Former UN ambassador Milos Alcalay: US-Venezuelan lawyer-cum-journalist Eva Golinger is "an out-and-out fraud" (VHeadline)

Milos Alcalay exposes Eva Golinger

Former Venezuelan Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Milos Alcalay is scathing in his criticism of US-Venezuelan lawyer-cum-journalist Eva Golinger who he describes as "an out-and-out fraud" in recent allegations that large chunks of Venezuela's opposition media is funded entirely or in part by United States intelligence services and/or other organizations disguised as "agents" of United States imperialism. "Golinger goes to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) webpage and selectively picks out a few examples to bolster her own (and Chavez') conspiracy theory that the "big bad United States" is out to assassinate him ... nothing could be further from the truth!"


Pro-Chavez radical Eva Golinger, he says, "quietly forgets the $-millions amount of Venezuelan government money that's been poured into a myriad of pro-Chavez propaganda organizations" and that Golinger herself is the well-paid editor of the English-language version of Correo del Orinoco as well as the pro-Chavez website Venezuelanalysis.com -- "neither of which could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered to be balanced journalism."


As regards Golinger's and Chavez' insistence that the Americans are out to get him, Alcalay is emphatic: "Why on earth should the United States or the Venezuelan opposition contribute to turning Hugo Chavez into some sort of martyr in the eyes of his deluded followers," Alcalay says. "All we have to do is to sit back and watch as Chavez painfully digs his own grave with one calamity after another. His administration is falling apart with mismanagement and corruption at every level and he can't ... or won't ... lift a finger to do anything about it. He is all rhetoric, spouting hot air for the masses ... but his political support is dwindling as Venezuela's poor realize they've been sold up the river."

Alcalay -- a career diplomat who had served as Ambassador to Brazil and then the UN during the initial (post 1998 election) period of the Chavez administration -- had resigned (March 2004) saying that "Venezuela is operating devoid of the fundamental principles of democracy, human rights and non-confrontational foreign policy." While he remains intensely committed to the fundamentals he says that over the past six years of the Chavez administration he has witnessed "increasing bipolarization that has impacted our (Venezuelan) relationships around the world..."

Alcalay highlights the $-millions (rumored to be in the order of $20,000,000) paid to Hollywood director Oliver Stone to produce his movie "South of the Border" ... which most pundits says is unadulterated propaganda for Chavez and his peculiar form of 21st Century socialism. He also points to the $-millions of public money plowed into pro-Chavez local media, including a string of local radio stations which like the State-owned TV channel Venezolana de Television (VTV) are essentially mouthpieces for Chavez' every utterance -- of which there are many on a daily basis.

"At the beginning of his administration, I was enthused with what Chavez had set out to achieve for Venezuela and Venezuelans," Alcalay told VHeadline on a crackly telephone line from Caracas. He apologized for the line-quality saying that 'our friends!' (thinly veiled code-speak for Chavez' eavesdropping) must be listening in, recording our conversation. "But the sorry fact is that Hugo Chavez lost the plot and his administration is spiralling out of control. The latest controversies with Holland, Colombia and the Roman Catholic Church are simply symptoms of how irrational and reckless the Chavez administration has become."

"Venezuela's foreign policy is primitive, fractured at best ... (Foreign Minister) Nicolas Maduro wants to puff himself up as being more radical than his boss, but he lacks any degree of professionalism and, while the debacles he causes may have a certain appeal to the uneducated masses, the currently chaotic situation only shows off Maduro as a nihilistic clown. He thinks that diplomacy is picking irrational fights with everyone, without realizing that he will eventually have to back down when others have to pick up the pieces and try to return the awful messes he creates to some degree of sanity."

Unfortunately, Alcalay sees that "the fix is already in" with elections to be held on September 26. Recently introduced and heavily pro-Chavez 'communes' are, Alcalay says, a means by which Chavez is attempting to circumvent more traditional regional and municipal levels of government. He says they are doomed to failure because Chavez simply hasn't made any budgetary arrangements for them and the people are going to react strongly when they discover how they've been conned.

Another (more reckless) alternative is that Chavez could attempt to radicalize his "Revolution" and to impose Constitutional reforms that would take Venezuela even further from democratic fundamentals.

A third possibility, Alcalay says, would be for Chavez to simply postpone the September 26 elections at the very last minute as soon as he sees that he doesn't have the support he craves ... "anything is possible! Chavez and his government are clearly out of control and it is going to take a long time for Venezuela to be put right again!"

There is hope, however, in what Alcalay sees as Venezuela's emerging youth. He sets store by the fact that young Venezuelans have a new confidence to reject the 'sins of the fathers' and to proceed with new confidence towards a pluralistic and ethical vision of what Venezuela's future can really achieve..."

Roy S. Carson
editor@vheadline.com

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Originally published on July 20, 2010
Link: http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=94525

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