By Jim McIlroy and Coral Wynter in Caracas:
Chavez wins with over 60%
December 3 — Wild celebrations have broken out here as the National Electoral Council (CNE) has announced that left-wing incumbent Hugo Chavez has won the Venezuelan presidential elections with a vote of over 60%.
In pouring rain, thousands of cheering supporters have flocked to the Miraflores presidential palace to applaud the president, who has spoken to the people from the balcony of the palace.
CNE president Lucena Tibisay announced at 10pm that, with around 78% of the vote counted, Chavez had received 5,936,000 votes (61.4%), to right-wing opposition candidate Manuel Rosales’s 3,715,000 (38%).
In his victory speech, Chavez said the electorate had defeated George W Bush.
See also here.
And here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
AAPSO Greets Venezuelan President Hugo Chavas
The Permanent Secretariat of Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization expresses its great pleasure in the re-election of His Excellency Hugo Chavas as the President of Venezuela for the third time in succession.
With the Bolivarian ideology of upholding the dignity of the Venezuelan people, president Hugo Chavas brought about revolutionary changes in the social life when he was elected for the first time. Until his ascendancy to power, the overwhelming majority of the people in this fifth oil rich country lived in abject poverty and illiteracy. The poor areas of the country never had access to medical treatment. President Hugo Chavas changed this and utilised the oil income to provide free medical aid, elimination of illiteracy and poverty.
Over 17,000 medical doctors from Cuba were deployed in remotest part of the country and for the first time the people were able to get free medical aid. Within three years of his presidency, illiteracy was eliminated awarding the UNESCO prize. The socially deprived were empowered which resulted in a short lived coup by the multinationals supported by the U.S, who wanted to turn the clock back. The coup could not sustain as the people rallied around the president and brought him back to power.
In this election president trounced the opposition candidate by a clear margin of getting 62.57 votes. The opposition candidate could not get a majority in his own state. The Bolivarian revolution has come to stay along with other Latin American countries who have voted left candidates.
AAPSO congratulates President Hugo Chavas and greets the Venezuelan people and wish them all success.
Nouri Abdul Razzak Hussain Dr. Mourad Ghaleb
Secretary General President
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Posted by: “Corey” cpmondello@yahoo.com cpmondello
Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:25 am (PST)
How come it takes another country to step in to help Americans?
Chávez’s Citizen Diplomacy
http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20070101&s=featherstone
or
page 1
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070101/featherstone
page 2
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070101/featherstone/2
Excerpt;
“Through Joe Kennedy’s organization, the government of Venezuela–and Citgo, a petroleum company in which that country owns a controlling share–provides heating oil to poor and working-class Americans at a 40 percent discount. The gathering in the Bronx celebrated the program’s second year, as well as its expansion: This winter, Citizens Energy and Citgo expect to deliver more than 100 million gallons of oil to more than 400,000 households in sixteen states, more than doubling the scope of last year’s petro-philanthropy. Beneficiaries also include 163 American Indian tribes, most of them in Alaska…..
“Though most of the US media remain hostile to Chávez, the fuel-assistance program is showing some Americans another side of the man and his government. Patrice White, a vocational counselor to the disabled who lives with her husband and three daughters in the Bronx’s Mount Hope neighborhood, which began receiving Venezuelan oil last winter, is impressed that Chávez delivered on his promise to help poor Americans. “It was refreshing,” she says. “Hugo Chávez is not an American politician. With our politicians, it seems like 80 percent of what they say doesn’t happen.” White was also impressed by the program’s efficiency: “You’d think there would be lots of red tape.”
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> > Confused About Venezuela?
> >
> > by Eva Golinger
> >
> > Over the past few days, major newspapers in the United States, such as The
> > New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall
> > Street Journal, have published editorials aggressively and harshly
> > criticizing recent declarations and decisions made by re-elected President
> > Hugo Chávez and his cabinet. A large percentage of the content of these
> > editorials, which reflect the viewpoints of the newspapers, are based on a
> > distortion and misconception of new policies being implemented in
Venezuela
> > and the overall way government is functioning.
> >
> > In the Washington Post’s “Venezuela’s Leap Backward”, published on January
> > 10, the editorial board intentionally and mistakenly portrays the recent
> > presidential elections this past December in Venezuela as illegitimate and
> > unfair. By falsely claiming that Chávez conducted a “one-sided campaign
that
> > left a majority of Venezuelans believing they might be punished if they
did
> > not cast their ballots for him”, the Post wants its readers to think
> > Venezuelans who voted for Chávez did so under duress and fear. Nothing
could
> > be further from the truth. A majority of Venezuelans publicly express
their
> > sincere admiration and approval of President Chávez in an open and
fearless
> > way on a daily basis in this country.
> >
> > Most Venezuelans believe Chávez is the best president the nation has ever
> > had, and statistics prove that his government has built more bridges,
> > railroads, hospitals, clinics, universities, schools, highways and houses
> > than any administration in the past. The Post editorial also attempts to
> > downplay the “only 7 million votes” Chávez received, not mentioning that
> > those seven million votes represent more than 63% of total votes – a
> > landslide victory to the opposition candidate’s 37% – and that no
president
> > in Venezuelan history has ever, ever received such a large number of votes
> > in an election.
> >
> > The New York Times editorial, also published on January 10, attacks a
> > recent statement made by President Chávez regarding the nationalization of
> > one telephone company, CANTV, and an electric company. However the Times
> > doesn’t explain that the CANTV is the only non-cellular telephone company
> > in the country, giving it a complete monopoly on national land-line
> > telecommunications and control over a majority of Internet service as
well.
> >
> > Furthermore, the CANTV was privatized only in 1991, during the second
> > non-consecutive term of Carlos Andrés Pérez a president later impeached
for
> > corruption who implemented a series of privatization measures, despite
> > having run for office on a non-privatization platform just three years
> > before. In fact, as soon as Carlos Andrés Pérez won office in 1988 after
> > convincing the Venezuelan people he would not permit “neo-liberalism” on
> > Venezuelan shores, he immediately began to announce the privatization of
> > several national industries, including telecommunications, education and
> > the medical and petroleum sectors. This deception led to massive
> > anti-privatization protests during February 1989 during which the
> > government ordered the armed forces to “open-fire” on the demonstrators
and
> > arrest and torture those not killed. The result was the “Caracazo”, a
> > tragic scar on contemporary Venezuelan history that left more than 3,000
> > dead in mass gravesites and thousands more injured and detained.
> >
> > The re-nationalizing of Venezuela’s one landline phone company is a
> > strategic necessity and an anti-monopoly measure necessary to ensure that
> > Venezuelans have access to telecommunications service. (Take it from
someone
> > who lives here. You can’t even get a landline if it isn’t already
installed
> > in your residence. The waiting list is over 2 years and you have to bribe
> > someone to actually do the job). And furthermore, the new Minister of
> > Telecommunications, Jesse Chacón, announced that any company
“nationalized”
> > will be fully compensated for its shares and property at market value.
> >
> > The third issue put forth in the editorials is the recent announcement by
> > President Chávez that the license of private television station RCTV to
> > operate on the public airwaves is up for review in May 2007 and most
likely
> > will not be renewed. The government has based its denial of the license
> > renewal on RCTV’s lack of cooperation with tax laws, its failure to pay
> > fines issued by the telecommunications commission, CONATEL, over the past
> > twenty years, and its refusal to abide by constitutional laws prohibiting
> > incitation to political violence, indecency, obscenity and the distortion
of
> > facts and information.
> >
> > The public airwaves, as in the case of the United States, are regulated by
> > government. Television and radio stations apply for licenses from the
> > telecommunications commission and are granted those licenses based on
> > conditional compliance with articulated regulations. When a station does
not
> > abide by the requirements, it generally is fined and warned, repeatedly,
> > until compliance is assured. In the specific case of RCTV, the station and
> > its owner, multi-millionaire Marcel Granier, have refused to comply with
the
> > law and have continued to abuse and violate the clear and concise
> > regulations that are supposed to guarantee Venezuelan citizens their
> > constitutional right to “true and accurate information” (Article 58 of the
> > Constitution).
> >
> > RCTV’s owner, Marcel Granier, played a key role in the April 2002 coup
> > d’etat against President Chávez and has used his station to engage in an
> > ongoing campaign of anti-Chávez propaganda and efforts to destabilize the
> > nation through distorting and manipulating information to create panic,
> > apathy, fear and violence in Venezuelan society. The station’s clear
> > violations of the telecommunications regulations and the Constitutional
> > guarantees that protect freedom of speech and access to true and accurate
> > information provide sufficient reason to deny the renewal of its license
to
> > use the public airwaves.
> >
> > Unlike the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times (Fidel Chávez?,
January
> > 11, 2007) mistakenly claims, Chávez and his government are not “shutting
> > down” the private media station. RCTV can continue to operate on the
private
> > airwaves, i.e. cable and satellite television. As would be the case in any
> > country where law and order are respected, RCTV will not receive a renewal
> > on its license to remain on the public airwaves because it repeatedly
> > violated the law during more than a decade.
> >
> > Unfortunately, international groups that allegedly protect freedom of the
> > press and of speech around the world, have fallen under the influence and
> > manipulation of RCTV president Marcel Granier, who through his close
> > relationship with Washington, is conducting a campaign to defend his
station
> > by user the banner of freedom and liberty. But consistent lawbreakers and
> > coup leaders should not receive the support of international press
watchdog
> > groups and human rights defenders. Rather, those groups should praise the
> > decision of the Venezuelan government to maintain the public airwaves in
the
> > hands of the public. The license so abused by RCTV will most likely be
> > granted to various community and alternative media groups and stations in
> > Venezuela that have emerged over the past few years as a result of the
> > direct encouragement and support of the Chávez administration.
> >
> > Finally, the editorials in the Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles
> > Times and the Wall Street Journal, all criticize President Chávez’s
> > announcement to create a new political party in Venezuela: the United
> > Socialist Party of Venezuela. The editorials inaccurately claim that
Chávez
> > will dissolve all political parties in the country and allow only one
party
> > to operate. This is a dangerous and false inference.
> >
> > What Chávez really declared was the formation of a new revolutionary party
> > that would be open to all parties that support the revolution. There will
be
> > no closing down or abolishing of other political parties in the nation;
they
> > can all remain as they wish and those that choose to merger or support the
> > new party can also freely do so.
> >
> > Furthermore, Chávez indicated that the reason for the designing of a new
> > political party is to break free from the old corrupt hierarchical party
> > structures of the past that concentrate power in the hands of few and
> > exclude and ignore the vast majority of supporters. Chávez remarked that
the
> > new party he seeks to promote will be formed by grassroots community
> > movements, and that there will be no power structures that isolate and
> > marginalize constituents.
> >
> > If you only read the US press, you must be very confused about Venezuela.
> > The extreme levels of distortion, lack of fact checking and source
> > verification and outright manipulation of information in the US media on
> > Venezuela is quite troubling and dangerous in a nation that has waged wars
> > based on false data and misleading policies.
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If Venezuelans Have a Dictator, What Have We Here?
Posted by: “Corey” cpmondello@yahoo.com cpmondello
Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:22 am (PST)
If Venezuelans Have a Dictator, What Have We Here?
Failure to seek accountability has left citizens confused
by Dave Berman, Eureka, 2/6/2007
http://www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=20214
Glenn Franco Simmons recently described Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a dictator, tyrant, strongman and authoritarian. If Simmons can support this by citing stacked courts and monopolized rule, what should we conclude about Supreme Court Justices Alito and Roberts, six years of a rubber-stamping one-party legislative branch and only one veto but more than 1,000 signing statements?
If we can’t claim ignorance of the Chavez regime’s ruthlessness, as Simmons asserts, what is it that enables us to look the other way from those responsible for torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, willful neglect in New Orleans and depraved indifference to the constitutional role of the Congress in making war?
If Chavez is guilty of intimidating the media, as Simmons reported the U.S. State Department had determined, what are we to make of reporting so unquestioning that it continues to leave the unanswered questions of 9/11 unasked? So un-skeptical that it was completely wrong about the threat of WMD in Iraq (despite millions protesting in the street who knew better)? So cowed that even when felonies (warrantless wiretapping) are openly admitted there is still no call for accountability?
Chavez’s “presidency” was referred to in quotes, as can often be seen in reference to another leader first appointed by the Supreme Court and later “re-elected” with voting equipment that could never be recounted or otherwise verified.
Simmons goes on to use many other colorful words, such as “disappearances,” “extrajudicial killings” and “increased militarization of public administration.” Should these words make Americans uncomfortable? Last fall, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act eliminating habeas corpus, meaning we can be jailed without charges, thus enabling “disappearances.” U.S. military forces are augmented by paid mercenaries from Halliburton and Blackwater, making a living doing “extrajudicial killings.” And last fall, Congress nullified Posse Comitatus, a 19th century law prohibiting the use of the U.S. military for domestic policing, yet another step toward “increased militarization of public administration.”
I’m not so much interested in Chavez or anyone’s opinion of him, really. What is more important is that newspaper editors acknowledge what is in plain sight. Reticence is tacit approval, a rather insidious way to throw in one’s lot. The failure to question and seek accountability has left many good citizens understandably confused, or even “certain” with knowledge that is false. If Venezuelans are ruled by a dictator, tyrant, strongman and authoritarian, what have we here?
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