Venezuelan mayor 'seeking asylum' in Peru

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: cnn

A Venezuelan mayor who says President Hugo Chavez is persecuting him on trumped-up corruption charges is seeking political asylum in Peru, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Manuel Rosales, a leading political opponent who lost the 2006 presidential race to Hugo Chavez, faces corruption charges in Venezuela.
He was supposed to have turned himself in to authorities on Monday but failed to appear.

"According to the jurisprudential traditions of Peru and the historic traditions of asylum, Peru has to accept this petition for asylum, because it concerns a political leader, a man of great responsibility, and because Hugo Chavez has made impassioned public declarations against him in plazas and stadiums," attorney Javier Valle Riestra told CNN en Español.

"That makes one doubt that there could be an impartial process."

He told reporters he expected Peru's government would make a decision within two months.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/04/21/venezuela.mayor/?iref=hpmostpop

[EFerrari]

1. The guy was caught meeting with five judges that could hear his case.

He didn't want a fair trail. lol

[Judi Lynn]

3. Reminds us of Cheney going on a hunting trip with Scalia, actually!

That was immediately before the Supreme Court was to hear a case the White House needed to win, as well.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_Sz83qFFwJP4/RardYHFl0XI/AAAAAAAAAE4/YTHWXmIAcPs/s400/ScaliaAndCheneyShootingDucks.gif

But, what's the point of extraordinary power if you don't take total liberty with it?

[Judi Lynn]

5. Action Urged Over Siemens Bribes in Venezuela (Rosales, and the Siemens subway)

But first, here's a reminder of what was at stake when Cheney went hunting with Scalia:

~snip~
Reading about Vice President Cheney's hunting trip mishap put me in mind of the last time Dick and his trusty shotgun made news. It was January 2003, and the Veep flew Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia down to Louisiana so they could duck hunt together -- a trip that took place just three weeks after Cheney had asked the High Court to let him keep the inner workings of his energy task force a secret (the Supremes eventually did just that, kicking the case back to a lower court which ruled Cheney didn't have to come clean).

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/02/13/cheneys_last_hunting_disaster.php

~~~~~~~~~~
Manuel Rosales' meeting with judges in Zulia is even more serious, considering the nature of the charges he's got pending against him, including bribery by Siemens for rights to build the Maracaibo subway, which they have already admitted to paying.

Action Urged Over Siemens Bribes in Venezuela
Attempts to try and link the corruption to former Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales.

By Jeremy Morgan
Latin American Herald Tribune staff

CARACAS -- Pressure is growing for a full investigation of suspect payments made by the German company Siemens in Venezuela with the alleged purpose of obtaining subway contracts in Maracaibo, Zulia state, and Valencia in Carabobo.

Siemens last week pled guilty in a United States court to corrupt acts by its subsidiaries in Venezuela, Argentina and Bangladesh. Payments in Venezuela totaled $18.78 million between 2001 and 2007, it admitted. It paid a $1.6 billion fine for the corrupt business practices, the largest fine for bribery in corporate history.

Siemens' subsidiary in Venezuela is said to have used an un-named subway engineering company based in Georgia in the United States to make the payments. The recipients are said to have included a high ranking member of the Government, a former Venezuelan Minister of Defense and diplomat, two prominent Venezuelan attorneys acting on behalf of government officials and a relative of a politician.

To date, none of the recipients has been named. At issue were contracts for subway construction worth $340 million in Maracaibo and $240 million in Valencia, all of which is said to have gone to Siemens and its associates.

The Venezuelan opposition party, Un Nuevo Tiempo, has called for a full investigation of Siemens' activities in the country. In doing so, it pointedly asked the National Assembly to name the recipients of payments Siemens now says were unlawful.

The Assembly, which is all but entirely dominated by legislators from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), last week declined to carry out an investigation. The argument used to justify this decision was that nobody had yet been charged in connection with the case in Venezuela.

However, PSUV Deputy Mario Isea claimed that there had been a connection between Siemens and Maracaibo Mayor Manuel Rosales when he was governor of Zulia state. Rosales served two consecutive terms as governor before successfully running for mayor of the state capital in the regional elections on November 23 this year.

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?CategoryId=10717&ArticleId=323852

[Bushknew]

7. Yet, MSM will not cover this, just make it seem like Chavez is driving him out

of the country.

[EFerrari]

10. And it will pass into the lore as truth just like the idea

that he represses the media. :crazy:

[paulk]

8. why doesn't the PSUV want to investigate?

Their excuse seems weak, considering that they have been accusing Rosales of accepting bribes from Siemans - are they afraid an investigation might exonerate him? Or that a real investigation might lead to places they don't want to go?

It seems a strange thing to accuse someone of a crime and then oppose an investigation of that crime...

[Ken Burch]

18. Maybe they're convinced(and they're probably right about this)

That if there were any trial, even though they've no doubt got the guy dead to rights, that the MSM would spin it so that Rosales was potrayed as a "heroic victim of communist persecution" or the "Solzhenitsyn of South America".

In other words, they probably figure it's a no-win situation prosecuting the guy that the MSM has always falsely anointed as the only acceptable possible leader of Venezuela.

[paulk]

21. why should the "MSM" spin matter inside VZ?

what would they care? The western media isn't going to have an effect on a trial happening inside VZ. That just doesn't make any sense.

When you've got to put that much spin on something it usually ends up failing the smell test...

[Ken Burch]

22. It's not so much the effect on the trial, it's the effect on VZ and the new admin. here

Rosales can be spun(without any justification, of course)as the "heroic dissident", just as Violeta Chamorro was during the Sandinista years(even though nobody ever actually did anything to her).

That external spin, with the way it could be used to push Obama into continuing the hardline towards Chavez, would be the problem.

[paulk]

23. well, when it comes to influencing things, it never looks good

when your main opposition leader flees the country, after having been charged with a crime (which he denies). We've seen this sort of thing happen all too often in tinpot democracies the world over - it always raises the question of who's telling the truth.

Considering the corruption of VZ's courts before Chavez's reforms and the questions that remain after (HRW has accused the Chavez government of packing the courts), Rosales lack of faith in a fair hearing are quite possibly justified.

I'm sure Obama has better sources of information than the MSM to base his decisions on.

[Judi Lynn]

4. I just saw in an article written back in March that the judges have been suspended, too!

Rosales might need to get some roll-out beds for them in his hide-out!

Venezuela court moves trial of Chavez opponent
Trial of Venezuelan opposition leader moved to Caracas; he complains it complicates defense
IAN JAMES
AP News
Mar 24, 2009 18:19 EDT

http://www.blnz.com/news/2009/03/24/Venezuela_court_moves_trial_Chavez_7177.html

[hughee99]

6. Maybe he was trying to find out if there was any chance of him getting a fair trial

or if it would be best to leave the country.

[EFerrari]

9. Is that normally how people go about securing fair trails --

meeting secretly with potential judges? :)

[hughee99]

13. In a country where your political opponent is running the country,

maybe it is.

[EFerrari]

14. That's a circular argument. Another way to look at this:

He didn't seem to have any problem with the trial and didn't claim any risk to his safety UNTIL he was found having those meetings and the venue was changed.

[hughee99]

15. As is that

He may not have had any issues after talking with the judges and being assured he would get a fair trial, then he was discovered having those meetings and the venue was changed to a judge who he felt wouldn't give him a fair trial. I'm not saying this is what happened, or that he's not guilty, but not too long ago I remember seeing that a number of politicians were barred from running for office while they were being investigated (before due process). I can see where a political opponent of Chavez's might not have too much faith in the legal system.

[EFerrari]

16. Well, the counter example would be the anmesty and

the very light penalties given to a very few of the coup plotters of 2002. Were he the thug of the American press, those people would all be in jail -- and we know exactly who they were because they were all on television and very public about their involvement. You'd think that if one had the tendency to behave like a "strongman", it would be in the aftermath of a coup.

[Ken Burch]

19. In a country where you're a permanently unpopular right-wing figure

And the progressive majority is in power, you'd be likely to PRETEND that it was.

If Rosales were ever actually a victim of persecution, he'd have been arrested and shot just for TRYING to meet with the judges.

Might as well face it, Chavez isn't a tyrant and Rosales would not be an improvement. Venezuela has nothing to gain by putting a pro-austerity, pro-globalization reactionary into power.

[JackRiddler]

25. Ah, so theoretically if charges come up against Cheney...

then it's all right for him to meet with the judges in his case, right?

This one earns the big :eyes:

[Bushknew]

2. Politicians enriching themselves through their political connection! Say it isn’t so,Dianne Feinstei

Say it isn’t so, Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein sought $25 billion for agency that awarded contract to spouse

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/21/senate-husbands-firm-cashes-in-on-crisis/

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband’s real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Good on Chavez for investigating political corruption in his country.

We should do the same. We should invade the Cayman Islands.

[Bacchus39]

11. I'd probably do the same thing to avoid this persecution n/t

s

[Mudoria]

12. As would I

[Ken Burch]

20. A corruption trial is NOT persecution.

They've got the guy dead to rights.

It's not like there couldn't be anyone else to lead the right-wing opposition in Venezuela.

Rosales isn't that important.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

24. I thought he was a governor not a mayor. nt