Opposing opposition II...

Seems Hugo the Clown just gets worse and worse: he is now taking over renowned coffee companies; when I first read this I thought they had discovered why such a massive amount of illegal drugs now passes through Venezuela - seemingly unhindered - but it was in fact just another example of the slow destruction of a country when thriving companies are squeezed until the pips squeak and then expropriated for not squeaking enough. To be honest though it's probably just a diversion to prevent too much investigation in to the oppression of the opposition: just this weekend we had news of 34 radio stations being closed, maybe hundreds more will be closed in the near future. Be in no doubt that none of these stations are pro-Chavez, purely coincidental of course. The move comes because the stations are in breach of registration rules (not handing in the papers on time). That may or may not be true but it is a worrying development in a country where bit by bit the opposition are being silenced. This, only a week before a new media law - the Special Bill Against Media Crimes - will be proposed under which journalists could be sent to gaol for publishing harmful material...sounds fair enough but we can all guess what "harmful" entails.

Not for want of supporting clowns we have Hugo's head of the national regulator and public works minister Diosdado Cabello saying "there was no evidence that the closures were against the law, adding that they were part of efforts to make the media more democratic."

"When we - the national government, the revolutionary government - took the decision to democratise the radio-electrical spectrum... we were speaking seriously,"

But Diosdado (God given...hahahaha) isn't the worst: higher on the list of supporting clowns is Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro. Chavez has decided to "freeze relations with neighboring Colombia and recall his envoy over accusations from Bogota that Caracas has links to Colombia's FARC Marxist guerillas." Ncholas Maduro said "Caracas would respond "at the appropriate time" to the "new lies" being leveled at Chavez's government." These lies were the Swedish government asking them how weapons Sweden had sold Venezuela were found in a FARC camp.

Officials in Stockholm confirmed that some arms produced in Sweden and sold to Venezuela were found in a FARC camp in Colombia, and the Swedish government called on Caracas to explain how the weapons wound up in the hands of the rebels.

(AFP - Google hosted news)

oops...