplified by their corporate media will be falling on a lot of deaf ears in the future. Only the ignorant bigots who haven't taken the time to educate themselves on American history in the hemisphere are left to suck it all up.

[WriteDown]

249. Racists?

You've got to be kidding? Are you a supporter of Mugabe?

[Name removed]

190. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[subsuelo]

132. Yes I would gladly have Chavez in power here

I also believe that power anywhere should be questioned and challenged.

But I was really just curious regarding Pilger's movie ... if you've seen it or not.

[LanternWaste]

151. I imagine that works towards each...

"Che Jesus proves your enemy's enemy..."

I imagine that works towards each and every country which is listed on the HRW, yes? If so, it begs the question as to why one country and one country only was specified in the OP rather than all countries guilty of abuses. If not, one wonders, without qualifiers, what the precise and relevant moral differences are.

That we all have biases is without question. However, how and why we advertise those biases do raise intriguing questions...

[Mesteryo]

183. I see the blind pro-Chavez people come out..

HRW is now being accused of being "right-wing", what a joke. Instead of attacking HRW as having a right-wing agenda how about proving what they say is inaccurate.

[LanternWaste]

185. As did the just-as-blind antithesis...

"I see the blind pro-Chavez people come out.."

As did the just-as-blind antithesis...

[EFerrari]

194. I don't think that's really true.

Because Judi Lynn and subsuelo and redqueen and Peace Patriot and I and most of the pro-Chavez folk here READ stuff. We dig for information and turn it over and discuss it -- when the children's table isn't busy disrupting.

If any one of them changed their mind tomorrow, I'd read their post with interest because their position involves informed opinion, not just internet cr@p.

It's one thing to have a preference. It's quite another to cherry pick information to shore up a belief in the presence of reliable reports.

Maybe it's just me but the anti-Chavez posters seem to like potshots where most of us who are interested in the tide of liberalism in Latin America are more interested in what is happening in the region.

It's not even about Chavez, for that matter. It's much more about Latin America being able to stand up once the Pentagon was off their back and abusing the Middle East.

[Judi Lynn]

203. So right! They even take the time to try to flog Evo Morales and Rafael Correa when possible,

and I think I've seen potshots at Fernando Lugo, too, who has only been on board a couple of weeks! They'll be there to flail away at any of the others as soon as any one of them dares to publicly challenge American right-wing lunatic Presidents' right to dominate them in their own countries and control their governments.

You're so precisely right: it's not just Chavez, it's ANYONE who challenges their immoral, dirty, murderous obsession with trying to control the lives of people in other countries, people who are simply none of their business.

Busy body bullies. Not even bold enough to do it themselves, they hope to fan the fires of hatred and ignorance to the point they can inspire lots of young men and women to volunteer to go there in the military and beat them down just because they dared to try to live their own lives without our interferance.

Sounds like very deep, twisted character shortcomings. Right-wingers short on self-respect, short on respect toward their fellow people.

[Mesteryo]

204. I see..

I'm not interested in anything less than democracy for Latin American countries and am sickened by the way the CIA and NSA attacked democrats there. I don't just base my opinions on "internet crap" anymore than you all do.

[EFerrari]

206. When you call the numerous pro-Chavez posters to this thread "blind",

not only are you subscribing to internet cr@p, you are generating it.

[LanternWaste]

335. To be honest....

To be honest you, JL, redQueen, et.al. are the only reason I hit the Chavez threads as I learn more from you guys than I could in a week of watching documentaries or researching the relevant links on my own.

From where I sit, the anti-Chavez posters are no less disingenuous than are the posters on the vegan threads who pop in only to say, "I like meat! It's tasty!".

[EFerrari]

340. I learned a lot in this thread. I had no idea that Vivanco was

some kind of operative with a pattern of this behavior that goes back years and that has left tracks. Now I want to go see if there's anything to the other guy, Wilkinson. Judi Lynn, Mika, Peace Patriot and so many others have accelerated my understanding of Latin America, too, and that is invaluable. :)

[Judi Lynn]

346. The community of people trying to find out creates its own energy, no doubt. I got energized reading

another message board at CNN, which was attended by Central Americans, and South Americans, and Cubans. I started learning in a hurry that I didn't know a thing at ALL. NOTHING. Yet, I had no idea I was so ignorant, either. I had always paid attention to current events, had read a lot, etc., but I started finding out in a hurry that our own corporate media has been very selective, has almost completely ignored EVERYTHING about Latin America for decades. Maybe forever!

We all bring our enthusiasm here, and pool our resources when we don't get too many disruptors trying to keep progress from happening. We are all learning together, aren't we? I have learned so much from things you have brought here and contributed. We're all emptying what we know at the time into our shared space. When enough Democrats are here, we can really get something done, in spite of efforts to prevent it.

Really cool, when you think about it.

We're all going somewhere, and we're all much farther ahead than we were last year. All of us except for those who are here to try to drag it all down, derail it with assertions we are commies, socialists, dictator-humpers, unpatriotic, etc. They aren't learning, they aren't contributing, they are possible dumber than they were last year. :rofl:

[EFerrari]

352. I found this article by Vivanco's "deputy". He apparently covers

(or covered) Venezuela for The Nation. I think that while he gives the impression of objectivity, at bottom his aim here is to repeat the same chestnuts Vivanco does. See what you think:

Chávez's Fix
By Daniel Wilkinson

This article appeared in the March 10, 2008 edition of The Nation.
February 21, 2008


Last year, President Hugo Chávez staked much of his considerable political capital on a national referendum featuring sixty-nine proposed amendments to Venezuela's Constitution. Given that Chávez had won all five national votes he'd faced since he took office in 1999, including the 2006 presidential election, when he garnered 63 percent of the vote, the referendum's defeat in December was a dramatic turnaround. But the outcome was actually the best thing that could have happened, if not for Chávez himself then certainly for the "Bolivarian" movement he has led for more than a decade.

The referendum was the most recent flashpoint in the often high-stakes and always high-decibel struggle that has raged for years between Chávez's supporters and his critics, with each side fully convinced that it is protecting Venezuelan democracy from the other. Unfortunately, the substance of their competing claims has been largely drowned out by polemics that reduce the country's complex political dynamics to a single question: is Chávez a dictator or a democrat? Those who say "dictator" see a military strongman who has exploited high oil prices to buy political support--at home through clientelistic social programs, abroad through gratuitous jabs at an unpopular US President--while seizing control of the country's political institutions. Those who say "democrat" see a charismatic leader of a vibrant popular movement intent on deepening democracy--in Venezuela by empowering the poor, abroad by defying the political and economic dogmas of Washington and Wall Street on behalf of the entire region.

Given the deep disenchantment with democratic institutions that exists throughout much of Latin America today, the political transformation under way in Venezuela deserves to be the subject of a vigorous regional debate. Instead what we've gotten has been more like a shouting match, with the Washington-Caracas mudslinging topping the international headlines. Donald Rumsfeld compares Chávez to Hitler, George H.W. Bush calls him an ass, Pat Robertson calls for his assassination. Chávez, meanwhile, denounces George W. Bush as an assassin, a coward, a drunk, a donkey, a birdie and, most famously, the devil. Condoleezza Rice calls Chávez a tyrant who is "really, really destroying his own country"; Chávez quips that Rice is an illiterate in need of a husband.

Predictably, the diatribes avoid the many knotty questions about Chávez and his presidency. If he is such a dictator, why has he won so many internationally validated elections? Why have his opponents remained so vocal and active? And why was the opposition able to defeat him in the 2007 referendum? Conversely, if Chávez is such a democrat, why has he embraced Fidel Castro--a full-fledged authoritarian who, for decades, imprisoned his critics and quashed internal dissent--as his mentor and model? Why has he aggressively undermined the independence of the Venezuelan judiciary and concentrated power so heavily in the president's office? And why, most recently, did he use the referendum to seek sweeping powers to suspend due process rights in times of emergency?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080310/wilkenson/single

[Judi Lynn]

374. Oh, boy! Yeouch! I almost made it to the end, but ran out of steam. He's really tricky,

isn't he? Swear words! #^$%&@#!$!! Holy smokes. He was all over the place.

Clearly it's his intention to pull readers "off side," and lure them into thinking he's objective, but inevitably, ka-boom, it all falls to the ground well before he runs out of words. He's one of the best, I gotta admit, sfexpat2000. Wow oh wow.

You know he knows the truth. Therefore he artfully practises to deceive. He weaves just enough significant elements into his piece to lead you to expect he's going to lead to a productive conclusion, after he thrashes around a bit.

Noop. He starts leaving big areas completely misrepresented almost from the first. He's clearly under the influence of a true political outlook which favors the status quo which was in place before the Caracazo in 1989, and the irreversable turn AWAY from control by the oligarchy.

Real misstatements, misrepresentations, glossing over, and complete devaluation of the urgent problems of the vast majority and the necessity the leadership does not revert to the control by the people who destroyed the country for the majority in the first place.

He even understated the number of people who were slaughtered in Carlos Andres Perez's massacre of unarmed, helpless protesters in 1989 by a couple of thousand. Had to downplay the seriousness of that catastrophe.

Still, he did weave enough fragments into it to get one's attention at the beginning, and draw the reader in. (Sil in "The Sopranos" doing the Godfather imitation, "Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in!") The guy is truly determined, and tricky.

Here he is with Vivanco:



Taken on the 19th. Clearly he was prepared for his moment in the spotlight!

That's my quick look. I'm attention disabled as I haven't slept all night, yet, and not totally at my best. I can take another run at it later if it would help.

[EFerrari]

377. You nailed it. He is very seductive.

And when you drill down, his views are Vivanco's

And he "covers" Venezuela for The Nation. :wow:

[Judi Lynn]

378. What a BIG disappointment, then, learning he's their "go to" guy on Venezuela.

Didn't know HRW people also do assignments like writing for magazines. He's REALLY misrepresenting himself.

Cocerning "The Nation," I heard something which floored me, since I have ALWAYS liked and admired Katherine Van Den Heuvel. I don't know what the absolute truth is, but I have been more watchful of them since learning her father, William Van Den Heuvel used to be in the C.I.A. Is that wierd, or what?

Here's a quick google check:

William J. vanden Heuvel - from OSS to Career Ambassador, Bio from Wikipedia - friend of Jimmy Carter, Andrew Young and others

~snip~
William vanden Heuvel worked for both William Donovan and Bobby Kennedy and was very close to Jimmy
Carter, Andrew Young, Victor Navasky and Paul Newman. This hardly qualifies him as some sort of William Casey
CIA clandestine type just because he headed the same foundation as Casey but at a much different time. And yes
worked for Averill Harriman when he was Governor of New York State, but he also advanced the cause of Brown vs.
Board of Education in the State of Virginia and was much opposed by the racist, radical right for that effort and
others like it. He was also active in investigating conditions in the State of New York penal system. He worked closely with my uncle Charles W. Yost when they both were affiliated with The United Nations and vanden Heuvel
actually wrote a chapter in the new book about Yost recounting his recollections of their work at the UN both together and separately. vanden Heuvel was a close friend of both JFK and RFK and he is still alive today. His daughter
Katrina is Editor of The Nation magazine and she is following in her father's liberal footsteps. He would in fact support every effort to find out who killed his close personal friends JFK and RFK in my honest opinion and so would his daughter.

Willial Jacobus vanden Heuvel (born April 14, 1930) is an attorney, former diplomat, businessman and author. He is the father of Katrina vanden Heuvel, longtime editor of The Nation magazine.

Education
Vanden Heuvel was born in Rochester, New York and attended public schools in New York. He is a graduate of Deep Springs College and Cornell University. At Cornell Law School, he was editor-in-chief of Cornell's law review. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1952. He joined Donovan, Leisure, Newton and Irvine as an Associate in 1952, his first law firm.<1>

Career background
As an early protιgι of Office of Strategic Services founder Wild Bill Donovan, vanden Heuvel served at the U.S. embassy (1953-1954) in Bangkok, Thailand as Donovan's Executive Assistant. Afterward, in 1958, vanden Heuvel served as Counsel to New York State Governor Averell Harriman.

He became U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy's assistant in 1962 and was involved in Kennedy's 1964 and 1968 political campaigns. As special assistant to Attorney General Kennedy, vanden Heuvel played the key role in court orchestrating the desegregation of the Prince Edward County school system in Virginia. This action expanded the scope of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision.<2>

In 1965 he joined Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, as Senior Partner, where he practiced international and corporate law. He is currently Senior Counsel to the firm.

In the 1970s, vanden Heuvel, as Chairman of the New York City Board of Corrections led a campaign to investigate conditions in the city’s prison system. He has had a lifelong involvement in the reform of the criminal justice system.

He served as United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as Ambassador to the European office of the United Nations in Geneva during the Jimmy Carter Administration.<3>

Vanden Heuvel has held directorships in a number of public companies. They include: the U.S. Banknote Corporation, Time Warner, Inc., and the North Aegean Petroleum company, and others. Since 1984 he has been a Senior Advisor to the investment banking firm Allen & Company.<4>

Currently he is a director of the American Austrian Foundation and Co-chairman of the Council of American Ambassadors. Since 1984 vanden Heuvel has been Chairman of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a Governor and former Chairman of the United Nations Association, and has written extensively on the United Nations and American foreign policy.<5>

More:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=faa56b508b1885a3a76625f1e9969ac1&showtopic=11932&st=0&p=132342&#entry132342

~~~~~~~~~~~

ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP:
SPONSORED BY CIA's FORD FOUNDATION?

Part 3:

THE NATION INSTITUTE / RADIO NATION / THE NATION MAGAZINE

~snip~
NATION magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel is the daughter of International Rescue Committee board member William vanden Heuvel. NATION editor Vanden Heuvel's father is mentioned in the book THE CULTURAL COLD WAR by Frances Stoner Saunders in the following reference to the CIA-linked Farfield Foundation: "First presdient of the Farfield , and the CIA's most significant front-man, was Julius `Junkie' Fleischmann, the millionaire heir to a high yeast and gin fortune...He had helped finance THE NEW YORKER...`The Farfield Foundation was a CIA foundation and there were many such foundations,' Tom Braden went on to explain...Other Farfield directors included William vanden Heuvel a New York lawyer who was close to both John and Bobby Kennedy."

A short review by Michael Rogin of THE CULTURAL COLD WAR book, entitled "When The CIA Was The NEA," appeared in THE NATION's June 12, 2000 issue. It also made a reference to "small CIA-created nonprofits, especially the Farfield foundation," yet failed to disclose to THE NATION readers that the father of the magazine's editor used to sit on the Farfield Foundation board.

In the 1950s, the Farfield Foundation helped subsidize the activity of the liberal anti-communist American Committee for Cultural Freedom. As the book THE HIGHER CIRCLES by G. William Domhoff noted in 1970: "It seems that in the mid-fifties the head of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom was having trouble getting money for his project. So he wrote to Edward Lilly, a member of a governmental agency for coordinating intelligence and psychological warfare operations, to plead his case. At the same time he wrote to Thomas, asking him to get in touch with Allen Dulles via telephone. Shortly thereafter the American Commitee for Cultural Freedom received $14,000 from the Farfield Foundation and the Asia Foundation...Thomas then wrote to the committee head: `I am, of course, delighted that the Farfield Foundation came through...'" The 1982 book ROOTED IN SECRECY: THE CLANDESTINE ELEMENT IN AUSTRALIAN POLITICS by Joan Coxsedge also observed that: "The CIA is not so crude as to simply hand over money directly. It normally uses wealthy philanthropists such as the J.M. Kaplan Fund and foundations such as the Asia Foundation, the Farfield Foundation and the Hoblitzelle Foundation."

Born in 1930, NATION editor Vanden Heuvel's father apparently served between 1953 and 1954 as the executive assistant to CIA founder William "Wild Bill" Donovan, when Donovan was the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand. In their 1998 book WHITE OUT: THE CIA, DRUGS AND THE PRESS, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair make the following references to the political role that U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Donovan played around the time that IRC board member Vanden Heuvel apparently was Ambassador Donovan's executive assistant:

More:
http://www.questionsquestions.net/feldman/feldman03.html

[EFerrari]

186. Better read the thread. n/t

[Taverner]

195. This is why term limits for the executive branch are a good idea

Just think - if Chavez stepped down after his second term...

[EFerrari]

197. What?! Chavez is serving out his term.

[Taverner]

198. Didn't he change the Ven. Constitution to allow for a 3rd term?

Don't get me wrong - Chavez did a great job at first. I just hope he appoints someone to carry on in his name.

You need new blood. Constantly. Otherwise you get Mugabe.

Mugabe was a good guy at first too...

[EFerrari]

201. No, he didn't do that although, you'd never know from the BushCo press.

And I agree about new blood. :)

[Taverner]

202. Well if he didn't good

The power is going to his head.

Whomever carries on, even if handpicked by him, will not have that problem - for a while...

[EFerrari]

205. This is what happened: His government put up proposals

to extend his term and do other stuff last December.

Ahead of that vote while it looked liked he'd win, our State Department spread the smear that the vote would be illegitimate because not monitored.

It was in the NYTs and spread out from them.

When his proposals lost, all of a sudden, the vote was perfect in the American press.

lol

We have no evidence that his power is going to his head except the reports we get from the same media that has lied to us about so many things. That's one of their memes.

But, I agree that Venezuela has to transition into developing leaders. No doubt about that at all.

[Bacchus39]

242. this is what happened: he lost. rejected by the people of Venezuela n.t

d

[EFerrari]

247. Right. The democratic process worked just fine.

What a cr@ppy dictator he is.

[Mesteryo]

207. The press said no such thing..

n/t

[EFerrari]

208. Really? Why don't you educate me so I can add to the series I wrote

about the embarrassing lies they told?

I'm always open to new information. :)

[Judi Lynn]

210. Apparently you weren't keep a very close eye. They most certainly did.

DU'ers were right on it, day after day, well in advance, discussing it all, comparing notes, sharing articles, etc.

A tremendous amount of U.S. taxpayers' earnings were poured into opposition efforts to derail that effort. Everyone who took the time to stay informed is well aware of that.

[EFerrari]

213. Here's Model Citizen Rumsfeld's OpEd on the day of the referendum

If we can't trust Donald Rumsfeld, who CAN we trust?


The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chávez

By Donald Rumsfeld
Sunday, December 2, 2007; B03

Today the people of Venezuela face a constitutional referendum, which, if passed, could obliterate the few remaining vestiges of Venezuelan democracy. The world is saying little and doing less as President Hugo Chávez dismantles Venezuela's constitution, silences its independent media and confiscates private property. Chávez's ambitions do not stop at Venezuela's borders, either. He has repeatedly threatened its neighbors. In late November, Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, declared that Chávez's efforts to mediate hostage talks with Marxist terrorists from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, were not welcome. Chávez responded by freezing trade with Colombia.

With diplomatic, economic and communications institutions designed for a different era, the free world has too few tools to help prevent Venezuela's once vibrant democracy from receding into dictatorship. But such a tragedy is not preordained. In fact, we face a moment when swift decisions by the United States and like-thinking nations could dramatically help, supporting friends and allies with the courage to oppose an aspiring dictator with regional ambitions.

The best place to start is with the prompt passage and signing of the Colombian free trade agreement, which has been languishing in Congress for months. Swift U.S. ratification of the pact would send an unequivocal message to the people of Colombia, the opposition in Venezuela and the wider region that they do not stand alone against Chávez. It would also provide concrete economic opportunities to the people of Colombia, helping to offset the restrictions being imposed by Venezuela -- and it would strengthen the U.S. economy in the bargain.

The importance of the Venezuela-Colombia clash goes beyond turmoil in the U.S. back yard. The episode can help us understand what's at stake in a new age of globalization and information, an age in which trade networks can be as powerful as military alliances. Extending freedom from the political sphere to the economic one and building the global architecture, such as free trade agreements, to support those relationships can -- and should -- be a top priority for the United States in the 21st century.

Since the first years of the Cold War, 10 presidential administrations have operated within an institutional framework fashioned during the Truman administration: NATO, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the CIA, the Defense Department, Voice of America and the National Security Council. Over six decades, the United States and the rest of the free world have benefited from those institutions, which led to victory in the Cold War and helped maintain international order thereafter.

But with the passage of more than half a century, the end of the Cold War, the attacks of 9/11 and the rise of an Islamic extremist movement that hopes to use terrorism and weapons of mass destruction to alter the course of humankind, it has become obvious that the national security institutions of the industrial age urgently need to be adapted to meet the challenges of this century and the information age.

At home, the entrenched bureaucracies and diffuse legislative processes of the U.S. government make it hard to creatively, swiftly and proactively handle security threats. Turf-conscious subcommittees in Congress inhibit the country's ability to mobilize government agencies to tackle new challenges. For example, U.S. efforts to build up the police and military capacity of partner nations such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to fight al-Qaeda and other extremists have been thwarted over the past six-plus years by compartmentalized budgets, outdated restrictions and budget cycles that force a nation at war to spend three years to develop, approve and execute a program.

The United States has also lost several tools that were central to winning the Cold War. Notably, U.S. institutions of public diplomacy and strategic communications -- both critical to the current struggle of ideas against Islamic radicalism -- no longer exist. Some believed that after the fall of the Soviet Union such mechanisms were no longer needed and could even threaten the free flow of information. But when the U.S. Information Agency became part of the State Department in 1999, the country lost what had been a valuable institution capable of communicating America's message to international audiences powerfully and repeatedly.

Meanwhile, a new generation of foes has mastered the tools of the information age -- chat rooms, blogs, cellphones, social-networking Web sites -- and exploits them to spread propaganda, even while the U.S. government remains poorly organized and equipped to counter with the truth in a timely manner. The nation needs a 21st-century "U.S. Agency for Global Communications" to inform, to educate and to compete in the struggle of ideas -- and to keep its enemies from capitalizing on the pervasive myths that stoke anti-Americanism.

Many existing international institutions are also falling short. The United Nations -- which elected Syria and Iran to a commission on disarmament, Sudan to one on human rights and Zimbabwe to one on sustainable development -- can hardly be considered a credible arbiter of international issues and dialogue. Endemic inertia and corruption threaten to render the United Nations even less effective in the 21st century.

NATO, the great bulwark against communist expansion, could be usefully reoriented toward today's threats to the nation-state system -- global problems that can be successfully dealt with only by broad coalitions of nations capable of efficiently executing collective decisions. By building bilateral and regional partnerships with other like-thinking countries -- such as India, Singapore, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Israel -- NATO could evolve into a diplomatic and military instrument of the world's democratic and capitalist societies.

We also must reinvigorate the structures that support global prosperity. Free trade seems to be slipping out of fashion in Congress and the presidential campaign, with some candidates calling for a "timeout" for free trade and the abolition of current agreements, such as NAFTA and CAFTA. But the world will need a network of trading nations to provide a way to change the circumstances of people in poor nations. Strong U.S. economic relations with the countries of Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East would encourage international development and investment even as they build closer ties among the United States and its allies. The prosperity that trade pacts foster has proved to be one of the most effective weapons against internal instability and international aggression.

Today's global order is threatened not only by violent extremists, rogue regimes, failing states and aspiring despots such as Chávez. It is also threatened by the complacent assumption that our domestic and global institutions, in their present form, can meet these growing menaces.

In the first years of the Cold War, the free world's leaders created the new institutions necessary to prevail against communism. Sixty years later, six years into a new ideological struggle, in the face of new challenges from asymmetric warfare, in an age in which information mixes with weapons of unprecedented lethality, these old institutions by and large remain arrayed to deal with the enemies of the last struggle, not the enemies of today.

Pundits tend to focus on individuals, not institutions. Personalities, after all, garner more headlines than do bureaucracies and agreements. But when institutions no longer serve our interests well -- or, worse, hamper important efforts -- we need to hear more about reform through public commentary, in Congress and on the campaign trail. The next president will face the issue of reforming domestic and international institutions -- and will need to accelerate the efforts begun by President Bush. We can prevail by mustering the same resolve that President Harry S. Truman and others demonstrated 60 years ago.

Donald Rumsfeld is a former secretary of defense.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800_pf.html

[Judi Lynn]

214. Pure evil! Loved his work keeping the American people aware of the facts on Iraq, too!

What a great American. Well, maybe not. Actually, he should be in prison.

Odd idea, running that piece of crap fantasy just in time for the referendum. Clearly he takes people for fools. In some cases, he seems to be justified!

How these treacherous maggots get into the government of perfectly good people is a mystery, isn't it? It's their determination to control others, apparently, that won't let them rest until they've gone as far as they can, done as much damage as possible to the world.

I hope and pray that was his last chance at power, sfexpat2000.

[EFerrari]

219. And here is the symphony of smear that your tax dollars paid for.

And I notice our little friend at HRW chimed in. So predictable. As is this ridiculous claim about the OAS monitoring the vote:

"Both Mr. Chávez, a self-described socialist who has won elections by wide margins, and his critics say opinion polls show they will prevail, suggesting a highly contentious outcome. But departing from its practice in last year’s presidential election, Venezuela did not invite electoral observers from the Organization of American States and the European Union, opening the government to claims of fraud if he wins."

Venezuela did invite them. That's an outright lie. It was a scheduling problem and Venezuela got other monitors. And, BushCo was just FINE with the results when Chavez lost. Yes, the press said that, all of that and much more. We followed it here on DU for mfing WEEKS.

lol

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/world/americas/30venez.html?pagewanted=1&sq=Venezuela%20referendum&st=cse&scp=37

[Judi Lynn]

223. Oh, god! Wouldn't you guess they'd chose Juan Forero to drop that stink bomb!

One of the pathetic three Venezuela oligarchy puppets from the NY Times:
Francisco Toro
Simon Romero
Juan Forero

Another notable NY Times writer:
Judy Miller

Discredited, disgusting.

[EFerrari]

224. It's remarkably similar to the BushCo campaign against Bruce Ivins.

Attack him personally, professionally and politically and hope something sticks.

There's a template somewhere. They have zero credibility with anyone who is paying attention.

[billyoc]

237. Vivanco is a thug and HRW is completely disreputable.

Vivanco has long been an advocate of foreign manipulation of Venezuela.

You shouldn't let the name "Human Rights Watch" fool you any more than you should let Bush's "Clear Skies Initiative" fool you.

[High Plains]

241. Criticisms of HRW...from Wikpedia, for what it's worth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Human_Rights_Watch

[bdab1973]

257. Ugh...this is pathetic

You know...it seems that anyone and anything that's anti-GW Bush these days suddenly becomes popular and "right", regardless of their principles. Are there people within HRW that might have a political agenda? Sure, so do 100% of the people on this message board. Is HRW suddenly a "right wing" organization or supporter of Bush's policies? No. They have solidly been critical of US actions in various parts of the world (Gitmo, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc etc).

I find it extremely disappointing that so many people that supposedly embrace liberal ideals such as personal freedom and rights will jump in line behind leaders such as Chavez and Putin. Do the opponents of such men deserve criticism? Sure. But that can hardly justify the positions these leaders take and the ideals they embrace. Just because both of them are highly critical of the Bush Administration alone does not justify cheering them on to victory.

Simply put, both of those guys are power hungry ego maniacs that prop up their own versions of self-righteousness. HRW's report is accurate in that anyone who is so much as critical of the Chavez government is immediately labelled as either a US agent, criminal element attempting to undermine Chavez's revolution, or someone out to rob the Venezuelan people, and summarily banned from participation. Putin, likewise, is a power broker, and replaces outright paranoia with brutal repression (political enemies suddenly get sick and die, etc). Neither leader accepts criticism from anyone, and if anyone dares to point out flaws in their governments, they are dealt with one way or the other.

I truly believe that every government should embrace constructive criticism. Neither of those leaders accept criticism, and work actively to limit or eliminate criticism, and further their quest to centralize their power base to make it even more difficult to institute change. None of those attributes are good ones, and none of them represent free liberal societies, no matter how you try to dress it up in a "revolutionary" banner.

I think it's SAD that so many people on this board that consider themselves progressive and support the ideals of questioning government suddenly drop all those thoughts and stand in line behind Chavez and Putin like little school kids, and salivate over every word those guys utter from their mouths as though it's gospel. Perhaps HRW's report is flawed, but there's quite a bit of truth in it as well. No, Chavez's government isn't "disappearing" people, but they are wholesale banning opponents from free discourse in their own country. THAT is the ROAD to having people disappeared, and if no one wakes up and realizes it, it'll be too late.

I'm a vocal critic of GW Bush, but that DOESN'T obligate me to be a supporter of Chavez or any other regime that claims it's a "liberal revolution". Last I checked, I have the FREEDOM to have opinions I want to have regarding forms of government, and the comments I've read on this thread make me sick to my stomach because it's obvious so many are chucking their principles out the window when it comes to Chavez.

Screw Chavez...if he really stood for reform, liberalism and free thought, he wouldn't need to deport a simple HRW spokesman.

[Zorro]

261. What bdab1973 said

Good post.

[EFerrari]

264. Good, fact free, baselessly opinionated post. I knew you'd like that.

lol

[Zorro]

265. Sing, toadie, sing

Sing about how Hugo's expulsion of HRW's director proves that he's a champion for free speech.

[EFerrari]

266. Thank you for yet another illustration. I couldn't do it without you.

:)

[Zorro]

275. Demonstrating selective amnesia again, as usual

The FACT that Saint Hugo expelled the HRW director clearly shows how tolerant he is of dissenting opinion.

So sing sing sing about what a champion he is of freedom again, will ya?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[EFerrari]

278. When someone arrives in your country and tries to inject money

into your elections and tries to manipulate your media, that's not free speech, is it?

"We do not fight terror with terror." -- HC

[EFerrari]

263. You discredited yourself as soon as you put Chavez and Putin

in the same phrase.

You are the one jumping in line, friend, not the informed posters here questioning the bias and the timing of HRW.

[bdab1973]

316. That's not the intent of the post...

I know that Chavez and Putin are NOT the same. I would say that Putin is far worse than Chavez. HOWEVER, it was my point to demonstrate that so many people here on this message board have run to the defense of both leaders. During the Georgian crisis, I saw lots of posts that were essentially cheering Putin on, just because Georgia is backed and supported by the US. So that suddenly means his invasion was justified and his methods of maintaining power are good? That's what I was getting at...I think you are simply missing the point and trying to find whatever cracks in my post you can to prop up your preconceived notion that Chavez is a progressive, freedom-loving leader.

Imagine if HRW's people where detained and carted out of the US after presenting the report on civilian Afghanistan deaths...you and I both know we'd be hopping mad and I'd consider that an example of suppressing dissent. But if Chavez summarily deports any and all HRW personnel because of a simple report critical of his government, he's "defending freedom"???...RIGHT.

[Judi Lynn]

317. You're out of your league attempting to launch an attack on sfexpat2000 who has been completely

involved in information on Venezuela for YEARS, has been posting here intensively with a group of very informed (not people laboring with "preconceptions") DU'ers through each and every crisis arising after ever assault launched by the _Bush administration and _Bush puppets.

Your attempt to devaluate sfexpat2000 is contemptible, as you surely have no idea what you're talking about.

You should spend your time getting educated on the subject so you actually understand what it is you're attempting to discuss here. You look feeble brandishing your insults toward someone who clearly knows far, far more than you about the subject through both personal involvement in research, to the maximum, and intelligence.

[Zorro]

342. Another singing toadie

Complete with the patronizing "we know more about Venezuela than you do because we google the internets" argument.

For someone who has never been to South America, you certainly have an unjustifiably high opinion of your opinion.

[EFerrari]

372. And another scholarly, illuminating post from Zorro. n/t

[EFerrari]

321. Ejecting foreign propagandists is not suppressing dissent.

BushCo has been using NGOs to kill democracy in Latin America for years. HRW in Venezuela has about as much to do with watching human rights as the American Heritage Institute has to do with American heritage. And if you read down thread, you'll see that the individual that was expelled has been disrupting in Venezuela for quite a while.

If Iran sent a director of one of their charities here to denounce the American government, he wouldn't be allowed to operate for years. He'd be put on the next plane home.

It may be that in this instance you are the one harboring preconceptions. It happens.

[AlphaCentauri]

341. I see your point, US backed governments can't do wrong

[IndianaGreen]

345. May I point out that it was Georgia that first attacked the autonomous region of South Ossetia

and that Russia merely came to the aid of the South Ossetians, none of which are complaining about being rescued from Georgian tanks.

[IndianaGreen]

262. Point by Point Rebuttal on HRW false accusations against Chavez

Remember that the same people opposing Chavez, and their American allies, are the ones supporting the mass transfer of wealth from the working class to the super rich, e.g., Wall Street bailout, neoliberal policies in Latin America.

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/

[WriteDown]

270. By the Venezuela Information Office?

Really? REALLY? I also hear that Fidel is still alive. :rofl:

[EFerrari]

272. So, in you considered opinion, Venezuela should not speak out in

her own defense?

lol

[WriteDown]

273. Of course it should...

But I have a little more faith in HRW than in govt spokesman. I hear the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are strong too. :rofl:

[EFerrari]

279. You live in a faith based world, apparently. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

295. And you choose to believe the same government that has been lying to us for 8 years?

You know what that makes you...

:dunce:

[EFerrari]

299. It's so weird. Maybe Jason Blair does have a journalistic career ahead of him.

:dunce:

[fascisthunter]

325. Thank You!

[EFerrari]

268. Interesting 2004 article from NarcoNews on Vivanco

when he criticized Venezuela, in the run up to an election, for a new law regarding impeachment of Supreme Court justices -- a law very similar to the US process.

Human Rights Botch: Vivanco & Venezuela

Posted by Al Giordano - June 17, 2004 at 3:04 pm

José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch today launched a media-attention-seeking attack on the Venezuelan government for a new law providing a process for impeachment of Supreme Court justices in that country. He held a press conference in Caracas, barking highly charged words in a report titled Venezuela: Judicial Independence Under Siege.

Vivanco and Human Rights Watch are now on record opposing a U.S.-modeled impeachment process for Supreme Court justices in Venezuela. The timing - two months before the August 15 referendum in that country - is obviously a partisan attempt to meddle in electoral politics.

Perhaps Vivanco and his bureaucrats should have done a little bit of research on the United States Constitution and American History before demonstrating such ignorance about democratic principles.

Before this essay is done, we will hear from Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt - whose stated principles on the appointment and impeachment of Supreme Court justices HRW has now gone against with this maneuver - on this question. But first let's consult a more recent U.S. president who spoke on this issue… Gerald R. Ford… Four years before becoming president of the United States, Republican Congressman Gerald Ford spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives, calling for the impeachment, under the provisions allowed by the U.S. Constitution, of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/al-giordano/2004/06/human-rights-botch-vivanco-venezuela

[Judi Lynn]

281. This is really good. Vivanco has become Captain Ahab! Has been on the trail for years.

~snip~
The title of the Human Rights Watch report creates an impression that, prior to the presidency of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela had "judicial independence." That is a knowingly false statement, because in the text of the report, Vivanco and HRW admit that it never has had it. Their cruel joke against human rights is revealed by the inflammatory, knowingly false, language they use against a new judicial reform law in Venezuela.

The HRW report claims:

The new law, which President Chávez signed last month, expands the Supreme Court from 20 to 32 members. It empowers Chávez’s governing coalition to use its slim majority in the legislature to obtain an overwhelming majority of seats on the Supreme Court. The law also gives the governing coalition the power to nullify existing judges’ appointments to the bench.

Fact Check: The Venezuelan judicial impeachment process is virtually identical to that in the United States (a process about which the beltway-based Vivanco has been wholly silent for the entirety of his career). No authentic democracy can survive without the checks and balances that allow removal of court justices by Congress.

The United States constitution also provides for use of a "slim majority" to appoint Supreme Court Justices. (Remember the U.S. Senate battle over the nomination of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas? Only fifty-percent plus one vote was required to install him: the same exact process that the hypocrite Vivanco attacks in Venezuela.).

With less than two months to go before the historic August 15th referendum (to recall or ratify the term of President Hugo Chavez: the voters will decide), Vivanco and Human Rights Watch's partisan political agenda stands naked. Instead of praising Venezuela for being the only country on earth that allows citizens to recall their president, and that has recently shown its commitment to that process, Vivanco is throwing tomatoes at a process that, although it exists in many other countries including the United States, he and his organization have remained totally silent about in other lands.

~~~~~~~~~
We've been watching him, with curiosity, trying to figure out just from where, and WHOM he's taking his orders, or if this is simply his own pet project, undertaken as his own mission to curry favor with his foundation's financial backers.

[EFerrari]

269. NarcoNews: Vivanco says okay for US to fund Venezuela opposition.

Vivanco Wants Foreign Money in Venezuela Campaign
Posted by Al Giordano - July 15, 2004 at 11:52 pm
Human Rights Watch "Americas Division" chief José Miguel Vivanco falls deeper down the slippery slope of anti-democracy lobbying now with his claim that foreign government funding of partisan electoral groups in Venezuela is okey-dokey by him.

First, a reality check and public service announcement for those who might not be familiar with United States campaign finance laws:

If you want to make a donation to the campaign of George W. Bush in the United States (we're not recommending it, for the record) and you go to Bush's website and click "donations" and you will find that, before you can give him money, you have to affirm:

"By clicking on this box I acknowledge that contributions from corporations and foreign nationals are prohibited."

Likewise, if you want to make a donation to the campaign of John Kerry in the United States (neither are we recommending this) go to Kerry's campaign website and click "contributions," and there you will have to affirm:

"I confirm that the following statements are true and accurate:

1. I am a United States citizen or a permanent resident alien...

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/al-giordano/2004/07/vivanco-wants-foreign-money-venezuela-campaign


lol

[Judi Lynn]

282. More on Vivanco's approval of foreign funding of the Venezuelan opposition:

~snip~
Those who have violated these laws against foreign contributions have been prosecuted in the United States…
As this 2000 interview with Federal Elections Commissioner Danny McDonald on the U.S. State Department website states:

Q: There is a ban on contributions to candidates from foreign nationals. Why is that?
A: I think it is very strongly felt that it simply is not right for foreign nationals to be involved in the U.S. political process. Clearly it is a very sensitive area and one that, over time, people have felt very strongly about.

It is a complete ban. It even goes to state and local elections, which is unusual, because we normally do not regulate state and local elections. But the theory is very straightforward, which is that foreign nationals simply should not be determining American politics.

Interesting that we all have been aware of these details for ages, and do our homework, and have a grasp of the issues. I remember studying this information right after it was published, and feeling sick that Vivanco was operating like this, a true loose cannon with no checks whatsoever impinging his pronouncements, all of it trumpeted as the god's truth. He has been given a blank check to issue any old crappola they hatch among themselves, and the corporate media (stenographers) are more than happy to blast it around for the dependably uninformed rightwingers to feed upon.

[EFerrari]

283. I've never really thought about him or read about him before.

But, he seems to have a history of encouraging exactly what the Venezuelan government is objecting to -- meddling -- in their media and in their elections.

Where have we seen that before? :shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

284. He's WAAAY over the line in his approach to his job. He's strictly political,

unfortunately attached to an organization people automatically expect to be completely neutral, unbiased.

He went berserk when Venezuela got its own non-oligarchy tv station:

Vivanco Attacks Telesur: "The Airwaves Are Falling!"

Posted by Al Giordano - July 17, 2005 at 9:05 am

~snip~
Instead, Vivanco's ideological myopia has him running scared - invoking the name of God to help him! - worried not about how the concentration of media power in the hands of a few coup plotters in Venezuela has historically led to widespread human rights abuses and censorship, but about the anti-democracy elite's loss of its monopoly over the airwaves.

With his latest statement, Vivanco, again, places Human Rights Watch against free speech, against a free press, against an open society, and in favor of restricting public discourse only to those voices allowed on the airwaves by the wealthy.

More:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/al-giordano/2005/07/vivanco-attacks-telesur-quotthe-airwaves-are-fallingquot

On edit: forgot to include my at-no-cost-to-you photo of that fine HRW director:

[EFerrari]

285. Their NYC address bounces, which is interesting. The DC address

still seems to be good.

[Judi Lynn]

287. Thought they were permanently in New York City. This IS odd. n/t

[EFerrari]

271. PR Watch on the RCTV spin, note Vivanco quote:

Venezuela and RCTV: Censorship or Broadcaster Responsibility?

Source: Washington Post, January 18, 2007

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez will not renew the broadcast concession of Radio Caracas Television's (RCTV's) current owners.José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch called the decision "clearly a case of censorship" meant "to punish a medium for its opposition to the government." The Venezuelan government has faulted RCTV's racy telenovelas as indecent daytime programming and says the TV station actively supported the 2002 coup, which resulted in several deaths. RCTV "encouraged the <2002> protests and, once Chavez was ousted, celebrated his removal," reports the Washington Post. "But when the interim government that replaced him began to collapse, RCTV and other stations blacked out the news -- which the government says was done to keep Venezuelans from rising up against the coup organizers." Writing from Caracas for CounterPunch, George Ciccariello-Maher says the non-renewal "is simply not about free speech." Venezuela's "media responsibility law" is in line with broadcaster responsibilities in other countries, he says. Ciccariello-Maher also points out that RCTV "broadcasts will continue," but its concession "will instead be granted to either another private corporation, a mixed public-private corporation, a collective of workers, or some other combination."

http://www.prwatch.org/node/5655

[EFerrari]

274. Cockburn: The Gang's All Here (2004)

snip

"The imperial script calls for a human rights organization to start braying about irregularities by their intended victim. And yes, here's José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch. We last met him in this column helping to ease a $1.7 billion US aid package for Colombia's military apparatus. This time he's holding a press conference in Caracas, hollering about the brazen way Chávez is trying to expand membership of Venezuela's Supreme Court, the same way FDR did, and for the same reason: that the Venezuelan court has been effectively packed the other way for decades, with judicial flunkies of the rich. I don't recall Vivanco holding too many press conferences to protest that perennial iniquity."

[EFerrari]

286. Sorry -- here's the link:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040712/cockburn

[Judi Lynn]

288. That one's for subscribers, but this Nation cache link should work:

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:b8lhSUbMG3gJ:www.thenation.com/doc/20040712/cockburn+Venezuela:+The+Gang%27s+All+Here!&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us

[EFerrari]

289. Thanks, and here is the one at counterpunch:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06262004.html

[Judi Lynn]

292. Oh, god. Remember this article so well. Do you recall Antonio Gil, of the polling group,

Datanalysis? From this article, something that would make a maggot gag:

One of its contributors is José Antonio Gil of the Datanalysis Polling Firm, most often cited for US media analysis. The Los Angeles Times quoted Gil on what to do: "And he can see only one way out of the political crisis surrounding President Hugo Chávez. 'He has to be killed,' he said, using his finger to stab the table in his office far above this capital's filthy streets. 'He has to be killed.'"

And, a real shocker:

Media manipulation is an essential part of the script, and here, right on cue, comes Bill Clinton's erstwhile pollster, Stan Greenberg, still a leading Democratic Party strategist. Greenberg is under contract to RCTV, one of the right-wing media companies leading the Venezuelan opposition and recall effort. It's a pollster's dream job. Not only does he have enormous resources against an old-fashioned, politically unsophisticated poor people's movement, but his firm has something comrades back home can only fantasize about: control over the Venezuelan media. Imagine if the right wing controlled almost the entire media during Clinton's impeachment. That's the situation in Venezuela. Just think what Greenberg's associate, Mark Feierstein--a veteran of similar NED efforts in ousting the Sandinistas in the 1990 elections--can do with this kind of totalitarian media control. NED? That's the National Endowment for Democracy, praised not so long ago by John Kerry, who, like Bush, publicly craves the ouster of Chávez.

There's so much which we didn't know at the beginning, and efforts to read through all this were overwhelming. I recall reading this way back then, but there was too much coming at us, and I couldn't retain it all. This is simply unbearable, isn't it?

Now we can see how it became so easy for Clinton to get immersed in right-wing Colombian oligarchy support, since he was involved up to his eyebrows already in the same element in Venezuela. It's a horror show. Wonder if he'd do this again, after what he has learned.

If Clinton's strategist, Stan Greenberg sounds familiar, it may be his connection to James Carville, with whom he ran the election campaign for the Bolivian U.S.-educated Presidential candidate, Gonzalo Sanchez de Losado, "Goni." Here's the online running of the documentary about that campaign:


http://onebigtorrent.org/torrents/3512/Our-Brand-is-Crisis-2005

Information

"We must own crisis and we must brand crisis." So says advertising consultant Tad Devine in this insightful documentary. Rachel Boynton's excellent, probing documentary goes behind-the-scenes to show the manipulation and orchestration that is involved in big-time political campaigning. OUR BRAND IS CRISIS follows members of the consulting firm of Greenberg Carville Shrum to Bolivia, where they have been hired to help controversial candidate Gonzalo "Goni" Sanchez de Lozada reclaim the presidency. With only a few weeks left before the election, consultants Jeremy Rosner, Stan Greenberg, and James Carville work their magic, softening Goni's liberal image and shaping his message to appeal to the masses. In his typically audacious fashion, Carville delivers some of the film's most unforgettable quips. Meanwhile, the unemployment situation is threatening to spark a full-fledged national riot, raising the stakes even higher. Boynton's film is edited at a brisk, taut pace, adding drama to the already tense proceedings. An insightful after-the-fact interview with Rosner provides even greater context for the horrific situation that unfolded a year later and which, in fact, opens the film with a bang. Enlightening, engaging, and thought provoking, OUR BRAND IS CRISIS is a vital, profound work of nonfiction cinema.

http://onebigtorrent.org/torrents/3512/Our-Brand-is-Crisis-2005

~~~~~~~~~~
You may recall after they got him elected, his administration gunned down more than 80 protesters, and he had to leave office, and Bolivia has tried to get him and a cabinet member back to stand trial. Really smooth work, huh?

October 16, 2003
Bolivian Leader Offers Vote to End Protests
In an effort to placate the organizers of growing street demonstrations who have been demanding his ouster, President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada announced late Wednesday that his government would call a referendum seeking approval of natural gas exports, the main cause of the unrest.

Since the middle of September, peasant, labor and student organizations have been marching to demand the cancellation of a government plan to ship natural gas to the United States through a $5 billion pipeline project.

According to human rights groups, more than 80 people have been killed in increasingly violent clashes between protesters and the heavily armed troops that Mr. Sanchez de Lozada has dispatched to restore order.

But the two main leaders of the protest movement immediately rejected the government's belated referendum offer, saying that Mr. Sanchez de Lozada's responsibility for the bloodshed required him to resign immediately.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE6DC173EF935A25753C1A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=

[EFerrari]

332. And it's these policies that result in the murder of innocents

that some try to excuse as "protecting American interests".

Maybe these American interests? There really are two Americas.

[TankLV]

300. SURE they do...and I don't believe them for a NANOSECOND...

stop pushing this CRAP...

you're like a BROKEN CLOCK - always repeating the same CRAP...

I trust Judilynn's accessment...

you're is getting TIRING now...

[burrowowl]

303. HRW does not have a sterling reputation

Trust Amisty more.

[BeHereNow]

304. Pav, I love you but... you SERIOUSLY need to read Gatekeepers of the Left

by Charles Shaw.
HRW is NOT our friend.

BHN

[Pavulon]

309. This thread got way out of control

I expected the few who believe hugo walks on water, and wanted their opinions. Who expected ww3..

[BeHereNow]

310. Been there- I know how you feel.

I rarely start threads these days for that very reason.
Hell, I just posted on another one that attracted the lowest
common denominator smart ass rhetoric.
Sometimes I think DU has morphed into a
Bill O'lielly chat forum.

Hang in there-
BHN

[clixtox]

315. We learned how corrupted HRW is in regards to Venezuela!!!

Did you...

[Pavulon]

323. SO who is NOT corrupt. Since we killed this source

as neo con, bush aligned, evilness where can one go to get good info?

Hopefully hugo will setup a state run ministry of information I can use for information.

I am in caracas and coro twice a year (not for political reasons) as well as other LA countries. Your citgo dollars have not been distributed evenly to all the people. Well if they did it has not moved people out of striking poverty.

[Judi Lynn]

338. Hasn't ended poverty in a country which took CENTURIES of abuse by the oligarchy

to get there in the first place?

Who on earth do you imagine would put much weight in that comment, considering the fact Venezuela's had a MASSIVE poor population living with grotesque conditions to endure thanks to the greedy, grabby, racist scum who seized the country and exploited its resources and its people relentlessly.

[Pavulon]

348. Contrast with the UAE, or other gulf arab states

still petro states. They were fucked over by the british but seem to do very well. Standard rent a car, mercedes G or E series.

Wealth distribution seems a bit more effective there. All hugos bullshit is to distract the people from the fact that their cut of citgo dollars pouring out of the US is not going to them..

We do not run his social programs, they have a massive mess. Migs are nice but dont feed people.

He is playing a shell game to distract people, and spin his base up.

[EFerrari]

359. You mean, the thriving democracies in the Gulf?

:wtf:

[Pavulon]

362. No countries that make money from OIL sales

swedes, russia is huge but is obviously not kicking wealth down like the swedes do.

There seem to be two models, even distribution and then some way that endears loyalty.

[EFerrari]

369. LOL! I typed an answer and the mods moved the thead.

The Chavez government has put a lot of dough and focus in diversifying and in rebuilding infrastructure, for one thing.

Do they buy loyalty? Do you know any political org that doesn't try to? But, they've done a lot of things they didn't have to do if buying loyalty is all they were after. Everything from faciltating home ownership to hot meals in schools to medical care. But, it's more than that. They've mounted a huge adult literacy program so people could read their own Constitution and participate in their own government. They've organized community councils so the people could determine how their social programs are run. It's much easier to cut a check, isn't it -- hand out hush money? Or to put up an expensive program and just sit back and take credit for it.

They aren't doing that.

[IndianaGreen]

371. I suppose rice bowl Christians are okay, but rice bowl Marxists are not

I had two of my comrades return from a trip to Venezuela they took last year to attend an international youth congress. Except for the elites, and their private schooled teens, everyone else is energized and empowered by the Chavez reforms and social outreach programs.

No accident that Cuban doctors providing free healthcare to peasants and workers are referred to as terrorists by Condi Rice. I assume Ms Rice sees nothing wrong when our School of the Americas graduates murder peasants and labour organizers in the name of the American people.

[EFerrari]

373. Right -- the SOAs grads are future freedom fighters

for the next time Exxon or United Fruit or Coca Cola needs some help defending their rapine.

[IndianaGreen]

365. The royal families in the Gulf have done well, but their people are exploited

and their rights denied.

Chavez has invested in the people and social programs, something that the elites in Venezuela (or in America) won't do.

[Pavulon]

370. Agree on Gulf Arab HR

however they do have a very structured way of distributing income from oil sales.

[redqueen]

331. I don't believe Hugo walks on water. You're twisting things in your head

in order to tell yourself it's okay to ignore people's opinions, just write them off without considering what's actually being said... that's not helping anyone.

[Pavulon]

353. I have read hundreds of posts

in this thread, thousands by the primary content producers on this subject. I have considered their position, and parts of it are quite true.

However I do not agree with all their positions. Over years I have posted that Hugo appears to be consolidating his control of the government sectors. When he steps aside in a non putin way I will change my mind.

I do not ignore people, do not use an ignore list , ever. I just do not agree with them across the board.

If we all held the exact opinion this would be very boring and nothing would be learned.

I learned that people here consider HRW useless and will dismiss content from them. Now the question is do they dismiss ALL content from HRW or just this content? See where I am going?

[ronnie624]

333. This thread is filled with links

to a considerable amount of information. You should avail yourself of it instead of wasting your time posting one-liners, ad hominem attacks, non sequiturs and other such inanities. It would be an excellent remedy for ignorance.

At least you created a situation whereby people can learn the truth about HRW and Venezuela, if they don't mind investing some time and effort into reading. For that, thanks.

[MinM]

318. All democrats throughout should rally to defend democracy in Latin America.

Threat to Democracy in Latin America

20/09/08 "The Guardian" -- On September 10 President Evo Morales of Bolivia declared the US ambassador persona non grata. On September 11 (the 35th anniversary of the military overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile) the president of Venezuela asked the US ambassador there to leave the country. President Hugo Chávez believed he was facing the possibility of an imminent coup d'etat in which he said the US administration were involved. President Morales believed that his government was facing serious destabilisation which was also being fomented by the US. A third country, Paraguay, announced 10 days previously that it had detected a conspiracy involving military officers and opposition politicians.

Latin America now faces its most serious crisis since the reintroduction of democracy at the end of the 20th century. The plot against democracy in Venezuela centred on a conspiracy, revealed in telephone conversations between senior military officers broadcast on national television, to assassinate the democratically elected head of state. In Bolivia, the separatist prefects of the five eastern and southern departments have begun a campaign of violence and economic sabotage designed to destabilise the democratic regime.

These events show unequivocally who defends democracy and who threatens it today. We are appalled by the failure of much of the international media to provide accurate and proportionate coverage of these events. All democrats throughout should rally to defend democracy in Latin America.

Signed: Harold Pinter, John Pilger, Tony Benn, Ken Loach, Jean Lambert MEP, Ian Gibson MP, Kelvin Hopkins MP, Billy Hayes, General secretary, CWU, Bill Greenshields

[EFerrari]

322. Thanks for posting this!

[Vidar]

319. Pure, unadulterated bul;lshit, par for the course from CNN!

[Pavulon]

326. CNN is not source...They linked to information

published by HRW. HRW has been sourced here to address violations by US aligned nations in LA and has now been discredited when it is convenient to those who see hugo as a messiah.

[fascisthunter]

324. Ahhh yes... the Neo-Con agenda is Thriving well on DU

I had no idea the Democratic Party supported such propaganda.....

[Pavulon]

328. The Democratic Party

supports the interest if the United States. It has and will continue to do so. A brief reviews of governments we tipped will show that ALL administrations have taken place in this process. But that is not the content of the HRW report. They address our violations in detail in a much bigger report!

All this is BULLSHIT being thrown by some posters to AVOID addressing the content of this report from HRW.

Lets start on chemtrails, aliens, and wiretapping.

[Name removed]

329. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[redqueen]

330. Are you saying that toppling leftist governments is in the interest of the United States? (nt)

[Pavulon]

347. No

I am saying the US has a history of toppling governments that were believed to be working against our interest. This is a historical fact.

I believe the US will topple governments that it believes are working against its interest. This has been long standing history under every administration.

These acts have had mixed results...Leaning towards failures in general.

[IndianaGreen]

337. By US interests, you and your ilk mean to say US corporate interests

American workers have nothing in common with the Venezuelan elites.

[Pavulon]

343. My Ilk..nice Books are cool

that way you can educate yourself. During the cold war people were directly killed by the cia under presidential order. diem is one name out of dozens. Every president has used CIA to kill or topple governments. Presidents authorize these actions, not ceos.

If hugo does something odd like host a russian presence his name will go on that list. These are not beliefs, we are not in church operating on faith. This is clearly documented history.

This is and has been policy of the United States under control of both parties. That is fact.

We are not the world socialist party, the US will (should) act in the interest of its citizens. That is my opinion. Right now hugo is no threat to the us. He is a joke, running a petro state. Unless he causes a geopolitical problem he does not need to be on the radar.

If he did not talk so much he would be as unknown as the president of nigeria, another petro state.

Again the HRW report should be the topic, a former coup leaders government is on the table for discussion.

[Judi Lynn]

339. The Democratic Party is legendary in its support of the working man/woman. It's the party which

has withstood wave after wave of filthy assaults and smears from the right-wing imbeciles, as they branded Democrats as communists, liberals, "humanists," atheists, perverts, etc.

It was the Democratic Party which has endured constant attacks from the slow witted and wildly hateful Republicans who despised Franklin D. Roosevelt, bitched and howled every minute he was in office, and raged about him even up to this very moment, who never gave up their hate campaign against John F. Kennedy, and all the social activists, who were Democrats. Who can forget the McCarthy witch hunt, and all the lives destroyed by that piece of filth before he died of alcoholism?

Your claim to represent Democrat falls on incredulous ears here, mark my words.

[Pavulon]

344. History is nice,

so instead of listing the people Kennedy authorized the CIA to kill under his administration I will agree with your position.

That is all a screen of off topic history to avoid the content presented by HRW that the Jonestowners here refuse to see.

I know you are not naive or stupid enough to believe that the POLICY was not enforced by all administrations. Who do you think ran CIA operations? That means killing people, outright during the cold war. This is not a debatable point. It is also NOT THE POINT OF THE DEBATE.

The Democratic Party should be working in the interest of US workers FIRST. Caracas is not impacting us all that much. The government and party will put our interests first.

HRW is the point, the point here is their claim that Hugo is consolidating power.

[EFerrari]

355. The content of HRW's report boils down to Vivanco's same old complaint:

Hugo Chavez is in power and so is his party. On that point, they are right. That is true.

They make this point by distorting the state of the judiciary, the unions and the media. That's what they have done for years. That is not new and you have to ask yourself, why was this report (that contains no new conclusions) released five months early and at this moment, no less, when there has been yet more evidence of dirty tricks in both Venezuela and Bolivia and possibly, in Peru?

Dirty trickery by CIA or other agents of American / multinational corporate interests is precisely the point here. That's what you're lookin' at. They've been trying to demonize and isolate Chavez for years, to weaken him personally, as they have been doing to Morales in Bolivia. It's attempted assassination by other means. But, they're failing. They're going to have to use a real bullet because not only have they failed to knock out Chavez, they have united Latin America in the process. Epic fail.

[Pavulon]

361. Simple Question

Who is an accepted source for Human Rights information in the region?
Is all HRW content now null and void, including content on US operations in Iraq and Gitmo?

[EFerrari]

364. I think up thread, more than one person suggested Amnesty International

and the International Red Cross. And having said that, do you really suppose no state actors would have an interest in skewing those reports, too? These people probably have to fight to stay as neutral as they manage to be.

HRW has done itself harm through its behavior towards Haiti and towards Venezuela. I'm still going through the links in this thread to find out if the problem is more systemic than that. You might want to do the same. There's a lot here.

/oops

[Judi Lynn]

363. Thanks so much for bringing up the release date. I was wondering about that, and thinking,

shouldn't they be releasing their OTHER reports, as well. Now I goddamned GET IT! Good lord. Timing is everything, isn't it?

Thanks, again. This is big.

[EFerrari]

366. It is big, and I thank the OP for this thread because without it,

I would have missed this whole episode. :wow:

[Pavulon]

368. Enjoyed reading your posts

I have tried to be polite to the people who have different opinions. I respect them and enjoy content you and judy post.

Others are not as nice as you guys, this thread got way to big but I would have enjoyed more conversation with you guys and a few others.

Regards,
Pav

[EFerrari]

376. It's hard to stay civil when so many of us have such good reflexes.

lol

Here's what I learned from your thread:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/I-Can-t-Believe-It-s-Not-H-by-Elizabeth-Ferrari-080922-709.html

Thanks.

[IndianaGreen]

349. Who is behind HRW?

In response to that handful of DUers that are peddling a fatally flawed HRW document on Venezuela, let's take a look at HRW.

Who is behind Human Rights Watch? (2004)

Paul Trenor

Under President Clinton, Human Rights Watch was the most influential pro-intervention lobby: its 'anti-atrocity crusade' helped drive the wars in ex-Yugoslavia. Under George W. Bush it lost influence to the neoconservatives, who have their own crusades. But the 'two interventionisms' are not so different anyway: Human Rights Watch is founded on belief in the superiority of American values. It has close links to the US foreign policy elite, and to other interventionist and expansionist lobbies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Human Rights Watch operates a number of discriminatory exclusions, to maintain its American character, and that in turn reduces internal criticism of its limited perspective. Although it publishes material in foreign languages to promote its views, the organisation itself is English-only. More seriously, HRW discriminates on grounds of nationality. Non-Americans are systematically excluded at board level - unless they have emigrated to the United States. HRW also recruits its employees in the United States, in English. The backgrounds of the Committee members (below) indicate that HRW recruits it decision-makers from the upper class, and upper-middle class. Look at their professions: there are none from middle-income occupations, let alone any poor illegal immigrants, or Somali peasants.

Human Rights Watch can therefore claim no ethical superiority. It is itself involved in practices it condemns elsewhere, such as discrimination in employment, and exclusion from social structures. It can also claim no neutrality. An organisation which will not allow a Serb or Somali to be a board member, can give no neutral assessment of a Serbian or Somali state. It would probably be impossible for this all-American, English-only, elite organisation, to be anything else but paternalistic and arrogant. To the people who run HRW, the non-western world consists of a list of atrocities, and via the media they communicate that attitude to the American public. It can only dehumanise African, Asians, Arabs and eastern Europeans. Combined with a tendency to see the rest of the world as an enemy, that will contribute to new abuses and continuing civilian deaths, during America's crusades.

<snip>

HRW Council

The Human Rights Watch 'Council' is primarily a fund-raising group. However, its members no doubt expect some influence on HRW policy, for their $5 000 minimum donation. The Council describes itself as "...an international membership organization that seeks to increase awareness of human rights issues and support for Human Rights Watch.
At first Council membership was secret, but the list is now online: it partly overlaps with Board and Advisory Committee members. The interesting thing about the Council is that it shows how much HRW is not international. It is Anglo-American, to the point of caricature. The Council is sub-divided onto four 'regional committees'. You might expect a division by continents (the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia-Pacific). But instead the 'regions' of the HRW global community are New York, Northern California, Southern California, and London. There is also a three-person 'Europe Committee At-Large' but it does not appear to organise any activities.

Although Human Rights Watch claims to act in the name of universal values, it is an organisation with a narrow social and geographical base. If HRW Council members were truly concerned about the welfare of Africans, Tibetans or eastern Europeans, then they would at least offer them an equal chance to influence the organisation. Instead, geographical location and the high cost restrict Council Membership to the US and British upper-middle-class.

http://the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=4397

[Pavulon]

351. Messenger killing is not new..

All this other crap below pretty much negates your post, the real question:

What is acceptable source for information on Human Rights information and News from Latin America?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Human_Rights_Watch

Look at this content towing the line for the US. I mean documenting torture and other stuff I am sure the government wants out there.
http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usa_torture

http://www.hrw.org/doc/?t=usa_torture

Seems everyone has a bitch about their "agenda".

The report cites the cases of two detainees facing trial on war-crimes charges _ Salim Hamdan and Mohammed Jawad. Human Rights Watch notes that the men's lawyers say the prisoners are so traumatized by their confinement they may not be able to aid their own defense.

The 56-page report, "Locked Up Alone: Detention Conditions and Mental Health at Guantanamo," urged the military to provide more language classes, recreation time and opportunities for detainees to speak with their families overseas by telephone.

sourced here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=116x9841

[IndianaGreen]

354. You using wiki as a primary source?

After all the RW editing of wiki regarding Palin and history?

[Pavulon]

357. Wiki has footnotes..

those are good. Wiki is a collection of sources, not a primary source of information. Some of what I sourced was direct from HRW who also lists named sources.

Who is my source, who should I use for information on LA Human Rights and News?

[Judi Lynn]

367. Wingers get on Wiki, and sit on it like birds hatching eggs. They do not let ANYONE get in to make

the obvious changes needed, consistant with REALITY, to get the text accurate again. Sad.

[EFerrari]

356. Thanks for this. n/t