Venezuela's Ambassador to the UK caught in his lies
By Aleksander Boyd
London 18.04.06 | Readers may remember a couple of posts few days ago dealing with the topic of the alleged Honoris Causa that Oxford University would confer upon Venezuela's Castro-wannabe Hugo Chavez. The news originated from a telephone call that Venezuelan Ambassador to the UK, Alfredo Toro Hardy, gave to his boss on a Sunday afternoon. In live television, the voice of the 'honourable' Toro Hardy was heard all around Venezuela, and probably in other parts of Latin America thanks to TELESUR, 'informing' Chavez about the great news. Imagine that, a failed coupster from Sabaneta de Barinas receiving such a distinction from one of the world's most reputed universities.
To be frank I can not even begin to imagine how a purportedly well educated fellow, as Toro Hardy, would make such statements in public. Mind you, did he truly think that he was going to get away with it? Is his pusillanimity bigger than his lack of decency and self respect? Only an imbecile would throw away his reputation by prodding such easy to debunk lies. But then again Toro Hardy is a Bolivarian Ambassador...
Email to the Centre for Socio Legal Studies (CSLS)
To whom it may concern,
I have been told by the secretary of the Venezuelan Ambassador to the UK, Mr. Alfredo Toro Hardy, that Professor Kaveh Moussavi is making arrangements to confer an honorary degree to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Interestingly I asked Mrs. Alison Miles, Executive Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor & Chancellor at Oxford University, about the veracity of such thing to which she replied that Oxford University will not confer now or in the immediate future any degrees to President Chavez.
Hence my question would be, is this an independent action of the CSLS?
I should be most grateful if you could inform in this respect.
Cordially,
Aleksander Boyd
Reply from CSLS
Dear Mr Boyd,
Thank you for your email. There are no plans for the CSLS to award an honorary degree to President Chavez - Honorary Degrees can only be conferred by the University, so the Centre would not be able to do so independently anyhow.
I hope this answers your query.
Best wishes,
Ailsa Thom
(Administrator)
send this article to a friend >>