US Ambassador expelled from Venezuela

CARACAS, September 11.—Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has ordered the U.S. ambassador in Caracas, Patrick Duddy, to leave the country within 72 hours, a measure that was adopted in solidarity with Bolivia, and at the same time informed Washington of Venezuela’s decision to cut off supplies of crude oil to that nation, the AFP reported.


Evo & Hugo

President Hugo Chávez"As a gesture of solidarity with Bolivia, from this moment on, the Yankee ambassador in Caracas has 72 hours to leave Venezuela," the president said during an election campaign rally in Puerto Cabello, 120 kilometers west of the capital, for his party’s candidate for regional elections in November.

The Bolivarian leader expressed his support for Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose government is experiencing a crisis that has been incited by reactionary forces in the country. Morales had also expelled Washington’s representative in La Paz, accusing him of being behind the opposition’s maneuvers.

Chavéz’ announcement came just hours after the Venezuelan administration presented taped recordings of conversations and denounced an attempted coup d’état against Chávez, planned by active and retired military officers with the full support of the U.S. administration.

Likewise, the President announced that he would halt oil sales to the United States if the Latin American country is to become the target of an attack by the White House.

Speaking live on television, Chávez also gave instructions to his Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro to arrange for the immediate return of the Venezuelan ambassador in the United States.

The president stated that "when there is a new government in the United States," Venezuela will send an ambassador but as long as President Bush is in power, Caracas will have no diplomatic representation in that country.

The Bolivarian leader placed responsibility for the tense situation on the U.S. government, which is "behind all the maneuvers of political destabilization currently underway in Latin America," he stated.

Translated by Granma International •

Venezuela Expels Human Rights Watch Director for “Meddling Illegally”
September 19th 2008, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, September 19, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- The Venezuelan government expelled two employees of the U.S-based NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco and Americas Deputy Director Daniel Wilkinson, after the two presented a report that praised Venezuela's 1999 Constitution but harshly criticized the "government's willful disregard for the institutional guarantees and fundamental rights that make democratic participation possible."


Vivanco

In a press release, the Venezuelan Foreign Relations Ministry said Vivanco and Wilkinson "have done violence to the constitution" and "assaulted the institutions" of Venezuela by "meddling illegally in the internal affairs of our country."

The ministry also said the HRW report is linked to the "unacceptable strategy of aggression" of the United States government. The ministry said the expulsion of Vivanco and Wilkinson was in the interest of "national sovereignty" and "the defense of the people against aggressions by international factors."

Constitutional lawyer and National Assembly Deputy Carlos Escarrá explained to the press, "The constitution of Venezuela expresses that a foreigner with a tourist visa cannot make commentaries against the President of the Republic."

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro warned in a press conference that "any other foreigner... who attempts to come to Venezuela and use our democratic order, with the total freedom of expression, to assault our institutions in a rude manner... will receive the same reply."

HRW's report, titled "A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela," says the two-day coup against President Hugo Chávez in April 2002 was the "most dramatic setback" to the human rights guarantees of the 1999 Constitution, but that the Chávez administration has since used the coup as a pretext to undercut those rights.

Specifically, the government has engaged in "discrimination on political grounds," "open disregard for the principle of separation of powers," and has "undercut journalists' freedom of expression, workers' freedom of association, and civil society's ability to promote human rights in Venezuela," according to the report, which bases its conclusions on interviews conducted over the past two years.

Expulsión del Director de Human Rights Watch (En Español)

President Evo Morales calls for 'reparations to the earth'



At UN forum on indigenous issues, Bolivian president calls for global economic overhaul 10 hours ago.

President Evo Morales outlined a plan at the UN on Tuesday to rescue the world from environmental degradation and injustice. Drawing connections between free-market economics, excessive consumption, environmental problems and social injustice, the Bolivian leader urged the world to “put an end to the exploitation of human beings and the pillage of natural resources” by rejecting free-market theory and reallocating the money spent on war to fighting environmental and climate problems.

Che

I make a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell on October 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column, which crossed the swampy grounds of the former provinces of Oriente and Camagüey while being chased by enemy troops.

He was the liberator of the city of Santa Clara, and the creator of voluntary work; he accomplished honorable political missions abroad and served as a messenger of militant internationalism in eastern Congo and Bolivia; he built a new awareness in our America and the world.

I thank him for what he tried but was not able to do in his home country, because he was like a flower prematurely severed from its stem.

He left us his unmistakable style of writing — with elegance, brevity and veracity — every detail of whatever happened to cross his mind. He was a predestinate, but he didn’t know it. He still fights with us and for us.

Yesterday, we commemorated the 31st anniversary of the killing of the passengers and crew of a Cuban airliner that was blown up in mid-flight, and we are on the threshold of the tenth anniversary of the cruel and unjust imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes. We likewise bow our heads to them all.

It was with great emotion that I watched and heard the commemoration ceremony on TV.

Fidel Castro Ruz

October 7, 2007

Thousands of people march to La Higuera to pay tribute

LA PAZ.— Thousands of people, most of them young people from different countries, began a 60-km march to the village of La Higuera in southeastern Bolivia to participate in a vigil in memory of the Argentine-Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, who was murdered there 40 years ago.

The march began in the town of Vallegrande, where more than 7,000 people gathered from all over the world. Most of whom had not even been born when Guevara led the guerrilla warfare campaign in Bolivia that lasted almost nine months. The young people filled the town with their multi-colored tents.

The vigil would be the preamble to the main program planned for Monday, which was to feature the participation of President Evo Morales, according to Osvaldo Peredo, one of the organizers of the 2nd International Conference on Che Guevara, which began on Friday with cultural activities, colloquiums, exhibits and musical performances, the AP reported.

The main activity planned for today, October 8, will take place on the Vallegrande landing strip, where Che’s body was secretly buried together with those of his fellow combatants, and where they remained until 1997, when they were repatriated to Cuba.

Translated by Granma International