Re: [Marxism] Ven. govt. stymied HRW effort to spur liberal capitalist opposition

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FRED FELDMAN writes:
I think the Venezuelan government should be congratulated 
and supported for the way they handled the HRW operation.
==========================================================

It's not necessary to endorse every step taken by peoples,
leaders or governments in foreign countries, even if we're
in broad and general solidarity with them. They take the
measures they feel they must take in order to defend their
countries and projects, but then, they also have to accept
the various consequences which flow from those decisions.

We who don't have those responsibilities aren't under such
pressures nor do we have to embrace their various choices.

Our job is to try to understand what and why they do what
they do, including the various consequences. In the case
of Human Rights Watch, they are largely, but not entirely
forgotten already, since they've shown that they are mostly
on Washington's side in most circumstances. On the other
hand, it's ALSO true that Venezuela remains a capitalist
country with a multi-party system and an opposition media
which operates with minimal limitations and restraints.

The Venezuelan opposition (on the right) is funded very
well by itself, and also from the US and elsewhere, as is
quite well-known and well-documented. The Cato Institute
provide one of those Venezuelan student leaders opposed
to Chavez with some hundreds of thousands of dollars in
an "award".  

Gregory Wilpert had a rather more nuanced take on these
events, though he remains fundamentally pro:Chavez:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3882

Inca Kola News had an critical take on what Venezuela's
government did, and it's something worth thinking about.

My sense is that there's no need to either endorse, nor 
to criticize. The most important thing is trying to see
why they did what they did, and to understand what, if 
any, important consequences might flow from those choices.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
=========================================================

INCA KOLA NEWS
Human Rights Watch proves my point
Posted: 17 Oct 2008 08:58 AM PDT
Equal opportunities pain-in-the-butt Vivanco demonstrates
his mastery of the dance "The Hokey Cokey"

http://incakolanews.blogspot.com/2008/10/human-rights-watch-proves-my-point.html

Back on September 18th, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report
saying bad things about the Venezuela of Hugo ChÃvez, things kinda
like "well, they threaten the news media a bit" and "the courts of
justice are biased" and accuing the ChÃvez gov't of "flounting human
rights". It wasn't that big a deal, really, because you could say
those kinds of things about virtually every LatAm state if you looked
hard enough for evidence, but this report got airtime because
y'know...it's was Venezuela. It would have been just another pop at
ChÃvezlandia that would have died down had Hugo&Co not reacted by
throwing HRW out of Venezuela in a fit of pique. But they did get
chuck 'em out, and the international news media had its little field
day about the dictator ChÃvez yada yada etc.

To Hugo's defence came the left wing, accusing HRW of total bias,
making mountains out of molehills and minutely examining the past
history of HRW's founder, Josà Miguel Vivanco to accuse him of being
Pinochet's best friend or some such nonsense.

Not I. Your humble correspondent wrote these lines at the time:

In Venezuela, Hugo ChÃvez (you might have heard that name before)
plays straight into the hands of his slavering opposition by throwing
Human Rights Watch (HRW) out of Venezuela"descent into intolerance".
There are plenty of valid arguments that you can throw at HRW for its
report, from bias to the HRW funding background to political
grandstanding to the two questions Justin Delacour correctly poses at
LANR. All fine. However there are two other basic things to say:

a) HRW pisses everybody off, not just ChÃvez&Co. As just one example,
last year at a private dinner in the US, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe
ended up having a near apopletic fit while arguing with HRW chief
Vivanco over the the things he'd written about him, his gov't and his
country. HRW is an equal opportunities pain in the ass.

b) ChÃvez (well, officially minister Maduro, but you know what I
mean) is a total dumbass for rising to this bait. All he had to do
was to let HRW have its 15 minutes and this report would have been
filed next to the rest of the guff written about Venezuela. But no,
ChÃvez had to cause a drama and boot 'em out. Now we can "look
forward to" endless months of righteous indignation from the rabid
right. A really basic dumbass error, Hugo.

Today, HRW proves my point. Vivanco isn't after ChÃvez and he isn't
on some political agenda; he really likes pissing everybody off. 
HRW today published a big report (142 pages, not quite as extensive 
as the 230 page ballbuster on Venezuela, but big enough) on the
parapolitica situation in Colombia and accuses President Alvaro
"Dubious Past" Uribe of obstructing the course of justice amongst
other such niceties. Here's the link to get your copy of the 24 page
overview or even the full report...all free, gratis and for nothing
(personally I'm not going to read it, as there's enough to read about
Colombia in Spanish that depresses me without reading it again in
English via the filter of arch publicity seeker Vivanco).

So, message to my lefty friends: You're wrong about Vivanco. Just
don't rise to his bait (as ChÃvez mistakenly did) and feed his ego
any more. Hugo was a true dumbass in the way he reacted to Vivanco;
now watch Uribe do a better job of making his protest and then
letting it all die down.







.


=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

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