Andrew's written about the fawning motion tabled in the Scottish Parliament by 4 SNP MSPs and 1 Labour MSP which would not be out of place in the Order of the Brown Nose column in Private Eye.
It's one really to file under "you couldn't make it up".
Just to add to what Andrew said, another of President Chavez's best friends was Ken Livingston, who did a deal to have Chavez's oil fuelling the London underground trains.
Ken had a wee chat about him recently to Mari Sibata from the Cambridge Student:
I don't think he has a questionable human rights record at all; that's all American propaganda.
An awful lot of it seems rather like police brutality - the problem is that he doesn't run the police. They're run by the new Hispanicise. The only election he had lost was on a referendum challenging constitutional changes.
The people who were killed during the American vacuum were killed by the American batch of troops who were trying to overthrow the democratic government. I've met Chavez, he would perfectly fit into politics and certainly under the Labour party.
Even if what Ken says is true, Chavez allows atrocities to take place on his watch and blames somebody else. Not someone I'd want to be mates with, I must confess. And Ken reckons that Chavez would fit in with the Labour Party. I guess that would be the Labour Party that turned a blind eye to our citizens being tortured by the Americans.
And, then, of course, Ken implies that Chavez is a cuddly teddy bear, and it's just the pesky Americans that are bad mouthing him. Not so. Have a look at what Amnesty International has to say about the Venezuelan regime - harassment of journalists and human rights activists, lip service paid to enforcing the law on violence against women. Amnesty is not exactly best pleased with the Americans, either.
I think we should let another "Hugo" have the last word - our own Lib Dem MSP Hugh O'Donnell who's put in a counter motion outlining some of the megalomaniac media controlling and human rights abusing issues with this hero of the left.
I never used to cease to be amazed when I was younger to have all these young socialists around me saying that actually, the Soviet regime wasn't that bad because everyone had a job and they looked after the people, or that Mugabe was a nice man really, just a bit misunderstood. I really despaired of them. This is a similar sort of thing.
What is it about this egotistical man who throws his weight around controlling the tv stations that the Nationalists in particular admire or envy so much?
2 comments:
A Scots-Venezualian friend had a go at me the other day about Chavez. I'm not entirely sure how we got on to it (drink was involved), but this might explain why she had it in mind that day.
According to her, much of what the West sees of Venezuela is PR put out by Chevez. I get the distinct impression that this is going to be backbenchers shooting the party in the foot far too close to election. Hopefully it'll get voted down in the Chamber though.
In Spain we do read about Chávez and very few people support him. But you will always find people in Britain to support any undemocratic system. The USSR had its apologists and, on the other side, Franco, Pinochet and apartheid all found support in the mainstream of the Conservative Party.
In the last Venezuelan elections the opposition won the mayoralty of Caracas with support from the poorest districts, who preferred his support for small business to Chávez' free microwaves and blankets. The winner was not allowed to take office for invented technical reasons and the post of mayor of the city was then stripped of all power.
There is more about Chávez on my own blog.
http://lavengro.typepad.com/lavengro_in_spain/2008/03/the-astonishi-1.html
http://lavengro.typepad.com/lavengro_in_spain/2008/11/venezuela.html
Post a Comment