Pablo Navarrete, Caracas: The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) have published a press memorandum in which they argue that Thomas Shannon, who replaced Roger Noriega as the US assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs in October this year, has continued with a hard-line approach towards Venezuela.
On November 17th this year at a Congressional Western Hemispheric Subcommittee’s hearing on the state of democracy in Venezuela, Shannon argued that Venezuela was on a path toward an authoritarian dictatorship united with Iran and Cuba to threaten US national security. To see the original transcripts and a video of the event press here.
Although Shannon's comments regarding Venezuela being "on a path toward an authoritarian dictatorship united with Iran and Cuba to threaten US national security" are clearly not to be taken seriously, what Chávez supporters have yet to explain is why organizations as diverse (and some of them very respectable and independent) as those mentioned in Shannon's report, like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, Human Rights Watch Americas, Foro Penal, PROVEA, COFAVIC, the Center for Human Rights at the Andrés Bello Catholic University, the Inter-American Press Association, Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International and the Andean Commission of Jurists find ominous signs of authoritarianism in Venezuela. Surely not all of these organizations are puppets of American imperialism, one would think.
Posted by: Henry Georget | January 02, 2006 at 02:08 PM
Henry,
I would be interested to know the details of what "ominous" signs those organisations have discovered.
I know LOTS of people who have been to, or lived in, Venezuela in the last couple of years, and none of them report anything that concerned them.
I'm heading out there myself on Friday morning and will be keeping a diary of my events on this blog, so stay tuned to hear my first-hand impressions...
Also, you might like to check out what such organisations (eg. Amnesty etc.) say about the US - I'll think you'll find that the US human rights and corruption record is nothing to be too proud of (the UK too for that matter)...
The fact is that the UK and US have put into power, supported, and continues to support, lots of very nasty people whom act as their imperialist puppets.
Unlike Bush, at least Chavez actually won the Presidential campaign...
I agree with Ani di Franco about the following self-evident truths:
1. George W Bush is NOT President
2. (United States of) America is NOT a democracy
3. The media is NOT fooling me
Warm regards,
Josef.
Posted by: Josef Davies-Coates | January 18, 2006 at 11:17 AM
Josef,
Where do you want to begin? Which of those organizations do you trust?
As a Venezuelan, I also know LOTS of people who live and work there, not tourists. Some of them are in the government, some of them are in the opposition. Many of them report things that concern them. Impressionistic evidence is just that, impressionistic.
As a historian, I not only have a deep sense of Venezuela's past, I know the historical precedents, what is original and what isn't in Chávez's "revolution". I can rely on my personal memory, which goes back to the late 60s, plus my family's memory (my grandmother, who is about to celebrate her 98th birthday, fought for democracy in Venezuela and was a pioneer of feminism and civil rights). So I have a revolutionary "pedigree" of sorts, not to talk of my personal experience in Venezuelan politics in the 70s and 80s. The experiences of an individual can only take us so far. Have you been involved in a car accident? There are different versions of the truth: what driver A says, what driver B says, the passengers, bystanders, etc. The police officer investigating the accident has to weigh all the evidence, and reach the historical "truth", something that none of the participants might recognize as "their" truth.
This is not the place to talk about the US or the UK. This is a blog about Venezuela. I am no friend of Bush or Blair. However, although it can reasonably be argued that Bush did not win in 2000 (he certainly did not win the popular vote, the electoral vote is another matter), I have not seen serious allegations that he did not win in 2004. Have you?
Sincerely,
Henry
Posted by: Henry Georget | January 18, 2006 at 02:11 PM
Henry,
I know this is straying from Venezuela, but in answer to your question...yes, I have heard quite serious allegations that he did not win in 2004. There were many unresolved irregularities, many of which had to do with the electronic voting machines made (without paper trails) and scanners used to count votes-many programmed by companies owned and run by Bush's buddy's-doing things like coming up with total numbers of voters that did not coincide with the number of voters who had signed in to vote; there were many voters turned away at the polls; exit polls disagreeing with final results, always in Bush's favor; counties (one in Florida) who have always traditionally voted overwealmingly Democrat suddenly voting overwealmingly for Bush; the guy in charge of elections (what office is that?) in Ohio also, I believe, running Bush's reelection campaign in Ohio, or something like that (conflict of interest I would say), and promising to deliver Ohio to Bush, making registration very difficult for many Ohio voters by outlawing the paper it was printed on, or something like that, discarded ballots found in the trash while a recount in one Florida county was supposedly occuring, and more. I heard that even John Kerry now feels that he was wrong in accuiessing (this may be a rumor...I must admit that I have not personally researched any of this, so I'm just rattling off what I've heard tell of, but there's a lot...you might want to check out blackboxvoting.org for info about electronic voting machine problems...
Kido
Posted by: kido | January 21, 2006 at 05:02 PM
Well, again, these are allegations that should be carefully examined. There are also allegations about the recall referendum in Venezuela. For example, I am not aware of any election in Venezuela in the last 50 years where all states voted the same. How was Chávez able to win in Zulia and Táchira, traditionally very conservative states? That is a mystery that should also be examined.
Posted by: Henry Georget | January 24, 2006 at 02:51 PM