Human Rights Watch has totally screwed the pooch where Venezuela is concerned.
I know, they’re supposed to be a serious human-rights organization, but it’s kind of hard to take seriously an organization that gets used so often to promote the State Dept.’s war plans over actual human rights (such as the fundamental right not to be killed by Washington’s allies, for example). And every so often, they betray their true nature with hysterical press releases that might as well have been written by Andres Oppenheimer or Simon Romero. They’d be great comic fodder, if only people learned to take them the right way–namely, with a truckload of salt on top and a whoopie cushion underneath.
The part of this particular one that makes me laugh loudest is this nifty juxtaposition right here:
Chávez dismissed Interpol’s findings as a "clown show that doesn’t deserve a serious response."
"The emails raise serious questions about Venezuela’s relationship with the Colombian guerrillas that deserve serious answers," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "At the very least, they appear to show that the guerrilla commanders who were engaged in horrendous abuses believed they had the backing of the Venezuelan government."
Actually, they show precisely NOTHING, other than what I’ve already noted about this bogus kerfuffle–that the Colombian government is shameless when it comes to faking “information” that deflects attention from their own scandals. One of which just happens to be developing a sudden case of butter-fingers when it comes to computerized evidence showing links between Alvaro Uribe and the paramilitary narcoterrorists. Which HRW, bless its shreddy green plastic heart, has duly noted on its Colombia page–but they stop short of screaming for Alvaro Uribe’s head the way they do for Chavecito’s.
They also keep saying the US congress should continue to delay ratifying the Colombia “free trade” agreement–but stop short of saying it should not exist at all, which I would expect a real human-rights organization which is worthy of the name to do. Gutless much?
Jose Miguel, PLEASE, quit stretching. You are not made of rubber, Chavez is not made of glue, but what you say will bounce off him and stick to you if you keep smearing yourself with that crazy epoxy stuff.
At the very least, that red clown nose is going to be a whole lot harder to get off your face.
