May 7, 2010 - No. 86
Venezuela
Disinformation about Human Rights
• Political
Prisoners in Venezuela? - Eva Golinger, Correo del Orinoco
International
• Fighting Corruption or Persecuting Political
Opponents in Venezuela? A Response to the New York Times -
James Suggett, Venezuelanalysis.com
Venezuela
Political Prisoners in Venezuela?
- Eva Golinger, Correo del Orinoco
International, April 8, 2010 -
When politicians and political actors commit crimes, can
they hide behind cries of persecution? As international organizations
backed by Washington condemn the Chavez administration for alleged
political persecution, the facts shed light on the difference between
activism and crime.
Amnesty International sent out an urgent action on April
1, claiming five individuals were under intense political
persecution by the Venezuelan government. The international human
rights defense organization alleged that "over recent years, the
Venezuelan government appears to have established
a pattern of clamping down on dissent through the use of legislative
and administrative methods to silence and harass critics. Laws are
being used to justify what essentially seem to be politically motivated
charges, which would indicate that the Venezuelan government is
deliberately targeting opponents."
What Amnesty International fails to outline or detail is
who the individuals at issue really are and what the facts behind the
crimes they are accused of actually contain. The urgent action appeal
mentions Venezuelan Oswaldo Alvarez Paz, an ex-governor of the State of
Zulia who was arrested and charged
with "public instigation of criminality" and "spreading false
information" two weeks ago. Alvarez Paz, who participated in the April
2002 coup d'etat against the Venezuelan government and has consistently
promoted publicly the violent overthrow of the Chavez administration,
stated on live television that the Venezuelan
government was supporting terrorist groups and facilitating drug
trafficking. In the context of his statements, Alvarez Paz was
supporting allegations from a Spanish court and several right-wing
international organizations that were calling for international
condemnation of the Venezuelan government.
Those defending Alvarez Paz shield themselves behind
concepts of freedom of expression. But are citizens free to go on live
national television and accuse the president of a nation of drug
trafficking and terrorism without presenting any evidence? Would that
happen in any other country without consequence?
Imagine a former governor in the United States going live on NBC news
and accusing President Barack Obama of terrorism and drug trafficking
with no evidence to back such dangerous claims. The individual would be
immediately arrested by Secret Service and prosecuted to the full
extent of the law for not only
spreading false information, but also for endangering the life and
image of the U.S. presidency.
In most democracies that recognize and cherish the right
to freedom of expression, limitations are imposed when it comes to
jeopardizing the security of a nation or its leaders. Furthermore, no
one has the freedom to defame and slander others publicly with no
evidence and no consequences. Hence,
Alvarez Paz's actions violated not only Venezuelan laws, but also
international principles of free speech. Freedom of expression is not
absolute under international law -- it's limitations are imposed when
such speech clearly infringes on the rights and safety of others.
Henry Vivas, Ivan
Simonovis and Lazaro Forero, former police commissioners, were
convicted last year for their role in the 2002 coup d’etat. (Correo del Orinoco)
|
But in Venezuela, many believe they are above the law,
especially those from the ruling class that dominated the nation during
the last century. Most of those involved in the April 2002 coup d'etat
that overthrew the government, for example, haven't been prosecuted for
their crimes, and they continue
to organize to bring down the Chavez administration. Only three police
commissioners were brought to justice for the April 2002 coup, after a
court ruled they were responsible for ordering the massacre of
Venezuelans protesting in the streets eight years ago. Nevertheless,
the three police commissioners, Ivan Simonovis,
Lazaro Forero and Henry Vivas have appealed to international
organizations claiming they are political prisoners because they oppose
President Chavez. Their conviction was upheld this week in Venezuela by
an appeals court.
Releasing Prisoners Illegally, a Right?
Another case mentioned by the Amnesty International
alert is that of Maria Lourdes Afiuni, a Venezuelan judge arrested on
December 10, 2009 for aiding a prisoner to escape from a courtroom and
flee the country. Judge Afiuni was charged with allowing
Eligio Cedeno, a Venezuelan banker prosecuted and imprisoned for
corruption and embezzlement, to exit her courtroom out a back door. She
had called Cedeno into a hearing without notifying the prosecutor's
office, in clear violation of legal proceedings, and once she had him
physically in the courtroom, she released
him through a back door, allowing for his escape to Miami.
Judge Afiuni was subsequently detained and charged with
corruption. President Chavez did publicly cite the case as evidence of
corruption in the legal system and called on the Attorney General's
office to take action. But, the Venezuelan President was not
responsible for the Judge's detention, and
her arrest was not arbitrary, but rather was based on solid evidence of
judicial misconduct and abuse.
Violent Protest and Corruption
A New York Times article from last Sunday
brutally attacked the Chavez administration and accused it of "stifling
dissent" through the arrests of these individuals. The article cited
the case of General Raul Isaias Baduel, a former Defense Minister and
Chavez ally currently imprisoned for corruption. The Times
article attempted to portray Baduel as a victim of President Chavez,
yet failed to mention the former military official was caught
red-handed with stealing more than $30 million USD while in office.
Baduel had acquired businesses, farms and
properties inside and outside of Venezuela while in his capacity as
Defense Minister. Only after Chavez forced his resignation and he was
later investigated for corruption did General Baduel claim he was a
victim of political persecution.
Richard Blanco, an opposition leader, was also cited in
the Amnesty International alert, alleging some kind of political
persecution. Yet Blanco was detained in broad daylight after physically
attacking a police officer during a public protest and inciting others
present at the demonstration to violate the
police barricade and engage in violent protest. His actions took place
on live television and can hardly be disputed.
Other opposition leaders charged with crimes such as
corruption have fled the country, unwilling to face charges or undergo
the judicial process. Several of these higher profile individuals have
obtained asylum in the U.S. and Peru, both havens for criminals from
Latin America. Former governor of
Zulia, Manuel Rosales, who was found with millions of dollars of stolen
wealth from his years as governor and mass, illegal land accumulation,
fled justice last year after initial charges were brought against him.
From Peru, where he was given asylum, Rosales alleges he is a political
prisoner of the Chavez government.
He is joined by other corrupt and violent criminals, including Nixon
Moreno, charged with attempted rape of a female police officer and
Oscar Perez, charged with armed violence and criminal incitement during
protests last year.
Ideology is not an exemption from criminality. After a
lengthy period of impunity in Venezuela, the judicial system is finally
beginning to risk imposing the law, at whatever cost. In November 2004,
Federal Prosecutor Danilo Anderson, charged with investigating
individuals involved in the April 2002
coup d'etat, was assassinated in an atypical terrorist act after his
vehicle was blown up. To date, his case remains unsolved.
Fighting Corruption or Persecuting
Political Opponents in Venezuela?
A Response to the New York Times
- James Suggett, Venezuelanalysis.com,
April 13, 2010 -
As Venezuela heads toward its fifteenth internationally
monitored election in ten years[1],
the
international
media assault against the democratically-elected
Chavez government is intensifying. On April 3rd, New York Times
correspondent Simon Romero lent a hand to Venezuela's elite,
neo-liberal
opposition by warping positive news about the government's
anti-corruption efforts into a profoundly biased diatribe about
supposed political persecution.
With scant reference to several very relevant facts,
Romero suggested that Chavez puppeteered an arbitrary arrest of Judge
María Lourdes Afiuni merely for having displeased the president,
and that this is part of Chavez's effort to take control of the
judiciary and silence dissent.[2]
When considered even-handedly, the arrest of Judge
Afiuni for illegally allowing a wealthy banker to be released from
custody and thus flee the country reflects the government's efforts to
establish the rule of law in the historically corrupt banking sector
and justice system. It also brings to light deep-rooted
problems in Venezuela's judiciary, indicating that there is much more
to be done to fully correct these problems.
What Occurred?
Here's what happened: In 2007, Venezuelan authorities
arrested Eligio Cedeño, the former president of two banks, on
the charge of stealing $27 million from the state's foreign currency
administrative agency, CADIVI, through a false import contract.
Last December, the government stepped up its
investigations of corruption in the banking sector, leading to the
arrest of 10 bankers for fraud and the liquidation or nationalization
of eight banks that had violated national banking laws -- including
both of Cedeño's former banks, Banco Canarias and
Banco Bolivar. Three bank executives fled the country to avoid charges,
so the government placed temporary international travel prohibitions
and seized the assets of nearly thirty other bankers who were under
investigation.[3]
In the middle of all of this, on December 10th, Judge
Afiuni changed the conditions of Cedeño's arrest warrant to
allow him to be freed from custody. More importantly, she did so in an
unannounced hearing without notifying the prosecution from the Attorney
General's office, in violation of the penal
procedural code. Cedeño was released from custody and, days
later, he turned up in Miami, where he was detained by U.S. immigration
authorities for illegally entering the country.[4]
Had Afiuni's only infraction been a faulty judicial
procedure, then she would not have been arrested. Rather, she would
have been disciplined by the Supreme Court according to its own code of
conduct, a procedure mandated by the 1999 Constitution in order to
assure the independence of the Judicial
Branch. However, there was evidence that Afiuni had conspired to help
Cedeño avoid facing the charges amidst the escalating fraud
scandal in which he was implicated. So, national prosecutors brought
charges against Afiuni for conspiracy, which warranted her arrest.[5]
It is important to point out that neither Judge Afiuni
nor Eligio Cedeño were campaigning against or criticizing the
government. Those who spin the issue as the silencing of government
critics are wrong and guilty of deliberately misleading the public. The
judge and banker were arrested for corruption
and fraud, respectively, and they will go to trial like other citizens.
It is very hypocritical for the same media outlets who
say there are political prisoners whenever the government takes
effective measures against corruption and crime to also condemn the
government for not doing enough about corruption and crime, depending
on which critique is most convenient
at any given time.
Nonetheless, it must be pointed out that there were
problems related to the arrest of Cedeño and Afiuni. For
example, Romero refers to three U.N. human rights lawyers' critique of
Cedeño's detention. The critique centered on the fact that
Cedeño's detention lasted for nearly two years before his trial
began, constituting an infraction upon his right to an expedient trial.[6] Indeed, delayed trials have long
been and
continue to be a problem in Venezuela.
But this is not evidence of state-directed persecution;
it reflects the inefficiency of the judicial process as a whole. Such
systemic problems must be distinguished as such and analyzed in detail,
in the context of the government's comprehensive judicial reform
measures.
The Venezuelan Judicial System
The Venezuelan judicial system has a huge problem with
corruption that has undermined the rule of law and served the interests
of the repressive ruling two-party duopoly for decades preceding
Chavez. Several infamous state-ordered massacres of political
dissidents
throughout the 1980s remained in complete impunity until now, and the
Chavez government is investigating the events and locating the bodies
of the victims.[7]
The corruption persists today, and there are still
victims, but they aren't the ones highlighted by the opposition and
their international media allies. They include the more than 220 rural
organizers who, in their campaigns to gain pieces of land in accordance
with the government's 2001 Land Law, have
been killed by assassins who serve the interests of large landowners.[8] These rich, conservative
landowners use
their money to wield extraordinary influence on the courts and regional
government functionaries, and as a result only a handful of people have
gone to jail for these crimes.[9]
Not surprisingly, these landless farmers are not
highlighted in the mainstream media, at least not with genuine concern
for their struggle. Rather, their murderers are defended against
so-called government-backed "invasions" that threaten private property.[10]
Considering this context, Judge Afiuni's case reflects
two major problems in the justice system: Her treatment while in prison
and the possibility of intervention by other branches of the government
in her arrest.
Jails
Romero's article suggests that Afiuni is being
persecuted by being placed in a bleak cell in the same prison with
inmates who she sentenced or who are just angry at the judicial system
she represents. To be clear, no evidence has been presented that
Afiuni's right to due process has been violated,
or that she has been deprived of information or a lawyer, or other such
rights, as Romero's tone may imply.
The Venezuelan prison system has been notoriously
overcrowded, poorly maintained, corrupt, and dangerous for decades, if
not longer. Bloody prison clashes and uprisings marked the 1990s, along
with a record prison population of 32,000 in 1992. The Chavez
government launched a prison humanization
program in 2006, bringing better health care, sports facilities, and
music lessons to many jails.[11]
However, prisons remain overcrowded with an average population of more
than 20,000 over the past ten years, and there was a recent spike in
the inmate population due to the government's increased anti-crime
measures.
As many as two-thirds of the prisoners have been awaiting trial at
certain moments, and hundreds of prisoners are killed in fights each
year.[12]
Certainly, a judge should not get a cosier cell just
because of her socio-economic class. So, if one is to complain about
Afiuni's rights as a prisoner in this context, one should point out
that all prisoners need better programs to help them be rehabilitated
and re-integrated into society. Afiuni's comment
to the New York Times that she feels like she's in "hell" is
not evidence of any direct state-led attack against her in particular,
but rather an indication that there is much more to be done to improve
the Venezuelan prison system.
Judicial Independence
Another important issue is whether judicial independence
was upheld in Afiuni's case. Soon after Afiuni allowed Cedeño to
be released, National Assembly Legislator Carlos Escarrá, who is
a constitutional lawyer and a former Supreme Court Judge, publicly
denounced Afiuni.
"She was an accomplice of a crime, and what's more, she facilitated
Cedeño's escape," said Escarrá. "Justice should be equal
for everyone. Just as someone who robs a piece of bread is put in jail,
in the same way a banker or a businessman must receive the full weight
of the law," he said.[13]
A week later, after Cedeño turned up in Miami,
President Chávez expressed his outrage that a judge would be
implicated in directly contradicting the anti-corruption efforts in the
justice system. He said Afiuni should spend thirty years in prison.
"She violated the law, in the first place, because no judge
can conduct a hearing without the prosecution present... she is in
jail, and I demand harshness against this judge," said the president.[14]
Do these public declarations coming from the Legislative
Branch and the Executive Branch constitute interventions in the
Judicial Branch, in violation of the national constitution? The Red de
Apoyo para la Justicia y la Paz, an independent human rights
organization in Caracas, said this is debatable.
"One thing is what a person states publicly about a
case. There is nothing wrong with a politician making a statement that
someone should be put in jail," General Coordinator Pablo
Fernández told Venezuela Analysis last week. "Another thing is
the reaction within the judicial branch. Was the declaration
about Afiuni understood and reacted to as an order? Or did the Attorney
General's Office follow the normal procedures for such a case?"[15] So far, it appears prosecutors
have
followed procedural norms for a judge charged with a crime.
On another side of the issue of judicial independence,
an opposition-aligned human rights group in Caracas, PROVEA, pointed
out in its 2009 Annual Report that there is a coincidence between the
declarations of functionaries of the Executive Branch and some of the
actions of the Supreme Court,
the Attorney General's Office, and the Public Defender's Office.[16]
Such a coincidence in itself does not constitute a
violation of judicial independence. It is necessary to look at the
cases themselves for evidence that the president's declarations
arbitrarily influenced or undermined justice.
For example, PROVEA says 509 political demonstrators
have been temporarily detained or arrested over the ten years of the
Chavez administration. The organization calls them "political prisoners
and victims of political intolerance," and also victims of "the use of
judicial functionaries as instruments
of intimidation," implying that the governing political party
intervened in the judicial branch.[17]
Local news reports confirm that some Venezuelan
opposition protests are peaceful and some are violent, and some start
out peaceful and then turn violent. Peaceful protests occur regularly
with no police repression. To the contrary, police cordon off the route
until the march is finished. However, eye
witness accounts confirm that at the violent marches, which in recent
years have mainly been led by opposition student groups, the
demonstrators wage coordinated assaults on police using Molotov
cocktails, homemade weapons, slingshots, rocks, glass, and the
occasional firearm. Police respond to the violent assaults
with plastic pellets and tear gas, and the students retreat to their
university campuses, where the police do not enter because it is
prohibited by law. Interspersed between violent assaults on the police,
groups of unarmed protestors kneel before the police with their hands
in the air, posing a non-violent victim image
for the media.[18] The
mainstream
media, including the New York Times, fall right into line by
providing false news and distorting the events to fit their editorial
line, claiming that the Chavez government represses peaceful protestors.[19]
Any demonstrator that pulls a gun or a bomb on police in
the U.S. and many other countries is quickly taken down by a hail of
bullets. But in Venezuela, such protestors are temporarily detained or
arrested, if that.
The fact that President Chavez publicly condemns such
violent protests when they occur, and on one occasion encouraged the
police to throw tear gas at them, hardly seems to constitute a
violation of judicial independence, or of the demonstrators' right to
justice. It seems very unlikely that Chavez's
comments really propelled the police to act and the judges to rule
other than they already would have, or more harshly than they should
have.
The Government's Judicial Reform
It is clear that Afiuni's arrest is presented to make it
look like targeted state persecution, but it is really the result of
the government's efforts to correct longstanding systemic problems. It
is also clear that opponents of the government use the argument of
political
persecution to defend their political allies when they commit crimes.
In addition to these two issues, some critics also say the government's
judicial reform effort itself has violated judicial independence.
Shortly after Chavez took office in 1999, a Judicial
Restructuring Commission was created and 80% of the country's judges
were removed for being corrupt. They were replaced by provisional
judges who were appointed by the commission and were supposed to be
temporary.[20] However,
PROVEA
pointed out in its Annual Report that as of 2008, only 51% of the
judges had been reviewed and granted full judgeships, while 49%
remained provisional.[21]
It could be
argued that those 49% may be influenced by the wishes of the government
that put them in place. Furthermore, part of the reason the process of
reviewing provisional judges has taken so long is that many were found
to be corrupt and were deposed, and new ones were put in their place.
This constant shuffling of judges has, unfortunately, interfered with
the expediency and the objectivity of many trials, a fact that has also
garnered criticism.
The 2004 Law of the Supreme Court has also been the
subject of debate regarding judicial independence. After the Supreme
Court condoned the April 2002 coup d'état against Chavez by
ruling that it was not a coup, the 2004 law was passed in an effort to
reform the clearly politicized Supreme Court.
This law, among other things, permitted the National Assembly to
appoint and revoke judges with a simple majority vote, if a two-thirds
majority vote is not achieved after three rounds of voting and debate.
This power, critics say, seems to make the Supreme Court overly
subordinated to the political alignment of
the National Assembly, which was and remains mostly pro-Chavez.[22]
To make the reform process more efficient and effective,
the government launched a second surge of reform efforts in 2005. A
code of ethics was established, and municipal courts were created to
expedite the processing of cases and improve citizens' access to
justice. Numerous new commissions were
created to improve discipline within the justice system and root out
bribery, corruption, violations of due process, and other common
infractions. One such commission, the National Justice System
Commission, was made up of representatives from the National Assembly,
the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the Ministry
of Justice and Internal Affairs, police forces, the prison system, the
Attorney General's office, the Public Defender's office. The commission
was tasked with coordinating state policies for the improvement of the
system.[23] In its 2009
Annual
Report, PROVEA criticized that the mix of branches of the government
present on the commission "institutionalizes a permanent factor of
intervention by the rest of the powers in the judicial branch."[24]
Unfortunately, despite these efforts at reform,
corruption is still widespread. A 2009 poll of Venezuelan judges,
carried out by the human rights group Development and Justice
Consortium, showed that only a third of the judges think judges who
accept bribes are sanctioned, and only half the judges
said judges who violate the norms are fired.[25]
These criticisms regarding judicial independence have
some basis and must be considered, but they do not at all prove that
Judge Afiuni's arrest was an example of persecution or silencing of
government opponents, nor that such persecution is a growing trend in
Venezuela. They do, however, highlight
the difficulty -- almost the paradox -- of intervening in a politicized
judicial system with the intention of establishing judicial
independence.
Conclusions
In his April 3rd article for the New York Times,
Romero
manipulated
and distorted the facts about Afiuni's case to fit
the Times' agenda of impeding honest news and discussion
about Venezuela, driving forward the informational sabotage against the
Chavez
government that is widespread in the mainstream international media.
Romero asserted that Judge Afiuni and Eligio
Cedeño were political prisoners. This is clearly inaccurate,
especially since no evidence was presented that they were politically
active. His piece also implied, by omission of sufficient context, that
the Chavez government is the primary cause of the problems
in the judicial system. This is also inaccurate and disingenuous.
Romero even went so far as to implicitly compare Afiuni to the Dalai
Lama at the end of his article, confirming the Times' lack of
seriousness when addressing these issues.
Romero's article is an insult to the real political
prisoners of Latin America -- past and present -- who have been
tortured, murdered, and disappeared by dictators and neo-liberal
regimes that used the justice system as a repressive tool to eliminate
opponents. And, Romero's article distracts his international
audience from any constructive discourse about the problems in
Venezuela's justice system and how to overcome them, in the context of
this gruesome history.
The Venezuelan government has made efforts at an
integral, sustainable reform of the judicial system. This hasn't been
completely successful so far. But the response of the opposition --
knee-jerk condemnation of every effort the government makes at reform,
placing all the blame on the Chavez government
for the problems in the judicial system, and claiming to be political
prisoners -- is destructive and does not help to solve Venezuela's
historic judicial system problem.
Notes
1. "Human Rights in Venezuela,"
Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United States,
February 24, 2010
2. Romero, Simon, "Criticism of
Chávez Stifled by Arrests," New York Times, April 3,
2010
3. Suggett, James, "Venezuela Seizes
Assets of Bankers Charged with Fraud," Venezuela Analysis, December 12,
2009
4. Janicke, Kiraz, "Venezuela to Demand
Extradition of Banker Detained in the U.S.," Venezuela Analysis,
December 22, 2009, http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5024
5. Red de Apoyo General Coordinator Pablo
Fernández Blanco, personal interview, April 6, 2010.
6.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33273&Cr=judges&Cr1
7. Suggett, James, "Venezuela Advances
Investigations of Fourth Republic Massacres," Venezuela Analysis,
October 1, 2009
8. Suggett, James, "Venezuelan Farmer
Activists March Against Killings by Estate Owners," Venezuela Analysis,
October 3, 2009
9. According to Adriana Ribas, a member
of the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front, six material authors
and one intellectual author of these assassinations have been arrested.
Farrel, Jojo; Fox, Michael; and Martinez, Carlos, Venezuela Speaks!:
Voices from the Grassroots (Oakland: PM Press,
2010), 58.
10. Examples are abundant, as they appear
regularly in a series of large-scale, nationally circulated opposition
newspapers, but here's one from last year. "Denuncian invasiones
masivas en Puerto Píritu," El Universal, September 2,
2009
11. The following article cites Human
Rights Watch, NACLA, and other sources on the subject. Janicke, Kiraz,
"Venezuela Moves to Humanize Prison System Amidst Hunger Strikes,"
Venezuela Analysis, March 11, 2008
12. Programa Venezolano de
Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos, "Informe Annual
2009: Derechos de las Personas Privadas de Libertad," PROVEA, 2009
13. "Escarrá fustiga a jueza del
caso Cedeño por ser ‘cómplice de un delito'," Noticias24,
December 15, 2009
14. "Chávez solicitó pena
máxima para jueza que liberó a empresario Eligio
Cedeño," Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, December 11, 2009
15. Red de Apoyo General Coordinator
Pablo Fernández Blanco, personal interview, April 6, 2010.
16. Programa Venezolano de
Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos, "Informe Annual
2009: Derechos a la Justicia," PROVEA, 2009, p. 249
17. Ibid.
18. Gabriel, George and Suggett, James,
"Venezuelan Students and Security Forces Clash Violently as Referendum
Debate Intensifies," Venezuela Analysis, January 28, 2009
19. Farrell, Jojo, "US Media Bias and
Recent Student Violence in Venezuela," Common Dreams, November 15,
2007
20. Wilpert, Gregory, Changing Venezuela
by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chavez Government (New
York: Verso Books, 2007), 45.
21. Programa Venezolano de
Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos, "Informe Annual
2009: Derechos a la Justicia," PROVEA, 2009, p. 248
22. Wilpert, 47.
23. Bolivarian Lawyers Front Member
Alexander Eñaranda, personal interview, April 6, 2010.
24. Programa Venezolano de
Educación-Acción en Derechos Humanos, "Informe Annual
2009: Derechos a la Justicia," PROVEA, 2009, p. 248
25. "80%
de jueces no confían en métodos para sancionarlos," El
Universal, December 21, 2009
Read The Marxist-Leninist
Daily
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|