Fabricated State Department Report on Venezuela
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)
On March 13, the State Department (SD below) released its latest human rights reports on world community nations – omitting coverage of the abysmal US record, the world’s worst by far.
Reports on US adversaries feature a litany of misinformation, disinformation, Big Lies and fake news. US imperial partners got sanitized coverage.
Venezuela was wrongfully called “authoritarian,” ignoring its preeminent social democracy, the region’s best, polar opposite the sham US system, the best “democracy” money can buy, the real thing nonexistent.
SD: May 20, 2018 “presidential elections…were neither free nor fair…Maduro…re-elected through this deeply flawed political process.”
Fact: Since Hugo Chavez’s December 1998 election as Venezuela’s president, independent international monitors judged all Bolivarian elections scrupulously open, free and fair – why Jimmy Carter once called its process “the best in the world.”
SD: “The executive branch…used its control over the Supreme Court to weaken the National Assembly’s constitutional role to legislate, ignore the separation of powers, and enable the president to govern through a series of emergency decrees.”
Fact: Venezuela’s Supreme Court ruled National Assembly actions null and void for illegally seating three members accused of electoral fraud.
Maduro scrupulously observes Venezuelan and international law. Elected by national referendum judged open, free, and fair, the nation’s Constituent Assembly was formed to revise and update the Constitution, aiming as well to restore order and serve all Venezuelans equitably.
Article 349 of Venezuela’s constitution states no other power can “in any way impede the decisions of the National Constituent Assembly” – not the president, National Assembly legislators and Supreme Court justices. Maduro does not rule by “emergency” or other decrees! SD claiming otherwise is a bald-faced Big Lie.
SD: “Human rights issues included extrajudicial killings by security forces (sic)…torture by security forces (sic); harsh and life-threatening prison conditions (sic); and political prisoners (sic).”
“The government restricted free expression and the press by routinely blocking signals (sic), and interfering with the operations of, or shutting down, privately owned television, radio, and other media outlets (sic).
“Libel, incitement, and inaccurate reporting were subject to criminal sanctions (sic). The government used violence to repress peaceful demonstrations (sic).”
“Other issues included restrictions on political participation in the form of presidential elections in May that were not free or fair (sic); pervasive corruption and impunity among all security forces and in other national and state government offices, including at the highest levels (sic); trafficking in persons (sic); and the worst forms of child labor, which the government made minimal efforts to eliminate (sic).”
Fact: All the above are bald-faced Big Lies and deception. They reflect how the US and its imperial partners operate worldwide, not Venezuela.
The Bolivarian Republic never attacked or threatened another nation – what the US and its allies do repeatedly.
Venezuela uses most of its wealth to provide social services for all its people, especially those most in need, its efforts greatly constrained by US war by other means and low oil prices, energy exports providing 90% of the nation’s revenues.
Social justice in the US is fast eroding. Republicans and undemocratic Dems want it eliminated altogether. The nation’s discretionary income goes largely for militarism, imperial wars, and corporate handouts.
Venezuelans are automatically enfranchised at birth, its electoral system by far the world’s best – polar opposite US money-controlled fantasy democracy, elections farcical when held.
The US considers Venezuela a threat of a good example it wants prevented from spreading regionally and elsewhere. It wants control gained over its valued oil and other resources, its people exploited as serfs, impoverished the way they were pre-Chavez.
The SD lied claiming Bolivarian Republic involvement in “arbitrary deprivation of life and unlawful or politically motivated killings.”
It lied accusing its government of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment – all of the above US, NATO, and Israeli specialties.
It lied claiming prison conditions are “life-threatening” – how the US global gulag system operates.
It lied accusing Maduro of arbitrary arrests and detentions. It lied about Venezuela’s security system.
It lied claiming fair public trials are denied, what’s commonplace in the US – the gross mistreatment of Chelsea Manning and other courageous whistleblowers glaring examples of egregious injustice.
In the US gulag prison system worldwide, countless thousands are imprisoned, tortured, and otherwise abused for political reasons. In Venezuela, criminals are imprisoned for lawbreaking, not government opponents for ideological reasons.
The US flagrantly breaches international, constitutional and statute laws. Venezuela operates by a higher standard.
In America, speech, media, and academic freedoms are fast eroding, censorship the new normal – including by Facebook, Twitter, other social media, and gatekeeper Google in cahoots with Washington.
In Venezuela, everyone can speak freely on all topics, including online, in classrooms, and in public remarks, their rights protected, lawbreakers alone punished. SD lied claiming otherwise.
Venezuelans can freely assemble and protest peacefully, perpetrators of violence and other lawbreakers punished. They have freedom of association.
These and other rights in the US are eroding en route to disappearing altogether, police state rule replacing them.
SD: Venezuela’s “1999 constitution…provides citizens the ability to change their government through free and fair elections, but government interference (sic), electoral irregularities (sic), and manipulation of voters and candidates (sic) restricted the exercise of this right in the May 20 presidential elections (sic).”
The above claims are bald-faced Big Lies. International election monitors debunked them.
Under the Clinton co-presidency, Bush/Cheney, Obama and Trump, US governance has been and continues to be repressive and secretive. In Venezuela, things are polar opposite, what democracy is supposed to be.
No government trafficking of persons occurs in Venezuela, no state-allowed sexual abuse, no femicide tolerated, no discrimination allowed by race, gender, religion, or in any other ways – commonplace abuses in the US against people of color, unwanted aliens, and Muslims from the wrong countries.
Worker rights in Venezuela are protected. In America, they’re disappearing altogether, corporate interests served exclusively.
Before Republicans and undemocratic Dems waged war on Venezuela by other means, things greatly escalated by Trump hardliners, poverty was largely eradicated in the country.
All Venezuelans had high-quality social benefits ordinary Americans can’t imagine, including universal healthcare and education to the highest levels, along with housing assistance, subsidized food and much more.
The US bears full responsibility for hard times affecting the country, exacerbated by low oil prices.
World community support for US hands off Venezuela is the way to turn things around, restoring normality to the country – supporting the rule of law, not allying with the Trump regime against it.
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