Is there a hidden hand behind the anti-China protesting of recent weeks, other than of course the much maligned ‘Dalai Clique?’ Indeed there is, according to Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry. According to a statement, in part published in Venezuela’s El Universal, “The manipulation of the media in regard to the protest of violent groups in the Tibet Autonomous Region is an ingredient of a formula from the psychological warfare laboratories of the United States, that is applied to permanently destabilize countries that refuse to meekly submit to the mandates of imperial rule.”

Translated by Miguel Guttierez

April 8, 2008

Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)

Caracas: Today, the National Government has denounced a campaign of “infamies” launched from the United States against China over the Tibet incident and said that it anticipates the success of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Venezuela will give its absolute support to realizing the event in Beijing, and will be sending its largest delegation ever to an Olympic Games.

“Consistent with the principle of brotherhood among peoples in their battle against all forms of imperialism, the government expresses its full and unreserved solidarity with the government and people of the People’s Republic of China as they confront the relentless and systematic campaign of infamies they have been victimized by during the past few weeks through the major mass media companies,” it said.

The “manipulation of the media in regard to the protest of violent groups in the Tibet Autonomous Region is an ingredient of a formula from the psychological warfare laboratories of the United States that is applied to permanently destabilize countries that refuse to meekly submit to the mandates of imperial rule,” it added.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing trasnslated foreign press coverage of the
United States.

With cries for change sweeping the United States and even the ‘hermetically-sealed totalitarian regime’ of the Castro brothers, some in Venezuela are sounding downright envious. Fernando Luis Egaña writes for Venezuela’s Correo del Caroni, “Both in the United States and its hemispheric polar opposite Cuba, there are growing expectations of political, economic and social change. … The oldest democracy and the longest dictatorship on the Continent are preparing for change. May long-suffering Venezuela not be left behind.”

By Fernando Luis Egaña

Translated By Halszka Czarnocka

March 25, 2008

Venezuela - Correo del Caroni - Home Page (Spanish)

Both in the United States and its hemispheric polar opposite Cuba, there are growing expectations of political, economic and social change. Domestic and global reasons have resulted in this push for new directions.

No one knows if Barack Obama will in the end obtain the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, and even if he does - whether he’ll manage to defeat Republican John McCain. But much of this feat has already been accomplished. Read the rest of this entry »

Does President Hugo Chavez’ recent order forcing employees at Venezuela’s state telephone company to stop using English words [the language of Empire] in favor of Spanish ones make any sense? In this biting tongue-in-cheek editorial from Venezuela’s Tal Cual newspaper, the absurdity of the plan is taken to task. According to the editorial, “Why force people to speak Spanish, if the ill-named “Motherland [Spain]” is as much our enemy as George W. himself?”
Read the rest of this entry »

Would the nations of Latin America be better off replacing the Organization of American States with a new grouping that leaves out the U.S.? After the success of last week’s Group of Rio Summit - which the U.S. did not attend - in defusing a military-diplomatic crisis involving Colombia and a number of its neighbors, there are many people south of the United States that seem to think so. Ángel Guerra Cabrera for Mexico’s La Jornada writes in part, ‘Seemingly intractable antagonisms and ideological crisis can be overcome as long as they are addressed without the presence of the United States … Looking back at history, the OAS has never condemned a single Yankee misdeed against our America, nor has it defended any of our just causes.’ In terms of the attack against Ecuador by Colombia, Cabrera expresses the suspicions of many Latin Americans, when he writes, ‘the roots of the Ecuador incident, momentarily defused by the Rio Group, remain unchanged: the Colombian conflict, the fruit of a very unfair and devastating social and political reality which has been encouraged by “Plan Colombia,” is the nucleus of a feverish U.S. plot of subversion and military interference in South America, aimed at overthrowing the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, and closely related to the fierce onslaught against Cuba.’

By Ángel Guerra Cabrera

Translated By Fernando Uribe

March 13, 2008

Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)

The Group of Rio Summit’s resounding rejection of military aggression against Ecuador and the consequent defusing of the diplomatic crisis that it sparked, has once again forced Bush - who longed for fire in the Andes region - to experience the bitter taste of defeat WATCH . In this reversal, he had to swallow the clear and vibrant desire for unity, cooperation, and peace in Latin America and the Caribbean, which was so forcefully displayed at Santo Domingo’s capital, Quisqueya.

[Editor’s Note: The “Group of Rio” was founded in 1986, and includes nineteen Caribbean states: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The 35-nation OAS (Organization of American States) has been the dominant regional decision-making body for many years. The earliest forerunner of the OAS first convened in Washington in 1890, and consisted of 18 nations].

The great lesson of the summit is the enormous capacity for dialogue and understanding that the governments of our region possess, with which seemingly intractable antagonisms and ideological crisis can be overcome as long as they are addressed without the presence of the United States.

The best evidence of this came days earlier at OAS headquarters in Washington. Due solely to Yankee pressure - even though for the first time all present clearly condemned all U.S.-inspired interventions, it was impossible to translate this into a collective statement.

On the other hand, despite the fact that Yankee pressure increased on the eve of the meeting in the Dominican Republic (as President Rafael Correa briefed several of his counterparts) U.S. intentions ended up crashing against a determined majority. So there was more than enough reason, in light of this experience, for Ecuador to assert the necessity of creating an organization of Latin American states without the Empire. Looking back at history, the OAS has never condemned a single Yankee misdeed against our America, nor has it defended any of our just causes.

The success of the Rio Summit was also made possible by other decisive factors. The most important was [Ecuadorian President] Correa’s unwavering defense of Ecuadorian sovereignty and demands for its violation to be condemned - and the unanimous disapproval of this ominous precedent. This included the resolute attitude of heavyweights like Brazil and Argentina not to accept under any circumstances, violations of the territorial integrity of another State, which left Uribe isolated.

The only positive attitude towards the Latin American peoples, once assured censorship of the summit to the armed attack against Ecuador, was not insist on the large differences in approach for the sake of opposing defuse the climate of war created.

The skilful and transparent conduct of the meeting by Dominican President Leonel Fernandez created the climate for the bright and balanced involvement of Hugo Chavez who took the lead, supported by [Nicaraguan President] Daniel Ortega and [Bolivian President] Evo Morales. This was the turning point that kept away the shadow of a fratricidal war and led to the unexpected conclusion. This singular attitude favored by the people of Latin America not only assured the summit’s censure of the armed attack against Ecuador, it made certain in the interests of not extending the warlike atmosphere, that little would be made of the vast differences in approach suggested by individual states.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing coverage of the United States from the Latin American press.

For fans of Woody Allen, it will come as no surprise that some see similarities between the Latin America despot in the movie Bananas and President Hugo Chavez - to say nothing of Fidel Castro - who the character in Bananas actually parodied. Now that President Chavez has come close to declaring war on Colombia, Maruja Tarre writes for Venezuela’s El Universal, ‘Upon seeing Chavez hip-hop dancing after issuing his mobilization decree, I was reminded of a film by Woody Allen called Bananas. When I saw it long ago I was indignant, since to me, it reproduced every stereotype of banana republics , the military and revolutionaries. As far as our president, Woody Allen described him to a tee.’

By Maruja Tarre

Translated By Miguel Guttierez

March 7, 2008

Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)

After seeing Chavez hip-hop dancing after issuing his mobilization decree WATCH , I was reminded of a film by Woody Allen called Bananas WATCH . When I saw it long ago I was indignant, since to me, it reproduced every stereotype of banana republics , the military and revolutionaries. As far as our president, Woody Allen described him to a tee. Just like Chavez, the President in Bananas declares a quasi-war and his senior military officials stand around seeming to enjoy the presidential show. Could it be that already, no one believes in the heroic combat Chavez has announced? Or perhaps Chavez’ select group of guests were confident that war or no war, nothing would happen to them. Of course some days later, we are likely to see photos of the wives and mothers of the toy soldiers squeezed like meat from a tube along the border - crying desperately because of an armed clash - for it is they who will be the ones to die.

I don’t think there will be war with Colombia. At a meeting of the Organization of American States - even without naming him - Chavez was told that he has nothing to gain in an actual conflict. But Chavez wants war. He’s still looking for an external enemy to coalesce the Venezuelan people around his declining leadership.

READ THE REST ON WORLDMEETS.US, Along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. from Latin America.

MSNBC: President Hugo Chavez orders 10 battalions to Venezuela’s border with Colombia

Let’s see what happens.

BBC: Venezuela sends tanks to border

A $12 billion judgment on behalf of ExxonMobil against Venezuela’s state oil company has once again set off President Hugo Chavez, who, according to this news account from Venezuela’s leading newspaper El Universal, said, amongst many other things, ‘If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we’re going to do harm to you. Do you know how? We aren’t going to send more oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger … We cannot be a government of wimps. No! Our best weapon is to counterattack and begin shooting; we are going to counterattack, and therefore I said to my ministers, come on!’

By Mariemma Ramos Nava

Translated by Miguel Guttierez

February 10, 2008

Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)
Barinas: President Hugo Chavez threatened today to suspend oil exports to the United States if Exxon Mobile manages to seize the assets of Petroleum of Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA) through the courts.

[Editor’s Note: Chavez refers to a series of court orders obtained by Exxon Mobil Corp. in Britain, the Netherlands, and the Dutch Antilles, freezing up to $12 billion in assets of Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA. The injunctions were sought by Exxon in anticipation of an arbitration ruling by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes over a compensation claim. The rulings mean that Venezuela can’t sell Read the rest of this entry »

Are Venezuelans running out of patience for their demonstrative commander-in-chief, Hugo Chavez? In the opinion of Juan Carlos Sosa Azpúrua writing in Venezuela’s El Universal, ‘In the U.S., it wouldn’t occur to anyone to say that Nixon was ousted in a coup d’état because he was removed prior to the end of his term; he was deposed as soon as his ineptitude became evident, period. … It is imperative that we remove from office this immoral non-government that has destroyed everything and respects nothing (Nixon sucked his thumb in comparison).’

By Juan Carlos Sosa Azpúrua

Translated By Virginia Gillenwater

February 7, 2008

Venezuela - El Universal - Original Article (Spanish)

It’s imperative that we remove from office this immoral non-government that has destroyed everything and respects nothing.

The United States is a nation of institutions. To the highest offices rise those who are the most capable and who have had the most impeccable careers. The processes of selecting a judge or electing a senator are so rigorous that it’s almost beyond reason. But the golden rule is to find the individual that is the most qualified.

To study the life histories of its judges is to be challenged to keep admiration from turning into envy. The same can be said for members of Congress or those climbing the executive government ladder. And, most of all, the Presidency continues to be the most sacred institution, because the United States is a presidential Read the rest of this entry »

There are charges that Hugo Chavez’s government in Venezuela is sponsoring blossoming antisemitism — concerns that are reflected in the gradual flight of Jews from Venezuela.

It fits with a long history of allegations that Chavez’s Venezuela is becoming a hotbed of antisemitism.

The latest comes via a Miami Herald article detailing the comments of journalist Sammy Eppel. It’s the latest in a piece of an ugly puzzle that has emerged regarding Chavez over the years.

Venezuelan Jews, long uneasy with the Chávez government’s alliances with Iran and other Middle Eastern countries that espouse anti-Israel views, are concerned that the government is sponsoring anti-Semitism in this hemisphere, a prominent journalist said Tuesday.

”The situation we have now in Venezuela is that for the first time in modern history we have government-sponsored anti-Semitism in a Western country,” said Sammy Eppel. “That is why this is very dangerous, not just for the Jewish community in Venezuela but for the Jewish community as a whole.”

Some examples he cites:

Venezuelan government intelligence services twice have raided the country’s most important Jewish center in a vague, ultimately unsuccessful search for weapons. [TMV Editor’s Note: One of these involved raiding a WEDDING.] Publications of the government’s cultural ministry run articles entitled ”the Jewish Question,” along with a Jewish star superimposed over a swastika.

Chavez, he noted, also has a strong alliance with Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leader who is considered one of the most antisemitic on the world stage today.

One 2006 article in [the government-liked] El Diario de Caracas debates whether it will be necessary to ”expel [the Jews] from the country.” Another article in the [government-linked] Diario VEA accuses Jews of being involved in the murder of a government prosecutor.

Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick Chappatte, Le Temps, Switzerland

“Americans,” a New York Times editorial says, “need to ask themselves the questions Mr. Bush is refusing to answer: Is this country signing on to keep the peace in Iraq indefinitely? If so, how many American and Iraqi deaths a month are an acceptable price? If not, what’s the plan for getting out?”

The President gave a partial answer this week by joining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in a declaration setting out principles for an agreement to be negotiated in the next year to guarantee a U.S. troop presence in Iraq for years.

Behind the “non-bonding” words, the plan is clear: permanent US bases established by a pact that the Decider can sign before he leaves office. “As far as Bush is concerned,” Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson notes today, “he doesn’t have to seek congressional ratification for such an enduring commitment of American force, treasure and lives.”

Gen. Douglas Lute, White House deputy national security adviser, confirms this speculation: “We don’t anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress.”

With a 30 percent approval rating from Americans who want to get out of Iraq, George Bush, a majority of one, has decided unilaterally to keeps us there even after he leaves office to hold down what the Times describes as “the lid on a pressure cooker. Iraq’s rival militias, the insurgents, the bitter sectarian resentments and the meddling neighbors haven’t gone anywhere.

“Consider this all too familiar horror: yesterday, police said they pulled six bodies from the Tigris River about 25 miles south of Baghdad. They were handcuffed and showed signs of having been tortured. And five, including a child, had been beheaded.”

In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is angling to become president for life. Back here, on the subject of Iraq, George Bush has figured out how to manage that without any formalities.

Cross-post from my blog.

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

In Caracas, it may soon be time to cry, and not just for Argentina. Bad storm up on its hind legs already.

When students take to the streets, whether in our country, or in Burma, in China, in Hungary, or elsewhere in the world, they have often been ‘the yellow canaries in the mines,’ the first ones to realize and to react to something being horribly wrong, unfair, deadening, illegal, unbalanced, against decency, against freedoms.

A summary of this storm walking the land in Venezuela. Rory Carroll, from Guardian UK, in Caracas:

Campuses are the focus of opposition to Mr. Chavez’s referendum on December 2 to permit him to run indefinitely and accelerate what he terms a socialist revolution.

Raul Isaias Baduel, a retired army commander and long-time Chavez ally, has joined the opposition to the draft constitution, saying it amounts to a coup.

The government called him a traitor, but the switch underlined unease among supporters as well as public opposition as registered in polls.

But the same polls suggest the referendum will pass because of measures such as shortening the working day to six hours, and Señor Chavez’s popularity among the poor.

Students have filled an opposition void with rallies accusing the president of Cuba-style authoritarianism.

The justice minister, Pedro Carreno, said the students were responsible for the violence.

A faculty president, Victor Marquez, said that claim was a lie. “They know perfectly well where the violence is coming from. These are the ones responsible, the government’s paramilitary groups.”

The violence referred to occurred when masked gunmen… the Miami Herald put it this way: “ambushed” anti-Chavez marchers last Wednesday, and opened fire on a university campus, shooting two students and injuring 7 others.

That was on the eve of tens of thousands of students planning to march through Caracas and other cities in protest of Hugo Chavez’s sudden announcement that he will amend Venezuela’s Constitution which does not allow him to run one more time. He has, by fiat, said he will rewrite the Constitution himself so that he can continue to rule, presumably without end?

The university said the government used thugs to intimidate protesters but Mr. Chávez blamed the marchers. “They generally take the path of fascist violence and confront the laws and the people, and they are always looking to the Pentagon, high-ranking generals,” he told a summit in Chile yesterday.

Presidente Chavez earlier last week at an summit of leaders from many Latino nations, called the former Presidente of Spain a ‘fascist’ several times. A Spanish dignitary reminded Chavez that people could disagree without name-calling, but Chavez kept on repeating ‘fascist’… until King Juan Carlos of Spain intervened, saying to Chavez, “Why don’t you shut up?”

Presidente Chavez has not moved on from that incident yet. Today he attempted to redefine his name-calling episode from last week by

comparing his wounded pride to the suffering of Jesus Christ and Latin America’s colonial oppression.

One wonders in terms of the blame game, where the buck, er, Bolivar stops in Chavez’s zeitgeist.

I’m personally of the mind, coming from an ethnic peoples massacred and pulverized more than once, that there’s a point to remembering and telling the blood lines of the story every once in a while, to honor and remember… and to teach. But, we’ll never win the most good for us, by reminding others how bad they’ve been to us.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just the point of view of a Latina mestiza:

In Spanish, as in other languages, words and phrases often carry subtext. And as we joke amongst ourselves, in Spanish, we have ‘five versions of yes that mean no,’ and ‘three versions of no, that mean yes.’

So, when a person with the diplomatic skills of a man like King Juan Carlos unleashes an epithet; it carries far more nails and broken glass flying than just the words alone.

Viz: The King’s words to Chavez were, “¿Por que no te callas?” which can certainly be translated as “Why don’t you shut up?” likely from callarse, meaning ‘to hold one’s tongue,’ ‘to be suddenly made silent,’ and yes, ‘to shut up.’

But, more so, in Spanish, as in English, such a phrase carries the intent of a warning snarl. Not with aim to kill. Yet. It is the equivalent of the claws unsheathed and poised… but it is not the powerful downward slash. Yet.

“Por que no te callas?” has several subtexts: One is: ‘Basta, Enough! with your blather.’ Others are, ‘What do you know, you who have never suffered/ experienced?’ … and ‘Stop trying to wear an honor you have never earned nor paid for.’

Moreover, amongst many Spanish-speaking people, (and there are many versions of Spanish) this phrase also refers to the condition of being el gordo, obese. “Por que no te callas?”is then also meant as a double entendre, meaning, not just ‘Close your mouth,’ but also something like this: ‘Look at you, why don’t you stop eating so much… for surely the grease has drowned your brain.’

Amongst many Spaniards/ Spanish blood people, there are some acceptable gestures to show public displeasure when people violate not a genteel protocol, but a protocol of character. That King Juan Carlos vacated the room leaving Chavez to speak to the air, is the equivalent of ‘invisibilizing’ a person. It is on par with the far less elegant spitting to the side, or giving the kiss of betrayal, or passing a note with a black dot in the middle.

King Juan Carlos was not vacating the room out of exasperation or pique, but to show the displeasure of the Spanish Delegation with Chavez’s grandstanding and lack of ability to conduct himself as a person at the table, instead of a pindejo dancing on the table.

On this day, in the world of the mysteries of Spanish character and protocol, King Juan Carlos doesn’t exist as an anachronism, but as an exemplar.

See in Spanish here at Barcepundit: http://barcepundit.blogspot.com/

See Joe Gandelman’s excellent article on Chavez/King Juan Carlos, with updates here:
http://themoderatevoice.com/places/europe/16049/spanish-king-juan-carlos-tells-hugo-chavez-to-shut-up/

When I lived in and wrote from Spain between May 1975 and December 1978, I had the supreme pleasure of a lifetime, to live in a wonderful country that, before my astounded journalistic eyes, made a peaceful “evolution without revolution” transition to democracy from the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

And most Spaniards agreed there was one seemingly-quiet and above-the-fray man who had the guts to help make it happen — perhaps more than anyone else.

To this day, he still doesn’t get the credit that so many Spanish journalists and foreign diplomats (who would talk about it privately from 1975-1978) gave him. He navigated his country, and what some felt was a reluctant and potentially resistant military, through the dangers of shifting a nation and its establishment towards democratic elections and to until-then-taboo more relaxed social values.

And the bottom line is that King Juan Carlos, handpicked by Franco (who was widely believed to have thought KJC would be pliable to the kind of establishment he had in place when he was living) risked it all. He stood at the middle of an incredibly-dramatic and dangerous period of democratic evolution and never blinked in the face of rightist and leftist resistance (sometimes manifesting itself in sporadic violent acts).

When I was there everyone knew that the easiest way to halt the democratic evolution would have been for someone to rub “El Rey” out.

But the King was a toughie. He persisted, and democratic Spain had a man on the inside who could have resisted the change but instead quietly did what he could do to encourage and consolidate it.

And now, at a time when some eyebrows are being raised about the monarchy in Spain, there’s this report that shows his low tolerance for polarizing political polemics and his respect for Spanish politicians of various parties:

The Ibero-American summit ended on an unusually heated note Saturday, when an angry verbal spat culminated with the king of Spain telling Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to “shut up.”

Chavez, the outspoken leftist leader who called U.S. President George W. Bush the “devil” on the floor of the United Nations last year, triggered the exchange by repeatedly referring to former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar as a “fascist.”

Aznar, a conservative and a close Bush ally who backed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, “is a fascist,” Chavez said in a speech to leaders from Latin America, Spain and Portugal. “Fascists are not human. A snake is more human.”

Spain’s current socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, responded during his own allotted time by urging Chavez to be more diplomatic in his words and respect other leaders despite political differences.

“Former President Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people,” he said, eliciting applause from the gathered heads of state.

Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, but his microphone was off.

Spanish King Juan Carlos, seated next to Zapatero, angrily turned to Chavez and said, “Why don’t you shut up?”

And so, a new legend was born and a quote has emerged that’ll be used in all future bios of the Spanish King because it reveals a bit of his attitude: that he has tried to make his institution above the partisan political fray and isn’t a fan of political demonization.

The Venezuelan leader did not immediately respond, but later used time ceded to him by his close ally Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to answer Zapatero’s speech.

“I do not offend by telling the truth,” he said. “The Venezuelan government reserves the right to respond to any aggression, anywhere, in any space and in any manner.”

To no one’s surprise, Chavez’s comments were supported by….Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

According to one account, the King’s comment came amid Spain having a tough time at the conference:

Spain’s King Juan Carlos had never left a session at the Iberian American Summit early and annoyed, despite attending the gathering 16 times, but he did just that Saturday in Santiago, in a move that symbolizes the bad time Spain had at this year’s meeting.

First, talks broke down Friday in a bilateral conflict between Argentina and Uruguay - over the installation of a paper mill on the Uruguayan bank of a common river. Spain had been serving as a mediator in the conflict.

One day later as the summit came to a close, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez got into a heated argument that led to Juan Carlos leaving the meeting.

The summit could have served as a break for Juan Carlos, after a complicated visit to Spain’s North African territories, Ceuta and Melilla, earlier this week and the resulting anger of Morocco.

But things turned out quite differently, when he got involved in the disagreement between Zapatero and Chavez. Juan Carlos, who is the only leader who has never missed an Iberian American summit since the gatherings started in 1991, showed his annoyance with Chavez and broke all protocol.

Chavez had been spicing up the summit since Friday, when he accused Spanish businessmen of having backed the 2002 coup against him in Venezuela, and Saturday included former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar in the accusation.

Zapatero then told Chavez that a basic rule of public life is ‘to refer to others in a respectful way, even if they are one’s ideological opposites.’

That’s when Juan Carlos decided to verbally crown Chavez.

Meanwhile, the political context is also important: the King uttered the words many world leaders and Americans would like to say to Chavez at a time when his monarchy is under fire in some parts of Spain.

Another report frames the event like this:

The Spanish monarch lost his cool when Chávez called the ex Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, a fascist on several occasions. King Juan Carlos then got up and walked out of the session in a gesture without precedent, and just in time to hear the Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega, criticising Spanish businesses and the role of Union Fenosa in Nicaragua in particular. The King was to return later, but was not present for the singing of the Chilean hymn which closed the debates.

And why shouldn’t the King have walked out?

After all, King Juan Carlos — far more than Chavez of Ortega — had lived among real fascists in what had been a fascist nation apparatus adapted by Franco to the General’s and his country’s own economic and cultural situations.

In the United States the phrase “fascist” is sometimes thrown around as easily as the verbal tic “well, ya know.”

But Juan Carlos KNOWS what REAL fascists were like.

And he sat there at the conference with his country’s Socialist Prime Minister and just decided he could hold his royal tongue no further.

And so, by leaving, he stood up and stuck up for the concept of democracy as being a system that respects differing views and doesn’t consider a party that is out of power to be the evil enemy.

It’s a story worth pondering by partisans in the United States as Americans head into what promises to be a bitter, divisive, demonizing election year.

FURTHER READING:

Time Magazine names Juan Carlos a hero.
How King Juan Carlos thwarted a 1981 coup
Britannica Concise bio
Protests Against The Monarchy In Spain (but he’s voted in TV poll as greatest Spaniard of all time).
Escuela bio
Oct. 30, 1975: King Juan Carlos Assumes power upon Franco’s final illness.
Time (1968) Juan Carlos To The Fore
THE POST-FRANCO ERA

(UPDATE) Here’s some other weblog reaction:

–A Newt One:

Kudos to the king of Spain. Evidently, the King of Spain does not worry about Political Correctness. I so truly wish and strongly desire that our politicos would have the moral courage to conduct themselves in the same manner.

–Barcepundit (who writes from Barcelona, Spain, is Spanish and offers editions of his blog in English and Spanish):

I’M NOT PRO-MONARCHY in the sense that I don’t believe that any office should be hereditary, including the head of state. But I can’t help but cheer on king Juan Carlos today…

--Say Anything:

I think I like this guy.

–Blue Crab Boulevard:

This is one of those stories that just make you grin. King Juan Carlos of Spain literally told the red-shirted dictator-to-be of Venezuela to ’shut up’ at a conference in Santiago, Chile…..About time somebody told Chavez that. I know absolutely nothing about the king, but he’s already on my good side for this one.

–Jammie Wearing Fool:

About time someone told this buffoon to dummy up. I only wish he took the time to slap him upside the head.

Not a big fan of Hugo Chavez? Not so enthusiastic about his tyrannical rule? Well, take that:

Venezuelan troops have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse thousands of students in the capital, Caracas.

The students are demonstrating against constitutional reforms proposed by Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.

One of the reforms would abolish term limits for the presidency, thus allowing President Chavez to stand for re-election indefinitely.

The students want a December referendum on the reforms to be postponed, to give voters more time to study the plans.

That’s right, all the protesters want is a postponement, hardly a radical proposal. But any opposition to Chavez is anathema to his national socialist revolution, which does not allow for opposition, and, it seems, any opposition will be put down. Brutally, if necessary — and even if not. Brutality comes with the revolution, a revolution to install Chavez himself as permanent dictator of a brutalized Venezuela, just as it comes with Chavez’s rule generally.

And the use of tear gas is probably on the soft end of the brutality. The troops were no doubt going easy on the protesters — easy this time, but what else is going on in Venezuela? What else is Chavez inflicting on the people of his country? Enough to turn even Giuliani’s stomach, one imagines.

It must be very, very bad in today’s Venezuela. And it is only going to get worse.

**********

I have already, in many other posts, addressed Chavez’s tyranny, as well as these reforms. For my recent post on what I called Chavez’s “salami tactics,” tyranny slice-by-slice, see here. For more on this “coup,” see here. For previous posts on Chavez’s “abolition of democracy,” see here.

In the first episode of the great Yes, Prime Minister, “The Grand Design,” new PM Jim Hacker meets with the government’s chief scientific advisor to discuss defence policy. The advisor, a hawkish Austrian, argues that the Soviet Union would use “salami tactics” to take over Europe, that is, a “slice-by-slice” plan with no one slice so grave as to compel the West (or the U.K., in this case) to respond militarily. (The 16 YPM episodes originally aired on the BBC from 1986-88.) At each slice/stage of the scenario, he presses Hacker — What would it take for him to act? An incursion into West Berlin? Or would the Soviets have to go so far as to take over the Reform Club, one of London’s old political establishments? Would he ever respond with nuclear weapons? Probably not.

My point here is not to make a case for military action against Venezuela, but it is clear that Hugo Chavez is using salami tactics in his drive to establish so-called “Bolivarean” socialism — that is, his own national-socialist autocratic rule — in that country. I wrote about this last week: “Sometimes revolution can be achieved without sudden, dramatic bloodletting.” There are a number of different prongs to Chavez’s continuing revolution, a number of slices. They may be examined individually, but they are best understood as variations of the same, as components of a single overarching plan. The nationalization of industry, the seizure of private property, repression of dissent and opposition, control of the media, one-party rule, rule by decree, and, soon, the removal of constitutional impediments to the permanent and perpetual rule of the leader himself.
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Another day, more tyrannizing by Hugo Chavez.

Hey, it’s what he does, and he does a lot of it.

What’s more accurate, the Soviet Union of Venezuela or the National Socialist Republic of Venezuela? Take your pick. There may not yet be totalitarianism in that country, but it’s pretty clear where Chavez is going with his slice-by-slice dismantling of anything and everything resembling liberal democracy.

Consider:

Rule by decree.
One-party rule.
Nationalization of key companies.
Seizure of private property.
Seizure of private oil fields.

Here’s the latest on the nationalization front:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to take over the country’s private banks and largest steelmaker.

But he said he would refrain from nationalisation if the firms began to work in the “national interest”.

Which is to say, if they do what Chavez wants them to do. That’s the “national” interest in Venezuela. How grotesque.

I defy anyone to defend what Chavez is doing.

Rule by decree. One-party rule. Seizure of private property.

Since winning re-election in last December’s election — or, rather, “election,” total sham that it was — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has worked hard to ensure that there is neither liberalism nor democracy in his country. He calls it his “Bolivarean” revolution, but tyranny is a better name for it.

On his latest tyrannical move, the seizure of private property, an ongoing effort, here’s the BBC (link above):

Venezuela’s government has seized more than 330,000 hectares (815,450 acres) of land to redistribute them under an agrarian reform programme.

President Hugo Chavez said 16 farms — which he described as large and unproductive — had been expropriated.

His government was moving towards a “collective property” policy as part of its “drive towards socialism”, he said.

Socialism as tyranny, that is. A thug masquerading as a man of the people. Soon there won’t be any freedom left in Venezuela but Chavez’s freedom to control and oppress.

That’s what his “revolution” is all about.

And the dismantling of even the flimsy facade of democracy in Venezuela continues:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has told his political allies to join him in a single socialist party, or leave his government.

Mr Chavez wants to create the United Socialist Party as an umbrella group for dozens of groups that back him.

Three of the parties — Fatherland for All, the Communist Party and Podemos — have so far resisted the idea.

The three parties have seats in the pro-Chavez assembly and Podemos has some governorships.

“If you want to go, leave. In reality you are not indispensable,” Mr Chavez said during his television programme Hello, President.

He added that he considered the three parties to be “almost in opposition”.

“I don’t want allies like that.”

The only funny thing here is the name of his stupid TV show. Chavez has already granted himself the power to enact so-called “revolutionary laws” by decree (i.e., naked tyranny), and now he’s trying to smother not just the opposition but his own allies. He evidently wants no opposition and no dissent whatsoever, even from those who are inclined to support him. It’s a move to one-party rule, the rule of one man, himself.

Hello, President? Goodbye, liberty and democracy.