.....a little fascist. Yes, you heard it right. The CATO institute awarded a right wing student leader in Venezuela $500,000 for opposing the Chavez regime although it is widely known his "student group" is neither libertarian or in line with any type of real free market ideology except the non-Adam Smith kind of managed markets for U.S. global corporations.... what the f**k is up that that CATO?You award fascists? You don't award the Libertario from Venezuela even?
No mention of what the little fascist did to promote Bolivar's democratic vision in the nominations....
Have you lost your f**king minds, collectively? I never knew you awarded neo-mercantilism and fascism.... Like Eva Gollinger I see Exxon behind your award Yon, not liberty.... if you speak spanish, you can watch Eva parse it out here...
Why not give the brave Venezuelan Libertarians who helped stop a war with Colombia the award. Do you see that little f**k's name on any of it? No, he is a tool of the extreme right wing oligarchy who have historically been in league with the Bishop of Caracas and I think somewhere in your little stone hearts you know it. And the brave student protesters who were actually non-violent? Where are they? The Libertarian ones? Again rejected for what I can only describe as a more radical political platform.
Now you probably got all the real libertarians in trouble, you jackasses.... you give the perception to people that libertarians are fascists....WHAT THE F**K?
Libertarianism has nothing to do what the fascist student movement little oligarqa Yon Goicoechea started. Give the guy who wants and encouraged student violence an award!!?? You can see the pictures here. I know his dad went to prison for shooting a guy who broke into the house and I wish he would have kept the protests peaceful but did he? That is a tough question to answer given the connections..... and you CATO give him an award from LIBERTARIANS??!!!!!
Libertarians whose vow of non-violence is the basic and some say sacred part of the party platform?
From the El Nacional:
"In protests at the University of Zulia in Maracaibo the following day, one student, Flavia Piscapia, 21, was killed and four others injured when a gunman fired on the demonstration from a passing car. One of the gunmen was also reported killed in the confrontation that followed. The Maracaibo protests were over a delay in student elections at the University of Zulia. (El Nacional, Venezuela, Nov. 2)"
More:
A student protest might seem unthinkable in a country that has overcome the scourge of illiteracy in less than three years and that, through its different “mission” educational programs, has helped underprivileged students get free basic education and college degrees.
The OPEC gathering emphasized Venezuela’s view that the era of U.S. imperialism’s unchallenged domination of the world is coming to a close. "
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s speech to the OPEC gathering emphasized Venezuela’s view that the era of U.S. imperialism’s unchallenged domination of the world is coming to a close.
But what about one that was really directed by forces in opposition to the Venezuelan Bolivarian government, and at a time when Venezuela was preparing to host a very important meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries?
That is exactly what happened on May 24 in the university town of Mérida in the western part of Venezuela. A group called March 13 Movement (M-13) led a demonstration, apparently of students from the public University of the Andes (ULA), through the streets of Mérida protesting what they labeled an “interference with the university’s autonomy.”
That day, the Venezuelan Supreme Court had issued an injunction against student elections planned for May 31 at the request of the current student body president, who did not trust the transparency of those upcoming elections. The M-13’s response was pure violence.
Armed with heavy weaponry, Uzis and other powerful pistols and guns, their faces hidden under masks, they attacked the police and National Guard who were protecting the streets, wounding at least 26 police and one National Guard.
SofÃa Aguilar, a police woman, was interviewed by Venezuelan national television (VTV) about what happened to her and her male partner. She said they were on their official motorcycle answering a woman’s question when suddenly the “students” got out of a bus and began attacking them. Her partner was shot in the chest at close range and then furiously beaten on the head to the point of unconsciousness. When they finished the beating, the group took his helmet and placed it on top of the bus as a trophy.
She said she ran, trying to escape, and hid in an empty house. They followed her and tried to rape her at gunpoint, hitting and scratching her body. She was finally saved by the shouts of a woman who lived nearby. She identified the main attacker as Nixon Moreno, head of M-13. (www.vtv.gov.ve)
Who are Nixon Moreno and the M-13? Why do they accuse the Venezuelan National Guard of “invading the university”? According to VTV, Venezuelan Minister of Interior and Justice Jesse Chacón has denied that the National Guard and police forces raided the ULA.
In an article entitled “Ordinary Mérida students at ULA can’t really handle UZIs with such precision,” published June 2 on the Internet website Vheadlines, Spanish-language news chief Jesus Nery Barrios writes: “That is the reality of the ULA student movement and its leadership ... a mob of gunmen, rapists and students who do not study at all, but enjoy the university privileges: free transportation within the city, almost free canteen, free residence and a very low registration fee ... all paid by the Bolivarian government. Only that now (in 2006, for the first time in history) university authorities are having to report to the national government how they spend their millionaire budget, causing them to protest.”
Nixon Moreno himself, a “veteran” student who has been at the university more than 10 years, was a presidential candidate in the ULA’s postponed elections. He had been indicted for conspiracy, civilian rebellion, offense to the state chief, and several other charges relating to the U.S.-sponsored coup in April 2002 against President Hugo Chávez. His case was being handled by National Prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who was assassinated more than a year ago.
These developments in Mérida—which had echoes on the ULA campus in San Cristobal, in neighboring Tachira state, and to some extent in Caracas—have been widely seen not as student protests but as part of the destabilization campaign against the Bolivarian Revolution. Their timing—just when Venezuela was about to host a crucial OPEC meeting in the capital—reinforces that view.
Chavez’s speech to the OPEC gathering, which was vigorously applauded, emphasized Venezuela’s view that the era of U.S. imperialism’s unchallenged domination of the world is coming to a close and that the resource-rich countries of the Third World can advance by integrating their economies independently of the imperialist banks and corporations. The talk was aired in the U.S. on C-Span2.
Moreno connected to political opposition
In a public release, Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel had said earlier that the authorities had information about “preparations for a plan to generate violence in the street” during the OPEC gathering. He further declared that “The intention of initiating actions in Caracas amid the next OPEC meeting exists; its aim is to project the image abroad of chaos in Venezuela.”
Thanks to the diligent action of the Venezuelan government and the majority of student organizations, which support the Bolivarian process, these destabilizing actions did not have the organizers’ expected outcome.
Tarek El Aissami and Alberto Cautelar, two National Assembly representatives, presented evidence of the terrorist background of the group led by Nixon Moreno to the media and the national legislature.
These destabilizing attempts are also viewed as a drive to affect upcoming presidential elections, due to be held next December, and began after the launching of a nationwide campaign to get 10 million votes for Chávez in 2006. In that context, the assembly members also demonstrated links between M-13 and Teodoro Petkoff and Julio Andrés Borges, declared candidates of the opposition.
In an article published in Vheadline on May 30, ULA professor Franz J.T. Lee wrote: “As fake window-dressing, the ‘opposition’ has also named its candidates; among them, Teodoro Petkoff, who has already begun his anti-chavista campaign in Mérida. In a press conference at the airport, he caustically launched his diatribal garbage against the ‘Chávez regime,’ against the Bolivarian Revolution ... he was fetched and welcomed at the airport by Nixon and cohorts.”
Several reports state that the student groups that staged the violent demonstrations are presumed to have been infiltrated by paramilitary elements.
Response of students
In a public statement widely circulated over the Internet, several student groups opposed the Mérida developments.
They say, “We, Revolutionary Student Movements, the Federation of University Centers of the University of the Andes, and the Popular Movement of Mérida, wish to make public our rejection of the terrorist acts perpetrated by the pro-coup opposition groups 13th of March Movement, 20 Movement, Red Flag and other splinter groups, led by the ‘pseudo student’
Nixon Moreno.
“We the revolutionary student movements, the FCU and all of the men and women affected by this wave of violence and unknown guerrilla acts of destabilizing intent, demand the defense of the true University autonomy, in which there is no room for paramilitaries, terrorists, coup plotters, conspiracists, sell-outs, lackeys, mercenaries, and in sum, all those who act against the peace of the Venezuelan people.
“No to violence, no to the ‘Guarimbas,’ no to impunity, no to international interference, no to psychological and physical terrorism, no to coup seeking. We will remain united all for the defense of peace and sovereignty in the face of the hatred which threatens to do away with all of our hopes.”
Role of Washington
According to the article by Nery Barrios and several other reports, Moreno is implicated in the U.S. campaign against the Bolivarian Republic. Berrios says that Moreno “has met U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield in a hotel in the neighboring state of Barinas.”
At a time when the Venezuelan government is preparing its military and civilian population for a possible U.S. attack because of increasing hostility from the Bush administration, a meeting of the opposition with U.S. government representatives cannot be seen as a pure diplomatic gesture. The U.S. has funded the opposition, particularly the anti-Chávez Sumate electoral group. A long list of U.S. complaints against that sovereign nation accuse it of being a “destabilizing agent in the region,” “aiding terrorists” and even “human trafficking.” The U.S. has also opposed the Bolivarian Republic’s nomination to the UN Security Council.
It is a critical time for all progressive organizations in the United States to loudly and clearly state to the U.S. administration: “Hands off Venezuela.”
For a second time I ask, CATO are you out of your collective f**king minds?
The real Libertarians who deserve the award are not mentioned!!!!
Why not just call it the neo-conservative award?Simon Bolivar, who was libertarian, would tell you to "vaya al infierno" and I am too. I'd go even further and say "vayarse al cipote" that is stick your head in the toilet....
I never thought I would see the day when CATO awarded an organizer of of fascist violence....I mean, that is who you are giving an award to!!??? Venezuela is violent enough, you do not need to add fuel to the fire. The real Libertarians there are already working against the odds as both leftists and rightists seem intent on doing them in.
I am assuming you just do not know it, but still think you are out of your minds for doing it.
Steve, Tyler and I are here advocating freedom and individual liberty because, if you have not noticed it, we are losing our liberty in America and all I get is shit from you.
I think you are working as a lackey of the empire too little Yonnie, and I just hope you are misguided CATO.
Either way, STOP interfering in the internal affairs of other countries and why not award your own Libertarians, the ones in the U.S. an award for protecting the 4th amendment ... You a-holes at CATO must have blinders on.
This story should be called, "real peaceful libertarian students rejected, despite their desire to debate inside the colleges." The sad thing is both sides rejected them because both left and right were too volatile, and the right wing was being fueled by foreign interference.
And why is that Yon? I invite you to answer that for me. I have video around here of your "student movement" cowering police on top of a van and throwing gasoline at them!!!!! As soon as I find it I am going to post it.
Venezuelan student leader who challenged Chavez wins prize
By IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writer 41 minutes ago
CARACAS, Venezuela - The leader of a student protest movement that has emerged as a major challenge to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has won a $500,000 prize from a U.S.-based libertarian think tank.
The pro-free-market Cato Institute announced Thursday that law student Yon Goicoechea was chosen for his leadership as an advocate for freedom and democracy.
The 23-year-old student leader organized protests last year that were widely seen as key to the defeat of sweeping constitutional changes proposed by Chavez in a December referendum.
The changes would have let Chavez run for re-election indefinitely and would have granted him broad powers to reshape Venezuela into a socialist state.
"I see it as a collective prize. The prize is being given to me, but it's being given to me as a representative of something much bigger," Goicoechea told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of the formal announcement. "I hope that with this we can motivate and strengthen our movement."
The think tank, which is headquartered in Washington, said Goicoechea will receive the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty next month in New York. The prize is named after the Nobel Prize-winning economist who died in 2006.
Goicoechea "managed to effectively give voice to millions of Venezuelans who believed in democracy, tolerance and modernity, and who felt that they were being left out of politics," said Ian Vasquez, who heads the institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. "What the student movement was able to achieve in Venezuela was a huge boost for liberty, not just in Venezuela but throughout the region."
Goicoechea said he plans to use some of the money for a foundation to train young leaders in Venezuela and from across Latin America.
Goicoechea, who will soon graduate from Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas, said he is concerned about the concentration of power under Chavez and an absence of checks and balances.
"It's growing dangerously close to a totalitarian regime," he said. [But no more than the EEUU maybe when you come to New York people can show you the surveillance apparatus....]
There was no immediate reaction from the government. But Goicoechea a talk show host on state television late Wednesday portrayed him as a U.S. collaborator.
Chavez denies that his government is restricting personal freedoms and says student leaders are being manipulated by the United States.
Cato released a statement by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, a frequent critic of Chavez, praising Goicoechea as a symbol of young people's "democratic reaction when freedom is threatened."
But Eva Golinger, Venezuelan-American lawyer sympathetic to Chavez who has researched public and private U.S. aid to the country, suggested the award is "a way of injecting more funding into organizations and individuals that will promote a U.S. agenda" and U.S.-style economic policies.
Goicoechea says he often receives threats due to his activism but isn't concerned about the government's response to the award from a U.S.-based organization.
"The government already says we're financed by the CIA. [which I think you are] It already says we're paid by the empire. [which I think you are] So if they say it one more time, it really isn't that important," he said. [Yeah, your government may say that but I hope you hear IT FROM ME loud and clear you need to stop playing games with the people, if you are upset find peaceful ways of expressing it]
The Cato Institute, a nonprofit public policy research foundation that lobbies for individual liberty, limited government and free markets, says it accepts no government funding.
AGAIN CATO INSTITUTE- STOP INTERFERING IN THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF OTHER COUNTRIES. WHAT DID YOU DECIDE TO STOP THINKING FOR YOURSELVES AND LET GEORGE BUSH DO YOUR THINKING FOR YOU? AND IF YOU CHOOSE TO GIVE AWARDS TO CITIZENS OF OTHER NATIONS AT LEAST GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT.
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