Threat to
Democracy in Latin America
By Harold Pinter, John Pilger, Tony Benn
20/09/08 "The
Guardian" -- On
September 10 President Evo Morales of Bolivia declared the US
ambassador persona non grata. On September 11 (the 35th
anniversary of the military overthrow of Salvador Allende in
Chile) the president of Venezuela asked the US ambassador there
to leave the country. President Hugo Chávez believed he was
facing the possibility of an imminent coup d'etat in which he
said the US administration were involved. President Morales
believed that his government was facing serious destabilisation
which was also being fomented by the US. A third country,
Paraguay, announced 10 days previously that it had detected a
conspiracy involving military officers and opposition
politicians.
Latin America now faces its most serious crisis since the
reintroduction of democracy at the end of the 20th century. The
plot against democracy in Venezuela centred on a conspiracy,
revealed in telephone conversations between senior military
officers broadcast on national television, to assassinate the
democratically elected head of state. In Bolivia, the separatist
prefects of the five eastern and southern departments have begun
a campaign of violence and economic sabotage designed to
destabilise the democratic regime.
These events show unequivocally who defends democracy and who
threatens it today. We are appalled by the failure of much of
the international media to provide accurate and proportionate
coverage of these events. All democrats throughout should rally
to defend democracy in Latin America.
Signed: Harold Pinter, John Pilger, Tony Benn, Ken Loach,
Jean Lambert MEP, Ian Gibson MP, Kelvin Hopkins MP, Billy Hayes,
General secretary, CWU, Bill GreenshieldsClick on
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