Please ... What democracy are they talking about?
www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 By: Kira Marquez Perez
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 15:54:29 +0100 From: Kira Marquez Perez marquez@uni-duesseldorf.de To: Editor@vheadline.com Subject: Venezuela's "Friends"
Dear Editor: Two articles that were published in July last year in the newspapers El Nacional and Ultimas Noticias referred to the intentions of the United States to open a “transition office” in Caracas for “strengthening democracy in Venezuela.” These statements were put out by Mr. John Law (press representative of the US Embassy in Caracas) only a few months after the USA had supported a coup-d'etat in Venezuela.
Several months later, some countries joined to form the famous “group of friends of Venezuela” that has attracted a great deal of our attention, because of the particular nature of some of these “friends.”
Actually, one of the most important bases of a good friendship is trust ... but ... is it really possible for us Venezuelans to trust the Spanish and the North American governments after they supported a dictatorship in our country less than a year ago?
Can we really believe that they are interested in our well-being and in strengthening our democracy?
Probably they are … but that’s hard to believe.
Furthermore, the actions that these two governments have been leading in some of the latest international affairs are absolutely contrary to peace, democracy and freedom. Verbal aggression and threats coming from the White House (particularly from Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush and Mr. Powell) have become usual each time a country -- be it France, Germany, Russia or any other -- expresses its disagreement with beginning of an unjustified war in Iraq.
I can recall similar attacks and threats to Venezuela's government ... which took place before April last year ... when Mr. Powell “suggested” President Chavez should “change his attitude” ... just because he had made the statement: “you can’t fight terrorism with terrorism” when asked about the war in Afghanistan.
I agree with that.
You can’t just go and kill thousands of innocent people (including civilians and among them children) with the excuse “we are fighting against terrorism,” especially when the terrorist (in this case Bin Laden) comes out of the whole thing without even a wound.
By the way… let me remind you that both Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were created and financed by the USA a few years ago … so we have to thank USA politicians for the existence of these two infamous personalities.
Millions of persons all over the world disagree with the martial intentions of US president Bush. By the way, he won the elections in his own country under "really unclear circumstances" and that makes us doubt about which democracy is more legitimate, considering that our President: Mr. Chavez (who is permanently being criticized by Mr. Bush), has won several elections in Venezuela with a clear and vast majority.
However, Venezuela's “friend” Mr. Bush together with Mr. Aznar (another of our “friends”) and Mr. Blair, knowingly ignore public opinion and even intend to ignore UN decisions concerning the war against Iraq. In the case of Mr. Blair, only 15% of the British people support him in his war intentions and some personalities in his cabinet have even threatened to step back in case a war takes place without UN support … but… he doesn’t care. He obviously wants the oil in Iraq, and that's all that matters.
Last week, a man was put in jail in the USA for entering a mall with a t-shirt bearing the phrase: “Give peace a chance.” Additionally, some Hollywood stars, such as George Clooney, Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon have openly expressed their anti-war position and have been strongly criticized by the US government and even denounced that the US media has decided not to present their anti-war advertisements.
The situation is so bad that it is unclear if Richard Gere is going to be able to attend the Oscar Awards this year, and that although his film “Chicago” is one of the favorites…
In Spain, Mr. Aznar has recently closed a Basque newspaper and has led several persecution actions against the Basque people … so I ask myself: Is this the type of democracy that Mr. Bush and Mr. Aznar want to introduce in Venezuela?
Everybody knows that the US government has tried everything to obtain support for the war against Iraq: they have threatened France and “suggested” this country not to use its UN veto; they have intervened telephones and email accounts of members of some other UN delegations, such as Chile, in order to spy on them and find out what their position is; they had previously attacked the anti-war position of other countries, such as Germany (with threats, of course) and they had also tried to influence the decisions of some weaker countries, such as Bulgarian and Poland. Their main objective was to create uncertainty and division in the European Union (EU), because we all know that the USA is not really happy about the fact that a counter-part (a quite strong one, by the way) is being formed in Europe, so they have decided to use their well-known destabilizing tactics ... which we in Latin America know quite well, don’t we? The deteriorating economic situation in the USA and the weakening of the dollar against the euro are making Mr. Bush nervous.
However, I believe that the worst action that the USA could make would be to ignore the UN decision on the war ... that would really be derision against all of us, if we take into account that the USA has used the UN ... as well as its veto ... each time it has needed it.
The USA is the only country in history that has ever used atomic weapons (TWICE). In August 1945 (when World War II was practically over) hundreds of thousand of Japanese were victims of atomic attacks led by the USA. Some of the late effects of radioactivity are still present. Also, attacks on civilians in Germany with firebombs at the end of the war were totally unjustified at the time. In these attacks, hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the main cities of Germany (among them many children) were killed in the most terrible way: they were burned to death.
The US government has led many wars abroad. However, the USA has always been practically only an “observer” because these wars have always taken place “somewhere else,” in some other country, far away from the USA homeland.
When you look at a war in the TV it looks cool … like fireworks, doesn’t it?
…but the reality is another one, and you can go to these countries and ask the people there.
Additionally, many nations in Latin America have been victims of invasions and coup attempts led by the USA ... among them I can mention: Puerto Rico, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Guatemala, Chile, Venezuela, etc.
The list of attacks led by the USA and England (and in many cases supported by Spain) is really endless: Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Argentina, etc…
So please ... What democracy are they talking about?
Kira Marquez Perez marquez@uni-duesseldorf.de