Does April Fools' Fall Early in Latin America?

There is a grave absence of logic at the heart of the decision to award Hugo Chávez the Rodolfo Walsh award for commitment to liberty, human rights and democratic values.  It is, in fact, an incongruous sham.

hy·poc·ri·sy

n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies

1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.

2. An act or instance of such falseness.

Bare the above in mind, now consider that Hugo Chávez has been awarded the Rodolfo Walsh award by Argentina’s University of La Plata for "his commitment to defending the liberty of the people” and “defending human rights, truth and democratic values".  You would be forgiven for thinking that April Fools’ has arrived early this year, but this is simply a case of dumbfounding hypocrisy, for there is a serious absence of logic at the heart of this disgraceful ceremony.  Forgive me for being so frank, but celebrating Chávez in this regard is not so different from celebrating Fidel Castro for his contribution to the free market.  It is an incongruous sham.

To be sure, the narrative of development in Venezuela’s media sector over the past 12 years is more than instructive.  Through means of legislative reform and revision (which, by itself has been made possible due to Chávez’s ever increasing grip on Venezuela’s political institutions), Chávez has silenced large swaths of the media, exclusively those deemed contrary to his own Socialist mission. 

The Media Content Law of December 2004, for example, was passed by Chávez to devastating effect by making the dissemination of information deemed “contrary to national security” (a benchmark left totally at the discretion of the state) punishable by heavy fines or even the loss of ones broadcasting licence.  Unsatisfied, the regime pushed ahead to extend this law to the internet communications sector some six years later in December 2010.

More asphyxiating still, a new penal code was introduced in March 2005 which criminalised the articulation and publication of opinion that the state deemed to be “offensive”.  Article 147, for example, dictates that any individual found guilty of disrespecting Chávez or the Chávistas who carry out his work can be imprisoned for up to 30 months.  Article 297a dictates that causing panic or anxiety through inaccurate reporting is punishable by the same sentence.[i]  More to the point, the implementation of these laws have been far from idle exercises.  Leading up to the September 2010 parliamentary election, for instance, Chávez used Article 297a to ban newspapers from publishing violent or traumatic images so as to avoid rampant crime from becoming a key electoral issue; an issue that Chávez was no doubt aware would count against his party seeing as crime has quadrupled since he came to power in 1999. 

A further stipulation to the penal code dictates that should an individual reporting “offensive” material be backed by foreign funding and thought to be conspiring against the President, then the sentence could be anything up to 30 years.[ii]  30 years.  If one believes that to be “defending human rights” and the “liberty of the people”, just ask Carlos Correa, a human rights defender and director of the Venezuelan organisation Espacio Público, for his opinion on the matter.   Correa and his organisation have been hounded by Chávez and his regime after committing the somewhat less than heinous crime of taking donations from the US and are consequently under criminal investigation as well as subject to a demoralising state-media harassment campaign.[iii]

In the mainstream media, RCTV, Globovision and Caracas radio station CNB 102.3 are some of the bigger names that have felled victim to Chávez in one sense or another for failing to form a neat formation behind his socialist agenda.  But there are many more; the radio-waves alone have been scathed with some 40 percent of licences revoked – a staggering 240 stations.  Meanwhile, TV executives have been dubbed “white collar terrorists” by Chávez for daring to step across the aisle and diverge from his exuberance for the socialist revolution. 

And what has replaced these broadcasters?  Silence?  Think again.  Chávez has been industrious in expanding his own information empire, now controlling 2 national radio networks, six television channels, 72 regional television stations and 600 radio stations,[iv] providing him with an effective information infrastructure through which he can manipulate political discourse.  He tires even his keenest constituents with an eight hour radio and television slot, Aló Presidente, each Sunday which has been the typical platform for some of his most infamous political theatrics.  For those who care not to watch or listen, hard luck; Suddenly with Chávez was launched in 2010 allowing Chávez 24 hour access to the radio-waves, unannounced.  As the title quite brilliantly signifies, the programme has no schedule time and can be broadcast at midnight, the break of dawn and anywhere between at Chávez’s discretion, often interrupting popular broadcasts such as baseball games so as to maximise his audience.  One can almost imagine Chávez crashing through the television sets of millions of unsuspecting Venezuelans as their sporting idol is poised to hit a game winning home-run.

In sum, and to return to a serious note, Chávez is no such defender of “democratic values”.  He is in fact the polar opposite, waging a war against a core of democratic principles including private property and democratic representation in addition to free information.  This dictator (forget his democratic rise, he is what he has become), has quite simply endeavoured to brand political dissidence a crime thus curtailing the freedoms of information, speech and association through an incessant media offensive.  It is nothing short of dictatorial control and desperate repression of political discourse and debate; an overarching media strategy designed to suppress opposition and retain and consolidate power.

The award of this honour to Hugo Chávez is therefore hypocrisy of the highest order.  While those of us in London, Washington or any other democratic outpost are able to stand, stare and scratch our heads in disbelief, Venezuelans are subject to this sickening suffocation on a daily basis.  The uprisings across the Middle East look unlikely to extend across the Atlantic Ocean in the near future, but if Chávez’s chokehold increases in pressure applied, similar uprisings will surely reach Venezuela given time.

by Dane Vallejo

[i] Jackson Diehl, ‘Chavez’s Censorship – Where ‘Disrespect Can Land You in Jail’, The Washington Post, March 28 2005, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5755-2005Mar27.html

[ii] Jackson Diehl, ‘Chavez’s Censorship – Where ‘Disrespect Can Land You in Jail’, The Washington Post, March 28 2005, at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5755-2005Mar27.html

[iii] ‘Open Letter: Carlos Correa, director of the Venezuelan NGO ‘Espacio Público’: harassment campaign against him’, Protect Online, August 19 2010, at http://www.protectionline.org/Carlos-Correa-director-of-the.html

[iv]  ‘What’s Next Venezuela? at http://en.whatsnextvenezuela.com/issues/freedom-of-press/ 

This article was originally published by The Henry Jackon Society, 31/03/11, accessed http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/stories.asp?pageid=49&id=2060

Blood (and Oil) Brothers

As Western leaders continue to stumble and stutter over the ongoing crisis in Libya, Colonel Gaddafi has found vocal support from Latin America’s infamous gruesome twosome, Chavez and Castro. The exclusive ‘Dictator’s Club’ maintained by corrupt autocratic leaders brazenly exploiting their own national oil reserves has been quicker to mobilise support than the floundering Western leaders.

The relationship between Libya and Chavez-led Venezuela goes beyond the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Despite minimal cultural similarities, the robust anti-American sentiments that pervade the autocratic administrations in Libya, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua has created unified sentiment under a common enemy. As the recipient of the comically paradoxical ‘al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights’, Hugo Chavez remains committed to ensuring the brutal subjugation of people under autocratic rule. Chavez said last week it ‘was a great lie’ that loyalist Gaddafi forces had attacked civilians fronting the opposition freedom movement, whilst the old anti-American, anti-Imperialist and irrational Fidel Castro denounced the Western media for promulgating a ‘colossal campaign of lies’ about Libya. The absurd criticism of the Western media would be funny if the enduring state-influenced media in Cuba and Venezuela weren’t so tragic.

As the spectre of civil war looms the lack of coordination between Western governments appears in stark comparison to the chummy dictators. Although the situation remains fluid, as recently as last week Catherine Ashton confirmed the EU was not willing to coordinate on military action and hadn’t even discussed the possibility of a no-fly zone.

If authoritarian dictators are willing to stand-up for their own abhorrent, greedy and repressive regimes why is it that Western leaders have struggled so laboriously to stand up for human rights and democracy?

The coordinated opposition to the lone global hyperpower has created a sense of solidarity against Western intervention. It is both scandalous and morally reprehensible that Western powers do not share the same sense of solidarity in mobilising greater action to prevent the continuing gross human rights violations across Libya.

by David Fairhurst

This blog was originally posted by The Henry Jackson Society, 07/03/11 at http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/thescoop.asp?pageid=106&poid=1124

Kicking Cocaine out of Colombia

Whisper it, but cocaine may be on its way out of Colombia; not as an export, but for good...

Inform someone of your Colombian heritage and the customary response will consist either of acknowledgment of Carlos ‘El Pibe’ Valderrama – the eccentric and effortlessly talented Colombian football icon; worldwide music sensation, Shakira; or cocaine.  Whisper it, but the latter association may be on its way into the dustbin of history.

While acknowledging that Colombia remains the world’s largest cocaine producer, the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has dropped Colombia from its list of countries requiring special observation since production has decreased by 58% between 2000 and 2009.  This is high praise indeed for a state that spent the lion’s share of the 80s and 90s as hostage to rival drug cartels that held levels of geostrategic power previously unseen in non-state actors.

Where did it all go so right?  Well, without getting too carried away (Colombia still has a number of socio-political problems that it needs to address as well as the ongoing drug problem itself), much of the acclaim belongs with the preceding Uribe administration.  Much maligned by left-of-centre commentators (even more so further-left-still, principally in Chávez’s Palacio de Miraflores), human rights activists, and indigenous demographics for his military-orientated approach to the war-on-drugs, the ex-president has often been dismissed as a “gringo puppet”.  But it seems his kinetic-military approach combined with mass eradication projects appear to be paying off - for the new Santos administration and Colombia at least.

The drug problem in Colombia is complex.  Its roots hover between left-wing guerrilla groups, principally the FARC, right-wing paramilitary organisations, notably the AUC, and abhorrently violent criminal entrepreneurs.  Solving the problem is therefore equally complex.  If the desired end is simple enough to settle on (eradication of drug exportation), the means are less so.  Uribe’s approach viewed the crisis through a military paradigm; all out war.  But at the other end of the scale there is the development approach which includes providing alternatives to coca cultivation for Colombia’s indigenous populations, tackling poverty and acute inequality, and addressing the grievances of the FARC.  In short, there is a lack of consensus on what needs to be done.

Amid this lack of consensus, a glaring problem arises despite Colombia’s improvements: the drugs may be disappearing from Colombia, but they’re not disappearing.  The Central American isthmus, especially Mexico, and sub-equatorial South America, significantly Peru, have experienced an explosion of drug production in the time that Colombia’s has decreased.  It seems, therefore, that Uribe’s approach has, to an extent, simply pushed the problem away from Colombia’s borders and into its local neighbourhood.   

Thus, while the military approach has served Colombia well, now is the time to foster development in an integrated multi-pronged assault.  While left-wing guerrilla’s and violent entrepreneurs are on the defensive, Bogotá is in a strong position to negotiate their demise.  In turn, decreasing the power of the FARC will delegitimise the raison d’être of the AUC.  Act now, achieve lasting success, and Colombia may well provide the template for future success stories to come.

by Dane Vallejo

This blog was originally posted by The Henry Jackson Society, 02/03/2011, at http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/thescoop.asp?pageid=106&poid=1117

Welcome to The Wild West

Many say that the level of violence in Mexico is exaggerated; that things aren’t as bad as the media portrays. In fact, President Obama said, only in September, that comparisons between Mexico and Colombia at the height of its drug war are void. The families of the four headless corpses displayed in the city of Nuevo yesterday may beg to differ. And they won’t be the only ones. The murder rate in Mexico has rocketed from around 200 per month in January 2007 to around 1,100 in June 2010. In total, an estimated 34,600 individuals have met their end in drug related incidents since Felipe Calderon began the ostensible war on drugs at the end of 2006.

Thus, perhaps the most shocking aspect of this most recent exhibition of extreme violence is that, well, it’s not that shocking. In addition to the grossly inflated monthly murder rate that is largely supplemented by gang on gang crime, there were over a dozen mayors and mayors-elect assassinated in Mexico last year as well as a candidate for the governor of Tamaulipas in June and the former governor of Colima in November. It’s becoming less of an anomaly and more of a regular strand within the fabric of Mexican society. And it’s not only the political class under attack; the media has also been victim of an intense campaign of violence and intimidation as have the judiciary and law enforcement agencies.

The situation is becoming dire. It shares more than an eerie similarity with Colombia’s plight in the 80s and 90s where Pablo Escobar’s “plata o plomo” (silver or lead, money or bullets) policy ruled Colombia with a genuine sense of fear. There, the assassination of Presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was the culmination of a campaign of terror which targeted Colombia’s democratic institutions; the free press, the judiciary, law enforcement agencies and the government. Spot the difference? There isn’t one. Mexico’s cartels are following in the well-trodden footsteps of Escobar. Palming the situation off as “exaggerated” is burying one’s head in the sand.

And Mexico’s military oriented response is not so much helping matters. Taking out the likes of Gulf Cartel’s drug lord, Antonio Ezequiel Cárdenas Guillén, aka 'Tony Tormenta', may be necessary if Mexico is to break up the cartels’ activity, yet the similarities with Colombia’s drug war mean that similar means of beating the problem are required. Mexico must make use of the very institutions which are currently under siege in this struggle; giving the centre stage to its law enforcement agencies and judiciary. A militarised response may give the impression of speedy gains but in reality it is a dangerous platform that encourages a full blown war bringing Mexico’s cocaine cowboys’ own “plata o plomo” policy into a legitimate light.


by Dane Vallejo

The Dictator Club

"What Simon Bolívar is to the Venezuelan people, Gaddafi is to the Libyan people" said one Mr. Hugo Chávez.  If it wasn’t for the gravity of around 1000 deceased at the hands of Gaddafi’s regime, one might muster a wry smile at this lunacy...

Latin American reactions to the on-goings in Libya have been split and all the more interesting as such.  On the one hand, there’s Peru which has become the first state to sever ties with Libya following Gaddafi’s repulsive response to the protests against his despotic regime.  A gold star for Lima; good work.  But before we get carried away with celebration, let’s not forget the gruesome twosome: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.

Castro has gone on record to criticize the West’s response to Gaddafi’s gross crackdown in Tripoli and Benghazi.  Oil, he says, is the main concern in Washington and not peace for Libya.  What is more, the US is supposedly ready to invade in "a matter of hours or a few days" according to the Cuban dictator who still runs the show behind Raul’s figurative leadership.  These are bold claims given the relative quiet that has dominated the White House since events broke.  One can only imagine that Castro’s rhetoric will spew like an erupting well now that Obama has finally reacted to events in Tripoli.

Then there’s Chávez: Latin America’s very own peculiar political performer.  Direct ties between Chávez and Gaddafi have been growing incrementally over the years and just when you thought their relationship could not get any more bizarre, it inevitably does.  Gaddafi has named a football stadium after Chávez in Benghazi; he has offered a Bedouin tent to Chávez as a warming gift; and Chávez has bequeathed a replica of Simon Bolivar’s (the championed liberator of South American independence from the Spanish) sword in return.  Ah yes, the famous Bolivar sword.  Everybody has one:  Mugabe, Castro, Gaddafi.   Somehow this symbol has perversely come to represent staunch opposition to democracy, prosperity and liberty.

So while this exclusive club of dictators hides behind the pretext of perceived Western imperialism and exploitation of their resources, it is important to recognise that their relationships really boil down to a cosy bracket designed to protect the sanctity of their own personal sovereignties.  For all of Chávez’s endeavours to endear himself to indigenous peoples and minorities worldwide, where is his support for the hundreds dead in Libya?  If “revolution for the people” is what he stands for, then where is his support for those who continue to brave the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi to force political change?  It’s very easy for me to sit here poking fun at the lunacy of these dictators and illuminate the contradictions in their ways, but there is a serious issue at hand here.  As long as there are dictators such as these, violations of human rights will continue.

This brings me to my final point.  Considering Chávez’s incessant reference to Simon Bolivar, perhaps he ought to take heed from one of Bolivar’s own musings: "Nothing is so dangerous as allowing a single citizen to remain in power for a long time. The people get used to obeying him, and he gets used to giving them orders, and that is the root of tyranny."

There is a glaring lesson in there for Chávez, Castro and Gaddafi.


by Dane Vallejo

This blog was originally posted by The Henry Jackson Society, 24/02/11, at http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/thescoop.asp?pageid=106&poid=1110 

The Dragon in the Backyard

China’s economic rise ought not to be Washington’s only concern in regard to the Asian giant as Beijing’s intrusion into the Western hemisphere is a clear strategic threat to the US’ geopolitical interests...

Visit Cartagena on Colombia's Northern coast and you will see an unmistakable history of transatlantic imperial history unravel before your eyes.  From the rows of picturesque colonial houses with their wooden banister balconies, blossoming hanging baskets and vibrantly painted exteriors through to the crumbling fortress of San Felipe de Barajas complete with the brass cannons peeking over its historical walls, the stamp of Spain's empire is intoxicating. But as the stonework of San Felipe de Barajas fades with time, somewhere down the Atlantic coastline, the hard steel of a new empire is being laid. 

Plans for a 'dry Panama canal' were unveiled yesterday which propose to link the Pacific port of Buenaventura to Colombia’s Atlantic coast by rail.  If the deals brokered last year by Beijing with Venezuela's state oil company PdVSA and its dealings with Brazil’s Petrobas weren't enough to convince, these latest negotiations with the Santos administration in Colombia ought to paint a clearer picture; China's scramble for Latin America is well and truly on.

The Sino-Colombian relationship has been growing for some time.  Trade between the pair has leapt from $10 million to $5 billion in 30 years and Colombia’s geostrategic position as South America’s shortest northern route from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast is a clear pull for Beijing.  The 491 mile, $4.7 billion railway line is therefore not such a surprising venture between the resource-crazy Chinese and the Santos administration which has focused on an economic agenda since replacing the defence-centric Uribe.  But where does the US stand amongst all this?

On the plus side, it would appear that this proposed deal will be a further step toward the ongoing renovation of Latin America’s continental infrastructure and will therefore be beneficial for the neoliberal agenda in the Western Hemisphere.  It is likely that the move will also prompt the US to finally ratify the free-trade agreement with Colombia which has been on the table for some four years.  But amongst these economic outlooks, it is difficult to see beyond the strategic significance of a dragon in the backyard. 

China’s push into the Western hemisphere is ultimately a push into the US’ traditional sphere of influence.  Since the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine, the US has been particularly sensitive to outside influence in the Americas as exemplified by the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.  It is unlikely that this stance will soften now.  China’s economic rise is the subject of some serious column inches in Washington and worldwide, particularly now that some estimates project China’s GDP to catch up with the US’ by 2025.  Add to this meteoric economic resurgence China’s human rights record and its ideological appeal to the Leftist-Latin-League headed by political performer, Hugo Chávez, and you have a problem. 

Whether or not we are willing to acknowledge it and whether or not China is even consciously aware of it, Beijing is on a path to empire.  As many historians have pointed out, empires exist because great powers calculate that they can obtain better access to resources through control as opposed to the open market.  Surely it’s about time we open our eyes and recognise what the Dragon is up to?


by Dane Vallejo

This blog was originally published by The Henry Jackson Society, 15/02/11, at http://www.henryjacksonsociety.org/thescoop.asp?pageid=106&poid=1094 

Viva Jhonattan Vegas

It may be 'just' a golf victory (an admirable one at that), but Jhonattan Vegas' victory in La Quinta is also a good opportunity to wave two fingers at Hugo Chavez...

Jhonattan Vegas became the first Venezuelan to win a major golf tournament last night with victory in the Bob Hope Classic in La Qunita, California.  Why does this matter?  He would probably say because it’s a great start to his fledgling career.  But from an admittedly slightly bizarre angle, I would say it is because this victory is a big ‘two fingers up’ at Hugo Chavez.

He may have offered his congratulations to Vegas, stating he at least "beat the gringos", but the Venezuelan President (ever nearing dictator) has gone on record in the past to call golf a “bourgeois” pastime, adding that golf courses should be paved over and used for housing for the poor.  Far be it from me to argue against better standards of living for the poor.  In fact, far be it from me to get involved in any bourgeoisie vs. proletariat debate whatsoever.  But Vegas’ victory has the potential to resonate throughout Venezuela; inspiring the poor to achieve through excellence, despite the constraints they are under in Chavez’s ever asphyxiating regime.  After all, Vegas is a man who began his golf career with a broomstick and a rock.

Hugo Chavez is, quite simply, a danger to his country, his immediate neighbours and potentially to the international system as a whole.  His calls to expropriate golf courses for the ‘public good’ (a dubious claim, to say the least) are but the latest in a long line of expropriations that completely contradict Article 115 of Venezuela’s constitution which protects its citizens’ right to private property and enterprise.  But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  This is the same man who has flagrantly abused his power, most recently by exploiting his country’s extensive flooding by engineering the right to rule by Presidential decree.  The same man who has censored the press extensively in Venezuela, stifling the right to freedom of information and association.  The same man who has crippled Venezuela’s economy, yet now has the temerity to verbally attack a sport for being contrary to the needs of Venezuela’s poor.

Add to the mix his ties with Russia, China and Iran, his pursuit of nuclear power, and his consistent undermining of international cooperation and trade and it's clear that Hugo Chavez is bad news.  And so I say ‘Viva Jhonattan Vegas’ for not only his fine sporting victory, but for the example he is setting for his fellow citizens against a backdrop of ascending autocracy.

by Dane Vallejo