The Devil's Excrement

This closes the three Chapters on Hugo Chavez’ Government 22 documented violations of the 1999 Constitution, based on the third part of the article in El Universal:

XIII.- 9/2001 In a ruling by the Supreme Court, the Court interpreted in restrictive fashion the exerecise of freedom of expressionviolating not only the Cosntitution, but also Interamerican Democratic Letter. The full Court also ruled that it decisions were not subject to revision by International Courts in violation of International Human Rights Treaties.

XIV.- 11/2001 The President issued 49 decrees that became law under the enabling bill. However, the Presidency obviated the steps for citizen participation established by The Constitution as well as the consultation required by the Constitution to discuss with all states on matters which may be affected by the bills. Some of these bills violate International Human Rights Agreements.

XV.- 11/8/2001 The Miltary High Command pledged its allegiance to the political process led by Hugo Chavez in a violation of article 328 of the Constitution which says that the Armed Forces may not be partial to anyone and be in the service of the Nation.

XVI.- 12/10/2001 Two Deputies of the National Assembly publicly present telephone conversations made illegal by the Government in violation of the Constitution.

XVII.- 12/10/2001 In a speech the President calls for the blacks and indians to control teh country and says he will use the weapons of the armed forces to deepen the revolution in violation of the Constitution.

XVIII.- 11/04/2002 The President promoted threats against the peaceful demonstrators. Threaten the Supreme Court Justices if they decided against him in any cases. This violated the principle of separation of powers and autonmy of the judicial system.

XIX.- 9/2002 The President issued a decree creating special military areas affecting huge areas to prevent teh free movement of people and in particualr a demonstration which was to take place the next day. This decree affects the right to property guaranteed by teh Constitution and was based on a Law that was no longer valid under Title VI of the new Constitution. It also violated the American Convention by limiting the right to demonstrate and in that it extehnds these security areas to unreasonable levels.

XX.- 9/2002 The People’s Defender adhered to the contents of the decree on special security areas violating the charter that created the position in the 1999 Constitution which says that he is supposed to defend those rights taht were vioalted by the decree.

XXI.- The Government through the President has refused consistently to fulfill the precautionary measures of the Interamerican Commsiion of Human Rights since January 2002 issued to protect reporters in violation of the Constitution and  international agreements on human rights.

XXII.- Chavez’ party has yet to fullfil the Constitutional requirement for political parties to have free elections of leadership. Moreover, Chavez’ MVR party uses public funds for its activites and those of the bolivarian circles. This violates articles 19, 67 and 145 of the Constitution.

Second part of the series being published by El Universal on the violations of the Constitution by the Chavez Government.

7.-6/30/2000 Chavez’ illegally appointed Supreme Court rules that the nomination for the National Electoral Commission do not have to follow the Constitution as long as they are provisional (This provisional status reamin until today).

8.-06/01/2000 The National Assembly approved the new Telecommunications law, which allows the Government to to suspend TV and radio concessions “when it is convenient to the interests of the nation”. This violates all the articles about freedom of information, speech and human rights established in the 1999 Constitution.

9.-06/30/2000 The Supreme Court excludes from being defined as non-Governemnt organizations with the rights given to such institutions by the Constitution to nominate, represent and participate to all organizations that: i) are composed of clerics, ii) foreigners, iii) have received funding from  foreign institutions and iv) are worlwide organizations. This violates the rights given by the Constitution to all people to participate and not be discriminated against.

10.-11/14/2000 The National Assembly approved a law to name Civil Servants and the Supreme Court which violated the procedures established in the Constitution. The Supreme Court (which had an obious conflict of interest) has yet to decide on the Constitutionality of this law.

11.- The President throught his Presidency has abused his power by forcing the media to carry his speeches, sometimes hours long and sometimes many times a week which he has used to attack, disqualify and declare “war targets” personalities and institutions from the media, religious and political groups. He has asked the people not to buy certain newspapers. He cancelled the transmission of TV stations on April 11th. at the same precise time tahat a peaceful march was being massacred by his supporters. In the two days prior to April 11th. he forced the media to carry as many as 20 of his nationwide speeches. These are all obvious violations of the both the current and prior Constitutions.

12.-12/2000 The President actively participated in a union campaign election, refusing to recognize the legality of the results when his candidate lost. The Electoral Commission in violation of international law supervised the process and refused to acknowledge the victor. This violates the Constitution as well as international treaties. To date, the Chavez Government has yet to accept the winner of that election.

Your Majesty                                                          Oct. 14th. 2002

King of Norway

Oslo, Norway

Your Highness

As a Venezuelan I can’t help but be appalled at the news that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will be officially received by you and your Government. I am not sure what type of advice or intelligence your Government has received, but the Chavez Government has consistently violated the human rights of its people during the last three years. Only last week, active military officers had their rights violated by attempts to arrest them without any regards to due process or the Constitution.

Separately, Hugo Chavez, his Vice-President and members of his Cabinet have been accused of crimes against humanity in front of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, unfortunately the Court remains under his controls, despite which the Court has said that there is evidence and has asked the Attorney General to investigate the case further. Unfortunately, more than twenty suits against the President have yet to be processed by the Attorney General’s office.

This weekend Hugo Chavez boasted that he was ready to cut off all TV transmissions during last Thursday’ opposition march accusing them of faking the images which showed over 1.2 million people attended. And they attended despite the many threats of violence by the President himself and some of his supporters. The threats by Hugo Chavez are not new, the OAS has already issued precautionary measures to protect the rights of many reporters. None of these have been implemented by the Chavez administration.

As I said at the beginning, I am appalled and surprised that a Government from a country that has such a tradition of defending and promoting not only democracy but also the sanctity of human rights would welcome our President as a friendly Head of State. While Hugo Chavez was elected democratically, he has proven and shown at each step that he is not. His constant violation of the Constitution, abuse of the media and absolute disregard for those that disagree with him make him a threat to all Venezuelans and a shame on the international community that supports his ability to repress and abuse.

Respectfully Yours

Miguel Octavio

There is no question that Hugo Chavez’ Government knows how to manipulate the media, in particular the international media. Reports in most newspapers abroad say that Chavez’ march was as large as that of the opposition. Nothing is further from the truth. The proof is in the sneaky ads published by the Government in today’s newspapers (Who paid for them?) claiming Government supporters are a majority with a fuzzy picture of Bolivar Avenue filled with people. Curiosly, in the era of digital media, the picture was extremely fuzzy (but in color!) in all local newspapers. The reason? simple, beyond a certain point Bolivar Avenue was simply empty. In contrast on Thursday during the oposition march, not only was the full avenue completly filled with people, but there were people still marching Kilometers away.

According to Alejandro Freites, who is the most serious person in Venezuela when it comes to counting people in marches, Chavez’ march had 93,000 people calculated in various ways, while the same technique yielded 1.2 million for the Government’s march.

What’s curious is that while Chavez maybe fooling the international press, Venezuelans either went or know someone that went to Thursday’s march and can’t be fooled by the President’s statements. If Chavez really believed that his supporters were a majority, he would hold a referendum and just get it over with. The problem is, he knows he would lose and will do anything to stop it, just watch the next few weeks.

For those that say the opposition has to get rid of Chavez via Constitutional means, the following article presents a brief description of the first 6 instance of the 22 most important violations by the Chavez Government of the Constitution, taken from today’s El Universal:

1.-2/2/99. Chavez is sworn in and says “I swear on this dying Constitution…..”

2.-01/19/99 The Supreme Court authorizes a referendum creating an instrument not in the Constitution and not using any of the mechanisms of the Constitution to allow the change.

3.-7/25/99 The principle of proportional representation established in the Constitution is violated when Chavez’ MVR party with only 65% of the votes, obtained 98% of the seats in the National Constituent Assembly which was to change the Constitution.

4.-12/22/99 The Constituent Assembly a week before the new Constitution was enacted decreed a “transition regime’ which ceased the functioning of Congress, legislative assemblies and all other public powers. Then, arguing that the new Constitution had yet to take effect (it had been approved already five days earlier in a referendum on 12/18/99) it created a National Legislative Committee, named the new members of the Supreme Court, the people’s Defender, the Attorney General, the National Electoral Commission and the Comptroller. In none of these cases were the procedures established by the new Constitution followed.

5.-3/24/00 After the publication of the new Constitution on 12/30/99, changes to the original document, not insubstantial, were added without approval by referendum in clear violation of the new Constitution articles 5, and 340 to 346.

6.-1/309/00 The Constituent Assembly approved the new electoral statue of public powers and established the date for the new elections. This implies it assumed powers it did not have and even assmued the functions of the National Electoral Council.

More to come, but as usual I ask: Where were the OAS, Human Rights Watch, the Carter Center and the PNUD then? Power was taken away from the people and that is why we now are trapped in the labyrinth created by Chavez that all possible solutions out of the problem such as impeachment, trial of the President or even an election are in the hands of hardcore Chavez supporters appointed by the Constituent Assembly with no proporational representation. What is this called, a Constitutional kidnapping?

After Thursday’ opposition march Presient Hugo Chavez will hold his own today. So far, it looks to be about 5% the size of Thursday’s march. That march showed the international community that there is real, strong opposition to Hugo Chavez. To have 1.2 million people peacefully demonstrate while the Government threatens, mobilizes troops and claims it is all part of a coup attempt, is a victory for the opposition. Let’s see what that pseudo-Democrat (pseudo-fascist?) Hugo Chavez did yesterday (page D-4), for those that believe that we have to wait until his term ends, because the Constitution needs to be respected:

In a six hour (!!) speech on TV, Chavez spent most of his time encouraging his supporters to participate in his party’s march, talking about the “coup” that was aborted on Thursday (??) and the “hidden agenda” of the march. Somehow, it seems to me to have been the opposite. The Governemnt claimed all along there was a hidden agenda and a coup, but a huge crowd, marched peacefully asking Chavez to resign and/or hold elections. By the way, to have 1.2 million people march in a city with less than 5 million is in itself quite remarkable.

Now comes Chavez’ statements from yesterday’s TV speech:

“we were ready to cut off the signal of TV channels” given the suspicion that that there was a plot to repeat what happened in April. “There were motives”, Chavez said, with what they did like the transmission of what a military officer said the day before”. He accused (page A-1) TV stations of transmitting false images of Thursday’s march and showed an amateur video in which few peopel are visible at the march. (I was there I couldn’t move!!!). He said they had people at the transmission anntenas to cut off all the signals and “in other places, because they have hidden places from which they can transmit, we have them located, I don’t know if all of them, but almost all”. He said that TV stations had a concessions that the State gives them, but “if you dont follow the Constitution and the law, I can have it removed”. Thus, “anytime this happens these channels could be deactivated or retired from the air”

Now, I would like to know what happen to due process, the Constitution and such things? Where is the Carter Center, the OAS and Human Rights Watch today? Is Chavez a Dictator that he can decide on these issues on his own?  He definitely seems to think so. He violates the Constitution daily and nothing happens (more on that in a later post). International support in the last few months certainly has helped him in mantaining this dictatorial bent. Anyone that thinks that I am exaggerating should read today’s statements by a General that was until that day considered a Chavez supporter (page D-5), about what happened before and on April 11th. If this is no proof that the deaths of April 11th. were the responsability of the Chavez Governmenet I dont know what is.