These are things that have happened in Venezuela in the last few days which confirm the lack of democratic institutions in the country:
-Hugo Chavez forces TV and radio stations to broadcast live any event in which he appears. On Thursday, the stations had been warned that they would have to broadcast him giving away fifty houses in the Mariches barrio of Caracas (A poor barrio). Well, the transmission never took place because of the pot-banging and protests of the people in the surrounding areas. If Globovision had had its remote microwave equipment, it would have shown the protest.
–According to today’s El Universal between September 26th. and October 27th. 11,530 Cubans were flown into Venezuela arriving through the Presidential gate of the International Airport. The paper shows copies of the immigration forms, has a list of all the flights and how many passengers arrived in each one and shows pictures of some of the arrivals. All the passengers gave their profession as medical doctors and all of them said their address was the Cuban Embassy in Caracas. Will anyone investigate? Will these Cubans become the “people” protesting in the streets against Chavez being revoked? What are they doing here?
-The Corte Primera en lo Contenciosos y Adminsitrativa had a decision ready, giving back all of its equipment to TV station Globovision the day the Government “disappeared” the Court. The TV station had asked the Court to grant it an injunction because the confiscation of its equipment by the Government had violated its rights and the formal procedures required for such an act. Currently, there is no Court to consider an injunction like that one. Can a democracy function if there is no rule of law?
-Four young people were detained by the National Guard when they were protesting against President Chavez, from the top of their building where they live in Puerto La Cruz, East of Caracas. Chavez was on his way to inaugurate a water treatment plant. They young men were pot-banging from atop the building and, according to the neighbors; two of them had bloody faces when they were taken away. When does intolerance become fascism? I think we went past that point long time ago. (From page B-21 of today’s El Nacional)
The Devil's Excrement 
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