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Hundreds of coup opposers--including labor leaders, teachers, human rights workers, peaceful political protesters and gay/lesbian activists--beaten, jailed, raped, tortured, murdered by rightwing death squads. Honduras is a U.S. CLIENT STATE, dependent on U.S. military and other aid, and on remittances, Honduran military commanders trained at the "School of the Americas," U.S. military bases in the country. President Zelaya tries to assert some independence--for instance, by joining the Venezuela-organized ALBA trade group, and by RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE for poor workers at U.S. retailers' sweatshops and on Chiquita farms in Honduras, and the far rightwing allied with U.S. interests boots him out--shoots up his house, drags him out of bed, and puts him on a plane out of the country, at gunpoint, with a stop for refueling at the U.S. air base in Sota Cano, Honduras.
The U.S. State Department, using U.S. taxpayer money through the USAID, including groups like John McCain's "International Republican Institute," then stages an "election" UNDER MARTIAL LAW, in which the coup leaders' choice for president 'wins."
U.S. government contempt for human rights couldn't be clearer--except in Colombia, another U.S. client state ($7 BILLION in U.S. military aid) where THOUSANDS of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, journalists, political leftists, peasant farmers and others have been MURDERED by the Colombian military (about half) and by their closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads (the other half), with nearly complete impunity! The U.S. support for this carnage--for this political death squad/military cleansing--couldn't be clearer. The U.S. government couldn't be closer to, couldn't be more friendly with, couldn't be more supportive of Colombia's bloodsoaked fascist elite!
Widen the lens, and consider the U.S. "shock and awe" bombing of a virtually defenseless city--Baghdad--and the slaughter of some ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND innocent people, in the initial bombing alone, the high civilian toll in Afghanistan, the U.S. death squads running around both countries creating mayhem, and the torture of helpless prisoners in U.S. torture dungeons around the world, and U.S. "concern" about "human rights" becomes the cruelest joke of the 21st century.
We are looking at an upside down, "Alice in Wonderland" world, in which the Nobel Committee gives its famous Peace Prize to a U.S. president who is conducting two wars on behalf of U.S. multinational corporate interests and war profiteers, and, little known by most Americans, a third war in Latin America against political dissidents in Colombia and Honduras--proxy wars funded by our tax dollars, and with tacit U.S. government approval--and then the Nobel Committee turns around and, by implication, criticizes China. U.S. "drones" and assassination squads killing civilians in Afghanistan, U.S. escalation of that war, U.S.-created mayhem in Iraq, with no end to that mayhem in sight because the U.S. deliberately destroyed that country, U.S. dollars supporting the murder of "dissident" civilians in Colombia and Honduras, U.S. failure to hold anyone responsible for huge war crimes--all this is okay, but Chinese human rights violations, oh, that's terrible.
The hypocrisy of both the U.S. government and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is mind-boggling.
President Chavez of Venezuela has three very good reasons for not supporting this egregious hypocrisy:
1. Venezuelan sovereignty--perhaps THE most important issue to the leftist democracy movement that has swept Latin America. Venezuela has a right to its own foreign policy, not dictated by the U.S. And if you don't understand this issue, from Latin America's point of view, consider this: After the Chavez government made trade deals with Iran and invited Iran's president to Venezuela, Brazil did the same! These leaders--Hugo Chavez and Lula da Silva--don't approve of human rights violations--both are big human rights advocates--but they have a RIGHT as the presidents of sovereign countries to negotiate with, trade with and engage in diplomacy with, whomever they wish! Is Saudi Arabia any better than Iran as to human rights? Saudi Arabia is a frigging absolute monarchy, where women have virtually no human and civil rights! Doesn't stop the U.S. from larding that regime with military aid, and making a close ally of it. Is it wrong to negotiate? Is it wrong to trade? Is it wrong to engage in diplomacy? Is it wrong to seek avenues of peace, not war, with Iran--or any other country? No, it is not. It is what sovereign governments do. THAT is the Venezuela government's view of the matter--and it is the majority view in Latin America. No more dictates from the warmongering U.S.--not on Iran, not on Cuba, not on China, not on any matter. Latin America is becoming an independent region. It's not just Venezuela, or Brazil, or Bolivia, or Ecuador, or Argentina, or Paraguay, or Uruguay, or Nicaragua, or other leftist governments--it's all of them--and this consensus even includes center and center-right governments on some issues (such as Cuba).
2. Venezuela's economy. The Chavez government has made big trade deals with China--mostly for oil development and supply--and took out a big loan from China, for development projects in Venezuela. That is Venezuela's RIGHT--to acquire economic partners. And how they handle diplomatic relations with China, in this context, is also their RIGHT. This is no different from the U.S. ignoring human rights violations in Saudi Arabia, because it wants Saudi Arabia's oil and it wants Saudi Arabia as a strategic ally in the Middle East, and it is considerably less offensive than the U.S. larding billions of our tax dollars on the Colombia military--one of the worst human rights violators on earth (with the U.S. having far worse motives than Venezuela's re China--motives that include gross interference in Latin America, on behalf of multinational corporations and war profiteers, up to and including what is very likely a U.S. war plan against Venezuela). Governments are obliged to attend to their countries' economies. It's too bad for us that our government--or rather, our real rulers (the multinationals and war profiteers who control U.S. policy)--neglects and punishes the poor, the workers and the middle class here, in favor of the super-rich, while the Venezuela government acts on behalf of its poor majority, and uses its resources, its good credit and its economic clout to provide jobs, education, health care, local development and many other social/economic benefits.
3. Venezuela's part in regional strategy. We must realize that Venezuela is not alone in declaring its independence from the U.S. There is a strong movement afoot to create a Latin American common market--which the U.S. will not be invited to join if it continues behaving as it has, in Latin America and the world. This movement is strongest in South America, which has made the most strides toward this goal. It is no accident that the hero of this movement is Simon Bolivar--the leader of the independence fight against Spain--who envisioned a "United States of Latin America." Latin American is rich in natural resources, and its many leftist governments have been pouring money into education. This could be "Latin America's Century," so to speak, and they intend to achieve it peacefully through trade (as opposed to the U.S., which got bent toward achieving power through war--i.e., the Bushwhacks' "Project for a New American Century"). It is quite consistent with this overall movement that individual countries, including Venezuela and Brazil, for instance, would be seeking trade, economic deals, financial deals and political/diplomatic ties across a wide spectrum of the world. In the REAL world, such activities often require supporting your economic partners in the public arena--on the world stage--and perhaps seeking change, for instance, on human rights abuses, by means of back channels. I don't know if this is Venezuela's or Brazil's intention--back channel work. Their more visible intention is to prevent a U.S. war on Iran. But opening trade relations provides an opportunity both to prevent war and to influence governments and societies where human rights abuses occur. (If you saber rattle and condemn, condemn, condemn, you get nowhere.) In any case, Latin American leaders want a world in which peaceful trade on a level playing field is possible. They want to become an "economic block" with their own goals and to the benefit of their own people. Venezuela's backing of China on this Nobel Peace Prize issue MUST be seen in this context, because that IS its context. This is no different than Lula da Silva inviting Iran's president to Brazil (and his work to end UN sanctions against Iran). It is part of the SAME goal--multilateral trade, Latin American economic development and collective clout. The Chavez government is acting IN COORDINATION with other leftist leaders to achieve THEIR goals. (Chavez meets monthly with Lula da Silva for this purpose!).
I won't go into the hypocrisy (and bad, bad impacts here) of U.S. trade relations with China. Or the U.S. debt paper that China holds. Or the mistakes or motives of the Nobel Peace Committee. I just want people to understand the REALITY in Latin America (where this position of the Chavez government is coming from) and also I would like people to pay attention to the "divide and conquer" disinformation campaign against the Chavez government by the U.S. State Department and the corpo-fascist press. They want to DIVIDE Venezuela FROM Brazil and other countries, in order to sabotage the movement toward a Latin American common market. The U.S. government--or, rather, the real rulers of the U.S.--still consider Latin America to be their "back yard." They want unfettered access to its resources and they want slave labor for the multinationals. Colombia and Honduras are prime examples of the thrust of U.S. policy in Latin America, which has not changed in six decades.
The corpo-fascist press highlighting this position of the Chavez government and UTTERLY IGNORING U.S. support for the terrible human rights abuses in Honduras and Colombia is just one example of the distortion that we are seeing in coverage of the Chavez government. It may be a legit news item that Chavez is backing China in this dispute. But it is NOT legitimate when you consider what they are IGNORING. This has been true of EVERY issue having to do with Venezuela--twisted, distorted, selective reporting, no background, no context, with huge "black holes" where information should be, and fantastic bias toward whatever the U.S. government is saying, on every front. They pick and choose stories on this basis--to demonize Chavez--and they tell you NOTHING about why Chavez is so popular, nothing about his alliances all over Latin America, nothing of his government's achievements, and nothing of the continent-wide movement of which he is just one leader.
I call it stupid-making 'news' because I think that that is one of its chief aims: To produce stupid Americans, who don't have a goddamn clue what is really going on in the rest of the world, nor who is really running their government nor toward what ends. People who thinking that Hugo Chavez is a "dictator" and Exxon Mobil isn't. People who think that Exxon Mobil believes in competition.
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