rigorousintuition.ca

[American Dream]

http://www.ww4report.com/node/5575

ENOUGH WITH THE HUGO CHAVEZ HERO WORSHIP

Time for left to repudiate Venezuelan leader over China—while supporting goals of Bolivarian Revolution

by Nikolas Kozloff, World War 4 Report

In an effort to appease Beijing, so-called leftist leaders in South America are backing the Chinese "Communist" Party's crackdown in Tibet, or remaining neutral. Chinese troops have brutally silenced protests calling for independence in Tibet and have reportedly killed scores of people. Nobel Peace Prize winner the Dalai Lama has condemned the repression and requested an international investigation. Communist China has occupied Tibet, a Buddhist region previously ruled by monks, since a military invasion in 1950.

Latin leaders' failure to challenge the Chinese over the Tibet question is a sorry spectacle. It's a slap in the face of socially progressive forces in South America as well as those on the US left which have been generally supportive of the Pink Tide sweeping across the region.

Chile's Bachelet Makes a Mockery of Human Rights
Let's first consider the case of Chile.

To be realistic, Chilean President Michele Bachelet's pro-China policy is not very surprising. Chile worships free trade and will do everything it can to further export-led growth. Bachelet signed a free trade deal with China in late 2006 in an effort to boost sales of copper, fruit, and fish oil to Asia's second-biggest economy. Since then, Bachelet has traveled to the Asian nation in an effort to enhance ties. The Chilean president boasted of figures showing a $1.4 billion increase in trade between the two nations last year.

"When Chile considers how to continue its development, Chile thinks big," Bachelet remarked. "And to think big means to think China."

When asked by the press about the Chinese crackdown in Tibet, Bachelet was tight-lipped lest she offend her trade partners. "Chile has taken a clear stance on the issue through our Chancellery [Ministry of Foreign Relations]," she remarked. "The Chinese government knows of this position, and it understands it and respects it."

Bachelet, whose regime boasts of its adherence to human rights and overcoming the brutal military legacy of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, has fallen under heavy criticism for its "neutral" position on human rights abuses documented in Tibet and China in the build-up to the June Olympic Games in Beijing. To her discredit, Bachelet has ignored calls by Amnesty International to take a tougher stance in denouncing such violations.

Bachelet's caving on human rights is all the more puzzling in light of her own personal story. Bachelet’s own family suffered considerable violence during the 17-year regime of former dictator Pinochet. Bachelet's father, former Air Force Gen. Alberto Bachelet, died from a torture-induced heart attack and Michele and her mother were forced into exile.

Chileans are starting to see through Bachelet's hollow rhetoric on human rights. During a recent pro-Tibet demonstration in front of Santiago's presidential building, Amnesty International coordinator Pablo Galaz remarked, "Chile maintains a very weak and hypocritical position today" regarding human rights in China. One onlooker remarked, "It's embarrassing... At the bottom of if it's about how much does Tibet weigh in copper? That's how I'd sum up the government's attitude." Copper one of Chile’s main exports to the Asian market.

Within the government too, some voices of dissent have questioned official policy. Jaime Navarro, a socialist and head of the Senate's Human Rights Commission, insisted that the international community take action "to avoid a new genocide in Tibet, especially considering that China is a permanent member of the United Nations' Security Council. We ought to raise our voices against this repression against the Tibetan people. First there are human rights and—much later—our economic and commercial interests."

Unconvincingly however, Chilean officials have justified Bachelet's position by claiming that business and human rights are two distinct areas and should be treated as such when making political decisions. The government used the same argument previously when Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley presented the free trade agreement with China to Congress.

Now hoping to outfox Foxley, Chile's lower-house Chamber of Deputies recently approved a resolution calling upon the Minister to "condemn the violence and repression in Tibet and request that the Government of China open direct conversations with the Dalai Lama to find a peaceful solution" to the conflict. The resolution passed 35-8, with one abstention.

In a further slap in the face of progressive forces, however, the Bachelet government opposed the resolution. In seeking to blunt calls from the Chamber of Deputies, Bachelet has resorted to some rather remarkable moral acrobatics and jujitsu. To take up the cause of the Tibetan people, argued presidential spokesman José Antonio Viera Gallo, could invite similar criticisms of Chile. Remarking upon an outstanding conflict with indigenous peoples in Chile's south, he declared: "I don't know if we would like it if a foreign parliament opined on situations like that of the Mapuche."

The Mapuche have long suffered abuses at the hands of the government and accuse the security forces of killing indigenous activists and occupying Indian lands. In an ironic twist on the Tibet imbroglio, the pro-indigenous Web site MapuchExpress remarked, "The government of Bachelet and Viera Gallo know that they have their own Mapuche Tibet."

On China, Chávez is Little Better Than Chile
Unfortunately, Venezuela's President Chávez has little credibility when it comes to human rights since he, like Chile, has embraced Beijing. Venezuela has a lot of economic interests at stake when it comes to China. Chávez has signed a number of agreements with the Asian nation to deepen technological and energy cooperation.

In particular, Venezuela seeks to increase the supply of oil to China. Venezuela's strategy is to diversify its markets so as not to depend so much on supplying oil to the United States, its political adversary. Chávez's ultimate goal is to create a more "multi-polar" world in which the United States cannot act unilaterally.

Chávez's efforts to counteract U.S. imperial designs are understandable, but China is hardly a model country to lead a multi-polar world. Currently, China's human rights abuses are staggering. For example, the authorities have detained hundreds of thousands of people, including political activists, for "reeducation" programs, or (more to the point) forced labor camps.

Given Chávez's championing of labor protections in Venezuela, his support for China is particularly jarring. According to Human Rights Watch, Chinese workers are forbidden to form independent trade unions. Because Chinese workers have few realistic forms of redress against their employers, they have been forced to take to the streets and to the courts in an effort to press claims about forced and uncompensated overtime, employer violations of minimum wage rules, unpaid pensions and wages, and dangerous and unhealthy working environments.

"Workers who seek redress through strike action are often subject to attacks by plainclothes thugs who appear to operate at the behest of employers," writes Human Rights Watch in a recent report. In one recent incident, a group of 200 thugs armed with spades, axes, and steel pipes attacked a group of workers in Guangdong who were protesting over not having been paid for four months; they beat one worker to death.

Chávez's World Travels: From Saddam to Ahmadinejad
It's not the first time that the Venezuelan leader has exercised a certain lack of moral clarity in his foreign relations. As long as countries pass the crucial litmus test of opposing the US, Chávez will eagerly court their support. The Venezuelan president, for example, went to Iraq in August of 2000 to meet with Saddam Hussein. He was the first head of state to meet with the Iraqi leader since the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

"We are very happy to be in Baghdad, to smell the scent of history and to walk on the bank of the Tigris River," Chávez told reporters. "I extend my deep gratitude to him [Saddam] for the warm welcome he gave us."

At the time, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Chávez's visit was a slap in the face for the United States. The official Iraqi press hailed the trip and praised Chávez's courage in defying Washington. "We salute him for his principled moral stand and his insistence on going ahead with this trip despite the silly American criticism," a newspaper, Al Thawra, said.

In his quest to rattle the US, Chávez has courted some other rather unsavory leaders. The Venezuelan leader for example has solidified ties with Iran and calls fundamentalist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "one of the greatest anti-imperialist fighters." Chávez added, unbelievably, that Ahmadinejad was "one of the great fighters for true peace."

And Onward to Belarus...
As if that was not questionable enough, Chávez has also carried out an alliance with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in order to counter "hegemonic" capitalism. Human rights campaigners say that opposition voices are harassed and stifled and independent media has been all but eliminated in Belarus. Opposition activists are closely monitored by the secret police—still called the KGB.

"An authoritarian style of rule is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it," Lukashenko has remarked. "You need to control the country, and the main thing is not to ruin people's lives." The Belarus president has furthermore warned that anyone joining an opposition protest would be treated as a "terrorist", adding: "We will wring their necks, as one might a duck."

Many former Lukashenko allies and government ministers have either fled abroad or joined the opposition. Others, such as former Deputy Prime Minister Viktar Hanchar and former Minister of Internal Affairs Yuryy Zakharanka have disappeared altogether.

All of this was seemingly of no concern to Chávez, since Belarus is a fierce critic of the US. In a visit to Minsk, Chávez said, bizarrely, that Belarus was "a model social state like the one we are beginning to create." "Here, I've got a new friend and together we'll form a team, a go-ahead team," Chávez said.

Tibet: The Last Straw
If Chávez fans had any doubts about where the firebrand politician stood on the question of international human rights, the Venezuelan leader has surely cleared up the confusion by defending China’s nasty crackdown in Tibet. Ridiculing attempts to protest the Olympic Games, Chávez said that Venezuela was strongly behind Beijing and Tibet was an integral part of China.

True to form, Chávez remarked, "The United States is behind all that is happening as it wants to derail the Beijing Olympics." The Venezuelan leader added that the protests against the Olympic Torch were an example of the US "empire" "going against China" and trying to divide the Asian powerhouse. "America is the main force behind whatever is happening in Tibet," Chávez said, "and its motive is to create problems in the Olympic games."

One wonders whether the Venezuelan government will soon engage in the same kind of moral jujitsu practiced by the likes of Bachelet. Chávez could claim, like Chile, that economic relations should have no bearing on human rights. If that fails to convince supporters, the Chávez government might claim, in an echo of Chile's PR strategy, that Yanomami Indians of the Venezuelan Amazon have historically faced discrimination in society and that therefore, it would be inappropriate for Venezuela to take the moral high ground and criticize China for its sorry human rights record.

It's the last straw.

It's time for the incessant hero worship of Hugo Chávez, so common amongst the international left, to end. Venezuelans' right to self determination ought to be defended, and US imperial machinations against Venezuela soundly denounced. The Bolivarian Revolution, which has advanced the cause of the poor and disenfranchised, should be fortified and protected. International admirers of the Bolivarian Revolution, however, should also strongly condemn recent remarks by Chávez, who has lost any semblance of a moral compass.

----

Nikolas Kozloff is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008)

RESOURCES

The Impact of the 2008 Olympic Games on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in China
Sophie Richardson, Human Rights Watch
Testimony before Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Feb. 27, 2008
http://cecc.gov/pages/hearings/2008/20080227/richardson.php [1]

From our daily report:

Venezuela charges Colombian military incursion
WW4 Report, May 19, 2008
http://ww4report.com/node/5523 [2]

Chile passes Tibet resolution, Mapuche heartened
WW4 Report, April 20, 2008
http://ww4report.com/node/5380 [3]

Iran to launch TV station in Bolivia's coca country
WW4 Report, March 8, 2008
http://ww4report.com/node/5222 [4]

Cartoon wars back on... in Belarus
WW4 Report, Jan. 27, 2008
http://ww4report.com/node/4989 [5]

-------------------

Special to World War 4 Report, June 1, 2008
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Source URL:
http://ww4report.com/node/5575

Links:
[1] http://cecc.gov/pages/hearings/2008/20080227/richardson.php
[2] http://ww4report.com/node/5523
[3] http://ww4report.com/node/5380
[4] http://ww4report.com/node/5222
[5] http://ww4report.com/node/4989

[Horatio Hellpop]

For fucks sake......who is he supposed to deal with?

[tKl]

Tibet is not a part of China. It never has been and the fiction can only continue under the propaganda-guns-torture approach.

This is a radical leftist "tell" in the world wide poker game of people who hide their true beliefs from us all and cloak their intentions in the name of justice.
_________________
"He needs less and more blankets!"

-Walk Hard

[tKl]

[erosoplier]

Nikolas Kozloff...sound just as likely that he's of the CIA as he is of the left.

[tKl]

[Horatio Hellpop]

I believe in the right of small nations to self determination. I believe the western world grants this right selectively.

However I also have a deep distrust towards exiles from revolutions be they Cuban or Tibetan or whatever. They tend to be the former elites of those countries, part of reprehensible regimes with levels of oppression that we could not comprehend.

By all means please allow the native Tibetans to take control of their own country, but don't let that fucker have anything to do with it. He's just a prince in exile with a good speech writer.

[Stephen Morgan]

Tibet has always been part of China. The Dalai Lama was born in non-Tibet China. He works for the CIA. I'm sure he'd love to put his feet up on a slave, but the Chinese government took them all away. Nasty Commie scum, as his friends in the SS would say.

As for Chavez, his defenders might want to read Hopsicker's latest.
_________________
We had our first child on the NHS, and had to wait nine months. Can you believe it? -- Hugh Laurie

[8bitagent]

[JackRiddler]

1) The old game of certain opportunists on the left, to suddenly attack some strawman on the left as though there was an equivalence argument to something on the right, even when there isn't. It's how you get to show how balanced and courageous you are, despite the monolithic reign of leftist opinion under which you labor. You too can be a Maverick and one day write for an establishment outlet!

2) First they demonize him, then they call those who defend him "hero worshippers."

3) Well, Chavez is a hero and more than this, the movement is heroic and we can only hope it spreads as a world model. The first and most dramatic example of the people turning back a CIA coup that had already come to power in Latin America, the true beginning of the end of the US empire. 4/11-4/13 2002 was probably the most important single event in the 21st century, including 9/11/01 and 3/19/03.

4) Sorry, in this case, if you are a US citizen: You are either with the democratically elected Latin American targets of the CIA, or against them.

5) Chavez deals with China! Which reminds me: The Sandinistas dealt with the Soviets! Evil, evil! This is funny, coming from a country, the US, that's in complete symbiosis with the Chinese regime.

6) If more world leaders had the guts to visit Saddam, maybe the US war of aggression would have been stopped.

7) Imperialists, stop fucking up countries for decades, then you don't have to complain about the predictable aftereffects.

And this is WW4 Report. Pathetic. When Iran is hit, is he going to remember what a bad regime it is? Will it be, "I oppose the war, but that doesn't mean I support the regime..." as though others who oppose the war in the US do support the regime. Coward.

---

SOON AFTER:

The rhetorical techniques employed are so transparent. Wanting to sell more oil to China (instead of to the American regime that tried to OVERTHROW HIM) smoothly turns into "support for China" and in turn translates into support for labor camps. But did Chavez issue a statement supporting Chinese labor camps? No, he's doing nothing different from what everyone who does business with China does.

Hey, Kozloff, you're in the US. You want to boycott China, there's Wal-Mart down the block. Take your posters and go!

[American Dream]

The problem is black-and-white thinking, in my view. There is a bandwagon which says Chavez is all good. There is another bandwagon which demonizes him. I'm not jumping on either, personally.

To me, it is rather like the Cuban situation. I would never say that the Revolution was perfect, that Castro has done nothing wrong. However, the whole of the Cuban Revolution involves the whole of the Cuban people, an incredible, and indeed heroic, people. I support them strongly- not only in their aspirations for liberation from Yankee domination, but also just as awesome people who have given much to the world.

In a similar way, the Bolivarian Revolution is much, much more than Hugo Chavez. I support him as a key organizer of Latin American resistance to Empire, though I do not support all of his decisions, nor his top-down, party-centric management style. However, I do support Hugo Chavez, even if it is somewhat critical support.

In owning these opinions, I think it is important also to take stock of my position in the world. I am a U.S. Citizen, not a citizen of Venezuela or Cuba. It is not my place to tell these nations what is right. It is however, a moral imperative that I look at my own government, and do as much as possible to make it a force for good, or at least not so much of a force of evil...

[JackRiddler]

.

Speaking of black-and-white thinking, it's the headline that really does it.

Imagine this exact same article without the all-caps imperative (ENOUGH!) the strawman accusation (HERO WORSHIP) or a subhead that admonishes another strawman ("the Left") and a phrase that could come straight from the State Department ("repudiate Venezuelan leader"). This from a US writer during the end stages of the Bush regime with Iran and Venezuela both targeted. Yeah, the Left's big problem right now is not the paralyzed antiwar movement but its unacknowledged man-love of Chavez.

Well, even with a headline like,

"Chavez Enters into Questionable Alliances"

it would still be full of shite, a blinders-on screed against the Officially Designated Enemies (ODEs) of the American empire, but I could have certainly read it without immediate anger.

[ninakat]

JackRiddler, thanks for those insightful postings -- you tore that ridiculous article to shreds.

If anyone here has missed either of the following two films, I highly recommend them, and both are available in their entirety online:

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a.k.a. Chavez: Inside the Coup) is a 2002 documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. A television crew from Ireland's Radio Telifís Éireann happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus, they followed the events as they occurred. During their filming, the crew recorded images of the events that they say contradict explanations given by Chávez's opposition, the private media, the US State Department, and then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The documentary says that the coup was the result of a conspiracy between various old guard and anti-Chávez factions within Venezuela and the United States. -- wikipedia

and

The War on Democracy

'The War on Democracy' was John Pilger's first major film for the cinema. Set in Latin America and the US, it explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile.

[8bitagent]

[tKl]