…in Venezuela
t’s a mad, mad, world in the world of media. But at least nowadays – with the cover blown on what we always knew was “fake news” in Washington, the very hub of its creation – we can talk openly about it. Hopefully. This morning, your Eyewitness woke up to his newsfeed blaring from every agency about the “coup” Maduro had executed in Venezuela. BBC, CNN, AP, Reuters, Al Jazeera and so on and so forth.
Your Eyewitness was puzzled at the seeming oxymoron: a sitting President needed to stage a coup? So he started to read the fine print. Seems the National Assembly, which was controlled by the Opposition since last year, has been locked in a struggle to oust Maduro. Nothing strange there… this has been going on for decades, no? So what’s new? Since last July, the National Assembly had been ruled in contempt of court for violating an order by the Supreme Court, since they had gone ahead and sworn in 3 deputies who’d been accused of vote-buying.
The Court was then asked last week to make a ruling on a matter that needed the decision of the National Assembly – and was then forced to point out that the National Assembly could not legally do so, since it was incapacitated by its contempt violation. What the court then did to allow national life – and business to go on – was to rely on the Venezuelan Constitution, which allows it to take “corrective measures” in the case of an “unconstitutional parliamentary default”. The Court also indicated it would assume the legislature’s constitutional responsibilities until the three offending legislators are removed.
And this is what was reported as a “coup”!! One is reminded of what happened in Guyana when the APNU/AFC Opposition also controlled our National Assembly after 2011. Led by Moses Nagamootoo of the AFC, they threatened to remove the Government on a “no confidence” vote – which they were legally entitled to do. No one accused them of trying to stage a coup – it was constitutionally allowed.
What President Ramotar, leading the PPP government, did was to prorogue Parliament and schedule elections within the prescribed time. All of which he was constitutionally mandated to do. But he was drawn and quartered for this. He should have gone like a lamb to be slaughtered! So here it is the Supreme Court of Venezuela that acts in accordance with the Constitution and it is declared to have staged a COUP!!
…in Guyana
And of course, in Guyana — never to be outdone — we have more than our share of fake news. And we’re not even referring to the outside forces that like to stir the pot ever so often. The Muckraker, doyen of local fake news, received a bit of poetic justice when Basil Williams, one of its sources of fake news against the PPP, accused it of scandalising his name. The case of the Threatened Judge”.
Well, we now have the Judge’s letter, in which he labelled Williams as “loud and bellicose”, “truculent”, “egregious”, “contemptuous,” and “insulting, disrespectful, and calculated to scandalise and lower the authority of the Court in the face of the Court”!! He demanded Williams apologise “both to me and to the Members of the Bar, since they, too, were scandalized by his despicable conduct.”
And the threat? The Judge wrote that Williams told him, “The last person who told him what he should not say was a Magistrate, and he is now dead”. But for days, when the Chronic was the only paper to have seen the letter, not one of the above adjectives was mentioned!! And denied that Williams had even uttered a suggestion of a threat.
But will they recant now? Fake news means never having to say you’re sorry!
…in governance?
Pressie was reported to’ve instructed Guyana’s mayors and their deputies to meet the people, hear about their problems, and then solve them.
Did he forget to pass this on to his Ministers?
