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DEMOCRACY KILLED AGAIN...! VENEZUELA : a
Foreign Press Foundation - Henk Ruyssenaars - 13.04.2002 16:08
Given that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the western hemisphere,
it is distinctly clear that the U.S. government is going to reap the profits
after intervening covertly. This means that the current crisis in Venezuela is very probably a planned conspiracy toppling the Chavez government with the support of the U.S.
NETHERLANDS NEWS AGENCY the FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
The Dutch author of this article was accredited as Latin America
correspondent among others in Santiago de Chile from 1971 to July 1974, when
he was declared Persona non Grata by the military junta of General Augusto
Pinochet.
DEMOCRACY KILLED AGAIN...! VENEZUELA : a Déja vu...
Given that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the western hemisphere,
it is distinctly clear that the U.S. government is going to reap the profits
after intervening covertly. This means that the current crisis in Venezuela is very probably a planned conspiracy toppling the Chavez government with the support of the U.S.
FPF - HR - Saturday April 13th - 2002 - Again an aspiring Latin American
democracy has gone down the drain. Foreign diplomatic observers and other
eyewitnesses in Venezuela and surrounding countries have seen the Chilean Drama take form again. The coup by the Venezuelan military, supported by the CIA and Venezuelan "momios" - the right wing "upper class" - was this far identical with the killing of democracy in Chile (sept.´73) during the few years of president Salvador Allende´s reign.
Anybody with normal memory functions remembers the way president Allende was blamed for everything evil on earth. Marxist - friend of Fidel Castro - etc.etc. In reality Allende was a warm-hearted children´s doctor. The same smear campaign by the mainstream media as was going on in Venezuela where president Hugo Chavez has been described as communist-marxist- leftwing-crazy-anti-american and so on. The usual vilifying of a country, a people or somebody important who has te be
exterminated when American commercial interests are endangered. Documents in
abundance in the US Library of Congress now proof how the CIA campaign against - to name one country out of many - democracy in Chile was concocted
and overseen by Henri Kissinger, the NSA and CIA. And in Europe lawsuits
have been filed against General Pinochet and Henry Kissinger concerning their war-criminal and murderous role in the whole affair.
Quote from a foreign observer in Caracas : "It appears that the strategy of President Chavez´s opposition is to create as much chaos and disorder in Venezuela as possible, so that Chavez is left with no other choice than to call a state of emergency. This, in turn could either lead to a military coup or U.S. military intervention."
Exactly the same as in Chile : I´ve seen how transportation within the country was stopped by the bribed "transportistas". In a country where 90% of all goods are transported on the roads that´s quite a disaster for people and animals concerning food for instance. And here we see the same happening again in Venezuela, while the global media are too silent again...
Venezuela´s labour union federation, the CTV, decided to join the strike,
supposedly out of concern for the harm the laws did to the business sector and thus to employment in Venezuela.
OIL AGAIN !
Anybody interested saw it coming : -
The conflict between president Chavez - who was democratically elected - and
the old elite, caught fire when Chavez passed different laws, which, among
many other measures, were supposed to increase the government´s oil income
via Opec too, and redistribute land. The chamber of commerce vehemently
opposed these laws and decided to call for a general business strike on
December 10. After an immense campaign with TV commercials every ten minutes calling for a strike, the strikers were led to Miraflores, the presidential
office building. Whom the people have been that started the shooting we´ll know when the US Congress decides to publish secret files again in 50 years
or so.
In Chile it was the same : when Salvador Allende decided that the profit of the huge copper mines in the country should be shared with the Chileans, ITT, the NSA-CIA, the socalled democratic US Congress and Kissinger decided to snuff Chilean democracy in the bud and in very much blood...
Venezuela ? Déja vu...!
Foreign Press Foundation
Henk Ruyssenaars
The Netherlands
P.S. Eyewitness * : "Although Chavez originally had a popularity rating of around 80%, this had steadily declined in the past year, supposedly reaching the low 30´s now. Whether the reason for this decline was the slow pace of his promised reforms, the lack of significant progress in reducing corruption and poverty, or if it was because of the incessant media assault on his government, is not clear : most likely it is because of a combination of these factors."
* Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar in Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the sociology of
development.
Given that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the western hemisphere,
it is distinctly clear that the U.S. government is going to reap the profits
after intervening covertly. This means that the current crisis in Venezuela
is very probably a planned conspiracy toppling the Chavez government with
the support of the U.S.
FPF - HR - Saturday April 13th - 2002 - Again an aspiring Latin American
democracy has gone down the drain. Foreign diplomatic observers and other
eyewitnesses in Venezuela and surrounding countries have seen the Chilean
Drama take form again. The coup by the Venezuelan military, supported by the
CIA and Venezuelan "momios" - the right wing "upper class" - was this far
identical with the killing of democracy in Chile (sept.´73) during the few
years of president Salvador Allende´s reign.
Anybody with normal memory functions remembers the way president Allende was
blamed for everything evil on earth. Marxist - friend of Fidel Castro -
etc.etc. In reality Allende was a warm-hearted children´s doctor. The same
smear campaign by the mainstream media as was going on in Venezuela where
president Hugo Chavez has been described as
communist-marxist-leftwing-crazy-anti-american and so on. The usual
vilifying of a country, a people or somebody important who has te be
exterminated when American commercial interests are endangered. Documents in
abundance in the US Library of Congress now proof how the CIA campaign
against - to name one country out of many - democracy in Chile was concocted
and overseen by Henri Kissinger, the NSA and CIA. And in Europe lawsuits
have been filed against General Pinochet and Henry Kissinger concerning
their war-criminal and murderous role in the whole affair.
Quote from a foreign observer in Caracas : "It appears that the strategy of
President Chavez´s opposition is to create as much chaos and disorder in
Venezuela as possible, so that Chavez is left with no other choice than to
call a state of emergency. This, in turn could either lead to a military
coup or U.S. military intervention."
Exactly the same as in Chile : I´ve seen how transportation within the
country was stopped by the bribed "transportistas". In a country where 90%
of all goods are transported on the roads that´s quite a disaster for people
and animals concerning food for instance. And here we see the same happening
again in Venezuela, while the global media are too silent again...
Venezuela´s labour union federation, the CTV, decided to join the strike,
supposedly out of concern for the harm the laws did to the business sector
and thus to employment in Venezuela.
OIL AGAIN !
Anybody interested saw it coming : -
The conflict between president Chavez - who was democratically elected - and
the old elite, caught fire when Chavez passed different laws, which, among
many other measures, were supposed to increase the government´s oil income
via Opec too, and redistribute land. The chamber of commerce vehemently
opposed these laws and decided to call for a general business strike on
December 10. After an immense campaign with TV commercials every ten minutes
calling for a strike, the strikers were led to Miraflores, the presidential
office building. Whom the people have been that started the shooting we´ll
know when the US Congress decides to publish secret files again in 50 years
or so.
In Chile it was the same : when Salvador Allende decided that the profit of
the huge copper mines in the country should be shared with the Chileans,
ITT, the NSA-CIA, the socalled democratic US Congress and Kissinger decided
to snuff Chilean democracy in the bud and in very much blood...
Venezuela ? Déja vu...!
Foreign Press Foundation Henk Ruyssenaars The Netherlands  fpf@chello.nl
P.S. Eyewitness * : "Although Chavez originally had a popularity rating of
around 80%, this had steadily declined in the past year, supposedly reaching
the low 30´s now. Whether the reason for this decline was the slow pace of
his promised reforms, the lack of significant progress in reducing
corruption and poverty, or if it was because of the incessant media assault
on his government, is not clear : most likely it is because of a combination
of these factors."
* Gregory Wilpert lives in Caracas, is a former U.S. Fulbright scholar in
Venezuela, and is currently doing independent research on the sociology of
development.
|
| Read more about: vrijheid, repressie & mensenrechten | | supplements | | | Hypocrisie | Phreakmeister - 16.04.2002 11:03
Het is hier soms werkelijk de hypocrisie ten top. De Argentijnse regering wordt door de bevolking ten val gebracht en het is "het toppunt van democratie", "power to the people", e.d. In Venezuela gebeurt exact hetzelfde (de regering wordt ten val gebracht door de bevolking uit onvrede over de economische situatie), en dan is het ineens Pinochet revisited...
| | | 19.04.2002 09:19
Quote Phreakmeister :
"In Venezuela gebeurt exact hetzelfde -de regering wordt ten val gebracht door de bevolking uit onvrede over de economische situatie..."
Phreakmeister is of stekeblind of er zijn ook hier weer géén hersencellen aan te pas gekomen.
Probeer het volgende eens te begrijpen : copy :
NEDERLANDSE VERENIGING VAN JOURNALISTEN NVJ - Welkom bij VillaMedia´s Forum :
 http://www.mediachannel.org/atissue/mideast/
Verzonden: 10.00 - 18/4 2002
Deze is ook aardig om over na te denken :
While Chavez had proven himself no friend of the multi-party state, to call a military coup against a fairly elected president and the dissolution of a constitution a "return to democracy" is more than a bit Orwellian. And if firing on an unarmed crowd is grounds for overthrowing a government, how do we explain U.S. support of Israel, which of late has been firing into Palestinian crowds more or less hourly ?
http://www.mediachannel.org/atissue/mideast/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Naam: Henk Ruyssenaars
Verzonden: 09.52 - 18/4 2002
Quote van het NOS-Journaal over de coup in Venezuela : "Zakenmensen en welgestelden hebben Chavez een tweede kans gegeven...". En daar is werkelijk wéér - zoals dikwijls - geen enkele hersencel aan te pas gekomen !
Toekomstmuziek voor de New Totalitarians :
MediaChannel.org : Venezuela: Not a Banana-Oil Republic after All.
http://www.mediachannel.org/
The Media :
"Nearly the entire media is owned and operated by Venezuela´s oligarchy. There is only one neutral newspaper, which is not an explicitly anti-Chavez newspaper and one state-run television station. During the coup, the state-run station was taken off the air completely (dat zal de RVD-NOS niet gebeuren...) and all of the other media kept repeating the coup organizer´s lies without question. These lies included the claim that Chavez had resigned and had dismissed his cabinet, that all of the demonstration´s dead were "martyrs of civil society" (i.e., of the opposition, since the media does not consider Chavez supporters as part of civil society), and that Chavez had ordered his supporters to shoot into the unarmed crowd of anti-Chavez demonstrators."
Lees even dit artikel van Wilpert en bewaar het : binnenkort als de Verenigde Staten écht toeslaan met hun nieuwe totalitaire troepenmacht "Northern Command" vanuit Colorado, dan wordt het gemakkelijker te begrijpen wat er aan de hand is.
En kunnen dat soort stompzinnige - soms bijna kwaadwillende - uitspraken zoals door de NOS
over Venezuela worden vermeden.
Henk Ruyssenaars
En voorts blijf ik van mening dat "Journalistiek" in ere hersteld dient te worden. Zodat we massamoord zoals nu in Palestina gewoon massamoord noemen, dat doet UNHRC - de VN Commissie voor de rechten van de mens - ook.
En via El Al op Schiphol gaat de wapenstroom gewoon door...Iemand al wezen checken ? Want dat is niet alleen hypocriet maar ook misdadig : geld verdienen over de lijken van de Palestijnen....!
HR
| | Reactie | Phreakmeister - 20.04.2002 16:23
En al die mensen met potten en pannen in de straten van Caracas, die hadden zeker net een keukenspeciaalzaak leeggeplunderd? Wie is hier nou stekeblind? Ik zeg absoluut niet dat het alleen de bevolking was die in opstand kwam tegen Chavez, maar laten we hem asjeblieft niet zalig verklaren hier.
En als we dan toch beginnen over het Midden-Oosten: als je de acties van het Israelische leger jegens de Palestijnen misdadig noemt, wees dan zo reëel om ook de acties van Arafat jegens de Israelische bevolking als misdadig te betitelen.
| | SHARAFAT | Henk R. - 26.04.2002 09:03
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION - HENK RUYSSENAARS
Volgens verschillende resoluties van de Verenigde Naties (zie 242 - 338) heeft Israël Palestijns land bezet.
De Palestijnen proberen al 35 jaar lang het vege lijf te redden door verzet (!) te plegen.
In Nederland is dat door "lotsverbondenheid" van veel media en journalisten met Israël altijd verdoezeld en ontkend.
Chomsky segt overigens hetzelfde als ik in m´n tien jaren daar met eigen ogen heb kunnen zien :
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manufacturing Truth About the Middle East
Michael Albert, Z Magazine
April 25, 2002
Viewed on April 25, 2002
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor´s Note: Noam Chomsky discusses the current conflict in the Middle East, the history of U.S.-Israeli relations, and the fate of Palestine.
MICHAEL ALBERT: Is there a qualitative change in what´s happening now?
NOAM CHOMSKY: I think there is a qualitative change. The goal of the Oslo process was accurately described in 1998 by Israeli academic Shlomo Ben-Ami just before he joined the Barak government, going on to become Barak´s chief negotiator at Camp David in summer 2000. Ben-Ami observed that "in practice, the Oslo agreements were founded on a neo-colonialist basis, on a life of dependence of one on the other forever."
With these goals, the Clinton-Rabin-Peres agreements were designed to impose on the Palestinians "almost total dependence on Israel," creating "an extended colonial situation," which is expected to be the "permanent basis" for "a situation of dependence."
The function of the Palestinian Authority (PA) was to control the domestic population of the Israeli-run neocolonial dependency. That is the way the process unfolded, step by step, including the Camp David suggestions. The Clinton-Barak stand (left vague and unambiguous) was hailed here as "remarkable" and "magnanimous," but a look at the facts made it clear that it was -- as commonly described in Israel -- a Bantustan proposal; that is presumably the reason why maps were carefully avoided in the US mainstream.
It is true that Clinton-Barak advanced a few steps towards a Bantustan-style settlement of the kind that South Africa instituted in the darkest days of Apartheid. Just prior to Camp David, West Bank Palestinians were confined to over 200 scattered areas, and Clinton-Barak did propose an improvement: consolidation to three cantons, under Israeli control, virtually separated from one another and from the fourth canton, a small area of East Jerusalem, the center of Palestinian life and of communications in the region. And of course separated from Gaza, where the outcome was left unclear.
But now that plan has apparently been shelved in favor of demolition of the PA. That means destruction of the institutions of the potential Bantustan that was planned by Clinton and his Israeli partners; in the last few days, even a human rights center. The Palestinian figures who were designated to be the counterpart of the Black leaders of the Bantustans are also under attack, though not killed, presumably because of the international consequences.
The prominent Israeli scholar Ze´ev Sternhell writes that the government "is no longer ashamed to speak of war when what they are really engaged in is colonial policing, which recalls the takeover by the white police of the poor neighborhoods of the blacks in South Africa during the apartheid era." This new policy is a regression below the Bantustan model of South Africa 40 years ago to which Clinton-Rabin-Peres-Barak and their associates aspired in the Oslo "peace process."
None of this will come as a surprise to those who have been reading critical analyses for the past 10 years, including plenty of material posted regularly on Znet, reviewing developments as they proceeded.
Exactly how the Israeli leadership intends to implement these programs is unclear -- to them too, I presume.
It is convenient in the US, and the West, to blame Israel and particularly Sharon, but that is unfair and hardly honest. Many of Sharon´s worst atrocities were carried out under Labor governments. Peres comes close to Sharon as a war criminal. Furthermore, the prime responsibility lies in Washington, and has for 30 years. That is true of the general diplomatic framework, and also of particular actions. Israel can act within the limits established by the master in Washington, rarely beyond.
ALBERT: What´s the meaning of Friday´s Security Council Resolution?
CHOMSKY: The primary issue was whether there would be a demand for immediate Israeli withdrawal from Ramallah and other Palestinian areas that the Israeli army had entered in the current offensive, or at least a deadline for such withdrawal. The US position evidently prevailed: there is only a vague call for "withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities," no time frame specified.
The Resolution therefore accords with the official US stand, largely reiterated in the press: Israel is under attack and has the right of self-defense, but shouldn´t go too far in punishing Palestinians, at least too visibly.
The facts -- hardly controversial -- are quite different. Palestinians have been trying to survive under Israeli military occupation, now in its 35th year. It has been harsh and brutal throughout, thanks to decisive US military and economic support, and diplomatic protection, including the barring of the long-standing international consensus on a peaceful political settlement. There is no symmetry in this confrontation, not the slightest, and to frame it in terms of Israeli self-defense goes beyond even standard forms of distortion in the interests of power. The harshest condemnations of Palestinian terror, which are proper and have been for over 30 years, leave these basic facts unchanged.
In scrupulously evading the central immediate issues, the Friday Resolution is similar to the Security Council Resolution of March 12, which elicited much surprise and favorable notice because it not only was not vetoed by the US, in the usual pattern, but was actually initiated by Washington. The Resolution called for a "vision" of a Palestinian state. It therefore did not rise to the level of South Africa 40 years ago when the Apartheid regime did not merely announce a "vision" but actually established Black-run states that were at least as viable and legitimate as what the US and Israel had been planning for the occupied territories.
ALBERT: What is the U.S. up to now? What U.S. interests are at stake at this juncture?
CHOMSKY: The U.S. is a global power. What happens in Israel-Palestine is a sidelight. There are many factors entering into US policies. Chief among them in this region of the world is control over the world´s major energy resources. The US-Israel alliance took shape in that context.
By 1958, the National Security Council concluded that a "logical corollary" of opposition to growing Arab nationalism "would be to support Israel as the only strong pro-Western power left in the Middle East." That is an exaggeration, but an affirmation of the general strategic analysis, which identified indigenous nationalism as the primary threat (as elsewhere in the Third World); typically called "Communist," though it is commonly recognized in the internal record that this is a term of propaganda and that Cold War issues were often marginal, as in the crucial year of 1958.
The alliance became firm in 1967, when Israel performed an important service for US power by destroying the main forces of secular Arab nationalism, considered a very serious threat to US domination of the Gulf region. So matters continued, after the collapse of the USSR as well. By now the US-Israel-Turkey alliance is a centerpiece of US strategy, and Israel is virtually a US military base, also closely integrated with the militarized US high-tech economy.
Within that persistent framework, the US naturally supports Israeli repression of the Palestinians and integration of the occupied territories, including the neocolonial project outlined by Ben-Ami, though specific policy choices have to be made depending on circumstances.
Right now, Bush planners continue to block steps towards diplomatic settlement, or even reduction of violence; that is the meaning, for example, of their veto of the Dec. 15 2001 Security Council Resolution calling for steps towards implementing the US Mitchell plan and introduction of international monitors to supervise the reduction of violence. For similar reasons, the US boycotted the Dec. 5 international meetings in Geneva (including the EU, even Britain) which reaffirmed that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the occupied territories, so that critically important US-Israeli actions there are "grave breaches" of the Convention -- war crimes, in simple terms -- as the Geneva declaration elaborated. That merely reaffirmed the Security Council Resolution of October 2000 (US abstaining), which held once again that the Convention applied to the occupied territories. That had been the official US position as well, stated formally, for example, by George Bush I when he was UN Ambassador.
The US regularly abstains or boycotts in such cases, not wanting to take a public stand in opposition to core principles of international law, particularly in the light of the circumstances under which the Conventions were enacted: to criminalize formally the atrocities of the Nazis, including their actions in the territories they occupied. The media and intellectual culture generally cooperate by their own "boycott" of these unwelcome facts: in particular, the fact that as a High Contracting Party, the US government is legally obligated by solemn treaty to punish violators of the Conventions, including its own political leadership.
That´s only a small sample. Meanwhile the flow of arms and economic support for maintaining the occupation by force and terror and extending settlements continues without any pause.
ALBERT: What´s your opinion of the Arab summit?
CHOMSKY: The Arab summit led to general acceptance of the Saudi Arabian plan, which reiterated the basic principles of the long-standing international consensus: Israel should withdraw from the occupied territories in the context of a general peace agreement that would guarantee the right of every state in the region, including Israel and a new Palestinian State, to peace and security within recognized borders (the basic wording of UN 242, amplified to include a Palestinian state).
There is nothing new about this. These are the basic terms of the Security Council resolution of January 1976 backed by virtually the entire world, including the leading Arab states, the PLO, Europe, the Soviet bloc, the non-aligned countries -- in fact, everyone who mattered. It was opposed by Israel and vetoed by the US, thereby vetoed from history. Subsequent and similar initiatives from the Arab states, the PLO, and Western Europe were blocked by the US, continuing to the present. That includes the 1981 Fahd plan. That record too has been effectively vetoed from history, for the usual reasons.
US rejectionism in fact goes back 5 years earlier, to February 1971, when President Sadat of Egypt offered Israel a full peace treaty in return for Israeli withdrawal from Egyptian territory, not even bringing up Palestinian national rights or the fate of the other occupied territories. Israel´s Labor government recognized this as a genuine peace offer, but decided to reject it, intending to extend its settlements to northeastern Sinai; that it soon did, with extreme brutality, was the immediate cause for the 1973 war.
The plan for the Palestinians under military occupation was described frankly to his Cabinet colleagues by Moshe Dayan, one of the Labor leaders more sympathetic to the Palestinian plight. Israel should make it clear that "we have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads." Following that recommendation, the guiding principle of the occupation has been incessant and degrading humiliation, along with torture, terror, destruction of property, displacement and settlement, and takeover of basic resources, crucially water.
Sadat´s 1971 offer conformed to official US policy, but Kissinger succeeded in instituting his preference for what he called "stalemate": no negotiations, only force. Jordanian peace offers were also dismissed. Since that time, official US policy has kept to the international consensus on withdrawal (until Clinton, who effectively rescinded UN resolutions and considerations of international law); but in practice, policy has followed the Kissinger guidelines, accepting negotiations only when compelled to do so, as Kissinger was after the near-debacle of the 1973 war for which he shares major responsibility, and under the conditions that Ben-Ami articulated.
Official doctrine instructs us to focus attention on the Arab summit, as if the Arab states and the PLO are the problem, in particular, their intention to drive Israel into the sea. Coverage presents the basic problem as vacillation, reservations, and qualifications in the Arab world. There is little that one can say in favor of the Arab states and the PLO, but these claims are simply untrue, as a look at the record quickly reveals.
The more serious press recognized that the Saudi plan largely reiterated the Saudi Fahd Plan of 1981, claiming that that initiative was undermined by Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel. The facts are again quite different. The 1981 plan was undermined by an Israeli reaction that even its mainstream press condemned as "hysterical," backed by the US. That includes Shimon Peres and other alleged doves, who warned that acceptance of the Fahd plan would "threaten Israel´s very existence."
An indication of the hysteria is the reaction of Israel´s President Haim Herzog, also considered a dove. He charged that the "real author" of the Fahd plan was the PLO, and that it was even more extreme than the January 1976 Security Council resolution that was "prepared by" the PLO, at the time when he was Israel´s UN Ambassador. These claims can hardly be true, but they are an indication of the desperate fear of a political settlement on the part of Israeli doves, backed throughout by the US. The basic problem then, as now, traces back to Washington, which has persistently backed Israel´s rejection of a political settlement in terms of the broad international consensus, reiterated in essentials in the current Saudi proposals.
Until such elementary facts as these are permitted to enter into discussion, displacing the standard misrepresentation and deceit, discussion is mostly beside the point. And we should not be drawn into it -- for example, by implicitly accepting the assumption that developments at the Arab summit are a critical problem. They have significance, of course, but it is secondary. The primary problems are right here, and it is our responsibility to face them and deal with them, not to displace them to others.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| | Reactie | Phreakmeister - 29.05.2002 15:05
Dus omdat de Israëlische regering 54 jaar geleden land heeft ingenomen (terwijl het nu druk bezig is dat land terug te geven; pogingen die gesaboteerd worden door de wolf Arafat, die zijn positie in gevaar ziet komen bij succes van zijn idealen), is het toegestaan Israeli´s te doden in supermarkten, bussen, discotheken, pizzeria´s, op straat, waar dan ook?????????????????
Want bedenk wel: als Arafat was ingegaan op de uitgestoken hand van Israël, dan was Palestina nu al lang en breed onafhankelijk geweest. Maar die smerige wolf weigert dat. En maar krokodillentranen plengen.
In Israël heeft geen enkele regering een einde kunnen maken aan het conflict. Enige constante factor is de (nota bene in Cairo geboren) Yasser Arafat. Misschien wordt het eens tijd om hem aan de kant te schuiven. Maar dat wil de linkse kerk niet inzien, omdat dat niet strookt met hun opvattingen. Maar ik heb al eerder gezegd: als jullie opvattingen niet stroken met de werkelijkheid, misschien zijn het dan jullie opvattingen die veranderd moeten worden, in plaats van de werkelijkheid die ontkend moet worden.
| | Do you speak Spanish? | Michelle - 14.06.2002 07:41
Do you speak Spanish? Have you listened to Chavez speak ever? As an "American" (U.S. citizen/Venezuelan residency) living in Venezuela and on a regular basis turning on the TV with the hopes of seeing news or at least a regularly scheduled television program or turning on the the radio expecting music only to be disappointed by realizing that Chavez was on one of his long-winded bouts "addressing" the Venezuelan "pueblo," monopolizing all television and radio stations I must add, I have to ask you, do you speak Spanish? If you do, you must brush up on your skills and listen to some of these "speeches," and if you don´t, then I suggest you get a translation and read some of them. Besides the fact that he feels his voice and image are so intriguing that the entire country (minus those with cable) must be prevented from seeing or hearing anything but Chavez himself, some of the things that have come out of this man´s mouth are enough for anyone to classify him as a "communist-marxist- leftwing-crazy-anti-american" whether or not they think his practices reflect his attitude. How about the word he uses to refer "proudly" to his country´s very own constitution? Please, let´s admit that at least the "crazy" classification comes to mind when he starts on a 6 hour episode of cadena on a random Thursday evening...
 E-Mail: msaylor9@hotmail.com | | Speaking Spanish ? YES ! | Henk Ruyssenaars - Foreign Press Foundation - 08.12.2002 13:55
Michelle : as a foreign correspondent - I also have worked for CBS and Pacifica b.t.w. - I've seen much of the havoc the United States has created in the world, from Vietnam to Chile.
And yes Spanish is one of my languages which I read on a daily basis, and Yes I've lived and worked there for years. (1971-1974 Santiago de Chile)
I've been living abroad for 40 years, so I have enough experience and material to compare with.
And concerning the media in Venezuela : this is also according to me the real situation :
read what Le Monde (in English) had to say :
http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela
You do probably know who Nelson Mandela is and I'd like you te read what he says concerning the role of the United States in the world :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2251067.stm
Nelson Mandela "the USA is a threat to worldpeace".
Mr Mandela said that the US was clearly afraid of losing a vote in the United Nations Security Council.
Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody mentions that
"It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America," he said.
He said that no evidence had been presented to support the claim that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction, while former UN weapons inspector in Baghdad Scott Ritter has said there is no such evidence.
"But what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. Nobody mentions that," he said."
Based on experience - I totally agree with Mandela.
And I do not think the American people deserve crooks like this to manhandle everybody and everything.
Nor does the rest of the world...!
HR
 Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2251067.stm
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