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Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Turning His Back on the Indigenous Peoples He Once Championed

 

By Jenni Monet

AS/COA’s Christopher Sabatini talks about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavéz’s political paradox and the strategy behind his rejection of the international court system. 

It was a Friday in early July when Venezuelan authorities reportedly barged into the Caracas apartment of Ana Maria Abreu, a doctor who had been working in the presidential palace under Chávez since 2000. She was accused of leaking political or military state secrets, although little more is known. According to her attorney, Dr. Abreu, whose brother-in-law is an antigovernment activist, was arrested without a proper order, and for two days was kept from calling relatives or lawyers. Nearly a month later, she was still being detained in the headquarters of the country’s Bolivarian National Intelligence Service while her case worked its way toward a Venezuelan court. Abreu is gradually gaining recognition as the state’s latest political prisoner—denied due process and stripped of her basic human rights.

In a country where the government has been denounced for attacking journalists and protesters critical of the socialist government led by President Hugo Chávez, Abreu’s arrest follows a series of acts the international advocacy organization, Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently deemed “precarious….”

Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas, says the rejection of the international court system could be seen as strategic planning for the Venezuelan president, accused by his centrist opponent, Henrique Capriles Radonski, of monopolizing state TV and radio broadcasts to stymie the Capriles campaign. “It sort of distances Venezuela from international oversight on the electoral process,” Sabatini said. “And any questions, say, concerning the level playing field of the voting process; any questions about the denial of basic rights of political candidates and free media are now somewhat unheard, ” he added….

Describing Chávez’s decision to cut ties with the human rights organization as “knee-jerk nationalism,” Sabatini says it’s this kind of rhetoric that has motivated Chávez loyalists over the past 13 years, and might make withdrawal palatable to his United Socialist Party base. “The issue of national sovereignty is more important often than having any sort of meddling of international oversight,” Sabatini said. “On one hand, [Chávez] does represent legitimate decades of frustration and a system that was skewed. On the other hand, doing that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not breaking any rules….”

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