Re: [OPE] Venezuela and Human Rights Watch

 Dear All,

I am very suspicious about this human right stuff. When I used to work in a big industrial plantation there was an experienced
worker. He always used to say it is as simple as this: there are classes that suppressed and there are classes that suppress.
It is a permanent struggle that takes between them. The suppressed fight for emancipation and suppressor try to keep them under their domination. In this fight every means is involved including violence as history shows. So instead moralizing the issue we have to understand the very logic of this battle for dead and life. Where do the intellectual stand in this permanent fight?

Curious enough, why did all these self-appointed human right organisations never paid attention to the situation of workers, minorities, the poor? and so on in Venezuela? Have they something at stake to lose by the political and economic changes aimed by the Chavez and his supporters? If yes, as I thing they have, then, their human right will be violated, very well so, if "the great body of people" "who come and go without names" (to use Adam Smith's expressions) get their human right realised. Carry on Chavezs, carry on Castros, carry on all human emancipators.

Regards,
Dogan

??

-----Original Message-----
From: Paula <Paula_cerni@msn.com>
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list <ope@lists.csuchico.edu>
Sent: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 2:12
Subject: Re: [OPE] Venezuela and Human Rights Watch

Alejandro was not misrepresenting anyone, but
responding to Paul B's suggestion that I need to 'study' the situation in
Venezuela before 'expressing very abstract and unclear notions of freedoms and
rights'. Alejandro was simply pointing out that many?critics of
Chavez?know more about?Venezuela than Paul himself does,?and that
therefore?Paul does not have an argument here.

?

In any case?I was not?expressing any
abstract notions, but raising a very concrete example (I agree with Paul - this
is?the way?to learn more about?Venezuela). My example was the
case of the 18,000 oil workers sacked after the 2002 strike. And I also
mentioned, very concretely, that this case was investigated by the ILO. The ILO
apparently concluded that?'the mass dismissal of thousands of workers and
refusal to rehire them constituted reprisals in violation of international
law'.

?

The?comments and material posted here about
the right-wing opposition in Venezuela, the attempts to destabilize the Chavez
regime, the economic experiments, etc, are?beside the point. We are trying
to establish whether or not there have been human rights violations under
Chavez. It seems to me that the sacking of these workers was a violation of
their labor (and therefore human) rights.?Would you agree?

?

If?Chavez supporters feel that it's OK to
violate human rights for?a specific reason, then they should honestly say
so, and explain?what that?reason is. If they respond to uncomfortable
facts with expulsions and ad-hominem attacks,?they?will only confirm
the worst suspicions about the regime.

?

Paula

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Received on Fri Sep 26 02:52:57 2008