A letter to The Guardian about Mark Weisbrot's defense of Chavez.

Mark Weisbrot is Chavez's most active gun slinger in Washington.

Dear Sirs:
The article by Mark Weisbrot: “ International campaign around Venezuela’s election has begun”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/18/venezuela-election , contains assertions that must be challenged. Weisbrot suggests that the U.S., through the efforts of “many public officials” “manipulate” the media in order to generate “as much bad press as possible about Venezuela”, at a time in which legislative elections in the country are getting nearer. However, increasing evidence about the links between Hugo Chavez and the terrorist organizations FARC (Colombia) and ETA (Spain) has been brought to light recently by non-U.S. independent organizations such as the Spanish Judicial system or the Interamerican Committee of Human Rights of the OAS, an international organization to which Venezuela belongs, which produced a negative evaluation of the situation of Human Rights under Chavez’s regime.
In an attempt to “prove” his assertions Weisbrot mentions the inconsistencies between the recent statements on Venezuela made by the U.S. Under Secretary for Latin America, Arturo Valenzuela and General Doug Fraser of the U.S. Southern Command. Originally the two statements differed but, later, General Fraser put the record straight. The U.S. says the links between Chavez and the terrorists are firmly established.
Weisbrot predictably refuses to accept the validity of the information contained in deceased Raul Reyes’s laptops, certified as genuine by Interpol, or the videos in which Chavez’s envoys meet with the FARC to offer cooperation or Chavez’s own utterances about the FARC being the heroes and Colombian President Uribe being the villain. Colombian terrorists have been given Venezuelan identity papers and protection. Chavez met secretly with FARC’s leader Marulanda, now deceased and also met publicly with terrorists Granda and Marquez. .
Weisbrot echoes the fraudulent data by Chavez’s bureaucrats that point to a reduction of poverty in Venezuela, at a time when the country is in the middle of one of its worst economic and social crisis in history.
Weisbrot also mentions that the “campaign” will try to make Venezuela look as “Burma or North Korea”. The fact is that Chavez is the strongest and one of the few remaining allies of countries such as Zimbabwe, Cuba, Iran, Syria and Belarus and has offered sanctuary in Venezuelan territory to the monster of Darfour, Omar al Bashir. There is no need for a campaign to make Chavez look like a rogue leader.
At the very same time Weisbrot’s piece appeared in The Guardian there was a press release from the Chavez’s embassy in Washington. The release is very similar to Weisbrot’s article, using much of the same wording.
This is no coincidence. It is part of a concerted campaign, certainly not the same one Weisbrot is taking about.
In this article to The Guardian Dr. Weisbrot strongly sounds like an attaché of the Chavez embassy.
Sincerely,
Gustavo Coronel