Justin's Political Corner
History has been made in Brazil today, as the National Council of Justice (Portuguese: Conselho Nacional de Justiça) has voted 14-1 to support a resolution stipulating that same-sex couples should be able to receive marriage licenses throughout the entire country. In 2011, the Brazilian Supreme Court had ruled that it was unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, but up to this point, local jurisdictions could decide whether to offer the freedom to marry — 12 states and the federal district had already started doing so.
Pending the implementation of this ruling, Brazil will become the 15th country to offer nationwide marriage equality, joining Uruguay and France, who passed laws just last month.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Acting President Nicolás Maduro managed to muster 50.66 percent of the vote over challenger Henrique Capriles’ 49.07 percent, in a much tighter-than-expected presidential election Sunday.
“Today we can say that we had a fair electoral triumph,” said Maduro, 50, after the results were announced.
About 78 percent of Venezuela’s nearly 19 million eligible voters cast ballots Sunday, The New York Times reported.
After election authorities announced the result, Maduro’s supporters celebrated outside Miraflores presidential palace, although the party drew nowhere near as large a crowd as past socialist victories.
But while the “Chavistas” partied, opposition candidate Capriles cried foul. He said he refused to accept the results and called for a recount.
“Today’s loser is you,” Capriles told a news conference, referring to Maduro, according to Agence France-Presse. “We won’t recognize a result until every vote has been counted.”
The end of Venezuela’s election day showed a country more divided than ever during the emotionally charged aftermath following Chávez’s death from cancer.
Hand-picked by the beloved Chávez before his death last month, Maduro had commanded double-digit percentage points ahead of Capriles in most polls.
But that lead started slipping as Capriles went on the offensive, with ample ammunition of the country’s dire reality.
Despite the government’s largesse — using the world’s biggest crude reserves to fund poverty-fighting programs at home and provide cheap oil to regional allies like Cuba — problems such as high inflation, produce shortages and soaring murder rates continue to cripple the South American country.
H/T: Salon
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguay’s lawmakers have voted to legalize gay marriage.
Their vote makes Uruguay the third country in the Americas after Canada and Argentina to eliminate laws making marriage, adoption and other family rights exclusive to heterosexuals. In all, 11 other nations around the world have already taken this step.
h/t: WFAA
Papal Potpourri: Pope Francis’ Dark Past in Argentina Revealed
The world is still learning much about the life and history of Pope Francis, and now the Vatican finds itself having to directly confront the most troubling story from his early life in Argentina. On Friday, the Catholic Church was forced to deny charges that then-Cardinal Bergoglio was complicit in the state-sponsored terrorism during Argentina’s “Dirty War” of the 1970s and early 1980s. The Vatican spokesperson said “There has never been a credible, concrete accusation against him,” and the charges ”reveal anti-clerical left-wing elements that are used to attack the Church.”
Bergoglio was still a young priest when the a military junta took over the country in 1967 and began a vicious campaign of terror and murder in attempts to crush an underground rebellion. The period is called the Dirty War, because rather than battles fought in the open, the military dictatorship relied on kidnappings, terror, and other brutal tactics to clamp down on revolutionaries. (Although there were certainly accusations of atrocities on both sides.) Tens of thousands of Argentine citizens were “disappeared”—kidnapped off the streets or from their homes, and often tortured or thrown in prison, before being killed outright. There were even instances of victims being thrown from moving airplanes into the ocean, while still alive. Simply being suspected of having sympathy for the other side was enough to condemn you.
As the largest societal organization in Argentina, the Catholic Church played a difficult role in the conflict and there has been much debate about its failure to protect the weakest of society. While many priests and nuns were involved in the left-wing movement (and were targeted for reprisals because it), many people have accused the Church’s leaders of not only failing to stand up to the junta, but of even being actively complicit in its crimes.
For Bergoglio, the charges are quite personal. Two Jesuit priests who were kidnapped and tortured by the regime in 1976, claim that then-Father Bergoglio—who at the time was the leader of the Jesuit order in Argentina—was complicit in their abduction. According to a book written about the era, Bergoglio “withdrew his order’s protection” for them, because they refused to his request to stop visiting the Buenos Aries slums. That loss of the Church’s shield allowed for them to be captured by the regime, where they were held for five months.
Those accusations are not new, but obviously resufraced this week after Cardinal Bergoglio became Pope Frances. He has stated on more than one occasion that the charges are not true. Not only that, he claims the he personally pleaded to the priests’ release. He also claims that as a young Father he shielded many potential victims of the junta and “did what I could, given my age and my limited contacts, to plead on behalf of those who had been seized.” Because of a lawsuit filed several years ago, Bergoglio was called upon to formally testify about these events in 2010.
After becoming Archbishop in 1998, Bergoglio also pushed for reconciliation, issuing apologies for the Church’s failings and ordering penance for its members. One of the priests involved in the kidnapping reportedly even reconciled with Bergoglio, shortly before he died.
The problem with any “dirty war” is that the full truth of what happened in those awful days will never fully be known. Even those who lived through it can never escape the distrust and terror that war against your neighbors creates. There are plenty of people both inside and outside of the Church who have defended Bergoglio’s record, just as there are some Argentines who will never forgive him or the Church for what happened to them. All we know know is that Father Bergoglio is now Pope Francis, and both he and the Catholic Church will always have to live with their past.
The only remaining pro-opposition television channel in Venezuela, Globovisión, is being sold to an insurance company owner friendly with the government, employees told The Associated Press on Monday.
They said its editorial line is sure to change and that many journalists sobbed when informed of the sale, certain some would lose their jobs.
The sale will occur after April 14 elections, which Hugo Chávez’s hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro is highly favored to win, they said.
International human rights and press freedom groups have accused Chávez and his political heirs of trying to strangle Globovisión financially by inventing alleged transgressions. Under constant state pressure, it has been forced to pay millions of dollars in fines.
The state telecommunications agency has repeatedly sanctioned the channel and threatened to shut it down. It was accused in one instance of running allegedly incendiary reports on a 2011 prison riot. In another case, it was accused of sowing panic for running spots challenging the constitutionality of the government’s decision to postpone the swearing in of Chávez, supposed to have occurred Jan. 10, due the cancer that ultimately killed him.
Globovisión President Guillermo Zuloaga informed staff at a meeting Monday, naming the buyer as Juan Domingo Cordero, president of the insurance company La Vitalicia, the employees said. The company had no immediate comment but said it would issue a statement later in the day.
The Zuloaga family owns 80 percent of Globovisión. The other 20 percent belonged to a banker but was expropriated years ago by Chávez.
The employee said Cordero is friendly with government officials such as National Assembly speaker Diosdado Cabello. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of losing his job.
It became the lone opposition channel in that year after RCTV was forced off cable and satellite networks.
Four private channels exist in Venezuela, all ostensibly neutral, while the government has four state-run channels and the regional news network Telesur. In print, two major national newspapers, El Nacional and El Universal, remain highly critical of the government.
h/t: STLtoday.com
(New York) – Hugo Chávez’s presidency (1999-2013) was characterized by a dramatic concentration of power and open disregard for basic human rights guarantees.
After enacting a new constitution with ample human rights protections in 1999 – and surviving a short-lived coup d’état in 2002 – Chávez and his followers moved to concentrate power. They seized control of the Supreme Court and undercut the ability of journalists, human rights defenders, and other Venezuelans to exercise fundamental rights.
By his second full term in office, the concentration of power and erosion of human rights protections had given the government free rein to intimidate, censor, and prosecute Venezuelans who criticized the president or thwarted his political agenda. In recent years, the president and his followers used these powers in a wide range of prominent cases, whose damaging impact was felt by entire sectors of Venezuelan society.
Many Venezuelans continued to criticize the government. But the prospect of reprisals – in the form of arbitrary or abusive state action – forced journalists and human rights defenders to weigh the consequences of disseminating information and opinions critical of the government, and undercut the ability of judges to adjudicate politically sensitive cases.Assault on Judicial Independence
In 2004, Chávez and his followers in the National Assembly carried out a political takeover of Venezuela’s Supreme Court, adding 12 seats to what had been a 20-seat tribunal, and filling them with government supporters. The packed Supreme Court ceased to function as a check on presidential power.Assault on Press Freedoms
Under Chávez, the government dramatically expanded its ability to control the content of the country’s broadcast and news media. It passed laws extending and toughening penalties for speech that “offends” government officials, prohibiting the broadcast of messages that “foment anxiety in the public,” and allowing for the arbitrary suspension of TV channels, radio stations, and websites.
The Chávez government sought to justify its media policies as necessary to “democratize” the country’s airwaves. Yet instead of promoting pluralism, the government abused its regulatory authority to intimidate and censor its critics. It expanded the number of government-run TV channels from one to six, while taking aggressive steps to reduce the availability of media outlets that engage in critical programming.
In response to negative coverage, Chávez repeatedly threatened to remove private stations from the airwaves by blocking renewal of their broadcast licenses. In 2007, in an act of blatant political discrimination, his government prevented the country’s oldest private television channel, RCTV, from renewing its license and seized its broadcasting antennas. Three years later, it drove RCTV off cable TV as well by forcing the country’s cable providers to stop transmitting its programs.
The removal of RCTV left only one major channel, Globovisión, that continued to be critical of the president. The Chávez government repeatedly pursued administrative sanctions against Globovisión, which have kept the station in perpetual risk of suspension or closure. It also pressed criminal charges against the station’s president, a principal owner, and a guest commentator after they made public statements criticizing the government.
The sanctioning and censorship of the private media under Chávez have had a powerful impact on broadcasters and journalists. While sharp criticism of the government is still common in the print media, on Globovisión, and in some other outlets, the fear of government reprisals has made self-censorship a serious problem.
Rejection of Human Rights Scrutiny
In addition to neutralizing the judiciary as a guarantor of rights, the Chávez government repudiated the Inter-American human rights system, failing to carry out binding rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and preventing the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights from conducting in-country monitoring of human rights problems. In September 2012, Venezuela announced its withdrawal from the American Convention on Human Rights, a move that leaves Venezuelans without recourse to what has been for years – in countries throughout the region – themost important external mechanism for seeking redress for abuses when national courts fail to provide it.
The Chávez government also sought to block international organizations from monitoring the country’s human rights practices. In 2008, the president had representatives of Human Rights Watch forcibly detained and summarily expelled from the country after they released a report documenting his government’s violation of human rights norms. Following the expulsion, his then-foreign minister and now chosen successor, Nicolás Maduro, announced that, “Any foreigner who comes to criticize our country will be immediately expelled.”
Under Chávez, the government also sought to discredit human rights defenders by accusing them of receiving support from the US government to undermine Venezuelan democracy. While local nongovernmental organizations have received funding from US and European sources – a common practice in Latin America where private funding is scarce – there is no credible evidence that the independence and integrity of the defenders’ work has been compromised by international support. Nonetheless, in 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that individuals or organizations receiving foreign funding could be prosecuted for “treason.” The National Assembly passed legislation prohibiting organizations that “defend political rights” or “monitor the performance of public bodies” from receiving international funding. It also imposed stiff fines on organizations that “invite” to Venezuela foreigners who express opinions that “offend” government institutions.Embracing Abusive Governments
Chávez also rejected international efforts to promote human rights in other countries. In recent years, Venezuela consistently voted against UN General Assembly resolutions condemning abusive practices in North Korea, Burma, Iran, and Syria. Moreover, Chávez was a vocal supporter of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, bestowing upon each of these leaders the “Order of the Liberator,” Venezuela’s highest official honor.
Under Chávez, Venezuela’s closest ally was Cuba, the only country in Latin America that systematically represses virtually all forms of political dissent. Chávez identified Fidel Castro – who headed Cuba’s repressive government until his health deteriorated in 2006 – as his model and mentor.
- After Venezuela’s oldest television channel, RCTV, broadcast a video in November 2006 showing Chávez’s energy minister telling his employees at the state oil company to quit their jobs if they did not support the president, Chávez publicly warned RCTV and other channels that they could lose their broadcasting license – a threat he had made repeatedly in response to critical broadcasting. A month later, the president announced his unilateral decision that RCTV would no longer be “tolerated” on the public airwaves after its license expired the following year. RCTV stopped transmitting on open frequencies in May 2007, but continued as a cable channel. Since then, the government has used its regulatory power to drive RCTV off cable television as well. In January 2010, the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL) determined that RCTV was a “national audiovisual producer” and subject to newly established broadcasting norms. Days later, Chávez’s communications minister threatened to open administrative investigations against cable providers whose broadcast channels did not comply with the norms. In response, the country’s cable providers stopped broadcasting RCTV International. CONATEL has since denied RCTV’s repeated efforts to re-register as a cable channel. Today, RCTV can only be viewed on the Internet, and it no longer covers news due to lack of funding.
- After Globovisión, the only remaining television station with national coverage consistently critical of Chávez’s policies, provided extensive coverage of a prison riot in June 2011 – including numerous interviews with distressed family members who claimed security forces were killing prisoners, Chávez responded by accusing the station of “set[ting] the country on fire…with the sole purpose of overthrowing this government.” The government promptly opened an administrative investigation of Globovisión’s coverage of the violence and, in October, ruled that the station had “promoted hatred for political reasons that generated anxiety in the population,” and imposed a US$ 2.1 million fine, equivalent to 7.5 percent of the company’s 2010 income. Globovisión is facing seven additional administrative investigations – including one opened in response to its reporting that the government failed to provide the public with basic information in the aftermath of an earthquake and, most recently, one for transmitting spots that questioned the government’s interpretation of the constitutional requirements for Chávez’s 2013 inauguration. Under the broadcasting law enacted by Chávez and his supporters in the National Assembly in 2004, a second ruling against Globovisión could result in another heavy fine, suspension of the station’s transmission, or revocation of its license.
h/t: Human Rights Watch
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Vice President Nicolás Maduro is taking over leadership of Hugo Chávez’s political movement after the socialist leader died Tuesday at age 58 following a nearly two-year bout with cancer. Maduro now faces the daunting task of rallying support in a deeply divided country while maintaining unity within his party’s ranks.
Maduro decidedly lacks the vibrant personality that made Chávez a one-man political phenomenon in Venezuela, but he has the advantage of being Chavez’s hand-picked successor.
The mustachioed 50-year-old former bus driver won Chavez’s trust as a loyal spokesman who echoed the president’s stances. How Maduro will lead in Chavez’s absence remains to be seen, although he’s widely known as both a skilled negotiator and a leader who views upholding his mentor’s legacy as his personal crusade and responsibility.
One of the biggest tasks Maduro will likely face is attempting to hold together a diverse movement that includes radical leftists, moderates and many current and former military officers.
Analysts have speculated that differences might emerge between factions led by Maduro and Diosdado Cabello, the influential National Assembly president who is thought to wield power within the military. But thus far both men have denied such divisions and vowed to remain united.
In his youth, Maduro drove a bus for the Caracas Metro transit system and later became a union leader.
It’s unclear when Maduro and Chávez first met. But Chávez is thought to have first gotten to know Maduro in the 1980s, when Chávez was a lieutenant colonel and began a clandestine movement of disgruntled military officers that eventually carried out a failed coup attempt in 1992. Chávez was jailed on military rebellion charges and then released in 1994 when he was pardoned.
Maduro went on to become a leading member of Chávez’s nascent political movement, growing closer to the budding politician and also getting to know Cilia Flores, who is now attorney general and was Chávez’s defense attorney following his arrest for the 1992 coup attempt.
After Chávez was elected president in 1998, Maduro was selected to join a special assembly to draft a new constitution. He was later elected to the National Assembly and then became president of the legislature.
Maduro was named foreign minister in 2006 and oversaw international efforts such as consolidating the regional diplomatic blocs ALBA and Unasur, strengthening relations with countries such as Russia, Iran and China, and overseeing a rapprochement with U.S.-allied Colombia. He is thought to maintain close ties with Cuba’s government.
h/t: Salon
Rep. José Enrique Serrano (D-NY) released a statement today praising former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, despite the latter’s record of harsh crackdowns on his political opponents and state-sanctioned persecution against Venezuela’s Jewish population. Serrano tweeted a statement praising Chavez as an a champion of the oppressed, writing that “Hugo Chávez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless. R.I.P. Mr. President.” Serrano’s office later released a statement expanding on the tweet:
President Chávez was a controversial leader. But at his core he was a man who came from very little and used his unique talents and gifts to try to lift up the people and the communities that reflected his impoverished roots. He believed that the government of the country should be used to empower the masses, not the few. He understood democracy and basic human desires for a dignified life. His legacy in his nation, and in the hemisphere, will be assured as the people he inspired continue to strive for a better life for the poor and downtrodden.”
While even Chávez’s critics admit that he did attempt to address the plight of Venezuela’s poorest, the decline in economic inequality in Venezuela reflected a broader egalitarian trend in Latin America, and can’t be fully credited to Chávez’s policies. However, Chávez’s policies harmed Venezuela’s poorest in other ways: the value of the Venezuelan currency dropped while prices soared, making it harder for people to buy basic necessities, and crime skyrocketed.
Moreover, Chávez hurt the vulnerable in Venezuela in other ways. Chávez’s state-run media hounded Venezuela’s small, beleaguered Jewish population — he himself once said “Don’t let yourselves be poisoned by those wandering Jews.”
Chávez also attacked Venezuela’s democratic political system. Human Rights Watch reported in 2012 that “the accumulation of power in the executive and the erosion of human rights protections have allowed the Chávez government to intimidate, censor, and prosecute critics and perceived opponents in a wide range of cases involving the judiciary, the media, and civil society.” Contra Serrano, Venezuela’s elections were not certified as “free and fair” by international monitors of late: Chávez had not allowed international election monitors to observe Venezuelan elections since 2006.
BREAKING: Hugo Chávez has assumed room temperature en route to Hell. I’m so happy. #HugoChávez #Venezuela
— Justin Gibson (@JGibsonDem) March 5, 2013
Uruguay’s congress is considering a gay marriage law that would give same-sex couples all the same rights and responsibilities of heterosexual married couples.
The country already has a civil unions law and has stood out in Latin America lately for legalizing abortion and planning to sell government-grown marijuana to any citizen who wants it.
The proposed “marriage equality” law would change Uruguay’s nearly-century-old civil code and give married gays and lesbians all the rights and responsibilities of heterosexual married couples, including the possibility of adopting children.
It was drafted by gay rights activists in the so-called “Black Sheep Collective” and now has the support of lawmakers in the ruling Broad Front coalition, which decided Wednesday to debate the measure next week in the House of Deputies’ constitutional commission.
“Today’s society is much broader than the heterosexual, and the civil code should reflect this: a marriage institution that applies equally to all,” Federico Grana, a member of the collective, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “This goes well beyond homosexuality — it’s a law that gives all the same rights and responsibilities.”
Uruguay’s Roman Catholic Church is opposed.
h/t: ABCNews.go.com
Uruguay Wednesday became only the second country in mostly Catholic South America to legalize abortion.
The Senate voted to allow women the right, under certain conditions, to end an unwanted pregnancy, and make access to the right part of its health care system.
The tally in the 31-seat chamber was 17 in favor to 14 against. The lower house in Congress had given the green light back in September.
With more cows than people, this sleepy, well-educated nation of just three million sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil might seem an unlikely trailblazer on the public health front.
The developments however come under the government of a president who is a doctor by training, José Mujica, and a deputy health minister, Leonel Briozzo, who is an obstetrician.
Prior to Wednesday’s vote, aborted pregnancies did happen unofficially here.
A non-surgical technique made use of the drug misoprostol, a common ulcer medication, to facilitate expulsion of the fetus.
The drug has up until now only been sold on the black market for abortion use, but now it will presumably soon be available for legal procedures in public health facilities.
“Safe abortion practices are Uruguay’s top health contribution to the region,” Briozzo, a strong advocate of a woman’s right to safe legal abortion, told AFP on the eve of the vote.
“The explanation is that Latin America is the last outpost of the Roman Catholic Church,” Briozzo said.
The bill, inspired by similar legislation in some European countries, allows a first trimester abortion only after a woman has consulted a team of three medical professionals on the potential risks of terminating a pregnancy.
Doctors will also be required to advise women about alternatives to ending the pregnancy, including adoption and social welfare programs that could help her to care for a newborn infant.
Until now abortion here was punishable by nine months in prison for the woman and up to two years for the doctor performing the abortion.
h/t: The Raw Story
Venezuela’s Chavez wins re-election, officials say
(Photo: Kimberly White / Reuters)
Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chávez won re-election in Sunday’s vote with 54 percent of the ballot to beat opposition challenger Henrique Capriles, Reuters reported late Sunday night.
This Liberal Progressive says fuck you, Hugo Chávez and his voters!!!!!
(via nbcnews)
Sad day for Venezuela. Down with Chávez!
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez’s crusade to transform Venezuela into a socialist state, which has bitterly divided the nation, was put to the stiffest electoral test of his nearly 14 years in power on Sunday in a closely fought presidential election.
Reveille blared from sound trucks to awaken voters and the bugle call was later replaced by folk music mixed with a recording of Chávez’s voice saying “those who love the homeland come with me.” At many polling places, voters lined up two hours before polls opened at dawn.
Chávez’s challenger, Henrique Capriles, has united the opposition in a contest between two camps that distrust each other so deeply there are concerns whether a close election result will be respected.
The stakes couldn’t be higher.
If Chávez wins a new six-year term, he gets a free hand to push for an even bigger state role in the economy, further limit dissent and continue to befriend rivals of the United States.
If Capriles wins, a radical foreign policy shift can be expected along with an eventual loosening of state economic controls and an increase in private investment – though a tense transition would likely follow until the January inauguration because Chávez’s political machine thoroughly controls the wheels of government.
Many Venezuelans were nervous about what might happen if the disputes erupt over the election’s announced outcome.
h/t: HuffPo
