Joe - El Grande ~ 1955 ~ 2011

Que tristeza la muerte de Joe Arroyo - crecí con su música y la llevo en mi corazón – uno de los mas grandes talentos latinoamericanos se nos fue. Gracias por la maravillosa música y las bellas memorias Joe. 

El Inolvidable Facundo Cabral - #FacundoVive

Asesinato de líder de tierras en San Onofre, Sucre

DENUNCIA PÚBLICA

Sábado 2 de julio de 2011

El Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado, rechaza y denuncia ante la opinión pública, nacional e internacional los recientes hechos acaecidos en el departamento de Sucre, y exige al gobierno nacional que brinde garantías serias y reales e inmediatas a la integridad física de las y los defensores de derechos humanos que valientemente promueven, defienden la tierra y exigen derechos de las víctimas de Crímenes de Estado.

Hechos
El día 30 de junio fue asesinado por desconocidos, el compañero ANTONIO MENDOZA MORALES, dirigente de Asociación de Desplazados de San Onofre y Los Montes de María, además de ser el único concejal del Polo Democrático en el departamento.

ANTONIO lideraba procesos de retorno de desplazados en tierras que habían sido despojadas por grupos armados y venían apoyando un proceso de exigibilidad de restitución de tierras ante las autoridades departamentales y municipales.

Este hecho se suma a un grave contexto de violencia y persecución, donde tan solo en el mes de junio ya son 5 (cinco) las agresiones contra dirigentes del MOVICE Capítulo Sucre.
Resaltamos la situación que padece en todo el país los y las líderes y comunidades que exigen restitución legítima de sus tierras, el gobierno y los organismos de control no han tenido una verdadera voluntad política para frenar los asesinatos, desplazamientos y amenazas que siguen padeciendo estas comunidades.

Exigimos que:
Se garantice la vida y la integridad física de las y los líderes y comunidades que defienden su derecho a la tierra en Sucre y a lo largo y ancho del país.

Se investiguen a fondo estos crímenes para garantizar la verdad, la justicia y la reparación y garantías para la no repetición.

Al gobierno nacional reactivar la interlocución con el Movimiento, según acuerdos establecidos con la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, quien ha dilatado este proceso de concertación y demostrado poca voluntad para el dialogo y la disposición de salvaguardar los derechos de las víctimas.
Garantías políticas inmediatas para quienes se encuentran en riesgo y amenaza por su condición de defensor(a) de derechos humanos, líderes y comunidades organizadas en pro de la defensa de sus derechos.

Ver documento
http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/IMG/pdf/asesinato_Antonio_Mendoza_30_junio___2011.pdf

Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for 'assault' on democracy

Noam Chomsky denounces old friend Hugo Chávez for 'assault' on democracy

Renowned American intellectual accuses the Venezuelan leader of concentrating too much power in his own hands

Rory Carroll in Caracas

The Observer Sunday 3 July 2011

Article history

Hugo Chávez rides a horse during his weekly broadcast to his country. (photo in original article - link above)  He has gone on television to call for judge María Lourdes Afiuni to be jailed. Photograph: Ho New/Reuters

Hugo Chávez has long considered Noam Chomsky one of his best friends in the west. He has basked in the renowned scholar's praise forVenezuela's socialist revolution and echoed his denunciations of US imperialism.

Venezuela's president, who hasrevealed that he has had surgery in Cuba to remove a cancerous tumour, turned one of Chomsky's books into an overnight bestseller after brandishing it during a UN speech. He hosted Chomsky in Caracas with smiles and pomp. Earlier this year Chávez even suggested Washington make Chomsky the US ambassador to Venezuela.

The president may be about to have second thoughts about that, because his favourite intellectual has now turned his guns on Chávez.

Speaking to the Observer last week, Chomsky has accused the socialist leader of amassing too much power and of making an "assault" on Venezuela's democracy.

"Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, such as fighting world war two, is an assault on democracy. You can debate whether [Venezuela's] circumstances require it: internal circumstances and the external threat of attack, that's a legitimate debate. But my own judgment in that debate is that it does not."

Chomsky, a linguistics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke on the eve of publishing an open letter (see below) that accuses Venezuela's authorities of "cruelty" in the case of a jailed judge.

The self-described libertarian socialist says the plight of María Lourdes Afiuni is a "glaring exception" in a time of worldwide cries for freedom. He urges Chávez to release her in "a gesture of clemency" for the sake of justice and human rights.

Chomsky reveals he has lobbied Venezuela's government behind the scenes since late last year after being approached by the Carr centre for human rights policy at Harvard University. Afiuni earned Chávez's ire in December 2009 by freeing Eligio Cedeño, a prominent banker facing corruption charges. Cedeño promptly fled the country.

In a televised broadcast the president, who had taken a close interest in the case, called the judge a criminal and demanded she be jailed for 30 years. "That judge has to pay for what she has done."

Afiuni, 47, a single mother with cancer, spent just over a year in jail, where she was assaulted by other prisoners. In January, authorities softened her confinement to house arrest pending trial for corruption, which she denies.

"Judge Afiuni has suffered enough," states Chomsky's letter. "She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free."

Amnesty International and the European parliament, among others, have condemned the judge's treatment but the intervention of a scholar considered a friend of the Bolivarian revolution, which is named after the hero of Venezuelan independence, Simón Bolívar, is likely to sting even more.

Speaking from his home in Boston, Chomsky said Chávez, who has been in power for 12 years, appeared to have intimidated the judicial system. "I'm sceptical that [Afiuni] could receive a fair trial. It's striking that, as far as I understand, other judges have not come out in support of her … that suggests an atmosphere of intimidation."

He also faulted Chávez for adopting enabling powers to circumvent the national assembly. "Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo [authoritarianism] and it has to be guarded against. Whether it's over too far in that direction in Venezuela I'm not sure, but I think perhaps it is. A trend has developed towards the centralisation of power in the executive which I don't think is a healthy development."

Chomsky expressed concern over Chávez's cancer and wished the president a full and prompt recovery.

Chomsky's book Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance became a publishing sensation after Chávez waved a copy during a UN address in 2006 famous for his denunciation of President George W Bush as a devil.

Its author remains fiercely critical of the US, which he said had tortured Bradley Manning, alleged source of the diplomatic cables exposed by WikiLeaks, and continued to wage a "vicious, unremitting" campaign against Venezuela.

The Chávez government deserved credit for sharply reducing poverty and for its policies of promoting self-governing communities and Latin American unity, Chomsky said. "It's hard to judge how successful they are, but if they are successful they would be seeds of a better world."

Leonardo Vivas, co-ordinator of Latin American initiatives at the Carr Centre, said that Afiuni's case was the most prominent example of the erosion of justice in several Latin American countries. The centre hoped that Caracas would now heed Chomsky.

"He is one of the most important public intellectuals in the US and is respected by the Venezuelan government."

The decision to lobby publicly was taken because quiet diplomacy had limits, said Vivas.

Chávez, who is convalescing in Cuba, has a reputation for lashing back at criticism, raising the risk that the Afiuni initative could backfire.

"That could happen," said Vivas. "But that would mean recognition of the problem."

Chomsky's letter
Judge María Lourdes Afiuni has suffered enough

With this public letter I want to express my open support of the liberty of judge María Lourdes Afiuni, detained in Venezuela since December 2009. In November of last year I was informed of her situation by the Latin American initiative of the Carr Centre for human rights policy at Harvard University. Ever since, I have been directly involved in mediation efforts with the Venezuelan government, with the purpose of releasing her from prison through a gesture of clemency by President Chávez.

Judge Afiuni had my sympathy and solidarity from the very beginning. The way she was detained, the inadequate conditions of her imprisonment, the degrading treatment she suffered in the Instituto Nacional de Orientación Femenina, the dramatic erosion of her health and the cruelty displayed against her, all duly documented, left me greatly worried about her physical and psychological wellbeing, as well as about her personal safety.

Those reasons motivated me in December 2010 to address, jointly with the Carr Centre, a petition for an official pardon from the president in the context of the yearly presidential amnesties.

In January I received with relief the news that Venezuela's attorney general had suggested house arrest for judge Afiuni given her fragile health condition, which ended up with emergency surgery. Being in her house with her family and with adequate medical attention has been without doubt a significant improvement of her situation.

However, judge Afiuni has suffered enough. She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free, not only due to her physical and psychological health conditions, but in conformance with the human dignity the Bolivarian revolution presents as a goal. In times of worldwide cries for freedom, the detention of María Lourdes Afiuni stands out as a glaring exception that should be remedied quickly, for the sake of justice and human rights generally and for affirming an honourable role for Venezuela in these struggles.

For the above reasons I want Venezuelans to be aware of my total solidarity with judge Afiuni, while I affirm my unwavering commitment with the efforts advanced by the Carr Centre in Harvard University to release her from imprisonment. At the same time, I shall keep high hopes that President Chávez will consider a humanitarian act that will end the judge's detention.


Chomsky habla sobre su carta abierta a Chávez

Margarita Rodríguez

BBC Mundo

BBC Mundo Articulo Relacionado – Español

Martes, 5 de julio de 2011

uede ser vista como una simple carta, pero en realidad es mucho más: el famoso lingüista y activista político Noam Chomsky publicó una misiva abierta al presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, en la que pide la liberación de la juez María Lourdes Afiuni, detenida en Caracas desde 2009.

Y es mucho más que una carta no sólo por el peso de los involucrados, sino porque Chomsky es considerado uno de los defensores de más renombre de los cambios impulsados por el mandatario venezolano. Aunque, como apunta el propio Chomsky, es algo que hace constantemente en defensa de los derechos humanos. Y no sólo ha ocurrido con Venezuela, sino con Irán y hasta con el propio Estados Unidos, su país de origen.

Luego de esto, el diario publicó en internet el texto íntegro de la Pero también va más allá, porque la carta ha generado su propia controversia mediática. Chomsky acusó esta semana al diario inglés The Guardian de haber publicado un artículo "deshonesto" y "engañoso" sobre el tema. El artículo en cuestión se titulaba "clicNoam Chomsky denuncia a su viejo amigo Hugo Chávez por 'asalto' contra la democracia".

clicentrevista en la que se basó el artículo.

...

Guardian Transcript of Original Article

Noam Chomsky on Venezuela – the transcript

The Guardian publishes a transcript of its interview with Noam Chomsky about Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and the Afiuni affair

Priests, plots … and Hugo Chávez

WikiLeaks cables have revealed that Catholic bishops played a key role in 2002's abortive military coup in Venezuela




Hugh O'Shaughnessy
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 June 2011 15.32 BST

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. It has been revealed that the country's bishops worked with rightwingers to topple the president in 2002. Photograph: Reuters

In 1997 Eamon Duffy, president of Magdalene College, Cambridge, brought out the best one-volume history of popes that has ever been written. He called it Saints & Sinners.


In the light of the latest news from Venezuela I would respectfully urge him to set about writing a companion volume about the leaders of the church in Latin America. I suggest that he calls it Saints, Traitors & Sinners.


The church in that region has of course produced some remarkable saints – some of them unrecognised in the upper reaches of the Vatican. Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador; the six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter slain by the western-supported Salvadorean army on the campus of the Central American University; the prelates and clergy killed by the repulsive military regime in Argentina and Cardinal Raúl Silva, archbishop of Santiago de Chile at the time of Pinochet's putsch, were and are among the brightest stars in the church's firmament.


Yet the clergy had – and still has – its villains.


Among the latest revelations to emerge from WikiLeaks is that, in 2002, as plotters in Venezuela's capital Caracas were liaising with the US authorities about the conspiracy to topple President Hugo Chávez, the leaders of the Catholic church in that country were defying the instruction of Pope John Paul II to desist from having anything to do with the coup d'état. Instead they threw their lot in with Pedro Carmona, the extremist rightwing businessman, who took office for less than 48 hours during a brief military coup in April 2002.


The cables reveal that Cardinal Antonio Ignacio Velasco, the Salesian archbishop of Caracas, was on hand to sign papers purporting to legitimise the ridiculous Carmona as he dismissed the congress and the judges, and briefly sent Venezuelan politics back into the dark ages. Happily, the genuine popularity of the legitimate head of state was such that the Carmona gang and their military accomplices were routed and Chávez was restored to power.


In doing what he did, Velasco, who died in 2003, and the majority of his fellow bishops, betrayed not just the papacy but their compatriots at the instance of a foreign power – in this case, the United States. This added to the prelates' marginalisation in Venezuelan life by the majority who, unsurprisingly, see them as firm upholders of the establishment in a major oil-producing country, where half of the population live below the poverty line.


Velasco and his successors are remembered now as part of the camarilla that opposed the reform programme of the Chávez government, which, in the 12 years it has been in power, raised a quarter of the country's population out of poverty.


The US government's – not to mention the western media's – condemnation of Chávez has, for years, done much to blank out the successes of a government which is still not just legitimate but popular. Few in the west realise that extreme poverty has been cut drastically and unemployment has been halved so that no more than 7% of the population is out of work.


On 19 November 2002, several months after Velasco's catastrophic mistake, the US envoy to the Vatican, James Nicholson, reported to his masters in Washington that the Holy See was alarmed at the outlook for further civil violence in the coming months. "The pope himself has insistently asked the Venezuelan bishops to cool their political activism and instead encourage dialogue," he said.


But by that time it was too late. Despite the fact that a mass was reported to have been offered in Caracas on Wednesday for Chávez as he recovers from his emergency operation in Havana, leaders of Venezuela's Catholics are seen to be on the wrong side, the side of the rich. But wasn't there something in the gospels about rich people, camels and the eyes of needles?