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Editorial / Commentary / Opinion
VenEconomy:Is a man known
by the company he keeps?
This Tuesday, March 16, the last dictator in Europe, the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, arrived in Venezuela.
He was warmly welcomed as an illustrious guest by his counterpart, Hugo Chávez and received the keys to the city of Caracas from the hands of the mayor of LibertadorMunicipality, Jorge Rodríguez.
Lukashenko started his career in power in 1994, when he was elected as the president of Belarus with the promise –still not kept- of fighting corruption and introducing labor reforms.
His first term in office (four years) was extended to six following a referendum. At the end of that extended term, in 2001, he ran for reelection and won, amidst severe questioning of his shameless opportunism. In 2004, he called another referendum, the constitution was amended, and indefinite reelection approved. In 2006, he ran for election yet again and did not allow any international observers. Accusations of fraud by the opposition and international organizations were not long in coming. In April that same year, the European Union blocked the entry of Belarus to the community because of “violations of international electoral standards.”
Exercising his full presidential powers, Lukashenko dissolved Parliament in order to control it completely. Using brutal repressive force, he has persecuted dissidents, which has splintered and weakened the opposition. Today, the number of political prisoners runs into dozens.
The Government of Belarus is accused of violating human rights. There is no freedom of speech in Belarus and the media are controlled by the State. In mid-2010 a decree will go into force that contains major restrictions on the Internet because, as its president understands it, the web is full of pages hostile to Belarus and the anarchy on the Internet needs to be curbed.
Today, Belarus is one of the six “bastions on earth” and the only country in Europe where they have the death penalty, and its economy is controlled after the style of the defunct Soviet Union.
According to Lukashenko, the United States and the European Union are powers that are in a state of hysteria and support his opponents.
It is worth remembering that this is not the only relationship that Chávez has with champions of despotism and barbarism. Chávez has also expressed his sympathy for Vladimir Putin of Russia, who will be visiting Venezuela on April 4, and he has embraced Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe as well as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (today in the crosshairs of the international community for being considered a threat to world peace), not to mention his unconditional devotion to Fidel Castro, Cuba’s long-lived dictator.
Chávez’s support of the FARC, the Colombian narcoterrorist group for whom he requested international recognition a few years ago, is public knowledge. And, according to the Spanish Supreme Court, this sympathy of the President’s for foreign terrorist forces apparently extends to the feared Basque organization, ETA.
A man is known by the company he keeps.
VenEconomy has been a Venezuela's leading specialized publisher on financial, political and economic data since 1982. VenEconomy's Points of View on the issues of the day, as seen by VenEconomy during the last week. Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views.
Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by Veneconomy, Mar. 16, 2010. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers
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