Venezuelan ex-defence minister Raul Baduel jailed

[naaman fletcher]

Raul Baduel was a key Hugo Chavez ally, and played an important role in defence of the president when he was temporarily ousted in a 2002 coup.
But after the two fell out in 2007, Mr Baduel was arrested on corruption charges.
He has also been banned from ever holding political office again.

Mr Baduel was one of the four founding members of President Chavez's revolutionary movement, MVR-200.


But, more than that, he was the key military man who returned Mr Chavez to power after a short-lived coup against the socialist leader in 2002.
Mr Chavez values loyalty like no other trait in his inner circle, and responded by making Mr Baduel his defence minister.

But in 2007, while President Chavez was campaigning to change the constitution to allow him to stand for office beyond the limit of two terms, his former confidant and friend deserted the party and denounced the campaign.

He said that Mr Chavez was attempting to usurp the constitutional powers of the Venezuelan people, and wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled Why I Parted Ways with Chavez.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8669618.stm

[ChangoLoa]

1. He's been jailed for more than a year now. He was sentenced to 8 years.

By the military tribunal.

[Peace Patriot]

2. There are extremely corrupt Pukes who SHOULD BE in jail here, including the President, Vice...

President and Secretary of So-Called Defense of the previous administration, but they are too powerful to prosecute. I'm glad to see Venezuelan justice working better than our own. Loot the public coffers, go to jail--no matter how powerful you are, no matter who your backers are, no matter how many fawning articles are written about you in the corpo-fascist press. Articles about Baduel NEVER examine the evidence against him. I wonder why. Many of the rightwing political operatives in Venezuela--much like rightwing political operatives here--are extremely corrupt. One of them recently emptied his bank account and fled to the corrupt, U.S.-friendly "free trade for the rich" government of Peru for protection. Many are in the pay of the CIA. This may be why Baduel didn't flee. He expects one day to benefit from the U.S. plots and war plans against Venezuela's popular, democratically elected, leftist government.

Again I ask, why does this article NOT examine the evidence against Baduel of grand scale larceny of the public coffers? Why doesn't it quote the prosecutors? Why doesn't it quote the court's ruling? Why doesn't it cite and examine the evidence and the arguments presented in court? On what basis does it presume that the prosecution of Baduel was political? It is an article based on rumors, and on political statements of the rightwing opposition, not on facts. If Obama and Holder had gone after Rumsfeld for the BILLIONS of 'disappeared' U.S. tax dollars in Iraq, or had gone after Cheney for the extremely corrupt, no-bid contracts given to Cheney's company, Halliburton, would "political" prosecution be a valid description? Not many of us would believe that, no matter how often or how loudly the corpo-fascist press promulgated that 'meme.' We would believe, rightfully so, that the RULE OF LAW had prevailed.

The best way that the BBC--which has become as bad as Rotters and the Miami Hairball, on the Latin American left--can paint this as a political prosecution is by NOT ATTENDING TO THE FACTS and not giving a crap about the "rule of law." This way they can smear over the truth, with smeary, smooshy impressionistic writing that tells us essentially nothing but leaves an IMPRESSION that Baduel is innocent, and that Chavez is the corrupt one (corruptly using the justice system to punish a political enemy). What is the evidence for THAT? None is given. Merely impressions, rumors, non-facts.

It is POSSIBLE that a high-profile opposer of Chavez was prosecuted for political reasons. Anything is possible. And NO public office holder--no matter how many socially beneficial programs he has created--should be trusted. That is the most basic tenet of democracy. Public scrutiny is essential. But what is the "public scrutiny" being exercised in this article? Scrutiny has to begin with the evidence--not with kneejerk assumptions. Scrutiny of a judicial action such as this has to begin with the judicial action and its basis. Baduel doesn't get a free ride to loot the Venezuelan treasury BECAUSE he broke with Chavez politically. That is smeary, smooshy writing--with no respect for the facts, and no consideration of the facts.

And it's interesting, isn't it?, that the corpo-fascist press has left President Obama off the hook for his anti-legal, anti-Constitutional excuse for NOT prosecuting our war criminals, that "we must look forward, not backward." Such contempt for the rule of law! Such obvious obeisance to powers more powerful than the U.S. government! That contempt for the rule of law gets a pass, but enforcement of the rule of law in Venezuela is smeared as political!

One other question I have about this situation: Did Baduel break with Chavez, politically, because Chavez and the National Assembly put the two-term limit on the president (and on governors) to a vote of the people (and won)? Or did the opposite occur--Chavez broke with Baduel because he found out about Baduel's thievery? This article accepts Baduel's story without questioning it--both Baduel and the BBC implying that Chavez is a tyrant. (How is a vote of the people, in honest, transparent, internationally certified elections, "tyranny"?) And they give no ink at all to the probable truth--that Baduel got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and his blather about tyranny has been his cover.

Finally, the prosecutors and justice system in Venezuela have gone after corruption on both sides of the political divide. They just went after some pro-Chavez banksters, for instance. The EVIDENCE is that the justice system is WORKING in Venezuela--and it is clearly NOT working here, or in England, with Blair, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld still on the loose. The presumption of the article--that Baduel is NOT a thief, and is a political prisoner--ignores this evidence of a normally working justice system in Venezuela, and furthermore ignores the evidence that those who revile Chavez (and, by implication, the voters of Venezuela)--chief among them, the U.S. government--do NOT have normally working justice systems. Why is Dick Cheney NOT in jail? Why is Donald Rumsfeld NOT in jail? Why is Bush Jr. NOT in jail? In plain terms: Neither Obama nor the U.S. justice system has the power to prosecute such powerful men. And the same goes for England and Blair, who bears equal responsibility for slaughtering a million innocent people to steal their oil, for torturing prisoners and probably for grandscale looting of U.S. and U.K. taxpayers by war profiteers (not to mention the murder of Iraq War whistleblower David Kelly). Where is the BBC outrage at the LACK of justice, when it comes to the powerful, in England and here?