ToolsChavez will notbe missedVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez was a communist dictator whose heroes were Fidel Castro, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Robert Mugabe, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. One of his major goals was to integrate Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Ecuador under one Marxist-socialist government umbrella. During his tyrannical tenure, violent crime was rampant in Venezuela, with extra-judicial killings by security agents a recurring problem. The Minister of the Interior and Justice estimated that police committed one in every five crimes. Throughout his reign of terror, Chavez sought to suppress religious freedom by destroying the influence of his main opponent—the Catholic Church. He did this by designing a law that ended traditional government subsidies to Catholic schools and ended the right of children to receive religious education in government-run schools. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission also accused Chavez of massive violations of human rights, the destruction of democratic principles such as the separation of powers, judicial review of acts of state, and the rule of law over the will of the president. In addition to harassing political opponents, Chavez's government systematically undermined journalistic freedom of expression, workers' freedom of association, and the ability of human rights groups to promote human rights. Not surprisingly, Hugo Chavez departed this vale of tears on the 60th anniversary of the death of Joseph Stalin. Like Stalin, he will not be missed. Paul Kokoski via e-mail |
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