12.24.2004
How Uncle Santa Diddles Dems from Ukraine to Venezuela (Truthout.org)
How Uncle Santa Diddles Dems from Ukraine to Venezuela
By Steve Weissman
Friday 24 December 2004
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122404A.shtml
Author's Note: In last week's "Uncle Santa and Ukraine's Orange-Colored Elves" I tried to show how both Russia and the United States were interfering in Ukrainian political life. The column ended by asking: "Should we support the meddling we like? Or do we need to oppose and expose it all?" Reader response continues to overwhelm me and my feeble effort to reply personally. The vast majority who took the time to write clearly oppose and want to expose all foreign intervention. But many impassioned emails came from those who desperately want the United States to meddle - though only on behalf of democracy. Especially for those readers, I offer this cautionary tale.
Friday, 24 December 2004
The coup came on April 11, 2002, when Venezuelan military forces overthrew the democratically elected president, Hugo Chavez. As many as 100 people died in the clash, which included mysterious sniper attacks on individual civilians.
The brass arrested Chavez, a former paratrooper, and installed in the Presidential Palace the well-established Pedro Carmona, a wealthy oil executive and head of Fedecámaras, the national Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Quickly disbanding parliament, the Supreme Court and other government bodies, Carmona revoked dozens of his predecessor's reforms, including a law that redistributed unused farmland to poor, landless peasants.
Carmona also broke ranks with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and set out to increase Venezuela's oil production for export to the United States.
He was in charge, Carmona told the world. Chavez had "resigned."
This was neither the first lie about the coup, nor the last.
(More ... t r u t h o u t - Steve Weissman | How Uncle Santa Diddles Dems from Ukraine to Venezuela) ¶ 21:11
By Steve Weissman
Friday 24 December 2004
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/122404A.shtml
Author's Note: In last week's "Uncle Santa and Ukraine's Orange-Colored Elves" I tried to show how both Russia and the United States were interfering in Ukrainian political life. The column ended by asking: "Should we support the meddling we like? Or do we need to oppose and expose it all?" Reader response continues to overwhelm me and my feeble effort to reply personally. The vast majority who took the time to write clearly oppose and want to expose all foreign intervention. But many impassioned emails came from those who desperately want the United States to meddle - though only on behalf of democracy. Especially for those readers, I offer this cautionary tale.
Friday, 24 December 2004
The coup came on April 11, 2002, when Venezuelan military forces overthrew the democratically elected president, Hugo Chavez. As many as 100 people died in the clash, which included mysterious sniper attacks on individual civilians.
The brass arrested Chavez, a former paratrooper, and installed in the Presidential Palace the well-established Pedro Carmona, a wealthy oil executive and head of Fedecámaras, the national Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Quickly disbanding parliament, the Supreme Court and other government bodies, Carmona revoked dozens of his predecessor's reforms, including a law that redistributed unused farmland to poor, landless peasants.
Carmona also broke ranks with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and set out to increase Venezuela's oil production for export to the United States.
He was in charge, Carmona told the world. Chavez had "resigned."
This was neither the first lie about the coup, nor the last.
(More ... t r u t h o u t - Steve Weissman | How Uncle Santa Diddles Dems from Ukraine to Venezuela) ¶ 21:11
