Travelling in Chávez’s country

When I arrived in Venezuela the 8th of June, president Chávez was already in Cuba, to talk with his friends Fidel and Raúl Castro. He’s still there, I’m back in Colombia and wish to return to that strange country, that is Venezuela where many complain about political and economic paralysis and where the poor are glad with a president who gives them a job, free education and healthcare. Two floors of my 8 floor hotel in Caracas were crowded with flood victims. Measure of the government. Is that bad? There are many sides to the Chávez story.

No freedom of speech in Colombia either

The worst news these days in Colombia: weekly Cambio‘s closure. Supposedly it is because of ecomical reasons, but many in the country think it is for being too critical. Moreover the El Tiempo Editorial House fired Cambio’s director Rodrigo Pardo and editor María Elvira Samper. They told daily El Espectador that they were in full deadline for the last issue when they were fired.

Mexico: a different reelection proposal

Interesting, Mexico’s president Felipe Calderón’s proposal for reelection. When I first heard about it from my Dutch colleague in Mexico, Jan-Albert Hootsen, I thought the Mexican president would join his colleagues Chávez, Uribe, Morales and Correa, who all changed constitution for their own reelection, but Calderón’s case is different and that is refreshing.

Chávez and Uribe, much alike

Winds of war, as they say in Spanish, between Venezuela and Colombia and we don’t know where this is going to end. Never has the situation been so delicate. One spark of fire accross the border and it’s bingo. To me as an outsider from Holland the thing keeps being unreal, this fight between two Latin caudillos who are both so attached to power.

Release Pablo Emilio or Piedad 17

‘Mister President, I want to be free’: FARC hostage tells Uribe

This headline was published by Colombia Reports today. In this post I will publish Colombia Reports’ article, not before having said that this boy who lost his youth in the jungle (19-31 years, 12 years there) should be liberated NOW and the rest as soon as possible as well. He has been there twice as long as Íngrid Betancourt, the most famous hostage, who was liberated last year in the Operation Jaque. 

Chávez is sexier than Uribe

While Colombia’s government is flipflopping to make president Uribe’s second reelection possible, Venezuela’s president Chávez is parading like a moviestar in Venice. Director Oliver Stone is fond of Chávez  and calls him a visionary. Chávez, glad that somebody supports him while his country is a mess, calls Stone a genious.

Chávez wants to de-Uribize dialogue with Colombia

The crisis between Colombia and Venezuela is getting almost funny. Colombia’s president Álvaro Uribe travels around almost the whole continent to convince its leaders that it is imporant that the USA can use Colombia’s military bases, the reason why Venezuela’s president Chávez had entered into rage. In the meantime all kinds of people, ex-president Ernesto Samper, the opposition, businessmen, travel to Caracas to soothe the crisis.

Hurray for Vargas Llosa

Interesting the debate Perú’s writer Mario Vargas Llosa is generating in Venezuela. Not only did he criticize president Chávez for choosing ‘the Cuban way’, also did he start a discussion about liberalism and its antisocial image.

Open veins of Latin America is bestseller

Since Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez gave as a present Eduardo Galeano’s The Open Veins of Latin America to Barack Obama, this book has become a beststeller in the United States. The book is already 36 years old and the question is if mr. Galeano would write it the same way if he had to do it now, in 2009.

Chávez gives Galeano’s ‘Open veins’ to Obama

The implicit message was clear when Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez gave the book The open Veins of Latin America, written by the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, to the United States president Barack Obama.  Latin America has been plundered by the rich countries and the United States are one of those.