All I can see in that Amnesty report is that the opposition has lots of violent protests during which firearms are often used.
The security forces use force which Amnesty states is indiscriminate, however, it is a pretty common tactic by terrorist groups to hijack legitimate protests, even peaceful ones which these clearly are not, to hide in and provoke an overreaction.
This over reaction is then exploited by the opposition organisations to try raise more support.
I notice that in many reports that you see of heavy handed treatment by Venezuelan Security forces, the opposition parties are rarely criticised, and yet they are certainly no better, and in the case of some, are backed directly with US support.
The behaviour of the security forces, and those who support Chavez are pretty much par for the course, and none of it means Chavez is directly behind it.
As for the economy being down the toilet, its almost a given that if the US decides to brng down the economy of any nation, including the UK, it could quite easily do so.
Chavez may well be a poor economic manager, but US hostility to him and his nations economy are bound to rack up the problems of orders of magnitude.
Up to now the laws he has put in place appear to be constitional, it could be argued that a lot of it is ‘slippery slope’ type stuff.
The so-called restrictions on the media turn out to be highly debateable, since the vast majority of it is in private hands.
The big problem to me seems to be that the US has in its sights a leader of an oil producing nation that is no cooperative, and that is crime enough.
Whatever that alleged faults are of Chavez, and they are just that - alleged, the US is prepared to make deals with far more odious, and dangerous leaders of oil producing nations, just as long as they remain compliant.
It’s impossible to condemn Chavez withour looking at the reasons for his coments, and actions, and also look at the messengers and work out why they are saying what they do.
He has committed the crimes of criticising the US on many issues, which in most instances are actually very valid comments, he has dealings with Cuba, but the US led media extend this and make claims he has also had dealings with N Korea, and every bogeyman on earth, I take these reports with a pinch of salt.
The original report was third hand, badly translated and out of context, and looks to be just a way of smearing Chavez.
We read the translation of his actual words and these are somewhat differant, its worth considering why.
When the media indulge in this kind of reporting, its impossible to trust anything they say about Chavez, they have undermined their own message.
