The Devil's Excrement

Interview/Article with Hugo Chavez in the Manchester Guardian yesterday. A few interesting innacuracies by our President:

-He claims he joined the military because he wanted to become an engineer. Interesting, he has always told Venezuelans that he did it to become a baseball player.

-Chavez always claims to have been poor. Both his parents were Government school teachers while he was growing up. Let me assure people that a family in Venezuela in the 70’s with the salary of two elementary school teachers was far from being poor, more so in the small town of Sabaneta where Chavez grew up. Salaries are/were uniform across the country and is much cheaper to live in a place like Sabaneta than Caracas. A family with two such salaries would have been (is) middle class even in Caracas. I guess it would sound worse if he said he was middle class. His older brother Adan went to the University, so his excuse is part of the Chavez lore that he has made up as he went along.

-The opposition is no small group as witnessed by Oct. 10^th.’s march of 1.2 million people in a city of less than five million.

-There were no massive protests in April. There was widespread looting because there was no police in the streets. Chavez came back because the military decided to.

-The Constitution respected by the Chavez Government? See my article below with 22 very specific and documented cases of violations of the Constitution. Chavez called a recent decision by the Supreme Court “the shit the Court took”. He personally orders intelligence police to detain people. This is done without following the law. Chavez issues decrees to stop legal rallies against him.Court decisions use the concept of “supraconstitutionallity”. Should I continue?

-Long-delayed land reform. What does that mean? The biggest land owner in the country is the State, who owns half the territory of the country. 80% of Venezuelans live in cities. Chavez passed a Law that allows the Government to take away private land. Is that democratic? It certainly is not Constitutional as the Constitution guarantees the right to private property. Moreover, it says the Government may regulate what people grow in their land.

One thing did please me about the article, while Mr. Chavez and most people and newspapers always talk about the 80% of Venezuelans that live below the poverty line, this article actually quotes the correct (and shameful nevertheless!!) value of sixty-some percent (67%, up significantly since Chavez became President)

The following is today’s Editorial from TalCual on the events that took place when opposition marchers were blocked by Government supporters, under the eyes of local authorities and the National Guard. The events led to six injured and one death which the authorities cynically blame on the marchers. For those abroad, this is the daily reality of Government-promoted impunity in Venezuela. Just in case, TalCual has always mantained a balanced editorial line by being tough on both the Government and the opposition. Its Director Teodoro Petkoff, can not precisely be accused of being right wing.

 What is one more death?

The events of last week in the La Cabrera tunnel and in the city of San Juan de Los Morros, led by violent groups which support the Government, the balance of which was six injured by bullets and one death, can not become a simple statistic. Impunity can not cover them. TalCual has carried out an investigation at the scene of the crimes, the first chapter of which can be read in pages 4 and 5.

A thick veil of cynicism clouds what happened. The victims are supposed to be responsible for the violence. The Governor of Guarico State and the now famous General Acosta Carle ”explain” the events as a confrontation between Government supporters and opponents, obviating the “insignificant” detail that armed groups which support the Government blocked both the highway and the Guarico road during six or seven hours, which constitutes an unqualified  abuse against people. What is worse, is that they were accompanied by the complicity of the corresponding authorities, which only acted after the shots fired by the “Bolivarian” hoodlums caused an injury in one case and a death on the other. It is the same impunity that protects those that attack the Metropolitan City Hall of Caracas and which distorts completely the rules of civilized life. The aggressors present themselves as the victims of police violence! In the case of La Cabrera, two trailer trucks were used to block the mouths of the tunnel on the Aragua side, completely blocking traffic from the very early hours of the morning. The monitoring of the road is the job of the National Guard, which has precisely in that tunnel an elite command unit. The National Guard did nothing during six hours and remained unperturbed while hooded men shot against the vehicles where the opposition marchers were driving towards Caracas. When the Carabobo State police showed up, the National Guard left its catalepsy and began doing something, but against the State police, with one cop injured by a bullet.

On the Aragua side, given the inactivity of the National Guard, it was the regional police which removed the trucks and arrested seven or eigth people which it handed over to the National guard command in La Cabrera. The scene of the arrest was taped and, nevertheless, those people vanished afterwards and General Acosta Carle, with an atomic cynicism maintains that there were never any detentions. Obviously, one can presume they were freed on his orders.

In the case in Guarico, the road block in the highway, from 1:30 AM, took place in front of the Army Conopaima Fort, a few blocks from the National Guard and without the State police doing anything to stop the abuse. When Governor Manuitt explains the events he overlooks this detail which could only lead to a confrontation once the vehicles with the marchers going to the capital began arriving. It is as if it were normal to create a roadblock and as if those responsible for the violence are precisely the victims of it. Information gathered by TalCual indicate that the shot that killed Mr. Mendez came from those blocking the way and this appears to be confirmed by the regional Attorney General, which would explain the request to fire her, made by the Guarico Government. Another life has been lost.

Will this just end here?

From todays’ Tal Cual (page 7) cartoon by WEIL:

Chavez from the podium: Given the hunger I have generated in my country and the excess luxury that I have thanks to the State….Gentlemen…what the f……am i going to say here?

(If the President were honest)

Venezuelans know that Hugo Chavez is a cynic. Well, the international community saw it first hand today. When Hugo Chavez came back in April, he was contrite. He promised there would be an independent committee to investigate the truth of what happened on April 11th. On May 15th., the Chavez controlled National Assembly approved the first draft of the Bill creating that commission, with the joint vote of the oposition. Since then Chavez’ MVR has shelved the discussion of that Bill.

Today Hugo Chavez calls for an international committee because he “gives an extraordinary importance to finding out the truth about what happened in April”. Come on Hugo, call Caracas and have your party approve the Bill in Congress. For those abroad who don’t follow the details of what happens in Venezuela, read the Editorial in local newspaper Tal Cual on September 10th., which describes how the Government sabotaged the bill to establish the truth commission. The Editorial that day also notes the “coincidence” that the Attorney General has jailed 7 members of Chavez’ MVR as the only suspects in the April deaths. By the way that paper’s Editor is Teodoro Petkoff, who irks the opposition with his attempts to be balanced.

Chavez talking about Human Rights, come on!