PROINSIAS DE ROSSA,
Madam, - I notice that The Irish Times has finally reported on the situation in Venezuela ("Three dead and 30 injured in weekend violence in Venezuela", December 9th). Reading between the lines, your readers may gain some understanding of the bizarre and sinister situation developing in that country.
Ultra-democratically, the constitution provides a mechanism for a recall referendum half-way through the five-year presidential term of office. President Chavez, who survived a 24-hour coup in April which was encouraged by the Bush administration and driven by Big Oil and the national media, is perfectly happy to submit to such a referendum and the Organisation of American States has endorsed this process. However, the wealthy élite, with ongoing encouragement from abroad, are not prepared to wait the necessary eight months and are determined to force him out now by cutting off the oil, and then the water, gas and electricity supplies.
Why are Western governments and the Western news media so relaxed about the developing situation in Venezuela? Why is it presented as almost a normal industrial dispute with the focus (as in your headline) only on violence and unrest with the sub-text that Chavez is an out-of-control lunatic? Why no concern about the rule of law and democracy?
Don't hold your breath for the answers, but anybody who guesses that it is about retaining control of, and profits from, oil and protecting the other gross privileges of the élite won't be far out. Perhaps some of the "belligerati" - new and old - might care to enlighten us. Perhaps they can provide an explanation for the apparent paradox of why it is necessary to go to war to install democracy in Iraq while working to overthrow it in Venezuela. Other than the presence of oil, that is! - Yours, etc.,
PROINSIAS DE ROSSA, European Parliament Offices, Dublin 2