Protests, Disturbances, and Violence Continue in Venezuela, General Strike a “Failure”

Venezuelanalysis | April 16^th 2013

Merida –  This afternoon president Maduro said the opposition’s call for a general strike today had “failed”. He also blamed the losing candidate in Sunday’s elections, Henrique Capriles, for the seven deaths last night.

Maduro said last night’s violence was part of a plan “to take Venezuela off the road of democracy”, and called on the people to be peaceful and not “fall for provocations”.

He also declared “the coup d’état defeated”, and inaugurated a health centre in Miranda state. However he said it seemed the “destabilisations will continue”. Though there has been no direct attempt to overthrow the government, some government authorities have referred to the opposition’s refusal to recognise the election results as a “coup” or part of an attempt to bring about a coup.

President of the National Electoral Council (CNE) Tibisay Lucena said yesterday that the electoral system functioned “perfectly” on Sunday. She urged Henrique Capriles, who has not recognised the results, to use legal methods to present his complaints. 54% of the votes were audited on Sunday in the presence of booth witnesses from both political parties, and no problems were found, but opposition protestors are demanding that 100% of the votes be recounted.

Telesur reports that according to CNE norms, the opposition have “twenty [working] days to contest the results, they can do it through the Supreme Court, or the CNE, but they should formalise it, and not do it through the media”.

“Majority is majority, and should be respected under a democracy, they shouldn’t seek ambushes and invent things in order to make popular sovereignty vulnerable… that has just one name, “coup-ism” [golpismo],” Maduro said yesterday.

Monday’s aggressions

Last night seven people were killed as a result of opposition violence; two in Caracas, three in Ojeda, Zulia, one in Cumana, and one person in San Cristobal.

The opposition set fire to 18 Central Diagnostic Centres (CDIs – part of the Barrio Adentro health mission), and 3 subsidised food markets (Mercals). They also attacked the director of the CNE, Tibisay Lucena’s house, and the Telesur and VTV offices.

There are also unconfirmed reports of four attacks on housing mission buildings in Miranda, with seven people killed and ten injured.

The governor of Carabobo state, Francisco Ameliach, reported that 8 CDIs were “besieged” and Cuban doctors were attacked in his state. He said 64 people were detained inside the CDI, and “should go to jail, because we’re not going to tolerate a coup d’état here”.

In Merida, around 700 mostly young opposition students protested outside the CNE, as well as in four other places in the city. Venezuelanalysis.com observed that police presence was light, and most police unarmed.  Many of the students armed themselves with rocks and glass bottles however, as though hoping something would happen. There were similar such protests outside most of the country’s main CNE headquarters.

Many people have posted photos around social networks, claiming they are of the CNE disposing of Sunday’s ballot boxes, though they are in fact of the CNE disposing of 2010 voting boxes, as the law requires. Media like La Patilla and RCTV have also used the photos.

Further, pundit Nelson Bocaranda tweeted that the “CDI in La Paz, Gallo Verde, Maracaibo is hiding some electoral boxes and the Cubans there won’t allow them to be removed”. Opposition television station Globovision has been arguing that “if they don’t want to count the votes, they must have something to hide”.

Capriles called for marches around the country to each state’s head CNE office for today, and for a large march lead by him tomorrow to the headquarters of the CNE in Caracas.

President of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, reported through Twitter that he will propose an investigation to the assembly against Capriles for the acts of violence. Luisa Ortega said the public prosecutor’s office will investigate the seven confirmed deaths.

Further, the suspension of the right to carry arms in place during the election, as is the custom, has been extended to this Saturday 6.00pm, following last night’s violence.

State, municipal, and national police are also confined to barracks until Saturday. Police need permission from  the National Bolivarian Armed Forces strategic operational command to intervene or act on any of the violence taking place.

Related articles

• Maduro Wins Venezuelan Presidential Election with 50.66 Percent of the Vote (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• Opposition Intensifies Campaign against Venezuelan Electoral System (alethonews.wordpress.com)
• Capriles Attacks Venezuelan Electoral Council, Refuses to Sign Document (alethonews.wordpress.com)

Corruption Charges Shake the Venezuelan Opposition

By Chris Carlson | Venezuelanalysis | February 7^th, 2013

Punto Fijo  – In a heated debate before the National Assembly on Tuesday, several politicians from opposition political party Primero Justicia were accused of corruption, and one opposition legislator broke ranks with the opposition coalition.

President of the National Assembly Diosdado Cabello had warned earlier in the week that he would be presenting evidence of corruption on the part of the right-wing party Primero Justicia (Justice First) before the Assembly.

On Tuesday, he offered various pieces of evidence that showed that Primero Justicia had received more than BsF. 491 million (US$ 114 million) in undeclared funding from private sources between 2009 and 2011.

The evidence consisted of checks from various private Venezuelan firms made out to Richard Mardo, opposition legislator and candidate for governor of Aragua in last December’s state elections, as well as a recorded telephone call of Miranda Governor Henrique Caprlies’s father discussing campaign financing.

Evidence was also given against opposition legislator Gustavo Marcano for presumably transferring funds to members of Primero Justicia during his term as mayor of the eastern city of Lecheria.

All of the accusations were against members of Primero Justicia, the party of opposition leader Henrique Capriles.

The party has a history of corruption allegations, famously accused of receiving funds from Venezuela’s oil company before Chavez took power, and recently being accused of illegal campaign financing during last year’s presidential campaign when hidden cameras caught a meeting between a party official and a private businessman.

“This party is a mafia organization that uses politics as a way of doing business. This is what they really are, but they want to present another image to the public,” said Cabello.

Pro-Chavez legislators said they would be presenting formal charges against both Richard Mardo and Gustavo Marcano of Primero Justicia, and requested that they be placed under house arrest until the investigations are carried out. Officials later added Henrique Capriles, Julio Borges and Carlos Ocariz to the list of those to be investigated.

The accusations created an uproar on the floor of the assembly, with both opposition and pro-government legislators shouting insults and accusations, and leading one legislator to break away from the opposition and join the pro-Chavez coalition.

Opposition legislator Hernán Núñez criticized the opposition Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition of parties and called for the corruption charges to be investigated.

“I’m breaking ties with a coalition that isn’t united or democratic. It’s a coalition of four parties that get together and rob the hope of the Venezuelan people,” said Núñez amidst the cheers of the pro-Chavez legislators.

Opposition leaders assured that the accusations were simply a “show” put on by the government to try to weaken the opposition, and that the politicians who have recently broken ranks with the opposition were “bought off” by the government.

At a press conference on Wednesday morning, Mardo used newspaper clippings to show the various activities to which the funds had gone, claiming they were used for charitable activities like food purchases for poor families, and the repairing of a sports facility.

However, pro-Chavez commentators pointed out that newspaper clippings were not sufficient proof for how the funds were spent, nor could they justify the fact that the funds were not declared for tax or campaign purposes.

But opposition leaders and analysts insist that the government accusations against Primero Justicia are part of a larger plan to demoralize and weaken the opposition before an imminent election later this year if Hugo Chavez is unable to return to the presidency.

Henrique Capriles, who would most likely be the opposition candidate in any presidential election, insisted the charges were actually aimed at him.

“Don’t anyone be mistaken…Here what they want is to come after me, and to demoralize you all. But we won’t kneel before anyone!” said Capriles.

Opposition analyst Luis Vicente León argued that the accusations are a way for the government to make up for a growing “power vacuum”.

“The government is trying to terrorize its adversaries in order to minimize them and send a strong message that there is no power vacuum, and that they can be even stronger and harder than before,” said León.

However, pro-Chavez analysts claim the events have more to do with ruptures within the opposition coalition as the opposition parties attempt to remain united behind Henrique Capriles.

“The events in the National Assembly show that there exists a conflictive situation inside the opposition,” said pro-Chavez analyst Farith Faija, claiming that some parties in the coalition were critical of Capriles’ “abandonment of the state governor candidates in December, the raw corruption in the core of the opposition coalition, and the fact that it isn’t unified or democratic.”

Hernán Núñez gave similar reasons for his rupture with the opposition coalition, accusing Capriles of abandoning the rest of the opposition’s state governor candidates, and not being “sincere” with the Venezuelan people.

Authorities said a legislative committee will investigate the corruption charges and present a report in less than a month. No announcement was made on whether the legislators would be placed under house arrest during this time.

Related article

• US INTERFERENCE IN VENEZUELA KEEPS GROWING

Exposing Five Key Media Myths about Chavez’s Health and Swearing-in

By Ewan Robertson and Tamara Pearson | Venezuelanalysis | January 8th 2013

Over the last few weeks the private English media has stepped up its campaign against the Venezuelan revolution, spreading a number of lies and misconceptions around President Hugo Chavez’s health, the politics and legalities involved in his swearing-in for his new term, and the Venezuelan government’s handling of the situation. [...]

Here, Venezuelanalysis.com debunks the top five lies currently being spread by private media.

1) The Venezuelan government is being secretive about Chavez’s health

This charge has been made by international media since Chavez first announced he had cancer in June 2011. Criticisms by the private media of government “secrecy” around his condition have intensified as the swearing-in date approaches, in part reflecting an increasingly fractious Venezuelan opposition anxious for details they could use to their advantage.

Mass media sources describe Chavez’s medical condition as “a mystery”, with outlets such as the Los Angeles Times referring to government information on Chavez’s post-operatory recovery as “sporadic and thinly detailed medical updates”. Outlets such as the British BBC and the Australian have picked up the opposition’s call for the Venezuelan government to tell the “truth” on Chavez’s health, implying that the government is withholding information, or outright lying.

The argument that the Venezuelan government is keeping secrets feeds into the discourse most mainstream media use in relation to the Bolivarian revolution, recently describing the government as “despots” (Chicago Tribune) and “autocratic populists” (Washington Post).

Other media has put out its own versions of Chavez’s state of health, with the Spanish ABC going to great lengths to describe even his bowel movements, and reporting that he is in a coma, and the multinational Terra mistaking its desires for reality, reporting that Chavez is already dead. These media outlets have just one “anonymous” source for their reports; they somehow, apparently, have an infiltrator (or an “intelligence source” as they call it) among Chavez’s Cuban medical team.

The government has in fact released 28 statements updating the public on Chavez’s condition since his operation on 11 December, an average of around 1 per day. These statements are available in full text on the internet, and are also being read out by communication minister Ernesto Villegas on all Venezuelan public television and radio.

In the latest statement, released yesterday, Villegas said that Chavez’s condition remains “stationary” compared to the last report, where the public was informed that he has a respiratory “deficiency” due to a pulmonary infection.

It is true however, that beyond mentioning the general cancer site; the pelvic region, the government hasn’t revealed the exact type of cancer that Chavez has, nor the exact nature of the operation that he underwent on 11 December. This is possibly due to privacy reasons.

When asked directly about this issue in a recent interview, Jorge Rodriguez, a doctor and key figure in Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), said “I’d give the example of Mrs. Hilary Clinton, who had a cerebral vascular accident. There are three factors which influence these cases: the part of the brain where it happens, the size of the affected zone, and if it produces a hemorrhage or obstruction. Well fine, I’ve not seen any serious and decent doctor ask in which zone she had the lesion. And I think it’s fine that they don’t ask because that lady has the right to privacy. I’ve not seen Ramon Guillermo Aveledo (the executive secretary of the opposition’s MUD coalition) asking to know if her accident affected her in the frontal lobe, in which case, of course, she couldn’t continue giving the instructions she normally gives”.

Of course, when the international media report on the Venezuelan opposition’s stance towards Chavez’s health situation, they invariably fail to mention that the opposition’s approach has a lot less to do with a crusade for truth, and more to do with its hopes of creating a political and constitutional crisis over the issue. They make out that the Venezuelan government is being deliberately misleading and manipulative with information, but would never point the finger at Western leaders such as George Bush or Barack Obama for not announcing the exact locations of their frequent, long, and luxurious vacations, for example.

2) It is unconstitutional if Chavez doesn’t take the oath of office on 10 January

This is another lie that takes a leaf straight from the opposition’s book. Most opposition leaders, and even the Venezuelan Catholic Church, are arguing that if Chavez cannot be officially sworn-in as president on 10 January then he will lose his status as president of Venezuela. They say that in that case, Chavez should be declared “permanently absent”, and the head of the national assembly, Diosdado Cabello, would have to take over as president and call fresh elections. The opposition also claim that the swearing-in ceremony cannot be postponed, and that if Chavez continues on as president after 10 January it would be a “flagrant violation of the constitution”. Their strategy is to use their own interpretation of the constitution in order to try and depose Chavez on a technicality while the president-elect lies in Cuba struggling in post-surgery recovery.

Private media outlets have latched onto this argument, and misinformed about the Venezuelan constitution. In a highly misleading article, the Washington Post claimed that a delay in Chavez’s inauguration ceremony would be “a stretch of the constitution’s ambiguous wording”. Similar comments were made in other U.S. outlets, with Time arguing that Venezuela’s constitution is “a murky map that could send the western hemisphere’s most oil-rich nation into precarious governmental limbo this year”. Reuters argued that the Venezuelan government is “violating the constitution” and the country will be “left in a power vacuum”, and the BBC, which maintained a more reserved tone, still portrayed interpretations of the constitution as muddied debate between government and opposition.

However, Venezuela’s constitution is clear on the situation. The conditions under which a president can be declared permanently absent and new elections called are covered by article 233, and are, “death, resignation, destitution decreed by the Supreme Court, mental or physical incapacity certified by a medical council designated by the Supreme Court with the approval of the National Assembly, abandonment of the post, [or] a popular recall of the mandate”.

Currently Chavez’s status is that of “absence from the national territory”, a status which is granted by the national assembly. This could eventually be declared a “temporary absence” from the presidency, which is granted by the national assembly for a period of ninety days, and can be extended for 90 further days, as outlined by articles 234 and 235 of the constitution.

What the opposition are trying to do is use article 231 of the constitution, which describes the presidential inauguration, to argue for Chavez’s deposal. The article states that the president elect “will assume their mandate on the 10^th of January of the first year of their constitutional period, through a swearing-in ceremony in front of the National Assembly”. The opposition claim that Chavez’s inability to attend that ceremony means that he has not assumed his term and his “permanent absence” should be declared. However, as noted above, not being able to attend the inauguration ceremony is not considered a reason for “permanent absence” in the Venezuelan constitution, leaving the Venezuelan opposition without a constitutional leg to stand on.

Rather, this situation is dealt with by the second half of article 231, which states, “If for any supervening reason the president cannot take office in front of the National Assembly, s/he will do so before the Supreme Court”. No date is specified.

Venezuelan constitutional lawyer Harman Escarra, an opposition supporter who helped draft the 1999 constitution, explained in an interview with Venezuelan daily Ciudad CCS that constitutionally, even if the president can’t attend the 10 January ceremony, the new presidential term still begins, including the constitutional mandate of the president’s council of state, the vice-president, and government ministers. As such, he affirmed that in Venezuela “there isn’t a power vacuum”.

The constitutional lawyer further explained that under both the letter and spirit of article 231 of the constitution, “The President, from the point of view of sovereignty, is the President. There’s no other, and the mandate of the popular majority cannot not be overturned because of the issue of a date at a specific moment, because that would be to violate a sacred principle that is in article five of the constitution, which says that power resides in the sovereignty of the people”.

Therefore, it is erroneous for international media to report that Venezuela is entering a constitutionally ambiguous situation in which either the status of the president or the next constitutional step is not clear. Further, it is not only misleading, but dangerous to wrongly paint Chavez allies as looking to subvert the constitution to stay in power, when the opposition is trying to question the government’s constitutional legitimacy in order to provoke a political crisis and depose Chavez as president. The opposition is not the “critical” and “unbiased” democratic voice that the private media represent them as. Such reporting also displays a certain level of hypocrisy, as one can be sure that if the U.S. president or British prime minister were unable to assume a particular inauguration ceremony for health reasons, such outlets would not start casting doubt on their legitimacy, as they are currently doing with Chavez.

3) Should elections have to be called, they may not be “fair”, and opposition leader Henrique Capriles has a good chance of winning

This third myth adds to the previous two to create the impression that the Bolivarian revolution is undemocratic. It is spouted by most private media, but especially media from the US, which rarely points out the utterly unfair conditions in which elections are held in its own country.

The Washington Post claimed that if Chavez were to die and new elections had to be called, “Chavez’s inner circle…may consider postponing the election or even calling it off”.

“That’s why the first responsibility of the United States and Venezuelan neighbors such as Brazil should be to insist that the presidential election be held and that it be free and fair,” the WP said, and even suggested that “Mr Chavez’s followers or military leaders” might “attempt a coup”.

The US State Department has also called for any elections that Venezuela has to be “free and transparent” and the Chicago Tribune in an article today said, “In October, Chavez vanquished his first serious challenger, Henrique Capriles, despite being too sick to campaign… Too sick to give speeches, he bought votes through political stunts like awarding a free government-built home to his 3 millionth Twitter follower.”

The Chicago Tribune’s statement is a lie; Chavez attended one to two huge rallies around the country in the month before the presidential elections, including one in Merida the authors of this article attended, as well as fulfilling his duties as president. And, of course there is no basis or need for these calls for “fair” elections. None of the private media will remind its readers of the 16 elections held over the last 14 years, that 81% of Venezuelans voluntarily turned out to vote in the October presidential elections, that Venezuela is building up participatory democracy through its communal councils, and that Venezuelans have access to completely free and widely available health care, education, and even to subsidised housing—basic conditions necessary for democracy to be practiced.

The Washington Post argued that the Venezuelan government “fears” free elections because “a fair vote would be won by opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost the October presidential ballot but is more popular than Mr. Maduro.” This is wishful thinking, another example of the media mistaking its desire for reality. The opposition did not receive more votes than the governing PSUV in the recent 16 December regional elections, despite Chavez’s absence. The opposition is weak, divided, disillusioned after 14 years of losing election after election (except the 2007 constitutional referendum), has no street presence what so ever, and has no program or cause to unite around, beyond wanting power.

4) A split within the Chavista leadership between Maduro and Cabello is coming

This is another idea bandied about by the Venezuelan opposition and propagated by the international media. The notion, or hope, is that if the worst were to happen and Chavez were to die, Chavismo would immediately become divided among itself and fall apart. In particular, it is argued that national assembly president Diosdado Cabello would try to seize the presidential candidacy of the PSUV from Vice-president Nicolas Maduro. Some opposition figures appear to be actively encouraging this, with opposition legislator Maria Corina Machado demanding that Diosdado Cabello take power on 10 January and that “distrust” and “fear” exist between Cabello and Maduro.

On cue, always backed by vague “analysts” or “observers”, the international media has informed the public of, “A potential rift inside Chavismo between Maduro’s more socialist faction and that of the more pragmatic Cabello” (TIME), or, “Mr Cabello wields considerable power and is thought to harbour his own political ambitions” (BBC), and that, “Chavez’s death or resignation could set off a power struggle within the party among Maduro, Cabello, Chavez’s brother Adan and state governors” (LA Times).

Such commentary has been slammed by Maduro, Cabello and other leaders within Chavismo, who all stress the unity of different currents within the Bolivarian movement in the current difficult situation. Indeed, the scenario of a direct power grab by Cabello or any other figure within Chavismo of Maduro’s role as successor if Chavez cannot assume his presidential term is very unlikely. Just before Chavez flew off to Cuba for surgery in December, he told the nation that, “If such a scenario were to occur, I ask you from my heart that you elect Nicolas Maduro as constitutional president of the republic”. Chavez has such strong support and respect from among his followers that it would be almost unthinkable for another leader within Chavismo to publicly go against Chavez’s express wish that Maduro be his successor. Any attempt to usurp Maduro’s leadership and candidacy in fresh presidential elections would be seen as political suicide.

5) That the revolution is over without Chavez

Most private media have also subtly cast doubt that the revolution will continue without Chavez, suggesting that the leadership will collapse, that Venezuela is already in “economic chaos” and “disaster”, that Venezuela is living a political “crisis” right now, and that the revolutionary process can’t survive without Chavez. The Chicago Tribune said that, “Whoever ends up running Venezuela will preside over the mess Chavez made of a prosperous and promising nation” and there is now “high unemployment, record inflation and rampant crime”. This is despite Venezuela ending 2012 with 19.9% inflation, the lowest in years, and unemployment lower than the US.

The media is ignoring the fact that the country has been doing fine this last month without Chavez, that the PSUV leadership won 20 out of 23 states in the regional elections in December, without Chavez’s presence, that there is no crisis here; schools started again as normal today, the barrio adentro clinics are open, people are working, shopping, returning from Christmas season vacations, as normal. There is no panic buying, no looting, no political unrest.

Most importantly, the media is ignoring, is invisibilising the biggest factor there is; the people of Venezuela. Chavez isn’t just a person, or a leader, he represents a political project; of economic and cultural sovereignty, of Latin American unity, of freedom from US intervention, of all basic rights satisfied, and of participatory democracy. The majority of Venezuelans have shown their support for that project by turning out to vote en masse time and time again, including in elections in which Chavez wasn’t running, with voting rates generally increasing each year. In most other countries people would be tired and would have gotten over so many elections by now. Venezuelans have marched in the thousands and millions around the country again and again, not just to support electoral candidates, but to march for workers’ rights on May Day, as well as for other causes such as gay rights, defending journalists against violent attacks by the opposition, in support of various laws, and more. It was Venezuelans, en masse, who helped overturn the coup against Chavez in 2002.

The list of gains over the last 14 years is a long one. To mention just a few: complete literacy, broadly available and free university education, free healthcare centres in most communities, free laptops to primary school children, free meals for primary school children, subsidised food, subsidised books, increased street culture and street art, a range of new public infrastructure such as train lines and cable cars, laws supporting the rights of disabled people, women, and so on, government assisted urban agriculture, legalised community and worker organising, nearly a 1000 free internet centres, music programs, pensions for the elderly, and much more. These huge changes can’t be quickly reversed, and the Venezuelan people have every reason not to let them be.

Further, over the last 14 years, Venezuelans have woken up. They read and know their laws, everyone, even opposition supporters, spends hours each day debating and discussing politics and economics. Apathy still exists, but is way down. There is a political consciousness and depth that can’t be turned off overnight.

While it is true that after Chavez there will probably be bureaucracy, corruption, reformism, and some internal disagreements, these issues existed with him as a leader as well. Any change in political circumstances is an opportunity to bring these problems to the surface and to confront them.

The people of the Bolivarian movement are fighters, and are here to stay.

CNN: The Latest Outlet for Roger Noriega’s Paranoid Speculations

By Keane Bhatt | NACLA | May 14, 2012

On May 2, CNN executive producer Arthur Brice published what was purported to be a news article on Venezuela. Instead, Brice’s 4,300-word screed, titled “Chavez Health Problems Plunge Venezuela’s Future Into Doubt,” is little more than a platform for the bizarre theories of Roger Noriega, an ultra-rightwing lobbyist and one-time diplomat under George W. Bush, who Brice references over two dozen times throughout his article.

As a political commentator, Noriega pontificates with total brazenness. He appeared as the chief pundit in Brice’s CNN piece six months after announcing—based on what he said was the belief of Chávez’s own medical team—that the Venezuelan president was “not likely to survive more than six months.” Noriega is not fazed by facts. He promotes his fantastical claims in many major news outlets, often based on anonymous sources. Take, for example, his 2010 Foreign Policy article, “Chávez’s Secret Nuclear Program,” whose subtitle reads: “It’s not clear what Venezuela’s hiding, but it’s definitely hiding something—and the fact that Iran is involved suggests that it’s up to no good.” (State Department officials dismissed this suspicion with “scorn.”)

CNN’s interviews with Noriega and the other mostly rightwing analysts likely led to this demonstrably false claim at the beginning of Brice’s May 2 article: “Diosdado Cabello, a longtime Chavez cohort . . . amassed tremendous power in January when Chavez named him president of the National Assembly.” In fact, even El Universal, a daily Venezuelan newspaper long-aligned with the opposition, conceded in a January 5 report that Cabello was elected as the new president of the National Assembly, even if “only with the votes” of the majority United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Ewan Robertson of Venezuelanalysis.com found that 98 deputies of the pro-government bloc supported Cabello, while the 67-member opposition bloc opposed him. Such mundane electoral processes have guided much of Venezuela’s political dynamics over the past decade.

The rest of CNN’s long-winded compilation of hearsay proceeds in the same way. To give two examples, Brice turns to Venezuelan doctor Jose Rafael Marquina to shed light on Chávez’s current state of health. By Brice’s own admission however, Marquina “practices in Florida and has no direct connection with the case but says he has colleagues who know what is happening.” On the separate issue of Venezuelan politics, “the Cubans,” Brice writes, “may only have the power to suggest and manipulate as best they can,” but he also cites “some observers” who fear the Cubans could leverage their “perceived point men” in the country to unleash “militias in an attempt to take over.” Brice then quotes Noriega as saying, “I have no doubts that some Cubans would use violent means to deal with Venezuelans.”

These examples are indicative of CNN’s desire to spin a yarn of intrigue. Venezuela’s October presidential vote should be no different from the past. Closely monitored, free and fair elections have been the final word in political outcomes in Venezuela. But by relying on telephone interviews with self-proclaimed “analysts” almost exclusively based in the United States, CNN portrays Venezuelan politics as a grand chess game of “powerful men trying to bend the arc of history because they believe their president’s life may be slipping out of the hands of doctors and into the hands of God.” For CNN, Venezuelan voters play a marginal role, if any at all—it’s a sensationalized struggle between drug-dealing generals, Cuban spooks, well-connected cronies, armed militias, and a dying, charismatic strongman in thrall to Fidel Castro.

Had Brice decided to report on the ground from Caracas, he may have produced a video segment similar to the one that appears alongside his own article on CNN’s website. Journalist Paula Newton describes the free, government-provided medical attention in poor areas—a “concrete” reason why broad support for Chavez “isn’t exactly blind,” she says. Newton also shows Chávez voters displaying (reasonable) skepticism toward conjectures that the president is about to die or is already dead—a potentially valuable lesson for CNN, considering Brice’s general credulousness.

~

Noriega’s buffoonish commentary in outlets like CNN would be more amusing if not for his hands-on experience in crafting devastating U.S. policies toward Latin America. Noriega’s career in government, one may recall, includes administering “non-lethal” aid to the Nicaraguan Contra insurgency as a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official in the 1980s. He followed this up as a senior staffer to Senator Jesse Helms in the 1990s, co-authoring the Helms-Burton Act, which intensified the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Bush II appointed him as ambassador to the Organization of American States in 2001, and in 2003, he replaced Iran-Contra veteran and Venezuelan coup-backer Otto Reich as Bush’s Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. For this post—his last in government before switching over to the private sector—Noriega had big shoes to fill, and he undoubtedly rose to the occasion.

Whereas Reich failed to roll back the leftward tide of Venezuela in 2002 during his tenure (the military coup which overthrew Hugo Chávez lasted only two days), Noriega triumphed in damming the populist flood of Lavalas in Haiti. As the only mass-based political movement in the most unequal country in the hemisphere, Lavalas, headed by the democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was an obvious threat to the Bush administration. The denouement of the administration’s destabilization campaign occurred in February 2004 when Aristide and his family were spirited away by a U.S. plane in the middle of the night. Noriega initially denied that the United States played a role in Aristide’s removal, feebly claiming that Aristide had embarked on the plane by his own volition. But according to Dr. Paul Farmer—Harvard health specialist and UN Deputy Special Envoy for Haiti—Noriega admitted “during a House hearing that Aristide did not know of his destination until less than an hour before landing in the Central African Republic.” Robert White, a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, told Newsday right before the coup that “Roger Noriega has been dedicated to ousting Aristide for many, many years, and now he’s in a singularly powerful position to accomplish it.”

Today, Noriega divides his time between his post as a Latin America “scholar” at the pro-corporate American Enterprise Institute (AEI) think tank, and as a registered lobbyist for various interests in countries that are the subjects of his widely published commentaries. Noriega’s influence-peddling has been extremely effective in recent years. For example, in addition to writing opinion pieces defending the 2009 Honduran coup d’etat, Noriega—who was hired to represent a Honduran textile manufacturers group—organized a meeting between the coup regime’s supporters and U.S. Senators less than 10 days after the overthrow of the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya. Daniel W. Fisk, who helped set U.S. policies in Central America as a high-ranking government official in the 1980s and ‘90s, attended the meeting. According to The New York Times, Fisk was “stunned by the turnout.” “I had never seen eight senators in one room to talk about Latin America in my entire career,” he was quoted as saying.

The Times framed Noriega’s actions toward Honduras as a vestige of Cold War planning. Noriega, Reich, and Fisk, wrote The Times, viewed Honduras as “the principal battleground in a proxy fight with Cuba and Venezuela,” two countries that the three men characterized “as threats to stability in the region in language similar to that once used to describe the designs of the Soviet Union.” Noriega certainly warned against a new red menace when he supported Zelaya’s overthrow; Honduras was ground zero in what Noriega called “the continued spread of Chavista authoritarianism under the guise of democracy.”

~

Given Noriega’s disturbing record, it is astonishing that CNN produced a news piece on Venezuela through the lens of a lobbyist with obvious conflicts of interest in Latin America.  Brice’s article, which never mentions Noriega’s lobbying, is dominated by comments like these:

Noriega and other observers have said [Chávez’s] appointments of Cabello and Rangel Silva have turned Venezuela into a narcostate. . . . ‘If Cabello and Rangel Silva resort to dirty work to hold things together, Maduro is a guy they can bring in to give a veneer of respectability to the international community,’ Noriega said, calling [the hypothetical scenario he just created] a ‘junta kind of arrangement.’ . . . The military also would face deep divisions if called upon to fire on Venezuelan citizens. . . . “The elections are, from [Cabello and Rangel Silva’s] standpoint, expendable,” [Noriega] said. “On the other hand, if they believe they can add a patina of legitimacy, they will hold them. They’re going to be hard-pressed to make a legitimacy argument with a narco kingpin in power.”

Through CNN, Noriega is able to publicly fret over the prospects of a Venezuelan military coup (like the one the Bush administration and the IMF supported in 2002) and criticize Venezuela’s purported drug trafficking (like the kind carried out by CIA asset Manuel Noriega and the U.S.-backed Contras). Noriega preemptively disapproves of a hypothetical Venezuelan election whose purpose, he says, would be to “add a patina of legitimacy” (despite Noriega’s own endorsement of the U.S.-backed sham elections in Honduras in 2009, which were conducted under a dictatorship).

There is also some historical context behind Brice’s unquestioning use of terms like “narcogenerals,” “narcostate,” “narcoterrorism,” and “narco kingpin” with relation to Venezuela. Many of these instances originate from Noriega’s direct quotes to CNN. This is just the latest example of media manipulation that Noriega’s colleagues mastered long ago. From 1983-86 Reich headed a taxpayer-funded propaganda outlet, the Office of Public Diplomacy, which, among other activities, placed false reports in major outlets that the Sandinista government in Nicaragua was involved in narcotrafficking. Haiti is another case: In 1992, the CIA created a fraudulent psychological profile on Aristide, which Senator Jesse Helms then used to denounce the president as a “psychopath,” a claim that was uncritically parroted by the press at the time. Aristide, the diminutive liberation theologian, was also the subject of a U.S. grand jury investigation due to his alleged involvement in narcotrafficking. Although the media repeated the claim that Aristide’s was running drugs, human-rights attorney Brian Concannon pointed out in 2006 that ultimately, “not a single charge [was] issued from the courthouse.” (U.S. efforts to assassinate Aristide’s character through the courts continue up to the present day.)

~

Roger Noreiga’s nuttier theories, thankfully, were not incorporated into the piece. Here are just a few short excerpts of Noriega’s baseless output as of late:

• In a March 2011 article for AEI titled, “U.S. Diplomats Clueless on Alleged Chávez Plot to Kill the President of Panama,” Noriega asked, “If Panamanian authorities dismissed this as a hoax, why have senior officials of that government expressed their gratitude to me for revealing the plot months since the incident? And why on earth would Chávez risk an attack on Martinelli? I cannot answer these questions.”
• In another AEI entry from October 2011, titled “The Mounting Hezbollah Threat in Latin America,” Noriega contends that “Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America dates to the mid-1980s, when it began sending operatives into the notoriously lawless region known as the tri-border area . . . Their activity also includes pirating software and music.”
• In the March 2011 Washington Post op-ed “Is There a Chavez Terror Network on America’s Doorstep?” Noriega is able to find both al-Qaeda and Iranian operations in Venezuela: “The threat posed by globe-trotting terrorists is ever-present,” he writes. “A U.S. security official told me in mid-January that two known al-Qaeda operatives were in Caracas planning a ‘chemical’ attack on the U.S. embassy . . . A Venezuelan government source has told me that two Iranian terrorist trainers are on Venezuela’s Margarita Island instructing operatives who have assembled from around the region. In addition, radical Muslims from Venezuela and Colombia are brought to a cultural center in Caracas named for the Ayatollah Khomeini and Simon Bolivar for spiritual training.”

• In Noriega’s April 2010 ultimatum in The Wall Street Journal, “Time to Confront the Tehran-Caracas Axis,” he uncovers yet another sinister plot: “[T]he Canadian uranium exploration company U308 Corp has recorded a substantial source of uranium in the Roraima Basin, which straddles the border between Guyana and the Venezuelan province of Bolívar. Iranian or other Middle Eastern individuals operate a tractor factory, cement plant and gold mine in this region.”

Noriega concludes this WSJ op-ed by appealing to international law. He writes that Venezuela’s nefarious plans “should be challenged as a threat to peace and an act of aggression under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter.” This is a perfectly appropriate way to deal with any rogue state that, in Noriega’s words, is prone to “meddle in the internal politics” of other countries, and provides “support for terrorist groups in the Americas.” Unfortunately, Noriega has it upside down. It is not Venezuela, but the United States that is unequivocally responsible for doing both kinds of activities. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Noriega to equally apply such standards.

Related articles

• US ambassadors to Venezuela: chronology of failure (alethonews.wordpress.com)