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, http://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."
The rest of the 230-page HRW report is a concoction of greater or lesser-known (usually USA biased) opinions about Venezuela, given some semblance of international respectability by being issued by a supposedly serious guardian of international human rights. Sadly, this is not always so, given the omni-present bias for Washington DC's think-tanks and, more obviously, the care given NOT to otherwise economically to offend the hyper-sensibilities of the organization's central funders...
We can agree or disagree on defining Chavez' presidency as being in open disregard for the principle of separation of powers. and we can agree or disagree on whether or not there has been a political takeover of the Supreme Court by Chavez and his supporters in 2004, which (according to HRW) effectively neutralized the judiciary as an independent branch of government. It's rather like discussing the implications of a Bush nomination of a Supreme Court Judge and what may or may not be seen as Bush's dictatorial control of the US judiciary -- opinion, pure and simple!
We can, however disagree with certain aspects of HRW's claim that the Chavez government "has undermined freedom of expression through a variety of measures aimed at reshaping media control and content." HRW stretches itself to admitting that "Venezuela still enjoys a vibrant public debate in which anti-government and pro-government media are equally vocal in their criticism and defense of Chavez!"
Vivanco, however, shows little understanding for the absence of certain failures or outright absence of Venezuelan laws on libel and slander when he claims that the President has "expanded and toughened penalties for speech and broadcasting offenses" which he claims "have strengthened the state's capacity to limit free speech, and created powerful incentives for critics to engage in self-censorship."
Vivanco harps on the hoary rhetoric of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) when he claims that the Venezuelan State "abuses its control of broadcasting frequencies to intimidate and discriminate against stations with overtly critical programming."
Let's just ignore the fact, for a moment, that RCTV would have been hauled off the air more readily in the United States than it was tolerated in Venezuela for ignoring the Law on Media Social Responsibility by broadcasting filth -- pornography and violence -- at all hours of the night and day regardless of even any thought of moral restraint, never mind legal broadcast responsibilities.
The Venezuelan government (via Conatel and NOT Chavez personally!) refused to renew a free-to-air broadcast license to RCTV when it came up for renewal! Whether or not you agree or disagree with the inevitable decision by Conatel, it had every democratic right to do so!
One can readily discuss the unmitigated crap produced by TVes, which has since replaced RCTV, but the Conatel was within its legal jurisdiction!
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.
Why object to that? Especially since you could be sent to the Federal pen in the United States for an anyway similar sourcing of funds!
Quite rightly, Human Rights Watch opines that President Hugo Chavez "has actively sought to project himself as a champion of democracy, not only in Venezuela, but throughout the region" but then concludes, quite wrongly (my opinion!) that "Venezuela will NOT achieve real and sustained progress toward strengthening its democracy, nor serve as a useful model for other countries in the region, so long as its government continues to flout the human rights principles enshrined in its own Constitution."
So please, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, where should I surrender myself for taking advantage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19) in authoring this somewhat critical article of current affairs in Venezuela's colorful political and economic scene?
...and will I subject to inhuman torture (as alleged by a US Court as excuse for NOT extraditing CIA-killer Luis Posada Carriles) ... or, maybe, I'll even get hung, drawn and quartered for having the incredible audacity to claim that Venezuela remains an incredibly beautiful country with a tremendously welcoming and generous people!
The rest of the 230-page HRW report is a concoction of greater or lesser-known (usually USA biased) opinions about Venezuela, given some semblance of international respectability by being issued by a supposedly serious guardian of international human rights. Sadly, this is not always so, given the omni-present bias for Washington DC's think-tanks and, more obviously, the care given NOT to otherwise economically to offend the hyper-sensibilities of the organization's central funders...
We can agree or disagree on defining Chavez' presidency as being in open disregard for the principle of separation of powers. and we can agree or disagree on whether or not there has been a political takeover of the Supreme Court by Chavez and his supporters in 2004, which (according to HRW) effectively neutralized the judiciary as an independent branch of government. It's rather like discussing the implications of a Bush nomination of a Supreme Court Judge and what may or may not be seen as Bush's dictatorial control of the US judiciary -- opinion, pure and simple!
We can, however disagree with certain aspects of HRW's claim that the Chavez government "has undermined freedom of expression through a variety of measures aimed at reshaping media control and content." HRW stretches itself to admitting that "Venezuela still enjoys a vibrant public debate in which anti-government and pro-government media are equally vocal in their criticism and defense of Chavez!"
Vivanco, however, shows little understanding for the absence of certain failures or outright absence of Venezuelan laws on libel and slander when he claims that the President has "expanded and toughened penalties for speech and broadcasting offenses" which he claims "have strengthened the state's capacity to limit free speech, and created powerful incentives for critics to engage in self-censorship."
Let's just ignore the fact, for a moment, that RCTV would have been hauled off the air more readily in the United States than it was tolerated in Venezuela for ignoring the Law on Media Social Responsibility by broadcasting filth -- pornography and violence -- at all hours of the night and day regardless of even any thought of moral restraint, never mind legal broadcast responsibilities.
The Venezuelan government (via Conatel and NOT Chavez personally!) refused to renew a free-to-air broadcast license to RCTV when it came up for renewal! Whether or not you agree or disagree with the inevitable decision by Conatel, it had every democratic right to do so!
One can readily discuss the unmitigated crap produced by TVes, which has since replaced RCTV, but the Conatel was within its legal jurisdiction!
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.
Why object to that? Especially since you could be sent to the Federal pen in the United States for an anyway similar sourcing of funds!
Quite rightly, Human Rights Watch opines that President Hugo Chavez "has actively sought to project himself as a champion of democracy, not only in Venezuela, but throughout the region" but then concludes, quite wrongly (my opinion!) that "Venezuela will NOT achieve real and sustained progress toward strengthening its democracy, nor serve as a useful model for other countries in the region, so long as its government continues to flout the human rights principles enshrined in its own Constitution."
So please, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, where should I surrender myself for taking advantage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19) in authoring this somewhat critical article of current affairs in Venezuela's colorful political and economic scene?
...and will I subject to inhuman torture (as alleged by a US Court as excuse for NOT extraditing CIA-killer Luis Posada Carriles) ... or, maybe, I'll even get hung, drawn and quartered for having the incredible audacity to claim that Venezuela remains an incredibly beautiful country with a tremendously welcoming and generous people!
Oh the sheer criminality of it all! Oh dearie me!
Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
