In honor of the Venezuelan president’s wise decision to give asylum to Edward Snowden tonight, here’s a little tribute to him (and his late friend and Comandante, Chavecito), from Russia, with love:
Ska-P’s “El Libertador”, sung (in Spanish!) by a group of young Russians at the New Opera Theatre in Moscow. This concert took place on July 2.
And yes, I’m happy about this. Even before the asylum request was received, Nicolás Maduro was showing himself a real Mensch, and disposed to grant asylum to the NSA leaker/whistleblower because, in his words, Snowden had “contributed to humanity” by blowing the lid off his government’s insanely excessive wiretapping habits.
Now, to get Snowden on the next plane to Caracas, probably with some kind of official Russian documents, since the US government has withdrawn his passport. I don’t know how it will be done, but here’s a chance for Pooty-Poot to make himself useful to humanity, too.
Amazing, Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the world, crushed by US imperialism, also came through. The flag of liberty flies over Latin America, and sadly nowhere else.
Latin America is standing up because they’ve had it with lying flat on their backs. And every single country in the ALBA alliance is prospering by setting their own terms, which is no doubt giving them a lot of confidence to go ahead with things that would have been unthinkable 10 or 15 years ago. In Nicaragua’s case, the offer might be as much a finger in Washington’s eye as anything else, but I do know that Venezuela takes human rights violations very seriously, because they’ve suffered so many at US hands in the not too distant past. The Caracazo, which was a reaction to the IMF’s “conditionalities”, was one; another was the massacres of Yumare and Cantaura, which were perpetrated with the help of the CIA. And of course, there’s Luis Posada Carriles…illegal immigrant to the US, walking free because he’s an old CIA asset. Venezuela wants his ass because he headed the DISIP during the times when the human rights situation was at its worst there. And Posada is a known terrorist, torturer and killer. The US can ill afford to preach “liberty” (note the quotes) while it practices oppression. Washington hasn’t learned that lesson yet, but Latin Americans know it by heart already.