Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s left-wing, oil-fueled revolution usually carries itself like a swaggering, cocksure juggernaut. So it was a sign that things perhaps weren’t looking good for the fiery, anti-U.S. leader Sunday night when he didn’t appear on the balcony of Miraflores, the Caracas presidential palace, pumping his fists and crowing confidently about victory. Venezuela’s polls had closed in a national referendum on a raft of constitutional reforms that would have profoundly tightened his hold on political power in Venezuela — including an amendment to eliminate presidential term limits (which currently last six years).
The article goes on to praise Chavez for accepting the results with maturity and style, but will he actually abide by them? After all, he can issue proclamations to do whatever he wants. Even the article mentions that the Legislature and Courts exist only to rubber-stamp Chavez’ edicts. What’s to stop him from just remaining in power?
Bushitler still has him on his CIA hit-list, so the only way Chavez can keep protecting the proletariat is by continuing to lead from the front.
Don’t feel sad. Don’t feel burdened,” Chavez told supporters after the results were announced.
“We congratulate the people of Venezuela on their vote and their continued desire to live in freedom and democracy,” said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Thousands of Venezuelans gathered in the streets of Caracas, many of them university students who worked to defeat the measure, and burst into singing their country’s national anthem upon hearing the news.
Of course its the neocons who burst forth in stupid patriotic “rah rah sis boom bah”.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the actual figures were a bit different. I can’t believe Chavez would be so deflated by such a tiny margin—51% against him, 49% for him. Given his past performances and actions, I would bet the farm that a lot more than 51% were against him, but he wasn’t able to completely jigger the numbers. I will also bet he simply has his tame legislature of courts declare the election invalid and pass his “reforms” any way.
Article 345: The constitutional reform shall be declared approved if the number of affirmative votes is greater than the number of negative votes. A revised constitutional reform initiative may not be submitted during the same constitutional term of office of the National Assembly.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has slammed US capitalism as “the road to hell” and pushed his country’s offer to trade oil for goods or services.
In his opening speech to the Petrocaribe summit in Cienfuegos, a southern coastal city about 155 miles from Havana, Chavez said his plan to provide low-cost oil to the region should go beyond financing mechanisms. He offered other countries the option of following the model of Cuba, which repays by sending doctors who offer free services to the poor in Venezuela.
What if I’m not sick, and just want to ride my bike in Norway?
Oh well, barter it is, then. Thats never been tried.
Chavez also called for creating an international fund to promote solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative energy sources.
”Despite the Yankees, our gas is at the service of Venezuela first, and next to our brothers in the Caribbean,” Chavez said in a reference to the United States.
First it was Venezuela, spending $4 billion on Russian fighter planes, Kalashnikovs and perhaps even submarines. Then it was Brazil, in August announcing a 53% increase in its military budget for 2008, the biggest such increase in more than a decade. The competition is still in the early stages but when two of Latin America’s nouveau riche oil powers start splashing out on weapons, alarm bells ring over an arms race.
Indeed, Chavez’s spending spree has given Brazil’s long-dormant arms industry a bit of a political kick-start. Says Brazilian Senator Jose Sarney, a regular critic of Venezuela’s president: “Hugo Chavez’s armed forces have ordered 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 50 attack and transport helicopters, smart bombs, 24 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter planes. There is also talk of them buying nine submarines from Russia for $3 billion. It’s very worrying. As Venezuela turns itself into a major military power, it obliges the other nations in South America to increase the power of their own forces. [An arms race] sadly seems to be getting under way.”
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Former Argentine soccer great Diego Maradona says he wants to meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leading U.S. foe, local media reported on Monday.
Maradona, an outspoken critic of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, gave a signed soccer shirt to an Iranian diplomat on Saturday after a game in the televised Showbol tournament of mini-matches.
Maradona, 47, is an admirer of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and he said this month he wanted a tattoo of Hugo Chavez, the fiery left-wing president of Venezuela and an ally of Iran.
“I’ve already met Fidel and Chavez ... now I need to meet your president. I’d like to meet Ahmadinejad,” he told Iran’s top diplomat in Argentina Mohsen Baharvand in a video broadcast by local media on Monday.
“I’m there with the people of Iran, really with all my heart,” he added after the game in Buenos Aires.
In his heyday, Maradona led Argentina to its 1986 World Cup victory and he is revered in his own country and around the world. But he has struggled with drug abuse and obesity since he retired from the game.
...out of worry and fear for the poor downtrodden. Or maybe hes a fan of Mikeys too
Lap it up, Good People Thinkers, lap it up. This is in no way a staged event. Chevez is selflessly helping to free some hostages…
An international rescue operation is due to get underway today to liberate three hostages held by rebels in Colombia. The Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez set up the deal, which should see two women and a small boy freed.
The hostages include Clara Rojas, a Colombian lawyer who was seized in 2002 with the French-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
Rojas’s three year old son Emmanuel is also expected to be freed. He was born in captivity, his father is thought to be one of the rebels.
The FARC hold hundreds of hostages, some of them for ransom, others including Ingrid Betancourt are seen as political prizes.
... and Chevez even defies death in doing so....
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned on Wednesday that a plot to assassinate him was being hatched in Guatemala.
“I’ve received very recent information that worries us about Guatemala and puts at risk my attendance at the swearing-in of President (Alvaro) Colom,” Chavez told a news conference in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas. “The government of the United States, is always conspiring — not only to overthrow me (but), sometimes, even to kill me,” Chavez said. “Hopefully there is a way to neutralize these plans.”
Bush is the devil, a cold-blooded murderer. But, whatever, those hostages come first…
This also proves FARC has the best interest of the People in mind. Instead of torture a la Abu Ghraib they win the hearts of, and even make love to, their “hostages” (such a harsh word in this context).
BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela — A new voice has emerged to challenge Hugo Chavez’s push to turn Venezuela into a socialist society, someone with rare insight into the president’s passions and vulnerabilities: his ex-wife.
Marisabel Rodriguez says her return to the public spotlight is not a personal vendetta.
“This fight is not against a single person,” she said in an interview at her home with The Associated Press. “This struggle is against the danger posed by leaving a person in power for a long time.”
Lady, you’re no Hillary Clinton, much less Benazir Bhutto....
She takes a critical view on almost every Chavez policy. She says Venezuela is wrongly interfering in nations like Bolivia and Ecuador and is spending too much on the military. Shortages of basic goods like milk, she says, show the government’s failures.
Her advice to the opposition? Be alert, she said, because “he’s going to keep trying to cheat us” by attempting to push through radical reforms by other methods.
Asked if she has some good memories of Chavez, she paused for a few seconds and said: “No one is so bad to not have a good side.”
Then, speaking more broadly, she added: “But I have to admit he had an extraordinary ability to fool us.”
Bolstering hopes for a Sunday release was the arrival Saturday evening of a team of international delegates formed by Chavez and charged with overseeing the hostages’ release. They include Latin American diplomats and politicians as well as U.S. movie director Oliver Stone.
Ah! What a poignant documentary he could make of the ghost of Che’s struggles
“I have no illusions about the FARC, but it looks like they are a peasant army fighting for a decent living,” Stone said in an interview with The Associated Press at his hotel bar. “And here, if you fight, you fight to win.”
When asked if he’s concerned the heavily armed guerrillas could turn on him, he joked: “Well, if they took us, they would be swapping three hostages for 10,” referring to himself and observers from five Latin America countries, France and Switzerland, along to supervise the release. “If I were them, that would make sense.
“But seriously, no, I’m not worried. The FARC knows there would be universal condemnation if they did that,” said Stone, whose arrival has ramped up the media circus that surrounds the pending handover.
We all know how universal condemnation stings so badly. But Ollie, FARCs hostage taking has already been “condemned” and it changed nothing. But you go right ahead make them movie and media stars and yourself the hero of peasant farmers.
Seemingly taking on board common criticism of his performance, Chavez said it was unacceptable that garbage was piling up uncollected in some parts of capital city Caracas, and acknowledged people were worried about crime.
“Yesterday I had to call the vice president and order an emergency meeting about the garbage situation,” he said. “How is it possible that a government can’t collect the trash?”
Cuz, Cha, governments typically fare better with less mundane, more complicated and expensive tasks - like free and universal health care for all proles.
CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN)—Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Friday for Europe to remove from its list of terrorist organizations two Colombian groups—including FARC, the group that freed two hostages Thursday in a mission Chavez organized.
Both FARC and ELN are on the European Union’s list of groups and individuals believed linked to terrorism.
“I will ask Europe to remove the ELN and the FARC from the list of terrorist groups in the world, because that only has one source: the pressure of the United States,” Chavez said.
He argued, “I say this even though somebody might be bothered by it: the FARC and the ELN are not terrorist groups. They are armies, real armies ... that occupy a space in Colombia.”
He added that the two groups’ “insurgent forces” have a goal, “a project,” that is “Bolivarian” and that “we respect.”
This comes as no surprise to me, as many Euros have long worn Che T-shirts in support of own freedom fighters within the RAF, IRA, ETA and BR.
Surely Che will also appeal to NZ and Australia, because they, too, know that
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (CNN)—Guatemala’s first leftist president in 50 years, Alvaro Colom, took office Monday with a pledge to help the poor.
Guatemala’s new President Alvaro Colom holds a presidential cane given by Mayan representatives.
“Today is the beginning of privileges for the poor, for those without opportunity,” said Colom, who represents the center-left National Union of Hope party.
He joins a growing roster of leftist or center-left presidents elected in recent years in Latin America, including the heads of state of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Um, and at what cost?
His inauguration ends a violent campaign season during which at least 51 candidates, their relatives and political activists were killed.
They are martyrs in the noble movement against oil war imperialism. I expect Mexicans to soon flock to South Amierca to get jobs altogether legally, and no longer be treated like subhumans by gringos
Of course if I was a noble poet and this guy was a Bushitler stooge rightie I’d immediately notice his last name looks rather like the word “colon” and Photoshop accordingly, giddily, to raise awareness.
Once the Mayans get their land back from the Latinos via commie Colom, I hope the Maori move to take theirs back, too, with the help of Che, Cha and Castro.
Move over Abraham, Martin and John (and Bobby)
Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
You know, I just looked around and he’s gone.
Anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked around and he’s gone.
Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked ‘round and he’s gone.
Didn’t you love the things that they stood for?
Didn’t they try to find some good for you and me?
And we’ll be free
Some day soon, and it’s a-gonna be one day ...
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
I thought I saw him walkin’ up over the hill,
With Abraham, Martin and John.
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (CNN)—Guatemala’s first leftist president in 50 years, Alvaro Colom, took office Monday with a pledge to help the poor.
Guatemala’s new President Alvaro Colom holds a presidential cane given by Mayan representatives.
“Today is the beginning of privileges for the poor, for those without opportunity,” said Colom, who represents the center-left National Union of Hope party.
He joins a growing roster of leftist or center-left presidents elected in recent years in Latin America, including the heads of state of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Um, and at what cost?
His inauguration ends a violent campaign season during which at least 51 candidates, their relatives and political activists were killed.
They are martyrs in the noble movement against oil war imperialism. I expect Mexicans to soon flock to South Amierca to get jobs altogether legally, and no longer be treated like subhumans by gringos
I just love that you somehow accidently left this part off your quote:
Perhaps the most well-known leftist president in Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz was forced from office in 1954 after the CIA helped arrange a force that overthrew him.
Thus fundamentally undermining any attempt at portraying the people as having no sound reason to have a problem with the US favoured candidate. Ooops.
I just love that you somehow accidently left this part off your quote:
Perhaps the most well-known leftist president in Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz was forced from office in 1954 after the CIA helped arrange a force that overthrew him.
I knew would you find and quickly highlight that most terrible deed to distract from the sad facts. Notice the date? 1954? Has the CIA thwarted all and any lefitists from running there in the last 54 years?
Also notice that they rahte rinexplicably “forced” him out, they didn’t assassinate him.
His inauguration ends a violent campaign season during which at least 51 candidates, their relatives and political activists were killed.
If I was a Thinker I’d immediately suspect that the CIA killed all these people for show, jsut like it wants to murder Chavez for oil, cuz Chavez sez so, cuz of proof this is obvious, since 1954.
Members of the Maori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa (known to many by its colonial name “New Zealand"), were amongst those who founded the Zapatista-inspired Peoples’ Global Action network (PGA) in 1998. A month ago, under New Zealand’s 2002 Terrorism Suppression Act, over 300 police raided houses across the country seeking up to 60 activists in Aotearoa’s Tino Rangatiratanga, peace and environmental movements. Among the 17 people arrested in the sweeps were some of these same founding PGA members, along with current Zapatista solidarity activists. With these networks of solidarity in place, though, a massive response came from all over the world denouncing the raids and arrests...and the terrorism charges were dropped.
Date says this happened in November 2007, not 1954. But whatever. Thats all I need to read. You seem to have your own lil CIA going on down there. Shades of Hitler. I consider myself an active part of that massive response from abroad. You need to give New Zealand back to its people, period.
Maori have a long tradition of struggle and resistance against colonisation and the Crown sponsored theft of Maori land and resources. This site focuses on the ongoing struggle for Tino Rangatiratanga and the people who continue to resist the pressures of colonisation and cultural and economic genocide.
Genocide or enlightenment. Only a NZer can ultimately know.
So, whats a Zapatista anyway? Sounds Commie to me.
Its official now. All freedom fighters will be labeled as “terrorists” not just in the U.S. (see H.R. 1955) but worldwide. Just another way to dehumanize those who seek justice and who choose to come out of the margins.
Bummer. You’re just another gringo to the Maori, CM.
Draft
Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific Workshop 02 - 06 September 1996 Suva, Fiji
RESOLUTION ON DECOLONISATION FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE PACIFIC
Understanding that decolonization, as embodied in U.N. General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 1960, is a means by which peoples can free themselves of colonial subjugation, domination and exploitation through the exercise of free and frill rights to self-determination;
Acknowledging that U.N. General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 1960 requires the immediate withdrawal of the colonizing government and military to provide for the effective exercise of the right to self-determination of colonized and dependent peoples
This writ is 13 years old. It keeps bringing up some UN resolution, from 1960 even. How time flies. This happened before your birth, CM, and yet nothing has yet changed.
Submit this resolution to the South Pacific Forum and the appropriate entities V United Nations to urge their support of our position for self-determination and indigenous Peoples in the Pacific consistent with the right of all peoples under international law.
Did you submit it yet, or, better, why not simply submit and start packing, whitey?
JK. Whats really important is that the CIA forced a leftie out of office in 1954. And that Che lives.
