Marc Cooper has a strong post about Human Rights Watch’s 2006 World Report. The report highlights Bush administration abuses, but also makes the case against Castro and Hugo Chavez, Harry Belafonte’s pal. In the comments, Michael Balter makes an excellent point:
Those of us on the left have a particular responsibility to criticize the human rights violations of regimes like Castro’s which pretend to carry the torch of the progressive movement but which actually abuse all of its principles of human dignity and justice.
While I don’t deny the appeal of Chavez’s anti-poverty efforts in Venezuela, it looks like his gov’t is headed in a repressive direction. His strongest allies on the world stage are Castro, Robert Mugabe and Muammar Gadhafi. Since Harry Belafonte has claimed that “millions of Americans” support the Chavez revolution, I’d like to state for the record that Belafonte does not speak for me. I have the utmost respect for Belafonte’s history as a civil rights activist. Too bad he’s decided to parrot the most extreme rhetoric of today’s far left.
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