Venezuela negotiates extradition of alleged drug kingpin wanted by US

Source: The Guardian

An alleged drug lord who has implicated senior Venezuelan officials in cocaine-trafficking is bound for Caracas after President Hugo Chávez won a high-stakes extradition tussle with the United States.

Walid Makled, who is in a high-security jail in Colombia, is expected to be flown to Venezuela this week to be tried – and some say muzzled – for trafficking drugs through Venezuela's state-run ports.

Makled, known as "the Turk", told reporters from prison that for years he paid senior Venezuelan government figures and 40 military officers, including the head of the navy, to let him smuggle cocaine from the Venezuelan port of Puerto Cabello.

Colombia rebuffed US efforts to gain custody of Makled, 44, who promised to reveal all if tried there, and said he would instead be extradited to Venezuela, which asked first.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/01/walid-makled-hugo-chavez-drugs

a good thing, imho.

He also is expected to stand trial for murders in Venezuela, a far more serious charge than the U.S.'s narcotrafficking business with the guy.

It was a clear, logical choice for Colombia's president to make. Any other consideration would have been dishonest, regardless of the spin.

Big Oil hates Chavez. And they take the lead in convincing America that Hugo is dangerous...to their ambitions. Otherwise he is a an effective leader ala smart aleck standing up against the raiders of his country. And those raiders have made things tough by screwing around with the economy of Venezuela and trying to make him look a failure and foolish. He isn't and is part of the leaders in S. America looking to increase native control over their own resources. Chavez can be a good U.S. alley and has tried by giving fuel oil to needy Americans. He needs (and is, I believe) to try more and so does Obama.

and the muzzling of the press in his country. I dont get why he feels the need to shut down his opponents, he is loved whether or not the opposition is allowed a voice. Oh. And the backing of Assad and Qaddafi. That and very arguably the FARC (at least in the past, dunno about that now giving the increased cooperation with columbia). And he is a major egotesticle. So I guess it can be summed up like this. Chavez; good on policy, bad on personality.

Venezuela: The Spin vs. The Truth

"The Truth: Venezuela continues to have strong opposition broadcast and print media, as any casual visitor to Venezuela can plainly see. The supposed deterioration of freedom of the press under the Chávez government is a favorite theme of U.S. media coverage of Venezuela, and it is regarding this topic that the gap between reality and media claims is usually at its widest."...

......"In the years since the RCTV decision, instead of correcting its hyperbolic claims of Venezuelan censorship, U.S. media outlets have continued the theme. The new focus is on broadcaster Globovisión, routinely described as “Venezuela’s only remaining opposition TV television station on the open airwaves.”<11> This characterization is simply false, as numerous local TV stations in Venezuela have an opposition political line (and national broadcasters such as Televen continue to run programs with a strong opposition slant). The great majority of Venezuelan media continues to be privately owned, and the opposition dominates the newspaper industry as well. As Human Rights Watch – a frequent critic of freedom of the press in Venezuela – noted in a 2008 report, “the balance of forces in the print media has not changed significantly”, with the majority of Venezuelan newspapers continuing to be privately-owned and two of the three top newspapers maintaining an opposition political line (the third is neutral).<12>"

http://southoftheborderdoc.com/spin-vs-the-truth/


Venezuela: Democracy, revolution and the `president for life' lie

President for life?

It misleadingly characterises the proposed reform as “indefinite re-election”, implying that the vote is about whether or not to make “Chavez president for life”. All the amendment would do is remove existing restrictions on standing for election, Chavez, or any other incumbent, would still be required to actually win the popular vote.

As well, Venezuela’s constitution includes the profoundly democratic right to hold a referendum on whether or not to recall any elected official from halfway through their term if 20% of their electors sign a petition calling for one.
The opposition called a recall referendum on Chavez in 2004, which he won. In response, the Bolivarian government has pointed out that many states throughout the world do not have term limits for their heads of state, without this being considered anti-democratic.

Chavez has repeatedly stressed that he does “not have any plan to be president for life. That would be a violation of the constitution the political system. That would be the end of alternative governments.”

http://links.org.au/node/906

years ago.

Please put the writer's name to Carroll's articles. It's an important alert.

This heavily biased anti-Chavez article is typical of Carroll's writing about Chavez and other Latin American leftist leaders. Notice the slimy techniques:

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"Walid Makled, who is in a high-security jail in Colombia, is expected to be flown to Venezuela this week to be tried – and some say muzzled – for trafficking drugs through Venezuela's state-run ports." --from the OP (my emphasis)

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"Makled, a Venezuelan of Syrian descent, has turned into an unlikely catalyst for detente between Bogotá and Caracas, neighbours with a stormy relationship.

"Chávez has granted important economic and political concessions in what many have linked to the government's desire to get Makled on Venezuela's side of the Andes." --from the OP (my emphasis)

--

Nowhere does Carroll identify the sources for "some say" Makled will be "muzzled" in Venezuela or for "what many have linked to" that purpose. No attribution. No quotes. This is a technique for infusing anti-Chavez bile into news articles--but whose bile is it? I've seen this technique hundreds of times in corpo-fascist news articles about Chavez: "His critics say..." that he is "increasingly authoritarian" or whatever the "talking point of the day" is. Sometimes I think these so-called journalists are simply copying and pasting CIA faxes. No quotes. No attribution. No way for readers to verify that ANYBODY said ANYTHING. Was this the talk around the water cooler? Chitchat with the waiters at the corporate board lunch break? The "word" slipped to the reporter in a back alley in Washington?

Scumbag journalism. Shocking to find it in the Guardian, an otherwise non-scumbag publication. More typical of the New York Slimes, the Wall Street Urinal, the Miami Hairball and the Associated Pukes.

--

And this is downright funny (in a dark sort of way)...

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"The imminent extradition prompted laments in Washington at a lost opportunity to expose alleged corruption in Chávez's government.

"Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate foreign relations committee, said the US could use the testimony to 'dismantle some of the most important drug networks in the world today'." --from the OP

--

LOL!

The U.S. has spent $7 BILLION of our tax money in Colombia alone to dismantle "important drug networks" and the cocaine just keeps on coming. Think about it.