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| Fifth Column |
| Blue on Blue: Leftists condemns HRW's report on Venezuela |
| 2016-04-18 |
| Headline corrected. [Venezuelanalysis.com] Human Right Watch's (HRW) latest report on Venezuela has shock value galore, but it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. HRW has claimed its latest report documents "widespread allegations of abuse" of civilians at the hands of Venezuelan security forces. The alleged abuses centre around the government's highly controversial crackdown on organised crime, the somewhat awkwardly named "Operation to Liberate and Protect the People" (OLP). Rather than cutting through the hype, when it comes to Venezuela, HRW has a long history of adding to the confusion. It's pretty much what they do. It's only an issue now because they're criticizing a socialist government. One well known example of HRW's Venezuela blunderings was their landmark 2008 report, "A Decade Under ChĂĄvez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela." The document garnered massive media attention with bold claims such as allegations of widespread discrimination in the provision of government services. But behind the sweeping claims, the report was only able to dig up one case of possible discrimination. When HRW was questioned on this by a group of Latin America experts, they responded by arguing there are actually two more cases hidden in the report. It might seem odd that a human rights group would make broad claims based on what their own research showed were isolated incidents, but luckily the report's lead author has cleared up at least some of the confusion. The lead author, JosĂŠMiguel Vivanco, has explained in an interview that the 2008 report was published "because we wanted to demonstrate to the world that Venezuela is not a model for anyone..." Yup, distorting their reports to score political points that the authors approve of. Classic HRW. And it's all OK because it's for the greater good. There's nothing wrong with having a political opinion, but clearly HRW has a history of confusing human rights promotion with promotion of its own political views. If someone like Vivanco wants to express his opinions, then he should try writing an op-ed (like this one), rather than going through the trouble of dressing up opinions as well-researched facts. All too often, HRW gets its facts plain wrong. LOL. Personally, my favourite example of this can be found in a February 2014 report titled, "Venezuela: Violence Against Protesters, Journalists". In the report, HRW painted a disturbing picture of largely peaceful anti-government protesters facing a wave of state repression. Yet the document included a photograph of anti-government protesters standing on what HRW described as a "tank in San Cristobal". The "tank" was covered in graffiti, and surrounded by garbage. Of course, the "tank" was actually a local war monument that had been vandalised by the demonstrators. Without knowing it, HRW had accidentally included evidence that perhaps those peaceful demonstrators weren't all that peaceful. Put simply, it can be pretty hard to take this stuff too seriously. This is a shame, because the latest report contains some potentially useful information. Published jointly with the Venezuelan human rights group PROVEA, the report includes a series of interviews and original research that could add to the body of public knowledge about the impacts of the OLP. Just because this information comes from an organisation with a revolving door with the US government, doesn't mean it's inaccurate. Venezuelanalysis.com is already preparing a deeper investigation into some of the claims made by the HRW report to hopefully to separate some of the wheat from the chaff. Personally, I strongly disapprove with many aspects of how the OLP was carried out, and would like to see more broad, honest investigations into the initiative, including serious scrutiny of the human rights impact. Unfortunately, HRW's history of shonky research in Venezuela should disqualify it from this task. In Venezuela, the organisation is too far gone to be considered credible, and everything it publishes about this particular country needs to be taken with a grain of salt.   Everything they say everywhere is not just taken with a grain of salt, it's politically biased from the beginning and the conclusions are shaped by the biases of the authors. Nothing new here but I thought it was entertaining for a butthurt socialist to complain about it for once. |
| Posted by:Fester Thrimble9033 |
| #8 The red state vs blue state paradigm is from the last Dan Rather presidential election coverage. CBS put the Republican states in red and Democrat wins in blue. All the other channels depicted the Republican state wins in green. In military terms rather than this political shorthand, Red on Red is slang for U.S. foes killing themselves. Blue on Blue is for fratricide. So, all Americans oppose Blue on Blue. Yet watching Bernie busting up on Hillary is great for everyone -- competition is good. Calling it Blue on Blue is natural, but it is really Socialist on Commie; so, pink on red. |
| Posted by: rammer 2016-04-18 23:49 |
| #7 Charming the chrome off of a trailer hitch, are you? |
| Posted by: badanov 2016-04-18 23:39 |
| #6 And introduced a grammar error in the headline. Red on red means enemy on enemy. It's US Army slang. Blue forces are us, red are enemy. I thought it was pretty well-known. |
| Posted by: Elmavish Panda1401 2016-04-18 22:17 |
| #5 The Blue on Blue thing comes from the 2000 and (I think) the 2004 electoral maps which showed the left as blue and republicans as red. It has been that way since 2000; whenever anyone mentions the left fighting the left, as blue on blue, as counter intuitive as it may be, I have used it. |
| Posted by: badanov 2016-04-18 20:09 |
| #4 Are you sure you don't mean Red on Red? They are all commies & socialists, after all. Th Blue on Blue thing comes from the 200 and (I think) the 2004 electoral maps which showed the left as blue and republicans as blue. It has been that way since 2000; whenever anyone mentions the left fighting the left, as blue on blue, as counter intuitive as it may be, I have used it. |
| Posted by: badanov 2016-04-18 19:11 |
| #3 Maroon on Maroon? Pity about Venezuela. We had such high hopes that Socialism would finally, at last work somewhere on God's gray earth. But like the man said, "We seen dis movie!" |
| Posted by: SteveS 2016-04-18 16:47 |
| #2 Are you sure you don't mean Red on Red? They are all commies & socialists, after all. |
| Posted by: Nguard 2016-04-18 15:10 |
| #1 in Venezuala, the population is really feeling the bern of socialism |
| Posted by: lord garth 2016-04-18 13:23 |