[NYTr] Cuban-American Takes Miami Herald to Task

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Venezuela Information Office (VIO)
http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com

excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - Jan 10, 2008

[A letter to the editor in the Miami Herald corrects a recent column
that over-simplified Venezuela's Punto Fijo era, claiming it was a model
democracy when in fact it was notoriously corrupt. Venezuelans "are
avid for change and questioning dogmatic solutions," the author
writes. -VIO]


Miami Herald-letter to the editor - January 10, 2008
http://www.miamiherald.com/456/story/373560.html

Re Madeleine Albright's article, "We must end politics of fear," and
Carlos Alberto Montaner's column, "Why did Venezuela surrender to
Chávez?," both of which ran on the Jan. 8 Other Views page: It is hard
to find a more marked contrast between two finely written columns.
Albright's appeal to self-awareness while focusing on the path our
country should take is a perfect foil to Montaner's emphasis on a
better Venezuelan past than is often acknowledged.

It's an argument that we Cuban Americans often resort to in order to
vilify the Cuban Revolution. But neither Venezuelan students at the
fore of the opposition to Hugo Chávez, nor their peers in Cuba, are
likely to be looking back at a somewhat better past. Their gaze seems
to be straight ahead. So is the gaze of many Americans in the same age
group. They are avid for change and questioning dogmatic solutions.

JOSE MANUEL PALLI, Coral Gables