Franklin Brito….another victim of Oliver Stone’s ego

Today this blog would like to tell you about Franklin Brito, someone whose name most of you will almost certainly have never heard.

For those who are unfamiliar with Brito’s story, he had a productive livestock farm in Venezuela until a certain Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías decided to “expropriate” it, declaring property rights to be at an end at that henceforth, “all Venezuelan land (would) belong to the people.”

Brito tried to recover his property through the legal system, a herculean task in Latin America generally and all but impossible in Venezuela, where matters of right have been settled at the whim of the regime for years. He was unable to get an explanation, let alone a hearing.  So, in desperation, Brito resorted to a  hunger strike, which until yesterday had lasted nine months. I say until yesterday because that’s when his body and spirit gave up the unequal struggle for justice.

Franklin Brito

The poor fellow really should have known better than to expect a dictator to pay the slightest attention to a hunger-striker. No doubt we’ll be hearing more weasel words about “bandits” today from Mr Chávez’s friend, President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who, as the crocodile tears cascade down his cheeks like the Iguaçu Falls, will doubtless also be fielding further awkward questions about his Workers Party’s support of the FARC in Colombia.

This blog would be particularly intrigued to know the thoughts of Noam Chomsky, John Pilger Sean Penn and Oliver Stone, four men who would no sooner live in Chávez’s Venezuela than they would on Jupiter (but are quite happy, it seems, for others to do so) on this most Latin American of outrages.

Brazil has a presidential election in October. It will probably come as no surprise to anyone with more than two functioning synapses that Lula’s anointed successor is Dilma Roussef….

Before....after....

You got that, right? Sean Penn thinks people who refer to Chávez as a dictator should be jailed.

*UPDATE*

No prizes for guessing whose side the MercoPress Agency is on in the Brazilian election….

José Serra

Guess who said, “The internet cannot be something free, where anything can be done or said.”

So who do you reckon? Some right wing fascist despot like….erm….George W Bush? Benjamin Netanyahu? Margaret Thatcher? Nigel Farage? Álvaro Uribe?

An easy mistake to make, I agree, but no. It was everyone’s favourite champion of democracy and freedom (it says here), El Comandante himself, Hugo Chávez, the saviour of Venezuela, sorry, Latin America sorry, the world.

According to an article published today in Rio de Janeiro’s O Globo….

Chavez wants to restrict Internet and cable TV

After censoring 34 radio stations in 2009 – with 29 more at risk of losing their public concessions this year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, called this weekend for restrictions on the internet. On Saturday night, he asked the country’s Attorney General and chairman of the Venezuela Telecommunications Commission, Diosdado Cabello, to take legal action against the Noticiero Digital site, which is supposed to have disclosed false information. He also demanded more control over the internet and said that the dissemination of false news was “a crime”.

“The Internet cannot something be free where anything can be done or said,” Chavez said in a televised speech (doubtless another of his seven hour Sunday harangue-athons – Ed.), referring to texts run on the site, according to which two of his political allies have been killed. “No, each country must be able to have their rules and regulations.”

Site sees threat to freedom of expression

Referring to cable channels, Chavez said:

“They can’t convey what they want, poisoning the minds of so many people. Regulation, regulation, laws!”

Noticiero Digital, a popular news channel which publishes critical comments on Venezuela, yesterday accused the Venezuelan president of extending its persecution of the independent media. ”This indictment is a serious threat to freedom of expression,” said a statement on the site.

The site’s management, however, claimed that the texts cited by Chavez contained “false rumors” and said it was “taking steps to ensure that this situation does not recur.”

The articles were deleted hours after going online.

In recent weeks, Chávez and his allies have harshly criticized social networks like Twitter and Facebook, which they said was used by rivals to defame public officials and deceive the public.

Comments on this latest kick in the nuts for democracy from John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Mark Weisbrot and Tariq Ali were, as ever, conspicuous by their absence.

Sure he's an authoritarian megalomaniac, but he hates America....

Hat tip to the estimable Cristina Camargo and Instituto Millenium, an organisation I heartily commend to anyone who understands and cares about Latin America.

Lula and the cornered Caudillos

It’s been a busy few days for Brazil’s peripatetic President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Last week he was in Cuba for a cozy chat with the Hermanos Castro, and this week he attended the Latin American Summit in Cancún, on which occasion President Felipe Calderón of Mexico gave him this glowing reference….

President Lula is the undisputed leader of our region. He gives balance and strength to Latin America.

Robert Ménard, Secretary-General, Reporters Without Borders clearly shares Calderón’s high expectations of Lula….

Dear Mr. President,

On the eve of your visit to Cuba, the press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders would like to draw your attention to the lack of press freedom in that country. As you know, 75 dissidents were arrested during the crackdown which the Cuban government began on 18 March. They included 26 independent journalists. Accused of carrying out actions “against the independence or territorial unity of the state,” they were given summary trials and sentenced to up to 27 years in prison. Four other journalists were already in prison prior to the crackdown. With a total of 30 detained, Cuba is the world’s biggest prison for journalists.

Meanwhile, on the very day of Lula’s arrival in Havana, the emaciated corpse of hunger striker, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a bricklayer and plumber sentenced to 36 years (later “reduced” to 25) for the crime of calling for democracy on the island, was on its way to the cemetery. On February 18th, although Zapata was close to death, the dissident Cuban economist, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, had attempted to deliver a letter to Lula via the Brazilian Embassy in Havana, asking him to intercede on his behalf with the brothers Castro. He was bluntly informed that it is not embassy policy to receive Cuban dissidents.

Lula’s response to Zapata’s death was typically mealy-mouthed….

If they are dissidents of Cuba and now want to be dissidents of Lula I see no problem. People need to stop writing letters, keep(ing) them to themselves and then saying they sent them to other(s).

Someone would only be able to say that he sent a letter to the president if the letter was filed and recorded. Actually I didn’t get any letter. If someone had asked me to talk I would have talked. We do not refuse to talk.

We have to regret, as a human being, someone who has died, who decided to go on a hunger strike, which you know I’m against because I’ve done it myself.

Gimme five, Chefe Máximo!

Welcoming a beaming Lula, Raúl Castro didn’t point the finger at the recently deceased. No, the target of his revolutionary ire was, guess who? The United States.

The Cuban leader said Zapata’s death is “the result of the relationship with the United States” and said there’s no torture in the island. Torture, he stated, is practiced in Guantanamo by the Americans.

“We are very sorry,” said Raúl. “He was sentenced to three years (three?) and had problems in prison. He was taken to our best hospitals, but died. We are very sorry” he said. “This is due to the confrontation we have with the US, we have lost thousands of Cubans.”

Later, in an interview with Brazilian news weekly, Veja, Chepe said….

I thought that Lula, having been unjustly imprisoned himself would have shown some solidarity. His reaction was a surprise to everyone.

Now wouldn’t that have been a triumph of hope over experience?

Comments on the affair from Castro cheerleaders, John Pilger and Noam Chomsky….

….have so far been in short supply.

In a move that will surely gladden the hearts of Messrs. Calderón and Ménard still further, Lula will be dropping in on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in May.

 

Laughing all the way to the Lubyanka

As Brazil enters the final year of Luis Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidency and October’s election looms closer, his Workers Party (PT) administration is frantically abandoning the centrist mixed economy policies that have stood the country in such good stead for the last eight years, and lurching alarmingly to the left.

Two clear examples of this have emerged in the last ten days….

First, hearty congratulations are due to Luiz Carlos Prestes Ribeiro Filho, son of the Brazilian communist guerrilla leader, Luis Carlos Prestes, who led a column of 2,000 men in an attempt to overthrow the República Velha in the 1920s. The Justice Ministry’s Amnesty Commission has awarded him compensation to the tune of R$100,000 ($55,000) for the persecution he suffered during the military dictatorship between 1964 and 1984, when he was forced into exile in the Soviet Union.

Prestes - laughing all the way to the Lubyanka

Strange. One would have thought that growing up in the type of workers’ paradise that his father wished to impose in Brazil, and supported by the authors of the calamitous third National Human Rights Programme (PNDH3) (an untypically lazy piece by The Economist with some illuminating comments), would be recompense enough for his exile.

The most disturbing aspect of PNDH3, however, is not the repealing of the Lei da Anistia (Amnesty Law), but the populist, authoritarian attacks on property and free speech contained within it….

The Decree not only wants to create a “commission of truth” to discuss past crimes, but it aims also at advancing a left wing agenda comprising violation of the property rights, restrictions on freedom of speech, enlargement of the powers of the executive branch, intervention in the markets and so on, in a Venezuelan and Cuban style. Not only the military, but also the civil society is repealing (sic) it.

The Economist should had (sic) gotten more information on the Decree before taking side on this issue.

Talking of which, how’s it going in Caracas these days?

Never let it be said that He’s Spartacus shies away from tackling the serious issues in life head on.

I invested in a new rug yesterday. I regret to report, however, that I got it home and discovered it is just wrong on every conceivable level. It would, I have decided, suit the apartment of a homosexual drug dealer.

Ah well, I shall just have to heave a sigh of resignation and return to the interior design drawing board.

Coincidentally, the chap who lives across the landing from me actually is a real life, walking, talking, gay drug dealer. Very nice man, despite the fact that he appears to believe shirts are an unnecessary encumbrance, who takes tremendous care of his dogs. People like that are the very bedrock of the community.

I’m considering selling him the rug, although I find myself on the horns of a dilemma in this regard….

Do I just offer it to him without further comment or do I suggest that it is the perfect adornment to any gay drug dealer’s home?

English as she is spiked

I had occasion yesterday to visit one of Copacabana’s most celebrated beachfront eateries for lunch. It is so celebrated, in fact, that I have absolutely no idea what it’s called, which doesn’t matter in the slightest as I shan’t be returning there any time soon.

Aside from the food being borderline inedible and the service that time-honoured Rio combination of studied  indifference and chronic disorganisation, what really caught my eye about this establishment was the sheer artistry and imagination that the proprietor had put into the signage. I mean in all conscience, how could I resist the mouthwatering proposal, winking seductively at me from the lightbox hanging from a chain in the window, that I dine on “Chicken Ass Barbecue”?

Now to the untrained eye, this may seem rather baffling, but it really isn’t. The answer was simple, I concluded; the owner had taken the word, asas, meaning wings, and….erm….winged it.

As regards the culinary motorway pile up that was my lunch, I am reminded of Bill Bryson, who suggested in one of his books that you should never eat in restaurants that display their menus in pictures. He may very well have a point. Such enticements should be the sole preserve of food halls in giant out of town shopping centres, the sort of place you visit on some devil may care whim, fully cognisant of the risk, and warmly embracing the bewilderment that accompanies the arrival of a dish that looked completely different in the photo.

Returning to the language question for a moment though, it would be churlish to suggest for a second that putting foreign languages through the mangler is the sole preserve of the Brazilians. I have plenty of British colleagues and friends, who have been here for years, for whom a Portuguese phrase is a verbal and grammatical endurance test, which they fail with depressing regularity.

I’m sure the Brazilians laugh at us plenty. Which is absolutely fine.