The Devil's Excrement

If anyone thought the gag law and the changes of the Penal Code would have no effect, one needs to go no further than recent events to know, to learn, that Venezuela is currently living under a very subtle form of censorship. The media is being extremely careful of not publishing or not showing anything that may offend the revolutionary sensibility of this fraudulent Government.

Two cases come to mind: One, there have been reports that the number of dead people during the recent flooding was much higher than it has been reported. I have talked to well known reporters who understand that the number of dead people is over 300, but they have no way of proving it, as the Government is not providing any data on this issue and since all of the disaster areas are being guarded by the military it is not easy to have real  numbers of information. The second case most people don’t even have any idea about is what happened at Universidad de Oriente, which has yet to appear in any of the media. But first some background.

In Venezuela, universities are “autonomous”. The concept implies that they make their own decisions and the police can not enter campuses. Throughout the years, the biggest scandals of the “IVth. Republic” occurred whenever a Government violated this concept and the police went into any University. The left and the press would raise hell and there would be demonstrations for days about the issue.

Well, last week, the campus of the Universidad de Oriente in Eastern Venezuela was raided by the joint action of the police of Sucre state in a joint raid by the municipal and state police with the military and the National Guard.

It all began when two groups pf students were protesting within the University how bad the dining facilities currently are at the University as well as the increase in the transporation fares. The protesters were bombarded by stones from the Mayor’s office and the two groups (From what I understand, they were both pro-Chavez) had a battle which lasted until the cops and soldiers arrived.

The raid was not precisely nice, students and Professors were taken away at gunpoint, laboratories were damaged, workers and students were mistreated. There have been no classes since then, there are daily protests etc…

Bit none of this appears in the news, as the media is concerned that talking about this or showing it on TV may be interpreted under the gag law as an attempt to create uncertainty in the population. What all of this proves is how close the extreme right and the extreme left of the world really are. Those sending in the cops and troops were supposed to be left-wingers only six years ago, who would have cried foul if a raid like this had taken place and even more if the media had not reported it. But today, these people are “authorities” running this fake revolution in which even their own supporters are having their rights violated and their actions repressed in the interest of the common “good”.  Sound familiar? Pinochet would be so proud of them!

If anyone thought the gag law and the changes of the Penal Code would have no effect, one needs to go no further than recent events to know, to learn, that Venezuela is currently living under a very subtle form of censorship. The media is being extremely careful of not publishing or not showing anything that may offend the revolutionary sensibility of this fraudulent Government.

Two cases come to mind: One, there have been reports that the number of dead people during the recent flooding was much higher than it has been reported. I have talked to well known reporters who understand that the number of dead people is over 300, but they have no way of proving it, as the Government is not providing any data on this issue and since all of the disaster areas are being guarded by the military it is not easy to have real  numbers of information. The second case most people don’t even have any idea about is what happened at Universidad de Oriente, which has yet to appear in any of the media. But first some background.

In Venezuela, universities are “autonomous”. The concept implies that they make their own decisions and the police can not enter campuses. Throughout the years, the biggest scandals of the “IVth. Republic” occurred whenever a Government violated this concept and the police went into any University. The left and the press would raise hell and there would be demonstrations for days about the issue.

Well, last week, the campus of the Universidad de Oriente in Eastern Venezuela was raided by the joint action of the police of Sucre state in a joint raid by the municipal and state police with the military and the National Guard.

It all began when two groups pf students were protesting within the University how bad the dining facilities currently are at the University as well as the increase in the transporation fares. The protesters were bombarded by stones from the Mayor’s office and the two groups (From what I understand, they were both pro-Chavez) had a battle which lasted until the cops and soldiers arrived.

The raid was not precisely nice, students and Professors were taken away at gunpoint, laboratories were damaged, workers and students were mistreated. There have been no classes since then, there are daily protests etc…

Bit none of this appears in the news, as the media is concerned that talking about this or showing it on TV may be interpreted under the gag law as an attempt to create uncertainty in the population. What all of this proves is how close the extreme right and the extreme left of the world really are. Those sending in the cops and troops were supposed to be left-wingers only six years ago, who would have cried foul if a raid like this had taken place and even more if the media had not reported it. But today, these people are “authorities” running this fake revolution in which even their own supporters are having their rights violated and their actions repressed in the interest of the common “good”.  Sound familiar? Pinochet would be so proud of them!

Gustavo Garcia is an Economist, who was the first Head of the Economic Office of the National Assembly, and who is always digging for financial information and probably is one of the best people in terms of understanding the numbers of PDVSA and the country. Garcia yesterday’s El Universal wrote the Op-Ed article below about the lack of transparency in the Government’s financial numbers. Today in an interview, he points out the billion dollar size discrepancies in the Government’s numbers and in the case of Bandes he asks: If a development bank imports, what is the sense of having it? What is it developing? The question is more than rhetoric, the implications of the Bandes not selling its foreign currency to the Central Bank is not only one of legality, but one of a possible huge source of corruption and manipulation. We are talking about US$ 2 billion managed outside of the country’s regular institutions. Why? What are they using these funds for? What are they hiding?  Are they in US$? Were they changed into local currency via the parallel market? Too many unanswered questions about accountability and transparency are raised by this.  

For those that don’t know the story of the Gallo Pelon is a story that always goes back to the beginning, no matter what you may say, which Garcia says is like the web page of the Finance Ministry:

A Government which is not auditable and the story of the Gallo Pelon by Gustavo Garcia

It should not surprise us that we will likely never know the amount of funds invested in Vargas after the 1999 tragedy: this is a Government that does not provide accounting and more recently, does not publish information about the amount of funds available and effectively spent, despite the legal and constitutional mandate to do so. Although this practice has been occurring for a few years, since 2003 it has aggravated to extremes. For example, the ministries are obligated to present their yearly memoirs, which by tradition in Venezuela, would include all of the statistics relevant to the sector, as well as the funds received from the national budget and the amounts spent from each budget item.

Many ministries have abandoned this practice for a few years and the few that still do it, have excluded the statistical information for each sector and the data about the resources assigned. The autonomous institutes and state companies are equally obligated to do the same. Nevertheless, PDVSA stopped publishing its financial statements since 2002 and the Ministry of Energy and Oil has done the same thing with respect to the statistical information refereeing to the hydrocarbons sector.

Previously, the web page of these two institutions contained abundant and relevant financial and statistical informationabout the sector, which has been completely eliminated. This impossibility is still attributed to the strike. Then one may ask: What type of recovery of PDVSA is the Government speaking of when  they are not even capable of collecting and publishing statistical and financial information about the sector which can be trusted?

The Government has not published its financials since 2003. The Onapre (National Budget Office) has not published numbers about expenditures agreed upon in 2004 and its respective financial execution. The Central Bank has not published the details about the composition of the monetary base since the end of 2004, which it used to do regularly in its bulletin of weekly indicators. I have been able to find out, that at the end of 2004 there was a sizable movement of funds in the Treasury account in the Central Bank towards various public organizations with the objective of using them in 2005 outside of the formal budget. That is why the publication of the monetary base shows every week empty columns and there will surely leave an empty space in the weekly sequence of that information.

By the way, the Central Bank reports in the movements of foreign currency in 2004, that it bought and sold very small amounts of US dollars from Bandes, while PDVSA and the Executive branch point out that the oil company transferred to that institution some US$ 2 billion. Where are they or what have  they spent these dollars on, that did not go through the Central Bank? Bandes has not published financial information since 2003.

The best monument to the lack of transparency is earned by the Ministry of Finance, which has not published any information about the financial execution of the budget and the state of public debt since 2004. That statistical information used to be in the recent past in its web page. Why don’t you test it dear reader. Open http://www.mf.gov.ve and try to find the statistical information about the budget or public debt that is offered in that page and you will play with your computer the old story of the “gallo pelón”, since when you attempt to open the information it will simply bring you back, once again, to the home page. 

I may not like Antonio Ledezma much, but I have more respect for him now than I used to, because I always saw him at the opposition marches, even when tear gas was all over the place. And his statements today were also quite good:

“Chavez once again lifted the cover of the pot in which supposedly an attempt on his life is being cooked and we sed that the President debates himslef between hate and love. When it is not Condoleezza Rice, who is after him with love, it is President Bush who is cooking up an attempt on the life of Chavez…what is killing the Government, is precisely the irresponsibility of the duties with the country. Chávez, instead of making up these scandals denouncing these magnicides, should declare a national emergency given this tragedy…this is all a tactic to hide events of interest to Venezuelans and in this case we could talk about the purchase of frigates from Spain for 600 million euros for four of them, when the country is facing this tragedy…What we should be getting is tractors and the materials needed to build housing , once and for all, for all these people who they had promised  more than once a housing plan, that nobody sees anywhere”

Hear! Hear!

I could only cringe reading today’s interview with the current Vice-Minister of Science. I love it when people who have never even done any form of science pontificate about what should be done with the country’s science.

The Vice-Minister also held important positions in Caldera’s Government but managed the transition quite well and continues holding important positions and saying the same ignorant statements such as:

“We will power up research that has a social character”

(This from the same people who fired 80% of Venezuela’s team of scientists that worked on heavy crudes for political reasons. BTW, most of them are now in Canada, Venezuela’s biggest competitor in heavy crudes)

“We have researchers that never publish in local journals”

(Could it be because they want their peers to read them and our journals are mostly crappy? Of course, he has never published anything important, how would he know?)

Then comes the inconsistency:

“We are convinced that without basic sciences there is no adequate scientific development”

Hold it! If you need basic sciences and then you have to relate them to the problems of the country, doesn’t that leave some basic sciences out, say Math and Physics? But he gets deeper into hot water:

“…now is basic science around the fundamental problems of Venezuelans”

Sorry Mr. Marcano, with that definition, you simply show you have no clue what science is about. Fortunately, you proceed to prove it:

“Academic Freedom does not exist. It is a vision of XIXth.  century, science each times it grows links itself with power”

I think he should publish this, the extinction of Academic Freedom is too important a matter for academics not to know about it. And to think I was a scientist in the US and Venezuela in the XIXth. Century and did not know it. I always had academic freedom!

I also love the fact that what he mentions first as plans for the year, is a blood processing plant that has been around for over ten years! In fact, it existed well before I abandoned science 12 years ago, was founded in 1985 and has been functioning for fifteen years!

Finally, he talks about using image processing to watch rivers and floods and how they will now acquire new cameras for this. Well, in 1984, I was a founder of the Engineering Institute where we started the first image processing center in Venezuela. Guess where these images of rivers and floods will be processed?

These guys are so ignorant, they think they have discovered the wheel! Where do they find them?

I could only cringe reading today’s interview with the current Vice-Minister of Science. I love it when people who have never even done any form of science pontificate about what should be done with the country’s science.

The Vice-Minister also held important positions in Caldera’s Government but managed the transition quite well and continues holding important positions and saying the same ignorant statements such as:

“We will power up research that has a social character”

(This from the same people who fired 80% of Venezuela’s team of scientists that worked on heavy crudes for political reasons. BTW, most of them are now in Canada, Venezuela’s biggest competitor in heavy crudes)

“We have researchers that never publish in local journals”

(Could it be because they want their peers to read them and our journals are mostly crappy? Of course, he has never published anything important, how would he know?)

Then comes the inconsistency:

“We are convinced that without basic sciences there is no adequate scientific development”

Hold it! If you need basic sciences and then you have to relate them to the problems of the country, doesn’t that leave some basic sciences out, say Math and Physics? But he gets deeper into hot water:

“…now is basic science around the fundamental problems of Venezuelans”

Sorry Mr. Marcano, with that definition, you simply show you have no clue what science is about. Fortunately, you proceed to prove it:

“Academic Freedom does not exist. It is a vision of XIXth.  century, science each times it grows links itself with power”

I think he should publish this, the extinction of Academic Freedom is too important a matter for academics not to know about it. And to think I was a scientist in the US and Venezuela in the XIXth. Century and did not know it. I always had academic freedom!

I also love the fact that what he mentions first as plans for the year, is a blood processing plant that has been around for over ten years! In fact, it existed well before I abandoned science 12 years ago, was founded in 1985 and has been functioning for fifteen years!

Finally, he talks about using image processing to watch rivers and floods and how they will now acquire new cameras for this. Well, in 1984, I was a founder of the Engineering Institute where we started the first image processing center in Venezuela. Guess where these images of rivers and floods will be processed?

These guys are so ignorant, they think they have discovered the wheel! Where do they find them?

Chavez: “The US is planning to kill me”

My take: He should be so lucky; his complete failure should be judged with him alive.

Rodolfo Schmidt “More than 1,500 people have died in Merida because of the floods”

If true, Chavez will have to resign and the media would have shown that they are just cowards.

Chavez on respect to private property: “I guarantee the right to private property, but it is subordinated to the social interest and public use”

My take: That is, there is  private property, only as long as Chavez allows it.

Chavez (again): Of the success of Invepal (the expropriated and bankrupt paper company) will depend the success of cogestion (worker-management control)

My take: Oh shit! That program is in real trouble!

Antonio Paris (Head of UCV): “You can not give out a (University) degree without  demanding something”

My take: Want to bet?

Chavez (once again): “Neither Castro nor I say stupid things (pendajadas)”

My take: Don’t get me started, but just remember the 497 attempts on Castro’s life or…the previous post.

Chavez: “The US is planning to kill me”

My take: He should be so lucky; his complete failure should be judged with him alive.

Rodolfo Schmidt “More than 1,500 people have died in Merida because of the floods”

If true, Chavez will have to resign and the media would have shown that they are just cowards.

Chavez on respect to private property: “I guarantee the right to private property, but it is subordinated to the social interest and public use”

My take: That is, there is  private property, only as long as Chavez allows it.

Chavez (again): Of the success of Invepal (the expropriated and bankrupt paper company) will depend the success of cogestion (worker-management control)

My take: Oh shit! That program is in real trouble!

Antonio Paris (Head of UCV): “You can not give out a (University) degree without  demanding something”

My take: Want to bet?

Chavez (once again): “Neither Castro nor I say stupid things (pendajadas)”

My take: Don’t get me started, but just remember the 497 attempts on Castro’s life or…the previous post.

Today’s El Universal has an article entitled “The future that never arrived”; it is a tribute to the incompetence, inefficiency and emptiness of this so called revolution. The article mostly quotes all of the promises of Hugo Chavez for Vargas after the 1999 tragedy. You can find the quoted texts in the article and at the bottom. Chavez is simply a dreamer; he promises and promises but has no clue about how to deliver. Even worse, he surrounds himself with a bunch of Yes men with no qualifications. Therein lies his tragedy. Here is the proof.

All of these quotes are from March 20^th. 2000, when Hugo Chavez addressed the Nation to present the plan for the reconstruction of Vargas, after the 1999 targedy. Some highlights of the specific promises, all quimeras:

-“We can not make mistakes and we have to reduce very well the risk of making mistakes. The decisions we are going to make now will affect the life of the future generations of Vargas. We can not make the mistakes that were made here throughout the last few years…We can not improvise nor make errors. We have to minimize risks.”

-“There are three programs. The first one corresponds to public works; it is the job of the Government to assume the costs. We will build the canals to avoid another tragedy like this one. We will also build roads, public services. The second is composed of projects of mixed development, public and private investment. And last, housing programs for special sectors, via the Housing Bill”

Paseo Costero : “We foresee the building of a new coastal walkway from Maiquetia to Catia La Mar. The view towards the sea in nights of full moon like last night. Today we will also have a full moon. You, Isaias (then VP, today Attorney General), you are always worrying about the moon. We will also build new highways for the port to manage the unloaded cargo towards the El Trebol Distributor” (None of this was done)

Tanaguarena: “Areas of vocational and recreational vocation will be built, a new coastal walkway, we will take advantage of the land gained from the sea. We will build housing of mixed use. Restaurants over the coastal areas and recreational areas in the protection zones that can not be developed. We foresee building two canals, the Quebrada Seca one and the Cerro Grande one.” (Some of the canals were worked on, but none came even close to being finished)

Los Corales: “What criteria have we assumed in Los Corales? First, that it is an area of residential and vocational vocation. Second, we will build canals to control floods. Third, we have to leave the areas of protection of the canals as public spaces. Fourth, new roads with buildings along the sides. There will be recreational areas, walkways and parks that will increase their value. We have an area of special emphasis where we will act of a total of 152 hectares, where we will build canals and protective zones of 12.5 hectares, roads, 30 hectares, public spaces like parks, beaches and walkways, 16 hectares, new developments, 36 hectares, residential and recreational housing units with buildings with between 4 and 12 stories. It is all calculated to be approximately 15,000 housing units.”(Nothing at all has been done, except for work on one canal)

Camuri Chico: “Also of recreational vocation, amusement parks, marinas, camping areas. We have to recover the roads, incorporate private investment, even through the use of concessions. Up to today you did not know all of this my brothers, but this is very important because we had to study very well what we were going to do. Yes, we are going to build new housing developments and one mixed over the coastal front, that is Restaurants and Inns. We are going to do it; we are going to build it. We will not abandon Vargas to the whims of God.” (Nothing was done except recover the beach areas and some locker rooms for those using the beaches)

Carmen de Uria: “Here the damage, as you know, was almost total. The criteria will be that it is an area of environmental protection and recovery, we will build a recreational area, a park spa on the river. We can not allow people to repopulate it. We will build there a beautiful park.” (Even the road was two weeks ago much like it was left by nature in 2000)

There you have it straight from the Pied Piper from Hamelim, so many promises, so much money spent and very little has been done. This is the tragedy of the revolution, as a well known writer said in El Nacional a few weeks ago, the problem is that Chavez has always blamed the previous Governments, but his is now becoming the previous Government, full of the same incompetence and inefficiencies, if not worse.

Today’s El Universal has an article entitled “The future that never arrived”; it is a tribute to the incompetence, inefficiency and emptiness of this so called revolution. The article mostly quotes all of the promises of Hugo Chavez for Vargas after the 1999 tragedy. You can find the quoted texts in the article and at the bottom. Chavez is simply a dreamer; he promises and promises but has no clue about how to deliver. Even worse, he surrounds himself with a bunch of Yes men with no qualifications. Therein lies his tragedy. Here is the proof.

All of these quotes are from March 20^th. 2000, when Hugo Chavez addressed the Nation to present the plan for the reconstruction of Vargas, after the 1999 targedy. Some highlights of the specific promises, all quimeras:

-“We can not make mistakes and we have to reduce very well the risk of making mistakes. The decisions we are going to make now will affect the life of the future generations of Vargas. We can not make the mistakes that were made here throughout the last few years…We can not improvise nor make errors. We have to minimize risks.”

-“There are three programs. The first one corresponds to public works; it is the job of the Government to assume the costs. We will build the canals to avoid another tragedy like this one. We will also build roads, public services. The second is composed of projects of mixed development, public and private investment. And last, housing programs for special sectors, via the Housing Bill”

Paseo Costero : “We foresee the building of a new coastal walkway from Maiquetia to Catia La Mar. The view towards the sea in nights of full moon like last night. Today we will also have a full moon. You, Isaias (then VP, today Attorney General), you are always worrying about the moon. We will also build new highways for the port to manage the unloaded cargo towards the El Trebol Distributor” (None of this was done)

Tanaguarena: “Areas of vocational and recreational vocation will be built, a new coastal walkway, we will take advantage of the land gained from the sea. We will build housing of mixed use. Restaurants over the coastal areas and recreational areas in the protection zones that can not be developed. We foresee building two canals, the Quebrada Seca one and the Cerro Grande one.” (Some of the canals were worked on, but none came even close to being finished)

Los Corales: “What criteria have we assumed in Los Corales? First, that it is an area of residential and vocational vocation. Second, we will build canals to control floods. Third, we have to leave the areas of protection of the canals as public spaces. Fourth, new roads with buildings along the sides. There will be recreational areas, walkways and parks that will increase their value. We have an area of special emphasis where we will act of a total of 152 hectares, where we will build canals and protective zones of 12.5 hectares, roads, 30 hectares, public spaces like parks, beaches and walkways, 16 hectares, new developments, 36 hectares, residential and recreational housing units with buildings with between 4 and 12 stories. It is all calculated to be approximately 15,000 housing units.”(Nothing at all has been done, except for work on one canal)

Camuri Chico: “Also of recreational vocation, amusement parks, marinas, camping areas. We have to recover the roads, incorporate private investment, even through the use of concessions. Up to today you did not know all of this my brothers, but this is very important because we had to study very well what we were going to do. Yes, we are going to build new housing developments and one mixed over the coastal front, that is Restaurants and Inns. We are going to do it; we are going to build it. We will not abandon Vargas to the whims of God.” (Nothing was done except recover the beach areas and some locker rooms for those using the beaches)

Carmen de Uria: “Here the damage, as you know, was almost total. The criteria will be that it is an area of environmental protection and recovery, we will build a recreational area, a park spa on the river. We can not allow people to repopulate it. We will build there a beautiful park.” (Even the road was two weeks ago much like it was left by nature in 2000)

There you have it straight from the Pied Piper from Hamelim, so many promises, so much money spent and very little has been done. This is the tragedy of the revolution, as a well known writer said in El Nacional a few weeks ago, the problem is that Chavez has always blamed the previous Governments, but his is now becoming the previous Government, full of the same incompetence and inefficiencies, if not worse.