Chavez's Tokyo Roses are Incorrect
By Margaret Petito
06.04.06 | Yesterday saw a massive protest in Venezuela to beg the Chavez regime to upend its wave of terror and provide citizen's their due. A semblance of safety which has all but been destroyed by Venezuela's corrupt police, judiciaries, and military controls under direct management of the Chavez regime.
The citizens bravely battled threats of death and peculiar tear gas to insist that the killing fields of their neighborhoods and city streets end. To those double agents of Hugo Chavez who recently stated that any "Opposition" to Chavez is splintered and inoperable, we say: rubbish. Citizens the world over know very well when their lives are on the line and there is no even handed justice. Risking all, these brave souls were entirely united yesterday against rampant crime and corruption.
To paraphrase our friend and famous resource in applied economics, Dr. Steve Hanke, `security and stability may not be everything, but without it, everything is nothing.' In Venezuela today, security and stability are as non-existent as senseless, random violence and political murders have long surpassed any threshold for sustainable society. The numbers are overwhelming, even the few released.
As Venezuela's citizens rejected the pre-rigged Smartmatic voting machines in December, 2005, any observer would note these major citizen movements to reject the instruments of their own democracy-destroying doom under Chavez's rule. To any but paid Tokyo Rose agents of Chavez, by all accounts the citizens of Venezuela are frightened but organized in their rejection of these state-backed crimes, begging for sustained law and order as well as the fundamentals of democracy, which are not present today.
In such times, huge numbers of Venezuelans are seeking support from their churches and religious centers in numbers not seen before. This too triggers the observation that Venezuelan citizens know very well that they are not some silly, faceless manipulated citizenry. Battered, frightened, overwhelmed by the sheer corruptness of their homeland they may be, but emerging in some very positive efforts. Although rule of law is shuttered in Venezuela, the international community can indeed bring pressure to return democracy's structure. To turn our backs on the exigencies of the day or to carve out politically expedient sell-outs of democracy's core tenants will not help rebuild Venezuela. Standing with Venezuela to call for democracy's tenants- not to be sold out ever again- should be much on our minds.
send this article to a friend >>