"You're right about one thing: nothing much would have been said had this law been passed in, let's say, Costa Rica."

- Martin Austermuhle
Human Rights Watch intern
Co-author of recent Venezuela "report"
Washington DC

Kind readers: Doesn't that say it all?

Another exchange with our favorite Human Rights Watch intern, doing a valient, but futile, job in carrying Jose Vivanco's dirty water...

Martin Austermuhle writes:

Mr. Giordano,

You seem to have become very good at being a critic of everyone but yourself and your authentic journalists. While I agree that both the
Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch have their shortcomings, I still believe from having worked with them that they are well-intentioned organizations that do the best they can to protect and promote human rights with extremely limited resources.

Al replies:

That is an excellent use of the term "well-intentioned," Martin, as in "the road to hell is paved by good intentions." Every atrocity on earth - from the tortures in Guantanamo to the coup attempts in Venezuela to the "war on drugs," the list goes on and on - has "well-intentioned" people working in cubicles to process and justify the war crimes. Or, at least they think they are well intentioned. They gaze into the mirror and declare themselves the fairest of them all… they stick in their thumbs and they pull out the plumbs and they say, "what good boy am I!"

In the immortal words of that great American philosophy group, Outkast: "You think you smell just like a rose, but darlin' come a little closer and find that roses smell like poo poo poo…."

Martin Austermuhle writes:

Granted, I may be blind to this "hell" I have been sucked into, but I'd like to think that my education and experiences haven't completely robbed me of the ability to think objectively.

Al comments:

Do you really think you have the ability to "think objectively"? Oh, that is precious. Here's a big fat clue: "objective thinking" is a myth. It does not exist on this earth. That you have swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, the academic hemlock that convinced you that you can "think objectively" is the first indication that you are deeper in the septic pool than you can admit to yourself. As I often say about journalists, and equally true of academics or activist bureaucrats, "The first sign that somebody is either woefully lacking of self-awareness or is a willing liar is when he claims to be objective." So, which is it, Martin?

If you can't admit you have biases, and that your biases color all your investigations, you're just a clown in somebody else's circus. You may wear a suit and tie instead of clown shoes, but it makes you a clown nonetheless.

The only honest position is to conduct an inventory of your biases and disclose them, as we do here. The insistence that you can "think objectively" prevents you from doing that, and, really, takes you out of the game in terms of being taken credibly by the fast class out here.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

You seem to picture the Americas Division as being much bigger than it is, just as you ignorantly try to describe all its members as "activist bureacrats." The Americas Division has but three researchers, two staff associates, an executive director, a deputy director, and the help of a rotating cast of interns (who I assume must also be blinded to this bureacratic hell we are trapped in). It also has the smallest budget of any division in the entire organization (whose budget hovers around $22 million a year)--hence the small size and even smaller salaries.

Al inquires:

First, to understand the term bureaucrat, you should learn to spell it. You have to put the "u" back in bureaucrat (and the "you" back in bureaucrat) in order to take the honest self-inventory I recommend as part of our Narco News activism bureaucrat recovery program. It's the first step! Put the "you" back in bureaucrat! And the second step is figuring out how to take the bureaucrat out of you.

You claim "small salaries." Again, you offer no evidence. So I'd like to make you a wager. I will bet you $100 dollars that Jose Vivanco's annual salary is more than the entire budget of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism with three-dozen scholarship recipients and an equal number of professors. In fact, I will bet that it is more than the $60,000 budget for the entire Narco News project in the past year, including the J-School. And that is just one guy. If I'm wrong, you get a hundred bucks!

I can believe, by the way, that "intern" salaries are small: the payment is in the gold star on the resume. That's how it works.

But those "gold stars" turn into skeletons in the closet, Martin. Lord knows I have mine (and you say I'm not self-critical!): I already told you that I briefly stained my virgin mind at Georgetown. Heavens, how many times have I confessed that I used to work for John Kerry! You think I'm not self-critical about the social conditioning those experiences caused me? You should do more reading.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

I suppose it is easy to paint all Human Rights Watch employees as non-governmental fatcats living large off of the misery of others if you haven't met them, isn't it now?

Al replies:

Oh, but Martin, I meet human rights workers - authentic and false - all the time, just by living and working in the conflict zones… on their little junket tours through the rebel lands where I have lived! They get off the airplane, check into the hotel, have a few meetings, and then hold press conferences announcing the conclusions they arrived at before they even stepped off the airplane! That's what Vivanco did yesterday, isn't it? And I try, oh how I try, to help them understand the situation. Some human rights observers are very sincere. Some are even effective.

In 1997 and 1998, when I was in Chiapas, Mexico, I saw 400 of my journalistic colleagues and human rights observers expelled by the government. These folks were the real thing: they didn't go to the hotels. They headed deep into the jungle, or high into the altos, to live without electricity, to live without alcohol, to live without drugs, to live on tortillas and beans and nothing more for weeks at a time, to watch, to pay attention, to learn as students and not with the arrogance that they have something to "teach" the natives… to work side by side in indigenous communities and serve instead of be served… they (we) came to listen and to learn… and they (we) learned a lot. For that they (we) were hunted, many expelled… but, I must tell you: not one of these observers I met who did that kind of heavy lifting and intense observation was from Human Rights Watch.

If an HRW flak came to town, it was in "plan de tour de los medios," of attention-seeking media tour. In the world of "human rights" they are the grasshoppers among the worker ants. And they wonder why we - the "worker ants of human rights" - make fun of them!

Martin Austermuhle writes:

As for strings connected, the majority of the money HRW has comes from the donations of individuals.

Al comments:

Yes, I mentioned that in my first response. P.T. Barnum 101: "There is a sucker born every minute." The circus analogy is seamless.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

While foundations also provide money, they do so while knowing that no strings are ever attached to the work that the organization does. If you do not believe me, I invite you to speak directly to Ken Roth, the organization's Executive Director. And please, unless you can provide testimony proving so, please limit your opinions on Human Rights Watch to what you think, not what other ill-defined groups seem to think.

Al comments:

Here is what I think: The world of "human rights philanthropy" does not need strings attached to function as if the strings were attached. There is no string attached that overtly says "your organization must get regularly quoted in the New York Times for our foundation to give you money." But it is one of the long unspoken rules. But to get regularly quoted in the New York Times, especially by ilk like Juan Forero and Larry Rohter, the Latin America mercenaries, er, "correspondents," you have to play ball. You have to serve as the garbage men for their agendas.

HRW - and this is my opinion - is caught in the trap of that "objectivity" game because the market forces of "philanthropy" force it to do so. Since there are so many more governments in this hemisphere that operate according to imposed capitalist principles, HRW bends over backwards to show "objectivity" by whacking two or three non-capitalist governments (mainly Cuba and Venezuela) with much more volume and force and frequency than they deserve. Why? In order to show that HRW is "objective." Do the math. If you have 15 governments on the neoliberal right, and two on the "not signing up for neoliberal duty" left, and HRW tries to dedicate "fifty percent" of its attacks along those ideological lines, then the side with fewer governments gets whacked, "per capita," a lot more frequently. That's not because they have more human rights violations (certainly not in the case of Venezuela, where HRW admitted four years ago that it was the only country in the region where human rights had expanded instead of shrunk: and if HRW were honest it would admit that is true, now joined by Brazil and Argentina, also, today). It is because HRW is simulating a kind of false "even handedness" in choosing which governments it attacks and how often.

This kind of behavior gets HRW its frequent mentions in the New York Times and others like it, and this keeps the money flowing. No stated "strings attached" quid pro quo is needed: the problem is systemic.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

You're right about one thing: nothing much would have been said had this law been passed in, let's say, Costa Rica.

Al jumps up and down cheering:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

You just admitted the big problem: the hypocrisy of double standards that is rampant in how HRW does its work.

Can't you see the sheer hypocrisy and dishonesty that you have bought into? Don't you see, now, why HRW has lost credibility with me and so many other journalists and human rights advocates?

I guess not, because you then attempt justify unfair and unequal treatment from a group claiming to champion principles.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

And yes, many of its provisions are no less democratic than those in the United States or Europe. But here we have to consider political context.

Al comments:

I posit that it is precisely the political context that HRW (and you) are ignoring, or you have it ass-backwards from the context that an authentic human rights advocate would consider.

The political context is this: the history of human rights in Latin America, and the struggle for them, is a history with one big fat dominant context: 500 years of imposed human rights violations, first from Europe, next from the bully superpower to the North, and finally, now, from an even bigger bully - the private sector, protected by its very own police force (previously known as the superpower to the North). To have any hope of human rights, the first step is to cast off the impositions of the most historic abuser of those human rights.

The "political context" of the current history of Venezuela is that at last a nation's people have done this not by bullet, but by ballot. And if HRW or you had any sense of all of historic political context, you would be fighting to support that process, not tear it down. Your next statement gives me an excellent hook by which to try and show you what I mean…

Martin Austermuhle writes:

I noticed you did not respond to the factual claims the report made concerning the dismissal of judges for seemingly political reasons. An entire court, the country's second highest, in fact, was dissolved by order of an Executive Committee of the Judiciary (composed of Supreme Court justices) with little explanation and without having granted its dismissed judges the right to both know what they were being dismissed for and defend themselves.

Al replies:

First, any true human rights advocate would cheer the dismissal of those judges, and the related efforts to clean out the vestiges of an old judicial system that served to daily attack the human rights of the many and give impunity to the few who committed those abuses.

Your statement about the supposed "right to both know what they were being dismissed for and defend themselves" is ludicrous. You are applying a standard that we apply to criminal defendants and dishonestly attaching it to a simple case of being fired on the job. These ex-judges were not charged with any crime. They were not threatened with prison or fines or punishments. They were simply fired - as is an employer's right - for not doing their jobs.

Human Rights Watch should be cheering and supporting the removal of judges who let human rights abusers - especially those who committed a bloody, violent, coup d'etat - off the hook. Those judges continued the impunity of the old system. Again, we come back to the mission of "nation building" or "nation re-building." It is counterproductive to human rights to hold the new system accountable to the fixed rules of the old system, and thus prevent the new, more democratic, more respectful of human rights, system from cleaning house.

Where was Human Rights Watch when the old guard judges let the coup plotters get away? That, amigo, constituted the single biggest crime against human rights committed by any officials in Venezuela over the past six years: and it was a crime committed by members of the judiciary: Of course they had to be fired! And if Human Rights Watch walked its talk it would have led the charge calling for their removal!

Instead, HRW, in its current mealy-mouthed discourse, is working against human rights. Instead of watching human rights, HRW is looking the other way at the clear human rights violations committed by coup plotters who should be brought to justice, and the corrupt, old guard, judges who let them get away with their crime. HRW has thus made a mockery of its longstanding rhetoric about preventing impunity.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

This may seem inconsequential until you analyze the decisions the court had made, a dozen of which directly ruled against the government (the most famous having been that of the court ruling that the government could not use Cuban doctors in poor neighborhoods without submitting them to the same tests Venezuelan doctors had to pass to prove their competency).

Al comments:

You're kidding, right? Your statement is filled with developed world assumptions about medicine in poor lands that are laughable. But your assumptions are laughable in the sense of gallows humor, because many people have died because of your stupidity and that of Human Rights Watch in disrespecting the human right of access to health care. Poor people have died of curable diseases from lack of medicines, from malnutrition, and from lack of a health care system in Venezuela for an eternity. Your statement presumes that the "tests… to prove their competency" had any value in the first place! When, the fact is that the old guard governments in Venezuela fixed those "tests" for the oligarch class - any dumb shit "junior" from a wealthy family could get his test fixed! - and the country is filled with dumb shit "junior" doctors far less competent than their Cuban counterparts, and who only serve the classes that can pay them money anyway.

Now, we can both agree that Cuba's vision of human rights is not yours or mine in certain areas like freedom of expression. But in the area of the human right of health care for all, you can't argue with a straight face that Cuba is not far ahead of every country in the hemisphere. If judges from the old guard prevented sick people from receiving the human right of health care from doctors from the most successful, competent, health care system in our América on bogus pretenses based on old "regulations" that only served to ensure the perpetuation of illness and misery, well, those judges attacked human rights. But you can't see it, can you? What happened to your precious "objectivity," Martin?

Martin Austermuhle writes:

The report clearly connects the dots, something an authentic journalist would know much about, and reaches the conclusion that the law's provisions cannot be seen as purely administrative and legal considering the political context and prior history of clashes between the executive and legislative branches.

Al replies:

I have obviously spent more time and labor "connecting the dots" regarding Venezuela than anyone in those beltway cubicles at HRW, and that is evident from your statements (and the perpetual estupideces of Vivanco). What you are saying is that only "purely administrative and legal" motives or provisions are justifiable when it comes to cleaning up a corrupt, calcified, judiciary that has always harmed the human rights of the many. Your statements have the effect of endorsing and perpetuating the old system of abuse of human rights.

The clashes between branches of government are healthy. The fact is that the reforms have occurred much faster in the executive and legislative branches, naturally, because both are subject to the direct democracy of the people.

If Venezuela had New York State's laws (where supreme court justices are directly elected), this problem would already be solved! What seems to offend your unspoken first-world biases is that in a democracy, the majority MUST have control over the judiciary too. You seem to object to that, which makes you, admit it, anti-democracy. And the process underway to clean out the bad water and replenish the fountain of justice in Venezuela is pro human rights, while HRW's position is anti-human rights. Worse, HRW is hung up on a series of technicalities that stray from HRW's stated mission: to promote human rights. HRW has lined up on the side of the abusers of human rights, and against the authentic restorers of human rights, using "technicalities" that you admit you would not use on Costa Rica. Which brings me to your next point…

Martin Austermuhle writes:

I imagine you noticed the comparisons we drew to similar processes of judicial reform in Argentina and Peru--these seemed innocent enough and were often justified with claims of increading judicial accountability and efficiency, but in hindsight we see that they were often the first steps towards judicial branches that served as legal rubber stamps on executive actions (actions I am sure you objected to then, and would object to now in both Menem and Fujimori's cases).

Al replies:

For someone who yammers on about "political context" you sure like to ignore the 900 pound contextual gorilla in these comparisons: the Menem regime in Argentina and the Fujimori regime in Peru were puppet governments of U.S. interests. Menem dollarized the economy, in obedience to Washington and Wall Street dictates, and the 900 pound gorilla to the north - again, the single-largest abuser of human rights in the hemisphere - gave intelligence information to Menem's abusive generals and Fujimori's enforcer Montesinos to help them commit human rights violations. U.S. officials also looked the other way while Menem and Montesinos both laundered their illegally-garnered profits through Citibank and other U.S. institutions. Both men were tyrants. Both committed more human rights abuses in any single week than have been committed by officials under Chavez in six years: torture, assassinations, massacres… c'mon! This stuff is documented even by Human Rights Watch! HRW's accusations against Chavez and Venezuela, even if taken in their worst possible context, don't even begin to reach those levels.

Fujimori and Menem were war criminals. Chavez is not. And the "political context" that you conveniently ignore is a simple and obvious one: those two motherfuckers were puppets of Washington, whereas you can't say the same about Chavez, can you? Two perpetuated the old systematic human rights abuses. One has stood up against them (and done so through a more authentic electoral democracy, too!).

The Venezuelan majority demands that its old guard, corrupt, anti-human rights judicial system be cleaned up. It has a right to demand that, doesn't it? Do the people not have a right to demand that the 2002 coup plotters be brought to justice? Do the people not have a right to demand access to health care through doctors trained in the one country that has excelled at training them? According to you, the answer is "no," and, worse, the answer is "no" based on technicalities that you refuse to apply to others. Have you no shame?

Martin Austermuhle writes:

The report does its best to note that our concerns are based on prior comments made by Chavez on the judiciary, many of which are well documented. When he and his followers claim on multiple occasions that certain "golpista" judges shouldn't be judges, it's not a far cry for us to believe that a judicial reform that would make dismissing those very judges easier would also pose a threat to the independence of the entire judiciary (as the report notes: in Venezuela the Supreme Court controls every other court, in administrative and legal terms, so whoever controls that court control the composition of the entire branch).

Al asks:

Martin: are you denying that those judges - who refused to bring golpistas to justice - are not golpistas?

Answer that question, and then the next one, and I'll be happy to discuss this point further:

If a judge refuses to bring coup members to justice, if he protects those who, in April 2002, committed a Pinochet level crime against humanity, should that person continue to be a judge or not?

I'd like yes or no answers to those questions, please. Color in the gray points as much as you like, but in the end you gotta answer: "yes," or "no."

Seven times in the past seven years the people of Venezuela have answered those questions the same way. Who the fuck are you and Human Rights Watch to try and stand in their way?

Martin Austermuhle writes:

I don't consider myself, nor do I think of HRW and other human rights groups, as imperialists or fundamentalists. Groups such as HRW function according to clearly articulated principles--those of human rights.

Al comments:

That is what fundamentalists always say, be they ayatollahs, Jerry Fallwells, or Roger Noriegas (the latter whose agenda you and HRW are transparently serving with your admitted double standards).

Martin Austermuhle writes:

These are not a secret, and most countries in Latin America have agreed to their provisions (check the signatories to both the Inter-American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man and the American Convention on Human Rights). Yes, civil and political rights are a Western construct, and yes, our using of those as benchmarks against which to judge a government's actions can be construed as "imperialism," but these are well-regarded and widely held principles that exist outside of the confines of the U.S. and Western Europe (an interesting note: have you noticed that everytime this cultural imperialist argument is made, it is made my heads of state whose country's record in human rights is often spotty?).

Al replies:

Do you really believe your own bullshit? First, the record of ALL heads of state on human rights is spotty. But Chavez's is less spotty than Bush, Uribe, Toledo, Lagos, Fox, Gutierrez, and their predecessors, and you know it! And it is not "always" made by heads of state with spotty records: for example, take Lula of Brazil's record (I trust you agree he is a shining light in human rights) and his complaints about the "cultural imperialism" of certain firstworld "environmental" groups regarding the Amazon. Your broad generalizations simply do not add up. You are deep within a kind of collective psychosis among the cubicled bureaucrat class at HRW. It's disgusting, really. And meanwhile, I repeat, you look the other way and grant impunity to the true abusers of human rights in the process, which brings us to your next point…

Martin Austermuhle writes:

Now, on to specific claims you make which I disagree with or would like to clarify:

1) "HRW also laid down and played dead when Clinton pushed through Plan Colombia, agreeing to look the other way if they got a phony, impotent, 'human rights clause' in that legislation."

This boils down to a difference in operating philosophy, I suppose. I don't know what HRW's position on Plan Colombia was when it was first announced, but I do know that they decided to work with when they realized that its passage was a foregone conclusion. This is what we call, in Washington-lingo, being "pragmatic."

Al replies:

Then, all the blood and herbicide that has flowed since then is on HRW and Vivanco's hands, too.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

Would it be more helpful for an organization like HRW to not attempt to improve a flawed piece of legislation, if its passage was all but assured? While the human rights conditions are minor, there are at least minor conditions in the legislation calling for Plan Colombia--without our consistent pestering, Plan Colombia could have been passed with no human rights consideration whatsoever. Would that have been any better? This is a pact with the devil, no doubt, but considering what's at stake, would Colombia have been any better off had we stubbornly refused to participate at all in the negotiations over Plan Colombia? I think not, but again, differences in philisophy.

Al answers:

Yes, I can state unequivocally that the verdict is now in: It would have been better for human rights had HRW, Amnesty, and WOLA, openly opposed Plan Colombia and not bargained for a "human rights provision" that has holes big enough to drive 300 bulletholes through: the 300 deaths of Colombian labor organizers, for example, that have come since HRW signed that blood pact. Strategically, tactically, and in every other "pragmatic" way, more blood would have been stopped from flowing if the human rights bureaucrats in Washington had taken a firm position against the entire militaristic project. You guys fucked up. And many good people have been assassinated and massacred since then, and many thousand acres of Amazon rainforest destroyed, in four short years, because of HRW's cowardice and stupidity in being hoodwinked by the Clinton administration.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

2) "HRW laid down and played dead during the 2002 Venezuela coup. HRW laid down and played dead every time a Community Media journalist was imprisoned or beaten in Venezuela or other lands."

Al, you're a smart guy. Research a little. HRW issued a press release on April 12, 2002, entitled "Restore Rule of Law, Protect Rights in Venezuela."

Al interjects:

As if I don't remember it! Here, for our readers, is a link to that shameful document that will live in infamy:

http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/04/venezuela0412.htm

HRW said in that press release:

"We call upon the transitional authorities in Venezuela to restore the country's democratic institutions as soon as possible and to guarantee that the human rights of Venezuelans will not be violated, regardless of their political beliefs or affiliations," said José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch.

Ahem. That is my point exactly. HRW did not take a stand against what it called the "transitional authorities" (a sickeningly anti-democratic euphemism for a dictatorship). To the contrary, the statement recognized them as "authorities," and therefore it served to legitimatize Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona and his jackbooted brownshirts.

The cowardly statement by HRW continued:

Human Rights Watch urged the Venezuelan authorities to conduct a thorough, impartial investigation immediately to determine who is responsible for the killing and injuring of civilians that occurred during the political protest in Caracas Thursday night, and to hold those responsible accountable.

"Human Rights Watch is concerned for the potential abuse of power by the Venezuelan authorities with respect to the searches they may be conducting," said Vivanco. "We call on the authorities to ensure that any searches or possible detentions of Chávez supporters be conducted in full compliance with the law and with the basic standards of due process."
Again, it legitimizes and recognizes those authorities.

That statement is not a defense! It would win a conviction from any decent jury!

Where was the call by HRW upon the OAS to invoke the Democratic Charter?

(HRW did it yesterday over technicalities: why didn't HRW issue that call during a crisis in which the Democratic Charter was actually intended to be invoked?)

Where was HRW's call upon Washington and other governments not to recognize the new regime?

You can read between the lines and see that Vivanco was happy that Chavez had been deposed! He was ready to "work with" the "transitional authorities" and said nothing toward the only justifiable pro-human rights goal of that terrible moment: the removal of the coup leaders and the restoration of the democratically elected government.

Oh, yes, Martin, I remember that statement well: It revealed Vivanco and HRW as enemies of democracy in our hemisphere, and as supporters of war criminals. It was a disgusting, indefensible, statement, and Vivanco should have been fired as a result. That he is still there, festering the wound, makes me distrust his superiors, too.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

Four days later, another press release was issued, this one entitled "Venezuela: Investigate Killings of Demonstrators." In it, HRW did not join the chorus of media and U.S. government representatives in claiming that the deaths during the coup were caused by Chavez and his supporters. These releases, not to mention the non-public activism we do, hardly constitutes "playing dead."

Al corrects:

The second press release was even worse. Here is a link for the benefit of my readers:

http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/04/venezuela0416.htm

Instead of calling for justice for the coup plotters, HRW diverted the issue to the events prior to the coup. In fact, to my knowledge HRW has never called for bringing the coup plotters to justice, nor complained about the impunity offered them by the old guard judges.

My friend and colleague Mario Menendez told me at the hour of that terrible coup: "This is when we find out who is who. At moments of extreme crisis is when people reveal their true characters."

And, boy, was he right about that.

At the moment of crisis, HRW and Vivanco did hide under their desks, and behind those "press releases." They recognized an illegitimate "authority" as legitimate. They failed to call for the removal of that dictatorial regime. They failed to call on other nations and the OAS to refuse to recognize it. They failed to call for invoking the OAS Democratic Charter for the one event it was intended to prevent. And after the dust settled and the people restored their elected president, HRW and Vivanco tried to change the subject from the priority of bringing the coup plotters to justice, with a smokescreen over the demonstrations and shootings before the coup.

To me, HRW and Vivanco showed their true characters at that moment: No longer friends of human rights, but enemies.

And I'll also add that Vivanco revealed himself a hypocrite and a coward in those days of moral crisis. Who was it that said: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis"? Vivanco and HRW remained neutral on the central question of that crisis: to oppose the coup regime's legitimacy, or to shrink from that duty. Vivanco and HRW shrunk from it, and continue to shrink from it, this past week's grandstanding a case in point.

How the hell can HRW call for invoking the OAS Democratic Charter over a technicality today when it refused to do so over a coup d'etat yesterday? HRW lost any claim to moral high ground in those days of crisis.

And the only path to begin to restore that lost credibility is to clean out its own corrupted "judge," Jose Vivanco. (And, no, he does not deserve a hearing on it. Again, we are speaking of a "firing," not a firing squad.)

Martin Austermuhle writes:

As for the community journalists in Venezuela, we did write a letter to Alfredo Pena after CatiaTV was shut down.

Al replies:

If that was done, well, okay: HRW did one thing right among all the things it has done, and continues to do, wrong regarding Venezuela. But I salute you for that one little statement. Was there any follow-up, by the way? Or was that it?

Martin Austermuhle writes:

Any lack on HRW's part of coverage of events you note is not because the organization in conspiring with the powers that be to overlook obvious human rights violations--there is only so much an 8-person division can do to document every violation that occurs in a continent as large as Latin America.

Al replies:

I am not alleging a "conspiracy." I am instead accusing Jose Vivanco of operating from an undisclosed ideological bias. Vivanco, for whatever his ideological reasons, wants the democratically elected government of Venezuela to fall by any means necessary. He has transparently revealed his position time and time again, abusing the luster of "human rights" to tear down what is pro-human rights, and prop up what is anti-human rights. And it is obvious to everyone south of the border. Everyone.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

3) "To most Latin Americans, Human Rights Watch has become a cruel and hypocritical joke."

You can speak for yourself, but please do not try to associate your opinions with larger groups or trends in regional opinion unless you have the evidence to support it.

Al replies:

Ha! I'm a reporter. It's my job to talk with everyone, and especially to listen to everyone. Go to any human rights hotspot in the hemisphere and ask around! Go to Chiapas. Go to Venezuela. Go to Bolivia. And walk with the masses, as I do. Interview the political prisoners, and the families of slain social fighters, as I do. You will find corroboration of my claim from every corner.

You previously said that when you take your annual vacation to Venezuela that you don't associate with either the Chavistas or the opposition. Well, given how polarized the country is, you must not talk to anybody! Maybe you should choose which side you're on. You would at least learn half the story. Right now, you are woefully ignorant of both sides. All you know is Washington's side, where Jose Vivanco and Roger Noriega advocate the exact same position.

Martin Austermuhle writes:

4) "And, point of fact, Uribe made specific reference to Colombian and local human rights groups, unaffiliated with HRW, when he made that 'Marxist' crack."

Again, read and research, amigo. I never said Uribe has said this of HRW--but his former Minister of Interior had a tendency to call Vivanco "el marxista chileno", just like Uribe said that our actions aided terrorism in Colombia. Salvatore Mancuso, one of the AUC chiefs, has also said HRW is a "marxist" organization, while the FARC opines that we represent the American empire. My point in bringing this up is that HRW is regularly criticized by politicians of both left and right for being either "marxists" or "mercenaries of imperialism." A university professor in Venezuela went so far yesterday as to call Vivanco a "vocero de Bush." HRW manages to ruffle feathers both left and right because its work does not heed political affiliation--whether left or right, a human rights violation is a human rights violation.

For being such a bureucratic and contemptuous organization, HRW continues to lead the fight in defending human rights around the world. You made no mention of our work in exposing atrocities in the Sudan, nor our consistent fight against abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. I would also like you to read our recent report on child soldiers in Colombia, and then offer an opinion on our dedication to principle over politics, or our work in fighting for independent journalists to be able to report the truth in Cuba (something I imagine you would sympathize with).

And finally, I listed my history and affiliations not to impress you or ask for help, but to let you understand that I am not simply an American human rights bureaucrat. I do not hold an American passport, and the greater part of my life has been spent south of the border. I do not claim to be a wise man for this, but I also would like to think I know a little more about these issues that any random armchair intellectual would.

Regards,

Martin Austermuhle
From somewhere deep in empire

Al replies:

That sounds like a lot of self-deluded, self-aggrandizing, bullshit to me. HRW can't point to a single success or victory in Latin America, and certainly not in Venezuela, in this century. The story of Human Rights Watch in the 21st century in Latin America is a story of failure. Why? I repeat: that after the April 2002 coup, and the cowardly, anti-human rights, behavior of Vivanco and company, HRW lost all credibility down here among anyone with credibility. You (meaning HRW) may be convenient to Juan Forero or Gustavo Cisneros or to Roger Noriega. But don't kid yourselves into thinking you are promoting human rights in Venezuela or in the hemisphere.

Finally, I do thank you for responding and for the dialogue. I'm sure it has been and will continue, as it is archived, to be edifying for many who haven't thought about these questions of HRW and its role in Latin America as much as you or I have. That said, you should know that folks are already chuckling far and wide about the cowardly bureaucrat Jose Vivanco again: still hiding under his desk, he has to hide behind an intern now to defend him!

At some point, really, you interns should consider leading the charge to clean up the $22 million-dollar-a-year simulation of "human rights" that you work for. The fight for human rights, Martin, begins at home. What Human Rights Watch needs is a Daniel Ellsberg. C'mon Martin (and anyone else in there reading this)! Get us the internal documents that show the biases and intentions that the sterilized press releases fail to show. And send those documents to Narco News.

If you really love Human Rights Watch, you'll give it that tough love right now.

From somewhere in a country called América,

Al Giordano