Arcadia Foundation

Former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya said Thursday that new corruption charges brought against him by Honduras’ newly elected government amount to political persecution.

Zelaya said in a statement from the Dominican Republic that the charges undermine efforts to promote national reconciliation following his ouster.

He said the charges “seek personal revenge and worsen the political persecution against me, forgetting national reconciliation.”

Honduras’ anti-corruption prosecutor is seeking to charge Zelaya with allegedly diverting $1.5 million in welfare funds to his campaign for a referendum on reforming the constitution.

Zelaya was recently appointed the head of a new political council in Petrocaribe, founded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2005 as he prepared to begin a life of relative obscurity in exile in the Dominican Republic. Through this appointment, Chavez has ostentatiously incorporated Zelaya to his payroll. Many analysts agree that the appointment by Chavez was more than a gesture of friendship.

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Days before Sean Penn graced millions of television viewers with a brief appearance at the Academy Awards gala, he was seen putting on a performance of his own.

Penn, appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, defended Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.

“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it” said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. “And this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

And the award for best supporting actor of an erratic authoritative regime goes to….

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The foundations of repression established by Hugo Chavez in Venezuela are slowly deteriorating and Hillary Clinton knows it. From a geopolitical perspective, when precedents of domestic policy are formally addressed and scrutinized by foreign powers strategically, one is viewing a significant catalyst towards the implementation of tangible change.

And so, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a mission to mend relations with a new and improved Honduras, took an opportunity during a recent interview in Sao Paulo, Brazil to touch on Venezuela’s crisis of democracy.

Clearly referring to our often-referenced authoritarian, Hillary noted that “…there are leaders in countries who just want to rule the way they choose. They don’t want to make their people freer, they don’t want to take away special privileges from the elite and share it with the people, they don’t want to change.”

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Good help is hard to find. Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom knows it – he recently fired his interior minister for alleged corruption and has now replaced him with a former journalist.

Colom says he found irregularities in a contract signed by Interior Minister Raul Velasquez to buy fuel for the country’s national police. Colom then announced he was firing Velasquez in a televised message to the nation Sunday night.

Local media say that Velasquez authorized a $6.2 million contract with a private company to buy fuel for police but that the company embezzled the money.

Colom replaced Velasquez with Carlos Menocal, a former journalist who was a presidential commissioner responsible for combatting organized crime and corruption.

Last week, the Organization of American States (OAS) issued a scathing report in response to the maltreatment of the Venezuelan government of its citizens. This week, the very same report became the subject for further criticism against Venezuela and its president, Hugo Chavez. This time, however, criticism came directly from members of the American government, simultaneously renewing America’s objections to Venezuela, as well as formally polarizing our two governments on issues relating to human rights.

American Senators Dodd and Lugar are in agreement of the report’s findings, reiterating Venezuela’s failures in generalized terms stating evidence of “constraining free expression, hindering the rights of civilians to protest, and handicapping the ability of opposition politicians to function.” Issuing their formal reactions to the report, both Senators articulated how “disturbed” they are of the Venezuelan government’s affliction. (Transcripts from both of their formal reactions can be found here). Senator Dodd attests to the report’s findings which succinctly simplifies Venezuela’s criminalization of human rights defenders, among many other human rights violations exercised by the regime, as the result of a “lack of independence that has allowed the use of the State’s punitive power in Venezuela.”

A Congressional Resolution, introduced three years ago, shed light to virtually the exact same findings of the OAS report just one week earlier. The Resolution, which was passed, was also co-sponsored by then Senators Clinton and Obama. Read Full Paper

In response to a report issued by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) last week regarding violations of human rights and intimidation of citizens in Venezuela based on their political beliefs, U.S. Sens. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) released the following joint statement:

“We are deeply disturbed by some of the report’s observations. One of the more alarming findings was that: ‘The Commission considers that the lack of independence and autonomy of the judiciary with respect to the political branches constitutes one of the weakest points of democracy in Venezuela, a situation that seriously hinders the free exercise of human rights in Venezuela. In the Commission’s judgment, it is this lack of independence that has allowed the use of the State’s punitive power in Venezuela to criminalize human rights defenders, judicialize peaceful social protest, and persecute political dissidents through the criminal system.’

“This passage highlights what can happen in a country when the regional and international mechanisms that are in place to prevent this type of erosion of democratic institutions fail to act.”

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Rule of law is hardly adhered to in Venezuela, nor is democracy, for that matter – casualties of the revolution our favorite erratic autocrat repeatedly claims is on the rise. Judges who rule against the favor of the government’s wishes have been known to be thrown in jail themselves. Those in the executive cabinet that choose to speak out against the administration might wind up behind bars on trumped up charges so ostentatiously fabricated, it would be hilarious if not so sad. And mayor-elects might just not make it to mayor – that is, if they too oppose the powers that be.

It is in this light that the latest electoral news hit the wires – Venezuela’s highest court on Wednesday annulled the election of an opposition mayor, replacing him with a supporter of President Hugo Chavez until a new vote is held.

The Supreme Court threw out the 2008 election of Jorge Barboza, mayor of the Sucre municipality in western Zulia state, on grounds that he failed to pay $292 in local taxes.

The justices ruled Barboza was ineligible to continue as mayor because he lacked “the suitability (required) for the management of a mayoral post.”

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Venezuelan Governor Henri Falcon, an ally of President Hugo Chavez, resigned from the United Socialist Party and called for open talks to resolve problems in the South American country.

Falcon, the governor of the central state of Lara, wrote a letter to Chavez today published in major newspapers to announce his resignation from the PSUV political party and to express his concern that regional leaders only receive orders and aren’t able to communicate with the president.

“I’m concerned about the absence of an adequate space for dialogue,” Falcon wrote. “It’s impossible to build a participative democracy and virtually impossible for the transformation of the country to succeed if local and regional leaders aren’t heard.”

The autocrat’s response has yet to be documented. Chavez had however warned Falcon to stop listening to opposition parties trying to get him to rebel against the government, saying that he could end up like Raul Baduel, a former Chavez defense minister who was jailed on graft charges.

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Mercelo Chimirri, former General Manager of Hondutel, (originally accused by the Arcadia Foundation’s Robert Carmona-Borjas) was today found guilty of abuse of power to the detriment of public administration. The Judges further disallowed  Chimirri from running for office for 8 years.  Chimirri was charged with a ’special disablement’ annotation, which means that he cannot make any civil action for up to eight years while serving his sentence in prison.  These are just some of the charges he has had to face.

Chimirri is most notably the nephew of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, whose regime was notorious for corruption. This latest action may speak to the newfound adherence to rule of law that had long been absent in Honduras.

The following article (in Spanish) from El Heraldo further documents the sentencing of Chimirri. We congratulate Professor Carmona-Borjas for leading the charge on behalf of our Foundation and curbing corruption where it was most prevalent in a nation on the road to political transparency.

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Reports from Tegucigalpa are stating that Honduras’ foreign minister will head to Washington to try to arrange a meeting between new President Porfirio Lobo and President Barack Obama in hopes of restoring ties damaged by last June’s ouster of former President Manuel Zelaya.

Honduras’ army removed Manuel Zelaya from office after he pushed ahead with plans for a referendum on changing the constitution the country’s Supreme Court ruled illegal. The move was originally condemned by many governments and Washington in turn cut aid to the Central American country.

However, proof of free and fair elections and a democratically nominated President has resulted in international acceptance of the new President, whose goal of course is to eventually turn the aid tap back on to a Honduras still very much in need. Economic and Infrastructural development is critical, especially in these times of positive civil discourse. The U.S. toned down its criticism after Lobo was elected and rightly so, the Honduran foreign minister feels its time to initiate outreach to President Obama.

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