Articles by: Kenneth Roth
After a total of three exchanges, Human Rights Watch gives a final response to critics of its report, "A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela." HRW says the the academics' last letter "essentially recycles previous allegations" that are unfounded.
In December, NACLA published an open letter signed by over 100 experts on Latin America that criticized Human Rights Watch's recent report on Venezuela. In this response, Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, says the academics' letter disseminates "unfounded allegations" by misrepresenting "both the substance and the source material of the report." Roth calls the letter "an unhelpful distraction, which ... can only serve to undermine legitimate efforts to promote human rights in Venezuela."