The Devil's Excrement

Mr. Rodriguez:

During the Accion Democratica governments you were a card-carrying member of Accion Democratica. During the COPEI governments you turned into a COPEI sympathizer. Since the arrival of Hugo Chávez to the Presidency of Venezuela you have become a revolutionary. Chávez selected you as his first Executive Vice President, nothing less than his alter-ego. In this capacity you were number two in the government and had, as your main task, the filling in for the President in all those events the President could not attend. What was required of you in that capacity certainly was not independence but total submission. You spoke with the voice of Chávez. No person could have hold this job unless he had the total trust of the President. After a while the job proved too stressful. You probably had to do and say many things that, if done in a continuous basis, would mark you permanently as a stooge before the eyes of the increasing number of Venezuelans for whom the Chávez government had rapidly become a travesty. You wanted to protect your political future. Therefore you respectfully requested from your boss to be given a less stressful position, that of Attorney General. Before you left the job, however, you managed to impose on the prestigious and exclusive government financed Ayacucho Book Collection the publication of one volume of your poems. I bought this volume so that I could verify its dismal literary value and your non-existent sense of the ridicule.

Overnight you went from the job of Executive Vice President, which required your total and blind obedience to the whims of the President, to a job which required total independence of action and opinion from any of the other sectors of government, the Presidency included. Many Venezuelans felt that this switch could not be made successfully, that you would, as Attorney General, simply continue to be a stooge of the President. I was one of those Venezuelans and, some years later, I have no doubt that you have failed miserably in fulfilling the duties of Attorney General, as defined in our laws.

The Public Ministry is the name given to your organization. You represent the Venezuelan public, not the President. You have the task of guaranteeing efficiency and celerity in the administration of justice. You have the duty to conduct the prompt investigation of criminal acts against Venezuelan citizens. You have the duty of prosecuting public officers, including the President, who might have broken the laws and the Constitution of the country. In all of these activities you are obliged to act with utmost independence from other government powers. In essence your office represents the balance between the Executive power, the Judicial power and the Legislative power. If you did your job properly, Venezuelan society would look up to you to put things into the proper legal frame to guarantee the equality of all citizens.

But this is not at all what you have done. You have openly violated your pledge to be impartial. You have remained Chávez’s man all throughout your tenure as Attorney General. You cannot imagine how indignant we feel to see and hear you trying to justify, at all times, the arbitrary attitudes assumed by the President and his constant departure from the laws of the country. Your very face in front of a TV camera produces the disgust of all decent Venezuelans. Your latest endorsement of the President has to do with the results of the signature collection made by the opposition. In your opinion “there was fraud” in this process but: 1. You offered no proof for your assertion and, 2. You are not the proper person to claim this. You are the speaker for the law and cannot give opinions without factual basis. You also claimed that Chávez had the right to ask for all the signatures against him. He has no such right. This right of verification rests with the National Electoral Council. He is the subject of the signature collection, not the arbiter.

Mr. Rodriguez. Your name, together with several others of your government colleagues, will go down in Venezuelan history as an indecent footnote. Venezuelan history is full of such footnotes: adulators, corrupt bureaucrats, turncoats and other specimens of similar nature have been numerous during most authoritarian Venezuelan governments. This is so because sadistic leaders require masochistic followers.

Mr. Rodriguez:

During the Accion Democratica governments you were a card-carrying member of Accion Democratica. During the COPEI governments you turned into a COPEI sympathizer. Since the arrival of Hugo Chávez to the Presidency of Venezuela you have become a revolutionary. Chávez selected you as his first Executive Vice President, nothing less than his alter-ego. In this capacity you were number two in the government and had, as your main task, the filling in for the President in all those events the President could not attend. What was required of you in that capacity certainly was not independence but total submission. You spoke with the voice of Chávez. No person could have hold this job unless he had the total trust of the President. After a while the job proved too stressful. You probably had to do and say many things that, if done in a continuous basis, would mark you permanently as a stooge before the eyes of the increasing number of Venezuelans for whom the Chávez government had rapidly become a travesty. You wanted to protect your political future. Therefore you respectfully requested from your boss to be given a less stressful position, that of Attorney General. Before you left the job, however, you managed to impose on the prestigious and exclusive government financed Ayacucho Book Collection the publication of one volume of your poems. I bought this volume so that I could verify its dismal literary value and your non-existent sense of the ridicule.

Overnight you went from the job of Executive Vice President, which required your total and blind obedience to the whims of the President, to a job which required total independence of action and opinion from any of the other sectors of government, the Presidency included. Many Venezuelans felt that this switch could not be made successfully, that you would, as Attorney General, simply continue to be a stooge of the President. I was one of those Venezuelans and, some years later, I have no doubt that you have failed miserably in fulfilling the duties of Attorney General, as defined in our laws.

The Public Ministry is the name given to your organization. You represent the Venezuelan public, not the President. You have the task of guaranteeing efficiency and celerity in the administration of justice. You have the duty to conduct the prompt investigation of criminal acts against Venezuelan citizens. You have the duty of prosecuting public officers, including the President, who might have broken the laws and the Constitution of the country. In all of these activities you are obliged to act with utmost independence from other government powers. In essence your office represents the balance between the Executive power, the Judicial power and the Legislative power. If you did your job properly, Venezuelan society would look up to you to put things into the proper legal frame to guarantee the equality of all citizens.

But this is not at all what you have done. You have openly violated your pledge to be impartial. You have remained Chávez’s man all throughout your tenure as Attorney General. You cannot imagine how indignant we feel to see and hear you trying to justify, at all times, the arbitrary attitudes assumed by the President and his constant departure from the laws of the country. Your very face in front of a TV camera produces the disgust of all decent Venezuelans. Your latest endorsement of the President has to do with the results of the signature collection made by the opposition. In your opinion “there was fraud” in this process but: 1. You offered no proof for your assertion and, 2. You are not the proper person to claim this. You are the speaker for the law and cannot give opinions without factual basis. You also claimed that Chávez had the right to ask for all the signatures against him. He has no such right. This right of verification rests with the National Electoral Council. He is the subject of the signature collection, not the arbiter.

Mr. Rodriguez. Your name, together with several others of your government colleagues, will go down in Venezuelan history as an indecent footnote. Venezuelan history is full of such footnotes: adulators, corrupt bureaucrats, turncoats and other specimens of similar nature have been numerous during most authoritarian Venezuelan governments. This is so because sadistic leaders require masochistic followers.