Chavez Rejects Report Citing Rights Violations


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that Venezuela should boycott the Organization of American States' human rights body, saying the panel wrongly accused his government of political repression.

Chavez took issue with a report issued this week by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which cited widespread human rights violations in Venezuela. The socialist leader called the 300-page report ''pure garbage'' and described the commission's president, Santiago Canton, as ''excrement.''

''We should prepare to denounce the agreement in which Venezuela joined ... this terrible Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and leave it,'' Chavez said during a televised address.

His threat drew criticism from a local rights activist.

''This is very bad signal,'' said Liliana Ortega of the Cofavic rights group. ''Hopefully, he'll reconsider this decision.''

Local rights activists applauded the report issued by the rights committee, saying it sheds light on widespread rights abuses.

The report released Wednesday at OAS headquarters in Washington complains of a lack of independence for Venezuela's judiciary, the closing of news media outlets that are critical of the government, and political discrimination and repression under Chavez.

''We don't recognize the commission as an impartial institution,'' said Gabriela Ramirez, the Venezuelan government's top rights guarantor. Ramirez said the report incorrectly concludes that ''the Venezuelan state threatens democracy and human rights.''

The report condemned the procedures for appointing and removing judges, saying the regulations ''lack the safeguards necessary to prevent other branches of government from undermining the Supreme Court's independence.''

Government opponents have long complained that the Supreme Court -- whose members are appointed by the predominantly pro-Chavez National Assembly -- has been packed with the president's allies, giving him nearly unlimited power. Chavez denies holding sway over justices.

The OAS commission also called attention to an increase in sanctions against news media, singling out the case of Globovision, a television news network that is fiercely critical of Chavez.

Globovision has been repeatedly fined for allegedly violating broadcast regulations, and Chavez has threatened to shutter the network.

''It is of particular concern,'' the rights commission said, ''that in several of these cases, the investigations and administrative procedures began after the highest authorities of the state called on public agencies to take action against Globovision and other media outlets that are independent and critical of the government.''

The report strongly condemned what it called ''a trend toward the use of criminal charges to punish people exercising their right to demonstrate or protest against government policies,'' adding that more than 2,200 people have been indicted on criminal charges stemming from their participation in protests in recent years.

Carlos Correa, a leader of the Venezuelan human rights group Espacio Publico, welcomed the report. ''It makes the violations that are occurring in Venezuela more visible'' and should attract the attention of the international community, he said.

The report carries more weight than statements from independent rights watchdogs, because it ''comes from an institution made up of the hemisphere's own states,'' Correa added.

In all probability HC is right and the OAS packed with corrupt US officials is wrong!
S.

Chavez says GDP slump heralds death of capitalism
Wed May 26, 2010 8:46pm EDT



* Chavez says rivals are partying at "capitalism's wake"

By Ana Isabel Martinez

CARACAS, May 26 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday that a recession in his Latin American country marked the death of capitalism and had nothing to do with his government's socialist revolution.

The OPEC member's economy is bucking the global recovery trend, with the central bank posting a 5.8 percent contraction for the first quarter of 2010 on Tuesday. [ID:nN25157365]

The increasingly grim macroeconomic environment -- which economists call "stagflation" because the slump has not cooled runaway inflation -- is now a major challenge for Chavez with a legislative election looming in September.

"GDP shrank in the first quarter and the bourgeoisie are having a party," Chavez said, referring to political opponents who blame his policies for the recession.

"They don't realise that the party they are attending is the wake of capitalism ... because the economy that is shrinking is the capitalist economy," he said in a televised speech.

The poor fiscal performance in the first three months, compared with the same period of 2009, had been widely forecast by analysts who expect Venezuela to be the only country in the region to record negative growth this year.

The central bank attributed the contraction mainly to restricted access to foreign currency for imports, lower domestic demand and power rationing -- despite the recovery of crude prices benefiting the region's biggest oil exporter.

"We are going to bury Venezuelan capitalism," Chavez said, adding that his administration would "take from the bourgeoisie control of the money which belongs to all Venezuelans."

After 11 years in power, he blames the economic woes on a global crisis in capitalism and the impact of a traditional elite who he says are determined to drive him from office.

Critics, however, say his socialist economic policies -- including widespread nationalizations, currency controls and pressure on the private sector -- are ruining what should be one of the continent's richest nations, given its oil wealth. (Writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Chavez and ABC both attended the LGM school of economics

Latest campaign by Chavez 'polarizes' Venezuelans
Fri Jun 4, 2010 3:44pm EDT



* Issues threats to nationalize Empresas Polar

By Esteban Israel

CARACAS, June 4 (Reuters) - A passion for locally brewed Polar beer was one of the few things that bound Venezuelans together in the politically fractious country -- until now.

A campaign by President Hugo Chavez against Empresas Polar, the Latin American nation's largest food and drinks maker, is politicizing one of its favorite drinks.

Chavez accuses the conglomerate of billionaire Lorenzo Mendoza of being part of a group of private companies he says are trying to destabilize his socialist government by, among other things, keeping inflation artificially high.

"If you think I won't dare to nationalize Empresas Polar, you are wrong," Chavez said in a televised speech this week. "Get down from your cloud, Mendoza. Here in Venezuela there are no untouchables, no sacred cows."

Chavez's administration has nationalized a wide range of companies in the OPEC member nation. He has lashed out at Polar before, but now his verbal attacks have intensified.

Some analysts see a political motive behind the rhetoric against Polar, the country's biggest private employer.

Chavez faces a crucial test of his support at legislative elections in September, and some experts say he is looking to shift the blame for the woes of an economy that contracted 5.8 percent in the first quarter of this year. [ID:nN25157365]

Previous appropriations and strict currency controls have scared away investors and fueled capital flight.

Chavez has argued that the only way to control prices is to increase the role of state-run companies in the economy.

"If inflation continues to rise, I think Polar might become a scapegoat," said New York-based analyst Boris Segura of RBS. "I think it would be a terrible mistake."

In addition to popular beer brands, Polar makes dozens of products including maize meal used for Venezuela's arepa flatbreads. It also distributes Pepsi-Cola (PEP.N).

Political scientist John Magdaleno said Chavez was running a risk because Polar was part of Venezuelans' mental and social "DNA."

"The potential impact of this is much more serious and more profound than he might believe," he said.

Chavez's supporters have applauded his nationalizations as a way to redistribute wealth in a nation where extreme social disparities remain. Opponents say they are proof he wants to transform the country into a communist regime like Cuba.

"What we are seeing against Polar and other companies is simply a process of the destruction of capital," said Carlos Larrazabal, head of the largest trade union, Conindustria. (Editing by Daniel Wallis and Xavier Briand)

Hugo Chavez Spearheads Raids as Food Prices Skyrocket
Published: Friday, 18 Jun 2010 | 5:18 PM ET Text Size
By: Reuters

Mountains of rotting food found at a government warehouse, soaring prices and soldiers raiding wholesalers accused of hoarding: Food supply is the latest battle in President Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution.


Howard Yanes / AP
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says government-led raids of food markets will reverse exploitation of the poor, whom he needs for political support.
Venezuelan army soldiers swept through the working class, pro-Chavez neighborhood of Catia in Caracas last week, seizing 120 tons of rice along with coffee and powdered milk that officials said was to be sold above regulated prices.

"The battle for food is a matter of national security," said a red-shirted official from the Food Ministry, resting his arm on a pallet laden with bags of coffee.

It is also the latest issue to divide the Latin American country where Chavez has nationalized a wide swathe of the economy, he says to reverse years of exploitation of the poor.

Chavez supporters are grateful for a network of cheap state-run supermarkets and they say the raids will slow massive inflation.

Critics accuse him of steering the country toward a communist dictatorship and say he is destroying the private sector.

They point to 80,000 tons of rotting food found in warehouses belonging to the government as evidence the state is a poor and corrupt administrator.

Jose Guzman, an assistant manager at a store raided in Catia, watched with resignation as government agents pored over the company's accounts and computers after the food ministry official and the television cameras left.

"The government is pushing this type of establishment toward bankruptcy," said Guzman, who linked the raid to the rotten food scandal. "Somehow they have to replace all the food that was lost, and this is the most expeditious way."

Wasted Food

Much of the wasted food, including powdered milk and meat, was found last month in the buildup to legislative elections in September. The scandal is humiliating for Chavez, who accuses wealthy elites of fueling inflation and causing shortages of products such as meat, sugar and milk by hoarding food.

"They are not going to stop us in the plan, which is to give the people what is their right," Chavez said Friday during the inauguration of a supermarket chain the government bought this year from French retailer Casino.

Food prices are up 41 percent in the last 12 months during a deep recession, government figures show, despite the government's growing network of state-run supermarkets that sell at discounts of up to 40 percent and are popular with his poor supporters.

South America's top oil exporter, Venezuela imports about 70 percent of its food and analysts say the economic hardships could give the opposition a boost at the ballot box—although most expect Chavez to retain a reduced parliamentary majority.

Fighting back, Chavez says he is in an economic war against the "parasitic bourgeoisie" that tries to convince Venezuelans that socialism does not work by twisting facts and taking advantage of honest mistakes.

"They know where we are headed, we are going to take from the Venezuela bourgeoisie the hegemony of dominance in this country," Chavez, who calls himself a Marxist, said to applause from supporters on his TV show on Sunday.

He has also revived threats to take over the country's largest private food processor, miller and brewer, Polar.

The president rushed to give public support to Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, who as the boss of PDVSA is also responsible for food unit PDVAL, over the case of the rotting food.

Two former PDVAL managers have been jailed in the scandal, but that has not stifled opposition charges of government incompetence.

A string of expropriations and buyouts of companies during the last couple of years means the government now controls between 20 percent and 30 percent of the distribution of staple foods.

"We are bringing order to prices," Trade Minister Richard Canan told Reuters during the Catia raid. "There are traders who are taking these products to the black market ... That is a crime and our government will continue to target these stores."

No wonder Obama and Chavev are best buddies!

Now is the time to root out the 5th. Column and attack the profiteers!
S.

Bring it on wussy!!!

Concern over Cuba's role in Venezuela

BBC News, Caracas
There's growing concern over Cuba's involvment in Venezuela's military affairs
During recent bicentenary celebrations in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez presided over what he called "the greatest military show in Venezuelan history".

As Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jets screamed overhead, he spoke of how Venezuela would never again be the subject of a foreign power.

On the podium, the socialist leader was flanked by his closest allies including Evo Morales of Bolivia and the Nicaraguan leader, Daniel Ortega.


Fidel Castro has become a father figure for him: Fidel the father, Hugo the son

Professor Demitrio Boersner
Former Venezuelan ambassador
But sitting just behind them was another important ally - albeit one less recognised: Ramiro Valdez.

Comandante Valdez is one of the veterans of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and fought in the Sierra Maestra mountains alongside Fidel and Raul Castro, and Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

Since then he has held a series of posts in the Cuban Government both on the communist island and abroad. Now he is a top advisor to the Chavez Government.

"The presence of Comandante Valdes himself doesn't concern me, but rather what he represents," says Demitrio Boersner, a former Venezuelan ambassador who now teaches at the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas.

"President Chavez has never concealed his deep sympathy with the Cuban model," Professor Boersner argues, saying the arrival of thousands of Cuban medics and teachers in Venezuela is part of a wider effort by Mr Chavez to move the oil-rich nation towards Castro-style communism.

'An ocean of happiness'
"Chavez has referred frequently to Cuba as 'an ocean of happiness' for the common people and that something very similar will be established in Venezuela gradually."

Moreover, he says, the paternal relationship between Mr Chavez and Fidel Castro is crucial:

"Fidel Castro has become a father figure for him: Fidel the father, Hugo the son."

Needless to say, it is not a view which government supporters share. "I think that is a limited vision," says journalist Eva Golinger. "It demeans and underestimates the will and the power of self-determination of the Venezuelan people."

Instead, she says the relationship between Venezuela and Cuba, and for that matter, between Chavez and Castro, is a pragmatic one based on decades of intransigence by Washington.

"Cuba is a country which has provided services and technology (to Venezuela) which other countries haven't been willing to provide," says Golinger, referring to the thousands of doctors in Cuban-run health clinics and the agricultural advisors sent over by Mr Castro.

"In many ways, it's a completely normal diplomatic and socio-political relationship.

I think the cause of controversy is because there has been a shift away from the United States which used to provide a lot of that collaboration -- or so-called collaboration because it wasn't really collaboration at all. It was either imposition or exploitation."

Continue reading the main story
The president speaks of 30,000 Cuban personnel in Venezuela. But I've heard of 50,000 or even 60,000 ... We just don't know.

Antonio Rivero
Former head of Venezuela's civil protection agency
As members of the ALBA group of left-wing nations, Venezuela provides around 100,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba, mainly paid for with Cuban medical staff.

But while the nature of the partnership between the two revolutions has been controversial since Hugo Chavez first paid a state visit to Havana in late 1999, recently it has taken on a new dimension.

Meddling in the military
A high profile general, Antonio Rivero, resigned his post as head of the country's civil protection agency accusing Cuban advisors of meddling in the country's military.

He has taken the matter to the state prosecutor's office.

General Rivero is now a very wary man. He will only speak to journalists via encrypted text messages and meet in public places for fear that he is being monitored. We met in a busy cafe in Caracas.

"There are various areas in which the Cuban advisors are concentrated," General Rivero says, "particularly military engineering, which includes the area of military fortifications.

Comandante Ramiro Valdez represents the deep ties of Venezuela and Cuba
That's where the state's main security equipment, resources, maps and plans are stored. That another country helps plan, carry out and, indeed, correct work at such a sensitive level to national security -- is not something which other countries would allow."

It was a situation, he explains, which ultimately forced him to resign.

"The president speaks of 30,000 Cuban personnel in Venezuela. But I've heard of 50,000 or even 60,000 Cubans working here. We just don't know. The government won't give us the numbers."

In the wake of General Rivero's public resignation, Mr Chavez said the former civil defence chief had been hanging out with the "wrong people" and attacked his expected nomination in the upcoming legislative elections.

President Chavez remains as defiant as ever when it comes to his relationship with Cuba, saying whatever Cubans are doing in Venezuela, it is for the good of the Venezuelan people:

"We have diverse mechanisms of cooperation with Cuba, the most important of which is the thousands of Cuban medical staff in the streets attending the sick and reaching out to the community," he retorted recently.

"Yes, there is military cooperation which perhaps worries the bourgeoisie. Well, the bourgeoisie can rest easy! Everything Cuba does for us is to strengthen the fatherland."