Human Rights Violations In Venezuela

This project’s purpose is to record a people who have lived through the promises and outcomes of the Bolivarian Revolution, an idea that captured Venezuela’s spirit and spread across 16 Latin America nations as the Pink Tide. The poor and working class will be a fundamental component of this story as I investigate the role the revolution has played in shaping the lives of this perpetually overlooked group of people. Simultaneously, the nature of these issues will create a portal into the world of Venezuelan heritage, traditions, and political and civic culture. What I write will be the reality of the situation; the interpretation will be left up to the reader.

The “Bolivarian revolution” revolves around the rise of the leftest movement which started with Hugo Chavez, and soon many other leaders rose to the occasion. The sole purpose of this movement was to help Latin America get rid of dictators and reestablish under Simon Bolivar's ideals of making Latin America not a colony but a nation for the people residing in it. Now that Chavez is dead, I believe that he was able to complete Bolivar's conquest of freeing Latin America. Now that Chavez has passed away, he has left both good and bad implications, but I believe its more good than bad. “The real opposition to Chavez is from the United States which was so angry at the way that he built up a credible alternative to the U.S. idea of free trade with

Venezuela is a country located on the northern coast of South America. It borders Guyana to the east, Brazil to the south and Colombia to the west (“Basic Facts on Venezuela”). It is interesting to see how a country that was once rich and had a strong government can end up caught in an economic crisis. Then, this may result in violence and chaos in the country. The worst part is that a crisis in one country can produce shocks all over the world.

As I said before, many critics agreed that Hugo Chavez has been able to diminished Venezuelan democracy to convert it to a competitive authoritarian regime. Chavez has controlled the country and stills does, in a way in that using populism and his policy of clientism he gets the masses and specially the poor to support him and agreed with him in many of his reforms and actions. Allying himself with leftist countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and especially Cuba, Chavez has implemented what he calls a “Bolivarian Revolution”, revolution that allows him to have a complete control of the country. Furthermore, Chavez has been using the oil revenues not only as a method of getting international support for his ideas and type of regime but also, for his own personal enrichment

His strategy has always been to appeal to the electorate (which is why I say that he is not a "dictator" because almost everything he has done has had the support of the majority of the population). In this case, by appealing to the resentment sense that the population had towards the party system he called for a National Constituent Assembly. His first goal was to get most of the Assembly through the manipulation of a system of election of delegates. By this, he obtained the 93% of the seats in the assembly, giving him the freedom to make the changes. Some of the most important changes were the elimination of the Senate in its place he created the National Assembly. Chaves replaces the party system that had been established in Venezuela for nearly half a century. Taking advantage of the resentment of the population toward the parties, managed to strengthen the powers invested in the figure of the president. This gave him the power to make laws or declare a referendum without the need for support from the legal system. This in turn, will make things easier because there was no system of checks and balances. In the referendum conducted in 2009 to the executive branch led by Chavez was given the ability to dissolve the National Assembly too. Also, he gained control of the attorney general, comptroller general, and the militia and the National

The power usurper attempts to maximize his power trying to perpetuate himself in government (Diamint 62). Chavez attempted to do this by altering the constitution so that the term limits were longer and that he could run for immediate reelection. The previous constitution prevented immediate reelection and made candidates wait 10 years before running for president again. This was set up to prevent the rise of a dictator or another king, but the people put their faith in Hugo Chavez and approved the constitutional referendum in 1999. Chavez maximized his power and the power of his successor Nicolas Maduro by making these changes. Chavez passed away from cancer in 2013 from cancer, but there is no way to tell what would have happened had he not

In 1959, Cuban leader Fidel Castro seized power over Havana and overthrew the U.S. during the Cold War. Castro then began an alliance with the Soviet Union and proceeded to increase trade with them. After these events, Washington banned exports from the U.S. to Cuba. Restricted were later extended over the whole economy by placing an embargo, which limited Americans travel and the ability to do business with Cuba. These events lead towards restriction between both countries for over 50 years.

On the first day of Latin American Cultures, Professor Navia asked, “What does all of Latin America have in common?” In response, the students had a combination of answers: language, geography, and culture. However, everyone overlooked the most obvious answer: inequality. Inequality comes in all shapes and forms, and the most commonly thought of inequality is the gap between the rich and poor (income distribution). In this case, the primary inequality that will be addressed is human rights. According to the UNDP’s Development Report for Latin America and the Caribbean, Latin America is one of the world’s most unequal regions. Within Latin America, however, Honduras is the second poorest country that does not only face financial issues, but also large amounts of human rights violations toward majority of the population. By discussing the different types of violations in the 21st century, its reasons behind these particular violations shed light on how to address these issues. Lack of education and money seem to highlight a method of improving the current standing of Honduras.

Human rights violations occur all around the world whether it's the genocide of millions because of beliefs or if it’s the fact that people are left with restrictions that others are not affected by, similar to the segregation that previously existed in the United States . One violation of human rights that occurred in Australia that has caused controversy was the sterilization of disabled women in Australia. This sterilization caused an uproar because of the violation of a woman’s right to produce offspring, regardless of her mental status. This forced sterilization on the mentally disabled women of Australia became a situation in which the UN became involved because of the violation of human rights. Globally, it it considered inhumane to

Venezuela is a country with an exceptional history. Ever since the collapse of the Gran Colombia in 1830, Venezuela has been ruled by military leaders until mid-20th century (CIA). Since the mid-1950s, a wave of democratically elected regimes took over in which Venezuela flourished and became one of the few leading economic powers in the Latin American region (CIA). With large oil revenues funding the government, the country’s political and economic institutions became effective, and what was once a military oppressed environment was now a thriving and liberalized economy. Unfortunately, many of these institutions began to deteriorate from corruption and inexperience of officials. Also, Oil prices began to decline and the country began to

Throughout this assignment, our job as students was to develop a plan in order to have knowledge about the country we were planning to discuss, the country I decided to talk about in this assignment is Venezuela. Venezuela was given the name of Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela since 1999. Venezuela is located on the northern coast of South America, the country is compromised with numerous islands from the Caribbean Sea. It borders Brazil from the south,Colombia from the west and Guyana from the east. A little history about Venezuela, this country became a Spanish colony in the 1520’s. In 1830, Venezuela withdrew from Gran Colombia and became an independent republic. Most of Venezuela’s 19th century history was characterized by periods of political instability, dictatorial rule and then followed by a succession in the first half of the 20th century(CountryWatch). Hugo Chavez became president in 1999 and continuously became elected until 2013, the current president of Venezuela is Nicolas Maduro(CountryWatch).

The political system in Venezuela is communist or socialist, depending on how one defines the terms and views the nation. The official name of Venezuela is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, an allusion to the revolutions started by Simon Bolivar in many areas of South America. The majority of those countries are socialist or communist in their governmental systems. Nicholas Maduro is the current president, and can serve as president for as many terms as he wants. The United Socialist Party, or PSUV, is one of the major parties in the nation. The PUSV, formerly unchallenged in power, lost the most recent

As stated by the article “A Political Theory of Populism”, populism is “a democratic discourse that relies on the idea of a popular will and struggle between ´the people´ and ´the elite´— then Chavismo is clearly a populist phenomenon” (Acemoglu 1). Populism is the shortcut that the government uses to play with the passions, illusions, and ideals of its citizens with the purpose of promoting what is impossible and taking advantage of people’s misery. Populist governments avoid using reason and logic when making decisions and they play with the basic necessities of people to simply impose a dictatorship. The effects of populism in a country are devastating and you can observe the deterioration of Venezuela throughout the seventeen years of Chavism. Gloria Alvarez in her interview states that “the immediate effects of

The country of Venezuela is located in northern South America, bordering the Caribbean sea, the atlantic ocean, Colombia, Guyana, and Brazil. It is six times the size of Georgia, and currently has an estimated population of 30,208,000 people (“South America :: Venezuela). The capital city of Caracas is surrounded by a beautiful state park on one side, and rugged yet densely populated hills on the other (Venezuela - Caracas - An Introduction). There are many interesting museums to visit in Caracas, including the birthplace of Simón Bolívar, the man who led many South American countries to independence from Spain

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”