Venezuelan offer for Guantanamo

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said he is prepared to receive detainees held by the US military at the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba.

US President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of the controversial camp, in which around 240 inmates are held, by next year.

Mr Chavez made his offer at a summit of South American and Arab countries.

It is highly unlikely the Pentagon will take him up on it, however, given the poor state of US ties with Venezuela.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7978135.stm

[derby378]

1. Bush 43 bears some of the responsibility for those "poor ties"

Granted, Chavez has a few faults, but surely there's room for improvement in diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the US with Obama at the helm.

[EFerrari]

2. Last week, Clinton said he treated the Venezuelan public badly

and his neighbors badly, too. Trouble is, his approval polling is in the 70s and his "neighbors" are all telling the United States to cut it out -- except that butcher in Colombia who was Bush's lapdog. I don't see US relations with Venezuela getting better any time soon.

[derby378]

3. As I said, Chavez has faults

He has imposed some amount of censorship on his nation. He has ordered some of his political opponents to be tortured. But he has also participated in several humanitarian efforts to benefit his fellow citizens and even outreach to Hurricane Katrina survivors. He's a bit complicated.

[EFerrari]

4. If you have sources for either of those allegations, I'd love to see them.

Neither is true as far as I know. No, Hillary is married to Mr. Free Trade Agreement and her friends at Penn, Schoen still make huge fees pushing that poison. Chavez isn't disliked because of how he governs. If that were the case, we'd have to cut off relations with China altogether.

/pre-coffee grammar

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Please document the torture and censorship. nt.

[Neo Atheist]

12. you mean like his government refusing to re-license media that criticize him?

before you reply "THEY SUPPORTED THE COUP AGAINST HIM" let me type it so you can't use that bullshit as justification for silencing free speech.

so there's an instance of his government using bureaucratic tools to censor media chavez doesn't like.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. One station did not get its license renewed.

Meanwhile Venezuela has a vibrant print and broadcast media environment that is not censored. Opposition viewpoints are not censored. Opposition viewpoints are broadly represented in broadcast and print, as was amply demonstrated in recent elections. An organization that aided a CIA sponsored coup against an elected government did not get its broadcast license renewed. If you wish to claim that is 'silencing free speech' go right ahead.

[Neo Atheist]

17. I most certainly will

There are groups like CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) which have documented ties to terrorist networks like Hamas and al Qaeda, and have aided in the funding of these groups, but even my hardcore Atheist ass doesn't believe their right to go on tv and say their nonsensical bullshit should be taken away.

Also, I'd like to see evidence from someone besides that fat supporter of holocaust deniers (Chavez) that the station was giving more than rhetorical aid for the coup.

[EFerrari]

19. There's an entire documentary about the role of the media in that coup.

[Warren Stupidity]

20. CAIR has a broadcast license here?

I didn't know that.

Your mind is made up. First you admit that the station was involved in the coup, which by the way nobody but you is bothering to deny, but try to immunize your nonsense from that uncomfortable fact by ordering us not to bring that point up, and then you try to claim it isn't a fact at all. Then having not much of an argument, you descend into name calling. You don't like Chavez. I get it. You and plenty of others here are quite obsessed with what you view as the insulting behavior of our normally subservient latin american neighbors. How dare they?

A broadcast license is a privilege, not a right. Participating in a coup seems like the sort of behavior that just might get your license revoked.

[EFerrari]

14. They weren't silenced, they're still on cable and no, there is no right

to use the people's airwaves to try to overthrow their government. lol

[derby378]

21. Here's one link to torture allegations against Chavez

http://thehrf.org/media/101609.html

Seems like I ran across some NPR articles as well, but we're short-staffed at work, so this is all I could find so far.

[EFerrari]

22. derby, as far as I can tell, HRF is a right wing front group.

Board member Eduardo Mendoza is a right wing activist and politician in Venezuela, for example and all the links to Quintero are to this org or to FreeRCTV or TellChavez, two other right wing groups.

Amnesty International has no listing for him and neither does Human Rights WATCH. If his case were legitimate, they would have one for him.

The right wing in Venezuela claims all kinds of cr@p. For example, there is a politician named Rosales who is being investigated for corruption. He was caught meeting with four of the judges that would hear his case. He wasn't arrested but the case had a change of venue. At that point, he goes into hiding and claims he's in fear of his life. What he's in fear of is a fair trial because he was just fine until he was caught trying to influence his judges!

[derby378]

23. Duly noted

But isn't Elie Wiesel associated with HRF somehow? I consider him good people.

[EFerrari]

24. I don't know. I asked the LA forum but I'll go check for him. Edit:

It looks as though he is on their "international council". I don't know if he's actually involved with them or simply lent his name. Another reason this org sort of trips my triggers is that everything I find about them was written by them. Let me see what else can be found.

[Warren Stupidity]

25. I agree that this looks bad.

I don't think it establishes that the Chavez regime engages routinely in this sort of behavior, and Jose Humberto Quintero seems to be a player as the saying goes, more than a little bit involved in spook shit. That in itself does not excuse physical or mental abuse by the state, and I am not excusing it.

[EFerrari]

26. I have some feelers out. If this happened, I want to know.

If it didn't happen, I want to know that.

What I do know is that censorship and human rights abuses are the two favorite claims of the right wing and I've yet to track down one of these stories that turned out to be true. It could happen. :shrug:

When RCTV's license wasn't renewed. the oligarchy sent their kids out into the street with duct tape over their mouths. It was very fetching. In any case, when I find something, I'll post it here.

[EFerrari]

28. Judi Lynn found this for us.

The founder of this org is a member of the opposition and his "work" has been criticized by Greenpeace among others.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=405&topic_id=13498&mesg_id=13504

[dipsydoodle]

6. Oh.

[LynnTheDem]

10. "He has ordered some of his political opponents to be tortured."

Huh???

[EFerrari]

15. Some of those "Alo Presidente" shows do run very long!

:rofl:

[LynnTheDem]

27. Ahhhh...yes, I see your point.

:rofl:

[Judi Lynn]

29. It would be a service to DU'ers if you posted links to your charges of censorship

in Venezuela.

Up to this point, the only censorship I've heard about has been the censorship involved when the Venezuelan tv stations, radio stations, and newspapers promoted the overthrow of Hugo Chavez for days prior to the coup, published images arranged to show through omission a false scenario which they pushed as Chavez supporters shooting into the street and killing people when it was known to be quite OTHERWISE at that very time.

They also imposed a total news blackout for a day to keep Venezuelans from knowing Hugo Chavez did NOT resign, had been taken at gunpoint, and kidnapped, and the people of Caracas were pouring into the streets, running to Miraflores to protest.
This was kept completely OUT of the news while they ran re-runs of Pretty woman and cartoons, instead.

We really need to know the truth of it, and if you've got that evidence Hugo Chavez has censored Venezuelan news, by all means, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with people who need to know.

[Judi Lynn]

30. It is absolutely essential that you produce some evidence of your claim Chavez has tortured people.

It's a miracle none of us ever heard about this yet.

We need to know for ourselves what you're saying. You probably know by now when wild accusations are lobbed in here they need to be accompanied by their evidence, as that's too extreme to accept from anyone at face value.

I have NEVER heard Hugo Chavez tortures people. I'd have to say, based on years of seeing wildly spun articles, and complete B.S., that's the oddest one I've heard yet.

Follow up your assertions with evidence, or retract them.

[stillcool]

7. If only Venezuela had no resources...

Our countries could be best friends.

[EFerrari]

9. On top of everything else, Venezuela is cracking down on money laundering

and drug trafficking at its ports. CIA must hate that.

[stillcool]

16. I think I read a while back..

that the government was taking over security at the ports..not very nice of Hugo. The Venezuelan people sure deserve a lot of credit. I'd love to know how they manage to see through all the bullshit.

[EFerrari]

18. I think that was one reason to re-nationalize the ports, to tell you the truth.

And I agree. They deserve all the credit in the world.

[aquart]

8. Chavez and his puckish sense of humor. He just can't resist.

[L. Coyote]

11. Isn't there a spare ranch in Crawford, TX

make Mr. Bush pay for the meals too ....

[Judi Lynn]

31. You know, Hugo Chavez has been asking the U.S. Government to turn over a bomber

and mass murderer who killed 73 people in an in-air bombing of a Cubana airliner. The man was a Cuban "exile," Luis Posada Carriles, also a CIA operative, and _Bush has been refusing to allow him to be returned to Venezuela where he was a prisoner for that bombing until he escaped with the help of fellow Cuban "exiles" arranged in Miami by the Cuban American National Foundation which he boasted about to the New York Times reporters Anne Louise Bardach and Larry Rohter.

Posada used to be the head of Venezuelan secret police during the 1980's, where HE tortured prisoners, and they've got people there who identify him. Maybe THAT'S the reason _Bush claimed if he allowed him to go to Venezuela he'd be tortured!

Maybe if they refuse to send him back to Venezuela, they will consider sending him to Guantanamo!

[EFerrari]

32. If we were serious about censorship of the media and about torture

we be asking why our own military knowingly bombed the media in Iraq:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/13/fmr_military_intelligence_officer_reveals_us

and why Sami al Haj, an al Jazeera photographer, was kidnapped and held at Gitmo for SIX YEARS and tortured until he was almost dead.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/2/after_more_than_6_years_al

[Judi Lynn]

33. Bush did censorship in a way which sent a message, didn't he?

What would someone say about a government which not only imprisons, and tortures journalists, but also KILLS them?

How will a good President ever get this country out of the corner into which _Bush painted it?

Thank you for reminding American posters of something the rest of the world can't forget!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After seeing your links, I wanted to go get more on our killing of journalists under the _Bush administration:

EDIA ADVISORY:
Is Killing Part of Pentagon Press Policy?

April 10, 2003

The Pentagon has held up its practice of "embedding" journalists with military units as proof of a new media-friendly policy. On April 8, however, U.S. military forces launched what appeared to be deliberate attacks on independent journalists covering the war, killing three and injuring four others.

In one incident, a U.S. tank fired an explosive shell at the Palestine Hotel, where most non-embedded international reporters in Baghdad are based. Two journalists, Taras Protsyuk of the British news agency Reuters and Jose Couso of the Spanish network Telecino, were killed; three other journalists were injured. The tank, which was parked nearby, appeared to carefully select its target, according to journalists in the hotel, raising and aiming its gun turret some two minutes before firing a single shell.

Journalists who witnessed the attack unequivocally rejected Pentagon claims that the tank had been fired on from the hotel. "I never heard a single shot coming from any of the area around here, certainly not from the hotel," David Chater of British Sky TV told Reuters (4/8/03). Footage shot by French TV recorded quiet in the area immediately before the attack (London Independent, 4/9/03).

Earlier in the day, the U.S. launched separate but near-simultaneous attacks on the Baghdad offices of Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV, two Arabic-language news networks that have been broadcasting graphic footage of the human cost of the war. Both outlets had informed the Pentagon of their exact locations, according to a statement from the Committee to Protect Journalists. As with the hotel attack, Pentagon officials claimed that U.S. forces had come under fire from the press offices, charges that were rejected by the targeted reporters.

The airstrike against Al Jazeera killed one of the channel's main correspondents in Iraq, Tareq Ayoub, and injured another journalist, prompting Al Jazeera to try to pull its remaining reporters out of Baghdad for fear of their safety (BBC, 4/9/03). Personnel at Abu Dhabi TV escaped injury from an attack with small-arms fire.

Al Jazeera, which the Bush administration has criticized for airing footage of American POWs, has been attacked several times by U.S. and British forces during the war in Iraq. Its offices in Basra were shelled on April 2, and its camera crew in that city fired on by British tanks on March 29. A car clearly marked as belonging to Al Jazeera was shot at by U.S. soldiers on April 7 (Reporters Without Borders, 4/8/03).

International journalists and press freedom groups condemned the U.S. attacks on the press corps in Baghdad. "We can only conclude that the U.S. Army deliberately and without warning targeted journalists," Reporters Without Borders declared (4/8/03). "We believe these attacks violate the Geneva Conventions," wrote the Committee to Protect Journalists in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (4/8/03), referring to the protection journalists receive under the laws of war. The attacks on journalists "look very much like murder," Robert Fisk of the London Independent reported (4/9/03).

More:
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/iraq-journalists.html