Dear Editor,
Now that the fanfare and frenzy surrounding the just concluded UNASUR confab in Georgetown are over, Guyanese need to know one thing: our country has had it ‘up to here’ with talks that lead us nowhere positive as a nation. Guyana has been a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the Organization of American States, and Caricom, and has engaged in conferences, trade talks and more talks, so how can joining the recently formed UNASUR make Guyana any better?
UNASUR, basically, is just another regional grouping like Caricom, except that this group is openly challenging the developed world by trying to see if it can put together an economic plan that would allow for trade and other forms of assistance without relying on the developed world.
Before UNASUR, other similar groups of nations, like the supposedly independent Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), have also tried to wean themselves away from the developed world. There were South-South cooperation talks. At the end of the day, all efforts to abandon the developed world or even the capitalist system have failed miserably.
Fast forward to the formation of UNASUR and we will see that while its intentions appear commendable, it has one of the most vocal opponents of capitalism, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and that alone ought to make us ask ourselves, what exactly is in this for Guyana?
Time only will reveal whether UNASUR will produce anything different from any of its forerunners, but if its final communiqué in Georgetown on democracy and human rights are anything to pin hopes on for great things ahead, we’d better ignore the group and its communiqué now.
These leaders would have citizens of their nations believe that they are suddenly protectors of democracy and human rights when at least two member nations – Venezuela and Guyana – are current violators of both and there is no criticism.
We are already familiar with Guyana’s dismal democratic and human rights records under President Bharrat Jagdeo’s administration, but how up to speed are we about Venezuela under Chavez?
On February 4, 1992, then Lt Col Chavez carried out a failed coup attempt to overthrow the democratically elected President Carlos Andres Perez. He was captured and instead of being incarcerated permanently for high treason, he was simply jailed for two years. Ten months later, on November 27, to be exact, there was a second failed coup attempt against President Perez by a segment of the military, featuring helicopters dropping leaflets declaring the government was overthrown. The coup leaders had had contacts with Chaves in jail. He was later pardoned by another President, Rafael Caldera.
And guess what Chavez’s main reason was for his failed coup attempt against the democratically elected Perez was? The government was too corrupt and the gap between the rich and poor was too wide. Sounds familiar? Yet Guyana is one of the countries to be protected by UNASUR.
Anyway, after being elected President of Venezuela for the first time in 1998, Chavez’s government has featured in several news reports for funnelling money to groups and parties in other South and Latin American countries in a bid to have left-wing governments elected.
In 2003, Bolivia’s President, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada resigned following widespread disturbances, and in 2005 Evo Morales was elected President. Sanchez’s former defence minister revealed in a subsequent interview that “Morales brought to Bolivia in August and September 2003 an amount of money that Hugo Chávez gave him in Venezuela to destabilize and overthrow the government of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and there are other elements I am going to make available.” (El Universal, September 25, 2007).
In August 2008, during one of their skirmishes, Colombian soldiers crossed into Ecuadorian territory and raided a camp of the FARC guerillas, killing one of its leaders, Raul Reyes. A computer was found and it reportedly contained information of a $300M sum of money from Venezuela to FARC in its armed bid to oust the democratically elected Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.
Ecuador’s left-wing President, Rafael Correa, condemned the incursion and severed diplomatic ties to Colombia. Venezuela, exposed by the computer findings, reacted by engaging in sabre-rattling with Colombia. But even though the Ecuador-Colombia ties were renewed in Georgetown at the UNASUR confab, here is the bottom line: since Chavez became President of Venezuela, not only has his government been linked to other groups, parties and governments, but there has been an emergence of a string of left-wing governments in the region.
This is why I find it mildly humorous that there is suddenly talk about preserving democracy, because it seems as long as the democracy protects left-wing governments, it is okay. In June 2009, Honduras President, Manuel Zelaya, who was said to be leaning towards Chavez’s political enticements, and was trying to hold a referendum on ending term limits which the Supreme Court had deemed unconstitutional, was ousted by mixture of local leaders and groups led by the army.
So the Zelaya ouster obviously greatly incensed Chavez who, by the way, had also cut off crude supplies to the Dominican Republic in 2003 during a diplomatic dispute over charges Chavez made against the government of President Hipolito Mejia about backing Chavez’s supporters.
I have focused extensively on Chavez here to highlight that even if UNASUR says it has good intentions, every citizen of the region should be on guard against Chavez’s political machinations and designs. Don’t put it past this man, who originally set out to fix Venezuela, to somehow run political interference in UNASUR member states that may want to shift away from the group’s agenda.
And when it comes to UNASUR’s lip service to human rights, UNHCR’s 2009 report on Guyana says, “Guyana received a downward trend due to the violation of detainees’ rights by law enforcement officials.” Venezuela’s 2009 report is not yet available to UNHCR, but the government has been on a rampage intimidating and strong-arming its opponents. Human Rights Watch also called for a probe of Venezuela’s role in guerilla activities that claimed scores of lives.
In closing, when UNASUR talks about looking out for democratically elected member governments and human rights, Guyanese have a right to ask who determines what a democratic government is and who determines what constitutes human rights violations, because UNASUR’s hypocritical silence on Venezuela and Guyana so far may well indicate it cares more about its member governments than about the people the governments are elected to serve.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
