Enemy Of The State
The Chicago Sun Times has a brief profile of a brave man you've probably never heard of. Leopoldo Lopez is the mayor of Chacao, one of five municipalities that make up Caracas, Venezuela. He is a marked man. Marked by the Chavez government.
There's nothing unusual about a mayor being trailed by a bodyguard — unless, that is, he needs to be protected from assassins working on behalf of the president of his own country. But then, Leopoldo Lopez of Caracas is not your usual mayor and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is not your usual president.
Lopez — 36, educated at Harvard's Kennedy School of Public Policy, and mayor of Chacao, one of five municipalities within Caracas — has emerged as one of the most visible challengers to the increasingly authoritarian Chavez regime. That's a dangerous undertaking. Lopez recounts three assassination attempts — the most recent last year, when 12 shots were fired at his car, six of them killing his bodyguard. ''He died in my arms,'' recalled Lopez, in Chicago this week for a conference of mayors from North, Central and South America.
An investigation traced the attack to the government and identified a suspect, Lopez says. But the suspect was released after one hour with the case manager in the attorney general's office breaking into tears when she told Lopez, ''This is bigger than what I can handle.''
One of the new changes to the constitution that Chavez has had rubber-stamped by his lapdog legislature will declare anyone who opposes Chavez's programs an "enemy of the socialist state". Lopez knows that he will be so named, but he is continuing to fight Chavez and the takeover of his country. Venezuela has the distinction of being rated as the second most corrupt nation in Latin America behind Haiti. Murder rates are skyrocketing - and the Chavez-controlled police are involved in more and more murders.
Yet Chavez is visited by useful idiots from Hollywood like Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn and Danny Glover. Maybe they should take the time on their next trip to visit a man who is standing against Chavez. While they still can.
World news | Gaius Saturday, 29 September , 2007
By syn, Saturday, 29 September , 2007 @ 7:36 am
Isn’t it ironic that a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Public Policy is now a target of Socialist death squads. I suppose that particular institution of higher learning with their good intentions omitted the way progressive public policies often produce regressive action.