hello and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle few leaders in the world polarized opinions more than venezuelan president hugo chavez he is hailed by supporters as a champion of venezuela's poor communities but he is also denounced by critics as a dictator what does the future hold for chavez and his revolution. to. discuss venezuela's president and future i'm joined by thor how person in new york he is the founder of the human rights foundation in caracas we go to ever go in her she's a venezuelan american attorney and bestselling author and in washington we crossed then down in hell under he is a professor of political science at webster university and another member of our cross talk team yell on the hunger all right folks cross talk rules in effect there's a lot of differing opinions on this subject and i'd like to first go to evan caracas

in the wake of the. parliamentary elections western media gleefully is predicting the demise of what they call the dictator chavez what is your take on the election result and what do you think is going to happen as we move towards the two thousand and twelve presidential election. well i mean there's really no question that the victory here was definitely for the pro chavez united socialist party of the p s u v i mean they won sixty percent of the national assembly the legislature at the same time i think we call it a bittersweet victory because certainly the opposition did regain some of the space that they did used to have in the legislative body but it's not a sufficient bloc to really try to put a brake on the chavez government's policies i mean the international media is trying to portray it as some kind of defeat against chavez or blow to his his presidency but it's really not and it reaffirmed imagine a political party that's only been in existence for three years i was going to be

eight seats out of one hundred sixty five in the in the legislative body. so it's definitely a clear victory and the bloc will be able to continue to implement the same policies as they have been over the past several years ok so if you want to jump in there already go right ahead. yeah sure well it's important to know that maybe and all through but she works for the venezuelan government her salary is paid for with funds from the venezuelan government so i think we're going to win because now we're. actually you know. we're sort of the reality is far more if i could jump in here well if i could jump in here right now ok i don't want someone to change somebody's character on the panel ok i asked you for how do you respond to. a shooting i it's not it's not a fact it is germane to the question so what do you think of the lection. what do

you actually hope the government meaning as well can we what is what do you think of the laotians you know miss mary snow did you know we had to push. for opposition candidates and the reality is that fifty two percent were cast. poorly opposition that is not a victory for chavez it's only a victory with those who get paid to spin for child abuse see i don't work for the chinese government i don't for any other government that's the difference and ok if i could go to you daniel i mean there's a there's a lot of criticism of the united states around the world of sending enormous amounts of money to get the election outcome they want in venezuela. i'm thinking of maybe ned in other american organisations i mean what has that had any impact because it seems like you they want to get a certain outcome and it's very visible he's very in easy to find this information that's all publicly known. is you know is the united states happy make my question

will sort about the election outcome you think. ok we're going to take the second part probably on the whole the u.s. probably is happy with the results i'm sure they would have hoped the opposition would have got a majority in reality there's about a small segment of the vote that went to a political party that cannot be characterized there is opposition or pro-government you subtract that from the fifty two percent i was referring to when in fact it was a narrow popular vote victory for the p.s.u. but a narrow one and i do think that in some ways that's a setback because i think it would have liked to have gotten a much more solid majority would have liked to have seen the p.s.u. of his political party have delivered a more solid block of votes in favor of his what he wants to do terms of the outcome in terms of the number of seats it's a victory for the p.s.u. . you want to jump in there. so daniel in that day you know in the minds of the

other two guests votes for parties that are not with our votes for charlie's that's absurd and with regard to your comment about united states funds going to venezuela the truth of the matter and your viewers should know this is that the government of venezuela uses state funds state funds are used to fund the party of child is yet state funds are not used to fund any other party that is not democracy you have david and goliath situation and besides this you have to remember you have to remember besides the fact that you have in venezuela the shut down of media that opposes the government you have rassmann of anyone persecution. if you stand against that you get persecuted i think your point you got your point ever go right ahead that's not true i had ever. been here before in finding foreign funding and there is certainly millions and millions of u.s. taxpayer dollars are funding political organizations parties and campaigns here

there is clear and direct funding to the opposition campaign from u.s. agencies and other international agencies and it's a violation of the. law i mean you could say maybe the government invested some funds into their own party for this campaign but that does not justify opposition groups receiving foreign funding in violation of the law and of course u.s. agency. there is a call to interpretation. actually excuse. me i want to remember. now what i was. can finish your point and then we'll go to what i was saying. yeah i'd like to finish there are no no media outlets here shut down i live in caracas i watch the television i watch all the different stations you can get fox news here so i mean certainly there is a there is an. there is no this is this is you know there is no persecution of anybody if you there were two. actually

true excuse me there were there were two prisoners actually went to prison or should i ran. to the. prisoners right one one that's not true two prisoners actually won the elections in certain districts and they ran on the opposition to this is now their. unity because of venezuela's parliament so i mean we're talking about i mean what country in the world allows for prisoners to be put on a legislative ballot and then to win the election and then be released from prison because now they're getting some kind of a parliamentary immunity. jumping like to do the forward. centrally what i would argue is.

a good job document the flow of money somewhere between thirty five forty million dollars you don't have to necessarily. you can go to the source it's to say fuller you said that before just when i do not like them i would like daniel thank you i mean let's. continue his point daniel it's not daniel go ahead anyway if you want to sort of check up on her read her book go to the sources and go to the go go and you'll see the amount of funding that's got from national down to democracy officer transition the system so i think she's right when she points to the amount of money that the united states has funneled into what are primarily opposition organizations now also say that in many ways campaigning in venezuela the media is highly polarized listeners and viewers can check for themselves if they go to the various sites of the venezuelan media i think you'll see that there's a very vigorous debate and that there's a tremendous amount of opposition to the opposition virtually has most of the

private media the state government uses the state government uses the state television network to get its point of view of gross there's a pretty vigorous and lively debate that goes on in venezuela now. and so so it's kind of an exaggeration to say the least to say that everybody should know viewpoint as well as persecuted go ahead are jumping. ok let's begin with the fact that the person that's coming in from venezuela ever go injure states that media is free in venezuela is that the reason why channel two which included amnesty international human rights watch governments around the world the european parliament all of them saying please don't shut this down mr chavez because you're critical they shut it down below what we see on the only remaining private channel that is critical of the government the only one remaining both of the owners have been exiled they have both been persecuted in what is it is an injustice that

anyone who looks into it can see the truth the truth is that it does not permit to . sent he does not permit dissent which is why people who disagree with them end up in jail there have been people jailed for comments they've made on television shows just like this one so if you make a comment that mr chavez and his government does not like they will go after you they are pursuing what they have called on the record communicational in germany that's what they want because they know that if they communicate and they control the airwaves beyond which i was does daily when he grabs them for six seven or even a day very little interest is every minute no no no i want to finish ok thank you please go ahead make it to an issue if it says oh you even get fox news here this is extraordinary manipulation she has satellite television she has cable because she has the money over the venezuelan government she works for them does not disclose where her sources come from her newspaper is i don't know where ok so here is one darwin running out of time events you are going to be sure of this before

you go to the break ever respond before we go to break we were going for it before yes. first of all. everyone who takes that radical extreme position against the chavez government claims that anyone who has a different position receives funding from the job for three st i'm not against jerry is not. an eight excuse me i am not a paid agent of the venezuelan government i am an independent attorney from new york city has been doing an impression of research for years on the us intervention i blame my client base for you and i usually write books and i write hope you excuse me for excuse me. in any case after a shortage of. short break we will continue our discussion on venezuela's profit stay with our team. and.

i shall be soon which brightened if you knew about sums from funniest impressions. from the stunts on t.v. don't come. imagine your life up to the big cities. eco friendly. crystal clear water. soft. organic food. living in harmony with nature.

sounds impossible. some people have already chosen. a place under the sun and one ought to. come up. stood. him up. if you want to. welcome back to rostock computable to remind you we're discussing venezuela's political battles. but before let's see what russians think about the venezuelan president. president of venezuela hugo chavez suffers he is the worst said back at the ballot box since taking office in one thousand and nine his united socials party lost the two thirds

majority needed to push through legislation without consulting their position however it was still a performance that any party would have been called of giving then being in the hall for twelve years the public opinion foundation asked russians what impression they had book hugo chavez russians will have seen his media appearances almost five times more likely to be positively impressed the major question today for chair of us is that two thousand and twelve presidential election as recent results show that many of his supporters did not cos they have votes. ok and i have to go to you maybe say we change the subject here why in your opinion and you go back and forth between bin israel and the united states what is the obsession the united states has with chavez ok i mean what threat does mr job as. opposed to the united states it's not its military obviously but it certainly has

a lot of oil is that it. i mean there are really three major issues one of course is oil venezuela has the largest oil reserves of any country in the world in one country obviously the u.s. has immense energy consumption needs so having oil in the hands or being controlled in a under the government of someone like google chavez is not convenient to u.s. interests the other issue is that typically here over the twentieth century most of the governments were aligned with u.s. interests and with multinationals all of that is changed under the chavez government this is a government that's poking more and focusing more on national development and you know national investment and regional investment as well and integration and then looking for ways to go beyond the u.s. it's only a major trading partner and reaching out to countries like russia and china and iran and a whole other diversity of different nations that have these relations with venezuela and then of course i mean there is the ideological factor although it can't be

considered the number one factor in terms of the u.s. viewing venice was a threat but certainly when you have in the twenty first century someone is talking about socialism after you know the u.s. spent the entire twentieth century trying to wipe out anything that smelled of socialism or communism you know and here it is again right and right south of the u.s. border and in this country with all this oil and with this individual who has this immense influence over this region i mean the u.s. does see it as a threat and so they're trying to make all these links with venezuela to terrorism and drug trafficking and calling it a failed state in an attempt to justify the this aggression and this constant funding of movements to undermine venis well as democracy. we're going to go to for researching this program i came across the fact that the french state is more socialized is far is people working for the government in g.d.p.

then venezuela is but we constantly hear this this diatribe against this is so. listen this is marxist leninism in the number of times like when it looked at google this morning the marxist dictator of venezuela i mean it's not very marxist in the broader scheme of things is it. well i mean chavez has pronounced himself in favor what he calls socialism socialism of the twenty first century now that's rather vague and hard to define but remember again this is an oil calm country the economy the most important factor in the economy is the state oil company and the revenues that are generated by oil costs about twelve dollars a barrel to produce oil and venezuela so when the price of oil price of oil now is about seventy dollars so even with it being low compared to a few years ago it's a lot of money coming into the state government so then is a question of how that she had allocated whether it's allocated democratically how much popular influence there is so we talk about socialism in venezuela in my view socialism is about exactly you know who controls the super profits that come from

oil exports whether they're going to be used for human benefit where they're going to be out of where they're going to be invested whether or not corruption can be cleaned up or whether or not some people getting too wealthy so i mean that's kind of and i can tell you that i heard that about sixty percent of them as well and basically say they're in agreement with socialism and about half of them on agreement with child as in this idea of socialism of the twenty first century but the other thirty the other half of that sixty percent so about thirty percent of them as well and have a kind of vague or a notion of socialism in which basically because it is something like social democracy in europe ok there if i can go to you i mean the united states constantly and listen western media and even get from on high government officials to putting on the administration. using the words like dictator or strongman or certainly a disparaging term for the venezuelan president but it on the other hand the united states has lots of friends in the world that really truly are dictators but they're

not demonized in western media and after. they're just not talked about because they're not it states go ahead sure well responding. you're brought up the word communism with regard to talking about. and i think your viewers will well remember eighty years of communism and what they did for russia and they will remember what actually it meant in terms of political prisons in terms of the standard of living in venezuela that ranks very very low on transparency international one hundred sixty to one hundred eighty with regard to corruption twelve years of chinese give us levels of corruption the same as the congo and the same of angola if you look at inflation in venezuela inflation is highest in venezuela than in any other nation in this hemisphere in the americas so that should give you an idea with regard to the allocation of the money now all the bluster about versus the united states the truth remains that the number one client with regard to oil is the united states

and what they do with the money most of it goes to his brothers his family and the cronies in his government so that's something to remember and very important to remember the levels of corruption in venezuela are stratospheric why do you and i don't i'm sorry i let you finish and now you're going to let me finish there were a lot of things that you said were not true i let you finish with regard to race and why the united states and europe i may add has a problem with is because it has undeniably been financing the fark terrorist organization in colombia an organization that according to the european union is considered a terrorist organization so much so that charice himself has had a minute of silence for the death of the fark leaders venezuelan weaponry ends up in far can is the swedish government actually had a problem with venezuela and made this very public when venezuelan missiles when venezuela was sold missiles by sweden by saab and those ended up in the hands of the terrorists so that gives you an idea of why the united states has been trying

to with regard to your comment peter about i'm sorry with. your comment peter peter and i don't want to comment about. being a dictator and i'm sure ever i let you finish a by and i mean you take a trying time she was in time let's keep it a portion to extend you want to make one more going to be doing time three of you seem to have peter peter i believe and i just think that way she answers about all three of you have a very strong one so i'd like to finish ok one more job this is undeniably a man who acts like a strong man he is in the electoral dictator that means he allows elections meanwhile he puts a stranglehold on freedom of speech puts in prisons those who disagree with him and with regard to the next elections the number one candidate in that has outpolled him over and over again. as a former mayor actually is disqualified along with four hundred other people from running for the next election so one has to put that into context and think i just act like a dictator if you look at how he refers to the media how you were first of those

who oppose him as snakes as rewards or use an excuse and you said this before you said you really are so over go ahead because we're running out of time again because all three of you. i mean should or would you please let someone else have a word. go ahead please go. i'm not it's really. unfortunate that you cared so much space to to such an individual who really has absolutely zero credibility and nevertheless i think it's important to point out that many of the state where you do is allegation like the person just speaking are based on nothing and nothing factual whatsoever hence the personal attacks constantly and in trying to at least if i were listening to the situation we are listening to at this moment in time go ahead. yes the allegations in general against chavez in terms of him being

a dictator and and that there is some kind of situation. and on here in the country that merits or could be considered as a threat is used as a justification i mean again i think we have to go back to the base of the matter here which is which is the oil i mean there's there's really no question about it and then of course i mean chavez as a person has a very strong personality and that comes across in international media as being a strong man but i can tell you as someone who's lived here on and off for over seventeen years this is one of the most thriving democracies i've ever seen the level of participation and it was proven in these last elections where the over sixty seven percent of voters came out to participate in legislative elections which was a historic amount of voter participation in venice and i know the stories around the world. where they were actually you know. we haven't had a lot to. digest the nature of democracy in venezuela ok ok and

america was one of the. to some extent as is an outspoken person against this kind of wave of neo liberalism pro market democracy i'll put that in quotes almost around the world and that's one reason that the united states doesn't like him but you know we can put too much emphasis on new girl child was latin america is changing itself countries are trading with different parts of the world the latin americans are forming their own security organizations apart from the united states. is as much a product of these kinds of changes as he is as a leader of those kinds of changes now in regard to things like before i was down of venezuela few months ago i talked to opposition figures i talk to opposition newspapers talk to people who call off most people don't really believe in that as well even in the opposition i think that the government is directly responding to the worst of this interpol. being misled peter. yes is this

is. being misled into any way i would. change the outcome of this program we have come to the end of the program i knew this was going to be a polarized debate many thanks to my guest today in new york caracas and in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. so you next time and remember crosstalk will. keep you.

she's available in. this photo. book.

as it could. be strong for us to. the end of a long journey for a russian boy whose adoptive parents allegedly sold him for drugs. to build the first hotel in. ukraine. control. a power shift to parliament was unconstitutional. as the country is now returning to the original constitution of nine hundred ninety six join us for more details from ukraine. russia and the us all outstanding issues on russia's membership. much more. time.

live from the heart of moscow. a russian boy whose adoptive parents allegedly sold him for drugs in the caribbean has returned to his home country twelve year old. years of abuse after being abandoned in. dominican republic by his russian guardians so barton is following the developments for us here on r.t. let's get some details live now and so tom you saw denise moscow's domodedovo airport did he look happy to be home. he looked very nervous rory when he came back just about three hours ago when he landed on the dead of or he was greeted by a wall of cameras and media he hid behind a star.