Chavez Smells like Uribe... who saw that one coming? hmmmm

romy says on Sep 20, 2008, 22:42:

See:

Venezuela: Rights Suffer Under Chávez
Political Discrimination and Weakened Institutions Define Presidency

(Caracas, September 18, 2008) – In its efforts to counter political opposition and consolidate power, the government of President Hugo Chávez has weakened democratic institutions and human rights guarantees in Venezuela, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

Political discrimination

Discrimination on political grounds has been a defining feature of the Chávez presidency.

The Chávez government has engaged in wide-ranging acts of discrimination against political opponents and critics. At times, the president himself has openly endorsed acts of discrimination. More generally, he has encouraged the discriminatory actions of subordinates by routinely denouncing his critics as anti-democratic conspirators – regardless of whether they had any connection to the 2002 coup.


The courts

Another defining feature of the Chávez presidency has been its open disregard for the principle of separation of powers – and, specifically, the notion that an independent judiciary is indispensable for protecting fundamental rights in a democratic society. After the 2002 coup, the most damaging blow to the rule of law in Venezuela was the political takeover of the Supreme Court by Chávez and his supporters in 2004, which effectively neutralized the judiciary as an independent branch of government. Since the 2004 takeover, the court has repeatedly failed to fulfill its role as a check on arbitrary state action and safeguard of fundamental rights.


The media

The Chávez government has undermined freedom of expression through a variety of measures aimed at reshaping media control and content. Venezuela still enjoys a vibrant public debate in which anti-government and pro-government media are equally vocal in their criticism and defense of Chávez. However, by expanding and toughening the penalties for speech and broadcasting offenses, Chávez and his legislative supporters have strengthened the state’s capacity to limit free speech, and created powerful incentives for critics to engage in self-censorship. It has also abused the state’s control of broadcasting frequencies to intimidate and discriminate against stations with overtly critical programming.


Organized labor

The Chávez government has sought to remake the country’s labor movement in ways that violate basic principles of freedom of association. It has fired workers who exercise their right to strike, denied workers their right to bargain collectively and discriminated against workers because of their political beliefs. Through its systematic violation of workers’ right to organize, the Chávez government has undercut established unions and favored new, parallel unions that support its political agenda.


Civil society

The Chávez government has pursued an aggressively adversarial approach to local rights advocates and civil society organizations. During the Chávez presidency, rights advocates have faced prosecutorial harassment, unsubstantiated allegations aimed at discrediting their work, and efforts to exclude them from international forums and restrict their access to international funding.


The report provides detailed recommendations to the Venezuelan government to reverse the damage done by its policies and to strengthen the country’s human rights protections. These include seeking to restore the credibility of the Supreme Court through a ratification process for all justices who were appointed after the 2004 court-packing law and establishing a new autonomous agency to administer broadcasting frequencies.


“Chávez has actively sought to project himself as a champion of democracy, not only in Venezuela, but throughout the region,” the report observes. However, “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.”

(http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/09/18/venezu19844.htm)




A Decade Under Chávez
Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela
(http://hrw.org/reports/2008/venezuela0908/)

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romy says on Sep 20, 2008, 22:46:

A bit like

* “Every time a security policy to defeat terrorism appears in Colombia, when the terrorists begin to feel weak, they immediately send their spokespeople to talk about human rights. … These human-rights traffickers must take off their masks, appear with their political ideas and drop this cowardice of hiding them behind human rights.” – September 8, 2003, addressing the military high command

* “Many of those who attack the government saying that the president is a paramilitary, basically what they are is enraged that the president attacks the guerrillas. They are not able to say that they defend the guerrillas, and that they are very bothered because the government is fighting them. They should be more authentic, more sincere.” – November 19, 2006

* “[In the early 1990s some demobilized ex-guerrillas] simply took off their camouflage, put on a suit and came to Congress wanting to teach the country about morality. Some have done it well. Others, unfortunately, went from being terrorists in camouflage to terrorists in business suits.” - February 3, 2007

* “I am very worried that the guerrillas’ political friends, who live here constantly posing as political enemies of yankee imperialism, frequently travel to the United States to discredit the Colombian government, for two purposes: the purpose of keeping the Free Trade Agreement from being approved, and the purpose of suspending the aid. … [These are] friends of the guerrillas, politicians who want the guerrillas to triumph in Colombia, but lack the authenticity to call for it openly.” – April 19, 2007

* “You’re biased to the guerrillas and everyone in Colombia thinks that.” - May 2007, addressing Human Rights Watch/Americas director José Miguel Vivanco at a dinner with members of Congress in Washington.

* “Behind this woman is Gonzalo Guillén, who has dedicated his journalistic career to slander and lies.” - October 2007. Uribe responded to a book published by Pablo Escobar’s onetime girlfriend, which alleged that the young Uribe helped Escobar, by attacking Guillén, a reporter for the Miami Herald’s Spanish-language sister paper. Guillén said that he hadn’t even read the book in question.

* “The only thing you do is shield yourself in your rights as a journalist, so that in my case you can wound me with lies. Enough of this cynicism behind your quote-unquote ‘journalistic ethics.’” - October 2007, to Daniel Coronell, a columnist for Colombia’s largest newsmagazine, who has probed questions about the president’s alleged past relations with narcotraffickers and paramilitaries.

* “May they not make the mistake there [in Bogotá] of electing mayors supported by the guerrillas.” - October 2007, before voters went ahead and elected opposition-party member Samuel Moreno, who has no ties whatsoever to guerrillas, to serve as mayor of Bogotá.

* “I have wanted to fight for a safe, prosperous and equitable country. The trap of the power of terrorism in its death agony - to which justices of the Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice have lent themselves - does not appear to have a judicial solution.” - June 26, 2008, referring to the Supreme Court’s questioning of the 2004 constitutional amendment that allowed the president to run for a second term, which only passed a congressional committee with the vote of a legislator who was bribed.

* “It is important that the justice system investigate what manipulations of witnesses have been carried out by [opposition legislators] Sen. Piedad Córdoba or Sen. Gustavo Petro. It is very important to do that.” - August 11, 2008, charging that allegations tying the president’s political allies to paramilitary death squads are the product of the political opposition’s manipulation of witnesses.

* “What we have here is … ‘trafficking in witnesses.’ - August 25, 2008, accusing the Supreme Court of trying to build a false case linking him to paramilitary death squads.

http://www.cipcol.org/?p=670

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romy says on Sep 20, 2008, 22:47:

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Ken says on Oct 1, 2008, 20:59:

Farc el Farc. Todos de los Farc tienen cullos rotos.

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