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[Gabi Hayes]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she believed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was destroying his country economically and politically.Venezuela's Congress on January 31 granted Chavez powers to rule by decree for 18 months as he tries to force through nationalizations key to his self-styled leftist revolution.

"I believe there is an assault on democracy in Venezuela and I believe that there are significant human rights issues in Venezuela," Rice told lawmakers at a congressional hearing. "I do believe that the president of Venezuela is really, really destroying his own country, economically, politically."

Venezuela is the fourth largest oil exporter to the United States and Washington, which has been at odds with Chavez for years, has criticized his plans to nationalize his country's oil and utility assets.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070207/pl_nm/venezuela_usa_rice_dc_2




......

note the different takes on reality between the Reuters story, and the following ("conveniently" omitting the highlighted passages below....I wonder why), thanks to Judi Lynn, via Say_What:


Week of Feb. 08 to Feb. 14, 2007

Why Hugo Chávez was given more authority

By Maria Páez Victor, PhD.

This week the parliament of Venezuela gave President Hugo Chávez the authority to pass laws by decree for the next 18 months on 10 issues of domestic importance. This type of power has a time limit and an issue limit and is specifically allowed by Article 203 of the Venezuelan constitution.

It is not the first time President Chávez has been allowed this prerogative. Twice before he was given such powers, according to this constitutional provision, and he carried out the duties allowed to him by the parliament without any misstep or abuse of power.

A close look at Venezuelan history shows that this power, also enshrined in the past constitution, was given to presidents Rómulo Betancourt (1959) Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974), Jaime Lusinchi (1984) and Ramon Jose Velázquez (1993) to carry out decisions related to finance, external debt and creation of new state institutions among others. However, since these presidents were in friendly terms with the White House, there was no decrying of an erosion of Venezuelan democracy then.

In fact, during the past 40 years, and during previous presidential terms, glaring abuses of human rights have been committed in the country but not one word of protest or concern was uttered by Washington.
(snip/...)

http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Maria_...

Thanks to DU'er Say_What for sharing this material.