Is Venezuela a Democracy anymore?

[social_critic]

"Severe Setbacks to Democratic Governance and Human Rights Guarantees in Venezuela"

"December's "Enabling Law" constitutes an illegitimate infringement on the new National Assembly's authority, subverting the will of the electorate" (more below):

http://www.wola.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=viewp&id=1222&Itemid=2

About WOLA:

WOLA's programs seek to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations in Latin America and in the United States to formulate and advocate policies that advance democracy and equitable economic development while protecting human rights.

[spanza]

1. Hey, now the WOLA has become a corpo-fascist source. Too bad!

[Downwinder]

2. "Become?"

[social_critic]

3. He's joking, he knows WOLA's OK

A pretty good organization, tells the truth about Venezuela's enabling law.

[Downwinder]

4. I wasn't. What does the "W" in WOLA stand for? Nuff said.

[Bacchus39]

6. nope, I don't think he was joking. a criticism of Chavez automatically makes them suspect

you shouldn't be surprised by the chavista lapdogs' devotion to their owner.

[Downwinder]

7. Actually, I was thinking more about their Honduras actions.

It is good of you to use the "lapdog" phrase with a discussion of WOLA, pit bull might be more appropriate.

[Bacchus39]

8. take a look at their Honduras section, what troubles you??

I meant lapdog for the chavistas here, and it is an appropriate term.

[Downwinder]

9. WOLA on the Warpath

http://www.quotha.net/node/1391

[Bacchus39]

10. sorry, you'll have to show me the WOLA "transgression" not a blog post

take a look at their Honduras section. they seem pretty much a equal opportunity critic of all governments of the region. that appears to be the problem you have with them.

[Downwinder]

11. Rights Action: An open letter to WOLA

http://www.rightsaction.org/articles/WOLA_sponsors_letter_110110.html

[Bacchus39]

12. here is the WOLA info on Honduras, what is your concern??

http://www.wola.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=sectionp&id=5&Itemid=8&topic_filter=Honduras

is it that WOLA has criticized the Chavez administration?




and here is a quote from the irrelevant link you posted:

While there are many Washington "think tanks" and not-for-profit organizations that receive funding from corporate interests, and take policy positions that favor those interests, WOLA's history and reputation have in the past distinguished it from the Washington political machinery

[EFerrari]

13. A WOLA Gala with Kissinger's Firm ($10,000 a table)

Fri, 10/01/2010 - 17:55 — AP

I really hate to keep having to do this, because people I genuinely like are involved. But the NPIC needs to be called out. There is a Spanish proverb that goes "dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres." "Tell me with whom you walk, and I will tell you who you are." WOLA's aversion to the grassroots has helped it forget this important warning, as was more than evident in its choice of golpista Roberto Flores Bermúdez as its primary adviser on Honduras.

Apparently, despite the fallout from that in Honduras and here, WOLA has not changed its tune. In what universe is it appropriate for an organization that bills itself as a defender of human rights to have as a sponsor McLarty Associates, formerly known as "Kissinger-McLarty Associates"? Click here for WOLA's web invite, or on the image below for a larger version of the sponsor list:

http://quotha.net/node/1224

[Bacchus39]

14. a gala honoring the former President of Chile and displaced Colombians

ok.


again, your trouble with WOLA is simply because they have criticized the Chavez administration. You mean you don't condemn the rule by decree either??????

[EFerrari]

15. You overlook the data and supply your own straw man and, btw,

no, I don't condemn Venezuela's own laws.

:hi:

[Bacchus39]

16. that's your choice, it doesn't affect my choice to condemn repressive measures

WOLA seems quite consistent in their criticism.

you just love Chavez, we all know that.

[naaman fletcher]

17. I notice that nobody

has actually said one thing wrong that WOLA has done. You are correct, many of our friends here are single issue "voters". Every opinion and everyposition is based on "does this help or hurt chavez".

They probably ask that before deciding what cereal to eat in the morning.

[social_critic]

21. I don't eat cereal

I don't know why anybody in their right mind would eat cereal, when they can make an arepa, fill it with fresh guyana or telita cheese and eat it with a glass of orange juice. What we need is a campaign to show americans how to eat right.

[social_critic]

28. They are not Venezuela's own laws

Those laws are not constitutional.

[EFerrari]

5. Seriously. Just look at their board.

lol

[social_critic]

18. Seriously, do you think there are no set backs to human rights in Venezuela?

Let's discuss the subject, rather than shoot the messenger.

http://www.hrw.org/es/world-report-2010/venezuela-0

Human Rights Watch report on Venezuela. This one is in Spanish, but I'm sure you can find the English version if you can't read it.

[EFerrari]

22. More Than 100 Latin America Experts Question Human Rights Watch's Venezuela Report

More Than 100 Latin America Experts Question Human Rights Watch's Venezuela Report
Experts Highlight Exaggerations and Inaccuracies in "Politically Motivated" Study

WASHINGTON - December 17 - In an open letter to the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, over 100 experts on Latin America criticized the organization's recent report on Venezuela, A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela, saying that it "does not meet even the most minimal standards of scholarship, impartiality, accuracy, or credibility." The signers include leading academic specialists from universities in the United States, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and a number of state universities, and academic institutions in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, México, the U.K., Venezuela and other countries. The letter cites Jose Miguel Vivanco, lead author of the report, saying "We did the report because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone..."<1>, as evidence of its political agenda. The letter also criticizes the report for making unsubstantiated allegations, and that some of the sources that Human Rights Watch relied on in the report are not credible.

"By publishing such a grossly flawed report, and acknowledging a political motivation in doing so, Mr. Vivanco has undermined the credibility of an important human rights organization," the letter states.

The letter notes that numerous sources cited in the report - including opposition newspapers El Universal and El Nacional, opposition group Súmate, and a mentally unstable opposition blogger - have been known to fabricate information, making it "difficult for most readers to know which parts of the report are true and which aren't." The letter also argues that the Human Rights Watch report makes sweeping allegations based on scant evidence. For example, its allegation of discrimination in government services is based on just one person whose nephew claimed she was denied medicine from a government program.

The full text of the letter follows:

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/17-2

[social_critic]

23. I looked up some of these "Venezuela experts" who signed the letter

Did so at random, the three guys I checked are low level college professors in the US. Scruggs did spend some time in Venezuela researching afro-pop music.

If you read the material you'll see a very interesting comment, he moved to Merida in the Andes because it's safer - kept his family there for a year while he did his research and traveled around. So he knows enough about Venezuela to realize his children would be in danger if he moved to say Caracas or Barlovento, where the true Afro-Venezuelan music centers are found, and where crime is high and therefore his children would be potential kidnap victims.

I don't find the people who signed the letter to be credible experts regarding Venezuelan human rights. I do see a good probability they were bought and paid for to sign letters as needed. Scruggs, for example, also signed a letter to Interpol which said there was no way the computer found by the Colombian army in Ecuador's FARC camp was genuine.

It may be that Venezuelan cash is being used to buy left-leaning university types in the US and elsewhere to sign letters as needed - and this probably involves letters undermining NGOs which point out Venezuela's human rights situation is not good, as well as letters defending the Venezuelan government when its spoors are tracked by Interpol and other agencies.

Dr William H Watkins

http://williamhwatkins.com/background.html

William "Bill" Watkins was born in Harlem, New York and raised in South-central Los Angeles. A former high school teacher, he completed the Ph.D in 1986, University of Illinois at Chicago. Bill served on the College of Education and Black Studies faculties at the University of Utah before returning to the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1995.

Tim Scruggs

http://www.afropop.org/community/contributors.php?ID=95

Dr. Scruggs is an ethnomusicologist whose geographical specialty is music of the Americas, encompassing Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Latino and other musics in the United States. He directed the Latin American Studies Program at Iowa in 1991-92.

"There had been ties between the University of Iowa and La Universidad de los Andes in Mérida in the Andean region, and that helped us construct a successful Fulbright proposal. Both myself and my wife, Laura Graham, who is a linguistic anthropologist, and our two sons were able to go to Venezuela in October of 2005. Our grant ended in August the next year, but we liked Venezuela and the Venezuelans so much that our kids went along with us and we stayed an extra semester. We came back in January of this year, 2007, and visited again this August.

Miguel Tinker-Salas

http://www.pomona.edu/administration/communications/for-the-media/media-experts/expert-miguel-tinker-salas.aspx

Miguel Tinker-Salas, one of the nation's foremost authorities on political issues confronting Mexico and Latin America, is author of "Under the Shadow of the Eagles, The Border and the Transformation of Sonora During the Porfiriato" (1997). His expertise includes: contemporary Mexican politics, Mexican border society, Mexico in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Latin American history, Chicanos/as and Latinos in the United States, Chicano/a history, Latin American immigration and the Diaspora. He is fluent in both Spanish and English.

[EFerrari]

24. Baloney. All you have are wild claims and red baiting. Fail. n/t

[social_critic]

25. Wild claims? Why don't you stick to debating the subject?

I take it you think Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other NGOs, plus the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, are all making wild claims? I live in Venezuela, I think their claims are measured and crafted very carefully. What they say is true.

Red baiting? Who is always laughing out loud without engaging in a debate around here? When I post links and quote well recognized NGOs, why don't you discuss the issues, instead of claiming over and over that EVERYONE oF THEM is lying, or biased against autocrats like Chavez and Castro?

Heck, sometimes you are left out on the plank by the people you defend. A few weeks the pro-Chavez camp was defending the University Law, and then Chavez saw how much opposition there was to it inside Venezuela and punted, requesting the law be overturned - I guess you guys didn't notice, but it sure made you lose a lot of credibility, defending over and over a law not even Chavez dared shove down the people's throats.

You know what else? Because you are not inside AND WE ARE, you don't get to feel the pulse like we do. This place is getting worse than Mogadishu, and you keep on about the number of viewers the government gets and posting attack letters against Human Rights Watch? Give us a break.

[dipsydoodle]

19. Washington Office on Latin America ?

:wtf:

Shouldn't this have been posted in the Humour Forum ?

[social_critic]

20. Human Rights Watch and others agree: Venezuela is increasingly abusing human rights

Your Chavez and his buddies are seen by most human rights NGOs as a bunch of thugs. Which they are.

Did you see the Human Rights Watch report on Venezuela? Or do you want to debate the FACTS about the abuses of power, the crime wave, the corruption, the illegal jailings, the conditions in the jails, or other topics? Talk facts, let's debate. Give me an opportunity to show just how bad things have become in Venezuela.

[social_critic]

26. Human Rights Foundation Complains about Spanish FM comments

http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/01/27/en_pol_art_hrf:-there-are-polit_27A5056095.shtml

"The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) respectfully writes to you, as Minister of Foreign
Affairs and Cooperation of Spain, to express our deepest concern regarding your
November 2 and November 16, 2010, statements about the nonexistence of political
prisoners in Venezuela. We are writing to inform you of the case of Rubén González, a
labor leader and prisoner of conscience of the Venezuelan government, as well as to
give you a brief overview of the human rights situation in Venezuela. The cases that
follow are by no means exhaustive, but are just a few illustrative examples of the types
of human rights violations occurring in Venezuela today."

More at:


http://static.eluniversal.com/2011/01/27/letterjimenez.pdf

[social_critic]

27. Chavez and his tyrants' club

It seems Chavez talked to his good buddies, Gadaffi and Aswad, to figure out what to say about the Egyptian uprising. He seems to be chagrined because the US isn't standing up and backing an Arab dictator like Mubarak. :-)

"Chavez, Washington's leading critic in the Americas, said he had spoken to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Syria's President Bashar al-Assad for a briefing on the protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/30/us-egypt-usa-chavez-idUSTRE70T3KQ20110130