Chavez Revamps His Intelligence Services: The Corporate Media React

[Joanne98]

Reports keep surfacing about new threats against Hugo Chavez. Given past ones, they can't be taken lightly. Chavez is alerted and reacts accordingly. Case in point: revamping Venezuela's decades old intelligence services. It's long overdue and urgently needed given the Bush administration's tenure winding down and its determination in its remaining months to end the Bolivarian project and crush its participatory democracy.

CIA, NED, IRI, USAID and other US elements infest the country and are more active than ever. Subversion is their strategy, and it shows up everywhere. Violence is being encouraged. Opposition groups are recruited and funded. So are members of Venezuela's military. Student groups as well and anti-Chavista candidates for November's mayoral and gubernatorial elections.

The dominant media are on board in Venezuela and America. They assail Chavez relentlessly and are on the warpath again after his May 28 announced intelligence services changes. The Interior and Justice Ministries will oversee a new General Intelligence Office and Counterintelligence Office in place of the current Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP). Similar military intelligence and counterintelligence components will replace the Military Intelligence Division (DIM) and will be under the Defense Ministry. Why was it done and why now? To counter stepped up US espionage and destabilization efforts when it's most needed.

New tools will be used and current personnel retrained and vetted for their Bolivarian commitment. DISIP and DIM are outdated. They've been around since 1969 to serve the "capitalist vision" of that era. Ever since, they've been "notoriously repressive" and closely aligned with the CIA. Therein lies the problem. Chavez intends to fix it. The dominant media reacted. They're hostile to change and showed it their reports.

The New York Times' Simon Romero has trouble with his facts. He headlined "Chavez Decree Tightens Hold on Intelligence." He referred to the new Law on Intelligence and Counterintelligence that passed by presidential decree under the legislatively-granted enabling law. He failed to explain that the 1969 law passed the same way, and that Venezuela's Constitution then and now permit it.

Instead, he noted a "fierce backlash here from (mostly unnamed) human rights groups and 'legal scholars' who say the measures will force citizens to inform on one another to avoid prison terms....The new law requires (them) to....assist the agencies, secret police or community activist groups loyal to Mr. Chavez. Refusal can result in prison terms of two to four years (and up to) six years for government employees."

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9237

The NYT is still full of Judy Millers.

[wvbygod]

1. The NYT is still full of Judy Millers

Likely true and Chavez is still full of shit.

[rAVES]

4. You're full of shit.

Only disgusting Republicans support the propaganda campaign against Hugo, he's a million times the man that the Criminal in the WH is.

[wvbygod]

5. they are both full of shit

but i am not. please refrain from personal assaults.

[Judi Lynn]

6. A serious opinion would be respected if it related to real information. Your comment, offered

freely without actual depth, reasoning, simply itself is a personal attack on someone you don't know who has NEVER been a threat to your country.

If you chose to live by feeding on disinformation, that's your business. If you chose to opine here, where people who actually READ and RESEARCH come to discuss things, you'll need more than "full of shit."

I agree with rAVES.

Sensible people require far more information, even living in a country led by a pResident who underwrote a coup against this man whose own public elected him to serve THEIR interests first, not yours, not _{George W. Bush's.}

[Judi Lynn]

2. Setting the record straight on intelligence reform: "The NYT attack vs. the facts."

Venezuela's progressive, new intelligence reform. The NYT attack vs. the facts.
By Letter
Jun 7, 2008, 05:32

Today's article by the New York Times, "Chávez Decree Tightens Hold on Intelligence", demonstrates the Times' ongoing attempt to mislead the general public about the intentions of the Venezuelan government.

While one might have expected the article to describe the content of Venezuela's new intelligence law and discuss a range of reactions to it, the scope was limited only to criticisms by the opposition.

Here are the facts:

The law eliminates Venezuela's 50 year old secret political police, known as DISIP, created during the dictatorship of Perez Jimenez. It also eliminates Venezuela's agency of Military intelligence (DIM). In their place, the General Intelligence Office and the General Counterintelligence Office have been created, both overseen by the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Defense.

Refining the intelligence capacity of the state does not allow for a "tightening control" by President Chavez; rather, for the first time Venezuela is providing a legal framework for carrying out and monitoring intelligence activities of the nation. Many actions that once were left to the discretion of the DISIP and the DIM are now subject to oversight. Moreover, the existence of this law provides a level of transparency that was lacking before.

The dissolution of the DISIP and DIM was long overdue. For decades. Venezuelans feared these agencies for their involvement in nefarious activity and repression, including incidents involving the escape of notorious criminals. Most importantly, from 1967 to 1974, terrorist Luis Posada Carriles was a high level official at the DISIP. This very important point was passed over by the Times.

As opposed to what the Times implies, the new law guarantees the rights of Freedom of Expression and Due Process under the Law, as established in Venezuela's Constitution. In Article 21, for instance, it is clearly outlined that those prosecuted are guaranteed the right to a public defense.

More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_26966.shtml

[classysassy]

3. Hello

out there,why don't we leave President Chavez alone and clean our own house?Bush and his gang of thieves are robbing us blind,but we are concerned about Chavez.