Posted by Miguel Octavio recently as

Geplaatst doorMichel Vuijlsteke 5 reacties op Posted by Miguel Octavio recently as

Posted by Miguel Octavio recently as a comment to this entry:

Well, I do not praise Mr. Carter for his work, in the case of Venezuela he has played into Chavez’ hand and I am pretty confident that the reason is that my Government made a substantial donation to the Carter Center. In fact, the information I have is that it was US$ 2 million.

Here is my story: http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2002/10/12.html#a99

In the end they are both corrupt.

Well, I don’t know of course, but it seems to me as if Miguel is reading a bit too much into the over-careful wording of the Carter Centre’s denial.

As far as I know, Carter did not get the different parties in Venezuela to reach an agreement and at least part is the blame for this failure rests in the opposition’s rejection of the Carter Centre as a mediator. Apparently they would have preferred the Organization of American States to handle the talks, but Chavez’s people balked at that beacause, let’s face it, the OAS was not exactly chomping at the bit to condemn the coup aginst Chavez 🙂

I don’t know. I guess I’ll follow Churchill in seeing democracy as “the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. The fact remains that Mr. Chavez was elected to power in 1998. With a landslide majority. And it’s not because he has ties to Lybia or Cuba, that the opposition should seek his removal from power with any other means than democratic ones.

I mean, it’s not as if democracy doesn’t give them options: I don’t know about the Venezuela constitution, but aren’t there any provisions for some sort of referendum? Or perhaps the opposition could do a Clinton on him and try to get him indicted, perhaps for fraud or embezzlement?

Of course the role of the US administration in all this (Chavez overthrown? Yay! Who cares if the coup was illegal!) is less than honourable in all this, but what else is new?

5 reacties op “Posted by Miguel Octavio recently as”

  1. Yes, there are provisions for a referendum, the Assembly can call for one. He controls it. Over 20 suits to impeach the President have been brought to the Supreme Court (including his responsability in the killings in April), he controls it. Referenda are organized by the National Electoral Commission, he controls it. The Council has yet to review complaints from elections two years ago, which the opposition lost, all those brought by Chavez candidates ahve been resolved. In any case, the Constitution has a little trap, the people can only call for a referendum by gathering 500,000 signatures after half the period of the President is over. But, a separate article says that if the President leaves after half the period, the Vice-President, named by him, becomes President until the end of the term.

    On the carefully worded Carter statement, local newspapers challenged the Center one month ago to deny any donation from the Venezuelan Government, they have not done it. The problem is that they always defend the fact that Chavez was elected, but never criticize his violations of human rights and the Constitution.

  2. On the OASA, they saved Chavez in April. If the OAS had not objected to his ouster, he would have not come back. By the way, there was a coup in April, but Chavez had resigned first……with his resignation the Vice-president should have become President, that is what the Constitution says. Michel, this is not Belgium, institutions are very fragile, there are no checks and balances, corruption is unbelievable, there is no law. It’s more exciting, but….

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