Nicaragua Asks Chavez to Stop Interfering

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Norman Caldera has asked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to butt out of his country's political affairs after Chavez signed a favorable oil pact with dozens of leftist Nicaraguan mayors. Peru and a Mexican presidential candidate also have recently accused Chavez of interfering in internal affairs.

Chavez agreed last month to ship 10 million barrels of fuel a year at preferential prices to 51 Nicaraguan communities, many of them allied with the party of Sandinista presidential candidate Daniel Ortega. He also made a donation of 10,000 tons of urea to Sandinista farming organizations, Caldera said. Chavez has openly backed Ortega, saying he would like his ``friend'' and ``brother'' to win Nov. 5 presidential elections.

``We hope this partisan support comes to an end so that Nicaraguans can freely choose who we want to be the next leader of Nicargua,'' Caldera told a local television station Thursday during a government event in the city of Boaco, 45 miles northeast of the capital, Managua. Government officials could not be reached for comment Friday.

Ortega has denied Chavez's involvement in his campaign, saying the oil deal and urea donation are nothing more than the Venezuelan president's expression of solidarity with Nicaragua. Officials in Peru and a candidate in Mexico have also recently accused Chavez of supporting leftist opposition presidential candidates in their countries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5802696,00.html

Chavez is offering low priced commodities that are necessary, instead of death squads like WE sent ..hmmmm

which to choose?

nation's elections!! At least Chavez is doing it openly and not having the opposition assassinated, like the US usually does!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Oh, Hugo! You are so wonderful! The bad guys don't know what to do with you--so they whine and whine! How dare he give our people cheap gas! How dare he want peoples' candidates elected! How dare he be smart as a whip! How dare he beat us at our own game--to benefit the poor!

"Two can play at that game".

OH, how miserable they must be in Washington, right now. People have figured out the Neanderthal tactics that have worked for so many years. Just elemental brute force, requiring very little sophistication type meddling and murdering in other countries.

Too bad, Cro-Magnons. Your little routine has outlived its usefulness.

Better try a new approach. The honest approach.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4921916.stm



Yes, Hugo. You shouldn't interfere in the electoral process of other countries. Please look to the United States for an example of proper stately conduct.

Please don't give billions in foreign aid to brutal regimes (Columbia, Saudi Arabia, etc.) like the United States does. That's interference.

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and build mega bases in countries all over the globe

Didn't they all get that memo from "above"??

USA is the perfect example of "Do as I SAY - not as I DO"

There is no other nation in the world that has their fingers in so many countries pockets than the USA

Correct me if I'm wrong . . . .

back.

in foreign countries.

I read the article and I see Peru, Nicaragua, and Mexico listed as the countries aggrieved by this...

Can someone explain to me what this has to to with the United States?

That the US interferes with the internal politics of foreign nations somehow make it ok for other countries (like Venezuela, for instance)to do the same?

PDVSA, like any other company, can sign contracts with whomever they want to, as long as it's legal. And I have no reason to suspect the deals mentioned in the OP aren't.

Edit:

company. These "deals" are clearly being used to foment political division in other countries. It's a case of one country interfering in the politics of another. It's not right when the US does this.

How can it be right when Venezuela does it?

Why should ours be? Oh, that's right, so we can be pushed around again and again.

Photons pass through you as if it was interstellar vacuum.

who is the "other" side? Who is "we"? Are you from Venezuela? Mexico? Nicaragua? Peru? Who is pushing you around?

and what does "Photons pass through you as if it was interstellar vacuum" refer to?

And it's not my fault if your high-school study of Physics was lacking.

and he can do no wrong. see?

It's not that he can do no wrong. It's that he's done a lot rot and not much wrong.

What do you want people here to do? Criticize for doing the right thing? Invent bullshit?

seems to be wrong when the US does it, at least according to the posts on this thread. How is it not wrong when Venezuela does it? please, do explain.

(a country desperately in need of freedom from US interference, and a return to a left wing leader)

?

What are you accusing him of doing.

Saying "interference" might be enough to get the blood up of the Faux News crowd, but you're going to have to have a thought-out, informed opinion here.

the government of Nicaragua, on the other had is. I think they might have just a bit more information than I do on the subject. And I don't hear vociferous denials coming from Caracas, in fact this seems right in line with the stated desire of the Venezuelan government to create a sphere of influence in the region. And what are you accusing the US of doing in Nicaragua, this time?

As for specifics, I would call what Venezuela is doing to be slightly below bribery, providing below market commodities to communities supportive of one candidate and then saying how much he wants him to win? Sort of a carrot, don't you think? the implication is that, if Ortega is elected, Venezuela will provide below market commodities to the rest of Nicarauga as well. that quid pro quo is pretty much interference, don't you think?

allow me to make an analogy for this. Imagine that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia provided cheap oil to Red States, and said publically "boy, we sure like that George Bush, wouldn't it be great if he was relelected? Here, have some oil, there's more where this comes from, for the people we like" would you consider that interference in US elections?

US administrations who help them, and guess what? I've now read more posts complaining about Chavez doing this then I've ever read complaining about Saudi's doing this to help the Bush family.

Don't you think it's nice that some countries are doing this with the motivation being to help governments that help the people, rather than help the rich get richer? And helping gov'ts who help people is whole hell of a lot better then giving guns to people who will shoot people who help people, which is what the US did to Nicaragua after Ortega came to power, and it's what they did to José Santos Zelaya 100 years ago (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Santos_Zelaya).

Furthermore, do you want CITGO to stop giving cheap oil to Joe Kennedy's Citizens Energy, or to Native tribes, or offering it to Chicago, so they can reject it and show their citizens whose interests they represent? That's the same kind of "interference."

just as I would if CITGO annouced that any district that elected a Democratic Member in 2006 would get cheap oil. You don't recall all the hullabaloo about the Saudi Relationship with the Bush family? really? were you living in the US at the time?

So yes, I want CITGO to stop giving cheap oil to Americans, frankly, with the grinding poverty in Venezuela, I'd think Chavez would have a responsibility to his people, first and foremost. But I guess when someone is looting the export funds anyway (about $20 billion last year) what's another couple of hundred million?

to shoot the people who try to help the people, I know which side I'm taking.

And Venezuela's poor are going to be better off with less misery everywhere in the world. I don't see how Chavez can help the poor over the long term in Venezuela unless America gets a lot less fucked up real soon, and helping the poor in the US is surely the first step to making sure America gets fixed.

par for the course.

so puzzling.

And btw, anything that happens in Latin America involves the US.

countries to get the right winger they want, what's wrong with Chavez just TALKING about the person he likes???

whatever.

I've got better things to do than argue with the Chavez faithful.

You'll have to explain.

Stop U.S. Intervention in Nicaragua's November Elections!
Educate yourself and take action!

...

Ambassador Trivelli goes on to make it clear that the selection of the candidate for the PLC party cannot be former President Aleman, nor anyone he selects and that the election of the FSLN party candidate, Daniel Ortega, will not be accepted by the present US government. Mr. Ortega was the person vilified during the 1980’s when former president Reagan’s administration supported an overthrow of the democratically elected Ortega government. Thus for Nicaraguans the US statements about former president Ortega bring to mind the war and the effects of US intervention.

...

Another concrete way that the US government hopes to influence the Nicaraguan election is through funding a variety of Nicaraguan organizations for election-related projects. In the light of Ambassador Trivelli’s comments, this funding will unfairly influence Nicaragua’s choice of candidates. In the US, laws specifically prohibit financial support from a foreign government for a US candidate.

Does all of this ensure “fair and democratic” elections? Or does it merely ensure that the politics of the present US government will be supported? If people vote not their conscience but based on fear that the US disapproval of the elected candidate will lead to financial loses within the international financial institutions and potential US economic and military threats, is this democracy at work or is it intimidation?

While the US government talks of “election monitoring” there are many who believe that we in the US and in Nicaragua should be monitoring the US government’s involvement in the up-coming Nicaraguan elections. Furthermore, we demand that the US government stop interfering in ways that our government and citizens would find completely unacceptable if done to us.

http://www.nicanet.org/stop_US_intervention.php

Last Updated: Wednesday, 19 April 2006, 09:48 GMT 10:48 UK

US urges Nicaragua to shun Ortega

The United States has called on Nicaraguans not to vote for the former leftist leader, Daniel Ortega, in November's presidential elections.

A state department spokesman said politicians like the Sandinista leader were "discredited figures from the country's political past".

Mr Ortega's Sandinistas led Nicaragua in the 1980s with strong US opposition.

The US controversially helped to arm and train the Contra rebels in their war to overthrow the Sandinistas.
(snip)

The Bush administration has in the past accused the Sandinista leader and Mr Aleman of mounting a "creeping coup" against the Nicaraguan government.

On Monday, the US ambassador in Managua, Paul Trivelli, held talks with the country's main right-wing parties to discuss the possibility of their forming an alliance to oppose Mr Ortega.

But correspondents say the US policy could backfire and boost support for the Sandinistas.
(snip/)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4921916.stm