Category Archives: Uncategorized
In the early 1990s, Indra was forced to flee her home country of Bhutan after her father had been imprisoned and tortured. “In prison they hung my father upside down and beat him. Then they hung him over chili smoke,” she explained. “After that they ordered him to leave the country with all his family. That very night myself and my family left our house and our country empty handed. There were many tears.” Soon thereafter, Indra and her family found themselves living in a refugee camp in neighboring Nepal. More than 80,000 people endured the same fate as Indra when the Bhutanese government forcibly expelled ethnic Nepalis in an act of ethnic cleansing. The resulting refugee crisis has gone largely unnoticed internationally while much greater focus has been placed on the Bhutanese government’s efforts to achieve Gross National Happiness in this tiny Himalayan kingdom that has been labeled the world’s last Shangri-La.
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Over the past thirty years, Human Rights Watch has become one of the most recognized non-governmental organizations in the world due to its global promotion of human rights. But despite its claims to be an advocate of international human rights law, the reports issued by Human Rights Watch have exhibited a bias towards certain rights over others. More precisely, Human Rights Watch repeatedly focuses on political and civil rights while ignoring social and economic rights. As a result, it routinely judges nations throughout the world in a manner that furthers capitalist values and discredits governments seeking socialist alternatives. It is this bias that lies at the root of Human Rights Watch’s scathing attacks on Venezuela, or what the organization’s executive director Ken Roth called, “the most abusive nation” in Latin America.
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Within hours of the death of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez last week, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued what is arguably the most insensitive statement ever released by one democratically-elected leader about the death of another. The core of the statement consisted of the following proverbial kick-in-the-teeth to the still-warm corpse of the Venezuelan president: “At this key juncture, I hope the people of Venezuela can now build for themselves a better, brighter future based on the principles of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights.” In short, Harper arrogantly bid good riddance to Chávez, not on behalf of Canada, but on behalf of the Venezuelan people. The prime minister’s comments stood in stark contrast to the ones he made when Nigeria’s President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua died in 2010, illustrating how Harper’s position is motivated more by ideology than any concern for democracy, freedom and human rights.
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Canada’s Liberal Party MP Jim Karygiannis is the latest to jump on the “demonize Venezuela” bandwagon. While professing to stand for democracy, Karygiannis’s call “to return democracy to Venezuela” exhibits a blatant disregard for the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans who hold their democracy in high regard. The Liberal MP’s outlandish declarations follow similar propaganda espoused over the past decade by other prominent North Americans such as former assistant secretary of state Otto Reich, former presidential candidate Pat Robertson, Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA director George Tenet. The ongoing campaign to demonize Venezuela’s socialist revolution not only stands in stark contrast to the reality on the ground in that South American nation, but also contradicts the many reports issued by the United Nations and other highly-regarded mainstream organizations. Continue reading
Comments Off on The Ongoing Campaign to Demonize Venezuela | tags: canada, carter, colin powell, democracy, hugo chavez, karygiannis, otto reich, socialism, united states, venezuela | posted in Uncategorized
The largest weapons manufacturer in the world is focusing more of its massive wealth and resources on addressing energy sustainability issues. As the top defence contractor in the United States, Lockheed Martin has pocketed billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars developing and manufacturing nuclear-capable Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, depleted uranium weapons systems, unmanned aerial drones, fighter jets, stealth bombers and literally hundreds of other forms of military weaponry and logistical support systems. In short, Lockheed Martin has achieved its place on Forbes’ Fortune 500 list by being in the business of war; or, more precisely, the business of death. So does the company’s growing interest in energy sustainability represent a desire to shift away from producing killing machines and towards protecting all life on the planet? Is it merely an attempt to create a positive environmental image? Or does it constitute a greening of warfare?
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Garry Leech 