Bergslagstroll said:
Ok I understand you can have a valide point, I don't know how many neutral observer it was. Still the BBC don't write about any big frauds in there analyzis of the referendum.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3247816.stm
But I guess it is very hard to convince you.
My personally stand point is that he his democratic election and I hope he will suceed to create a more democratic and equal venezuela. But of course there is a risk that either his govermenent or the opposition goes to far. Therefore is it necessiray with accurate and non hatred critizism of both his goverment and the opposition. Because Chaves has done alot of good for venezeul at the same time some of his action is questionable. At the same time you can questions the integregrity of the opposition and how democratic there are.
Also it is important to remember how Venezuela was then Chavez toke over. There a majority of people lived in poverty and many ther illitare. There only around 30 percent went to vote compared to todays number. And yes there are alot more today and maybee he will not suceed but atleast he have given hope to the people.
Frankly, I am not impressed with the European Media's coverage of human rights violations in Latin America. That includes the BBC. It took Europe 45 years to condemn Fidel Castro as the worst dictator in our hemisphere's history.
The European media likes to concentrate only on human rights violators who are right-wing, but totally ignore those on the left side of the spectrum. It has always been that way.
While the Colombian paramilitaries are condemned on a daily basis (and rightly so) rarely do you read editorials in the leading European newspapers about the F.A.R.C.,..... the bloodiest terrorist group in the Americas, with a 50-year record of violence during which it has killed more than 50,000 civilans, kidnapped tens of thousands of children, and displaced more than 5 million.
The FARC has links with Basque Fatherland & Liberty (ETA), a Spanish terrorist organization, and has enlisted the help of Irish Republican Army explosives experts (based in Havana) in making gas cylinder bombs and anti-personnel mines that have killed and maimed thousands. Outside of Colombia, the FARC trades drugs for guns with terrorist operatives from the Middle East operating in South America.
Indeed, members of the F.A.R.C. and the smaller, but not less deadly E.L.N. have been received in European capitals as "noble warriors".....and provided with moral and financial support. France and Sweden have objected to including them in the EU list of terrorist organizations believing that these groups could be enticed into another unproductive peace process.
The European double standard that..... applauds an indictment of Pinochet (rightly so) for human rights abuses and ignores Castro (who has committed a thousand times the atrocities of the former) is not lost on the millions of us who have suffered at the hands of Caudillos and marxist dictators and terrorists.
So, forgive me if it's very hard to convince me using the BBC as reference.
Closing our eyes to what Chavez is systematically doing in his country....and playing "ostrich"...is not going to make the problem go away. "Hoping" for a democratic and equal Venezuela has to be accompanied by asking hard questions, reporting facts rather than opinions, and making Fidel's Mini-Me accountable to the International community for what he's doing to his people.
Anyone who has kept his eyes open can clearly see that in fact, recent events prove Chávez is consolidating an authoritarian revolution.
Last December, government prosecutors charged political activist Maria Corina Machado with treason for providing technical advice for a petition drive that led to the August 15 referendum on Chávez’s rule. (Where are your "neutral observers" now?) Meanwhile, Chávez enacted a law permitting the state to close private media for vaguely defined offenses against public order. The government also has new authority to jail street protesters now reportedly with the help of Cuban police who can search Venezuelan homes and help with arrests.
