Speaking the Truth in Venezuela- Congratulations CEDICE!

For its 25th anniversary, CEDICE managed to host one of the largest gatherings of Latin American free market champ4507_87213118235_501408235_1789829_5483685_nions this year, all under the nose of the Chavez regime.  As expected, the Venezuelan dictator did not take kindly to this gathering and threatened to shut it down, and even detained famous writer – Mario Vargas Llosa, as well as his son Alvaro, upon their arrival to Caracas.  Fortunately, this did not have its intended effect, as the event continued and Chavez only succeeded in projecting to the rest of the world what his version of democracy really looks like.

With well over 200 media accreditation’s, CEDICE received significant attention for their event, which brought together 500 individuals during the day, and close to 800 at night for their ” Evening of Liberty”  (a cocktail reception highlighting Mario Vargas Llosa and local political humorist Laureano Marquez).

As a sponsor of the event, Atlas was well represented, as President and CEO, Alex Chafuen, gave a passionate opening speech to remind us why its important to have this conference in a country like Venezuela, where even basic liberties are being denied.  Alex was accompanied by the Latin American team, Allegra Hewell and Gabriel Sanchez-Zinny, who did a great job of covering the event and who will provide a more detailed summary upon their return.

In the end, as Chavez resorted to recycled tactics of intimidation and fear-mongering, CEDICE showed us why its important to support an independent voice in parts of the world where these type of organizations are becoming extinct.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 3:43 PM. It is filed under Latin America and tagged with , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

One Response to “Speaking the Truth in Venezuela- Congratulations CEDICE!”

  1. basil says:
    June 2, 2009 at 11:55 PM

    I fail to understand how you can say that CEDICE represents an “independent voice” when it is abundantly clear that they benefit from the millions of dollars sent every year to right wing groups in Venezuela via U.S. organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID.

    And how can Chavez be the “dictator” of a “regime” when he consistently gets anywhere from 50-70% of the vote and international observers repeatedly verify the accuracy of Venezuela’s voting system?