Last week, Hugo Chavez pressed for a new law on Venezuelan domestic intelligence:
Mr. Chavez argues the law will help Venezuela guarantee its national security and prevent assassination plots and military rebellions.
The new law requires Venezuelans to cooperate with intelligence agencies and secret police if requested.
Refusal can result in up to four years in prison.
The law allows security forces to gather evidence through surveillance methods such as wiretapping without obtaining a court order, and authorities can withhold evidence from defence lawyers if it is considered to be in the interest of national security.
He now appears to be stepping back:
Amid festering tension with Colombia, including claims that Colombian paramilitaries were fomenting destabilization plots, President Chávez quietly unveiled his intelligence law in late May, which would have abolished the DISIP secret police and DIM military intelligence, replacing them with new intelligence and counterintelligence agencies.
But in a rare act of self-criticism on Saturday, Mr. Chávez acknowledged the ire that his intelligence overhaul had provoked among legal scholars and human rights groups, which said Mr. Chávez was attempting to introduce a police state by forcing judges to cooperate with intelligence services and criminalizing dissent.
I have to wonder about the reasoning on the retreat; did the opposition of NGOs (Human Rights Watch has been pretty critical) play the key role, or did Chavez misread the domestic mood? My guess is that the work that NGOs do regarding Venezuela matters a lot more than US bluster, but that the domestic situation remains fluid enough that Chavez regularly experiences real limits on his power. Randy Paul has more on the role of the Church in the controversy.
--Robert Farley
