The Devil's Excrement

The Chavez Government has denounced two assasination attempts on the President in two days, which have been met with the skepticism of the opposition. Yesterday the President said his intelligence police had a lead that his plane was going to be shot down from a beach. As the police went to the location they “found” a group of men with an anti-tank bazooka. Now, there are a few problems with the story. One, nobody was apprehended in a secluded beach in a sector that only has a single road going in. None of the neighbors heard any noises. Why didn’t the “killers” use the bazooka to defend themselves?.  Two, the site was 2 miles away from the airport and the range of an anti-tank bazooka is only three hundred yards. Two miles away from the airport an Airbus like teh one Chavez travels is is much higher than the 300 yards.

The second attempt reportedly took place today in the afternoon near a square in Caracas where pro-Government supporters gather. The intelligence police find a Car with three guys with rifles, weapons, radios. The three had ID’s from a Caracas municipality led by an opposition leader. What’s strange about this one is that no official program was available for that square and nobody new the President may appear (he didn’t) or someone else like the Vice-President (he did).

I am skeptical too, but it is a sign of the division in Venezuela when such serious charges are met with absolute incredulity on one side and total certainty in the other. The same happened with today’s strike. The Government declared it a failure, while the opposition said it was a success. In this case, though, I have no doubt about who is right. Traffic was lighter than on a Sunday, as my picture on a previous story shows and over 90% of stores were closed. 

This is a picture of a Caracas highway at mid-morning, usually this part has very heavy traffic, even on weekends. This is the highway from the airport to Caracas. It demonstrates the success of the work stoppage , which the Government is trying to project as a failure.

When Hugo Chavez was riding the crest of his popularity he used to boast that sovereignity resided in the people. In this clip he is shown saying first” The day people rise against me, let’s assume they take to the streets, I would prefer, a million times, to leave Government…” in the second he says, “The day people don’t want me, I would leave…..”. The statements are mixed in with images of the two one million-people plus rallies against him in April and October and a famous Venezuelan bolero in the background, “Recordar es Vivir”. To remember is to live.

The Internet: You can lie, but you can’t hide!

If you can’t see it, you can download the movie here. It’s in Windows Media Player, so it’s very likely you will have to download it and then open it in Windows Media Player…

[Tyromaniac]

Thanks to my brother the Tyromaniac for doing the hard work…..

The work stoppage to protest the Chavez Government is a complete success at this time. (9:20AM). Despite the threats by the Government and the boast that it would fail, the streets of the country are simply empty. Even Government offices are shutdown. Things are quiet so far, no violent incidents reported.

Since we are on the subject of Chavez’ respect for the Constitution and democracy, Chavez former Minister of Defense, retired General Raul Salazar, says in this week’s, Quinto Dia, that the President wanted to take over the Venezuelan Congress in 1999, but he stopped it. He also says some people approached him about a coup before Chavez’ inauguration and he also opposed it.

According to the Government press agency Venpres, the Minister of Energy and Mines said that Norway will invest US$ 10 billion in the Venezuelan oil industry. This is the only place where this was said while Chavez visited that country. Now according to the second quarter presentation of the Norwegian oil company Statoil, it plans to invest 23 billion Norwegian crowns in the full year. That is less than US$ 3 billion, thus it would seem surprising to me that even in let’s say 5 years, Norway’s state company would invest US$ 2 billion per year in Venezuela.