WhatFinger


Hollywood director--caught looking bad with sidekick Hugo Chavez

Unromanticizing Oliver Stone



Oliver StoneMy Colombian friends at Bogotá Free Planet are more than a little put out that “maverick” American film director Oliver Stone would write their country off as his country’s personal playing field. It didn’t go over the heads of average Colombians that the sore loser, spoil sport Hollywood director--caught looking bad with sidekick Hugo Chavez on a hostage release that never happened--made his scathing comments from the safety of his California spread.

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From his exalted position as film director, Stone spoke on behalf of his entire country: “America seems to treat it (Colombia) as its backyard. I guess people do all kinds of things in their backyards. They throw trash, piss, do whatever the hell they want, let the weeds grow. I think we’ve always had that idea, that it’s ours.” Urinating in his own backyard seems a classic Oliver Stone style. “This self-aggrandizing Pooh-Bah should play on the stage where he’s best suited, the make believe, aerie fairy world of Hollywood,” BFP publisher Ernesto Pardo told CFP this morning. Some Colombians note that Stone fell rapidly into spoiled sport mode right after being made a fool of by Hugo Chavez in his abysmal, world-observed failure to negotiate the release of hostages held by the rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia (FARC). Speaking out in defense of the smell-the-sulphur-at-UN-Chavez, whom Stone called “an honest man, a strong man and a soldier”, Stone condemned both Colombians and Americans for the epic hostage release failure. While Stone sees Chavez as “a soldier”, average Colombians see the braggart Venezuelan President as just another self-serving politician. Rather than blaming Chavez or FARC for dashing world hope on the promised release of Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez—held hostage for six years—as well as Roja’s four-year-old-son, said to be born of a relationship with a guerilla fighter, Stone blames Colombians and U.S. President George W. Bush. In a Chavez hyped pageant played out over the Christmas holidays, a balloon of hope was sent out worldwide that the imminent release of the hostages might herald a new step toward peace in a decades-long Colombian civil war. If Chavez lived up to his promise that FARC was cooperating with him then, it could pave the way for a broader agreement for the release of all of the FARC’s most recent 46 hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, three American defence contractors and dozens of local politicians and military and police officers. Strutting about in the red tam of his long-ago pilot days like the proverbial bantam rooster, the oil-rich Chavez, who could well afford it, sent helicopters to the city of Villavicencio on the edge of the Colombian jungle. Surrounded by more than 150 media types, he rallied support from Latin American governments, which made up an international verification commission. A contact of Chavez—and God knows he’s got them even in the modeling world—who worked with Stone on his film, Commandante, about the Cuban leader Fidel Castro, invited the director to witness the rescue for his next documentary, a study of the US relationship with Latin America. Everything was all right when Stone did as he was advised, by holing up in a luxury hotel for his own safety just in case he became a kidnapping target himself. But according to the restless director, he soon ventured outside where he passed the time—get this--chatting up “coke dealers and murderers”. There are no farmers and average Colombians in Villavicencio, only “coke dealers” and “murderers” when a fella’s aiming at making another Hollywood “documentary”. When it had to be conceded that the hostages were a no-show, even the media started asking pointed questions. Frustration soon had Stone mouthing off in defense of his hero Hugo Chavez. “From where I was standing, he was beating the drum to rescue these hostages and to break the ice in the ongoing war between the state and the rebels,” Stone told The Observer from California. “I thought that this was a significant first move, and there was resentment towards him for this on the part of Colombia and the United States.” Significant? Hearts were broken. Clara Rojas’ mother languishes without her daughter in Venezuela and not a single hostage was ever released! “It’s Colombia’s fault, Colombia did not want it to happen, and I think there were other outside forces, like Bush,” said Stone. “I said at the time, shame on Colombia, shame on Uribe, and I meant to say shame on Bush, too. I think Bush has a spiteful attitude towards Chavez, as does the American establishment. They want to see Chavez fail.” “Meant to say” is not the same as actually saying it, unless, of course you happen to be a contemporary politician. It was not only Bush and the American establishment that saw Chavez’s abysmal failure, thanks to the cocky el presidente of Venezuela, the whole world saw Chavez fail. According to Stone “Every Colombian that I spoke to was scared of the military in some way or another; they’re the most dangerous people, not the FARC.” Not having anyone close to him kidnapped by FARC, Stone can afford to be soft on the terrorist group, which is thought to be holding not only 46, but also some 3,000 hostages in Colombia’s eastern jungles. How can it be that this man enriched by the America he hates, can justify FARC kidnapping innocent people, many of them for filthy lucre rather than political reasons? How can he even attempt to explain FARC away by portraying them as “fighting a desperate battle against highly financed, American-supported forces that have been terrorizing the countryside for years and kill most of the people”? During the hostage release drama was Stone using Colombia as a personal backyard to spew his unwanted political opinions on the rest of the world? The situation in Colombia is not a made-in-Hollywood movie, Mr. Stone, it’s the tragedy of real life where thousands of people awake each morning to worry about a loved one held hostage by an unrelenting FARC in the jungles of Colombia. And it’s not the military Chavez and sidekick Stone should worry about on any return to Colombia, it’s any housewife with a rolling pin within reasonable striking range.


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Judi McLeod -- Bio and Archives -- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

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