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Entrevistas: Recipient of the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty |
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Yon Goicoechea's Biography
Recipient of the 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing LibertyYon Goicoechea Lara is a pivotal force behind Venezuela's non-violent pro-democracy Student Movement. The 23-year-old Venezuelan law student is a passionate opponent of the erosion of human and civil rights under the government of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, and an organizer of massive student marches that have captured the world's attention.
The tense environment in Venezuela has come under greater scrutiny as media outlets critical of the government have been shut down or silenced and dozens of protesting students have been imprisoned. Despite death threats to him and his family, 23-year-old Goicoechea remains fully committed to securing basic freedoms in his homeland.
Through non-violent marches and petitions to the government, he advocates for the constitutionally guaranteed liberties of the right to peaceful protest, freedom of the press, and the right to be free from politically motivated violence. All of these rights are threatened in Venezuela today.
Goicoechea emerged as a national figure in Venezuela in early 2007 through his leadership of the student movement response to the government-ordered closure of Radio Caracas Television. In a dramatic appearance before the National Assembly in June 2007, and through petitions to the government and legislature, he helped expose the increasing civil rights violations taking place throughout the country.
Throughout 2007, he organized more than 40 student movement protest marches, averaging 80,000 people each. These mass demonstrations focused global attention on the threats to civil liberties in Venezuela.
In the afternoon of December 2, 2007, before the widely expected victory of the "Yes" vote on the constitutional reform that would have given the Venezuelan president sweeping dictatorial powers, Goicoechea appeared on live national television and inspired all those who fought in favor of democracy. With a confident smile he declared:
"The challenge for the next hour is to prove with facts the democratic conviction of the Venezuelan people.... We reject the rumors that aim to demobilize our people in the polling stations. There are many reasons to stay at the polling stations! To pick up the official returns, to fight for the votes, and to stay until the end of this electoral process!"
The student movement, through its marches and monitoring of the polling stations, has been credited with defeating the proposed constitutional reform. After the victory of the "No" vote, Goicoechea announced:
"Today the possibility of a better Venezuela has won... We want to tell all Venezuelans, to those who voted 'YES', to those who support the President, that we are celebrating here with humility, and that we dedicate this triumph to you. This victory is the victory of the Venezuelan people that today defended their freedoms, but above all it's the victory of the future and of the immense possibilities we have of building a country together."
Prior to his leadership role within the Venezuelan student movement, Goicoechea was committed to a number of public service organizations and activities; serving as a volunteer to organizations that provide legal assistance to residents of poor areas, providing health care for sick children, and conducting social work inside prisons. Goicoechea is currently completing his law degree at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, where he is near the top of his class and has held various student government positions.
Yon Goicoechea is the 2008 recipient of the Cato Institute's Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, the leading international award for significant contributions to advancing individual liberty.
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US Senate: An influential Democrat's offer to help a congressional challenger from Miami ha |
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An influential Democrat's offer to help a congressional challenger from Miami has sparked a storm in South Florida.
Posted on Fri, Apr. 11, 2008
BY LESLEY CLARK AND BETH REINHARD
A powerful New York politician's participation in a South Florida congressional race is riling some Latin Americans in Miami who see him as a friend to their biggest enemies: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.
U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel is billed as a ''special guest'' at an April 21 fundraiser in New York City for Democrat Joe Garcia, who is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.
MET WITH CASTRO
Rangel has met several times with Castro and he advocates lifting the trade embargo and travel restrictions aimed at squeezing Cuba's communist regime, arguing the Cuban people are being cut off from democracy. And in 2006, he touted a program to distribute discounted fuel from Citgo -- owned by the Chávez government -- to poor New York City residents.
On Thursday, those stances prompted the Independent Venezuelan American Citizens and 18 graduates of Garcia's old high school in Miami -- several with Republican ties -- to call on him to ''renounce'' Rangel's support. Outraged Cuban Americans have also been blasting the two men's connection on Spanish-language radio and blogs.
''We want to alert Joe that he's making a mistake,'' said Ernesto Ackerman, president of the non-partisan Venezuelan group. ``If you're in a community with a majority of Latin Americans, you have to think about who your allies are going to be.''
Garcia, who is Cuban-American, says he has ''profound disagreements'' with Rangel on foreign policy, but notes that Rangel, who chairs the influential House Waysand Means Committee, could be a key ally in securing federal dollars for the district.
''My job in Congress will be to represent Florida's 25th congressional district -- the most poorly federally funded district in Florida -- on revitalizing our economy, bringing better jobs to our community, improving education for our children and providing tax relief for middle-class families,'' Garcia said in a statement. 'My history of fighting on behalf of human rights in Cuba and Latin America exceeds my opponent's limited `one-note' accomplishments.''
One of Garcia's fellow graduates from Belen Jesuit Preparatory School who signed the letter condemning Rangel, Republican state Rep. Marcelo Llorente of Miami, acknowledged Rangel's clout, but said he's ''really out of step'' with the community.
A Rangel spokesman, Emile Milne, said the congressman is no friend to Castro and Chávez, pointing out that Rangel strongly denounced the Venezuelan president when Chávez called President Bush ''the devil'' at a 2006 speech at the United Nations. ''You don't come into my country; you don't come into my congressional district and you don't condemn my president,'' Rangel declared at the time.
RESPONSE
Democracy for America, a Democratic political action committee, is trying to leverage the controversy over Rangel's involvement in the race in a fundraising appeal on behalf of Garcia. A spokesman for Diaz-Balart has called Rangel a ``left-wing extremist.''
''No one has ever accused Rep. Diaz-Balart of being an effective congressman, but his new attack on Joe Garcia shows what an empty suit he is,'' said Daniel Medress, Democracy for America's spokesman.
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Support from Mr Charles Rangel to Joe Garcia/IVAC |
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With great regret the members of the Independent Venezuelan American Citizens find out this week of the decision made by congress’s member Charles Rangel of the state of New York, to support the Democrat Candidate Mr. Joe García, currently running for the camera of Representatives.
Ivac wishes to send a message to Mr. García and in turn to his Campaign committee, in his district reside a great percentage of Latin Americans that have suffered for years the indignity of a social damaging and very harmful wave especially for our hemisphere, of a so called twenty first century socialism revolution, lead by the Venezuelan Dictator Mr. Hugo Chavez and his chain of marionettes who are big links of the Congress member Mr. Charles Rangel.
Congressman Charles Rangel of the state of New York, with the simple approach of meeting with the Mr. Fidel Castro (the president of Communist Cuba for the last 49 years), only raises the questions of his leftist and communist tendencies that are very divergent to the Democratic ideas of the great majority of residents that share the free land of the United States.
You may also want to forecast the possible negative consequences of any contributions from congressman Rangel to your campaign since he has an open relation with CITGO, and now mostly due to the recent events regarding the detention of individuals at several international airports, for carrying suitcases with excessive amounts of us currency entering the United States illegally and without any accountability of their origins the so called “Maletinazos”
Its Individuals like the Mr. Charles Rangel, that should exercise the experience of living in countries that they consider true Paradises, such as Cuba or Venezuela, where freedom of expression its only a concept used and practiced when describing the United States as the capitalistic demon of the world.
It is for this reasons that the members of the Independent Venezuelan American Citizens recommend that Mr. Joe García renounce the support of the Mr. Charles Rangel along with his influence towards the left, since far from helping, it may harm his campaign immensely.
Independent Venezuelan American Citizens
www.ivac.org
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Enviado por ceo el Thursday, 10 April a las 15:12:39 (19 Lecturas)
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Venezuelan Web radio struggles |
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Venezuelan Web radio struggles
A struggling Doral station keeps Venezuelans in their South American country informed about what's happening there as President Hugo Chávez cracks down on press freedoms.
Posted on Mon, Apr. 07, 2008
BY CASEY WOODS
Venezuelan Paul Sfeir, music producer and online radio pioneer, leans toward the computer screen in his Doral studio and points to the screaming headline on a blog that calls him a coup-plotter and an ``immoral bastard.''
''It's all lies,'' says Sfeir, the owner of Radionexx.com, an online radio station dedicated to challenging the leftist government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. ``I learned a long time ago not to pay attention to it.''
Right now Sfeir has more immediate enemies. Among them: the rent and the electricity bill. The station, on which thousands of Venezuelans depend, is struggling to survive.
With the Venezuelan government forcing opposition voices off the air and pressuring others into self-censorship, reliable information on events in the South American country can be hard to come by. Thousands depend on Sfeir's scrappy operation to pierce that news vacuum.
Listeners in Venezuela dial a local number that rings in the South Florida studios, providing an immediate outlet for local reports. During the student protests last fall, the Venezuelan government at times insisted there were no protests in smaller Venezuelan towns, but calls to the station from those places told a different story -- one of burning tires and dissent.
Sfeir and his wife started the station in their garage four years ago, eventually bankrolling its expansion to the small warehouse studio with more than $150,000 from the sale of the family's Doral home. Now the cash has run out.
Other fundraising attempts have failed. Because it is controversial, Venezuelan businesses inside the country will not advertise. U.S. foundations have turned down grant requests. Many of the Venezuelans living in South Florida fled their country's ideological controversies and left family behind and so they shy away from politics.
Without a cash infusion, the station will go dark within a few months.
''They want someone to take on Chávez but they don't want to do it themselves because they're terrified,'' said Sfeir, 42, a lanky man with a handlebar mustache and a quick laugh. ``Their fear makes them passive.''
Chávez has steadily squeezed press freedom, most dramatically with his refusal to renew the license of opposition television station RCTV last year -- effectively shutting down the nation's most popular channel. The move sparked massive student protests.
Chávez has since threatened the remaining opposition station, a 24-hour news channel called Globovisión that is generally only available to those with cable or a satellite antenna.
ALTERNATIVE VOICE
Chávez regularly takes over the private news outlets to broadcast political speeches -- a practice known as a cadena or chain. He has racked up 1,000 such hours since 1999.
During those cadenas, and in periods of high national drama, Radionexx's audience skyrockets. The Web traffic monitoring company Alexa reports that 97 percent of the station's listeners are in Venezuela.
On the day of the Dec. 2 referendum on Chávez's proposed constitutional reforms, Radionexx operated 24 hours straight, receiving 4,000 phone calls and eight million hits, Sfeir said.
''People in Venezuela turn to Radionexx in times of crisis,'' said Ernesto Ackermann, of the local activist group Independent Venezuelan American Citizens. ``All of us listen to Radionexx because it is the only way to know what is happening in Venezuela.''
With Venezuela passing through a relatively tranquil moment, the station draws about 3,500 listeners to its live daily shows, Sfeir said.
Human rights activist Patricia Andrade uses her weekly Behind Bars show to give updates on the cases she has filed before the Inter-America Court of Human Rights on behalf of some Venezuelan prisoners.
In the weeks before the December referendum, Johann Peña dedicated several of his Dossiers programs to a crash course in ``How to conspire against Chávez and survive the attempt.''
A former police officer in Venezuela, he taught listeners ways to foil surveillance attempts. He suggested chemicals that would help them overcome the effects of tear gas. He described how to send messages covertly by taping notes to park benches and tables.
REACHING OUT
The most popular program is Sfeir's own A Little Time With You evening show. The freewheeling affair ranges from the ruckus -- Sfeir and his co-hosts joking about Chávez's nursing habits as an infant -- to the serious, such as an interview with U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on her efforts to have the State Department declare the Venezuelan government a sponsor of terrorism.
The main attraction on Sfeir's program and others, however, are the calls from Venezuelans living there. Listeners complain about the violent crimes, the four hours they spent in line trying to buy milk or the arrest of a student protester they just witnessed. There are many regulars, with on-air nicknames such as ''Franky Boy,'' ''The Cousin,'' and the James Bond-esque ``Max 5.''
With people calling in from countries including Qatar, Spain and the United Kingdom, the station has also become a fragile link between the scattered branches of this newborn diaspora.
During a fundraising drive to buy school supplies for the children of prisoners, a woman called Andrade from Holland, frustrated that there was no way for her to easily donate from Europe.
With the affection Radionexx commands in Venezuela and abroad, Sfeir's frustration with its current financial plight is palpable.
''Everyone says we always are the best, we are the only station that is still truly free, that we are the voice of Venezuela,'' he said.
``They say they depend on us, but we need to be able to depend on them. We need their help.''
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Enviado por ceo el Monday, 07 April a las 15:50:11 (22 Lecturas)
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Obama Alienates Another Ally |
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April 2, 2008
Obama Alienates Another Ally
One humorous aspect of the Obama-Clinton contest is that both candidates claim that they will restore America's popularity in the world, while advocating policies that would damage, in some cases grievously, our relations with our best allies. One instance of this phenomenon is Barack Obama's opposition to the pending trade treaty with Colombia, a key American ally in South America. Today, Colombia's President, Alvaro Uribe, struck back:
Colombia's president sharply criticized U.S. presidential contender Barack Obama on Wednesday for opposing a trade deal with his country, calling the Democrat out of touch with the realities of the South American nation.
"I deplore the fact that Senator Obama, aspiring to be president of the United States, should be unaware of Colombia's efforts," President Alvaro Uribe said in a statement. "I think it is for political calculations that he is making a statement that does not correspond to Colombia's reality."
Of course, ignoring reality is one of Obama's specialties.
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Enviado por ceo el Thursday, 03 April a las 10:23:37 (22 Lecturas)
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Chavez says he doesn't have Political Prisoners, he lies as always!!! |
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Chavez says he doesn't have Political prisoners, he lies as always and Ivan Simonovis is one of them.
Today, March 20 2008, once again, I would like to speak to you, my country, through messages that must penetrate through isolated cells to be read. It has been 24 months since my trial began, and it has been 38 months since I was deprived of my freedom. I have feelings that overlap continuously: Anger and sadness, uncertainty and frustration, I feel I am in the middle of nowhere.
My friends and relatives say that I should be patient, that everything will eventually be settled. It is true that we often face challenges that test our patience and tolerance; however, there is a limit to everything, and I wonder: ¿How much longer will the lack of flexibility last? The government does not wish to give an inch; instead of showing a conciliatory attitude, the gap full of hate and revenge grows deeper and deeper.
At this point in time, when Venezuelan government officials ask for peace in Colombia, what is sown here is anger, unhappiness, suffering and, consequently, violence. As a matter of fact, there are over 14,000 homicides in this country a year.
I am a Venezuelan citizen, 48 years old, married, and I have two young children. I was a criminal investigator for 23 years at the PTJ (the judicial police), now called CICPC (Scientific and Criminal Investigation Unit). I received a number of awards and medals, and I had several positions at the institution, which is why I was sent in 2000 to work at the Caracas Mayor’s office as Security Chief for the whole of the metropolitan area. The purpose was to coordinate public safety policies, and today I am paying for that appointment. I have been found guilty for what I am, and not for what I supposedly did.
For this Administration, persecution and punishment have no limits, and they are carried out by the political branch, the General Attorney’s Office, which changes and distorts reality to convict anyone who the government wishes to accuse and condemn, including its own followers.
I was illegally arrested on November 22, 2004; I was not read my rights; I was taken to a military base in Barquisimeto, State of Lara, by force, and threatened with guns. They held me there incommunicado. They then transferred me again to an unknown destination until we reached the headquarters of the DISIP (Intelligence and Prevention Services Department) in Caracas. During that time they were able to create the necessary documents to "legalize and justify" my arrest.
The General Attorney’s Office has accused me of giving orders by radio; however, it has not been able to show any proof of that, simply because IT DOES NOT EXIST. In the meantime, time has been unforgiving. As unforgiving as the farce that has kept me behind bars. My life has been reduced to a 25-yard long, 5-feet wide, corridor, and a 6 x 6-feet cell. Everything around me is made of cement, without ventilation. I am only allowed to see daylight every 15 days. Everyone who is here breathes the same air that they exhale. I call this hallway the death corridor.
My case is no longer one based simply on the law. Rather, just as in the case of Vivas, Forero and the 8 Metropolitan Police officers, it is a milestone that reflects malpractice in the halls of power. It is the symbol, the icon, the example of the repression with which this government wishes to author all of its work. It represents the style of a madman, as are all world leaders who have become caught in their own perverse mental power trips.
In their thirst for revenge, they carried out the trial in the state of Aragua. They have been playing with our patience: Up to date we have traveled some 15,000 miles in handcuffs, that is, over 500 hours in one kind of vehicle or another. Often, we have arrived at the trial site, and the hearing simply does not happen, claiming one reason alter another. At the risk of sounding repetitive, I should stress that this has been the longest trial in history. The judge in charge is Dr. Marjorie Calderón; she has held 180 hearings in 24 months, i.e., over 1000 hours of hearing proceedings. Throughout this process, 175 witnesses have provided statements, 6,000 photographs have been submitted, over 15 hours of videos have been shown, 40 CICPC experts have reviewed over 250 pieces of evidence in different specialty areas, and they have all reached the same conclusion: There is absolutely NO relation between the Metropolitan Police officers and the events of April 11, and in particular, there was absolutely no involvement by me in these events.
My lawyers have availed themselves of all the possible remedies, within the framework of the law, to achieve some kind of positive result, including my provisional freedom while the trial continues, appeals, review of opinions, etc. The last request was that I be covered by the amnesty law of 31 December 2007, but everything has been rejected, the answer has always been ‘No’. However, the people who were detained after they were seen shooting from Puente Llaguno, were fully acquitted in a trial which lasted only 4 months; and those who were not indicted are now enjoying the amnesty decreed by the President.
I am not the only one who is a prisoner; so are my family, my wife and children. Both they and my home have been the subject of threats, robbery, attacks with Molotov bottles; these attacks were never investigated. I am powerless and desperate while I watch and see how my sentence has affected everyone around me; I have no other choice but to appeal to the goodwill of my neighbors, friends and relatives, who have built a circle of love, protection and trust that has helped us to continue along this cloudy road.
We cannot allow anger to put an end to happiness, we cannot allow evil to win, and suffering to continue because of these Machiavellian minds, ready to turn souls into a desert.
I will persist endlessly in my claims and my thoughts, I am a man of the law, and as such, I know that the foundation of democracy is justice, which is why I hope that sooner than later, Venezuela and its political prisoners will find freedom.
Ivan Simonovis
Sent from my Movistar BlackBerry
Translated by IVAC
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Enviado por ceo el Friday, 28 March a las 09:08:43 (29 Lecturas)
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