Daniel Ortega’s thugs

In my trips I’ve been surprised for how many intelligent people in Eurasia and Africa view Hugo Chávez and his associates as heroes. From a noisy standing against the USA, they conclude that they are brilliant leaders of the Latin American peoples. They have to go to our region to see for themselves what’s happening there. Or at least read the news and learn about Chávez & Co.’s corruption, megalomany, authoritarism, disdain for human rights and freedom of expression, economic failure, and their all-so-pragmatic (never idealistic) friends selection: How can someone support people who congratulate the Iranian dictator Ahmadinejad and state that he commited no electoral fraud, as Chávez and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega did? 

Now Ortega’s true democratic values are visible again when he sends his thugs to attack the opposition legislators (who are not very respectable fellas, either, but the thing here is the abuse of his presidential position and his street gangs to rule over Congress and perpetuate himself in power), as you can see in this Al Jazeera video.

This is not what we need. There is no heroism here, just thuggery. This is not a left I can believe in. We need democrats who value freedom as well as social justice, and who respect their rivals and, above all, their own peoples. (And who are a little bit informed, not like Evo Morales blaming chickens for human homosexuality, is that too much to ask?)