Putting Limits On Intolerance

By VenEconomy
Published: Friday, June 18, 2010

The growing intolerance of the Hugo Chavez administration and the violations of civil rights seem to have reached the bounds of what is permissible, not only for those at home, but also for the international community.

Indications of this are the declarations by Catalina Botero, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, before the US Congress. Botero stated that, as far as violations of freedom of speech is concerned, Venezuela "is fast reaching intolerable limits." And while she was optimistic in saying that the situation could still be reverted, she also warned that "things could get worse," due to the parliamentary elections to be on September 26.

Even stronger is the position taken in a report approved by the plenary session of the ILO’s 99th International Labor Conference in Geneva.

This report, submitted by the ILO’s Committee on the Application of Standards, bases its comments on the premise that "respect for the rights of workers and employers implies that their organizations have to be capable of performing their activities in a climate free of fear, threats, and violence, and that, ultimately, the responsibility falls to the Government," and states that the situation in Venezuela gives profound cause for concern owing to the "acts of violence against employer and trade union leaders, criminalization of legitimate trade union activities, and other restrictions of civil freedoms necessary for exercising trade union rights." It also rejects the intimidation by the government exercised by means of "the expropriation of their land (sic) and measures against property and against Fedecamaras’s headquarters." Furthermore, it urges the Chavez administration to create "a space for tripartite dialog," to stop interfering in the affairs of worker and employer associations, to not ignore the ILO’s recommendations, and to legislate on labor issues that have been pending these past eleven years.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, the revolutionary cause continues wreaking havoc in the freedom of speech and in labor and trade union rights: 1) more than 3,500 workers of Banco Federal have had their salaries frozen following the bank’s closure for a government audit, and their jobs are in jeopardy, as are the jobs of the thousands of people employed by the stockbrokerage firms and broker-dealers; 2) two trade union leaders and three workers of CVG will have to put up with having their civil rights restricted until February 2011, when they will be tried for having taken part in a protest over their labor rights; and 3) Globovisión now runs the risk of Nelson Mezerhane’s shareholding in the television station passing into government hands, as the President insinuated this Wednesday in his, now daily, nationwide networked broadcast.

The hope is that Chavez and his emissaries will find it increasingly difficult to hide from the country and the international community the persecution and subjugation to which his administration is submitting large sectors of the population.