Marxist Chávez Jails Prominent Political Opponent
The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, D.C. can be contacted at 202-342-2214. The Ambassador, Bernardo Álvarez Herrera, can be contacted by email at despacho@venezuela-us.org Also please send a copy of your protest note calling for freedom for Peña Esclusa to the press department at prensa@venezuela-us.org
By Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media
In another outrageous case of the abuse of human rights, the Hugo Chávez regime in Venezuela has arrested anti-communist activist Alejandro Peña Esclusa on trumped-up charges of being a terrorist. The president of UnoAmerica, an anti-communist alliance, and the author of The Foro de São Paulo: A Threat to Freedom in Latin America, Peña Esclusa is a former Venezuelan presidential candidate who has opposed efforts by the Chavez regime to spread Marxist revolution in Venezuela and throughout the region.
Olavo de Carvalho, a Brazilian writer and friend of Peña Esclusa, says the Venezuelan opposition leader was taken away by the political police of Hugo Chávez on July 12, having been arrested on ridiculous, false, and absurd charges based on testimony allegedly given by a supposed Salvadoran terrorist now in Cuba. The Chávez regime, which functions under the direction and supervision of the Cuban secret police, apparently planted explosives as part of the frame-up.
Carvalho appealed to members of the U.S. Congress and the public to send immediate notes of protest to the Venezuelan government over this incident, which is more evidence of Chávez’s “utter contempt for the fundamental rights of his political opponents.”
The Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, D.C. can be contacted at 202-342-2214. The Ambassador, Bernardo Álvarez Herrera, can be contacted by email at despacho@venezuela-us.org Also please send a copy of your protest note calling for freedom for Peña Esclusa to the press department at prensa@venezuela-us.org
Carvalho said, “The Geneva Conventions guarantee to every prisoner the right to be visited by a minister belonging to the prisoner’s religious denomination, or by members of the Red Cross. I appeal to the Catholic Church in Venezuela to send a priest to meet with Peña Esclusa in prison immediately, in order to ensure that the excess of humanitarianism of the Chávez government will not lead the prisoner to death from emotional exhaustion or from unknown or unthinkable causes.”
“The goal of the farce set up against Peña is to create an appearance of connection between him and ‘violent right-wing organizations,’ which, in the current Latin American scene, stand out especially because of their spectacular non-existence,” Carvalho added.
The official Chávez news agency has declared that “Alejandro Peña Esclusa is a dark character of the Venezuelan opposition linked to fascist sectors and with a thick file of conspiratorial activities against the government of President Hugo Chávez.”
All of this means that he has been effective in organizing opposition to the would-be dictator, who is the subject of a laudatory amateurish propaganda film by Oliver Stone, “South of the Border,” now playing to small audiences in a few U.S. theaters.
The fact is, however, that Chávez has been systematically destroying freedom in Venezuela, including and most notably freedom of the press. There is only one major independent television station left in Venezuela, Globovisión, but its owner Guillermo Zuloaga has fled the country and is in hiding after an arrest order was issued against him on trumped up charges. Both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal have covered these ominous developments, as the major media in the U.S. are starting to pay more attention to the destruction of freedom in Venezuela and Chávez’s ties to terrorist groups and regimes.
FULL STORY
Help Make A Difference By Sharing These Articles On Facebook, Twitter And Elsewhere:
