Chavez, the movie II

Subtitle: A Chance to Vent About Hugo Chavez...

Oliver Stone joins a lamentably-long list of entertainment world personalities turned long-distance political analysts who from their studios in California, romanticize Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez as a wonderful, dramatic, romantic figure. They're welcome to their opinions, altho the reality is that Chavez is running Venezuela into the ground (and I lived in Caracas for several years).

Stone says Colombia gets a free pass on human rights issues, despite its very troubled record. I guess Stone doesn't know how to do a search in the Washington Post for its recent stories about

the 'false positives' scandal, the alleged criminal tied of Pres. Uribe's brother.... and others.

But a fundamental difference between Colombia and Venezuela is that Colombia has generally respected and accepted international institutions' critiques. Not always, but often. Even Colombia's own courts have condemned its military officials. Try looking for that in Venezuela, where judges who don't follow the line get jailed themselves.

Case in point is the recent condemnation of the Colombian government by an Organization of American States court for the 1994 assassination of Senator Manuel Cepeda, a far-left senator. Cepeda's killing was part of the mass killings of leaders of the Union Patriotica political party, which was linked to the FARC guerrillas.

Colombian courts had previously condemned two state officials for the killings, and recognized the state's responsibility.

This blog written by Mike Ceaser, of Bogota Bike Tours.