Dear Danny:
I see that you have accepted an $18 million grant from the
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez to produce a film in Venezuela
about Toussaint L’Overture, a Haitian hero. As Chairman of
TransAfrica Forum, you are opening yourself to criticism, since
Dictator Chavez is a close ally of Zimbabwean butcher Robert
Mugabe, a despicable tyrant whom your organization now opposes —
though you yourself supported him for some time.
Taking money from an ally of Mugabe is not consistent with the
professed ethics of your organization. But, as an individual, you
are in even more dubious ethical territory since you are taking
money from a dictator who has violated the Venezuelan Constitution
and the laws of his country on a continual basis. In only seven
years, Chavez has destroyed the rule of law in our country.
In his most recent act of aggression against Venezuelan freedom,
Chavez shut down Radio Caracas TV and — with the help of the armed
forces — confiscated its assets. This act has produced righteous
indignation and protest all over the free world. How can you claim
to side with the poor and the oppressed of the earth while
accepting money and favors from corrupt dictators like Chavez, and
idolizing butchers like Fidel Castro?
Thought this is your worst ethical transgression against the
Venezuelan people, it is not the only one. You have traveled
several times to Venezuela, on at least one occasion in an official
Venezuelan airplane that should not have been used to transport
you, a private individual. You and your friends Harry Belafonte and
former TransAfrica Forum president Bill Fletcher have been invited
by the dictator to Venezuela where some of you, in a shameless show
of adulation, have compared Chavez with Martin Luther King, Jr. You
have also appeared as guests of Chavez in TV programs in which your
country, the U.S., has been insulted with your enthusiastic
approval. You have used TransAfrica Forum to broadcast a message of
racial strife and resentment — a message that is neither needed
nor appreciated in our country.
Your position is a very sad one. In your obsession to antagonize
the president of your country, you have chosen to embrace a
dictator whose beliefs about the nature of government and human
rights are anything but humanitarian. You support Chavez only
because he speaks vitriolically against your president, and in
accepting millions of dollars from him, you stand in total
surrender to his despotic whims.
So that you know, Danny, millions of Venezuelans are engaged
today in a civic battle of principles and values against Hugo
Chavez. We have only words and civic protests against armed forces
that are receiving $6 billion in arms and weapon systems, while 65%
of Venezuelans get by on less than $3 a day. By your actions, you
have taken sides with the soldiers of Chavez against the people of
Venezuela.
If you truly care about the poor of Venezuela, I hope you keep
in mind that the money Chavez has given you would have solved many
of their problems. Please think about that when you are sitting on
your director’s chair.
