The Devil's Excrement

Hugo Chavez finally spoke on the war in Iraq, using very mild language (extremely mild for the man who said the US had it coming on Sept. 11th.), arguing for peace, respect for internatioanl law and the United Nations. Nowhere in his words did he condemn the US or any of its allies for the, showing once again what a cynic he is…….As I said before Chavez does not want to offend his OPEC partners who are all in favor of the war in Iraq. (Except Iraq, obviously, but Chavez’ friendship with Iraq has diminished significantly since his visit to that country)

An Appeals Court has just freed opposition leader Carlos Fernandez who had been detained accused by the Government for his part in the two month strike. Fernandez, the Head of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Fedecamaras, was relaesed accorrding to the Appeals Court, “for lack of evidence”. According to the Prosecutor from the Attorney General’s office, such evidence was unnecessary because the investigation was ongoing, but that is not the way it is supposed to work in Venezuela. To detain, there had to be evidence for charges like rebellion, which require armed insurgence against the Government, which Mr. Fernandez never did.

There are two clear things from this. First the Attorney General’s office is definitely rushing cases to the Courts in order to please the President. Unfortunately, to do this, he has to use political motivated prosecutors and judges in order to issue detention orders and they have proven to be fairly incompetent so far. . On the other hand, there remains within the judicial system judges who are unwilling to bend the law, even if their politics agree with Chavez. In two cases this week, the Courts have made the Attorney General’s office look very bad, not becaused the cases were reversed, but by using arguments like “manifest incompetence” in the case of the oil leaders or “absence of evidence” in today’s case. There is some hope after all.

Brazilian magazine Veja has become a good source of articles which are critical of Chavez, here is the spanish version of one called “The name of the problem is Chavez”, the original in Portuguese is here. I love the following description (not really, it is actually quite depressing):

“The Brazilians who celebrated in the Sao Paulo Social Forum, last January, perhaps did not know that left-wing parties were the first to abandon Chavez. Amost 30 Deputies changed sides……….Chavez spoke 40 hours in these 25 nationwide programs. His Sunday program Hello President! lasts from four to five hours. There, he tells jokes, sings, insults his adversaries. The one who has really changed in these four years of populism is Chavez himself. Besides gaining weight, he loves watches and Italian suits. he also bought an airplane for US$ 70 million. His oldest daughter is studying in Paris”

The Mayor of the Baruta municipality of Caracas denounced today that a number of high Government officials have failed to pay their home real state taxes to that municipality in the last few years. The list was quite long, but I love the fact that the Head of the Tax Office is on the list as not having paid his taxes for two years and the fact that the Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton, who is always pontificating about the poor and being a good citizens, has not paid his for “only” eight years. Another prominent name is none other than the Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez who is supposed to uphold the law, but we knew he has never done that anyway.

I love the consistency of French foreign policy, after opposing the war they now say they will join the fray if Saddam uses biological or chemical weapons. I also love how they toasted with champagne with Mugabe last month in Paris. Note that I have made no judgement on the war in Iraq, it would take another blog to explain my position on it, let me just say I don’t oppose it, I just think it was incredibly stupid not to finish off the job in ’91 and somehow it seems to me Colin Powell had a lot to do with it, no? As to the U.N. and the impact of the U.S. by-passing it, any institution that has Lybia chairing its Human Rights Commission can’t have it all together. To me that’s like appointing Venezuela to Head the commission on labor movements or democracy. My only concern is that our devious President may use this as an excuse to bypass the OAS, but somehow it seems he already has done it, so it is basically irrelevant.

Interesting article by Emma Brossard on what is going on in Venezuela called “The Destruction of Petroleos de Venezuela”. Dr. Brossard wrote a book about Intevep, the technology and development institute that has been essentialy destroyed by current Government.

No sooner had I written last night at the silence on the part of Chavez, his Government and his supporters on the issue of Iraq, that an MVR Deputy raised his voice. Today, Tarek William Saab, a Deputy from Chavez’ MVR of arab origin said he would propose a resolution to back the efforts of the United Nations to promote peace and punish war. Still a mild-sounding resolution, as it does not include the usual condemnation of the evil US Government, but I guess they could not contain themselves anyway.