www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, February 17, 2003 By: Mark Webber

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 16:06:07 +0000 From: Mark Webber schwebb@hotmail.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: Trinidad Express: Otto, the Fourth Reich

Dear Editor: I recently read the article "Trinidad Express: Otto, the Fourth Reich" with great sadness as I have been aware of the US government's horrible legacy in Latin America and the work of Otto Reich prior to reading this article.

I found this article to be a great reminder of the US' intentions in Latin America and a good review for those who are just coming into their own political enlightenment.

However, one does not even have to look even as far as Trinidad to find people who have been involved with the atrocities committed in Latin America by the United States.

We have our very own mercenary here in Venezuela ... none other than our illustrious US Ambassador Charles Shapiro who served as a "political officer" for the US State Department during the US' involvement in El Salvador.

The following is an excerpt that is taken from a Los Angeles Times article dated December 6, 1986, from the Metro Section (Part 2, page 4 column 1) and written by a staff writer, William Overend.

"A US State Department political officer testified Friday in Los Angeles federal court that 'the human rights situation has improved dramatically' in El Salvador, but refused to answer dozens of questions about military death squads and persecution of civilians."

"While conceding that he had 'adverse information' about conditions in El Salvador, Charles S. Shapiro, political officer at the US Embassy in San Salvador, claimed executive privilege in refusing to provide any negative details of what the US government knows about human rights."

Shapiro is later quoted in the article as saying "Human rights is part of our policy ...it's not our only policy ... I'm proud of what we've done in El Salvador ... we have helped move the system along to where the human rights situation has improved dramatically."

Many of us know what took place in El Salvador, and what was ultimately discovered to have taken place during the US involvement there.

Lest we forget that lesson and the involvement of the US' ambassador to Venezuela ... as I have contended in a letter to The Daily Journal last year after the coup ... it is very suspicious that Shapiro was sent here as the talks with the Carmona gang were happening in Washington (pre coup).

This is definitely a case where those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So I offer a bit of advice to the Venezuelan government, don't turn your back on this guy!

Eventually, Shapiro and others like him will have to answer for what they have done, even if it is from there own children, who are smart enough to do an Internet search as I have done.

I don't think claiming executive privilege will help him out of that bind...

Sincerely, Mark Webber schwebb@hotmail.com

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, February 17, 2003 By: Steve Ellner Universidad de Oriente economics professor Steve Ellner writes: As the general strike against President Hugo Chavez entered its third week in early December, a major TV channel broadcast statements by baseball hero Andres Galarraga and other celebrities calling on Venezuelans to put aside differences for the sake of peace. What was significant about the TV spots was that the channel, along with the rest of the Venezuelan media, has played a key role in promoting the strike as well as marches and acts of civil disobedience sponsored by the opposition. Gala raga's plea -- made beside a statue of the Virgin Mary -- reflects the conviction among the nation's 50% who are neither pro-government nor pro-opposition that Venezuela is on the brink of civil war.

Chavez counts on active support among popular sectors, specifically those lacking steady employment and labor benefits of any kind, who make up more than half the work force. He also counts on a more loyal armed forces than this past April, when a group of officers removed him from office for forty-eight hours. On the other hand, his radical rhetoric favoring the poor over the "privileged" has alienated the middle class, despite his recent efforts to create his own movement called "the positive middle class." The middle- and upper-class eastern part of Caracas has solidly supported the strike and its mobilizations.

While the success of the strike call has been at best mixed in commerce, public education, public transportation and the steel and aluminum industries, a large majority of administrative employees and executives of the all-important state petroleum company PDVSA (the fourth-largest US oil supplier and owner of Citgo) responded positively, as did many in charge of fuel transportation. When delays in gasoline distribution produced three-hour lines at the pumps on December 18, the government decreed that private trucks carrying fuel and food could be taken over and run for the duration of the conflict. Carlos Fernandez, president of the main business organization Fedecamaras, called the measure a "violation of property rights." A point of honor of the pro-Chavez movement is 100% state ownership of PDVSA, incorporated into the nation's new Constitution in 1999.

The opposition's militancy dates back not to 1998, when Chavez was elected President, but to 2001, when he radicalized his government by prioritizing economic and social reform. In November of that year he passed agrarian reform and legislation prohibiting private control of joint ventures for oil exploitation. Fedecamaras reacted by calling a one-day general strike. The business organization was joined by the main labor federation, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), whose leadership Chavez refused to recognize on the grounds that it had held fraudulent internal elections. Since then the CTV and Fedecamaras have called three more general strikes, including the one in April that led to the abortive military coup.

One unique feature of the general strike that began on December 2, is the absence of any demand other than the removal of President Chavez, either by resignation or immediate elections. All rhetoric is reduced to one simple message: Chavez must go. Recently, CTV president Carlos Ortega began calling Chavez "the dictator." Every evening Ortega and Fernandez sit next to each other and read a statement summing up the day's strike activity, which is broadcast live on the nation's four major TV channels. This prolonged cozy relationship between labor and management, in which all demands are subordinated to the government's ouster, is also a rarity for Latin America, if not the world.

Chavez has offered to hold a recall election in August, in accordance with the 1999 Constitution. But opposition leaders are unwilling to wait, claiming that by August, Chavez will have further consolidated his control of the armed forces by favoring his military loyalists with promotions. According to government supporters, the real reason is that the opposition wanted Chavez out by January 1, the date of Lula's presidential inauguration in Brazil, which, along with the recent election of leftist Lucio Gutierrez in Ecuador, fortifies Chavez' position. Both Lula and Chavez place anti-neoliberalism at the top of their agenda rather than promoting such radical visions as socialism, an approach now shared by many leftists throughout the continent. The two favor a government that plays a strong role in the economy in favor of economic development and social justice rather than bowing out to the private sector.

These explanations are just part of the story. A more decisive factor is the built-in vulnerability of the opposition. A political opposition based exclusively on attacking the head of state without presenting demands, proposals or alternatives tends to lose steam over time. The political parties of the opposition were discredited by the rampant corruption and economic contraction of the twenty years before Chavez' election. Now the media, Fedecamaras and the CTV have displaced them as key actors, a role that is unnatural and discredits them as time goes on. The CTV's alliance with the business sector is widely criticized even by those opposed to Chavez.

The US and Spanish governments were practically alone in welcoming the April coup against Chavez. While Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar continues to support the Venezuelan opposition in its call for immediate elections, Washington has in recent months maintained an officially neutral position, despite the National Endowment for Democracy's generous funding of opposition groups over the past several years. Thus the United States now defers to the Organization of American States, whose secretary general, Cesar Gaviria, has brought both sides to the table in an attempt to work out a solution to the impasse. Only by Washington's adherence to this position, and its avoidance of its earlier, misguided endorsement of antidemocratic forces, can Gaviria's commendable efforts be given a chance.

Steve Ellner is professor of economic history at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he has taught since 1977. His many publications include The Latin American Left: From the Fall of Allende to Perestroika (coedited) and Venezuela's Movimiento al Socialismo: From Guerrilla Defeat to Electoral Politics. He is author of Venezuela: Tarnished Democracy and coordinating editor of Post-Bonanza Venezuela, a special issue of Latin American Perspectives. He is also co-editor of Venezuelan Politics in the Chavez Era: Class, Polarization and Conflict, recently released by Lynne Rienner. You may email him at esteve74@cantv.net

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: David Coleman

According to statistics provided by Venezuela's opposition-controlled television channels, the nationwide 'El Firmazo' signature campaign held two weekends ago, was a dismal failure.  While there have been hyped-up claims of 4.3 million signatures collected, it has been shown to be physically impossible counting on a total 4,300 official signature tables and an average recorded through-put of 12 persons per hour at each table from 5:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m.

4,300 x 12 x 14 = 722,400 according to our calculations!

To achieve the claimed 4.3 million signatures there would have to have been almost six (6) times as many signature tables (25,595) but organizers are now being forced to admit that only 588,000 signature were collected and the vote-counting organization SUMATE must still check signatures and ID numbers against official voting records to claim any success in the dubious vote which even the opposition has been forced to admit has no legal validity.

Independent observers say that many signatures appear ten or more times in the tally and that a fairly large percentage of the voters used false IDs or were ineligible to vote ... the opposition media is remaining silent about the vote although announcements had been promised as early as last weekend.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: Raffique Shah

Trinidad & Tobago Online's Raffique Shah writes: I have never met the United States Ambassador to this country, Mr. Roy Austin. But — and I’m not writing this because he happens to have Caribbean “roots” — the envoy comes across as a decent man, someone devoid of the arrogance that is usually associated with those who represent the world’s only superpower, especially when they are posted to small, developing nations. In the past, we have had meddlesome ambassadors and lower-level officials (more than likely CIA operatives) who have personified “The Ugly American”, a world-view of wrong-but-strong US diplomats that was immortalized in a movie of the same name.

Having said that, it must also be said that Austin is here as the nominee of the George Bush regime, so one must assume that he is Republican, and that he is compelled to support whatever decisions are made in Washington. So in the case of the US-UK axis of evil that is bent on invading Iraq at any and all costs, even if the rest of the world says they are wrong, I imagine Austin will support the move. What I’d be intrigued to know, though, is exactly what his thoughts are about the former US Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere (he was demoted to a lesser position last November), one Otto Reich. Reich was the man who passed through town last week in his island-hopping quest to shore up support for the US-led war against Iraq.

Just why America would want the “tiny black specks” in the Caribbean to support its warmongering is not too much of a mystery. As it stands today, every country of size and or substance has openly opposed what is clearly an unjust war. From Germany to France, key US allies in the 1991 Gulf War, to Russia and China, the US-UK axis is meeting stiff opposition. So if you can’t rally the big, then why not try the small. After all, although we may not have a seat on the UN Security Council, we do have a vote at the General Assembly. 

Unfortunately for Reich, he ran into a completely different Caricom, one in which its leaders, at least most of them, do not necessarily genuflect to Bush or the State Department the way their predecessors did. Prime Minister Patrick Manning adopted a stance that most other world leaders have, that is support for the UN position on Iraq. Simply put, what the UN is saying is that it needs hard evidence that Saddam Hussein does have weapons of mass destruction, and only further inspections by its team headed by Hans Blix would dictate if there is need to forcibly disarm Saddam.

Reich must have been a disappointed man... and that with good reason. You see, Otto has quite a colorful and checkeerd history, of which Austin must be aware. Reich is a Cuban-born American who has been at the extreme right of US politics for all his life. That is not uncommon among Cuban-Americans, as was made palpably clear during the Elian Gonzalez affair, and more recently, during the presidential elections in which Florida votes determined the controversial results that put Bush in office by some mysterious mathematics.

But Reich is different. He always was. After working his way up the anti-Castro ladder in Florida in the Ronald Reagan era of the 1980s, he was among those implicated in the Iran-Contra affair. In fact, at the time, he was elevated to head the State Department’s notorious propaganda arm, the dubious Office of Public Diplomacy — a misnomer, as you will see. 

It was a time when the Sandinistas had seized power in Nicaragua from the US-backed tyrant Anastasio Somoza. The US, from the day Daniel Ortega took office, waged a war against him, both covert and overt. At the time, the US also backed the bloodiest regimes in Central America, in Guatemala and El Salvador (in the latter country, the US-armed military had raped and murdered several American nuns, among other atrocities).

Reich’s job was simple: churn out propaganda, the more outrageous, the better. His biggest — or most memorable — blooper was on the night Reagan was re-elected to power in 1984. “Intelligence sources”, later identified as Reich’s propaganda unit, caused NBC to break its elections coverage to announce that Soviet MIG fighter-aircraft were arriving in Nicaragua! He also charged that the Soviet Union had given Nicaragua chemical weapons (sounds familiar?) and the Sandinistas were involved in drug trafficking. It would be later revealed that Manuel Noriega of Panama was the man used by the CIA to buy and distribute cocaine in the US, the backbone of the Iran-Contra affair.

Tom Turnispeed, an attorney and civil rights activist from South Carolina, likened Reich’s announcement of “MIGs in Nicaragua” to Nazi Joseph Goebbels' fabrication that Polish troops had attacked German soldiers, which effectively gave Hitler the excuse he needed to invade Poland and start World War II. But even that pales when one compares it with Reich’s influence, when he served as Ambassador to Venezuela (his only diplomatic posting), in securing the release from prison of Orlando Bosch. This Cuban-American did not manufacture Bosch appliances. He was one of two men who had planted a bomb on a Cubana Airlines aircraft right here in Piarco back in 1976. That aircraft exploded shortly after taking off from Barbados, killing all aboard, including several Guyanese passengers. Bosch was later pardoned by—guess who? One President George Bush. And Washington has the gall to speak about “terrorists” and “terrorism”!

But Reich, living up to his surname, has not stopped his meddlesome ways, not with the kind of support he commands in the White House. During the recent political turmoil in Venezuela, Reich is said to have worked closely with coup leader Carmona (who had deposed Hugo Chavez for 48 hours). According to The New York Times, Reich told congressional aides that the administration had received reports that “foreign paramilitary forces”, suspected to be Cuban, were involved in the bloody suppression of anti-Chavez protestors in which 14 people were killed.

So this modern-day Goebbels, a notorious purveyor of lies and half-truths, was the man selected by Bush to go through the Caribbean to try to convince the region’s leaders to plough their support behind the US-UK axis against Iraq. I don’t know what fanciful lies he offloaded on Manning. I think, though, that Ambassador Austin should get on that high-speed, secure telex machine on Marli Street and tell his boss that the Caribbean might be littered with poor countries that depend on the US for their existence. But Caricom is no “Ship of Fools”. No “Fourth Reich” for us, Sir.

This commentary was first published by Trinidad & Tobago Online -  February 16, 2003

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, February 16, 2003 By: Ronald De Souza

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 10:45:56 -0500 From: Ronald De Souza desouzar@bellsouth.net To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: 59% of the vote in 2000

Dear Editor: I will never question that Chavez was elected fairly ... 59% of the vote in 2000 (a hell of a lot more than Bush). However, he is doing a terrible job, creating so much hate, that now in Venezuela, there are 2 extremes, the haves and the have-nots.

I also agree that there is absolutely no objective press in Venezuela ... not El Nacional, not El Universal, not Venpres, not Globovision, not VTV, not Aporrea, not Tal Cual, not VHeadline.

• However, in order for me to get a balanced view, I have to read just about all of them.

You call your publication "objective and independent" ... sorry, you are not.  You are biased mainly against the Venezuelan opposition, and in favor of the Chavez government, although once and a while you criticize it.

Please don't misunderstand me, I still like your publication; I think it is a publication of "criticism" (publicacion de critica) and sometimes is ok, just like Teodoro Petkoff's Tal Cual.

Please understand that I am not indicting you as being as pro-Chavez as Aporrea.com or Venpres. However, the way you indict the opposition, makes it sound like you are pro-Chavez. There are opposition leaders that are democratic, and now that the strike is over (ok, a failure) we are beginning to clearly see those divisions in the opposition.

Regardless of my views on your publication, I will continue to read it, just like I read the others,

Ronald De Souza desouzar@bellsouth.net

Editor's Note: Glad to hear that you will continue to read VHeadline.com ... that is your freedom!  What you may perceive as a pro-Chavez bias is sadly misplaced. VHeadline.com is supportive of constitutional government and the institution of the Presidency and this is not necessarily married to the personage of Chavez Frias.  There is unfortunately a lot of disinformation published in the traditional Venezuelan print & broadcast media and you should not necessarily rely on any information per se but seek yourself to find a truth in the multiplicity of news sources available to you and with which you feel comfortable.  Perhaps cause had better be sought in the anti-Chavez opposition itself.  Were they adherents of constitutional principle and democracy who put in place Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona Estanga last April?  Was it not he, who in the name of the opposition, proclaimed the Venezuelan Constitution, National Assembly and Judiciary dissolved in a single stroke of his pen?  Whereas Chavez Frias has constitutional legitimacy in democratic elections by the will of the people, can you explain on which democratic base the CTV's Carlos Ortega founds his democracy or Fedecamaras' Carlos Fernandez his?  Would you rather that VHeadline abandons all principles of democratic constitutionality to support the acts pf opposition saboteurs against a government (for good or bad) established by the will of the Venezuelan people to govern under established rules.  It is a general rule throught the world that any self-respecting publication should side with (ok, call it bias if that suits you!) with law and order, democracy, the country's constitution.  Therein lies the rub!

As our stated editorial policy proclaims VHeadline.com promotes democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference. Our declared editorial bias is pro-democracy and pro-Venezuela.

Roy S. Carson Editor/Publisher Editor@VHeadline.com