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Rice, Venezuelan foreign minister spar over TV station closure
NU Online · Selasa, 5 Juni 2007 | 04:09 WIB
Panama, NU Online
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Venezuela’s foreign minister traded verbal broadsides over the closure of an opposition television station in Venezuela.
Rice on Monday protested the shuttering of Radio Caracas Television, RCTV, calling it Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez’s “sharpest and most acute” move yet against democracy as thousands of university students marched in Caracas to protest.<>
Venezuela’s top diplomat, Nicolas Maduro, then accused her of hypocrisy, unacceptable meddling in his nation’s affairs and compared the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and secret prisons elsewhere to something not seen since “the time of Hitler.”
The dispute between Washington and Caracas took center stage at a gathering of foreign ministers of the Organization of American States, a meeting intended to focus on environment and development issues.
Rice told reporters en route to Panama that Chavez’s closure of RCTV was just the latest and perhaps strongest attack on democracy since the Venezuelan leader came to power in the late 1990s pursuing an increasingly anti-U.S. and leftist line.
At the meeting, she urged the OAS to send its secretary-general, Jose Miguel Insulza, to Venezuela to look into the closing of the station and deliver a full report on his findings.
“Freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of conscience are not a thorn in the side of government,” Rice told the ministers. “Disagreeing with your government is not unpatriotic and most certainly should not be a crime in any country, especially
a democracy.”
Maduro, speaking after Rice, reacted angrily, saying her comments were an “unacceptable intervention is the internal affairs of a nation, and that is why we reject it.”
“Venezuela is asking for respect,” he said. “We demand respect for our sovereignty.”
Maduro defended the decision not to renew RCTV’s license as “democratic, legal and fair” and accused the United States of repeated violations of human rights, including at the U.S.-Mexico border where immigrants “are chased and hunted like animals” and
at Guantanamo Bay, where he said terrorism suspects are being “held hostage.” (ap/dar)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Venezuela’s foreign minister traded verbal broadsides over the closure of an opposition television station in Venezuela.
Rice on Monday protested the shuttering of Radio Caracas Television, RCTV, calling it Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez’s “sharpest and most acute” move yet against democracy as thousands of university students marched in Caracas to protest.<>
Venezuela’s top diplomat, Nicolas Maduro, then accused her of hypocrisy, unacceptable meddling in his nation’s affairs and compared the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and secret prisons elsewhere to something not seen since “the time of Hitler.”
The dispute between Washington and Caracas took center stage at a gathering of foreign ministers of the Organization of American States, a meeting intended to focus on environment and development issues.
Rice told reporters en route to Panama that Chavez’s closure of RCTV was just the latest and perhaps strongest attack on democracy since the Venezuelan leader came to power in the late 1990s pursuing an increasingly anti-U.S. and leftist line.
At the meeting, she urged the OAS to send its secretary-general, Jose Miguel Insulza, to Venezuela to look into the closing of the station and deliver a full report on his findings.
“Freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of conscience are not a thorn in the side of government,” Rice told the ministers. “Disagreeing with your government is not unpatriotic and most certainly should not be a crime in any country, especially
a democracy.”
Maduro, speaking after Rice, reacted angrily, saying her comments were an “unacceptable intervention is the internal affairs of a nation, and that is why we reject it.”
“Venezuela is asking for respect,” he said. “We demand respect for our sovereignty.”
Maduro defended the decision not to renew RCTV’s license as “democratic, legal and fair” and accused the United States of repeated violations of human rights, including at the U.S.-Mexico border where immigrants “are chased and hunted like animals” and
at Guantanamo Bay, where he said terrorism suspects are being “held hostage.” (ap/dar)
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