September 11, 2002

IT'S HARD TO get a decent read on Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. –Is he a thuggish would-be dictator? Or is the twice-elected former paratrooper a quasi-socialist crusader committed to democracy?

He definitely keeps creepy company (including Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi), and he's done some creepy things (like dramatically extending the military's power and regularly seizing the commercial airwaves).

The U.S. media certainly portray him as a bad guy. In April, when he was briefly ousted in a short-lived military coup, the New York Times labeled Chavez "a ruinous demagogue" and editorialized in favor of the coup. According to the Los Angeles Times, "it goes against the grain to put the name Hugo Chavez and the word 'democracy' in the same sentence."

But then again, the American papers seem to have a genetically coded bias against leftist leaders: the New York Times, for example, described the 1970 election of Chilean socialist Salvador Allende as a "heavy blow at liberal democracy."

No one has really gotten to the bottom of the aborted coup in Venezuela. Was the United States – long a practitioner of dirty-tricks diplomacy in Latin America – behind it? In a series of stories published in April, the U.K. Guardian uncovered clues suggesting direct involvement by the Bush administration -- U.S. military personnel apparently met with coup plotters in the days leading up the takeover -- but so far nothing solid has emerged. And on the plus side, Chavez is funneling the country's oil profits into social programs that benefit the impoverished masses.

Now, with the help of local nonprofit Media Alliance, a delegation of eight Bay Area activists is visiting Caracas to assess this Chavez guy. "From the U.S. media it's been difficult to judge much how much support Chavez has," delegation member Aparna Shah said Aug. 14 before the group flew out. "We want to find out what's really happening." Shah and company will be meeting with government officials (including the vice minister of planning), Chavez supporters, labor unions, and average Venezuelans.

But don't expect the group to come back with an unbiased picture of the president. Asked if she was planning to talk to the anti-Chavez opposition, Shah sounded hesitant. "If we have time, we'll try to squeeze in a meeting with the opposition party."

Our little Saudi problem

On Aug. 16 survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks filed a $3 trillion lawsuit accusing members of the Saudi royal family, the government of Sudan, and numerous Islamic banks and charities of bankrolling the attacks.

The suit, filed in U.S. district court in D.C., must be making the State Department sweat.

Though the department doesn't give a crap about defendants like the International Islamic Relief Organization or the World Muslim League, the inclusion of Saudi royals is likely to damage relations with our key ally in the Middle East. (And those relations have been deteriorating rapidly since the news leaked earlier this month that the Pentagon had commissioned a report describing Saudi Arabia as an enemy state.)

So what's a diplomat to do?

Legal commentators are already speculating that Secretary of State Colin Powell's people will encourage the judge who's assigned to handle the suit to toss it out of court.

It wouldn't be the first time the State Department sought to advance its foreign policy goals by undermining the justice system.

In a July 29 letter the department urged U.S. District Court Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer to dismiss a credible suit seeking damages from ExxonMobil. Brought by the International Labor Rights Fund, the suit alleges that Indonesian troops hired by the oil company to protect its operations in the civil war-torn province of Aceh engaged in the "systematic torture, murder, and rape" of local villagers.

Apparently, the federal government is more worried about Islamic terrorism than about corporate terrorism. "This lawsuit could potentially disrupt the on-going and extensive United States efforts to secure Indonesia's cooperation in the fight against international terrorist activity," State Department legal adviser William H. Taft IV wrote in the letter to Oberdorfer.

When it comes to international terrorism Saudi-style, however, the feds don't appear interested. The 247-page complaint filed by the Sept. 11 families raises a serious question: Why isn't the Justice Department going after the more than 90 organizations and individuals named in the suit? There appears to be plenty of evidence linking Saudi bankers and activists to Osama bin Laden, and under U.S. law the Justice Department has the authority to indict foreign nationals who commit crimes against American citizens.

But so far Attorney General John Ashcroft has indicted only a handful of these characters.

Why not just give them after-school detention?

While Ashcroft seems unwilling to take on alleged Saudi terror-funders, he also doesn't appear interested in vigorously prosecuting the legions of corporate crooks who seem to have gained complete control of America's financial institutions. This just in from the San Francisco U.S. Attorney's Office: "Neal Katz and Stephen Gaines were sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing over $4 million from a group of investors."

Crime doesn't pay?