The leader rejected giving any opinion about the situation of the movement created by (late) Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
European lawmaker Pablo Iglesias, Spanish left-wing leader of Podemos party, avoided in an interview with Spanish daily newspaper El País making any comments about Chávezism.
"The good thing is that anything happening in Venezuela will be decided by its citizens through their votes. The Spanish are not concerned about the exhaustion of Chávezism, yet some people want to talk about it to refrain from talking about Spain," Iglesias replied when queried if the movement created by (late) Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had exhausted.
Podemos has been accused by foes of seeking to implement in Spain a similar model to that of Venezuela in the event of wining the general election expected to take place by the end of the year. Close ties have been reported between Podemos and Chávezism.
Source: http://www.eluniversal.com/
Showing posts with label Hugo Chávez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hugo Chávez. Show all posts
Monday, January 19, 2015
Monday, December 8, 2014
Leading Venezuelan opposition figure charged over alleged plot to kill president
Maria Corina Machado told she will face criminal charges for her alleged involvement in a supposed plot to kill Nicolas Maduro.
A leading figure in the Venezuelan opposition has been told she will face criminal charges for alleged involvement in a purported plot to kill President Nicolas Maduro, a move she called an attempt to silence her and other critics of Venezuela’s government.
Maria Corina Machado, a former member of the National Assembly, left a private meeting with prosecutors at the Ministry of Justice after authorities informed her that she would be charged with conspiracy. The charge carries a maximum of 16 years in prison.
Her case will now be assigned to a judge so Machado can be formally charged.
“All the accusations and the supposed evidence are false,” she told reporters outside the ministry.
Machado has repeatedly said she has no knowledge of any plot against Maduro and portrays the allegations as political persecution.
“I have not committed any crime,” she said before the meeting with prosecutors. “This is the price I have to pay for speaking the truth in Venezuela.”
The attorney general’s office opened its investigation in March after officials claimed a plot was being formed against Maduro and others in the government involving Machado and several other opposition figures. Authorities have not provided any evidence publicly beyond some allegedly incriminating emails. The government has prohibited Machado from leaving the country since June.
Tomas Arias, one of her lead attorneys, said the defense had asked for more specific proof of any link between Machado and what he called the “supposed plot” against the president. Authorities have provided nothing in response, he said.
Prosecutors have issued arrest orders for several other opposition figures for their alleged roles in the supposed plot, several of whom have left Venezuela.
Since narrowly winning election last year to succeed his mentor, the late President Hugo Chavez, Maduro has claimed there have been five assassination attempts against him and more than a dozen acts of sabotage and conspiracy.
The investigation of Machado comes as oil-dependent Venezuela comes under increasing financial strain because of plunging world oil prices, forcing the government to cut spending amid widespread shortages and the world’s highest inflation.
Source: Associated Press in Caracas
theguardian.com, Wednesday 3 December 2014 22.50 GMT
A leading figure in the Venezuelan opposition has been told she will face criminal charges for alleged involvement in a purported plot to kill President Nicolas Maduro, a move she called an attempt to silence her and other critics of Venezuela’s government.
Maria Corina Machado, a former member of the National Assembly, left a private meeting with prosecutors at the Ministry of Justice after authorities informed her that she would be charged with conspiracy. The charge carries a maximum of 16 years in prison.
Her case will now be assigned to a judge so Machado can be formally charged.
“All the accusations and the supposed evidence are false,” she told reporters outside the ministry.
Machado has repeatedly said she has no knowledge of any plot against Maduro and portrays the allegations as political persecution.
“I have not committed any crime,” she said before the meeting with prosecutors. “This is the price I have to pay for speaking the truth in Venezuela.”
The attorney general’s office opened its investigation in March after officials claimed a plot was being formed against Maduro and others in the government involving Machado and several other opposition figures. Authorities have not provided any evidence publicly beyond some allegedly incriminating emails. The government has prohibited Machado from leaving the country since June.
Tomas Arias, one of her lead attorneys, said the defense had asked for more specific proof of any link between Machado and what he called the “supposed plot” against the president. Authorities have provided nothing in response, he said.
Prosecutors have issued arrest orders for several other opposition figures for their alleged roles in the supposed plot, several of whom have left Venezuela.
Since narrowly winning election last year to succeed his mentor, the late President Hugo Chavez, Maduro has claimed there have been five assassination attempts against him and more than a dozen acts of sabotage and conspiracy.
The investigation of Machado comes as oil-dependent Venezuela comes under increasing financial strain because of plunging world oil prices, forcing the government to cut spending amid widespread shortages and the world’s highest inflation.
Source: Associated Press in Caracas
theguardian.com, Wednesday 3 December 2014 22.50 GMT
Friday, March 21, 2014
Venezuelan gov't exerts arbitrary control over Internet
At least 500 websites have been blocked in the country
DANIEL GONZÁLEZ CAPPA | EL UNIVERSAL
Thursday March 20, 2014 01:19 PM
Blocks and attacks against Internet in Venezuela have been on the rise. As many as 500 websites are estimated to have been blocked.
Ricardo Holmquist, a representative for the Venezuelan Internet Society (ISOC), believes the number of websites arbitrarily blocked could be higher than 500 and particularly in connection with information about the unofficial forex rate, the health state of late President Hugo Chávez, and critiques against the Government.
Ricardo Holmquist, a representative for the Venezuelan Internet Society (ISOC), believes the number of websites arbitrarily blocked could be higher than 500 and particularly in connection with information about the unofficial forex rate, the health state of late President Hugo Chávez, and critiques against the Government.
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Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
Venezuelan opposition leader, Leopoldo López, tells his allies to keep fighting
Message from jail adds to leadership credentials of politician who was little known to outside world until a week ago.
Venezuela's jailed protest leader, Leopoldo López, has urged his supporters to continue their struggle as army tanks, helicopters and paratrooper regiments attempted to restore order after more than a week of clashes that have led to at least eight deaths and 137 wounded.
In a note passed to his wife during a prison visit and then rapidly spread across social networks, the opposition figure said the demonstrations should go on."I'm fine, I ask you not to give up, I won't," López wrote from a Caracas prison. "To the youth, to the protesters, I ask you to stay firm against violence, and to stay organised and disciplined. This is everyone's struggle."
The message is likely to give impetus to a movement described by the government as a US-backed coup attempt to seize power in the oil-rich nation. It will also add to the leadership credentials of a politician who, until a week ago, was little known in the wider world. The 42-year-old is a political blue-blood from one of the most powerful families in Venezuela. Several ancestors have held cabinet posts, including a great, great grandfather who was a former president.
In character, if not in politics or background, López has been compared to the late president Hugo Chávez, who could also be uncompromising to the point of recklessness – much to the frustration of his ostensible allies.
"For opposition parties, López draws ire second only to Chavez … the only difference between the two is that López is a lot better looking," Mary Ponte – a prominent figure in the Primero Justicia Party – was cited as saying in a 2009 US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.
The US embassy described López as necessary, but troublesome. Under the heading "The López Problem", diplomats acknowledged that many in the opposition did not trust his motives, even though they need his support to reach out to the public. "He is often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry – but party officials also concede his popularity, charisma and talent as an organiser," it says.
López attended one of Caracas's elite schools, Los Arcos for a couple years and later studied at the Kennedy school of government in Harvard University.
A college friend, Rob Gluck said López established an activist group called Active Students Helping the Earth Survive. According to Gluck, he was anything but the rightwing figure that he is often portrayed as by the Venezuelan government. "Calling Leo rightwing is like calling Maya Angelou a racist. It is bizarre. It is the ultimate Orwellian exercise in doublespeak."
Friends say his patriotism is evidenced by the tattoo of Venezuela on his ankle. But they also described López who has often taken to Twitter to taunt President Nicolás Maduro at one stage asking him "don't you have the guts to arrest me?" As extremely competitive."Leopoldo was always very competitive. Going out at night with him was always quite hard because he was always very popular with girls", said Alberto Wallis, who has known him since his teens.
At the age of 29, López was elected mayor of the Chacao municipality, the richest in Latin America. He initially won plaudits for revamping the public health system and building new public spaces, but was later charged with embezzlement and stripped of the right to run for office an accusation that López denies as politically motivated.
López is now married to Lilian Tintori, who used to host a TV program about extreme sports. The couple are sometimes mocked as Barbie and Ken for their perfect looks, but their tearful public parting before López handed himself over to the national guard has proved a powerful image on social networks.
He has long had a rivalry as well as a friendship with the ostensible head of the opposition, Henrique Capriles, who was mayor of a neighbouring district in Caracas. During the failed 2002 coup that saw Chávez ousted for three days, they jointly arrested the minister of interior affairs, earning them the nickname "Batman and Robin".
López has now proved himself the more dynamic of the duo. While Capriles accepted last December's municipal election loss with a handshake with Maduro, López launched a radical movement named "La Salida" (The Exit) which aims to unseat the president through protests. It was his call for street demonstrations that began the current cycle of unrest.
López's detention has made him a figurehead of the opposition movement, but whether that will lead them to power or more futile unrest as in 2002 is debated. Critics say his radical stance has simply polarised society, which will be to the advantage of the Chavista government, which has a numerical advantage as well as control of the military, the courts, parliament and community militias.
Others, however, say that his confrontational strategy has more chance of success than conciliation in a country that has often been ruled by caudillo strongmen. Hugo Chávez was a little-known army colonel until he led an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1992 that resulted in more than 140 deaths. He was thrown in jail, but seven years later he was president.
A similar outcome is far from certain. Beaten in election after election, the opposition has tried and failed before to use street protest to grab power, but the attempts in 2002 led to injuries and deaths but no long-term change in administration.
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Venezuela's jailed protest leader, Leopoldo López, has urged his supporters to continue their struggle as army tanks, helicopters and paratrooper regiments attempted to restore order after more than a week of clashes that have led to at least eight deaths and 137 wounded.
In a note passed to his wife during a prison visit and then rapidly spread across social networks, the opposition figure said the demonstrations should go on."I'm fine, I ask you not to give up, I won't," López wrote from a Caracas prison. "To the youth, to the protesters, I ask you to stay firm against violence, and to stay organised and disciplined. This is everyone's struggle."
The message is likely to give impetus to a movement described by the government as a US-backed coup attempt to seize power in the oil-rich nation. It will also add to the leadership credentials of a politician who, until a week ago, was little known in the wider world. The 42-year-old is a political blue-blood from one of the most powerful families in Venezuela. Several ancestors have held cabinet posts, including a great, great grandfather who was a former president.
In character, if not in politics or background, López has been compared to the late president Hugo Chávez, who could also be uncompromising to the point of recklessness – much to the frustration of his ostensible allies.
"For opposition parties, López draws ire second only to Chavez … the only difference between the two is that López is a lot better looking," Mary Ponte – a prominent figure in the Primero Justicia Party – was cited as saying in a 2009 US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.
The US embassy described López as necessary, but troublesome. Under the heading "The López Problem", diplomats acknowledged that many in the opposition did not trust his motives, even though they need his support to reach out to the public. "He is often described as arrogant, vindictive, and power-hungry – but party officials also concede his popularity, charisma and talent as an organiser," it says.
López attended one of Caracas's elite schools, Los Arcos for a couple years and later studied at the Kennedy school of government in Harvard University.
A college friend, Rob Gluck said López established an activist group called Active Students Helping the Earth Survive. According to Gluck, he was anything but the rightwing figure that he is often portrayed as by the Venezuelan government. "Calling Leo rightwing is like calling Maya Angelou a racist. It is bizarre. It is the ultimate Orwellian exercise in doublespeak."
Friends say his patriotism is evidenced by the tattoo of Venezuela on his ankle. But they also described López who has often taken to Twitter to taunt President Nicolás Maduro at one stage asking him "don't you have the guts to arrest me?" As extremely competitive."Leopoldo was always very competitive. Going out at night with him was always quite hard because he was always very popular with girls", said Alberto Wallis, who has known him since his teens.
At the age of 29, López was elected mayor of the Chacao municipality, the richest in Latin America. He initially won plaudits for revamping the public health system and building new public spaces, but was later charged with embezzlement and stripped of the right to run for office an accusation that López denies as politically motivated.
López is now married to Lilian Tintori, who used to host a TV program about extreme sports. The couple are sometimes mocked as Barbie and Ken for their perfect looks, but their tearful public parting before López handed himself over to the national guard has proved a powerful image on social networks.
He has long had a rivalry as well as a friendship with the ostensible head of the opposition, Henrique Capriles, who was mayor of a neighbouring district in Caracas. During the failed 2002 coup that saw Chávez ousted for three days, they jointly arrested the minister of interior affairs, earning them the nickname "Batman and Robin".
López has now proved himself the more dynamic of the duo. While Capriles accepted last December's municipal election loss with a handshake with Maduro, López launched a radical movement named "La Salida" (The Exit) which aims to unseat the president through protests. It was his call for street demonstrations that began the current cycle of unrest.
López's detention has made him a figurehead of the opposition movement, but whether that will lead them to power or more futile unrest as in 2002 is debated. Critics say his radical stance has simply polarised society, which will be to the advantage of the Chavista government, which has a numerical advantage as well as control of the military, the courts, parliament and community militias.
Others, however, say that his confrontational strategy has more chance of success than conciliation in a country that has often been ruled by caudillo strongmen. Hugo Chávez was a little-known army colonel until he led an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1992 that resulted in more than 140 deaths. He was thrown in jail, but seven years later he was president.
A similar outcome is far from certain. Beaten in election after election, the opposition has tried and failed before to use street protest to grab power, but the attempts in 2002 led to injuries and deaths but no long-term change in administration.
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Venezuela: chaos and thuggery take the place of the pretty revolution
Hugo Chávez's dream world has become a nightmare of shot-down protesters, jailed oppositionists, economic meltdown and a brutal war waged against a defiant middle class.
Hugo Chávez used to call it la revolución bonita (the pretty revolution), but the world looked at Venezuela last week and saw only ugliness. Protesters gunned down in the streets, barricades in flames, chaos. One of the dead was a 22-year-old beauty queen shot in the head.
With the government censoring and cowing TV reports, many of the images came from smartphones, grainy and jerky snippets filled with smoke and shouts. One fact loomed through them all: Chavismo, a hybrid system of democracy and autocracy built on populism, petro-dollars and quasi-socialism, was reaping the consequences of misrule.
Demonstrations in Caracas, Valencia, Mérida and other cities turned lethal, with student-led rallies provoking a fierce backlash from National Guard units and paramilitaries. They roared on motorcycles into "enemy" neighbourhoods, guns blazing. Families piled mattresses against windows to shield against bullets.
Human Rights Watch accused security forces of excessive and unlawful force by beating detainees and shooting at unarmed crowds. Worse may come. Jailings, beatings and killings have galvanised rather than deterred the mostly middle-class protesters. They vowed to continue until la salida, the exit of a government that has held power under Chávez, and now President Nicolás Maduro, for 15 years. "Change depends on every one of us. Don't give up!" Lilian Tintori, the wife of a jailed opposition leader, Leopoldo López, said via Twitter. Banners fluttered from buildings and barricades. "I declare myself in civil disobedience," read one.
In a televised speech to red-shirted supporters, Maduro accused the US of fomenting a coup and threatened Táchira, a particularly rebellious eastern state, with martial law. A local mayor would soon join López behind bars, he vowed. "It's a matter of time until we have him in the same cold cell." An official policy of "communicational hegemony" harnessed state media for propaganda, intimidated privately owned broadcasters, yanked one TV channel off the air and revoked work permits for four CNN journalists.
Venezuela dispute: US expels three diplomats in retaliation
2 Oct 2013
It may have resembled a regime's desperate battle for survival, affecting not just Venezuela but also its ally Cuba, which depends on Caracas for subsidised oil and supporters in the west who consider it a leftist beacon.In reality, though protests continue, the outcome is not in doubt. The government controls the police, army and courts and retains support among the poor. It remains an entrenched, formidable system of power untroubled by external threats. Despite the expulsion of three US diplomats a staple of chavista political theatre – there is no evidence of a Washington plot.
The convulsions were partly confected. López, an ambitious, Harvard-educated politician, steered student protests against crime and economic problems into a wider challenge to authority. A radical minority attacked state property with stones and petrol bombs, prompting the ferocious response by security forces and militias known as colectivos, leaving at least six dead, scores wounded and cities echoing to the sound of enraged pot-banging, a traditional form of dissent.
"I recommend they buy some stainless steel pots to last for a good 10, 20, 30 or 40 years," Maduro mocked. "Because the revolution is here for a long time!"History suggests that the president will prevail. Street protests briefly ousted his mentor in 2002 with the aid of a military-led coup tacitly backed by Washingon. Chávez bounced back. Protesters tried and failed again in 2003 by shutting down the oil industry, Venezuela's lifeblood. This time the generals and drillers appear firmly under government control. By rallying his fractious ruling coalition, Maduro could emerge even stronger.
That will not mean the revolution has won. On the contrary. In a broader, historical sense, it has already lost. This tropical would-be alternative to capitalism is a husk. It faces an existential threat not from youths chanting in plazas but from the fact that Venezuela is a shambolic, crumbling, dysfunctional ruin.
Start with the economy. The official inflation rate, 56%, is among the world's highest. There are shortages of bread, flour, meat, toilet paper and other basics. The bolívar currency has collapsed in value and is virtually unconvertible. Agriculture and industry are gasping. Newspapers are running out of paper. Airlines are threatening to cut services because the government owes them $3.3bn. Food companies are owed $2.4bn. Bond prices have plunged to levels associated with default. Recession hovers. An infrastructure once the envy of South America has suffered from lack of investment and maintenance. Power cuts leave cities in darkness. Potholes make highways look like they have been mortared. Cobwebs shroud abandoned cable cars. Even the facade of the presidential palace, Miraflores, peels and rots.
Crime is out of control. The government has stopped publishing regular statistics, but NGOs estimate the murder rate at 25,000 annually, one of the world's highest per capita rates, deadlier than Iraq. Kidnappings – people are snatched for ransom from bus stops, universities, shopping malls, airports compound public anxiety. Corrupt police and politicized, overwhelmed courts breed impunity. An estimated 97% of murders go unpunished. The list goes on. A catalogue of neglect and decay. This does not signify collapse. Venezuela is the original El Dorado, a land that seduced conquistadores with a false promise of gold only to find itself atop the world's biggest oil reserves. Billions of petro-dollars gush into the treasury every month, a replenishing source of patronage. Yet the nation's stitches are coming loose. Venezuela is unravelling.
Even if the protests abate, Maduro faces a desolate vista that mocks chavismo's grandiose rhetoric. An anti-imperialist beacon? A new path for humanity? Not while fistfights break out in supermarkets over scarce chickens. Or a diaspora of the best and brightest scatters around the world.
Middle-class anger the government can canalise and convert into polarisation, a venerable, successful strategy. But danger lies in discontent in the barrios and pueblos, the hillside slums and dusty villages that comprise core support. It almost sank the revolution a month after Chávez's death from cancer last March when Maduro, despite lopsided advantages in money, media and institutional control, managed just a narrow, contested election victory over opposition leader Henrique Capriles. That was a sign that government patronage and handouts – jobs, subsidies, houses, electrical goods were no longer sufficient compensation for the shortages, inflation and crime.
Chávez, first elected in 1998, created the system. A gifted politician and communicator, he expanded social programmes that sharply reduced poverty, cementing his image as champion of the underdog. But he proved to be a disastrous manager. Expropriations, subsidies and currency and price controls trapped the economy in a populist labyrinth. A historic oil boom and manic spending sustained the illusion of a new Jerusalem. You could fill an SUV tank for 60p. Chávez dreamily spoke of the population doubling, even quadrupling. He changed the clocks, the flag, the country's name, vowed to build new cities, artificial islands, a transcontinental pipeline.
There was a whiff of Ozymandias to it all, but foreign supporters applauded the fantasy. Oliver Stone, visiting Caracas to make a documentary, looked blank when I asked about the distortions and corruption haemorrhaging the economy. Shrewder observers writers and academics would visit and confide over rum that, yes, it all seemed a bit chaotic, then return home and publicly laud the revolution's progress.
The squandering reached such proportions that even amid record oil revenues Chávez had to borrow billions from China to confect artificial booms before elections. Maduro inherited this model and made it worse. Where Chávez had the confidence to bow to economic sanity and make painful adjustments, his successor, weaker and unloved by many on his own side, has plumped for even more reckless populism, ordering supermarkets to slash prices, jailing business owners as "speculators", sending troops to stores to liberate washing machines "for the people".
"We are in a critical situation of shortages and that's only the tip of the iceberg," said Luis Vicente León, a Caracas pollster. He predicted the difficulties would soon worsen. Workers at state-owned factories in Ciudad Guayana are in near open revolt. Teachers, doctors and nurses take turns striking. Chávez's gift for showmanship enabled him to create distractions and defuse frustration, but Maduro, stiff and wooden in comparison, relies more on thuggery. Hence the coordinated and symbolic assaults by "motorizados" on middle class neighborhoods.
There is no more pretence that the revolution is pretty. It is in the business of keeping power, no more, no less. It offers no solution to the fiasco, the tragedy, that is Venezuela.
Rory Carroll was based in Caracas as the Guardian and Observer Latin America correspondent from 2006-12. He is the author of Comandante: Hugo Chávez's Venezuela.
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