Is this ‘progressive':

President Hugo Chávez and his supporters have effectively neutralized the independence of Venezuela’s judiciary. In the absence of a judicial check on its actions, the Chávez government has systematically undermined freedom of expression and the ability of human rights groups to promote basic rights. It has also prosecuted government critics.[Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch are a US-based organisation with a self-admitted bias against the left-wing countries of south america. One must take their judgements with a pinch of salt.

The fact is that while Venezuela and its elected, popular government are not perfect by any means – though they have improved the lives of many millions over the last decade – any transgressions against human rights pale in comparison with its tireless accusers in the west. It’s very much a case of do as I say, not as I do, as usual.

Why is there such a high murder rate? Three times higer than Iraq in 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/americas/23venez.html

‘the Chávez government has systematically undermined freedom of expression and the ability of human rights groups to promote basic rights. It has also prosecuted government critics’

This all sounds bad, right? Until you actually look at the reality.

‘systematically undermined freedom of expression’ – Venezuela has an extremely powerful, virulently right-wing private media owned by oligarchs, that is still very much dominating public discourse, and indeed free to behave in a way that would not be tolerated (including actively colluding in military coups) in any of the ‘western’ countries that constantly propagandise against it. In the one infamous case, RCTV, which is on public record as actively helping the coup (which would have resulted in instant shutdown in the US or UK) was allowed to remain on the PUBLIC airwaves until its licence was due to come up for renewal. Its renewal was not seen as in the public interest. Of course it is in no way banned and continues to broadcast to anyone wanting to see it on cable.

‘the ability of human rights groups to promote basic rights’
The self-aggrandizing and corporate funded Human Rights Watch is disingenuously referring to its own ejection from Venezuela – after its head came to the country expressly to (in his own words) ‘show that it should not be an example to anyone’.
The fact is Human Rights Watch, while doing some good work, are an organisation with an agenda. Or ar very least a restricted prism where the rights of people to enjoy a life free of hunger and fear of poverty is much less important than the rights of a few to economically dominate the rest. It is very much the ‘liberal interventionist’ school of humanitarianism.

‘It has also prosecuted government critics’
Some opposition figures have been prosecuted by the courts for corruption, as have some members of Chavez’s own party. Thsi also happens in every country in the world. Only in the world of extreme newspeak propaganda can anyone opposed to the government (i.e. pretty much every rich person in Venezuela) who is convicted of a crime somehow be treated as a ‘political prisoner’ , regardless of whether they have actually committed crimes or not.

If you propagandise out of context and cherry-pick I’m pretty sure you could draw up a case against almost any government in the world to make them look oppressive.

And we must remember that the US establishment and its sees the self-determination of the Venezuelan people as an existential threat (against its own long-term power) and tirelessly wields its full propaganda power. Almost everything you read, see or hear about venezuela is filtered through this lens.

Joe,

Human Rights Watch [has] a self-admitted bias against the left-wing countries of south america

Please cite.

https://nacla.org/node/5334

‘We did the report because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone…’

Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division.
Based in New York. Lots of US funding.

Read the link’s breakdown of the deep, fundamental flaws with the 2008 Human Rights Watch report on Venezuela and you’ll see just what a deeply biased, metholodigcally flawed piece of propaganda it was. And they haven’t got any fairer since. The fact is, they have an agenda.

It’s true, we cannot ignore Venezuela’s social transformation at the hands of Chavez. Take full literacy as an example, in 2005 Venezuela was declared fully literate (defined as literacy of 95% of the population).

What we must not forget, however, is that in 2009 the private sector accounted for 70 percent of gross domestic product. The only reason this isn’t larger is because the state sits on an oil fortune.

Would Dr Francisco Dominguez risk saying that social transformations can take place alongside a dominant private sector?

Ignoring for the moment Chavez’ dodgy human rights record, and his love of dictators (Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi? He’s nothing if not massively inconsistent), should we on the left not be asking how much further Chavez should go, because if we don’t we risk accepting that Chavez’ oil socialism and Venezuela’s privatisation paradise can co-exist.

‘Why is there such a high murder rate? Three times higer than Iraq in 2009.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/world/americas/23venez.html‘

Well firstly, the comparison with Iraq is completely disingenuous, as Iraq’s murder rate, while still bad, is nothing like what it was since the end of the de facto civil war. This is classic propagandising in that people’s picture of Iraq is as a slaughterhouse because they remember it when it was in the news, which was when people were being killed in huge numbers. That wasn’t the case in 2009.

But that is not to deny that Venezuela does have a huge homicide problem (although it must be added that it was already the sixth worst country for murders in the world when Chavez came to office)… Most of the region’s murder rates have soared, with the exception of Colombia’s which has dropped (but from a very high start) due to the lull in the country’s civil war. But Venezuela is very much on the main drug route from the Andes, which pushes out a lot of crime from Colombia.

The government is in the process of putting together a national FBI style police force to try and tackle this admittedly serious crime situation – but to say it is something to do with the fact the country’s govenrment is left-wing is very disingenuous indeed.

‘Ignoring for the moment Chavez’ dodgy human rights record, and his love of dictators (Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi? He’s nothing if not massively inconsistent)’

I completely dispute the suggestion that Chavez has a dodgy human rights record.
Political prisoners = 0 (unless you count people who have been convicted of actual crimes in the courts)
Political killings = 0
Torture = 0
Virulent opposition media = lots.
Hardly North korea, is it?

His friendliness with the likes of Ahmadinejad, however, I will have to agree with you I think is a mistake. I can only surmise that, because he has genuinely suffered so much trouble and negative, lying propaganda from the US, and he is genuinely popular and elected, he kind of thinks that other american (self-decalred or real) enemies must be similarly misrepresented.

Of course, with all the friends the west has, they are in no position to get on their high horses (but that doesn’t stop them! – but yes, two wrongs don’t make a right.

“Chile was the test bed for unbridled neo-liberalism”

Yup, got rich enough to join the OECD even.

“to restore the free-market rule that had ripped Venezuela apart during the 1980s and 1990s whilst benefitting a tiny handful of people.

This shock therapy had seen GDP per head fall over a 24 year period, unemployment hit 15% and real wages decline for years. As a result poverty topped 70% and extreme poverty reached 40% of households.”

Snigger. Might be worth mentioning that Venezuela, as an oil economy (a member of OPEC even?) got rather hit by the collapse of the oil prices. And it’s really rather remarkable that the Venzuelan economy is still shrinking, even at this current time of high oil prices….and the 35% inflation thing.

The achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution are remarkable. At a time when most countries in the world will not meet the UN Millennium Development goals on time, Venezuela has already met them early. Venezuela is now one of the most democratic countries in the world. 14 free and fair elections in the past ten years- before Chavez there were 14 elections in the space of one hundred years in Venezuela. When people say Chavez “isn’t perfect” I always think they are stating something that progressive people should have hard-wired into their thinking- government by definition can never be perfect. We should not look for saints or paradises, but treat each state and each political situation fairly and materially. And let’s be balanced- the UK in theory has a “free press” but look at the machinations they have been getting up to. It is not a truly free press if corporate interests are allowed to violate human rights. Venezuela now has a state media that by law gets equal status to the privately owned media networks- Chavez is taking the media barons on at their own game, and they don’t like it. People need to understand that the private media in Venezuela actively participated in an illegal coup against the democratically elected government. They are not some kind of neutral actor!

Venezuela is also in a state of both class struggle and ongoing anti-imperialist struggle- with civil strife, economic collapse and social upheaval in very recent memory, and any consideration of the role of the judiciary and media should take that into account.

Apologias for dictators on Liberal Conspiracy? Chavez is a democrat in the same way that Mugabe is a democrat: a once-popular leader who has abused power to load the dice in his favour by silencing critical media voices, bribing core supporters and unleashing violence on dissidents.

Nice guy to be championing, eh?

“At a time when most countries in the world will not meet the UN Millennium Development goals on time, Venezuela has already met them early.”

So has Chile of course, that neoliberal place without oil.

http://www.pnud.cl/odm/resumen%28ingles%29.pdf

Not a peep from these soi-disant libertarians about Pinochet’s Chile. Yet, they cherry pick their arguments vis a vis Venezuela and decry it as a “brutal dictatorship”. Of course, they’ve also forgotten the failed US-backed coup and how it blew up in the faces of the so-called freedom-fighting oligarchs.

I was waiting for Tim W to come along with his neo-liberal/free-market (don’t know which one it is today) eulogy.
GDP is not an indicator of individual wealth, a country can have a massive GDP and still the majority of its’ population live in abject poverty.
In fact Chile has a not dissimilar recent economic history as the UK, eg nationalization and strong intervention in the economy.
Stating that Chile reached its’ current position by free-market/neoliberal policies is tantamount to stating that the economic wealth of the UK in the 1980s was due to it being subject to free-market forces.

“Stating that Chile reached its’ current position by free-market/neoliberal policies”

Steve, it’s the Op/Ed itself that claims that.

“Chile was the test bed for unbridled neo-liberalism”

See?

17
I was responding to your post@13, I’m sure that if you didn’t agree with the OP you would have said so.

Meant to refer to post 16

OP: “It’s perfectly possible that Venezuelans would have met a similar fate had the 2002 coup not been defeated.”

The argument that something bad might have happened in 2002 does not prove that Chavez is a good thing.

Note also that Chavez led a failed coup in 1992. He isn’t a democrat and he has little faith in his role as benevolent dictator, evidenced by his support of men who can only be described as filth. Venezuela deserves democracy.

Yup, got rich enough to join the OECD even.

This is so desperate is beggars belief you actually bothered to write it. You’re telling us Venezuela was better off pre-Chavez? Rly?

‘Tim Worstall

“At a time when most countries in the world will not meet the UN Millennium Development goals on time, Venezuela has already met them early.”

So has Chile of course, that neoliberal place without oil.’

But of course with massive copper reserves, which were the one thing kept in state hands by Pinochet and the only thing that saved his disaster-area of an economy. Of course Chile was one of the richest and developed countries in South America before Pinochet’s disastrous ‘free-market’ experiment (as it had a relatively small popualtion and plentiful natural resources), but you hardly hear that mentioned either.

‘Note also that Chavez led a failed coup in 1992. He isn’t a democrat and he has little faith in his role as benevolent dictator, evidenced by his support of men who can only be described as filth. Venezuela deserves democracy.’

Chavez’s failed coup was against a completely discredited government that had already turned its troops on the people when they protested about broken election promises, killing and injuring thousands. Chavez’s foes’ coup was against an elected, popular government because it HAD stuck to its election promises (to empower the disenfranchised majority of the country over the miami-wannabe elite). A very slight difference, wouldn’t you say?

Funny sort of non-democrat, that has presided over 14 internationally-accredited elections in his tenure of office?

Venezueal has democracy, despite the best efforts of the local oligarchy and their international allies in government and big business media.

@22 Joe: “Chavez’s failed coup was against a completely discredited government that had already turned its troops on the people when they protested about broken election promises, killing and injuring thousands.”

I suggest that you research the meaning of coup d’etat. Coup d’etat is about one set of bosses (in the case of Chavez, military men) attempting to replace another set of bosses.

Ah, self-parody.

Those neoliberals at Amnesty.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/venezuelan-government-deliberately-targeting-opponents-2010-04-01

Is this the same anti-capitalist Chavez who visited the capitalists at the New York stock exchange asking them to invest in his country?

Is this the same Venezuela that was the last Latin American country out of recession?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/05/25/venezuela-economy-idUSN2515736520100525

Is this the same US who are so anti-Venezuela that they actually buy 40% of Venezuelan oil production?

Human development index:

Chile 40th
Venezuela 61st

Just think in a few years with the fifth highest oil production in OPEC they could be Bulgaria.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDI_2008_EN_Tables.pdf

Adult literacy:

Chile 96.4
Venezuela 93.0

Life expectancy at birth:

Chile 78.4
Venezuela 73.4

I am certainly not defending Pinochet. However, to compare Venezuela with Chile is absurd. Chile blows them out of the water on every conceivable measure that one wants to use. Chile is the most prosperous nation in South America and was the first South American nation to join the OECD group of countries. Considering their oil reserves what one should be asking is why Venezuela does so badly?

#10 “And it’s really rather remarkable that the Venzuelan economy is still shrinking, even at this current time of high oil prices….and the 35% inflation thing”

Wrong, Tim. Venezuela’s GDP grew by 4% in the last quarter. The country is now in recovery.

# 19 Venezuela is a democracy. Chavez is patently not a dictator. Have you not heard about the free and fair elections he has won? The term “dictator” is so abused, nowadays it means “someone I disagree with”. Let’s stick to using the term for actual unaccountable dictators.

Chavez in 1992 led a popular-backed coup against a regime which did not meet the democratic standards that Venezuela now enjoys. The electoral route was not open in 1992. When the electoral route later became open Chavez and later the PSUV followed it, and won and are still winning. There will be further Presidential elections next year. I can only conclude that you don’t know your history on this one.

See, this is why I find some elements of the left so ridiculous. This absurd idolisation of people who in other circumstances they would decry as villains.

Chavez is not a saint, he is not some beneficent socialist angel who is faultless, he is a politician who has done things that, at the very least, can be called questionable. For example, when you launch a general election campaign by using state funds to provide underpriced white goods for your voters then I would say that’s certainly attempting to bribe the electorate. Similarly, when he imprisoned a judge for ruling in a way he did not like then he clearly shows that his regard for the rule of law is tentative at the very least.

And, let us not forget, this is the man who was (and is) best friends with Gaddaffi – a man who many pro-Chavez people in the UK are now condemning as a murderous dictator. The fact that Chavez does not and should not mean that he gets a free ride when it comes to his actions.

After all, China is avowedly communist and still locks up hundreds of political prisoners every year. The same applies to Cuba where, for example, the only people allowed to use the internet are government officials and tourists. If people (such as some of those on this comment thread) insist on giving people like Chavez carte blanche to do whatever they like just because of their professed political ideology then they are nothing more than hypocrites and clearly fail to grasp even the most basic elements of socialism.

The right wing trolls just love Colombia and Peru where death squads kill indigenous people and trade unionists!

Chavez is not perfect but he gets heat from the right because of the positive things that have been achieved in Venezuela.

Venezuela has had huge structural problems including an unbalanced economy and corruption for 50 years but before it had a socialist president the mass media never reported the country.

How often was Venezuela in the news pre-Chavez, how well reported were massacres of anti-austerity protesters in 1989 during the Caracazo.

# 27 I am of the left but don’t believe Chavez is a saint. My case is not emotive at all but materialist- what has been achieved under his administrations in Venezuela has been good for the majority of people in that country. I believe that is why he has been re-elected several times.

The case in point about Gaddafi is interesting. As a progressive person I am much more concerned about Chavez’s bilateral relations with Iran than with Gaddafi’s Libya, seeing as almost the entire world (with the possible exception of Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia, Chad and some of the Gulf states) had bilateral relations with Gaddafi’s Libya including the western world. And in terms of the qualitative nature of the West’s links to Gaddafi- arms sales and oil, the Venezuelan relationship with Libya is much more defensible, though i’m not that worried about it. Venezuela’s foreign policy is no friendlier to authoritarian regimes than any other country, and is a damned sight more honest.

George’s post at # 27 contains some glaring errors that give away the fact his position isn’t based on reality. Not that it is relevant to this thread, but the comment that only government officials and tourists can use the internet in Cuba is a lie.

Finally, i’m not aware of any factions on the left giving Chavez carte blanche or being uncritical. The far-left particularly gives him a hard time and is extremely critical of his reformism, his international alliances and his perceived revolutionary inertia. Most of Chavez’s support in the UK comes from the nationalist left, the old Labour left (who also form much of the Cuba Solidarity movement) and CPB types who are more than familiar with the doctrine of critical support when it comes to international issues.

@29 Illtyd Luke: “Not that it is relevant to this thread, but the comment that only government officials and tourists can use the internet in Cuba is a lie.”

No, it is a mistaken belief not a lie.

In the last six months or so, the Cuban government permitted internet access by private citizens through a state controlled ISP. GWP is mistaken that Cubans have no internet access, but it is not the access that you and I enjoy.

lol it cannot be ignored but it can be denied, un less you are in venezuela…when you would be jailed

@29

You are correct about internet access in Cuba but, as @30 says, it is a recent development and I was unaware of it till now. Certainly the last I’d heard about the matter was from an acquaintance of mine who’d been on holiday there and said that every time they’d wanted to use the internet they’d had to go to a special internet cafe where everyone was watched by cameras while they were online.

You may say that no faction on the left gives him carte blanche but there are certainly some people doing so in this comment thread and I know from personal experience that that attitude is mirrored by about 80% of the Lincoln branch of the Socialist Party.

Joe @8 after I mentioned the murder rate:

Well firstly, the comparison with Iraq is completely disingenuous, as Iraq’s murder rate, while still bad, is nothing like what it was since the end of the de facto civil war. This is classic propagandising in that people’s picture of Iraq is as a slaughterhouse because they remember it when it was in the news, which was when people were being killed in huge numbers. That wasn’t the case in 2009.

According to the Economist, Caracas is the most violent city in the world.

”In 1998, before Mr Chávez became president, there were 4,550 murders nationwide, a figure that had remained broadly constant for several years. Had it stayed there, more than 70,000 of those who met violent deaths in the past decade would still be alive today. But the numbers have risen inexorably, and in 2009, says Mr Briceño-León, the total was 19,113.”
http://www.economist.com/node/16846788

Apparently the government just doesn’t talk about it.

“I know from personal experience that that attitude is mirrored by about 80% of the Lincoln branch of the Socialist Party.”

Is there such a thing as 80% of three people?

@34

I make it to be about, give or take, 20 people. Of course, it might be inaccurate to call all of them members but they are all friends, espouse socialist rhetoric and principles and spend a substantial amount of time selling the Socialist Worker.

It is absurd to claim that the Venezuelan government doesn’t try to deal with crime or talk about it.
The government’s main anti-crime measure has focussed around the establishment of a new police force, with a particular focus on tackling gangs and homicides. The establishment of such a new police force is vital, as the police is one of the areas of state power that the government, for historical reasons has had very little control over, as anyone who has witnessed the behaviour of the police in the film The Revolution Will Not be Televised can quickly acknowledge.
Indeed, this has meant that violent crime – linked to police corruption – has been a historical problem in Venezuela for decades. That is why last month the Venezuelan police force was dismantled. A new police force is being established.
Last year the Venezuelan government created the National Bolivarian Police (PNB). Vice President Elias Jaua has explained the importance of these changes, saying, “We’re dismantling a perverse police structure where there were torturers linked to human trafficking and mafias. [We’re doing his] in order to create a new police force with new ethics.”
The PNB incorporates a community based approach to crime fighting and prevention, working with neighbourhood organizations and subjecting aspiring police officers for the first time to a rigorous training process – including human rights training – that includes higher education classes at the new National Experimental Security University (UNES).
Since its formation, the force has been active in the areas in and surrounding the capital city of Caracas where it has registered dramatic decreases in crime. According to official numbers, the PNB has reduced overall crime by 57% in the municipality of Sucre, one of the poorest and most crime-ridden areas of the capital where it has been most present. Homicides have been reduced by 44% in the municipality, while theft has declined by 66% and cases associated with gender violence have diminished by 64%. Overall, in areas where the National Bolivarian Police Force has been deployed, crime has already been reduced by over 50%.
This new national police force had 952 officers in 2009 but today it has over 4,000, showing the government is allocating substantial resources to combat crime. The government now plans to increase the number of officers on the streets by 12,500 and expand the areas where the force is deployed to the states of Tachira, Carabobo, Zulia, Lara, Aragua, Miranda and Anzoategui.
A further measures was the recent announcement of the Interior and Justice Minister, Tarek El Aissami, that a national gun control program is being embarked on to “regulate the ownership of arms and ammunition”.
Crime in Latin America and in is Venezuela is a serious issue and should not be prettified. Indeed a number countries including El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Jamaica, tragically all currently have murder rates even higher than in Venezuela and many cities in Brazil have serious problems. Is the Worker’ Party in Brazil to be written off due to that? Of course not, it depends on whether the government is taking measures to respond, which it is in Venezuela.
Violent crime shouldn’t be ignored – but it is bizarre and dogmatic to claim that “the government just doesn’t talk about it”.

Violent crime shouldn’t be ignored – but it is bizarre and dogmatic to claim that “the government just doesn’t talk about it”.

I was just saying what I read in New Nork Times and Economist articles.
The murder rate was up at South African levels.
Hopefully the crime rate will come down. But stastics don’t always tell the whole story about how safe or not a place is. Because people take extreme avoiding measures.
In South Africa, that means just not going to certain places – having bars on your windows, and electric fences and security guards.

So, oppressive regimes that close newspapers and TV stations, arrest and imprison judges that want to investigate corruption, and curtail opposition’s rights are now good because people ae richer?

I guess you will like China too.

Is this part of a series? Do we get Andrew Murray on North Korea next?

No enemies on the left!