Venezuela is not longer a democracy

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/220426/oas-chief-almagro-%E2%80%98venezuela-is-no-longer-a-democracy%E2%80%99
WASHINGTON — The head of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, openly denounced corruption and violence in Venezuela yesterday, saying a 14-year prison term for an opposition leader there marked the “end of democracy” in the country.
In an eight-page open letter to hardline Popular Will leader Leopoldo López, Almagro criticized Venezuela’s climate of “intimidation.”
The OAS chief also denounced threats against those working to recall left-wing President Nicolás Maduro.
“No regional or subregional forum can ignore the reality that today in Venezuela there is no democracy or rule of law,” Almagro said, calling López a “friend.”
“Under no circumstances should power be used... to prevent the sovereign will of the people from being expressed.”
The former Uruguayan foreign minister said Venezuelans are a “victim of bullying.”
The Venezuelan government “seeks to maintain its power and deny the people the right to make decisions through voting, by resorting to violence against those who demonstrate or hold other opinions,” Almagro said.
“It has crossed a line, which means it is the end of democracy.”
On August 12, Venezuela’s court of appeals upheld a 14-year sentence for López that was handed down after a closed-door trial. The sentence was strongly condemned by the European Union, the United Nations and the United States.
López, one of Maduro’s most hardline opponents whose stance has excacerbated divisions among the opposition coalition, had repeatedly declared himself innocent of the crime for which he was convicted — inciting violence at anti-government protests in 2014 that left 43 dead.
Venezuela, home to the world’s largest oil reserves, is gripped by recession that has contributed to severe shortages of food, medicine and basic goods that have triggered violence and looting.
Maduro blames the recession on wealthy business magnates and “imperialist foes” he says are conspiring against his government.
The opposition is racing to force a referendum to recall Maduro from office, blaming him for the crisis and mishandling the state-led economy.
According to the Constitution, a successful recall vote this year would trigger a presidential election that the opposition would likely win. But an opposition victory in a recall referendum next year would result only in Vice-President Aristóbulo Istúriz — a Socialist Party stalwart — replacing Maduro until his term ends in early 2019.
Election officials already stretched out the first phase of the recall effort — verifying submitted signatures from one percent of voters to authorize the second petition drive — into a months-long ordeal.
The government has been accused of dragging its feet while stopping short of actually denying the recall effort.
Earlier this month, 15 members of the OAS called on Venezuela to act “without delay” to clear the way for the election.
Almagro recently branded Maduro a “petty dictator” and in an ongoing war of words said Venezuela had suffered an “alteration of constitutional order” and called for OAS members to invoke Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter to suspend the country from the bloc, the issue remains under review.

Case against Venezuelan Leopoldo Lopez fabricated, ex-prosecutor says

Case against Venezuelan opposition leader fabricated, ex-prosecutor says

By Ray Sanchez, CNN

White House calls for the release of Leopoldo Lopez

Ex-prosecutor: Case against Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez "invented"

Government blamed Lopez for violence during 2014 protests, but security forces also accused (CNN)The Venezuelan government fabricated evidence against opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, said a former prosecutor who handled the case against the popular politician.

Ex-prosecutor Franklin Nieves, who fled Venezuela last week, told CNN en Español on Tuesday that "100% of the investigation was invented" around false evidence in a sham prosecution allegedly orchestrated by President Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello, the head of the National Assembly.

Lopez was sentenced last month to nearly 14 years in prison and immediately took to social media to say, "This sentence is not only against me, but it attempts to bring down the spirits of everyone who is fighting to have a better country," according to his verified Twitter account.

Nieves said in an interview that he received orders from government officials to arrest Lopez two days before a 2014 opposition march.

He told CNN's Fernando del Rincon, "They jailed him because they fear his leadership."

The former prosecutor said that "after examining each and every piece of evidence it was shown that this person had at no point made even a single call to violence."

Video from anti-government protests where Lopez spoke show him "always calling on his supporters to remain calm," Nieves said.

Witnesses made false statements against Lopez, who was not permitted to adequately defend himself, said Nieves.

Venezuela's Ministry of Communications and Information has not responded to CNN requests for comment, but the nation's ombudsman, Tarek William Saab, told CNN that Nieves should have made his allegations during the trial and not afterward and Venezuela's chief prosecutor, Luisa Ortega Diaz, denied that Nieves was pressured to go after Lopez.

But Nieves said that the actions against Lopez are not uncommon in Venezuela.

"There are innumerable cases in which people were investigated and innocent people detained," he said.

Nieves said he had not spoken out earlier "out of fear" and because of the "pressure exerted" by superiors to get prosecutors to act "on the whims" of the government.

Lopez's wife, Lilian Tintori, said Nieves' accusations highlight the state of justice of Venezuela.

"Justice has been kidnapped, with the regime's henchmen unfairly making accusations against, imprisoning, torturing and persecuting the leaders who represent hope in Venezuela," she said.

Nieves' comments come one week after defense attorneys for Lopez appealed the sentence against the 44-year-old economist.

Human rights activists and the U.S. government decried the sentence against Lopez.

The court said Lopez committed serious crimes, according to Venezuelan state news agency AVN -- public instigation, vandalism, arson and criminal conspiracy.

But legal proceedings were a sham, Human Rights Watch said.

"The baseless conviction ... exposes the extreme deterioration of the rule of law in Venezuela," the rights group said in a statement. "The trials involved egregious due process violations and failed to provide evidence linking the accused to a crime."

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson said last month that the conviction "deeply troubled" her and called on the Venezuelan government to protect democracy and human rights.

In a four-page letter after his sentencing, Lopez said he was writing from the military jail of Ramo Verde. He urged all Venezuelans to instigate a "democratic rebirth" by making their voices heard in the country's next parliamentary elections.

The accusations against Lopez stem from opposition street protests in February 2014 that turned deadly. Dozens of people were killed, and hundreds injured.

Maduro, the handpicked successor to the late President Hugo Chavez, blamed Lopez, accusing him of terrorism and murder. Lopez was already a strong government critic before Chavez's death in March 2013.

In 2008, Chavez's government banned Lopez, a former mayor, from running for office.

Venezuela set to sentence opposition leader Lopez

But much of the violence at the 2014 protests stemmed from security forces, which also arrested hundreds, Human Rights Watch said. Security forces were accused of torture and abuse.

"The government has also tolerated and collaborated with pro-government armed groups of civilians," the group said.

Lopez briefly went into hiding but then turned himself in to authorities. He used social media to rally supporters who met him on the occasion.

A court said last month that Lopez's involvement in protests was part of a plan for a coup d'etat.

In June, Lopez went on a 30-day hunger strike in prison to demand congressional elections. The government has agreed to the demand, and elections are scheduled for December.

CNN's Osmary Hernandez and Arthur Brice contributed to this report.

Obama - Venezuelans need your support to bring democracy to their country

By Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) - 03/24/14 

The palpable absence of a coordinated strategy in support of the pro-democracy advocates in Venezuela is evident and yet another in a string of missed opportunities by the Obama administration to promote U.S. interests and freedom around the world.

For longer than a month now, a crisis in Venezuela has been escalating, but the stage for this had been set with the death of Hugo Chavez last March and the contested presidential elections that followed. Now, according to Venezuelan non-governmental organizations, the regime of President Nicolás Maduro is responsible for almost 30 killed, nearly 60 reported cases of torture, more than 1,500 people unjustly detained, and hundreds injured with very little attention from the Obama administration and with no reasonable end in sight.

The attacks against the Venezuelan people by the Maduro regime also have serious links to Cuba, a U.S. designated state sponsor of terrorism. The Castro regime uses military advisers and Cuban troops to help the Maduro regime suppress the calls of the Venezuelan people for democracy, freedom and human rights.
Furthermore, the Venezuelan mayors of San Cristobal and San Diego, and opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez have been unjustly arrested. And Diosdado Cabello — one of the country’s most dangerous goons — has threatened that another opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, may be arrested and charged with bogus accusations as well.

On March 13, Secretary of State John Kerry testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and to my disappointment but not to my surprise, he failed to address the situation in Venezuela in both his written testimony and opening statement to the committee.  This lack of attention to this crisis is insulting and represents the foreign policy strategy of the Obama administration to stick their heads in the sand and hope these problems go away by themselves. When I pressed Kerry on Venezuela during the hearing, he responded that it is time for the Organization of American States (OAS), and neighboring countries, to focus on Venezuela and hold Maduro accountable.

I can only assume that Kerry forgot that the OAS has already tried to focus on Venezuela and failed miserably. On March 7, the OAS passed a watered-down declaration that failed to hold the Maduro regime accountable, which precipitated the U.S. permanent representative, as well as the Canadian and Panamanian representatives, to vote against this weak declaration. The lack of U.S. leadership in our region has only emboldened these tyrants to violate human rights with impunity.

Maduro’s bullying tactics have even extended as far north as Washington, D.C. On March 21, the OAS was set to convene an ordinary session of the Permanent Council, and Panama was willing to allow Machado to address the council as a member of its delegation. But Maduro and his Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America lackeys, such as Nicaragua, quickly moved to make the session private. Then the Venezuelan delegation successfully managed to lobby the council to remove the topic of the Venezuelan crisis from the agenda. Yet perplexingly, the administration falsely believes that the OAS shares our concern over Venezuela.

When Honduran officials acted in 2009 to remove former President Manuel Zelaya, in accordance with the country’s constitution, the U.S. led the effort to expel Honduras from the OAS and revoked visas of Honduran nationals. Yet, when students are being killed in the streets of Caracas by the Maduro regime, the Obama administration echoes the same hollow words and responds with no action.

The president has issued an executive order to sanction individuals who have undermined the democratic process and threatened the security of Ukraine, but no similar order has been signed to target Venezuelan officials who have acted in the same manner. And so, if the Obama administration will not act, Congress will lead the way.

Last week, I introduced, alongside more than a dozen congressional colleagues, a bipartisan bill: H.R. 4229, the Venezuelan Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act. It calls on the president to impose targeted sanctions on Venezuelan officials who have committed or have been complicit in human rights violations by denying them visas to enter our country, blocking their property, freezing their assets and prohibiting them from conducting financial transactions in the United States.

This bill will neither hurt the people of Venezuela, nor will it impact the Venezuelan economy. Instead, it is targeted to those Venezuelan officials who have fired rubber bullets and tear gas into crowds and those who are responsible for human rights violations. In response to this legislation, Maduro has blamed my colleagues and me for Venezuela’s ills. This is just another attempt by Maduro to distract from his failed policies that have caused staggering inflation and food shortages. It is a badge of honor to be attacked by an autocrat who disdains basic democratic principles.

Ros-Lehtinen has represented Florida’s 27th Congressional District since 1990. She sits on the Rules and the Foreign Affairs committees, and is chairwoman of that panel’s subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa.

Freedom for Venezuela - Video

Please share this video !! Thank you!!

Diego Arria speaks situation in Venezuela

http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/consider-this/2014/2/amb-diego-arria-speaksofvenezuelanunrestagainstmadurogovernment.html

That nasty tendency to settle scores, or the truth about Sunday 8

Defending Capriles point of view .... Excellent Daniel!!

"Capriles and the MUD, even if I did not agree with their strategy, have had the merit to stick to it and see it through until the bitter end. And that is worthy of respect. Now, we move on without blaming them more than necessary, and thanking them more than necessary if we must. At least they did stick their neck out for us."

That nasty tendency to settle scores, or the truth about Sunday
Daniel Duquenal

In politics even the best friends at some point feel compelled to settle scores. Thus we should not be surprised when followers ask for blood, as it is happening now from the press, through Twitter, to my competing blogs, who are all only too happy it seems to accuse the MUD of sugar coating the truth and what not.  Me, a long time critic of Capriles, find myself in the need to add a post scriptum to defend him (sort of) to my conclusion entry of last Friday. 

What pushes me to write is that the "provocateur" magazine Zeta has put Leopoldo Lopez on its front cover as the challenger to Capriles, while this one in an interview published today shoots low at Lopez (1). This combined to the hysteria caused by the numbers from Eugenio Martinez in El Universal, now final today.
And even further hysteria about the newly elected mayor of San Sebastian accused to switch outright to the regime. I suggest that this is all coming from the different point of view between those who live in the reality outside of Caracas and those who live in Caracas or overseas, the traditional cultural divide exacerbated again because of the elections.
I will start with the new Mayor of San Sebastian, Carlos Miranda, allegedly going back to a chavismo that he may or may not have left years ago. My first question to his critics is: have you ever driven through San Sebastian, in the South of Aragua? I did, several times.
Have you ever wondered what is the tax base of that district?
Do you think that whoever is mayor of San Sebastian can survive if s/he starts a war with Tareck El-Aissami, the governor of Aragua, a corrupt, false and likely violent chavista?
And the one who supposedly sends you a mandatory stipend. Carlos had no option but to play nice and offer to collaborate with the regime. His district, that I know of, has no border with any other district or state that may have an opposition governor. And he is in a state with one of the most, I repeat, talibanic and incompetent and corrupt chavista governor.
Heck, Tareck does not even sleep in Maracay most night, he commutes more or less between Caracas and Maracay. If I take this detour it is that I need to remind readers that the success of last Sunday election cannot be measured on vote number alone. Those were after all local election that Capriles tried to turn into a referendum to compensate his pusillanimity last April, and failed.
Or does ANYONE truly believes that the 62.6% Carlos Miranda votes belong from now on to the MUD? In case you still do not get my point think about the score of Capriles last April in San Sebastian, 41.8%.
It is true that in the end chavismo got more votes than the opposition, maybe a million more, but the question here is how come the opposition went from 7.4 million last April to 4.4 a week ago. A drop bigger than chavismo which went down to 5.3 from 7.6. The opposition lost 3 million votes and chavismo 2.3.
We may put chavismo vote on the count of fraudulent elections but we cannot account for a loss of 3 million opposition voters on the CNE. 
Even the vaunted Daka effect which according to some pollsters rose Maduro numbers by around 10 points cannot explain why the opposition lost 3 million votes (maybe less if we start making excruciating speculation as to what the "other" votes meant, but the loss remains huge).
In fact, that chavismo did lose more than 2 million votes indicate that the Daka effect is more of an excuse to justify the 3 million drop in the opposition than a solid explanation as to why Maduro "won". We need to be serious when we put blame on different parties.
First, the state machine was at its worst in this election and was certainly a dissuading factor for many opposition voters to go and do their civic duty: what for, since the regime will jail of neuter the eventual winners? I know it is no excuse, I went as 4+ million, but that was certainly a chunk of those who did not go, a bigger chunk than those who may have already left for vacation.
Second, it was a mistake for Capriles to make this election a referendum on Maduro. Local elections are a referendum on local issues, at best. Though it is a mistake for Maduro to claim victory because after all, with all the scandalous advantage and pressure he did fail to convince more than 2 million of his supporters to go back to the polls. I understand why Capriles and the MUD took that gamble but many were very doubtful from the start and should have been heard before making the vote a plebiscite. Third, even if these elections were normal, historical trends in Venezuela and elsewhere make local elections a low turn out event. This demonstrates one thing: true democrats are those who vote in local elections, those who do understand their importance. Too many people it seems think that the only election worth the trouble is the one to elect our king, be this one a president or a prime minister. In Venezuela, the majority of the country is not democratic no matter what people from both sides try to make us believe.
The large majority of chavismo is not democratic and a substantial portion of the opposition neither is. Together they are more than 50%. Way more maybe. For these reasons and more one should avoid making any dramatic conclusion out of last Sunday.
There are only two things that we can say. We can say is that as a referendum the vote failed to either condemn or rescue Maduro. This one is not rescued whatsoever inside chavismo who knows very well that they lost key sectors. An authoritarian neo-.fascist movement cannot lose anything and thus the losses at Barquisimeto and Barinas are simply unacceptable and will be blamed behind closed doors on Maduro's policies. That the regime considers the election a loss is made evident by its reactions, appointing "protectors", taking away mayor functions before the new ones are sworn in, a massive propaganda onslaught, etc. You would think that chavismo lost by a million and not the other way around!
We can also say that the opposition needs to reevaluate its strategy.
Clearly the selected and limited confrontation with the regime strategy has run its course and something else is necessary.
That Capriles lowers himself to send a low shot at Lopez who was the artifice of his smashing victory in February 2012 primary betrays that he knows his leadership is now under question. Rather than attacking Lopez (or any other that will rear his or her head very soon) he should do a prompt self criticism and follow the chair of the MUD Aveledo in stating that it is normal for the MUD to reevaluate its priorities and that ALL (including by deduction his leadership) is open to discussion.
This is common in all democracies, that a losing candidate must subject to new primaries or party conventions, which in no way would distract from the historical contribution that Capriles made to the opposition cause by giving back its confidence that it was again a power option.
I am in deep disagreement with many of the criticism that I read against Capriles and the MUD. I think in large part they come from either a misunderstanding of the true situation of the country or a personal agenda (for example those promoting abstention, who have yet to offer something, anything and are thus trying to find an excuse for their cowardice).
True, I am disappointed, but it is also true that I am able to see that this alleged defeat is an excellent stepping stone if the opposition decides to reevaluate its strategy. With 4 elections in 14 months there is a wealth of electoral data and polls and experiences to be digested and put to profit, with bright success like forcing the regime to steal the election last April to truly dismal reactions last December, of much worse consequences if you ask me than the set back of last Sunday.
Capriles and the MUD, even if I did not agree with their strategy, have had the merit to stick to it and see it through until the bitter end. And that is worthy of respect. Now, we move on without blaming them more than necessary, and thanking them more than necessary if we must. At least they did stick their neck out for us.

(1) http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/elecciones-2013/131215/capriles-el-voto-en-venezuela-es-un-ejercicio-de-resistencia

Venezuelan Presidential Campain - Leopoldo Lopez

Very good information about Leopoldo Lopez, from The Economist. Arriba Leopoldo, vas por buen camino

vdebate reporter

http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2011/10/venezuela%E2%80%99s-presidential-campaign?fsrc=nlw%7Cnewe%7C10-21-2011%7Cnew_on_the_economist

Venezuela’s presidential campaign
As clear as MUD
Oct 21st 2011, 12:15 by P.G. CARACAS
LEOPOLDO LÓPEZ is free to seek election in 2012 as Venezuela’s next president. But if elected, he will be barred from taking office. Or maybe not. The government had asked the country’s supreme court for a pronouncement on the “applicability” of a ruling last month by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which overturned an administrative ban on Mr López holding public office. On October 18th the tribunal responded by muddying the waters.
The matter is of more than academic interest. Mr López, the leader of the centre-left People’s Will party, is among the front-runners for the presidential candidacy of the opposition Democratic Unity alliance—known by its initials, somewhat ironically, as the MUD. One recent poll even showed him in the lead. In 2008, when he was on course to become mayor of greater Caracas, he was barred from standing on account of unproven corruption allegations. According to the IACHR that ban, due to last until 2014, was a breach of Venezuela’s international human-rights obligations because it did not arise from a sentence handed down by a court.
That decision produced a strong reaction from Hugo Chávez, the president, who is standing for re-election. He called the IACHR “worthless”. The government condemned what it deemed interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs, saying the ruling would only be applied if the supreme court found it compatible with the Venezuelan constitution—even though IACHR rulings are binding on member states, and the constitution itself, rewritten during Mr Chávez’s presidency, grants precedence to international human-rights treaties.
It was therefore not surprising that the court, which has a record of dancing to the government’s tune, failed to uphold the ruling. The decision, written by justice Arcadio Delgado, accuses the IACHR of acting “as if it were a colonial power” by usurping the role of Venezuela’s own institutions. What did raise eyebrows was the apparent contradiction between Mr Delgado’s reaffirmation that Mr López was “temporarily barred from holding public office” and the opinion expressed by Luisa Estella Morales, the court’s president, at a subsequent press conference. According to Ms Morales, the court will issue a ruling on whether Mr López can take office as president if and only if he wins the election.
In effect, the supreme court is hedging its bets. By leaving open the possibility that the ban might later be overturned, its president may be signaling a willingness to facilitate a transition to a post-Chávez government if necessary. At a time when Mr Chávez was having tests in Cuba to determine whether the cancer operation he underwent in June was successful—he recently declared he is now cancer-free, but one of his former doctors said on October 16th that he probably has no more than two years to live—that speaks volumes about the uncertainty in government ranks over his political future. Suspicious commentators have suggested that the court’s ruling on Mr López might even have been brought forward to distract attention from a news item that seemed certain to weaken the president.
Meanwhile, by leaving the situation unclarified, the court may also have damaged Mr López’s chances of winning the MUD primaries, which are set for February 12th. Many potential voters could be put off by the fear that, if chosen, he would be less likely to win, and that if he won, he might be barred from taking office. Although Mr López himself has insisted he will stay in the race, and rival candidates have publicly supported that position, in private, some opposition members feel he should withdraw in order to minimise the damage to their cause. For the moment, however, he is at least receiving a great deal of free publicity.

HRF Welcomes IA Court HR Ruling on Case of Lopez Mendoza

HRF Welcomes IACourtHR Ruling on Case of López Mendoza, Asks Venezuela to Comply

NEW YORK (September 19, 2011) – The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) welcomes the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACourtHR ) ruling in the case of López Mendoza v. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The ruling, published Friday in Spanish, determined that the disqualification of opposition politician López Mendoza violated his political rights under Article 23 of the American Convention on Human Rights. The IACourtHR also asked Venezuela to lift Lopez Mendoza’s disqualification.

This decision confirms that the only way to impose sanctions that ban a person from standing for election or holding public office, is through criminal conviction, and not through administrative or judicial interim decisions.

"The Court’s ruling makes this a landmark case for the entire region, as it affects not only Venezuela, but countries like Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Peru—all of which allow restrictions on political rights that fall below the criminal conviction standard," said Javier El-Hage, general counsel of HRF.

On February 25, HRF filed an amicus curiae brief with the IACourtHR and asked the Court to ratify the standard set in Article 23 of the Convention, under which the state may deprive a person of their political rights only after that individual is convicted as the result of a criminal trial according to due process. In 2008, with no court sentence and under charges of corruption, López Mendoza was banned from running in any election in Venezuela for the next six years.

In 2008, polls predicted López Mendoza as a favorite to win election to the office of mayor of Caracas. Today, López Mendoza is a possible candidate for the 2012 presidential elections, and hopes to stand in the primary elections that will be convened by “La Mesa de la Unidad,” a coalition of political parties that oppose President Hugo Chávez.

In June of 1981, the Venezuelan state recognized the jurisdiction of the IACourtHR, thus rendering its rulings are binding in that country. “Given that López seeks to enter the presidential race, if Venezuela does not comply with the ruling, then the 2012 presidential elections can hardly be considered fair, according to the international minimum standard for elections," concluded El-Hage.

HRF is a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that protects and promotes human rights globally, with an expertise in the Americas. We believe that all human beings are entitled to freedom of self-determination, freedom from tyranny, the rights to speak freely, to associate with those of like mind, and to leave and enter their countries. Individuals in a free society must be accorded equal treatment and due process under law, and must have the opportunity to participate in the governments of their countries; HRF’s ideals likewise find expression in the conviction that all human beings have the right to be free from arbitrary detainment or exile and from interference and coercion in matters of conscience. HRF does not support nor condone violence. HRF’s International Council includes former prisoners of conscience Vladimir Bukovsky, Palden Gyatso, Václav Havel, Mutabar Tadjibaeva, Ramón J. Velásquez, Elie Wiesel, and Harry Wu.

Contact: Pedro Pizano, pedro@thehrf.org, Office: +1 (212) 246.8486

Read the March 1 release “HRF Files Amicus Brief with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; Court’s Decision Could Set Precedent for Protecting Political Rights” here.

Read the amicus brief filed by HRF with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights here.

To learn more about López Mendoza’s case, watch his speech at HRF’s annual conference, the Oslo Freedom Forum