The way US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Haiti and Venezuela in its 2008 World Report reveals an underlying assumption that the US and its allies have the right to overthrow democratic governments.
The Venezuela section of the report said nothing about ongoing attempts by the US to overthrow the government of President Hugo Chavez. It is a matter of public record that the US-funded groups who were involved in the military coup of 2002 that briefly overthrew Chavez, and continued to do so after the coup took place. US-Venezuelan lawyer Eva Golinger revealed the extent of this funding in great detail in The Chavez Code.
Rather than denounce or even acknowledge US destabilisation efforts in Venezuela, HRW continues to complain about the non-renewal of Venezuelan media corporation RCTV's public broadcasting licence, which expired in 2007. RCTV continues to broadcast in Venezuela via cable and satellite.
RCTV was one of big television networks that aided and abetted the coup. HRW objects that RCTV's involvement in the coup "was not proven in a proceeding in which RCTV had an opportunity to present a defense".
It is impossible to imagine a non-farcical proceeding that would conclude otherwise, especially when the coup's perpetrators thanked the private media, of which RCTV was a major part, for its help. Before the coup was reversed Vice-Admiral Ramirez Perez told a Venezuelan reporter: "We had a deadly weapon: the media. And now that I have the opportunity, let me congratulate you."
Judging by it reports, HRW is completely uninterested in whether the broadcaster that replaced RCTV on the public airwaves, TVes, offers viewers a wider variety views or greater accountability. "Freedom of the Press Barons" to perpetrate coups appears to be HRW's concern, not freedom of expression.
HRW also used the 2008 World Report to criticise, yet again, a judicial reform law that was passed by the Chavez administration in 2004.
In contrast, HRW's summary about Haiti said nothing about the coup that ousted Jean Bertrand Aristide's democratically-elected government in 2004; nothing about the subsequent murder of thousands of people who supported Aristide's Lavalas movement (the word "Lavalas" does not even appear in the summary); nothing about the fact that Haiti's police and judiciary remain stacked with appointees from the dictatorship of 2004-2006; nothing about Father Gerard Jean Juste, the most prominent political prisoner of that period, who continues to be hounded by Haiti's legal system.
Even if HRW's criticism of Venezuela's judicial reform law of 2004 were reasonable (and it isn't), it cannot deserve more attention than the coup that took place in Haiti and that led to a human rights catastrophe. (Visit <http://narconews.com> to read Al Giordano's defence of Venezuela's judicial reform that aimed to break the corrupt hold of the Venezuelan elite over the judiciary.)
On a positive note, HRW's Haiti section of the 2008 report belatedly gave some attention to the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a prominent Haitian human rights worker and opponent of the 2004 coup: "In August 2007 a well known human rights advocate, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, was abducted. At this writing his whereabouts remain unknown."
Again, the absence of the word "Lavalas" is telling.
Pierre-Antoine disappeared days after he had announced that he would run for the Haitian senate as a Fanmi Lavalas Party candidate. The goal of the 2004 coup and the massive repression that followed was to eliminate Lavalas movement — the same goal with basically the same perpetrators as during the 1991-1994 dictatorship about which HRW reported extensively.
At first glance, Human Rights Watch 2008 World Report seems to provide courageous and much needed criticism of powerful countries like the US. HRW is willing to contradict the Bush administration. For example, in a press conference about the 2008 World Report, HRW director Ken Roth refused to label Venezuela as a "closed country".
However, Roth went on to say that human rights "trends were negative in Venezuela". Such a conclusion is justified only if one assumes that supporting coups and other acts of sabotage against a democratic government should have no legal repercussions at all.
Meanwhile in Haiti, where human rights trends really are disastrously negative thanks to a coup backed by the US, France and Canada, HRW displayed a chilling lack of interest.
US imperialism cannot succeed with neocons alone. It needs the help of transnationals and NGOs like Human Rights Watch. This is an important lesson to remember from the coups that took place in Haiti and Venezuela.
[Reprinted from <http://haitianalysis.com>.]