Dick Emanuelsson i blåsväder – igen

September 1st, 2010

Dick Emanuelsson är en svensk journalist som skriver för den fd kommunistiska tidningen Norrskensflamman, nu bara Flamman, från Honduras huvudstad Tegucigalpa. Han skriver också mycket på nätet på spanska. De som läser både svenska och spanska kan notera att det han skriver på respektive språk inte alltid verkar stå i så bra samklang med vartannat.

Detta, jämte observationer jag gjort då jag nära följt hans arbete i Honduras efter att de rättsvårdande institutionerna förra året avsatte president Zelaya, gör att jag betraktar Emanuelsson mera som en politisk infiltratör än som journalist. Hans journalistställning är, enligt min uppfattning, en täckmantel, och ett inträdespass till rum dit han annars inte skulle kunna ta sig.

När det gäller Honduras har jag konstaterat hur Emanuelsson, i intervjuer av ledare för dem som kallar sig “motståndsrörelsen” (men som alltså är de som stödde Zelayas – av högsta domstolen förbjudna – försök till konstitutionell statskupp), lagt ord och policy i deras mun. Genom att följa händelserna i landet i realtid kunde jag konstatera att denna rörelses strategi och inställning verkade komma från Emanuelsson, förmedlad i intervjuer med rörelsens ledare i vilka Emanuelsson skickligt styrde konversationen till den punkt han ville få fram. Eftersom Emanuelssons texter på spanska har mycket stor spridning i den latinamerikanska vänstern, medan rörelsens ledare har små möjligheter att nå ut med sitt budskap direkt utan är beroende av media, så har Emanuelsson kunnat inympa sin ideologi på utvecklingen i Honduras, enligt min analys.

Och var är då Emanuelssons ideologi, vilken riktning har han drivit rörelsen i? Jo, i konfrontationens riktning. Han har pushat för att inte prata med företrädarna för staten eller medelklassen, utan att ta en stenhård konfrontativ attityd, vilket har inneburit våldsamma demonstrationer på gatorna istället för en fredlig och konstruktiv dialog.

Detta har inte gynnat någon i Honduras. Det har varit en katastrofal policy, även för vänstern själv.

Förra året inbjöd interimspresident Roberto Micheletti representanter för alla grupper i Honduras – inklusive de som kallar sig “motståndsrörelsen” – till en dialog för att lösa den politiska krisen, och börja ta itu med de underliggande frågor som hade utlöst den akuta krisen. Detta var ett gyllene tillfälle för vänstern.

Jag har själv i många år argumenterat för att reformer är nödvändiga i Honduras. För att en dialog mellan företagarna och arbetarna är nödvändig. För att en ny social ordning är nödvändig, kanske med förebild av den svenska Saltsjöbadsandan. Men intresset från de rikas sida har varit svalt.

Tills i fjol höstas. Då förlorade de pengar i floder, och de insåg att de hade allt att vinna på att gå med på kompromisser. Krisen medförde en möjlighet till en ny nationell anda, till att Honduras skulle kunna enas som ett folk, med större solidaritet inom landet än till de olika gruppernas egna intressen. Tiden var mogen. Jag var bland dem som föreslog och argumenterade för att Micheletti skulle bjuda in till en stor nationell dialog, därför att jag hörde genom mina kontakter att de som tidigare varit mot dialog nu var beredda att samtala.

Men vad hände? Vänstern vägrade. De hade en unik chans, och kastade bort den! Nu är det för sent. Loppet är kört. De ekonomisk förlusterna har redan tagits, och arbetarna har inte längre något att erbjuda företagarna i en kompromiss. De spelade bort sina kort.

Och var stod Emanuelsson i detta? Jo, helt klart sympatiserade han med de kompromisslösa. Med de som i Sverige skulle kunna karaktäriseras som gammelkommunister, för vilka ingen dialog är möjlig, ingen kompromiss är önskvärd, och för vilka kapitalismen är ett otyg som måste utplånas. Som vi vet är det inte där framtiden ligger.

Så enligt min uppfattning har Emanuelsson skadat Honduras, men såvitt jag är medveten om har han i huvudsak gjort det genom att agera lagligt, om än moraliskt tveksamt. Till exempel har han skrivit saker som jag uppfattar som krigshets mot Honduras (och vilket jag bloggade om här). Men alldeles oavsett sådana saker, så har han skadat landet genom att sprida gammelkommunistiska idéer från historiens sophög. Han är en skam för Sverige, men så länge han agerar demokratiskt och lagligt så har han rätt att fortsätta. Detta har också Micheletti-administrationen varit medvetna om. De kände mycket väl till vad han gjorde, och från vad jag hört var instruktionen att låta honom arbeta ostört, med mindre han begick något uppenbart brott. Han måste ju själv ha insett att han var under bevakning, det är ju självklart, och något annat skulle vara tjänstefel av säkerhetstjänsten.

Den senaste tiden har dock en incident kommit fram i samband med en demonstration i Honduras. En pressfotograf som jobbat för Micheletti blev tydligen olagligt visiterad av demonstrationsledningen, enligt en bloggartikel av Jorge Copelan, och Dick Emanuelsson var tydligen intimt förknippad med denna händelse, att döma av Copelans text. Kanske Emanuelsson gått över linjen, som det heter på engelska. Kanske kände han sig provocerad, men det är ingen ursäkt. Om han sticker ut hakan så mycket som han gjort så måste han tåla att pressfotografer fotograferar honom. Det är ju faktiskt deras jobb!

Låt mig också påpeka att i Copelans artikel om Dick Emanuelsson finns direkta felaktigheter i sak, samt en partiell redovisning av vissa andra fakta som är gjord i propagandasyfte. Till exempel, mordfrekvensen i Honduras utelämnas. Den är skyhög, faktiskt världens högsta. Att 10 journalister strukit med är inte så högt över vad som gäller för andra yrkesgrupper. Dessutom har en studie gjord av en opartisk observatör i USA visat att det inte finns något mönster för vilka journalister som mördats, annat än att möjligen samtliga rapporterat om organiserad brottslighet. De mördade är både sådana som sympatiserat med Zelaya, med Micheletti, och politiskt neutrala, utan klar tendens.

Om Emanuelsson har gjort något olagligt eller ej kan inte jag svara på, men om han bor i Honduras så måste han underställa sig honduransk lag och acceptera deras rättsvårdande myndigheter. Vill han inte det så föreslår jag att han åker hem till Sverige, och har han inte råd med det så föreslår jag UD att de hjälper honom; dels för hans skull, dels för Sveriges skull, men även för Honduras och Latinamerikas skull. Han har ju tidigare tvingats lämna Colombia efter att ha haft alltför nära kontakter med den i Sverige terroriststämplade FARC-gerillan, känd för kidnappningar, knarkhandel och sin kommunistiska ideologi. Vill han inte till Sverige kanske Kuba kan ta emot honom.

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Runaway incompetence in IRS

August 31st, 2010

Since a little over a year I have been shocked over the extreme level of incompetence that I have encountered in IRS, the US tax agency. It started when they lost a form I sent them. Since they received the second form that was in the same envelope, I think we can be pretty sure it was IRS, and not USPS, who lost it.

After getting a request for the form some 2 months later, I sent in a copy, but due to an error in the copy printed from a file, I had to amend it. The problem with IRS seems to be that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing, and neither hand is connected to any sort of brain.

What happened is that they kept sending out requests for that form, and then for other forms, and over and over, from different offices. After a while they sent out statements that I owed them money, then a new letter came a few days later saying I didn’t owe them, and then I supposedly owed them again, and so on. Apparently, it took so long for them to process correspondence that their response was totally out of sync with the paper trail.

And here is my most damning criticism. When they do send out a claim, they fail to provide any sort of calculation or reference to the paper trail.

This is a deadly sin in any bureaucracy.

There is just no defense for it.

It is this incompetence that causes the entire problem. Let me give you an example. Today I got a letter saying that what I paid for a certain period was $355 less than what I filed for that same period. The letter did not mention neither how much I supposedly paid, nor how much I supposedly filed for, just the difference of $355.

It is beside the point that I neither paid nor filed for that period, what drives me nuts is that IRS sends out these anonymous letters without providing the necessary information for the taxpayer to be able to assess the validity of the claim, and respond to it.

Also, the letter is completely anonymous. Not even the initials of a person authorizing it. Could it be because nobody wants to be associated with it, knowing full well that it is fraudulent?

There is definitely a fish buried in IRS. Reforming USA might well start with reforming IRS (and the tax code). Most of the employees could surely be fired. They are obviously too incompetent to keep on taxpayers’ salary anyway.

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Amend the 14th amendment!

August 27th, 2010

The 14th amendment to the constitution of USA says “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…”

The reason for the text passed 1868 was to explicitly make former slaves citizens, but the problem now is that it acts like a carrot, attracting illegal immigrants from Latin America. The immigrants figure that even if they have to live as illegals in the US their entire life, at least their children will become citizens and can stay legally. It is thus an immigration loophole. When the normal process takes upwards of 20 years, the difference is not so big to this illegal process. Even if it takes a generation, a generation is only about 20 years or so, right?

It also flies in the face of international law. International law, valid in the US as well, states that every child gets the citizenship of his or her parents. For instance, a child born to a woman with US citizenship abroad will still get US citizenship. Thus, the US applies that principle, which now is the international norm. There is no reason to hold on to the rule from 1868.

Thus, since there are strong reasons to abandon it, and no reason to keep it, a constitutional amendment should be introduced to change the rule of citizenship explicitly to be determined by the parents’ citizenship(s), not the country of birth. (Note that amendment 14 contains also other provisions and sections, that serve a purpose.)

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Democracy Advice to FNRP in Honduras

August 18th, 2010

A one day debate on Facebook within the FNRP (the so-called resistance of Honduras) in April this year leaves me with mixed feelings. It seems clear that they desperately want participatory democracy, and reject the traditional style of politics in the Americas, the strong-man style of caudillismo. That is very good.

However, it also seems that for all their desires and energy (demonstrated in demonstrations the past year), they seem not to know where to begin. How to do it. Where to start. What to do. And that is tragic.

They dream of participatory democracy, but they appear not to know how to create it. They are lucky, though. Learning how is easy. They already have the hardest part taken care of: The will to do it.

It would be very good for Honduras if the FNRP would get organized in a participatory democratic way. Broad based political movements are important, as we have seen in Sweden for instance, with several parties that are so-called popular movements (”folkrörelser”), with a bottom up decision making process. That seems to be exactly what several of the participants in the debate want for Honduras, without really knowing that they don’t have to re-invent participatory democracy. It has existed for thousands of years.

A while ago I wrote a page on Democracy for Dummies, with the bare basics. It is not rocket science, all it takes is that the members commit to a democratic process, and write statutes or bylaws that reflect what they want. (BTW, “bylaw” literally means ‘village law’ since “by” is ‘village’ in Scandinavian languages.)

What these bylaws should say is of course very important, and that is something that has to be worked on diligently. Writing the bylaws correctly is very important for the success. It is the foundation upon which the rest of the building is constructed. Once they are mature, they can call to a constituting assembly and create their organization, e.g. a party with a bottom-up structure in which the congressmen and women are answerable to the members, and not to campaign contributors.

I do hope that they manage to pull this off, because it would benefit everyone in Honduras, also the richest. Yes, those that they call “golpistas.” I know that many in the “frente” believe that the “golpistas” are their enemies, but that is just not true. The enemies of the “golpistas” are not the people, the average Joe who wants to create a more equal society and participatory democracy. No, the enemies are the populists who pretend to share these values with the people, but who really are just out to help themselves, and who would, if they succeed, destroy the chances of economical prosperity in Honduras for decades.

As someone wrote in the debate I mentioned above, this is a struggle that the Honduran people has to do. They must learn for themselves to do these things. They must study. They must reject those who come in and say “I can do that for you, just give me a mandate”. That is caudillismo. What they need is democracy, and the only ones who can bring about democracy is the “demos”, the people.

I wish them good luck, and I offer the advice to look for examples and guidance where democracy works and where there is an ancient tradition. Don’t try to learn from your mistakes, you won’t live long enough to make them all. Learn from the experience of other peoples instead!

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An Economical Rescue Plan for Honduras

August 10th, 2010

Public hydroelectric projects can get the economy going in Honduras, create jobs, improve the national economy, and diffuse some of the social conflicts.

While many are still debating what to do with the split in Honduras, between the redshirts who want to write a new constitution from scratch, and the whiteshirts who insist on respecting the rule of law based on the existing constitution, Honduras is bleeding. Unemployment is around 30%; the economy hasn’t recovered since the double-crisis of world depression and severed diplomatic relations; crime is astronomical; and big infrastructure projects such as a hydropower project in the Patuca have seen their foreign investors pull out. The country is in crisis. What to do?

President Porfirio Lobo has spent much political capital on trying to re-establish diplomatic relations, so that foreign aid and credit can start flowing again. However, he has not managed to get the wheels turning, apparently not taking that matter so seriously. But it is imperative to deal with it.

I suggest that Honduras can lift itself by the bootstraps. This is how:

The state of Honduras should invest in infrastructure projects that lead to a long-term return on investment. There is an obvious candidate: Hydropower. Years ago I saw in a hydropower atlas that Honduras has the second highest unexploited hydropower potential per capita in the world, after Iceland. Yet, some 80% of the electricity is generated in thermic plants, using expensive imported fossil fuel in the form of diesel. Only 20% is hydropower, in a few plants owned by the state electrical utility company ENEE.

Since over 20 years the state has built no more hydropower plants, due to lack of foreign credit (which dried up when the neoconservatives took over the policy making). All new capacity has been privately funded, and thermal, since that gives a better short-term ROI. However, it is very detrimental to the national economy. Lately there has been interest from the private sector in developing hydropower, under concessions from the government. This has been met with resistance from people living in the affected areas, since they view their public land and water being given to private companies without them even being consulted.

There is a win-win way out of this, and that is to develop this renewable energy resource in a public utility instead of in a private company. By keeping it in ENEE, it will remain the property of the people, thus increasing the chances of social acceptance, and the possibility for the government to ensure an environmental-friendly implementation in harmony with local indigenous cultures.

The main reason to do this is to benefit the national economy. By carrying out the project by itself, the government can make sure that most of the money invested stays in the country, which means that it eventually comes back to the coffers of the state (in the form of taxes, decreased unemployment, and–importantly–in the form of increased GDP).

To fund the project or projects, the government should borrow money domestically, not internationally. I’ve heard that there is money in the banks, which is not lent out since there are no viable projects. Just like in the US or the EU, it is the state that has to kick-start the economy, using the principles of Keynes. By borrowing domestically they avoid creating a devaluation pressure, and once the investment starts paying off, the domestic currency (the Lempira) will gain in value, so the lenders will be paid back in a currency that was stronger than before. It’s a win-win.

Some might think that the private sector should have this chance to make money. My answer is, they do! Rather than pour the concrete they lend the money, and are payed back with interest, in a currency that is expected to be stronger than before. It seems to me that the capitalists have nothing to complain about on this plan. And as for the private engineering companies, many of them will surely get contract jobs, so they, too, should be content. The unemployed, finally, will discover that there will be more demand for them.

Once the plant is ready and operating, the hydropower will replace some of the need for thermal plants. The importation of diesel might, in theory, decrease, but in practice the overall consumption of electrical power might increase by a similar amount, due to the overall increase in GDP that these and related projects lead to.

In summary, I propose that Honduras should be able to lift itself by the bootstraps by developing hydropower within the public electric utility company ENEE, financed with domestic capital, built by domestic companies (with just some foreign assistance for key skills); and that this would lead to an increase in employment, in GDP, and a long term improvement in the state finances.

Note: These are my views and nothing else. In the interest of full disclosure I will say that I have worked as a consultant for ENEE in the past, and developed projects for environmental impact assessment of proposed hydropower projects.

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Strengthening Democracy in Honduras

August 6th, 2010

The political map of Honduras will change for ever after last year’s political crisis, in which the vast majority of the Liberal party, supported by the main opposition party the Nacionalistas, and most of the small parties, denounced the Liberal president Manuel Zelaya after he had violated the Constitution and Supreme Court orders. For which the Supreme Court ordered his arrest by the military.

This has left the Liberal party, a party that has won 2 out of 3 elections the past 28 years, split. The left fraction around Manuel Zelaya and his ex foreign minister Patricia Rodas – who grew up in sandinista Nicaragua and clearly has her political ideology colored by that fact – has now decided to throw in their chips with the FNRP. They call themselves the “resistance” movement, in reference to a resistance against what they claim to be a “coup d’état” (i.e., the arrest and removal from office of Zelaya on June 28, 2009).

When the dust has settled, perhaps there will be three main parties instead of two in Honduras. That this is possible we see in the UK. The three might be a leftist party around FNRP (which will perhaps eventually drift to social democratic ideals rather than socialist ideals); the Liberal party based on liberal ideals; and the Nationalist party based on conservative ideals.

A problem now is that the FNRP is not accepting the legitimacy of the present government of Honduras, and thus not of the Republic of Honduras as such. From my Swedish background that is an absolutely outlandish position–and I mean that quite literally. A person who did not accept the law of the land was an outlaw, in the ancient jurisprudence of Scandinavia, and he had to seek refuge in the “outland” (i.e., abroad or in uninhabited land) since he was not protected by the law. Such a person could be killed without punishment. With the development of international law things have of course changed now, but that ancient principle is a foundation for the modern concept of nations, ever since the Peace of Westphalia: It is implicit that all citizens of a state must obey the laws of that state, or leave it.

In fact, the e-mail signature I use, “If you only knew, my son, with how little wisdom the world is run”, is a quote from a letter that Axel Oxenstierna wrote to his son when he sent him to negotiate the Peace of Westphalia on behalf of Sweden…

What FNRP is saying would be a crime in some countries, but in others it would not be a crime until they went from words to action. But regardless of the legality of it, what they are doing is, politically speaking, a very foolish and immature thing. And perhaps that is why the ruling party is allowing them to continue, because it benefits the Nationalists.

This is a pity, because Honduras really needs reform, and the FNRP has got some legitimate grievances. However, their leaders seem to lack political savvy, democratic experience, and wise advisers–or if they have, they don’t listen to them. Their whole strategy is based on them writing a new constitution, from scratch, even though it is unconstitutional according to the existing constitution, which they consider no longer to be valid. The problems with their position are, however, first that a large part of the population considers the existing constitution to be legitimate why the FNRP one automatically will be illegitimate (and according to the existing constitution all Hondurans must then restore the existing, which means the country will be split). Secondly, even if they manage to impose a new constitution, they will have done it at the price of undermining the rule of law, why it will be a Pyrrhus victory; what they really will have accoomplished, if they succeed in their enedeavor (which I find higly unlikely), is to establish the Law of the Jungle as the supreme principle in Honduras.

Thus, whether they succeed or fail in their strategy, they will fail to achieve their goals. What they need to do is to change strategy. And now I will give them some advice on what to do instead.

To achieve a functioning democracy, they must demonstrate that they are mature enough to take on the responsibility. They must participate in democratic meetings. They must demonstrate that they are ready to accept majority decisions, and implement them even if they initially voted against them.

When Micheletti was interim president he invited many of the present members of the FNRP to discussions, but they refused to attend such meetings. That was a childish reaction. It is true that meetings can be used for trickery, and they had reason to be weary, but it was unwise not to engage when the hand was streched out in search for a compromise. They had a position of power from which to negotiate, but they threw the opportunity away.

They no longer have a position of power from which to negotiate. Most countries have recognized the new government, and those that remain are getting increasingly isolated internationally, as Chávez is seen more and more as a dictator and terrorist-supporter by the week. They blew their best chance, and now they have to start with a new strategy.

That is why I advice them to start by demonstrating their committment to democracy, to the rule of law, to democratic meetings, and to following the rules. Only by doing that can they gain the confidence of their political opponents, a confidence that they need in order to negotiate reforms. They have to prove themselves as trustworthy partners in the business of managing the public good. They have to gain that respect.

The next step is to analyze the constitution and propose reforms that can increase democracy, prosperity, and transparency (thus decreasing corruption). All of this analysis has to be done, and debated publically, before the actual reforms to the constitution are proposed in Congress. This is necessary in order to gain legitimacy and public support.

As for possible reforms that may improve conditions in Honduras, I have previously proposed the introduction of parliamentarianism, thus reducing the president to a largely symbolic head of state. This can be done within the confines of the present constitution, as far as I can judge. The president cannot be reelected, but a prime minister could, meaning that in a parliamentarian system the FNRP could get that continuity that they apparently think is so important, while at the same time preventing caudillos from taking over, something that the right is rightly concerned about.

Furthermore, I would recommend the drafters of the constitutional reform to study the Swedish constitution and laws as regards the prohibition of politicians to deal with individual cases. This is a way to mitigate corruption. Note that the Swedish constitution no longer is based on the principle of power sharing, but on the sovereignty of the people. All power emanates from the people and is exercised through their elected representatives in parliament, city council, etc.

The Swedish-Finnish administrative system seems to me to be a unique design, based on ancient democratic principles. I have compared corporate law from Sweden, Denmark, France, and Florida, and while the Swedish system of governing a corporation matches the way all democratic bodies are ruled in Sweden, all the others follow a different system. The main difference is this:

In Sweden those elected cannot interfere in specifics. They hire someone to do the specifics, and all they can do if they don’t like his job is to fire him. Also, the elected persons can only take decisions in a group by voting in a formal meeting, that has to follow very specific rules (designed to prevent “palace coups”). Their main job is to set policy, and supervise that the implementation of the policy by the administration (meaning those who are employed, non-political persons) is as intended.

In the US they elect people for actual jobs. The problem with the US approach is that it leads to corruption. Instead of a corrupt permanent office holder, there is instead corrupt temporary office holders – unless the person is beyond corruption.

The Swedish form of representative democracy is designed to prevent corruption not through the threat of loosing the next election, but by design, while they are still in office. Also, it allows for persons to be hired based on competence, rather than elected based on fundraising ability. Since the state pays for university education, including in public administration, there are lots of people with a dedicated education for the task. While in the US, many officials have an education designed for the private enterprise, which is a different beast than public administration.

There is another key difference between USA and Sweden on the one hand, and Honduras on the other, that tends to be forgotten (although the UN takes it seriously and considers it perhaps the most important problem to deal with). And that is local sovereignty.

Swedish kommuner (communes) have local sovereignty, meaning they can levy taxes and decide how to use it. There are two levels of kommun, corresponding to departamento and municipalidad in Honduras. Both have an elected council, but no mayor (Sweden and Finland are the only countries in Europe that have no mayors as far as I know). Instead they are governed like a corporation in Sweden: The council hires an administrator (equivalent to a CEO), and he is in charge of operations. The council decides policy and supervises the administration, but does not decide individual cases. This latter is in stark contrast to the US, where the councilmen decide itty bitty details.

Honduras has very weak local sovereignty, and that may actually be a key thing that needs to change. Money is spent better locally, and corruption is fought better too. Furthermore, local democracy with budget responsibility will foster more responsible citizens, and activists who try to work for results rather than take to the streets and demand action like overgrown children.

Congressmen and -women of Honduras: Give the people local budget responsibility, and watch them start working for bettering the roads, instead of blocking the roads!

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Wikipedia is Spreading a Terrorist Organization’s Propaganda

July 24th, 2010

On July 12, 2010, the politician and regime-critic Alejandro Peña Esclusa was arrested in Venezuela accused of terrorism, an absurd accusation for anyone who cares to look into the facts. March 13, 2007, a biographical article was created about him on Italian Wikipedia, linking him to terrorism by presenting false, misleading, and irrelevant statements. In spite of repeated attempts at removing the libelous claims over the years, they remain there to this day.

Mr Peña is a sworn enemy to communism, and accuses the present Venezuelan regime to be an ally to the communists in Cuba, and the marxist FARC terrorist guerilla in Colombia. His biographical article was created by a communist, judging from his user page. By blocking every attempt to fundamentally correct the article, Wikipedia is spreading terrorist propaganda.

Wikipedia is a user-edited encyclopedic project. Anybody can edit, but certain users called admins have the power to block other users, or to lock articles from editing. There are Wikipedias in many languages apart from English. Since each project, each language that is, writes its own rules, a small but determined ideological group can turn their local Wikipedia into a propaganda outlet, while lending credibility from the original, English, Wikipedia project. While the English site often is an excellent resource, it is clear that not all is well in wikiworld.

What is Propaganda?

Before exposing what has happened, it may be useful to alert you to what to look for. Propaganda is an effort to change the behavior and opinions of a large group of people without them realizing that they are being manipulated. Here are some of the principles that characterize it:

  1. Effective propaganda should be indirect, not direct (as opposed to promotion).
  2. The purpose should not be evident.
  3. The originator should not be apparent.
  4. The message should appear as being commonly accepted knowledge.

A modern word for propaganda is “framing”. Imagine that the message is a painting. Rather than promoting the painting, the propaganda provides a frame into which the target of the message will put the painting, as if it was his idea. This makes it indirect and with a hidden purpose. Obviously the “frame” must not be provided by a “painter”, or else the target will guess the intention and probably be annoyed for being taken for a fool. (This is why framing articles are planted in media through any one of a number of methods.)

It is my observation that an often used device for spreading  ideas (that you have no support for) is to present the message as incidental information in a dependent clause, or as “additional information”, giving the impression that it is common knowledge. I first noticed the device on FOX News when I followed the channel non-stop for many hours. All of a sudden they started mentioning a fact as if they had just talked about that piece of news and established it as a fact, but they never did present any such story. They just pretended they had (it related to Yassir Arafat).

The Wikipedia Article

Alejandro Peña Esclusa has been a vocal critic of Hugo Chávez since 1995, accusing him of being allied with the FARC narco-guerilla in Colombia. FARC is considered a terrorist group by the US, EU, and others. Since we now have strong evidence that Mr Peña Esclusa has been right, we can conclude that it is – and has been for 15 years – in FARC’s and Chávez’s interests to discredit him.

When Mr Peña was arrested on July 12, 2010, only one Wikipedia site had an article on him, the one in Italian. Internet users all over the world turned to that article for more information after hearing about his arrest. This is what they saw:

________________________________

Alejandro Peña Esclusa (1954) è un politico venezuelano, leader del partito Fuerza Solidaria.

Nel 1998 fu candidato alle presidenziali in Venezuela, raccogliendo un totale di 2.424 voti pari allo 0,04%.

Membro della setta Tradizione, Famiglia e Proprietà, movimento filo-fascista, che permette l’ingresso solo a coloro che dimostrano di essere di razza ariana pura.

La setta sarebbe stata organizzatrice di attentati[1] contro Giovanni Paolo II durante il suo viaggio a Caracas il 13 novembre 1984, e al presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America, Ronald Reagan, in seguito ai quali la setta è stata dichiarata fuorilegge in Venezuela, Francia, Spagnae Argentina, paesi dove era maggiormente radicata.

L’11 aprile 2002, Peña Esclusa partecipa al tentato colpo di stato in Venezuela.

Alle ultime elezioni presidenziali venezuelane, svoltesi nel 2006, si è scagliato contro il capo dell’opposizione Manuel Rosales, per aver dichiarato la propria sconfitta nei confronti del presidente Hugo Chavez. Nel suo programma politico attuale propugna oggi il rovesciamento violento dei governi di centro-sinistra latinoamericani e il ritorno di dittature militari. Tra i suoi referenti politici vi sono ambienti neoconservatori statunitensi e il partito di ultradestra di El Salvador, Arena.

Ha creato particolare scalpore il suo incontro in Italia con esponenti dell’UDC, tra i quali il segretario nazionale Lorenzo Cesa, avvenuto l’8 marzo 2007 a Roma.

Note

  1. ^ Gennarocarotenuto.it

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The Terrorism Slander in the Article

There is only one source cited, a personal blog of a journalist who is openly hostile to Mr Peña. The paragraph where the reference appears speaks about a religious group called Tradition, Family, and Property, why nothing in that paragraph belongs in this article. Furthermore, the paragraph makes accusations that do not even appear in the TFP article. These are serious errors for an article on Wikipedia, and still it has remained that way for over 3 years, through 73 edits, by 31 different editors. Something is obviously amiss here. But let’s see what it says.

Mr Peña is (falsely) accused of being a member of TFP, which is described as a “fascist-friendly sect that allows entry only to those that can demonstrate that they are of pure Aryan race”.

History of the Terrorism Slander

The article was created March 13, 2007, by user Skyluke (who openly displays a communist star on his user page). The original page was virtually identical to what is shown above. The main difference is that two sentences were added by an anonymous user on May 12, 2007, stating that his political program includes the “violent overthrow of center-left governments in Latin America” by military coups, and that he is ideologically aligned with US neoconservatives and the “extreme right” party Arena in El Salvador, respectively.

From May 12, 2007, to July 14, 2010, the article contained these un-sourced libelous claims, in spite of repeated attempts to correct the article text.

History of Thwarted Correction Attempts

On July 9, 2008, the article text was replaced entirely by a text in Spanish providing a decidedly positive point of view. This was done in violation of Wikipedia rules, and the change was undone quite correctly. However, nobody seems to have picked up the pieces of information present in that version, which they could have, if they really had desired to improve the article.

April 26, 2009, another anonymous user removed the claim that TFP is fascist-friendly and Aryan-only, and soon after, all other paragraphs after the first (which was the only one not containing potentially libelous claims). User Guidomac within a minute(!) re-inserted the previous libelous claims, without justification. (This re-insertion was a violation of Wikipedia rules, because you can neither insert nor re-insert potentially libelous and un-sourced claims in a biographical article on a living person without justifying it.)

April 8, 2010, a third anonymous user removed the claim that he is a member of TFP (the third paragraph in the text above), with the comment that “it is not true.” Four hours later Skyluke undid the change and reinserted the libelous claim, also without justification.

On July 14, 2010 (after his arrest), a forth anonymous user removed both the third and the forth paragraphs (everything dealing with TFP). Within seconds(!!) this change was undone by user Siciliano Edivad, again without justification.

On July 15, 2010, I added one reference, and flagged the article as lacking adequate references.

On July 17, 2010, at 18:01, I wrote on the talk page that the article “contains potentially libelous claims without source that should be removed immediately”. In the next 4 hours, three different users made four different edits, but nobody did anything to add sources or remove libelous claims. At 22:25, I took action, removed all paragraphs containing un-sourced or inadequately sourced potentially libelous claims, and made a note in the talk page. Five minutes later user L736E reinserted them, again, without justification. This was repeated a second time; see talk page.

On July 18, 2010, user Lepido made a series of improvements to the article, although it retained the libelous claims relating to TFP, and it still omitted crucial material. To correct this, I incorporated all the text from the English article, and combined it with the Italian text. Two hours later, at 01:33 July 19, an anonymous user reverted all the changes, naturally without justification. Another user reinserted my longer text, and admin Vituzzu again removed it.

On the talk page, I explicitly pointed out that the existing article text was communist propaganda. Thus, when Vituzzu re-inserted the libelous text the last time, he had been warned that it was communist propaganda, and he still posted it. Quite deliberately. Furthermore, he blocked me from Italian Wikipedia to prevent me from raising the matter with those legally responsible for the site.

The warning flag for bias that I inserted was taken away by L736E on July 19, claiming that the article was balanced and with adequate sources. That is, however, not true. The article remains libelous and biased today.

Who are these users who have contributed to this material support to a terrorist organization? I don’t know. For all we know they may be children, or they may be FARC members posting from the jungle in South America; there is just no way a reader of Wikipedia can find out who wrote the text. The Wikipedia foundation does not have editors, but leaves the editing to the users, without any policing.

Thus, the one to hold accountable here is primarily the Wikipedia foundation, since it provides the platform and is in effect the publisher of the libel, as I see it. But Fuerza Solidaria (an NGO that Peña leads) told me in an interview today that they have tried for years to get that libel removed from Italian Wikipedia, without success. Of course it is difficult to raise a libel suit in Italy from Venezuela, but this raises a legal issue that perhaps the European Parliament should deal with. Crooks should not get a free pass by slandering a person on a different continent via the internet.

Dissecting the Propaganda

Finally a word about motive and the role of this propaganda, the framing. The crucial message in the article on Mr Peña – judging from the edit history – is the sentence that in essence says that “he is a member of FTP, which is a fascist terrorist organization.”

Let us examine this message in detail. The statement that he is a member of FTP is false, denied by himself, while the statement characterizing FTP is referenced only partially, and then to an openly biased source.

Furthermore, the description of FTP does not belong in this article, but in the FTP article. Note that not a single word in the forth paragraph above has anything at all to do with this article. It is also worth noting that none of these accusations against FTP appear in the actual article about FTP, which strongly suggest that they, too, are false.

So why put in irrelevant falsehoods? It is not by chance, that is obvious from the change history: The various clauses have been re-inserted several times after being removed. They must serve a purpose, and we can easily guess which, if we know some things about Mr Peña that are left out from the article.

And there is the other part of the propaganda: Critical omissions. Certain facts must be held back, namely those facts that would enable the reader to understand the purpose of the propaganda, or as it were, why the seemingly irrelevant statements are there. In this case, that Mr Peña is a leading critic of Hugo Chávez, considering him a front man for Castro and a collaborator with FARC, and that Peña is advocating for legal, peaceful, and democratic methods to be used. These are the well-sourced facts that I, in vain, tried to get into the article, and for which I was blocked from Italian Wikipedia for, as they wrote, “being biased”.

The purpose of this propaganda article in Wikipedia is thus both to undermine his credibility in the public debate so that people don’t listen to his words, and to make the general public think that he is a bad guy who belongs in jail. The conclusion is thus near that Wikipedia has been used as a propaganda channel for preparing the public to accept as believable the manufactured evidence that Mr Peña is a terrorist, and to accept that he belongs in jail in Venezuela, so that this fierce critic of Chávez could be put away without a global PR fiasco.

But a PR fiasco it is.

Related stories: CNN attacks the scourge of internet anonymity

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EU Parliament Condemns Chávez’s words

July 23rd, 2010

Earlier this month the European Parliament adopted a statement regarding Venezuela, and in particular the case of judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni, who has spent the last 7 months in jail totally against the law.

The statement, available in all EU languages, is largely devoted to the case of judge Afiuni, who was imprisoned just because Chávez said so, in his TV program. He made it clear that he wanted her in jail for 30 years, and that he wanted the Congress to retroactively change the law so she could be convicted to a longer penalty. The fact that no evidence has been found for her alleged crime has not motivated her release.

The European Parliament made it clear that they consider the rule of law in Venezuela to be suspended, and goes as far as to use the word condemn. The parliament “Condemns the public statements made by [Hugo Chávez], insulting and denigrating the judge, demanding a maximum sentence and requesting a modification of the law to enable a more severe penalty to be imposed; considers that these statements are aggravating the circumstances of her detention and constitute an attack on the independence of the judiciary by the President of a nation, who should be its first guarantor”.

In the statement the body also “Calls on the Venezuelan Government, with a view to the parliamentary elections on 26 September, to respect the rules of democracy and the principles of freedom of expression, assembly, association and election, as well as to invite the European Union and international bodies to observe these elections.”

It is not likely Hugo will comply. Just four days later, July 12, Chávez sent a, shall we say, diplomatic signal back to the EU, by having his political police arrest a man who has been his political opponent ever since Chávez was released from prison after his failed military coup in 1992: Alejandro Peña Esclusa.

Perhaps the neo-communists thought Mr Peña would be an easy target, given how he has been the victim of a slander campaign by communists for years. However, his arrest may have backfired, giving much increased global publicity about the true nature of the regime.

One year ago, when president Zelaya was deposed in Honduras, the star of Chávez was still high in Europe. Europeans in general (including media) did not believe the statements from Honduras that Chávez was behind the illegal plans of Zelaya, which is what caused the Supreme Court to order the arrest of the latter.

However, on July 26, 2009, I published an article on this blog that, it appears, brought a news story from Colombia to the attention of media in Sweden. The Swedish title of the article was, in translation, Chávez’s generals gave Swedish anti-tank weapons to terrorists. It was based on an article in Semana that cited facts found on the infamous FARC computer, and verified with the Swedish authorities, proving that weapons type AT-4 sold from Sweden to Venezuela had ended up in the hands of FARC, by the help of Venezuelan generals.

My modest contribution was simply to put this explosive news (pardon the pun) under the nose of the Swedish editors. Within hours all media had the story, and before lunch the government had taken the decision to stop indefinitely the export of Swedish weapons to Venezuela.

Today the star of Chávez in Sweden is decidedly much closer to the ground, if not already below it. The politically motivated arrest of judge Afiuni and Mr Peña Esclusa are perhaps the most visible cases, but they are just two out of many political prisoners in Venezuela today. Another problem is that the “arbitrary confiscation and expropriation, involving more than 760 enterprises since 2005 … undermine the basic social and economic rights of citizens” as the EU parliament put it.

Alejandro Peña Esclusa has argued since last year that the Venezuelans should learn from Honduras, that it is possible to peacefully stop a developing dictatorship by applying the laws and follow the constitution. Indira Ramirez de Peña has said in the TV program LA NOCHE in Colombia, after her husband’s arrest, that the example of Honduras scares Chávez, and that this is the reason her husband was arrested; to stop him from spreading the knowledge to the Venezuelan people of how they can defeat Chávez peacefully. Personally I would suggest that they also study and learn from how the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania made themselves free from the Soviet Union in the so-called singing revolution.

Venezuela is increasingly developing into a totalitarian state. Although it is not there yet, the developments and signals this summer have been very worrisome. If Chávez looses control over the parliament on September 26, he will no longer be able to rule as a dictator. There is nothing that indicates that he is prepared to take that risk. He is refusing to allow election observers from Chile, for instance. He has made it clear that he intends to exercise control over the only remaining opposition TV news channel, Globovision. Furthermore, even if the opposition wins, Chávez has already prepared to castrate the parliament by not giving them budget responsibility.

There is thus not much that speaks for Venezuela being a democracy today.

As if all this is not enough, Colombia has now presented evidence for large guerilla bases in Venezuela, belonging to FARC and ELN, organizations that are classified as terrorist groups by the EU and US, and which are major players in the smuggling of cocaine to Europe and North America. Chávez reacted with fury to the news, rather than – as a democratic leader would have done – promise to rout them out. This shows that beyond reasonable doubt Chávez is in cohorts with those narco-terrorists. In other words, Venezuela is a state sponsor of terrorism.

It would not surprise me if those who defended Chávez in relation to the crisis in Honduras last year are now mighty red-faced. Unless, of course, they already were red… If you go back and read comments on this blog, you may get a good laugh.

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It was Data, not Noise

July 22nd, 2010

Again it turns out that things aren’t always what they seem to be. When looking at a suspended solution in much higher resolution than before, unsuspected details emerged.

Turbidity of settling 2,000 FTU formazin measured every 20 seconds.

Turbidity of settling 2,000 FTU formazin measured every 20 seconds. Yellow area is over 2200 FTU. CLick to read more.

What appeared to be a uniform suspension in which the particles sank in their characteristic settling velocity, turned out to apparently be a liquid with significant turbulence. Small “packages” of water with higher turbidity (lighter) or lower (darker) move in opposite direction in front of the sensor. The sensor is a SediMeter, consisting of 36 infrared optical backscatter detectors (OBS) 10 mm apart. It was developed for studying sedimentation, erosion, siltation and re-suspension.

Note that at time 16:40 there is some fascinating micro-turbulence with variations of around 10% within a minute outside a given sensor. If measuring once per minute, this might have been interpreted as noise, but with this high temporal resolution, one can clearly see how discrete packets of more turbid water are sinking.

An old and time-proven method to do grain-size analyses on fine-grained cohesive sediments (such as clay and silt) is to suspend them in water, and measure how fast they sink. This can be done with either the pipette method (extracting water at a certain level and weighing the sediments after drying it), or the hydrometer method (measuring the density of the liquid). In both cases one assumes that after X seconds, all sediment size Y or coarser have sedimented (cf. Stoke’s Law). It would be interesting to see, using this instrument, what really goes on in that sedimentation vessel…

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Wikipedia fails to stop Slander of Political Prisoner

July 21st, 2010

As reported here 2 days ago, in Character-Assassination of Political Prisoner on Wikipedia, the Italian-language version of the popular free online encyclopedia has for a long time hosted an openly biased and clearly libelous article about the Venezuelan opposition-politician Alejandro Peña Esclusa. Since that article was published, the editor has gone in and removed the two sentences that I quoted the other day. Kind of (see below).

However, he also removed the flag that the article is biased and lacks credible sources – in spite of the fact that many problems still exist.

The Article Remains Libelous

The second paragraph says, “He is furthermore a member of the Catholic-inspired traditionalist movement Tradition, Family, and Property, some members of which were accused of the attempt to organize the attack on Pope John Paul II during his visit to Caracas November 13, 1984 (the organisation has denied such a ’sacriligious attack’)[2], and against Ronald Reagan, president of the United States of America. As a result of this the movement is outlawed in Venezuela, France, Spain, and Argentina, the countries where it mainly existed.” (”È inoltre membro del movimento tradizionalista di ispirazione cattolica Tradizione, Famiglia e Proprietà, di cui alcuni appartenenti sono stati accusati del tentativo di organizzare attentati contro Giovanni Paolo II durante il suo viaggio a Caracas il 13 novembre 1984 (l’associazione ha però smentito tale “sacrilego attentato”)[2], e contro Ronald Reagan, presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America. In seguito a ciò il moviemento è stata dichiarata fuorilegge in Venezuela, Francia, Spagna e Argentina, paesi dove era maggiormente radicata.“)

Reference 2 speaks about the alleged attack plans, not about his membership in the organization. There is thus no source for the only claim that is relevant: The allegation that he is a member of an organization that is outlawed in his country. In other words, they are accusing him of committing a crime without presenting any proof whatsoever.

Apart from this obvious legal embarrassment for Wikipedia, the article remains negatively biased against Peña Esclusa. For instance, his own arguments, in his own defense, recorded in videos posted online before his arrest, are not even mentioned. Whenever a user introduced such text and references, an admin immediately deleted it.

Furthermore, the biased intentions of the editor can be deduced from the fact that the two problematic sentences I mentioned last time were not actually removed from the file. They were just commented out by admin “Vituzzu”. As soon as nobody is watching, any user can remove the comment-characters and make the libel re-appear.

An examination of the history of the article shows that the efforts to keep smears in place is not something new. On April 8, 2010, an anonymous user took away the sentence saying that he was “a member of the Tradition, Family and Property movement, which only allows Aryans as members” with the comment that “it is not true”. Almost immediately the sentence was reinserted by user Skyluke, whose page you can see below. Draw your own conclusions.

The page of the Wikipedia user who inserted libelous claims about Alejandro Peña Esclusa on April 8, 2010

The page of the Wikipedia user who inserted libelous claims about Alejandro Peña Esclusa on April 8, 2010

It’s not so easy for the falsely accused to defend himself against this libel, given that he is a political prisoner in Venezuela. But if it was me, and I could get word to my lawyer, I would tell him to send a cease and desist letter; not to Italian Wikipedia, but to the mother-foundation in the US. You see, by them allowing the Italian site to use the name wikipedia, they are lending their credibility to the articles also in Italian. It is a fact that also non-Italian users have used this article to get – as they thought – neutral and balanced information about who he is, after the news of his arrest went over the world last week. This has caused a large number of people to decide not to try to help him, as evidenced from discussion pages on the internet.

One of the arguments of the Italian editors was that the text was putative, not decisive. Tough luck. That does non come through in the machine translations on the Internet. Nor does the lack of credible sources come through. Speaking of which, the page still retains as a presumably neutral source a journalist who is demonstrably hostile to the person of the article.

I am looking forward to see how this plays out. It would be an interesting legal case if it would play out, given the many legal facts to consider. (Disclaimer: This is just my opinions, and nobody should take it as advice.) Although a much better solution is of course that the Wikipedia Foundation realizes that an innocent person has been harmed, and takes actions to both help him, and to prevent it from happening again. For instance, by mandating that the rules for protecting biographies on living persons be followed by all sites associated with them. To help undo the damage, they could set experts to edit the article about Mr. Peña, and present it as a featured article.

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Chávez’s Dictatorship is Consolidated

July 21st, 2010

Venezuela’s president, or dictator – depending on whom you ask – Hugo Chávez Frías, has declared that according to him, the government now owns a minority stake of 25.8% in Globovisión, and insists that he has the right to appoint a director. The person he has in mind is Mario Silva, a talk show host on state TV who is using his platform to vilify Globovisión.

The majority owner of Globovisión, Guillermo Zuloaga, says to Miami Herald that the claim is “absurd” and that Chávez has his facts wrong.

Last month an arrest warrant was issued for Mr. Zuloaga and his son, who fled the country and are now, reportedly, considering seeking political asylum in the US.

Globovisión is the last TV-network critical of Chávez that remains in Venezuela. They reach 42% of the population with 24-hour news that has a critical angle to the regime.

On September 26 parliamentary elections will be held. If Chávez follows through on his intentions, there will be no free and fair elections, since free and fair elections requires a free debate, which requires that there is more than one voice in media.

Judging from the acts of Chávez this year, he is getting increasingly desperate in his efforts to remain in power. The last parliamentary elections 5 years ago the opposition unwisely boycotted, giving him an easy victory. This time they are instead united behind a single candidate in each precinct.

In February Chávez had the judge María Lourdes Afiuni imprisoned for setting a person free after three years without trial. He was released since the prosecutor consistently failed to show up at scheduled trials. Although the law says he couldn’t be held for more than two years, his release caused Chávez to get furious on TV, and order her incarceration. This caused the European Parliament to issue a condemnation of Venezuela on July 8, 2010 and calling for them to be invited to monitor the elections September 26. To which as we have seen, Chávez responded by figuratively giving them the finger, arresting his outspoken political opponent Alejandro Peña Esclusa on patently false charges, on July 12.

In March one of Chávez’s judges had an opposition politician imprisoned just for demanding an investigation (on Globovisión) of the accusations made by a Spanish judge regarding possible contacts between the Venezuelan government and drug-smuggling and terrorist organizations such as FARC and ETA.

Unless very drastic measures, and extreme pressure is put on Venezuela now, there seems to be no hope for democracy this year. There must be a free opposition media, and there must be independent election observers, both during the election campaign and the actual election and vote counting. However, remember Stalin’s words, “it is not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes.” Venezuela uses its own, state-controlled electronic voting machines.

It may be that the only way the Venezuelan people can get rid of Chávez is through a legal process that does not involve elections. The fact that such a process can work, peacefully, has been demonstrated many times the last 20 odd years, from East Germany to Honduras. There is no reason why it would not work also in Venezuela.

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Character-Assassination of Political Prisoner on Wikipedia

July 19th, 2010

Last edited 11:10, created 10:08 – Three days ago, the Italian Wikipedia article about Alejandro Peña Esclusa consisted almost entirely of clearly libelous and false claims. Over a period of 3 days the editors have refused to remove the libelous claims, blocked attempts by other users both to remove the libel, and efforts to introduce Peña’s self-confessed political opinions as a balance.

As reported the other day (English, Swedish), Alejandro Peña Esclusa is an anti-communist politician and activist imprisoned by Hugo Chavez on July 12, 2010, on manufactured and laughable terrorist charges, and held by a kangaroo court. The Wikipedia article about him in Italian was a pure hit-job, accusing him of attempted murder, for being a coupster, fascist, anti-semite, racist; most either without source, or sourced to statements by political enemies. A big effort yesterday to incorporate well sourced and NPOV (neutral point of view) material from the English Wikipedia article immediately got deleted. For good measure, the user got blocked from doing further edits. Another user re-inserted it and it again got deleted. The libelous text was reinserted. Little does it help that it was flagged as biased and lacking credible sources, when some of it was patently false and libelous.

Here is an example of the reinserted text, as it stands at 10:24 today: “Nel suo programma politico attuale propugna oggi il rovesciamento violento dei governi di centro-sinistra latinoamericani e il ritorno di dittature militari.” In translation, “In his present political program he is advocating the violent overthrowing of the center-left governments of Latin America and the return of military dictatorships.” No source is provided. In spite of repeatedly providing quotes from Peña, video-recordings where he himself states that he opposes violence, to the editors, they let the libelous statement stand, and delete the refutations. The quoted text mentions “center-left governments,” which should have been a warning flag for the editors, being the terminology of Hugo Chávez’s “Bolivarian Revolution” and “Socialism in the XXI Century.” Neutral observers rarely consider governments that socialize companies “center”.

A link to a video where Peña Esclusa himself declares that he denounces violence as a political method was provided, but rejected by the editors. Here is a quote from another website under his control: “the Venezuelans ought to become inspired by the Honduran model, and strive for a change of government as soon as possible, through pacific, democratic, and constitutional means–and not just electoral–to avoid a national tragedy” (my emphasis). To allow the unsourced claim to stand, in complete contradiction to his own clearly stated and sourced political ideology (in the translated article), is beyond incompetence. It is either deliberate libel, or libel through gross negligence, since the concerns had been clearly pointed out in the discussion page.

The history of the increasingly frustrating efforts to make the administrators (admin for short, i.e., the Wikipedia term for editors) agree to remove the libelous claims can be read on the discussion page and the history page on Italian Wikipedia.

The first mentioning of the problem was made on the discussion page 2010-07-17 18:01 CEST, with the following message: “This page appears to contain potentially libelous claims without source, that should be removed immediately – this needs to be addressed by an editor in Italian wikipedia.” The rules for articles on living persons in English Wikipedia (there is no Italian translation) clearly states that one should delete such text immediately, but out of courtesy a chance was given to the Italian users to correct the page first. When after 4 hours nothing had happened, all libelous and unsourced claims were removed. That only left one sentence in the article – which goes a long way to show how biased it was.

This delete was undone within 5 minutes by user L736E, an admin who in the discussion kept insisting that Italian Wikipedia had different rules than English Wikipedia, although he never managed to provide a link to the rules. This is his reply: “Sorry guy but in Wikipedia in italian there’s no such rule that “libelous claim should be deleted IMMEDIATELY”.” He later edited his reply to, “Sorry guy but “libelous claim should be demonstrated and presented as such.””

Among the libelous claims that he re-instated was this: “On April 12, 2002, Peña Esclusa participated in the failed coup d’état in Venezuela.” No source for this statement was given. The fact is that he was arrested and promptly set free. The judicial principles are that if the prosecution of a person is dropped, then he is to be regarded innocent, just as if he been declared innocent by a court of law. This sentence in the article was thus demonstrably libelous. Being from the person’s ideological enemies, the communists, it was also communist propaganda. There was thus every reason to either remove it, or rephrase the text to state that it is an accusation from his political enemies. But it had to be done immediately, not “mañana”.

However, when the communist propaganda-nature of the libelous statements was pointed out to admin L726E, he took the argument as a personal attack against him(!). As a result, another admin, calling himself Vito Giulio-Claudio at the time, blocked not just further edits but also all discussion and messages.

These admins claim that the Italian version of Wikipedia entirely lacks rules for protecting innocent persons against libelous attacks with unsourced statements the way the English one does. In their words, the English rules do not apply to them. But on the English page on Biographies of living persons, it says, “This page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow” (my emphasis). Their word normally links to a common sense clause, which instructs the editors to use common sense, based on the “Ignore all rules-rule,” which says, “If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.”

The Italian admins thus have all the clout they need to stop the libelous attacks on Alejandro Peña Esclusa, but instead they chose to use their clout to keep the libel in place by avoiding fundamental changes.

The Wikipedia Foundation would be well advised to permanently block those irresponsible administrators who let libel stand, especially in a case like this, when the person’s life quite literally is in the balance–and just might depend on the veracity of that information.

Footnote: Wikipedia in June announced that they would open up some 2000 hitherto locked articles to make editing easier, including many biographies of living persons (source DN).

Example of Chávez’s propaganda, added 11:10: The new house organ of Hugo Chávez from 2009, Correo del Orinoco, has published an article in which they discuss a video of Alejandro Peña Esclusa talking in a church in 2007. In effect, what he is saying is calling for the congregation to follow the constitution and to protest peacefully. This is their way of demonstrating that Peña is a dangerous terrorist(!). If this is the most incriminating evidence they have, they have nothing. In other words, what the propaganda outlet suggests between the lines, is that to even be opposed to Chávez’s socialist revolution legally and peacefully is unacceptable, and deserves to lend a person in jail.

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Ledande demokratikämpe kastad i Venezuelas “gulag”

July 15th, 2010

I måndags kväll kastades Alejandro Peña Esclusa i politiskt fängelse av Hugo Chávez Frías, diktator i Den Bolivarianska Republiken Venezuela.

Om detta har jag ännu inte sett ett ord i svenska media. Skandal! Om han kan kastas i fängelse utan att det uppmärksammas, då kan vem som helst kastas i fängelse utan att någon bryr sig.

Vem är då Peña Esclusa?

Han gav ut en bok 1994 i vilken han avslöjade Chávez som en marionett för Castro på Kuba, och för den marxistiska knarkgerillan FARC i Colombia, vars uppgift det var att sprida marxismen över hela den latinamerikanska kontinenten. Kom ihåg att detta var bara 2 år efter Chávez misslyckade militärkupp, och långt före någon av dem hade ställt upp som presidentkandidater. Det gjorde de bägge två år 1998. Chávez vann.

Sedan dess har den nu fängslade ingenjören och demokratiförkämpen oavtröttligt försökt motarbeta den kommunistiska komplotten med alla till buds stående lagliga och demokratiska medel. Han är ledare för UnoAmérica, en paraplyorganisation för ca 200 ideella organisationer som slåss för att försvara demokratin i sina respektive länder över hela Latinamerika. Han deltar själv i opinionsbildning över hela kontinenten, till exempel i El Salvador där han varnade för länkarna mellan den gamla gerillan FMLN och Chávez. Trots det vann de, och en salvadoran figurerar i arresteringen av Peña Esclusa, som en påstådd terrorist som framkastade falska anklagelser om inblandning innan han gömdes undan på Kuba.

En av de mera uppmärksammade aktionerna var när Peña Esclusa i augusti 2009 anmälde Chávez till Internationella Brottsmålsdomstolen (ICC) i Haag, för hans inblandning i försöken att kullstörta Honduras statsskick, och för att senare, när försöket stoppades av landets demokratiska institutioner, ha hotat med militär intervention för att återinsätta Zelaya. För att ha gjort denna anmälan till åklagare vill Chávez ha honom dömd för landsförräderi.

Varför arresterades han?

Efter att i åratal förgäves ha försökt hitta någon anledning att fänglsa honom blev Chávez desperat, nu när valen den 26 september närmar sig och oppositionens styrka hela tiden tilltar. Därför kidnappade de en salvadoran vid namn Chávez Abarca i Guatemala och flög honom mot hans vilja till Venezuela, enligt dennes hustru. Enligt Venezuela kom han själv dit, inbjuden att genomföra terroristattacker, men utan att veta något eller ha några planer; det skulle han få på plats, sa han. Han pekade ut kontaktpersoner enligt Venezuela, och Peña Esclusa var en av dem. Innan någon annan kunde intervjua honom flögs han till Kuba och gömdes undan.

Alejandro Peña Esclusa förstod naturligtvis att han skulle bli arresterad, så han spelade in en video i vilken han presenterade sin version av sakernas tillstånd för världsopinionen (med engelsk text del 1, del 2). Hans hustru Indira Ramirez de Peña har redogjort för hur påstådda sprängämnen planterades i deras 8-åriga dotters skrivbord vid husrannsakan. Hon påpekade också det absurda i att hennes man skulle ha förvarat sprängämnen i sitt hem även efter att han på video talat om för hela världen att han förväntades att bli arresterad inom ett dygn. Lögnen är totalt absurd (se t ex det colombianska TV-programmet LA NOCHE i onsdags kväll, i vilket hon har sällskap med ex-president Micheletti via satellit från Honduras).

Den egentliga anledningen till arresteringen är naturligtvis som ett led i strävan att vinna valet den 26 september. Alla som vågar tala klartext är ett hot, och de tas om hand på det vis som diktatorer känner bäst: Med olagliga medel. Även majoritetsägarna i den enda kvarvarande regimkritiska TV-kanalen som når hela landet (42% av befolkningen) är efterlysta, men de har sedan länge flytt landet och uppges nu överväga att söka politisk asyl i USA.

Det råder inte längre någon tvekan om att Hugo Chávez Frías är en diktator. Och just så kallade Micheletti honom igår: Herr diktator Hugo Chávez. På en direkt fråga vad han tyckte om mannen svarade den honduranska ex-presidenten att även om Chávez kallar honom för “goriletti” så föredrar han att inte svara med samma mynt, för han vill “inte förolämpa aporna”.

På ett mera allvarligt plan så uttalade Micheletti sin bestörtning över den brist på reaktion som vi sett från människorättsorganisationer på detta uppenbara och mycket grava övergrepp. Han påpekade hyckleriet som vi ser, även i media och, verkar det, till och med hos regeringar, då de aldrig var sena att anklaga Honduras legitima regim för påstådda övergrepp utan att vänta på fakta, men samtidigt inte säger ett pip (eller som i APs fall bara framför versionen från Chávez propaganda) när Chávez begår uppenbara övergrepp mot mänskliga rättigheter.

Jag kan förstå varför Sverige kröp för Hitler, men varför krypa för Chávez? (Att vänsterpartiet stödjer kommunistiska diktaturer med skattepengar har naturligtvis ideologiska förtecken, men jag talar om de andra, i den politiska mittfåran.) Jag hörde också igår, men minns nu inte vem som sa det (möjligen hans hustru, möjligen Alejandro själv, kanske någon annan) att Brasiliens president Lula da Silva framstår som strategen, figuren i bakgrunden som drar i trådarna, medan Chávez är den som skickas fram i rampljuset. Det vore i så fall strategiskt klokt av da Silva, för ända tills då Zelaya tog sig in på deras ambassad i Tegucigalpa så hade hans politiska inställning inte riktigt kommit fram. Nu är den dock solklar. Brasilien under da Silva är lika rabiat som Den Bolivarianska Republiken Venezuela (som Chávez låtit döpa om den till), när det gäller Honduras. Fullständigt oresonabel är karln, bryr sig inte ett dyft om fakta. Lyckligtvis är det snart presidentval i Brasilien och oppositionen delar inte hans syn.

Varför tog jag upp Brasilien? JAS. Så länge Sverige tror sig kunna sälja JAS Gripen till Brasilien så har de (verkar det) veto-rätt över Bildts utrikespolitik. Tänka sig, det heter att vi skall ha egen vapentillverkning för att kunna ha en egen utrikespolitik. Istället böjer vi oss för Brasilien, en reell allierad till Kuba, Ryssland och Iran, förutom Venezuela.

Om priset är att vi låter en demokratiförkämpe ruttna i ett politiskt fängelse, och ett land som försvarar sin suveränitet med fredliga och demokratiska medel bli utkastat ur den internationella gemenskapen, ja då har vi ingen moral.

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Länkar: Också publicerad på NewsMill.
Metrobloggen.
DN skriver om FARC-anklagelserna, och uppgrävningen av Simon Bolivar, men inte om detta.

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Chávez Arrests Defender of Democracy

July 15th, 2010

Update 2010-07-19 10:31 – A report from Alejandra Peña Esclusa, from inside his prison on July 17, in Spanish, has been published at Fuerza Solidaria.

Last updated 2010-07-15 09:36, first published 2010-07-13 11:34 ET: Alejandra Peña Esclusa, director of UnoAmérica, former presidential candidate (in 1998), was detained in his house Monday evening in Venezuela, according to information from his wife. Only hours earlier, Peña Esclusa had posted a video editorial online, which explains the situation (here with English subtitles, part I, part II). He predicted that he would be arrested the next day, but he was arrested just hours later. It makes that video essential for reporters to see since it provides his point of view, as a counterweight to the propaganda lies from the dictatorship in Venezuela.

Headquarter of SEBIN, the Venezuelan political police. This is Chavezs GULAG, where he keeps political prisoners.

Headquarter of SEBIN, the Venezuelan political police. This is Chávez's GULAG, where he keeps political prisoners, including Peña Esclusa.

Peña Esclusa is accused of having links with terrorism. The other day an alleged terrorist from El Salvador was shown on TV in Venezuela, but the opposition sniffed out that something wasn’t right with the story. This Chávez Abarca confessed too easily, was only allowed to be interviewed by TeleChávez (aka TeleSur), and his story was not credible. The Venezuelan regime said that Abarca was arrested when arriving in Venezuela for carrying out terrorist acts, but Mrs. Abarca said that her husband was kidnapped in Guatemala and brought to Venezuela against his will. He was then immediately flown to Cuba and stuffed away in Castro’s GULAG, unavailable for questioning.

The video editorial also shows how this defamation has been going on for a long time. As one of the more egregious examples he shows footage of how he has vilified for defending the sovereign right of the Republic of Honduras to govern itself according to its own laws. Obviously this is within his role as chairman in UnoAmérica. He explained simply that since president Zelaya was attempting to overthrow the constitution (on orders from Hugo Chávez), the judicial system in Honduras had every right to remove him from office. (In fact, the civil servants did not just have the right to do it, they had a constitutional obligation to do it.) Thus, he concluded, it was not a military coup, and Micheletti was the constitutional president of the republic. For expressing this opinion, including before the International Criminal Court, he was charged with treason.

In an appearance on Colombian TV, LA NOCHE, Wednesday night together with Honduran ex-president Micheletti, Peña Esclusa’s wife Indira Ramirez de Peña said that her husband since 1994 has been denouncing Chávez’s plans to spread the Cuban revolution in Latin America, exposing him as a front man for Castro and the narco-guerilla FARC in Colombia. Recall that this is just 2 years after Chávez’s failed military coup in 1992. Peña Esclusa is effectively the main political opponent of the ruler, opposing his plans all over Latin America. She further pointed out that it is absurd that her husband would keep explosives in his apartment even when he knew that he was going to be arrested, as evidenced by the video he posted hours before.

Micheletti in no uncertain terms stated that the free and democratic countries of the world must stand up for the falsely accused, and that “his words are strong, his words are brave, and logically this scares Mr. Dictator Hugo Chávez.” Other quotes: “It’s inconceivable that when that mummy on Cuba is releasing political prisoners, this guy is putting new ones in.” About Hugo Chávez he said that men should not believe themselves Gods, and that even though Chávez calls him “goriletti” (combination of gorilla and Micheletti), he is not participating in the name-calling because he doesn’t want to insult the apes.

The dictatorship is consolidating itself

The parliamentary elections on September 26 have to be won by Chávez party for him not to lose control. He appears to be prepared to go to any length to “win” the elections. At what point shall his title change from “president” to “dictator”? I would say today. The last democrat to leave, turn off the light.

There is only one significant independent TV station left in Venezuela, Globovisión which reaches 42% of the households, and its majority owner Guillermo Zuloaga and his son went in hiding after an arrest order had been issued on trumped-up charges. See Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. They have now turned up in the US where they allegedly are considering applying for political asylum.

Media: Venezuela: Opposition politician arrested on explosives charge, Venezuela’s Chávez jails his political opponent‎, Freedom Activist Arrested in Venezuela on False Charges. Associated Press is publishing PURE PROPAGANDA from Caracas, leaving out essential information such as UnoAmerica and his former run for the presidency, while printing all the government’s ridiculous accusations. In Sweden, a liberal politician has found that the leftist party is funneling tax money to support Hugo Chávez communist revolution.

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Eva Golinger, Venezuela’s paid “girlfriend”

July 13th, 2010

Edited 2010-07-13, originally posted 2010-07-12: During the defolding of the crisis in Honduras last year, someone posted a text written by Eva Golinger as a comment on this blog. I of course disapproved it, as it was stolen work, but I was impressed with the text nonetheless. So better late than never I googled her to see who this person might be.

I found out that she has been described both as a political prostitute and as a new Tokyo Rose.

It turns out she was born in the US of A, but with Venezuelan roots on her mother’s side, her Latin name thus being Eva Golinger Calderon. Wikipedia says she has a JD, a juris doctorate, from CUNY in 2003. However, a search for her dissertation thesis on scholar.google.com yields no hits.* She is frequently represented as an attorney, and has even given paid legal advise to Venezuela’s propaganda office in the US. Again, even this has been cast in doubt in early 2005, and it seems she had been disingenuous about her legal credentials. Apparently later in 2005 she was, however, registered as an attorney.

However, the shoddy quality of her legal analyses regarding Honduras strongly suggest to me that she has never been close to a doctor’s hat in any discipline. Unless it was made of tin foil, possibly.*

I am not talking about her political “analyses”, as in this piece, “Honduras: A Victory for Smart Power”. That text is opinion and guesswork, not fact and logic. The hilarious thing is that she congratulates president Obama, her “enemy”, for something he didn’t do. And she does not give the Hondurans credit for something that they actually did do, namely to take their destiny in their own hands.

No, when I talk about shoddy quality I mean this blog article, “Coup d’Etat Underway in Honduras”. In it Golinger clearly states that the Supreme Court of Honduras (CSJ) had ruled the poll that president Zelaya was planning illegal. Small wonder, as I don’t think there is a single country in which it is legal to hold a Constituting Constitutional Assembly, since that implies abandoning the existing State. However, this seems to completely escape the alleged juris doctor.

Her substandard fact-finding is also evidenced by this statement in the same sentence: “[Honduras] has a very limited constitution that allows minimal participation by the people”. She propably has never read their constitution. It is anything but limited in sheer size, being one of the longest in the world, and the republican form of government is rather similar to that in her native USA.

This leads me to question her academic competence. She looked (albeit superficially) at the facts, and drew the wrong conclusion from a legal point of view. She apparently lacks the intellectual tools for carrying out a legal analysis based on the law. Either that, or she choses not to deploy them.

Although no thesis showed up on scholar.google.com, there were several books written by Golinger. They all seem to deal with criticism of the US for its interventionist foreign policy, and defense of Bolivarian Venezuela for its policy. While some of the criticism – or even much – of the US may be justified, she seems to have developed a case of paranoia. To think that the US was behind the events in Honduras is clearly not a sign of sanity. Her twisted description of reality is tragic.

The many revoked visas suggest a certain degree of displeasure in Washington visavi Tegucigalpa, which totally seems to have escaped Golinger. Conversely, there was a proposal in Tegucigalpa of throwing out the US from their country since they did not trust the gringos any more, now that Obama seemed to side with Chavez. The real reason why Washington did not go further in pressuring Tegucigalpa was probably that Micheletti was squeezing back, in a place where Obama felt it. Not that they supported the legal action taken.

On the other hand, Golinger is unquestionably defending Chavez, even though evidence has come forth that he was behind the murders at the airport, and the staged media propaganda both there and in El Paraiso (1,2,3,4,5,6). But why shouldn’t she? After all, Chavez did use her as a mouthpiece for attacking the US, calling her “la novia de Venezuela”, ‘Venezuela’s girlfriend’, and she was and is a paid hand in Chavez’s propaganda machine. This year she got hired as editor for the English language edition Correo del Orinoco International, a leftist newspaper launched in 2009 and financially backed by the Venezuelan government.

To sum up, some on the Internet has Eva Golinger as a cross between a political prostitute and Tokyo Rose. I don’t know if that is true or not. But if it were true, it would be quite a defamation. Of Tokyo Rose.

* Update 2010-07-13: After Eva Golinger has pointed out that she is a registered “attorney” I started researching the US legal education system and realized that a US “JD” is something completely different than a Swedish “JD”. No wonder she has no research skills; a USAmerican Juris Doctor has never done any research. Golinger’s education is a basic 2-year law education. In my Alma Mater, the basic education at “Juridicum” is 4.5 years, and a Juris Doctor must study nominally 4 more years after that (but the real average is longer), a big part of which is taken up by original research (just like any other doctor, including yours truly). So, I was way too hard on her above. She probably just lacks the academic training to be able to make the analysis.

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