I skimmed through it to find anything particular about Venezuela, and found this under the section Strengthening Democracy:
Support Democratically Elected Leaders. Governments that uphold democratic principles deserve our support We should not countenance mob rule nor military force or inaction to oust an elected president, even an imperfect one such as Aristide in Haiti or Chavez in Venezuela. Instead, we should exercise our considerable diplomatic and moral force in support of democratically elected leaders.
Those two are imperfect presidents unlike the ones we get here, I guess.
Kerry's out of date statement on Venezuela, falsely claims that Hugo Chávez has been trying subvert the referendum process and calls for pressuring him to do something that he's already done, which is to comply with all agreements he made and with all Venezuelan laws. It's the Opposition who has been guilty of inciting mob rule in Venezuela in order to oust the democratically elected president. And it is the National Endowment for Democracy, created under Reagan to funnel money by legal means to organizations working toward regime changes favored by the United States after getting busted (but unpunished) for the illegal and covert money funneling of the Iran-Contra scam, that has been providing funding.
It will be interesting to see what action he proposes if Chávez is not recalled and the Opposition resorts to mob rule or another military coup.
Previous Venezuela posts
More on Venezuela
And an update on the situation in Haiti:
• On Sunday, June 20, a U.N. peacekeeping mission led by Brazil will take over command authority in Haiti from U.S. forces, which have witnessed an alarming deterioration of the political and economic situation on the island in recent weeks.
• The ongoing chaos highlights the hapless leadership of Prime Minister Gerald Latortue and his Rasputin-like Justice Minister Bernard Gousse, as well as the persistence of a host of unanswered questions about the ambience of violence surrounding February’s forced transfer of power and Aristide’s flight into exile.....
• The new government has eagerly aligned itself with the coalition of thugs that ousted Aristide, making few efforts to prosecute them for their manifest human rights abuses or return to prison those who already have been convicted. Meanwhile, Gousse parades around barking out orders regarding issues far beyond his control, pretending to be a bona fide figure with authentic legitimacy while he devotes his days to fabricating charges against Aristide.
...There remains a pressing need for a comprehensive and aggressive investigation into U.S. involvement in Haiti over the past four years, modeled after the Iran-contra hearings in the late 1980s, which could call for punitive action against State Department officials, either in Washington or in Port-au-Prince, found to have played an improper role in the forced removal of Aristide from office. Congressional advocates of a less aggressive and more nuanced U.S. policy towards Latin America and especially Haiti—which has suffered under a lengthy stream of U.S.-backed dictators and periodic occupations over the past two hundred years— should step up the volume of their calls for a full accounting of Aristide’s alleged kidnapping.
In addition, presumed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would do well to return to his earlier sharp criticisms of the Bush administration’s Haiti policy (which was followed with a later dismissive attack on Aristide) with a similar call for an investigation, both in his capacity as the presumptive presidential candidate and as a long-standing member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Such a stance could only enhance his efforts to portray himself as an advocate of a more constructive foreign policy than the bumbling and heavy-handed initiatives being implemented by the incumbent administration.
Scoop article
• The ongoing chaos highlights the hapless leadership of Prime Minister Gerald Latortue and his Rasputin-like Justice Minister Bernard Gousse, as well as the persistence of a host of unanswered questions about the ambience of violence surrounding February’s forced transfer of power and Aristide’s flight into exile.....
• The new government has eagerly aligned itself with the coalition of thugs that ousted Aristide, making few efforts to prosecute them for their manifest human rights abuses or return to prison those who already have been convicted. Meanwhile, Gousse parades around barking out orders regarding issues far beyond his control, pretending to be a bona fide figure with authentic legitimacy while he devotes his days to fabricating charges against Aristide.
...There remains a pressing need for a comprehensive and aggressive investigation into U.S. involvement in Haiti over the past four years, modeled after the Iran-contra hearings in the late 1980s, which could call for punitive action against State Department officials, either in Washington or in Port-au-Prince, found to have played an improper role in the forced removal of Aristide from office. Congressional advocates of a less aggressive and more nuanced U.S. policy towards Latin America and especially Haiti—which has suffered under a lengthy stream of U.S.-backed dictators and periodic occupations over the past two hundred years— should step up the volume of their calls for a full accounting of Aristide’s alleged kidnapping.
In addition, presumed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would do well to return to his earlier sharp criticisms of the Bush administration’s Haiti policy (which was followed with a later dismissive attack on Aristide) with a similar call for an investigation, both in his capacity as the presumptive presidential candidate and as a long-standing member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Such a stance could only enhance his efforts to portray himself as an advocate of a more constructive foreign policy than the bumbling and heavy-handed initiatives being implemented by the incumbent administration.
Previous Haiti posts
More on Haiti
Update 6:30 pm:
Last week, the Constitutionally appointed Prime Minister of Haiti, Yvon Neptune, courageously came out of hiding after his initial first statement demanding an investigation of the Coup D'etat back in early March, 2004 and publicly denounced the systemic political repression of the Haitian people by the un-elected Latortue U.S.-backed regime.
This morning, Sunday, June 27, 2004, at 10:00 am, Yvon Neptune, Haiti's legitimate Prime Minister was arrested by the imported U.S. dictator, Gerald Latortue.
...We urge everyone from the Network to contact their representatives, the U.N. and Ambassador Foley to denounce the arrest of the only legitimate Prime Minister of Haiti and to demand the immediate release of all political prisoners as well as for the U.S. to stop supporting death squad leaders and un-elected Prime Ministers. We also ask that everyone write to their local and national media http://capwiz.com/wa/dbq/media/ or http://www.americanreview.us/mediadd.htm about the political persecution and arrest of Yvon Neptune and the continued political repression and silencing of the true Haitian freedom fighters and democracy supporters in Haiti.
Global Research article
This morning, Sunday, June 27, 2004, at 10:00 am, Yvon Neptune, Haiti's legitimate Prime Minister was arrested by the imported U.S. dictator, Gerald Latortue.
...We urge everyone from the Network to contact their representatives, the U.N. and Ambassador Foley to denounce the arrest of the only legitimate Prime Minister of Haiti and to demand the immediate release of all political prisoners as well as for the U.S. to stop supporting death squad leaders and un-elected Prime Ministers. We also ask that everyone write to their local and national media http://capwiz.com/wa/dbq/media/ or http://www.americanreview.us/mediadd.htm about the political persecution and arrest of Yvon Neptune and the continued political repression and silencing of the true Haitian freedom fighters and democracy supporters in Haiti.
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