The Independent shakes off yesterday's mistake, posts Reed Lindsay article on the victory

Reed Lindsay's article also states:

The Organisation of American States, which also monitored the vote, said there were no indications of fraud. The organisation's secretary general, Cesar Gaviria, added that the opposition would need to present more concrete accusations before the CNE results could be questioned.

I will complain about Reed ending with the opposition's claims of 59% for their side by their own exit polls without giving any of the many reasons to doubt this (pre-election polls, dearth of polsters at poor voting places).

But these paragraphs are golden:

The rejection of the recall is a setback for Venezuela's opposition, which had been campaigning for Mr Chavez's recall for more than a year after failing to force him from office in an April 2002 coup.

It is also a blow for the US government, which had endorsed the coup and helped finance opposition groups that campaigned for the recall through the National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress.

Mr Chavez had portrayed the referendum as a battle between the Venezuelan people and what he sees as "imperialist" intentions of the United States, promising to hit a "home run against the gringos". In his victory speech yesterday, Mr Chavez announced that "the ball has landed in the dead centre of the White House ... A gift for [President George] Bush".

Mr Chavez's five-year presidency has been marked by an ambitious effort to remake Venezuela's corrupt political system and reduce inequalities between rich and poor.

Thanks so much for the heads up, Alex.  Thank you for the article, Reed.  Did I say already it's a good time to be an authentic journalist?

The people who fired on the anti-Chavez rally are only apparently pro-Chavez activists.

Quite disciplined yet open journalism.

Excuse me, but this claim is neither disciplined nor open.  This statement, which authentic journalist and J-School Professor Reed Lindsay has signed his name to, 'apparently' standing on its own but in fact unsupported by a single shred of evidence of any type, is a great example of exactly the type of irresponsible, inflammatory reporting that I have come to expect from the commercial media.  At the very best it is uncritical parroting of someone else's work (unless it was the other way around).  At worst, it is opposition propaganda.

Is there something I am missing here?  Is there a single documented fact aside from the say-so of Chief Briceno which makes the gunmen's support for Chavez 'apparent'?  Was there something aside from the circumstances of the incident - gunmen on motorcycles firing into an unarmed crowd (kind of like this earlier incident in a pro-Chavez neighbohood) - which made their political leanings 'apparent'?  Were they identified (despite being unnamed) and somehow linked to pro-Chavez activities?  Was it the color of their skin?  

Let's get real.  Couldn't they just as easily have been, for instance, opposition provocateurs?  And if someone had claimed that they were, without offering any evidence to back it up, wouldn't that have been pretty inflammatory?  Would any of you autenticos have reported such a claim without offering some supporting facts, or at least mentioning that there were none?

I am not laboring under some fantasy that Chavez's supporters, wafting along in the moral stratospere miles above their opposition counterparts, are somehow immune to the urge to atrocity that so frequently animates our species, and especially our testosterone-burdened sex.  Of course Chavistas get angry.  Of course Chavistas can drive motorcycles and shoot guns.  But saying it doesn't make it so.  Unsubstantiated claims like this are bricks in the wall that I thought we were trying to tear down.

Friday, August 20, 2004

Chavez win is a victory for democracy

By THE INDEPENDENT
EDITORIAL COMMENTARY

To his opponents, Hugo Chavez, the maverick Venezuelan president, is a reckless demagogue who would, if not stopped, turn his country into a bigger and more dangerous replica of Castro's Cuba. To many of the millions who turned out to support his leadership in a referendum on Sunday, he is a courageous champion of the poorest and most downtrodden.

Whichever version is closest to the truth, Chavez's win must be welcomed as a victory for democracy. Even his harshest critics should be reassured that Chavez submitted to the vote demanded by his foes, even after the relentless campaign they mounted to topple him, including a coup in 2002 and a national strike last year. Indeed it was the president who introduced the constitutional mechanism that could have seen him removed mid-term.

Predictably, the opposition has cried foul, alleging a "gigantic fraud." But two groups of observers -- one led by the respected former U.S. president Jimmy Carter; the other by the Organization of American States -- have now judged the vote free and fair, and the result consistent with their own assessments.

Venezuela matters because of the size of its economy -- the fourth-biggest in Latin America -- and increasingly, with oil prices at record levels, because it is the world's fourth-biggest exporter of oil.

Whether Venezuela can now embark on a period of stability and begin to address its immense economic problems will depend to a large extent on how the opposition reacts. The convincing margin of Chavez's victory should be a warning to them to wait until the next democratic opportunity to try to unseat him: the elections in 2006.

It must also be hoped that the oil-hungry United States refrains from interfering.

For the president's part, he must now attempt to bridge the polarizing divisions that are crippling development. Appearing triumphant at the presidential palace in Caracas, he promised to deliver the next phase of the "revolution": the social reforms that have enraged Venezuela's most powerful economic interests.

But he also spoke of opening a dialogue with his opponents. It must be hoped that he meant what he said.

I guess they now listen to Reed Lindsay more carefully than to... what is her name? Hannah Baldock?