Archive for June 10th, 2003

Chavistas will try to cheat again on Thursday

June 10, 2003

 


As if today’s charade was not sufficient, the pro-Chavez members of the National Assembly said that today’s rejection of the minutes of last week’s session when the Assembly’s bylaws were modified was a tie. A new session will take place on Thursday where they will try to approve them again after two defeats today. Once again this Government and its partisans show they are not democrats and have a complete disregard for the law. The word fascism comes to mind when one sees the behavior of the President of the National Assembly today. The opposition says the rules are quite clear and this represents the most significant defeat of Chavez’ supporters in the National Assembly. Former Chavez supporters under the party “Podemos” ratified at the end of the session today that they will not vote in favor of illegality and running over the rules and will continue voting against the legality of last week’s session. Note that when Chavez first won the Assembly he had a majority of 64% of the Assembly which he has now lost, mostly through confrontation with his former allies.  

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CIDH: Venezuelan among the four worst

June 10, 2003

The Interamerican Committee on Human Rights (CIDH) said today in Chile that the polarization in Venezuela was being promoted by the Chavez administration. “The highest authorities in their communications use a language that promotes polarization” said the CIDH adding that they have suspended their relations with the Venezuelan Government saying “they (the Government) perfer if we do not visit” . They also added that the Venezuelan Government thinks that the CIDH does not act impartially. In the saddest part for decent Venezuelans, the CIDH statement added that The four worst human rights offenders are Cuba, Haiti, Colombia and Venezuela.

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Supreme Court walks very fine line

June 10, 2003

 


The Venezuelan Supreme Court walked today a very fine line in attempting to maintain a balance by ruling in a manner that allows it to be in good terms with both the opposition and the Chávez administration at the same time.  As has become customary with this Court, the ruling was weird to say the least. Essentially, the Attorney General’s office had asked the Court for an injunction to protect its constitutional rights that were violated when the supposedly the wrong Court ruled that it could not hold the leaders of the oil strike in jail because it had not followed legal procedure in finding their guilt. Well, the highest Court today granted the injunction, but said that the Attorney General’s office had indeed violated the rights of the indicted and violated their rights and thus said the Attorney General should begin the investigative phase of the case. Now, in any other country, if the Attorney General had any dignity and if the Government had any measure of propriety, the Attorney General would resign after this decision. After all, the Supreme Court said the Attorney General’s office violated the right of due process of those indicted. But Attorney General Rodriguez, who was Chavez’ first Vice-President is simply an immoral thug at the service of the Dictator. By the way, while positive, I consider the Court’s decision a travesty.

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Does the world need any more proof of the outlaw nature of Chavez’ Government?

June 10, 2003


 


Tonight it was proven beyond any reasonable doubt why the Chavez Government is simply a dictatorial and outlaw Government. Last week the pro-Chavez thugs held a meeting of the National Assembly outside of the Capital building in order to approve a new set of regulations for the way debate is handled and how the Assembly works. The idea was to reduce quorum and votes to an absurd one third for committees. The spurious meeting was held at the El Calvario park and reportedly 92 Deputies voted in favor of the reforms. Well, today the Assembly met back in the Capital building and the Chavistas FAILED to approve the minutes of that other meeting, which implies that the new regulations have not been approved. After two rounds of votes, the votes are tied, according to the Government and the minutes were rejected according to the opposition. To me, independent of the interpretation is that the vote shows that this is a mockery of a Government that through tricks and cheating wants to impose its will. Whatever happened to the ten “extra” Deputies that approved the changes last week? Where were they today? Simply, the meeting of the Assembly was not only illegal, but  the Deputies never existed!!!

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A very busy Monday

June 10, 2003

Made some asjustments so that I can post until the problem is solved:


The things happening this week led me to start my post with a Dictionary definition, for those that seem to think that a dictator is only a murderer (they usually are or become one):


 


  dictatorship


       n : a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute


           dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or


           opposition etc.)


 


-Monday’s El Universal, one of Caracas’ most important daily’s had a picture of a giant truck being used by the Government’s food program with a huge picture of Chavez and below it saying “this food for the people under orders of Hugo Chavez”. Thus there is no longer difference between the party MVR and the President. Government funds are used to promote his image, reminiscent of Castro, Saddam Hussein and all the other jewels.


 


-The Mayor of the Sucre District of Caracas, who happens to be the son of Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel did not allow the opposition to hold a meeting this Thursday in Petare in the East of Caracas, called the “Petarazo”. The opposition has been holding these rallies in what used to be “Chavista” areas as a way of showing the Government that it is no longer popular. The rallies are also intended give courage to Chavez’ opponents within the barrios to come out and support the opposition. The Mayor gave as an excuse for not allowing the rally the fact that it would not be safe. Interesting excuse, no? He is in charge of security, says the rally is not safe, we can’t have a rally.


 


-After approving the new regulations for debate and organization of the National Assembly Chavez’ MVR said they will continue to hold Assembly meetings in public locations. The next one will be in the “El Valle” area of Caracas. In this manner, the Government supporters guarantee that nobody can check whether there is a quorum or not and opposition Deputies can not attend for fear for their lives. Some democracy, no?


 


-The Supreme Court ruled that Intesa a joint venture between San Diego’s SAIC (60%) and PDVSA (40%) had to hand over all hardware and software to PDVSA and SAIC will receive no compensation. Interestingly enough some of the software that needs to be handed over is under license to Intesa by international software companies and can not be simply transferred.


 


-At the meeting of General Assembly of the OAS in Chile, representatives of the Interamerican Press Society said that “freedom of speech is disappearing in Venezuela. Like Cuba, Venezuela is on its way to having no free press”.


 


-At the same meeting the Venezuelan Foreign Minister accused Venezuelan media of being racist, saying that there are no TV announcers that are non-white, proving that he never watches local TV. He also said that, and I quote” We Christians are very dangerous people” giving out a long list of bad things Christians have done throughout history. His list included pointing out that Stalin, McCarthy, Mussolini and Hitler were Christian, as well as the Ku Klux Klan. He called it a very personal reflection. It certainly was. He closed by inviting OAS Secretary Cesar Gaviria to go to Venezuela and see firsthand the racism of the media as if Gaviria had not been living in Venezuela for six months since November.


 


-A couple of hundred buses with pro-Chavez signs on their windows showed up early Monday in front of the oil company PDVSA in Caracas. Reportedly these pro-Chavez people came to ask for jobs and accused one of the parties that support Chavez of cornering all of the new jobs within the state-owned PDVSA.


 


-Chavista Deputies called on the “people to come out and defend their Parliament”. Saying the opposition planned to boycott the National Assembly a number of MVR Deputies called on mobs to come out and show with their presence at the Capitol building that they support the Government. This is simply inviting mobs to intimidate the opposition Deputies. How democratic, no?


 


-In his Sunday address to the nation Hugo Chavez called and public powers to “act” and bring to trial those Deputies who stopped the National Assembly from working last week calling them “coupsters and conspirators”. This not only violates the separation of powers, but represents a form of intimidation. But, what else is new?


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