[Marxism] Washington Post attacks Obama for aiding "Chávez consolidate an autocracy"

[Fred Fuentes]

*Courting Mr. Chávez*
The Obama administration seeks to please a strongman by ignoring his
crackdown on domestic opposition.

 Thursday, April 30, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/29/AR2009042904419_pf.html

 ONE OF Venezuela's most important politicians was granted
asylum<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/27/manuel-rosales-chavez-cri_0_n_191870.html>in
Peru this week. Manuel Rosales, a former state governor who challenged
Hugo Chávez in the 2006 presidential election and won election as mayor of
Maracaibo last fall, fled the country to avoid imprisonment. He was being
prosecuted on dubious corruption charges; the investigation began only after
Mr. Chávez shouted <http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0405/p06s04-woam.html> on
television that "I'm going to put you in jail, Rosales!" Mr. Rosales is one
of at least seven major Chávez opponents, including three of the five
opposition state governors, who have been imprisoned or subjected to
criminal or tax investigations during the past two months.

It is reasonable to ask how the Obama administration is reacting to this
major new campaign against what remains of Venezuela's democracy, especially
given the president's friendly handshake with Mr. Chávez at the Summit of
the Americas two weeks ago. The answer: It isn't. The administration has
maintained a deliberate silence about the persecution of the elected
politicians, a dissident former defense minister and a leading journalist.
Meanwhile, the State Department is lauding what it calls the "positive
development <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/04/121878.htm>" in
U.S.-Venezuelan relations: Mr. Chávez's offer to exchange ambassadors. "We
buy a lot of their oil," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the
House Foreign Affairs Committee last week. "Let's see if we can begin to
turn that relationship."

Ms. Clinton seems to believe that Mr. Chávez's escalating domestic
repression shouldn't be an impediment to better relations with the United
States -- an attitude in keeping with her already-stated views about such
nations as China, Egypt and Turkey. She pointed out in her congressional
testimony that Venezuela has been developing close relations with Iran, and
that "it's a serious matter if any country in our hemisphere falls under the
sway of Iran or someone else who is inimicable to our interests."

"Let's try to see whether there is any opportunity to move President Chávez
away from the influences" of Iran and others, she proposed.

That's certainly a worthy goal -- and we have no objection to Mr. Obama's
handshake with Mr. Chávez. The administration's strategy -- to open up a
constructive dialogue with Venezuela and avoid being cast as Mr. Chávez's
Yanqui foil -- is reasonable; it is also the same strategy as was tried,
unsuccessfully, by the previous two administrations. What doesn't make sense
is to deliberately ignore steps by Mr. Chávez to consolidate an autocracy.
In so doing, the administration encourages Latin American governments that
have shrunk from confronting the Venezuelan strongman to continue in their
own silence. It sends pro-Chávez governments in countries such as Bolivia
and Nicaragua the message that they can persecute their own domestic
opponents with impunity. And it makes it more rather than less likely that
Venezuela, with the help of Iran and Russia, will become a threat to the
United States.

Peru's democratic government is to be congratulated for its decision to
offer Mr. Rosales asylum. It is shameful that the Obama administration won't
say so.