Message for the world - Pay attention

VenEconomy - Governments, the press, and national and international agencies have focused on the case of Honduras and, specifically, on the alleged violation of Manuel Zelaya right to continue as the President of that country. Save for a few exceptions, scant attention has been paid to the many previous illegalities committed by Zelaya, which demonstrated his total contempt for the laws and constitution of Honduras. And those who today throw up their hands in horror at Zelaya’s overthrow and clamor for the Inter-American Democratic Charter to be applied to Honduras have not pronounced themselves over the violation of the principle of NON-interference in the affairs of other nations either, even though, today, the Chávez administration’ s abusive and illegal intervention in the internal affairs of Honduras is common knowledge. Much less have any of those governments and agencies that today champion Zelaya’s “violated” rights uttered a single word regarding Hugo Chavez’s continuous and persistent violations of Venezuela’s Constitution or about how he has manipulated and altered the laws of the Republic to suit his personal communist project, despite the fact that the majority of Venezuelans expressly rejected it in December 2007. Not only that, few have spoken out against the flagrant violations of a wide range of human rights that the Chávez administration has committed against hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.Just to name a few of the latest violations of the Constitution similar to those it is said were committed against Zelaya is the Chávez’s administration’ s refusal to acknowledge regional and municipal authorities. Governors and mayors who were legitimately elected in November 2008 have been illegally and despicably stripped by Chávez of their spheres of competence and attributions as well as of the economic and material resources and infrastructure to which they are entitled under the Constitution.It is the sum total of these constant violations of the Constitution, other illegalities, and the persistent disrespect for the human rights of Venezuelans that led Metropolitan Mayor Antonio Ledezma to go on hunger strike on Friday, July 3, at the offices of the OAS in Caracas. His purpose in doing so is to raise the alarm for the international community and to force the Organization of American States to turn its attention to Venezuela. The OAS should do its duty in the case of a government that has, for years, been violating with impunity not only the country’s Constitution but also elementary precepts of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. The message being sent out by the Hondurans and Ledezma is the same: they are demanding, in no uncertain terms, that the civil governments of the Continent comply with their countries’ constitutions to the letter and respect the rule of law.