Case of jailed union leader in Venezuela draws condemnation from human rights groups

[naaman fletcher]

CARACAS, Venezuela — Union leader Ruben Gonzalez once admired and supported President Hugo Chavez. Nowadays, he is jailed in a police station in eastern Venezuela, and says his yearlong imprisonment shows the government's intolerance for labour protests.

Gonzalez told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his cell on Thursday that he is confident "divine justice will prevail" and he will eventually be freed. He is being prosecuted on charges stemming from a strike he helped organize that temporarily paralyzed the country's state-run iron mining company in 2009, and his case is drawing condemnation from international labour and human rights organizations.

"The government is criminalizing protests," Gonzalez said by cellphone, which he is allowed to use in the jail.

Gonzalez was scheduled to appear in court Friday, the one-year anniversary of his imprisonment. But he said he does not expect the judge to reach a verdict anytime soon, noting that he has already appeared in court more than a dozen times over the past 15 months, and that hearings have also repeatedly been postponed.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5ieILNmq_T6csMAiVBboO6mi8Wvtg?docId=5715159

[Prometheus Bound]

1. I've noticed The Human Rights Foundation reports seem to cover only Venezuela dn Bolivia.

Though their mission is to defend human rights and promote liberal democracy in the Americas.

They've published 8 reports so far - seven on Venezuela and one on Bolivia.

[Hannah Bell]

3. not surprising; the founder is a venezuelan from a connected family.

despite the norse-sounding name.

Halvorssen was born in Venezuela to Hilda Mendoza, a descendant of Venezuela's first two presidents Cristóbal Mendoza and Simón Bolívar. His father is Thor Halvorssen Hellum, who served as a Venezuelan Ambassador for anti-Narcotic Affairs in the administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez and as special overseas investigator of a Venezuelan Senate Commission.

His family was prosperous and on his father's side he is the grandson of Øystein Halvorssen, the Norwegian king’s consul who "built a family dynasty as the Venezuelan representative for corporations including Dunlop and Ericsson."<2>

Halvorssen attended the University of Pennsylvania and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, with concurrent undergraduate and graduate degrees in Political Science and History.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Halvorssen_Mendoza


This is good too:

Halvorssen is listed as producer of the documentary Indoctrinate U, "a documentary about left-wing bias on college campuses"<23> which targets "the anti-intellectual, intolerant culture of campuses".<24>

American Literary Theorist Stanley Fish wrote in the New York Times "the academy invites the criticism it receives in this documentary"<25> and the film received positive reviews from the Wall Street Journal, London Telegraph, New York Post, and CNN.<24>

However, he also did this:

Halvorssen produced The Sugar Babies,<26> a film about human trafficking in the Dominican Republic and the plight of its migrant farm workers. The targets of the documentary are wealthy and politically connected sugar barons who live in West Palm Beach: The Fanjul Family.<29> The film previewed at Florida International University where a heated exchange with the Dominican diplomatic envoy resulted in police presence. It received numerous negative reviews claiming the film's portrayal of big business and its relationship with the Dominican government was part of a campaign against the country's reputation. Death threats against the film's director and a bribery scandal involving the Dominican embassy have made the film a subject of intense media interest.<30><31><32>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Halvorssen_Mendoza


He's another rich kid.

[Forkboy]

5. End of thread.

[sabrina 1]

7. Thanks, I searched around to find out who was running this organization.

When I saw how they are attacking only left leaders in Latin America I got suspicious.

I despise deceivers and this organization using the term 'human rights' is intentionally deceptive.

I wonder how much of the money allotted for propaganda against Latin American leaders he is getting for his hit-pieces on them?

Sometimes I think I am in the wrong business ..... and on the wrong side. There is simply no money to be made by standing up for what is right in this world but there is endless amounts to be made from tearing down democracies everywhere.

[Forkboy]

9. Thinking people don't pay well.

Mindless drones, on the other hand, can earn bunches, and this shit is right up their alley. These people LIKE being tools. What I pity is the ones who do it for for free. What the fuck does THAT say about someone. :)

[Hannah Bell]

16. it's an interesting group: funded by both soros & the sarah scaife foundation,

with an international committee which includes vargas llosa (a corporatist, once kind of moderate, sort of) & vaclav havel (a putative leftie).

veddy interesting.

[sabrina 1]

26. Rabbi Wiesel also ~

Very interesting, as you say. But apparently they are not at all concerned about human rights abuses in this country.

[naaman fletcher]

11. What does that have to do with an AP story posted in A Canadian paper? nt.

[Hannah Bell]

14. Because it's the only "human rights group" quoted in the article?

[naaman fletcher]

15. ok, then ignore that quote, and read the facts of the case as printed by AP. nt.

[Hannah Bell]

17. um, they got the "facts" from the group. are you dense?

why do you think i should trust an AP article?

[naaman fletcher]

18. It seems to me they talked to they guy.

But hey, if its critical of Chavez, it can't be true.

[Hannah Bell]

19. nothing to do with whether it's critical of chavez. the fact is that the us media (which ap is)

has repeatedly published false reporting on venezuela (& every country on its 'enemies list').

and the fact is that a lot of venezuelan "unions" are corporate right-wing outfits, some receiving money from the us as well.


On April 25, The New York Times ran an article disclosing that the AFL-CIO's international arm, the American Center for International Solidarity, had received $154,377 from a U.S. congressional conduit "to assist the main Venezuelan labor union in advancing labor rights."

That union, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), was a principal player in the events that led to the short-lived military coup that removed the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, from office.

"The union's leader, Carlos Ortega," reported The Times, "worked closely with Pedro Carmona Estranga, the businessman who briefly took over from Mr. Chavez, in challenging the government." Estranga heads the Venezuelan equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce.

Undoubtedly, all the facts have yet to be revealed, but enough is known to conclude that the highest officials of the AFL-CIO during the George Meany-Lane Kirkland years worked hand-in-hand with one U.S. administration after another, Democratic or Republican, to oppose, subvert, and destroy democratic movements across the world, especially in Latin America.

The chief organization used by Meany and Kirk-land in Latin America was the AFL-CIO-created American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD). The so-called institute "was especially notorious for its CIA connections and for siding with repressive governments, often against progressive unions," wrote Simon Rodberg (American Prospect, Summer 2001).

http://www.socialistaction.org/news/200205/afl-cia.html


unlike some here, i don't idolize chavez. but i don't think he's any worse than plenty of folks the US supports and funds -- better than many, in fact.

nor do i consider the us or canadian medias some kind of unimpeachable authorities.

they're mostly a joke, in fact.

[naaman fletcher]

20. Sure I understand the strong US bias against Venezuela,

hopefully VenezuelaAnalysis will give us an unbiased account of this affair.

[Hannah Bell]

21. what are you babbling about? whatever it is, it has nothing to do with what i wrote.

which quoted the new york times, btw.

[naaman fletcher]

22. Sure it does,

you said the US press is baised against venezuela. So I said I agree, which I do, and that I look forward to an unbiased account of this from Venezuela Analysis.

[Hannah Bell]

23. there is no unbiased source for news.

[Prometheus Bound]

24. For one thing, AP appears to have lied.

Perhaps their agenda is the same as yours.

AP writes: "his case is drawing condemnation from international labour and human rights organizations."

But throughout the article it mentions only one such organization, and as several have pointed out here, it is clearly an organization with an agenda.

So am I to ignore the obvious lies and propaganda in the OP?

[Very_Boring_Name]

2. The little dictator has been busy

[sabrina 1]

8. The propagandists have been busy and most likely well paid.

Did you check out this 'human rights' organization? Another scam with a nice sounding name probably funded by rightwing organizations desperate to get their hands on Latin America's resources once again.

[Forkboy]

10. details are Very_Boring.

[naaman fletcher]

12. Perhaps

Yet the guy was being interviewed by the AP. The AP later got quotes from a suspect organization. The guy is in jail for leading a protest. That is a fact. However Chavez apologists are fine with anything that he does.

[Mojeoux]

4. K&R

[sabrina 1]

6. That looks like a questionable organization with an agenda.

The seem to only be going after 'leftist' Latin American leaders from looking at their history.

Reminds me of the NGOs with nice, but deceptive sounding names whose goal it is to push the U.S. Government's Imperial policies.

Unrec'd because I don't trust stories like this that come from questionable organizations, meant to instill trust by using words like 'human rights' and when the same story appears in all the usual U.S. media outlets, in identical form as if it were a memo being sent out by the U.S. State Dept.

I'll wait to get that story from a source other than the stenographers of the Western, Latin-America Democracy-hating MSM.

Couldn't one of them write an original story rather than reproduce the same memo?

Same old same old propaganda against any Latin American country that has gained its independence from our brutal dictator friends in the region.

I guess this is our end-of-week Chavez bashing thread ~

[naaman fletcher]

13. What abou the AP?

So the AP went to a suspect organization for quotes, but that doesn't take anything away from the fact that the guy was speaking from jail to an AP reporter. Then again, all organizations that question Chavez are suspect, aren't they?

[Prometheus Bound]

25. The article and report wasn't about Chavez.

Chavez is mentioned only in the opening sentence:

"Union leader Ruben Gonzalez once admired and supported President Hugo Chavez."