In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has made it his goal to oppress all opposition and to draw as much power to himself as humanly possible. Newspapers and networks critical of him have been forced to shut down. He’s also trying to rewrite the Constitution which would enable him to remain his country’s president until the day he dies. What’s more, students who attended an anti-Chavez protest yesterday were fired on. Two of the student-protesters were wounded.
“Seven more victims suffered other injuries, according to university official. Local television station Globovision broadcast images of protesters running for cover during the incident on the campus of the Universidad Central de Venezuela,” Bloomberg reports. Adding that at 7:10 p.m. New York time the interior minister said “that the situation was under control.”
All of this makes one wonder why it is that some American celebrities continue to publicly support Chavez. Either they don’t know anything about Chavez’s ambitions to become Venezuela’s dictator or they do but don’t care. Will they, once again, speak out in favor of their precicious Latin leader?
I’m waiting to hear from Naomi Campbell and Sean Penn. It’ll be interesting to hear what they’ve got to say being Chavez apologists and all.
John Hinderaker, meanwhile, points out that Venezuela isn’t the only country where mass protests are taking place. The same is happening in Georgia and Pakistan. For an overview of who the bad guys and who the good guys are in each of the three countries, I’d say head on over to PowerLine.
More at Memeorandum.
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Stop the whining. Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford and many other leaders Republican and Democrat have supported getting rid of term limits. In fact using your logic every governor, senator, and congressperson have appointed themselves rulers for life.
Venezuela has is faults certainly, but the recent engagement with students was no Berkley or Ohio. Did you get this upset when a student got tasered, or that 14 year punched in the face and tasered, or even that old lady who was recently tasered to get her under control. Sorry, Chavez is nothing compared to the good ole USA.
Yours in revolution.
O great, a communist found this blog.
Are you, by the way, kidding me or what? America is a democracy where there are term limits, something which most people, including the ones you mentioned, support.
And you are right: it certainly was no berkely or ohio. At those two universities the students weren’t shot at. Only one was tasered - which looked pretty brutal but later we found out that this was the intention of the student.
Now, I understand that your buddy Stalin didn’t have a problem with killing people, but most do.
I just checked out your blog and what do I see? Not only are you a communist, you’re also anti-semitic: “An end of days Zionist nightmare was more powerful than the day to day struggles against moral ambiguity.”
My God.
Don’t bother to respond you’re banned.
I was there, and it was very different from your misinformation. When the “pacific” protester arrived in the campus there was a small group of pro-reform students (about 30) placing banners at the social work building, and they were attack by the protester. They run inside looking for protection, because as the media have said the protesters were ‘tens of thousands’, and they were surrounded by the “pacific” protesters whom set fire to the building and throw rocks, bottles and everything you can imagine through the windows.
Michael is sure throwing around a lot of labels here. I thought pejorative labels were never to be used on this blog. I remember just a week ago my comments were deleted because I used the word “warmonger” to refer to specific public figures. Now we see Michael using the labels communist and anti-semite, in the same sentence no less, to refer to another commenter. Do I detect a double-standard?
Why are you having trouble understanding why some American celebrities continue to publicly support Chavez? It’s so simple. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
If you believe (as some liberals do) that America is the source of all the world’s problems, since Chavez says the same, he must be good. If you hate Bush, since Chavez does, too, he must be good. Et cetera ad naseaum.
The only thing different about the celebrities who think this way is that they get more press. Unless you think that they also tend to simplistic, either-or, thinking more than the rest of the population.
It turns out that the opposition students had trapped some pro-government students in a building and were throwing rocks at them through the windows and threatening to lynch them before the “masked gunmen” arrived to rescue them.
But why let mere facts get in the way of your right wing bile? I loved your self-description as “moderately liberal” and then its exemplification with your bigoted treatment of the “communist” commenter (anti-Zionist and anti-semitic obviously mean the same to you). Have a nice day!
By the way, Chavez is President (and will be for a long time) because the people want him and vote for him. That must grate for an anti-socialist fanatic like you!
http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/blog/link/cookie-crumbling-gun-smoking-shoe-dropping-and-other-doh-moments/
When students protesting Hugo Chavez’s plan to make himself into a dictator for life protested in Caracas chanting “Freedom”, the riot police that smashed through their ranks were under the supervision of Deputy Justice Minister Tarik or Tareck El-Aissami.
In his early thirties Tarik El-Assimi is one of the younger men to have held such a post. His father Carlos el-Aissami headed the Venezuelan branch of the Baath Party, while his great-uncle Shibli el-Aissami was a close Saddam ally and served as assistant to the Secretary General of the Baath Party.
Before the invasion of Iraq, Carlos El-Aissami held a press conference in which he described himself as a Taliban and called Osama Bin Laden, “the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden”. The son, Tareck el-Aissimi who headed up Venezuela’s visa department and now serves as deputy justice minister, began as student union leader supervising drug dealing and a car theft ring, while intimidating his rivals. He maintained links to terrorist organizations. With the rise of Chavez, Tariq El-Aissimi’s rise began as well.
- Hide quoted text -
On Nov 9, 2007 9:06 AM, Michael Pugliese wrote:
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/28/Worldandnation/Venezuela_shifts_cont.shtml
see the details on campus politics!
Venezuela shifts control of border
The two young men put in charge of immigration have pasts as student militants and a tie to Saddam Hussein.
By PHIL GUNSON and DAVID ADAMS
Published November 28, 2003
CARACAS, Venezuela - Amid allegations that the Venezuelan government has given identity documents to foreign terrorists, President Hugo Chavez has put the country’s immigration service in the hands of two young radicals, one of whom is close to the ousted Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
Hugo Cabezas and Tareck el-Aissami were appointed in the past two months as director and deputy director, respectively, of the Identification and Immigration Directorate, known as the DIEX after its initials in Spanish.
Their responsibilities include passports, voter identity cards and border security. Both men are former student leaders of groups accused of links to clandestine armed organizations.
“These appointments raise suspicions,” said former Minister for Border Issues Pompeyo Marquez. “The risk is that they can play tricks both as regards elections and identity cards.”
The DIEX appointments come at a sensitive moment in Venezuela’s 2-year-old political crisis. Opposition leaders are to begin collecting signatures today to call for a national referendum to oust Chavez, with both sides fighting over the electoral process.
Venezuela is also facing mounting allegations by U.S. officials, and regional security analysts, over ties to terrorism. Middle Eastern terrorist groups operate “support cells” in Venezuela, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials. Left-wing guerrillas in neighboring Colombia also have training bases inside Venezuelan territory, they say.
The most serious claim, made recently in the pages of the news magazine, U.S. News & World Report, involves allegations that Venezuelan identity documents have been issued to foreigners, including some from “Middle Eastern nations that play host to foreign terrorist organizations.”
While the Chavez government makes no secret of its left-wing revolutionary goals, officials strongly deny any terrorist connections.
Responding to the U.S. News & World Report article, Chavez accused the “extreme right” in the United States of “trying to justify anything: an assassination, a coup d’etat, an invasion” to remove him from power.
U.S. officials appear to be torn over how to handle relations with Chavez. The State Department prefers a cautious approach, anxious not to cause a greater rift with Venezuela, which supplies the United States with about 13 percent of total oil imports.
But some U.S. military officials are so concerned by developments in Venezuela that they would like to see the Bush administration take a tougher approach.
Some analysts say allegations against the Chavez government need to be considered with care. “It’s become so politically divided you don’t know who to believe,” said John Shields, Americas editor of Jane’s Sentinel Security Assessment, a leading global risk analysis firm based in London.
“There is gradually a picture building up here,” he said, “but it’s still a long way from being able to say that this guy (Chavez) is actually backing terrorists.”
Since his election in December 1998, Chavez has refused to allow U.S. counter-drug surveillance over Venezuelan airspace, adopted a critical posture to free trade negotiations and embraced Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
In 2000, Chavez became the first - and only - foreign head of state to visit Saddam Hussein in Baghdad during the period between the Gulf War and the allied invasion. Deeply critical of the U.S. action, he sought to have the post-invasion government excluded from meetings of the oil exporters cartel, OPEC, of which Venezuela is a founding member. He bitterly opposed the bombing campaign to remove the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Cabezas, 30, and el-Aissami, 28, are both radical “Chavistas” who emerged as student leaders at the University of the Andes in the city of Merida, about 300 miles southwest of the capital, Caracas.
The university city of Merida has for decades been a haven for guerrilla groups, both domestic and foreign. Venezuelan and Colombian guerrilla groups continue to maintain an armed presence at the university, with the alleged complicity of Merida state government officials, according to students and university officials.
Merida’s governor is a former army officer close to Chavez, Florencio Porras. Cabezas was his private secretary until last year.
State officials deny the allegations. Even so, students and academics point to a dramatic upsurge in radical student activity during el-Aissami’s two-year tenure as president of the student union. Prior to his departure in July, armed groups consolidated their presence in student residences, they say.
A report by the vice rectorate of academic affairs recently found that of 1,122 people living in a student housing complex, only 387 were active students. More than 600 are completely unconnected to the university.
While the university provides essential services at the residences, students have a say in room allocation and building security. Under el-Aissami’s rule political control over the residences fell into the hands of extremists with criminal ties, according to students and university officials.
The current director of Student Affairs, professor Oswando Alcala, accused students under el-Aissami’s leadership of turning the residences into a base for criminal activity.
“They use the residences to hide stolen cars. There’s drug trafficking, prostitution,” he said. “There are always weapons there. . . . They leave the residences, put on ski masks and do hold-ups in the street.”
He added that the students appeared to have political backing. “All this is done with the full knowledge of the university and (Merida) state authorities,” he said.
University directors had tried to intervene, but local judicial and law enforcement authorities declined to act, he said.
When Alcala voiced objections in May, students in ski masks surrounded his office armed with gasoline and tires, threatening to burn it down. A former guerrilla himself, Alcala scared them off, saying he wasn’t afraid of a violent confrontation.
El-Aissami was soundly defeated when he sought re-election in July, with opponents winning more than 70 percent of the vote. After the election, the new student council found the union offices ransacked, with phones, fax machines, computers and files all missing.
The windows of the student union offices are still full of holes made by rocks and bullets during election campaign violence.
Cabezas and el-Aissami belonged to a radical group called Utopia, of which Cabezas was a founding member. It is suspected of links with a clandestine armed paramilitary group, the Bolivarian Liberation Forces, or FBL, which professes allegiance to Chavez.
No links between the FBL and Middle Eastern groups have been established, although some FBL communiques call for “popular war” against “imperialism and Zionism.”
El-Aissami is of Syrian origin, although born in Venezuela. His father, Carlos el-Aissami, heads the Venezuelan branch of the Iraqi Baath Party, while his great-uncle, Shibli el-Aissami was a leading ideologue and assistant secretary-general of the Baath Party in Baghdad, under Saddam Hussein.
Tareck el-Aissami declined to be interviewed for this article, saying he was not authorized to speak publicly. He promised to arrange an interview with Cabezas, the DIEX director. However, subsequent phone calls, both to el-Aissami and to the information ministry, failed to elicit an official response.
Carlos el-Aissami, father of Tareck, did agree to an interview, in which he defended his son as an outstanding student and denied the presence of Arab terrorist groups such as al-Qaida in Venezuela.
Both men attended a joint press conference with the Iraqi ambassador in Caracas March 27, to express their opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and their “solidarity” with “the defenseless Iraqi people.”
Regarding the links between the Baath Party and President Chavez’s political movement, he said the two were “united by the common cause of nationalism and the anti-imperialist struggle.”
He produced an article he had written, entitled “Proud to be a Taliban,” in which he refers to George W. Bush as, “genocidal, mentally deranged, a liar and a racist,” and to the leader of al-Qaida as “the great Mujahedeen, Sheik Osama bin Laden.”
He also questioned whether bin Laden was really responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, asking, “Couldn’t it be that they (the U.S. government) invented that themselves so as to have an excuse (to invade Afghanistan)?”
Critics accuse Cabezas and el-Aissami of carrying out a government plan to politicize the control over the country’s institutions, to thwart opposition efforts to remove Chavez.
“Chavez goes from phase to phase,” said Alberto Garrido, a leading political analyst. “He changes the heads of the DIEX because a tougher phase is coming. In the crucial jobs only the toughest individuals are left.”
- Phil Gunson is a Times freelance reporter based in Caracas. David Adams is the Times’ Latin America correspondent.
World and national headlines
Bigger issue here, that I’ve watched my entire life: whether they hate the US or not (most do, some don’t) it has endlessly fascinated me that a big percentage of the left are simply attracted to dictators. I can’t explain why. But I’ve watched them defend the Soviets and Mao. I’ve watched them glorify Pol Pot (until it became obvious what he was). I’ve watched them glorify Castro (to this day). I’ve watched them justify Khomeini and even Saddam (except when the US was wrongheadedly supporting him in his war with Iran). I’ve watched them glorify Chavez. Ultimately I have to conclude that as many on the left have a romance with dictatorship or at the very least, authoritarianism, as on the far right. But for the left, only the dictators that hate the US. Pinochet no - Castro, yes. Lee Kuan Yew, no - Ho Chi Minh, yes. The right isn’t without its contradictions either. But the left more often professes opposition to dictatorship. Maybe they fantasize themselves as being the people in power when it’s a leftist dictatorship. I don’t really know and I don’t have the right professional degrees to analyze their psyches.
Father Guido…
My younger brother became quite leftist after spending some time in poor areas of Latin America. He’s now the sole Democrat in the family. He argues quite passionately that the poor and uneducated are too poor and too uneducated to really self-govern. He’s very open about his belief that they need a “benevolent” dictator to take care of them. I’ve given him the Wealth of Nations and the Road to Serfdom and Atlas Shrugged, but so far he’s not budging.
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