Thread: US bans arms sales to Venezuela!!!!!

Originally Posted by stroller

Well, Chavez talks a lot of sense, I'll reserve judgement when I see further results of his policies.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

One Very Busy Fascist Dictator

"Chavez is no different" - examples, please.

Chavez's Blacklist of Venezuelan Opposition Intimidates Voters
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...fer=news_index

People who signed a petition for his recall are blacklisted. There's your Joseph McCarthy for you.

Venezuela's coffee industry in chaos as price of beans doubles

· Shortages in shops after producers hoard stocks
· National Guard told to find every last kilogram

In response, President Chávez has said that he might be forced to nationalise the coffee industry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/...683002,00.html

Venezuelanalysis.com reported on March 29 that the mayor of Greater Caracas, Juan Barreto, has announced that the city will confiscate some 400 buildings and sell them to the people currently renting apartments within them.

“All good rented buildings that were constructed between 10 and 30 years ago, or longer and of which the sum of the rental contributions has been, when totalled up, more than five times the value of the building, [will be] expropriated”, Barreto told Union Radio. “The business of renting is legitimate, but it can’t be indefinite because eventually it becomes predatory.”

Chavez added, “Many people are owners of a number of houses, for example, five homes, because they are people who dedicate themselves to acquiring homes” with the intention of making a profit on the housing market. “If someone refuses to sell, except at a fabulous price, somewhere in the stratosphere, we will expropriate, and pay the real value.”

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/663/663p15c.htm

Commerce grinds to a standstill while people wait to see what comes next. People won't rent their apartments, they hoard personal supplies and they withhold inventory from the market. It generates shortages in food and housing. Business needs stability so it can plan and allocate resources for the present and the future. Chavez as usual has purposely generated instability and uncertainty in order to maintain the upper hand. He sees governing as war with enemies everywhere. Individual and corporate wealth and investment is leaving the country. As the resources of the private sector dwindle within the country greater government intervention becomes "justified". So generating ruin works for him. Maybe he invisions some sort of phoenix rising from the ashes. The guy is a romantic who is concentrating power.

I don't see how he is any differnet. He's a thug who uses the mob to intimidate the middle class and the rich. He generates a carnival atmosphere which he must keep feeding with greater stunts to entertain the mob else they get bored and turn on him.

A Venezuelan-linked company called Smartmatic has bought out a U.S. electronic voting device firm called Sequoia, which holds contracts for elections in Chicago and elsewhere.

http://www.americanthinker.com/comme...mments_id=4814
More antics. Being able to spread the rumor that he can fk with the elections of the USA (supported by the truth of owning voting machines) would play well in the surreal carnival atmosphere he has created down there.


A picture of the Minister of Defense. What party spirit. He dresses like it's carnival. Dije que hace fiesta!

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE

Venezuela: Human rights under threat

All parties involved in the political conflict in Venezuela must show real commitment to respecting the rule of law if they are to break the violence cycle. In a new report launched today, Amnesty International highlights cases of excessive use of force, torture and ill-treatment committed by security forces in the context of demonstrations that took place between February and March 2004 and raises serious questions about the commitment of key institutions to prevent and punish such abuses impartially.

At least 14 people died in these demonstrations in circumstances that have yet to be clarified. As many as 200 were wounded. Several of those detained were severely ill-treated or tortured by members of the security forces.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR530082004

Human Rights Watch does not take sides in the current political conflict in Venezuela. Our commitment is solely to the protection of fundamental human rights enshrined in international treaties such as the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other, Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the American Convention on Human Rights, which categorically prohibit torture under any circumstances. As a party to both of these treaties, Venezuela has an obligation not only to prevent violations, but also to conduct thorough and impartial investigations, and to prosecute those found responsible for committing them.

Over the past several weeks, Human Rights Watch has collected testimony regarding alleged ill-treatment and torture that took place from February 27 until March 5. The cases described below are based on Human Rights Watch’s interviews with young people who were detained during the protests and, in one case, with a detainee’s parents. Venezuelan nongovernmental human rights groups have also documented similar abuses, as have press accounts based on interviews with former detainees. Altogether, the available information suggests a disturbing pattern of conduct that clearly violates international law enforcement standards.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/04/12/venezu8423.htm