The reasons for the "dictatorship' tag have included
confronting oil monopolies, rejecting US military bases, interfering with the
prerogatives of media monopolies, rejecting IMF programs, rejecting "war on
drugs' programs, and so on. In recent years Washington has (unsuccessfully) tried
coups in each of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, despite winning election after
election, is branded a "dictator' by most of the corporate media. Ecuador's Rafael
Correa is branded a "dictator' for introducing some modest measures of democratic
accountability on the very undemocratic corporate media.
Cuba, with the most far reaching programs of social
inclusion, has been branded a "dictatorship' for decades, because it has a
socialist constitution and its representative democracy does not allow for
capitalist restoration. The pejorative labels attached to
In Syria a secular government which has made substantial
advances for its people and enjoys wide popular support is now targeted as a
"dictatorship'. A US-NATO-Gulf Council plot, begun several years back and now
masquerading as a popular uprising, relies on delegitimation as the foreign
intervention deepens.
The vilification of the Syrian government has cowardly
packs, world-wide, baying for blood. These advocates of "humanitarian
intervention' seemed only partly satisfied, last year, with the pitiful sight
of the Libyan leader publicly tortured and murdered.
Such is the vilification campaign against Syria's legitimate
President, Bashar Al Assad, that the loudest accusations of "brutal dictator' seem
to come from those with the least understanding of contemporary Syria. Bashar Al
Assad is a very long way from the empire's favourites, like Suharto, Batista,
Somoza, Duvalier, Pinochet and Mubarak.
In any case, and in this climate, many forget the founding
principle of both human rights and international law: the right of a people to
self-determination. It is not for outsiders to say who governs another people.
Not for nothing did Ernesto Che Guevara call imperialism an
"insatiable beast', one that could not be trusted "one iota'. Not for nothing
does the 118 member non-aligned movement continually stress sovereignty and
non-intervention - the foundations of international law, but seen as obstacles
to "human rights intervention' in the imperial cultures.
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