President Hugo Chávez erosion of human rights

[Revmitchell]

President Hugo Chávez, who governed Venezuela for 14 years, was elected to another six-year term in October 2012. He died in March 2013. During his presidency, the accumulation of power in the executive branch and the erosion of human rights guarantees enabled his government to intimidate, censor, and prosecute Venezuelans who criticized the president or thwarted his political agenda. President Chávez and his supporters used their powers in a wide range of cases involving the judiciary, the media, and human rights defenders. Prison violence and police abuse remain serious problems.

http://www.hrw.org/americas/venezuela

 

[Revmitchell]

(New York) – Hugo Chávez’s presidency (1999-2013) was characterized by a dramatic concentration of power and open disregard for basic human rights guarantees.

After enacting a new constitution with ample human rights protections in 1999 – and surviving a short-lived coup d’état in 2002 – Chávez and his followers moved to concentrate power. They seized control of the Supreme Court and undercut the ability of journalists, human rights defenders, and other Venezuelans to exercise fundamental rights.

By his second full term in office, the concentration of power and erosion of human rights protections had given the government free rein to intimidate, censor, and prosecute Venezuelans who criticized the president or thwarted his political agenda. In recent years, the president and his followers used these powers in a wide range of prominent cases, whose damaging impact was felt by entire sectors of Venezuelan society.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/03/05/venezuela-chavez-s-authoritarian-legacy

 

[church mouse guy]

RevMitchell, I just noticed that you live in the Land of Enhancement! I lived for seven years in El Paso. No wonder we are interested in Latin America!

In Chihuahua years ago the police were known to executed a hardened criminal and leave him miles from town now and then. I am sure that El Loco did the same thing. It seems to me that the police functioned mostly at his will. Many people have disappeared. Others made it to a prison only to be murdered by the criminals in the prison. A second thing that El Loco seems to have done is to allow a breakdown in law and order so that there was a countrywide crime wave. But nowhere was the crime wave worse than on the border with Colombia.

El Loco encouraged racial profiling of pureblooded white Spaniards whose families had been in Venezuela since the 1500s. Spain turned her back on these people born in the colonies and now El Loco attacked them. Simon Bolivar, as you know, was motivated in part because as a pureblooded Spaniard born in Venezuela he could not go back to Spain, get a job with the Spanish, or make a good living as a colonial. By the way, there is a good case that he was one of the greatest generals in the history of the world. He wanted to sail for Haiti after saying that South America was ungovernable but he died of tuberculosis at Santa Marta, Colombia, as you know.