<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=5 color="#A80000">Complicitous US
Ambassador could not quite bring himself to speak the truth<br><br>
</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#A80000"><a href="http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=21225">http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=21225</a><br>
</font><img src="cid:6.1.0.6.2.20040518164110.0266ccc0@66.103.156.66.0" width=178 height=247 alt="2607eb8.jpg"><font face="verdana" size=2><br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2 color="#000080"><i>United States
Ambassador<br>
Charles S. Shapiro<br><br>
</i></font><font face="Georgia" size=2><b>VHeadline.com commentarist
Chris Herz writes: </b></font><font face="georgia" size=2>It made a
refreshing change to hear conciliatory sounds from US Ambassador Charles
Shapiro as he tendered his farewells to the government of the Fifth
Republic. This man, deeply complicitous in the events of the April coup
and in subsequent political attacks on the lawful government of the
nation to which he was sent by Washington, still could not quite bring
himself to speak truth, however.<br><br>
He leaves us with the statement that "the United States is not an
empire", although the cynical might take one look at conquered and
colonialized Iraq and say that alone is quite enough to give him the lie.
But what was new and even startling in his parting statements were
denunciations of the appearance of Colombian paras just outside of
Caracas. <br><br>
<b>Were it not for the heavy resistance and high costs in both money and
blood the imperial forces have encountered in Iraq, we may be sure that
the Colombian paramilitaries would have been accompanied by US Marines.
No one should ever forget that. And we may be sure that President Hugo
Chavez Frias will never be that naive. <br><br>
</b>The assault on democracy in Haiti, the rising crescendo of political
and economic attacks on Cuba, and a continuing propaganda blitz in US
media against the Bolivarian Republic show us that the imperial regime
has accepted that it must delay its program. But it remains far from any
abandonment of its hopes to exploit political and social division in your
country and others for its own advantage. This is the historical pattern
of US relations with all of the nations south of the Rio Grande del
Norte. Neither property party here in the USA will voluntarily change the
basic design of our policy. <br>
</font><img src="cid:6.1.0.6.2.20040518164110.0266ccc0@66.103.156.66.1" width=215 height=300 alt="2607f25.jpg"><font face="verdana" size=2><br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2 color="#000080"><i>Executive Vice
President <br>
Jose Vicente Rangel<br><br>
</i></font><font face="georgia" size=2>What President Chavez and Vice
President Rangel have done, correctly I believe, is to exploit the
man-power shortages in the US military <i>(as I write this, new US and
satellite troops are being sent to the Mideast even from threatened
Korea)</i> to buy time for Venezuela to strengthen its conventional
military and build up a new popular militia. <br><br>
We have also, in several editorials called upon the Bolivarian
authorities to be as creative on the diplomatic front as they have shown
themselves on the military. We asked them to consider asking Holland if
it is her intention to join the United States in aggression against
Venezuela from her territories off your coast. And if hostilities are not
intended to bar the use of the Antilles to US provocations and
aggression. <br><br>
This column has also appealed to President Chavez and Foreign Minister
Perez to formally accuse US President George W. Bush and his leading
officials of the war crimes they have already committed before the new
International Criminal Court. This court is a part of the legal machinery
of the United Nations and has jurisdiction to deal with violations of the
Geneva Conventions, unprovoked military aggression and other crimes
against humanity. <br><br>
Some readers have suggested that because the USA are not signatory to the
Convention that the court has no jurisdiction over its officials and
soldiers. Nothing could be further from the truth, although these readers
are hardly to be blamed for laboring under yet another misunderstanding,
one carefully propagated by the corporate press.<br><br>
<b>After all, the USA has been, since day one of the Bush administration,
using threats and bribes to arrange 89 bilateral agreements with other
nations attempting to exempt its personnel from legal investigation or
prosecution. But such individual arrangements only apply to each
individual nation in its own relationship to the USA.<br><br>
</b>Ironically, a non-signatory country like the USA has lost the right
to interpose between the international process and accused persons it own
judiciary! And the vigor with which the USA has pursued this tactic of
bilateral exemption reveals her sensitivity to this problem. And reveals
as well a conspiracy at the summit of her government to subvert this
aspect of international order as it has so many others.
<ul>
<li>Somehow this culture of imperious imperial impunity must be ended.
And Venezuela's own President Chavez has the power to do it.</font>
</ul><font face="verdana" size=2><br>
</font><font face="georgia" size=4>No wonder Mr. Shapiro was so nice and
polite.<br><br>
</font><font face="Georgia" size=5>Chris Herz<br>
<a href="mailto:cdherz44@yahoo.com">cdherz44@yahoo.com<br><br>
</a></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3><a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>