Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez holds a copy of the state-run English language newspaper.
CARACAS - Eva Golinger, the Venezuelan-American who serves as a prominent spokesperson for Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, has confirmed what human rights advocates and critics of the Venezuelan regime warned against late last year when Chavez passed a series of “organic laws” just before opposition lawmakers took their posts in the National Assembly.
In December 2010, after Chavez’s political party was routed in congressional elections, the autocratic president pushed through a series of laws while he still had only token opposition in the assembly. At the time, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States called the anti-democratic package of laws "extraordinarily grave," and the UN special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression said he “regretted the tenor of the laws.”
In December of 2010, Joel Hirst, International Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, analyzed and commented on the legislation:
“Several of the proposed laws being debated (and set to be approved before the January 5, 2011 swearing in of the new parliamentarians) affect the rights of individuals to receive information, organize, and participate politically. The new law in "Defense of Political Sovereignty and National Self-determination" forbids organizations and individuals that defend the political rights of Venezuelans from receiving foreign funding, having representation from non-Venezuelans, and even hosting individuals who express opinions that "offend the institutions of the state." These would include human rights organizations such as Amnesty International's Venezuelan chapter (among others). This law will be accompanied by the International Cooperation Law (included in the enabling law), which requires civil society organizations to re-register with the government, declare their plans and financing, and carry out work only in areas approved by the government and its national development plan.”
On Tuesday, August 16th, Eva Golinger appeared to confirm these allegations on August 16th via her Twitter account, saying:
“The Democratic Unity Committee (Chavez opposition group) violated the Law of Political Sovereignty and National Self-determination when it solicited/accepted financing from foreign agencies.”
Golinger followed that tweet with:
“The 2011 and 2012 budget of the United States for the OAS specifically says that part of the $48 million would be to finance groups in Venezuela.”
Golinger has become a favorite of Hugo Chavez since she began writing in support of his government in 2006, and became a very well paid operative after Venezuela and Cuba purchased 200,000 copies of her first book with state money and helped her to hold a book launch in Havana. Chavez later hired her to run an English language newspaper to help spread the regime’s political messaging internationally.
While the Venezuelan government denied that it would blacklist opposition candidates as it had done in earlier elections, neither Chavez nor his spokespersons have said whether they will utilize the controversial “organic laws” to disqualify opposition parties from challenging his rule in the 2012 presidential election, though Golinger’s pronouncements appear to indicate that the regime is considering plans to do so.
