[R-G] Chavez Can’t Do Anything Right…Or Else

[Anthony Fenton]

Chavez Can’t Do Anything Right…Or Else

negotiator.jpg

http://www.borev.net/

You know how Americans are supposed to eliminate all our  
environmental and labor standards and send our jobs to Peru or else  
Hugo Chavez will have won? That’s our “trade policy,” and it’s  
founded on the timeless American values of “extreme self-sacrifice”  
and “rhetorical victory.” And now it’s our foreign policy, too!

You may have heard that back in August, Colombian President Alvaro  
Uribe asked Chavez to help negotiate the first steps toward peace in  
his country’s bloody civil war, including a hostage swap involving  
three kidnapped Americans, one famous Frenchie, and dozens of brown  
skinned “Colombians” who don’t actually merit a mention in the  
English language press, much less a headcount. Anyway, things were  
moving along until last Wednesday, when weirdness ensued.

     >>> That morning, Uribe made a speech praising Chavez as the  
only hope for a crucial hostage negotiation

     >>> In the afternoon, Uribe was contradicted by the U.S.  
ambassador to Colombia, who declared Chavez’s help wasn’t working  
because the 40-year standoff hadn’t been resolved in three months.

     >>> By evening, Uribe was like “Yeah, right. Sorry,” and told  
Chavez his services were no longer required. The peace talks were  
off, and chaos had been restored to the land.


Ok. To borrow a journalistic technique from Simon Romero: “some say”  
this all sounds pretty fucking suspicious if you ask me. And when you  
read Uribe’s reasoning—that Chavez had “violated protocol” by  
“speaking directly” to the Colombian military—a few things sort of  
don’t compute, like:

     · Protocol? Yeah, um, nobody with protocols on the mind calls in  
Hugo Chavez as a hostage negotiator, k? Hugo Chavez is like Chuck  
Norris: he’s the last freaking resort, and you bring him in because  
your stinking protocols aren’t working.

     · The fact Chavez never actually contacted the Colombian  
military chief—at least not directly—might be worth noting. He was  
patched in by a Colombian Senator assigned to the case, and the  
Senator says it was her decision.

     · The 30 second call that scuttled the whole deal consisted of  
Chavez asking the Colombian military how many Colombian soldiers are  
actually in captivity. Yes, three months in and the Colombians had  
never shared this type of information with their negotiator.

You might conclude that their hearts were never in this peace thing  
from the get-go, especially considering that Alvaro Uribe was  
practically raised by drug lords and that just about every prominent  
member of his administration (and family!) are facing charges of  
colluding with death squads. And lord knows the Bush administration’s  
multi-billion dollar investment in the never-ending cycle of violence  
trumps three little old American lives in this profitable global  
bloodbath.

Thank God we’ve got a diligent press core down there to bring  
investigative perspective and context to this story so we’re getting  
more than just the ridiculous Bush Administration line that  
everything was just fine until Chavez opened his big fat mouth. Haha  
just kidding.
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