VenEconomy: Are the Golden Days of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution over Yet? From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune November 13, 2015
Recent events would seem to indicate that the golden days of the Bolivarian revolution of the 21st century are over. Also that the credibility and support to the government of Nicolás Maduro has fallen not only in Venezuela, but at international level as well. Maduro has not been able to handle Venezuela’s communist revolution with success as once did Hugo Chávez.
The Maduro government received several blows this week at different international forums. This when it was barely recovering from a death blow given by the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, in a public letter sent to one of the directors of the National Electoral Council (CNE), Tibisay Lucena, where with solid arguments proved that there are valid reasons "to believe that voting conditions for the people at transparency and electoral justice level in a parliamentary election to be held on December 6 are not guaranteed at present."
Another death blow was received at the fourth Summit of South American-Arab Countries held in Riyadh. The Government learned there that Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies reiterated their refusal to create a mechanism for setting a "fair price" for crude oil. These countries, running contrary to the blindness of the Venezuelan government, persist in acting more intelligently to deal with the changing times in the oil market, and aim their strategies at keeping their markets and not strengthening oil prices.
The following blow came in Geneva on Thursday during a special meeting of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), organized at the request of the Venezuelan government and that this body accepted "as a courtesy." It turns out that before Maduro could make his intervention with the usual mumbo-jumbo on the constant harassment from the "American empire," and "the misuse and manipulation of human rights occidentally conceived for trying to isolate Venezuela and protect those who want to destroy it," the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, jumped the gun and landed another painful blow.
Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein said in a teleconference from New York, which was broadcast before the HRC, that "The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Human Rights Committee, as well as my own office, have expressed serious concerns about the independence of the judiciary in Venezuela, the impartiality of judges and prosecutors and the pressures faced when it comes to politically sensitive cases." As an example he mentioned the cases of María Luisa Afiuni (a former judge of the Supreme Court of Justice) and that of opposition leader Leopoldo López, as well as Venezuelan government harassment against journalists, human rights defenders and attorneys. Additionally he urged Maduro to "comply with the recommendations made by these international human rights mechanisms and ensure that these people are not subject to any kind of pressure in the performance of your important work," and also requested him to ratify the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, which had been denounced by the late Hugo Chávez on January 25 of 2010.
On top of that, Ra’ad Al-Hussein reminded Maduro that being a member of the HRC "brings with it the responsibility to promote and protect human rights in your own country, as well as on the world stage." This reminder is relevant because the only thing Maduro has done is take the vote, given by the satellite-governments of the Bolivarian revolution for his re-election as a member of the HRC, as a "moral support" to a regime that demonstrably violates human rights.
Among other blows that will hurt for a long time are: 1.A report presented this week at the 325th meeting of the Board of Directors of the International Labor Organization (ILO), documenting the failure of the Venezuelan Government to all the recommendations made by various monitoring bodies of this tripartite organization and the constant violation of international conventions ratified by Venezuela. 2.The investigations being carried out by the U.S. of senior officials of the Venezuelan government over drug trafficking, in which people close to the presidential family have been arrested already in a sting operation.
Will Maduro be able to handle the situation? Will it get out of hand?
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