Milos Alcalay: Diplomatic violations everywhere ... VTV has grossly violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic & Consular Relations

State-owned Venezolana de Television (VTV) has grossly violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic and Consular Relations with its unscrupulous spokesman Alberto Noli, who, on Saturday, November 29, broadcast a bugged recording of a telephone call between Colombia's consul in Zulia, Carlos Galvis Fajardo, and an adviser to (Colombia's) President Alvaro Uribe.

Opinion article by: Milos Alcalay

It is NOT the first time the TV executive has used criminality as a weapon to project a currency of hatred. Many Venezuelans have seen their names put to the most unacceptable abuses, our e-mails are re-transmitted with impunity, violating laws and Constitutional provisions. We will have occasion, later, to refer later to such violations as we, Venezuelans, simply by virtue of dissent from a government that has increasingly moved away from democracy, are subjected.

But what is necessary to urgently stress at this time, is the unacceptable violation of the Vienna Convention, which obliges the Venezuelan State to meet its obligations with respect to diplomatic and consular relations by guaranteeing immunity, privilege and inviolability of communications "regardless of differences in social or constitutional regime" to all countries with accredited facilities in Venezuela.

Several provisions in Article 27 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations have been unequivocally raped; Venezuela's international commitment is to "protect the free communications of the mission" as well as to allow a mission "to employ all appropriate means of communication." For this, the same convention allows the use of "messages in code or numbers." Paragraph 2 of the Convention categorically and expressly establishes that "official communications are inviolable."

There is NO doubt that, when the (Colombian) consul transmitted the election results to the authorities in his country, it was in the course of his duties, especially where it comes to cultivating friendly relations with the elected authorities of Maracaibo in Zulia State and that it lies within the jurisdiction of the Consul.

The State may NOT record or listen to those conversations, much less broadcast them on state television using unacceptable insults against the President of a neighboring country and its authorities, as did the spokesman for VTV in such a brazen manner.

But the most unusual (and unacceptable) is that President Chavez has now threatened to expel the Consul if he is not withdrawn ... thus violating the diplomatic practices and obligations subscribed to by all civilized nations of this planet.

Milos Alcalay
milosalcalay@yahoo.com