The Devil's Excrement

I did forget to mention that the opposition’s candidate for President of Central University (UCV) Antonio Paris received 80% of the vote in the two-way run-off against a pro-Chavez candidate. Both Professors and students vote with the students vote weighing less than that of the Professors. Amazingly enough only five years ago UCV was considered to be a left-wing University. I wonder how Chavez’ left-wing supporters from Europe and the US explain this sudden shift.

It has been a long day. I worked for a few hours as a volunteer at the Sumate center in Caracas transcribing the information coming from all parts of the country. What Sumate organized was a simulation of the ratification process that will take place at the end of the month under the umbrella name o the “Remate” (Final Push). People could go to the same center that will be in place during those three days and find out what happened to their signature so they can be ready.

While this was going on, Sumate was gathering attendance figures by calling the centers and learning how many people had shown up to inquire about their status and how many of those had valid signatures, how many were rejected and how many will have to go at the end of the month to fix theirs.

By now, Sumate has a very complete database of those that are willing to go vote, work and do whatever is necessary to oust Chavez. They know who signed the petition for the consultative referendum that never took place. They know who signed the second one to request Chavez recall, which was not accepted. They know who signed the third one during the Reafirmazo last November. And they know who went today to learn about their signature. They can actually look at the overlap of this database and today people were asked if they wanted to volunteer even more information about themselves.  I will stop at that and let Sumate tell you what they are doing and plan to do in the next few days.

For now, Enrique Mendoza announced that before all of the numbers were in, a total of 950,000 people had shown up today to check on the status of their signature. This is an impressive number when you consider the many ways available to check that status of your signature via the Internet, cellphones (Venezuela has a high penetration of cellphones of 8 million users in a population of 24 million. You can actually send an SMS message with your ID number, send it and in minutes get back your status) as well as going to CNE and Sumate centers or simply calling on the phone. This number which will certainly exceed one million should worry the Chavistas.

After spending the day transcribing the information, I saw the fraud committed by the CNE firsthand. I saw many things but let me give you a couple of examples. I saw at least three polling centers with over 500 total signatures where ALL the signatures were disqualified. Please understand, they are not subject to ratification, they are not under observation, they do not count at all and those that signed have no way of defending their rights.

Now, if you really believe that the CNE’s objective is to promote democracy and participation, under what criteria, technical, statistical or political can you really convince yourself that a process you set up is fair if ALL signatures were eliminated at one place? Not one person in those neighborhoods had their signature count. Some democracy, no? It reminds of the old question: If a Professor gives out an exam and everyone flunks, are the students bad or is the teacher to blame?

I also saw centers (usually rural) where 90% of the signatures were placed under observation. Obviously those manning the polls filled in the data.

To close on a positive note, since I am wiped out by now after spending hours sitting in front of a terminal transcribing data and making sure I did it right, I saw many centers where today, 60-70% of those that participated in the Reafirmazo showed up. These are, in my opinion fantastic numbers, given the fact that only those that have problems had the motivation to go.

Thus, the only question is at this time where the final trick against us is going to come from. At least I know they are going to have to work very hard to be successful at it!

And now we are further confused by Jesus Barroso’s second version and….third version on what happened to the burnt soldiers. Curiously, he showed up with a military prosecutor to give his testimony in the civilian prosecutor’s office. Nobody knows what version he gave there, but the one he gave leaving the prosecutor’s office is different than the one he gave on the Government’s TV channel today. Obviously, I don’t know which of the three versions is correct.

But I do know that two soldiers are dead after Chavez had said they only had slight burns. That the other six soldiers have mysteriously disappeared and not even the National Assembly has been able to find them. I also know that all of the soldiers on active duty that night were coincidentally on leave the day the Committee from the National Assembly went to interview the witnesses. I also know that the second soldier, a twenty year old man undergoing a skin graft operation died suddenly of cardiac arrest after appearing to be recovering very well. Finally, Barroso’s first version was quite similar to all of the evidence found by the firefighters, as well as the one given in a video by last soldier to die.

You be the judge.

And now we are further confused by Jesus Barroso’s second version and….third version on what happened to the burnt soldiers. Curiously, he showed up with a military prosecutor to give his testimony in the civilian prosecutor’s office. Nobody knows what version he gave there, but the one he gave leaving the prosecutor’s office is different than the one he gave on the Government’s TV channel today. Obviously, I don’t know which of the three versions is correct.

But I do know that two soldiers are dead after Chavez had said they only had slight burns. That the other six soldiers have mysteriously disappeared and not even the National Assembly has been able to find them. I also know that all of the soldiers on active duty that night were coincidentally on leave the day the Committee from the National Assembly went to interview the witnesses. I also know that the second soldier, a twenty year old man undergoing a skin graft operation died suddenly of cardiac arrest after appearing to be recovering very well. Finally, Barroso’s first version was quite similar to all of the evidence found by the firefighters, as well as the one given in a video by last soldier to die.

You be the judge.

Some highlights from today’s news:

-Minister of Finance Nobrega: “There are now more than 100,000 brokerage accounts in Venezuela; we have democratized the capital markets”

Yes, there were 50,000 when Chavez got to power and 60,000 University Professors were paid with bonds the money the Government owed them. Meanwhile daily volume in US$ in the Caracas Stock Exchange is down a factor of ten since Chavez came to power!

-Chavez: ‘ we detected a PDVSA account at the Central Bank that has more money that is spent a year on Defense.’

Well, that is almost US$ 2 billion, how come he has not announced how he will spend the money? One also wonders if the Central Bank’s President is Chavista and the Ministers of Planning and Finance are on its Board and if PDVSA was taken over by the revolutionaries five years ago: Who was doing the hiding?

-Reporte Diario de la Economia shows the copy of an invoice for 15,000 bulletproof vests ordered by the Carabobo state INCE (Instituto Nacional de Cooperacion Educativa) which teaches trades or trains young people or the unemployed.

Makes you wonder what type of training they plan to provide. By the way, isn’t it nepotism that the Head of INCE in Carabobo is the brother of the Head of INCE nationwide?

-A military judge ordered the detention of reporter Patricia Poleo and she has to testify next Tuesday on a video she showed which proved the presence of Cuban forces at military facilities in Venezuela.

My thought: Art. 57 of the Constitution: All persons have the right to freely express their thoughts, their ideas and opinions either verbally, in writing or in any other form of expression, and can make use of any communication media, without the possibility of censorship.

Do the Chavistas know they put that in there? Will the Supreme Court say it does not say what it does?

The man in the picture is named Jesus Barroso. He is (or was) a soldier at Fort Mara until he escaped today and began making statements to the media. He said the soldiers were killed and it was done on purpose. He had guard duty that night, when he heard the screams, went to the jail and saw three soldiers jumping in the tall grass. It took ten minutes to get the keys, while the soldiers burnt inside the cell. Once they were out, it took twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive.

According to Barroso’s statements tonight, the first soldier who died was saying “they burnt us, they burnt us, they did it on purpose, and they threw matches at us” he said almost crying.

He also related how before the fire, a soldier with a pail of water for the soldiers arrived but Barroso said “that was not water, that was gasoline, when they took the soldiers to the hospital, I went in the cell with a fire extinguisher and it smelled of pure gasoline”

He insisted on the thesis of the signatures of the burnt soldiers requesting Chávez’ recall. Bustamente told him he had signed and “that is why he was put in the pot”

He ended by saying that there are Cubans at Fort Mara who have positions which claim (his words) that they are doctors.

The more the Government lies, the more complicated it will be to get out of this tragic farce. Yesterday, Chavez was saying the video testimony of a dead soldier was fake, tonight a soldier who is very much alive is ratifying the dead soldier’s story.

Curiously, the stories coming from the soliers, their family, human rights groups and yes, from the opposition, have been fairly consistent, while the Government kees changing it, twisting it and contradicting each other. Let us not forget that Chavez’ initial version was that the burns were slight and this was all much ado about nothing!

What will Chavez say now? As usual, he will lie, deny and improvise, maybe asking once again for forgiveness in the middle, before resuming once more his cynical attitude about this whole tragic affair.

The man in the picture is named Jesus Barroso. He is (or was) a soldier at Fort Mara until he escaped today and began making statements to the media. He said the soldiers were killed and it was done on purpose. He had guard duty that night, when he heard the screams, went to the jail and saw three soldiers jumping in the tall grass. It took ten minutes to get the keys, while the soldiers burnt inside the cell. Once they were out, it took twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive.

According to Barroso’s statements tonight, the first soldier who died was saying “they burnt us, they burnt us, they did it on purpose, and they threw matches at us” he said almost crying.

He also related how before the fire, a soldier with a pail of water for the soldiers arrived but Barroso said “that was not water, that was gasoline, when they took the soldiers to the hospital, I went in the cell with a fire extinguisher and it smelled of pure gasoline”

He insisted on the thesis of the signatures of the burnt soldiers requesting Chávez’ recall. Bustamente told him he had signed and “that is why he was put in the pot”

He ended by saying that there are Cubans at Fort Mara who have positions which claim (his words) that they are doctors.

The more the Government lies, the more complicated it will be to get out of this tragic farce. Yesterday, Chavez was saying the video testimony of a dead soldier was fake, tonight a soldier who is very much alive is ratifying the dead soldier’s story.

Curiously, the stories coming from the soliers, their family, human rights groups and yes, from the opposition, have been fairly consistent, while the Government kees changing it, twisting it and contradicting each other. Let us not forget that Chavez’ initial version was that the burns were slight and this was all much ado about nothing!

What will Chavez say now? As usual, he will lie, deny and improvise, maybe asking once again for forgiveness in the middle, before resuming once more his cynical attitude about this whole tragic affair.

I have no doubt Venezuelan cartoonist Weil is a genius, but when I saw this in today’s Tal Cual I could only admire the imagination that can describe my own outrage and thoughts in such simple and expressive ways. To those from abroad, the person on the right is Jorge Roriguez, the CNE Director who has stepped over all of us and our rights.

I have no doubt Venezuelan cartoonist Weil is a genius, but when I saw this in today’s Tal Cual I could only admire the imagination that can describe my own outrage and thoughts in such simple and expressive ways. To those from abroad, the person on the right is Jorge Roriguez, the CNE Director who has stepped over all of us and our rights.