The Devil's Excrement

From the international society for human rights:

 “A new wave of fascist and Stalinist national socialism is going around in Latin America, with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro playing the role of Commissars in Chief, the same way it went around Europe for decades last century. Those that fight for the integral respect for human rights, anywhere in the planet, can not remain impassive facing this new cycle which returns us to medieval servility”

Signed among others by: Vitautas Landsbergis, Alexander Soljenitzyn, Lech Walesa and Václav Havel.

From the international society for human rights:

 “A new wave of fascist and Stalinist national socialism is going around in Latin America, with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro playing the role of Commissars in Chief, the same way it went around Europe for decades last century. Those that fight for the integral respect for human rights, anywhere in the planet, can not remain impassive facing this new cycle which returns us to medieval servility”

Signed among others by: Vitautas Landsbergis, Alexander Soljenitzyn, Lech Walesa and Václav Havel.

As a woman is killed in Machiques, near Maracaibo, and evidence of torture and repression continues to flourish in Venezuela, the Government continued to deny and ignore the outcry. From the Minister of Defense Gen. Garcia Carneiro, who accused vocal critic and reporter Marta Colomina of being a “terrorist” and called her a foreigner despite her Venezuelan nationality, to Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel, who denied the pictures below saying there is no torture in Venezuela, the charade and grotesque pantomime continues.

Rangel was quite his offensive self. After his former friend and co-founder of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party, Pompeyo Marquez,  challenged him to speak against the repression, reminding him of their friend Alberto Lovera, killed by the military in the 60’s with a shot in the back, much like Jose Vilas was killed this week, he accused Marquez of switching sides. The charge actually was quite cynical, if anything it is the cynical Rangel who is now on the side of the repressive and criminal military that is currently in command in Venezuela.

But if Rangel was pitiful, MVR Deputy Tarek William Saab came very close to justifying the violations of human rights saying that nobody speaks about the nine National Guardsmen who are injured. Thus, in the mind of Saab, a one time human rights defender,  nine injured guardsmen justify the deaths of the ten Venezuelans as well as the more than one thousand injured that a week of military repression has left in Venezuela. Quite grotesque for a politician who rose through his defense of human rights and actually has occupied the Chairmanship of the Human Rights Commission of the Venezuelan National Assembly!

Meanwhile, the resignation of the country’s Ambassador to the United Nations Milos Alacalay, created quiet am international stir.  Alcalay resigned because he said he could no longer represent a country in which Human Rights were being violated. He said:”As representative in front of the United Nations, organization which exercises a primary responsibility in their promotion, protection and defense of human dignity, I can not be indifferent when in my own country human rights are not respected.” Adding “The international community has seen with amazement the incredible military repression joined by the repression of the political police”. The consequent loss of human life, injured, disappeared, and political prisoners without trial are taking place, while women and children are threatened by a brutal and unacceptable primitive reaction of the authorities or those that have given them instructions”.

The reaction by Chavez’ lackeys was immediate. Using the same “use and dispose” strategy that has been so common in the last five years, Alcalay was immediately branded a traitor, a pro-Carmona Ambassador who benefited from the IVth. Republic. According to Saab, Alcalay was still in his post out of Chavez’ respect for his service to his country and called him a hypocrite. Of course, no explanation was given for the fact that he still held one of the most important posts in the Foreign Service.

Alcalay’s courageous resignation has had a huge impact. He resigned from the United Nations, with widespread international coverage. He went on the offensive, holding interviews for CNN, which were broadcast with videos of the repression. Ironically, his resigantion had more of an impact internationally than the OAS saying the signatures to request Chavez recall were actually there.

Hopefully, Alcalay’s act will only be the first of many to come. As Janette says in one of the comments, Chavismo is not a monolithic force. There are some decent people there. Not Saab, not Rangel, not Garcia Carneiro. This is the first crack in the façade that may end up bringing the house of cards down. Let us hope the negotiations going on reach a decision that will lead to peace and elections Let us hope we can have peace and democracy back soon.

As a woman is killed in Machiques, near Maracaibo, and evidence of torture and repression continues to flourish in Venezuela, the Government continued to deny and ignore the outcry. From the Minister of Defense Gen. Garcia Carneiro, who accused vocal critic and reporter Marta Colomina of being a “terrorist” and called her a foreigner despite her Venezuelan nationality, to Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel, who denied the pictures below saying there is no torture in Venezuela, the charade and grotesque pantomime continues.

Rangel was quite his offensive self. After his former friend and co-founder of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party, Pompeyo Marquez,  challenged him to speak against the repression, reminding him of their friend Alberto Lovera, killed by the military in the 60’s with a shot in the back, much like Jose Vilas was killed this week, he accused Marquez of switching sides. The charge actually was quite cynical, if anything it is the cynical Rangel who is now on the side of the repressive and criminal military that is currently in command in Venezuela.

But if Rangel was pitiful, MVR Deputy Tarek William Saab came very close to justifying the violations of human rights saying that nobody speaks about the nine National Guardsmen who are injured. Thus, in the mind of Saab, a one time human rights defender,  nine injured guardsmen justify the deaths of the ten Venezuelans as well as the more than one thousand injured that a week of military repression has left in Venezuela. Quite grotesque for a politician who rose through his defense of human rights and actually has occupied the Chairmanship of the Human Rights Commission of the Venezuelan National Assembly!

Meanwhile, the resignation of the country’s Ambassador to the United Nations Milos Alacalay, created quiet am international stir.  Alcalay resigned because he said he could no longer represent a country in which Human Rights were being violated. He said:”As representative in front of the United Nations, organization which exercises a primary responsibility in their promotion, protection and defense of human dignity, I can not be indifferent when in my own country human rights are not respected.” Adding “The international community has seen with amazement the incredible military repression joined by the repression of the political police”. The consequent loss of human life, injured, disappeared, and political prisoners without trial are taking place, while women and children are threatened by a brutal and unacceptable primitive reaction of the authorities or those that have given them instructions”.

The reaction by Chavez’ lackeys was immediate. Using the same “use and dispose” strategy that has been so common in the last five years, Alcalay was immediately branded a traitor, a pro-Carmona Ambassador who benefited from the IVth. Republic. According to Saab, Alcalay was still in his post out of Chavez’ respect for his service to his country and called him a hypocrite. Of course, no explanation was given for the fact that he still held one of the most important posts in the Foreign Service.

Alcalay’s courageous resignation has had a huge impact. He resigned from the United Nations, with widespread international coverage. He went on the offensive, holding interviews for CNN, which were broadcast with videos of the repression. Ironically, his resigantion had more of an impact internationally than the OAS saying the signatures to request Chavez recall were actually there.

Hopefully, Alcalay’s act will only be the first of many to come. As Janette says in one of the comments, Chavismo is not a monolithic force. There are some decent people there. Not Saab, not Rangel, not Garcia Carneiro. This is the first crack in the façade that may end up bringing the house of cards down. Let us hope the negotiations going on reach a decision that will lead to peace and elections Let us hope we can have peace and democracy back soon.

Some evidence of the torture and repression that we are seeing. Top left,  torture by electric fork, top middle: Diego was hit repeatedly by teh National Guard. Top rigth: Heavily Aremd Naional Guards take away very dangerous suspects. Bottom left: More of Diego’s injuries. Bottom right: Another victim. 

That bastion of left wing student activism. The city of the young and restless, Merida, a student town, whose mainstay and lifeline is the University of Los Andes, has just been militarized. The same city where five years ago the Student Council election was won by the pro-Chavez candidates, who were unable to get more than 30% of the votes in the most recent election, has tonight been taken over street by street, block by block by the military and the National Guard.

That’s the paradox of the Chavez “revolution”, the left and the young are not supporting it. Neither are the left-wing young. Explain that to a European leftist!

At this point, I am more concerned about Human Rights than about referenda or ratifying signatures. What is going on in Venezuela does not and should not take place in any civilized country. There are right currently at least 380  people who have been jailed illegally. I have seen videos of military and National Guardsmen kicking people, without mercy and with hate as they lie on the floor. In one video six guards kick a kid on the floor, over and over. In the other the throw another guy against a car, punching him, the body bouncing back with incredible force.

A TV channel shows a man with a vest that says DISIP (military police) at the entrance of a barrio, his face covered and with an assault rifle shooting at all cars that go by. Pictures of people with severe injuries from plastic bullets are a dime a dozen. Today, a kid’s foot was blown away with a bullet shot from an assault rifle that came from a building (Torre Britanica) that has been occupied by the National Guard for three days. Everyday and additional person dies. Some are simply missing!

There are reports of torture, with the Coordinadora Democrática denouncing massive violations of human rights and citing the names of specific people being tortured. Karla Melo, the daughter of Bandera Roja leader Carlos Melo, says her father is a political prisoner and bravely vows to fight the Government if pushed. A mother describes how her teenage son and friends were arrested, placed in a military prisoner truck with open sides and then repeatedly gassed inside the truck by the National Guard.

Like in some sort of autistic Opera, the Vice-President comes on TV and accuses the opposition of not wanting to go to the confirmation process because of massive fraud, ignoring the OAS/Carter Center statements. The Minister of Infrastructure quantifies the damage done by the protesters, which is less than what the Chavez administration n spends on the mobilization of their people for a march, but fails to tells us how much was spent on tear gas canisters to repress the population or in the new Robocop outfits that the Nazi Onal Guards inaugurated with festive repression last Friday.

And while people are repressed, tortured, disappeared and assassinated, the two men responsible for guaranteeing the respect for the law and the Constitution (Art.285) and Human Rights (Art. 280) are nowhere to be seen. One, the Attorney General/Prosecutor (“Fiscal”) has said nothing since he warned Mayors and Governors to maintain order in their respective areas, while the other, the pitiful People’s Ombudsman, goes to the Supreme Court to ask for an injunction against one Governor and three Majors of the opposition for their omission in guaranteeing the right to safety of the population.

Torture and kill a few so that the majority can be safe? No, they are simply acting as lackeys of Hugo Chavez, and as they leave any sense of morality, if they ever had any, behind, with every additional crime and human rights violation committed, the sink deeper in their complicity with the cesspool of the Chavez revolution.

At this point, I am more concerned about Human Rights than about referenda or ratifying signatures. What is going on in Venezuela does not and should not take place in any civilized country. There are right currently at least 380  people who have been jailed illegally. I have seen videos of military and National Guardsmen kicking people, without mercy and with hate as they lie on the floor. In one video six guards kick a kid on the floor, over and over. In the other the throw another guy against a car, punching him, the body bouncing back with incredible force.

A TV channel shows a man with a vest that says DISIP (military police) at the entrance of a barrio, his face covered and with an assault rifle shooting at all cars that go by. Pictures of people with severe injuries from plastic bullets are a dime a dozen. Today, a kid’s foot was blown away with a bullet shot from an assault rifle that came from a building (Torre Britanica) that has been occupied by the National Guard for three days. Everyday and additional person dies. Some are simply missing!

There are reports of torture, with the Coordinadora Democrática denouncing massive violations of human rights and citing the names of specific people being tortured. Karla Melo, the daughter of Bandera Roja leader Carlos Melo, says her father is a political prisoner and bravely vows to fight the Government if pushed. A mother describes how her teenage son and friends were arrested, placed in a military prisoner truck with open sides and then repeatedly gassed inside the truck by the National Guard.

Like in some sort of autistic Opera, the Vice-President comes on TV and accuses the opposition of not wanting to go to the confirmation process because of massive fraud, ignoring the OAS/Carter Center statements. The Minister of Infrastructure quantifies the damage done by the protesters, which is less than what the Chavez administration n spends on the mobilization of their people for a march, but fails to tells us how much was spent on tear gas canisters to repress the population or in the new Robocop outfits that the Nazi Onal Guards inaugurated with festive repression last Friday.

And while people are repressed, tortured, disappeared and assassinated, the two men responsible for guaranteeing the respect for the law and the Constitution (Art.285) and Human Rights (Art. 280) are nowhere to be seen. One, the Attorney General/Prosecutor (“Fiscal”) has said nothing since he warned Mayors and Governors to maintain order in their respective areas, while the other, the pitiful People’s Ombudsman, goes to the Supreme Court to ask for an injunction against one Governor and three Majors of the opposition for their omission in guaranteeing the right to safety of the population.

Torture and kill a few so that the majority can be safe? No, they are simply acting as lackeys of Hugo Chavez, and as they leave any sense of morality, if they ever had any, behind, with every additional crime and human rights violation committed, the sink deeper in their complicity with the cesspool of the Chavez revolution.