Chavez to expel foreign critics

In addition to some rather obvious instances of media suppression, and the noted promise to crack down on any foreigners in the country that have the nerve to speak out about the Chavez government, there is a proposed governmental reorganization that literally adopts the soviet model (no doubt via Cuba).

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has vowed to expel foreigners who publicly criticise him or his government. “No foreigner can come here to attack us. Anyone who does must be removed from this country,” he said during his weekly TV and radio programme.

Mr Chavez also ordered officials to monitor statements made by international figures in Venezuela. His comments came shortly after a senior Mexican politician publicly criticised the Venezuelan government. “How long are we going to allow a person – from any country in the world – to come to our own house to say there’s a dictatorship here, that the president is a tyrant, and nobody does anything about it?” Mr Chavez said during his “Hello, President” broadcast on Sunday.

Hmmmmm. If WE applied that standard to Chavez, we should have stuck a #12 cork in his pie-hole when he came to New York a while back and called President Bush “the devil”.

Anyway, this all seems to have been stimulated by comments from a leading Mexican politico who attended a recent conference on democracy in Caracas:

He did not mention any names, but his comments came on the same weekend that Manuel Espino, president of Mexico’s ruling National Action Party, criticised Mr Chavez at a pro-democracy conference in Caracas.

Mr Espino told the conference a plan by Mr Chavez to end term limits on Venezuela’s presidency were a threat to democracy. He accused Mr Chavez of trying to extend his rule indefinitely with the proposed constitutional reform, which would let Mr Chavez run for the presidency again in 2012.

Ooops. Not how to get on Chavez’ good side. Now for the “soviet” part:

Mr Chavez said the reform package would increase the influence of local community councils and student groups as part of his “21st-Century socialism” revolution. (emphasis added)

There is a Russian word for this: Soviet, which literally translates as “council” As developed in Russia, and as applied in other Communist countries, the Soviet provided a fig-leaf of popular feedback and participation, while at the same time providing a very effective way of identifying, isolating, and targeting of any who had the temerity to oppose or question the (generally) pre-determined course of action desired by the designated party leadership.

He is due to present the proposal to Venezuela’s National Assembly next month. The assembly consists solely of politicians who back the president.

This of course is exactly comparable to the “Supreme Soviet”.

Pity the Venezuelans…they’re on what increasingly looks like a sad, downhill path to a new “dictatorship of the proletariat”.