A leading Human Rights Watch monitor who was abruptly put on the first plane leaving Venezuela early on Friday said his expulsion showed the intolerance of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s government to criticism.
Jose Miguel Vivanco, the rights group’s longtime Americas director, told reporters in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that “we were forcibly expelled from the country as if we were criminals.”
“This the first time that this has happened to us in the hemisphere,” said an exhausted Vivanco after arriving in Brazil with his deputy director Daniel Wilkinson, an American.
PHOTO: AP
Both were expelled for what Chavez’s government called “illegally meddling in the internal affairs” of Venezuela.
“We aren’t going to tolerate any foreigner coming here to try to sully the dignity” of Venezuela, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said.
The two were forced out just hours after presenting a report by their New York-based group concluding that “discrimination on political grounds has been a defining feature” of the Chavez presidency.
“What happened is a confirmation of exactly the points that we raised in the report, and it shows the lack of tolerance in the government of President Chavez to criticism of his record on any area,” said Vivanco, a Chilean citizen.
Chavez had threatened to expel foreigners who come to verbally “attack” his government; this was the first time he did so.
At a rally on Friday night, Chavez called Vivanco “one of those characters who go around the world doing the dirty work the US empire orders.”
Chile called the action against one of its citizens regrettable.
Chilean Deputy Foreign Minister Alberto Van Klaveren said Venezuela’s reaction was “totally out of proportion” and that Vivanco has criticized Chile before — something the government in Santiago views as normal.
Vivanco said he and Wilkinson were met at their Caracas hotel after dinner on Thursday by heavily armed policemen.
They were shown on state television gathering the last of their belongings and being driven to the airport in a caravan complete with motorcycle escorts.
Vivanco said he didn’t know where they were headed until they boarded the plane.
More than two dozen human rights groups based in countries from Mexico to Argentina signed an e-mail statement condemning Vivanco’s expulsion.
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