Venezuelan lawyer pips US candidate on to IAHRC at OAS general assembly
<a href=www.vheadline.com>venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue
Venezuelan Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Jorge Valero says he's pleased with the election of Venezuelan Freddy Gutierrez as a member of the Inter American Human rights Commission ... "it's a triumph for Venezuelan diplomacy."
Gutierrez is a lawyer, university professor and although he is not well known inside Venezuela in the human rights circles, Valero claims that Gutierrez has indeed has worked on human rights issues ... "he has the highest ethical and professional qualities."
- The lawyer split from Causa R to join Patria Para Todos (PPT) and is said to be an expert on foreign debt.
34 OAS member countries voted Gutierrez in, despite pressure from the USA fielding a candidate for the same post. Chilean newspapers consider the election a blow for US aspirations to regain lost ground.
Things are said to have been sluggish for US Secretary of State because OAS members are not keen on the US call for concerted diplomatic pressure on Cuba ... instead countries have complained that the US have been taking too many things for granted in US-Latin American relations pointing to the presence of a minor US official at the inauguration of Argentinean President Jorge Kirchner.
As a leader of Causa R in 2000, Dr. Gutierrez Trejo had served on the then Chamber of Deputies special committee to study Venezuela's foreign debt commitments. He had lectured on Legislation & Protection of Public Patrimony, Constitutional Principles, Norms & Inalienable Rights and has a prestigious track record in the defense of human rights in Venezuela. He also served on the AN Committee for integration and Foreign Community relations.
Gutierrez went on record a couple of decades back (1982), commenting the then "tequila crisis" in Mexico, where Venezuela discovered it had an external debt of approximately $40 billion, of which $5 billion was strictly State indebtedness, that $35 billion was foreign commercial debt acquired by State-owned entities CANTV, SIDOR, VENALUM, PDVSA and a group of important joint venture organizations particular to the Venezuelan government.
"The first deal was detrimental to Venezuelan interests," Gutierrez is quoted as saying. "The first agreement for the reconstruction of Venezuela's foreign debt was a monstrosity, Venezuela's legal counsel in New York did nothing to protect our interests." Instead, payments made on foreign debt from 1983 onwards were only payments of interest ... indicating that Venezuela's foreign debt remained at $40 billion with no capital repayments.