Lunatic fringe advocate of violence against Chávez government claims to be victim of defamation

Venezuelan VCrisis editor Aleksander Boyd

By Justin Delacour

Latin America News Review

June 11, 2006

Aleksander Boyd, a virulently anti-Chávez Venezuelan who resides in London and edits the website V Crisis, has recently launched a defamation suit against London Mayor Ken Livingstone. While Boyd claims that Livingstone defamed him by accusing him of being "a supporter of terrorism against Venezuelan democracy," Boyd does not deny that he advocates violence against Venezuela's democratically-elected government. By his own admission, Boyd has repeatedly advocated such violence on the internet.

Some of Boyd's statements verge on the diabolical. In one rather bizarre article, dated March 18, 2004, Boyd expresses his wish that he were Genghis Khan and that he could order his "hordes" to capture prominent Venezuelan political and judicial officials and "pour melted silver into their eyes." "I wish I could decapitate in public plazas [the pro-Chávez political activist] Lina Ron and [the pro-Chávez politician] Diosdado Cabello," Boyd states. "I wish I could torture for the rest of his remaining existence Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel," Boyd continues. "I wish I could fly over Caracas slums throwing the dead bodies of the criminals that have destroyed my country," Boyd goes on.

To top off this outlandishly sadistic fantasy, Boyd indignantly proclaims, "with mentally unstable people one can not engage in dialogue."

Hmmm, do mentally stable people fantasize about employing medieval methods of torture, publicly decapitating political figures, and dumping their bodies in poor neighborhoods?

Rather than embarking on a Quixotic quest to sue London's mayor for imagined "defamation," my suggestion to Mr. Boyd would be that he seek the counseling of a good psychologist. Judging from Boyd's short autobiography, he had a very difficult upringing (which apparently included relentless beatings by a school priest during his childhood, his mother's death in his early teens, and his father's suicide in his later teens). Certainly one can sympathize with someone who has endured such tragedies, but the Quixotic campaigns and sadistic fantasies strike me as signs of real mental instability that ought to be addressed not only for the sake of those whom Mr. Boyd threatens and abuses but also for his own long-term mental health.

[Editor's Update: "Chavez opponent withdraws legal case against London mayor"]