June 1, 2007     The Editors of ECrisis have consistently reported events and acts which impact Ecuador and its larger relationship with the Western Hemisphere. Today, the impact of the Venezuelan people who are demanding a return to normative freedoms in their own country has spread across all the Americas, Europe and the globe. No other issue has garnered the globe’s full attention in the last six years as has the almost universal disgust for Hugo Chavez’s totalitarian, ham-handed debacle, symbolized by his clumsy but jack-booted destruction of all freedom of speech in Venezuela. This time, Chavez- instead of gaining popularity by buying advertising and more paid propaganda as is his modus operandi to insure public adoration however false, has lost global support and has cast himself as a pariah, almost alone in his increasingly violent, total rule of non-democracy. Even as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa has foolishly exclaimed his solidarity with Chavez’s massive theft of Venezuelan property, especially RC TV, we reject Correa’s mimicry of Chavez and insist that he rectify his domestic agenda immediately and return to a baseline of leadership founded on integrity and not authoritarian controls, as is the case today.

In one of the best commentaries to come along lately, Fred Thompson correctly notes, “Well, he's done it. Hugo Chavez was already systematically silencing criticism of his autocratic rule through threats and intimidation. Journalists have been threatened, beaten and even killed. Now he's shut down the last opposition television networks in Venezuela and arrested nearly 200 protesters – mostly students. It’s a monumental tragedy and the Venezuelan people will pay the price for decades to come. Americans are also at risk as he funds anti-American candidates and radicals all over Latin America.”

With a solid background as a lawyer and as a former U.S. Senator, actor and potential U.S. presidential aspirant Fred Thompson takes a stand for freedom in his Town Hall piece, “Speaking Up For Freedom.” [click here for the full piece]

Thompson astutely points out that autocrats, also called dictators, cause silence through threats and intimidation…and violence or murder. It is essential to underscore the common sense of the cause and effect of liberty shattering acts. And it is even more essential to correct not just mistakes but to personally and collectively stand for actively building freedom sustaining rules and living standards.

The editors of ECrisis would argue that Hugo Chavez was originally elected in the late 1990s, with the full faith and support of the Bill Clinton team and a popular vote in Venezuela. Every issue and every election since that first election has been mired in shrouds of manipulative and deceptive, anti-democratic acts by Hugo Chavez and his politburo of self enriching kleptocrats.  And Chavez has paid out billions of his own citizens’ money to erect the false face that he is widely  popular when he is not. Chavez, who probably holds at best 35% popularity, depends on the complicity of the left leaning media, the dependably dysfunctional pro-socialism movements- also called NGOs and activists groups which favor the George Soros do-drugs and anti-Semitic absurdities, or the stubborn Fora de Sao Paulo enthusiasts for Che Guevara’s evil machinations, also depends on some of this decade’s dirtiest money making behind closed doors. Chavez is not the only actor putting good money after bad actors …funding anti-American candidates and radicals across the Americas. Indeed, we see a corresponding collusion of North American and European funding streams with the Chavez funded activities and this crafts a stubborn and wholly unholy alliance which strengthens the Russo-Iranian-Venezuelan marriage of money making conveniences of complicity. To maintain his popularity, Chavez spends like a drunken sailor to glue together the ever growing demands of his insensible presidency, which would be laughable if the crimes against his own people and the global aspirations of his new authoritarian bloc, led by the face of  Chavez, were not so serious.

What brought Chavez to power- his full powers, not just the beginning power, but full/authoritarian power- was this complicity of the cynical, the self-absorbed, shallow lazy, the money takers and the wide eyed idiots. And this machine has kept Chavez in power for too long. Speaking of “Carter’s Chavezuela,” Investors Business Daily laudably comments here on the tens of millions of dollars paid out to these NGO groups which abuse U.S. tax dollars to applaud dictators such as Chavez while calling for `political  space and diplomatic dialogue.’  In return for his own people’s trust, Chavez abuses Venezuelan oil money to buy violent actors to create harm against his own citizens plus daily acts to woo and intermarry with some of this decade’s most reprehensible actors, ranging from Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Rafael Correa of Ecuador to his ever-dependable narcoterror brothers in the FARC. These dominoes fall and jump at the command of the league of self enriching neo communists, well trained inside the old KGB style school led by Fidel Castro, who is definitely no friend to freedom.

Jimmy Carter and his well paid abusers of U.S. funding from US AID created the initial false face of respectability for Hugo Chavez’s criminal career by lying to Venezuelans and Americans about the sanctity of Chavez’s government. Jimmy Carter needs to give back that money to the American people and to Venezuelans. Moreover, Jimmy Carter and all his well intentioned money making NGO actors are today exposed for the gamesmanship in Venezuela which they have foisted on a hapless hemisphere, which could have and should have stood up long ago to this passive-aggressive foolishness which always leads to disaster. And the disaster born of these errant enablers of socialism have led to this impasse. Today the very same situation is replicated not just in the puppet state of Bolivia by Evo Morales but also in Ecuador by Rafael Correa.

As noted May 30, 2007, [read here] Rafael Correa of Ecuador and Evo Morales of Bolivia are delivering the Chavez-Castro rules of non-law in the region. The news article on Correa states, “The leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador are moving with Cuban encouragement and in concert with their mentor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to restrict press freedom in their countries.” None can disagree with this seminal analysis. What is more objectionable is that today, Correa’s team- instead of rectifying his domestic crimes- has announced a frontal attack not just on freedom lovers inside Ecuador but a massive lobbying and propaganda campaign across the United States not only to cover over his errant, sordid state of affairs but to lie to the American political spectrum- through every means possible- to retain a major U.S. tax payer give away to hide the fact that his own policies and non-laws are killing his own people’s future. Rafael Correa tells us that the “poor” in Ecuador will suffer if the USA fails to maintain its tax-payer backed give away called “ATPDA Extensions.” Consistent with his pre election rhetoric, Correa denounced the ATPDA grant from the USA as “useless” although today he demands this same gift even as he mainstreams his hatred for the United States and has fully abandoned all democratic pretenses, including free speech and rule of law. Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro told us of their “poor” also and why the “poor” needed their authoritarian, evil controls. Those “poor” have been trying to get rid of this evil for too many years now.

For Ecuador, the poor are poor mostly because stubborn corrupt practices have never been fully remanded. What jobs are available are indeed predicated on the very things/the very instruments such as the Bi Lateral Investment Treaty and floundering rule of law which Correa has insisted will die on the vine. Rafael Correa today rules by full control with dictatorial powers all of his own making: stealing, lying and cheating to retain his 5 month old regime. There is nothing commendable in Rafael Correa’s regime and the false propaganda he intends to unleash on feckless North American media and politicians, again following the hefty price tag of the Chavez play book, comes at a great cost….to the “poor.” Correa is selling a lie, supposedly to help the poor which he, by his acts, fully intends to harm. It remains to be seen how many line up to support Correa’s cast of characters who no doubt are more energized through prurient interest in Correa’s porn star Minister of Foreign Affairs than in serious diplomacy which has never been high on their Che! love song crooning agenda. For Correa and Morales, the promise of free trade is real. But without functional rule of law, there is no free trade give-aways for Rafael Correa’s regime. There is no functional rule of law in Ecuador today by any definition. And Ecuador must not be rewarded for its criminality or enabled by more and more tricks. We have seen the outcome of passive-aggressive diplomacy by the Jimmy Carter enablers of dictatorships. It does not work. Rule of law cannot be manipulated no matter what these money making NGOs want to assuage.

Thompson writes, “We can't know if Venezuelans would have chosen liberty over the false security of authoritarianism if they had been challenged to face the issues. I do know, though, that it's time for a new generation of Americans to stand up for freedom -- like others before us. And this time, we’ll have a whole new set of media technologies.”

While we agree with Thompson that we cannot know what Venezuelans would have done had Chavez not pre-rigged their votes in 2004 and 2006, we do know that Carter and his well funded NGO groups lauded Chavez. Venezuelans today are standing up for freedom and against totalitarianism. They need help. Contrast the acts of the tens and tens of thousands who today risk life and property in Venezuela with Carter’s soft soaping `words of worry.’ U.S. Congressman Connie Mack has consistently stood with freedom lovers in Venezuela, long before it was fashionable. His position, calling on the OAS to act responsibly with regard to Chavez, is here.  

Mack notes, "America has always been the beacon of freedom in our hemisphere.  Sadly the Venezuelan people are today just a heartbeat away from living under a complete and total dictatorship.  The United States must do all we can to be the pillar of hope for the people of Venezuela and our friends in neighbors in Latin America who stand in fear in the shadows of the Chavez regime. It's past time for the United States to take real steps to stop this growing threat in our backyard."  Mack is right: Venezuelans need far more than tepid, hollow words (however well paid they are)….such as ‘we find it worrying that Chavez is killing his own people.’ Worried was an appropriate response in 1999. In 2007, we no longer approve the enabling passivity of merely being worried for the dead, the maimed, the fleeing refugees, the victims of tyranny in the three dying nations (Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela) under the Chavez self enrichment plan for criminals and neo-communists. Congressman Mack calls the situation in Venezuela “dire.” Indeed it is.

Dire is a nation where no rule of law exists. Dire is what Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador are today.

Barely one month after 9-11, Fred Thompson himself rose on the floor of the United States Senate [see Senate Record, S10959] to promote rule of law in Ecuador on behalf of  what he and senior Senator Mitch McConnell approved for full, legal support from the U.S. government in a comprehensive, anti corruption reform plan. Publicly Thompson voiced his intention that full support [funding] be delivered for the Hacia la Seguridad project to “promote bureaucratic and judicial accountability, effective governance and law enforcement, and improved access to justice…” Senator McConnell stated that this would “promote stability and democracy in the Andean region.”

Although anti rule of law efforts aligned with the anti-rule of law/alternative democracy, Soros-enhanced actors moved swiftly to seize the U.S. lawful support for anti-corruption reforms in Ecuador to enshrine instability and deliver foolish “training camps” for effective protesting, it remains that had Thompson and McConnell’s intentions seen the legitimacy of their acts, freedom’s backbone- rule of law- may not be shot in the back as is the case today.  Perhaps we will remember this when those who Cry Freedom wonder how we got to this place. And maybe, just maybe, with the very folks who refused to stand to support Thompson and McConnell on that day in October 2001, having departed the U.S. government, some say,….Roger Noriega to the Mitt Romney campaign and as self described lobbyist for the Correa criminal regime, plus his comrade Adolfo Franco to the John McCain campaign, maybe Thompson’s legitimacies will no longer be denied and intent achieved. Certainly this is warranted as the situation is indeed dire. Fred Thompson and Mitch McConnell’s principled position is as fresh and as warranted today- and as legitimate- as when they were first uttered on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
Cry freedom and cry for legitimacy as well.

Today in Ecuador, Rafael Correa is actively barring freedom of expression. Hugo Chavez’s ambassador to Ecuador has demanded a press shut down, publicly condemning the free press of Ecuador. To be sure, Correa must defend his own nation against Chavez’s illegitimate, freedom-ending dictates. Who cries for freedom in Ecuador?

- - Pedro Camargo for ECrisis