The Devil's Excrement

Only Bush was missing from today’s meeting to make the whole thing totally fake. Thus, we had a stiff Uribe joining a sophomoric Chavez, coming out to say they love each other, we are all Bolivarian and Granda was a silly mistake on both parts. Left behind were the insults, the accusations and the charges and we are all buddies now. It is a pity Bush (played in the picture on the right by Chevy Chase) could not join them, so that Chavez would have told us how much he admires the US and how we are all brothers and he was only joking about disliking capitalism. Instead, we heard jokes from Chavez about promising not to invade the US and praise for Pancho Villa as the only one that dared do it. Uribe did not apologize, as expected, and looked a little uncomfortable, while Chavez adapted himself to today’s role with his customary ease. Perhaps the only news to come out of the diplomatic lovefest was Chavez statement that he will fight terrorism “wherever it maybe”. We now await for the next incident, which we are sure will take place before the end of the year. Diplomacy at its best!

-President Hugo Chavez announced yesterday the creation of a committee to prevent and manage the follow up to disasters, which will become a permanent committee and will be presided by the Minister of the Interior and Justice Jesse Chacon.

My take: I wonder if its members will be the same as those that were supposed to come up in forty days with a plan to end poverty. By the way, it has been fifty four days and we have yet to hear from them. In fact, it i fifteen days overdue!

-And then there is the member of the Board of PDVSA who said today that in March the company will present its audited financial statements for 2003 and those from 2004 will be turned in July of this year.

My take: I remember the same thing being said in March of last year, that they would be handed in June. Then in June they said September, then in August they repurchased US$ 2.5 billion of PDVSA’s debt to save the asses of PDVSA’s Board for their failure to file under US laws. Should we believe them his time. Nah!

-And our esteemed President announced that the Government will “order” reducing the concentration of people in Vargas state. Chavez said that in 1999 they tried to do this, but they could not. This time, said Chavez “we can’t fail, at whatever cost”

My take: Another brilliant strategy, take people who live in a state with jobs and failing infrastructure and take them to another state with no jobs and no infrastructure. What do you think will happen? They will come back the same way that they came back to Vargas after the 1999 tragedy. Vargas is a state with the conditions to develop a spectacular tourist industry with thousands of jobs. The problem is that you need good management to fix the current infrastructure and then develop the new one. Too scary a thought for an incompetent Government!

Today Tal Cual published the above table with the funds approved for the reconstruction of Vargas state. These are Bolivars at the exchange rate at the time. The first line is the US$ 1 billion assigned by the National Assembly (ANC), then there is the international funds at the same exchange rate of Bs. 697 per US$. The rest are smaller amounts for expropriations, building housing, the famous “sobremarcha” to reactivate the economy in 2002 and special assignments to Vargas in 2002 and 2003.

These numbers are very similar to those given out today by Deputy Pedro Castillo in today’s El Universal. According to Castillo these were the funds:

-US$ 1billion or Bs. 697 billion approved by the Constituent Assembly and published in the Official Gazette of February 2^nd. 2000. The first President of Corpovargas said in August 2000 that the reconstruction would take three years and it would cost Bs. 650 billion.

-International aid, which in a newspaper insert on December 15^th. 2000, the Government said amounted to US$ 656 million.

-Funds from the “Sobremarcha” project, which the Government said amounted to Bs. 80 billion.

-Bs. 20 billion from the Venezuelan Investment Fund (Fondo de Inversiones de Venezuela)

According to Castillo most of these funds ended up being used to repurchasing public debt bonds, using the arguments that the capital would increase. “We all know such operations are only good so that you receive a spread under the table and somebody make a bunch of ill obtained gains”, says Castillo adding: “ They invested part of the funds in building the “Vargas Solidarity” suburb in front of the airport, where half or more of the apartments were assigned to members of the military, the Mayor of Vargas and even councilman Carlos Herrera pointed out that the President of the Urban Development Fund gave (murdered) Prosecutor Danilo Anderson two apartments which he later sold.

This my friends is the blatant corruption of the pretty revolution! Of course, it is easier to blame Bush, the strike, the coup or whatever than face reality.

And a little bit of humor is needed by now, courtesy of humorist Claudio o Nazoa in today’s El Nacional, dedicated to the new President of the Supreme Court. It is humor, but there are also a lot of serious thoughts in it

To Omar Mora , on Valentine’s day

Dear Omar:

Do not misinterpret me because write this letter today, February 14^th. What happens is that these days I have had you very much in my mind. I always remember you with a lot of affection, missing our close youth full of friendship, family, studies, remembering our dear Casalta of Catia, our shared political fights, in summary, we lived so many adventures that it would be long to enumerate them, but nevertheless, I would like to express that even the bad things that happened to us, I remember with a lot of affection.

I imagine that you are by now ready for what comes after so much love, but don’t worry Mora, keep reading, that from my pen there will be more words of esteem. I only want to remember things from our interesting past together, when we were outright buddies.

You were, and I tell everyone that, the best student I have ever known, sometimes you even studied for the lazy ones like me that would copy tests from you on the subjects that I did not like.

You were one of the few leaders of the student movement that I knew that would throw rocks and would always get an A up to the point of graduating Summa Cum Laude from UCV.

How many rocks we threw together at the April 19^th. High school in Catia! We protested everything and we never remained silenced by anything that we considered unjust.

We were lucky enough to have extraordinary teachers such as Professor Digna de Rivas, Professor Simon Escalona and others, of whom I don’t remember the names but they did teach me a lot, which is what is important.

How much we enjoyed studying and political fights!

Our graduating class was named after Simon Bolivar and my father, Aquiles Nazoa, was its godfather. We believed in a pretty Bolivar, tolerant, a gentleman, brave, elegant, fine. Liberator of nations, incapable of insulting a lady, even if she was the Queen of Spain.

Omar, do you remember those meetings we held with my father in Casalta? Do you remember how many times he went to the high school and gave us talks on Bolivar. We fought against all of the Governments which we lived through, even against the last one of Caldera, who barely said anything and had Chavez in jail.

We were happy and we were not aware of it.

We had so many projects, and note that most of those that graduated with us fulfilled them.

I thought that one day I would be President of the Supreme Court and you, a comedian…It’s a joke. The truth is that we both have different professions, the goal of which should be the same, to make people happy, you with your laws and me with my jokes.

Jesus, Omar, here comes the bad part…How do I say it? Ahhh, well! There it goes!

Mora, sometimes life is strange. It is now you who are that gentleman that we used to protest against when we were beautiful and dreamers. I am still throwing rocks at the same Government that we used to throw at when we were young, but now my rocks are my writings and I swear that the motives are the same we shared one day.

Omar, look around you; this is not what we endangered our lives for. It is not possible that you think the military that used to hit us with their machetes when we protested are now wonderful.

We fought and dreamt together of a country filled with happy kids, full of Aquiles Nazoa, full of brilliant students like you, of Indians that would not beg in the streets of the right to sign and say without fear ”I don’ like the President”. We dreamt of a country filled with dignified military officers, that would not burp in the face of women.

Omar, I learned that revolutions begin with being at peace with individual forms, without hate, with ourselves, so that from there we can irradiate concrete deeds for collective well being.

I liked it a lot that you said that we had to make all of us equals from the top and not from the bottom.

You and I fought for pretty causes and felt anger for the injustices we saw surrounding us, but I do not remember that in our hearts we had sentiments of hate, nor rancor.

I invite you to accompany me in throwing rocks again and for that I remind you of a phrase by Che Guevara:” If you are capable of outrage every time an injustice is made in the world, then we are brothers”. And I believe Omar that two things are happening: there is a lot of injustice and it is now in your hand that this does not continue to happen. Amazing! No?

The problem, Omar, is the “revolution”.

Revolutions are like marriages: wonderful as long as you are not the one getting married. “The revolution” here is wonderful as it is enjoyed by intellectual Ignacio Ramonet, who I assure you would never suffer this shit in France, neither Chavez nor Fidel.

I am sure that if things continue being the way they are going, I am going straight to jail. I bother you to request from you only one thing, please, send me to a jail where inmates will not rape me and tell the guards to allow my mom to bring me food.

Loves you like Hell, your forever friend.

P.S. Just in case I am not a coupster, nor do I belong to the CIA…but I wish I was.

And a little bit of humor is needed by now, courtesy of humorist Claudio o Nazoa in today’s El Nacional, dedicated to the new President of the Supreme Court. It is humor, but there are also a lot of serious thoughts in it

To Omar Mora , on Valentine’s day

Dear Omar:

Do not misinterpret me because write this letter today, February 14^th. What happens is that these days I have had you very much in my mind. I always remember you with a lot of affection, missing our close youth full of friendship, family, studies, remembering our dear Casalta of Catia, our shared political fights, in summary, we lived so many adventures that it would be long to enumerate them, but nevertheless, I would like to express that even the bad things that happened to us, I remember with a lot of affection.

I imagine that you are by now ready for what comes after so much love, but don’t worry Mora, keep reading, that from my pen there will be more words of esteem. I only want to remember things from our interesting past together, when we were outright buddies.

You were, and I tell everyone that, the best student I have ever known, sometimes you even studied for the lazy ones like me that would copy tests from you on the subjects that I did not like.

You were one of the few leaders of the student movement that I knew that would throw rocks and would always get an A up to the point of graduating Summa Cum Laude from UCV.

How many rocks we threw together at the April 19^th. High school in Catia! We protested everything and we never remained silenced by anything that we considered unjust.

We were lucky enough to have extraordinary teachers such as Professor Digna de Rivas, Professor Simon Escalona and others, of whom I don’t remember the names but they did teach me a lot, which is what is important.

How much we enjoyed studying and political fights!

Our graduating class was named after Simon Bolivar and my father, Aquiles Nazoa, was its godfather. We believed in a pretty Bolivar, tolerant, a gentleman, brave, elegant, fine. Liberator of nations, incapable of insulting a lady, even if she was the Queen of Spain.

Omar, do you remember those meetings we held with my father in Casalta? Do you remember how many times he went to the high school and gave us talks on Bolivar. We fought against all of the Governments which we lived through, even against the last one of Caldera, who barely said anything and had Chavez in jail.

We were happy and we were not aware of it.

We had so many projects, and note that most of those that graduated with us fulfilled them.

I thought that one day I would be President of the Supreme Court and you, a comedian…It’s a joke. The truth is that we both have different professions, the goal of which should be the same, to make people happy, you with your laws and me with my jokes.

Jesus, Omar, here comes the bad part…How do I say it? Ahhh, well! There it goes!

Mora, sometimes life is strange. It is now you who are that gentleman that we used to protest against when we were beautiful and dreamers. I am still throwing rocks at the same Government that we used to throw at when we were young, but now my rocks are my writings and I swear that the motives are the same we shared one day.

Omar, look around you; this is not what we endangered our lives for. It is not possible that you think the military that used to hit us with their machetes when we protested are now wonderful.

We fought and dreamt together of a country filled with happy kids, full of Aquiles Nazoa, full of brilliant students like you, of Indians that would not beg in the streets of the right to sign and say without fear ”I don’ like the President”. We dreamt of a country filled with dignified military officers, that would not burp in the face of women.

Omar, I learned that revolutions begin with being at peace with individual forms, without hate, with ourselves, so that from there we can irradiate concrete deeds for collective well being.

I liked it a lot that you said that we had to make all of us equals from the top and not from the bottom.

You and I fought for pretty causes and felt anger for the injustices we saw surrounding us, but I do not remember that in our hearts we had sentiments of hate, nor rancor.

I invite you to accompany me in throwing rocks again and for that I remind you of a phrase by Che Guevara:” If you are capable of outrage every time an injustice is made in the world, then we are brothers”. And I believe Omar that two things are happening: there is a lot of injustice and it is now in your hand that this does not continue to happen. Amazing! No?

The problem, Omar, is the “revolution”.

Revolutions are like marriages: wonderful as long as you are not the one getting married. “The revolution” here is wonderful as it is enjoyed by intellectual Ignacio Ramonet, who I assure you would never suffer this shit in France, neither Chavez nor Fidel.

I am sure that if things continue being the way they are going, I am going straight to jail. I bother you to request from you only one thing, please, send me to a jail where inmates will not rape me and tell the guards to allow my mom to bring me food.

Loves you like Hell, your forever friend.

P.S. Just in case I am not a coupster, nor do I belong to the CIA…but I wish I was.

And a little bit of humor is needed by now, courtesy of humorist Claudio o Nazoa in today’s El Nacional, dedicated to the new President of the Supreme Court. It is humor, but there are also a lot of serious thoughts in it

To Omar Mora , on Valentine’s day

Dear Omar:

Do not misinterpret me because write this letter today, February 14^th. What happens is that these days I have had you very much in my mind. I always remember you with a lot of affection, missing our close youth full of friendship, family, studies, remembering our dear Casalta of Catia, our shared political fights, in summary, we lived so many adventures that it would be long to enumerate them, but nevertheless, I would like to express that even the bad things that happened to us, I remember with a lot of affection.

I imagine that you are by now ready for what comes after so much love, but don’t worry Mora, keep reading, that from my pen there will be more words of esteem. I only want to remember things from our interesting past together, when we were outright buddies.

You were, and I tell everyone that, the best student I have ever known, sometimes you even studied for the lazy ones like me that would copy tests from you on the subjects that I did not like.

You were one of the few leaders of the student movement that I knew that would throw rocks and would always get an A up to the point of graduating Summa Cum Laude from UCV.

How many rocks we threw together at the April 19^th. High school in Catia! We protested everything and we never remained silenced by anything that we considered unjust.

We were lucky enough to have extraordinary teachers such as Professor Digna de Rivas, Professor Simon Escalona and others, of whom I don’t remember the names but they did teach me a lot, which is what is important.

How much we enjoyed studying and political fights!

Our graduating class was named after Simon Bolivar and my father, Aquiles Nazoa, was its godfather. We believed in a pretty Bolivar, tolerant, a gentleman, brave, elegant, fine. Liberator of nations, incapable of insulting a lady, even if she was the Queen of Spain.

Omar, do you remember those meetings we held with my father in Casalta? Do you remember how many times he went to the high school and gave us talks on Bolivar. We fought against all of the Governments which we lived through, even against the last one of Caldera, who barely said anything and had Chavez in jail.

We were happy and we were not aware of it.

We had so many projects, and note that most of those that graduated with us fulfilled them.

I thought that one day I would be President of the Supreme Court and you, a comedian…It’s a joke. The truth is that we both have different professions, the goal of which should be the same, to make people happy, you with your laws and me with my jokes.

Jesus, Omar, here comes the bad part…How do I say it? Ahhh, well! There it goes!

Mora, sometimes life is strange. It is now you who are that gentleman that we used to protest against when we were beautiful and dreamers. I am still throwing rocks at the same Government that we used to throw at when we were young, but now my rocks are my writings and I swear that the motives are the same we shared one day.

Omar, look around you; this is not what we endangered our lives for. It is not possible that you think the military that used to hit us with their machetes when we protested are now wonderful.

We fought and dreamt together of a country filled with happy kids, full of Aquiles Nazoa, full of brilliant students like you, of Indians that would not beg in the streets of the right to sign and say without fear ”I don’ like the President”. We dreamt of a country filled with dignified military officers, that would not burp in the face of women.

Omar, I learned that revolutions begin with being at peace with individual forms, without hate, with ourselves, so that from there we can irradiate concrete deeds for collective well being.

I liked it a lot that you said that we had to make all of us equals from the top and not from the bottom.

You and I fought for pretty causes and felt anger for the injustices we saw surrounding us, but I do not remember that in our hearts we had sentiments of hate, nor rancor.

I invite you to accompany me in throwing rocks again and for that I remind you of a phrase by Che Guevara:” If you are capable of outrage every time an injustice is made in the world, then we are brothers”. And I believe Omar that two things are happening: there is a lot of injustice and it is now in your hand that this does not continue to happen. Amazing! No?

The problem, Omar, is the “revolution”.

Revolutions are like marriages: wonderful as long as you are not the one getting married. “The revolution” here is wonderful as it is enjoyed by intellectual Ignacio Ramonet, who I assure you would never suffer this shit in France, neither Chavez nor Fidel.

I am sure that if things continue being the way they are going, I am going straight to jail. I bother you to request from you only one thing, please, send me to a jail where inmates will not rape me and tell the guards to allow my mom to bring me food.

Loves you like Hell, your forever friend.

P.S. Just in case I am not a coupster, nor do I belong to the CIA…but I would love to be both.

And a little bit of humor is needed by now, courtesy of humorist Claudio o Nazoa in today’s El Nacional, dedicated to the new President of the Supreme Court. It is humor, but there are also a lot of serious thoughts in it

To Omar Mora , on Valentine’s day

Dear Omar:

Do not misinterpret me because write this letter today, February 14^th. What happens is that these days I have had you very much in my mind. I always remember you with a lot of affection, missing our close youth full of friendship, family, studies, remembering our dear Casalta of Catia, our shared political fights, in summary, we lived so many adventures that it would be long to enumerate them, but nevertheless, I would like to express that even the bad things that happened to us, I remember with a lot of affection.

I imagine that you are by now ready for what comes after so much love, but don’t worry Mora, keep reading, that from my pen there will be more words of esteem. I only want to remember things from our interesting past together, when we were outright buddies.

You were, and I tell everyone that, the best student I have ever known, sometimes you even studied for the lazy ones like me that would copy tests from you on the subjects that I did not like.

You were one of the few leaders of the student movement that I knew that would throw rocks and would always get an A up to the point of graduating Summa Cum Laude from UCV.

How many rocks we threw together at the April 19^th. High school in Catia! We protested everything and we never remained silenced by anything that we considered unjust.

We were lucky enough to have extraordinary teachers such as Professor Digna de Rivas, Professor Simon Escalona and others, of whom I don’t remember the names but they did teach me a lot, which is what is important.

How much we enjoyed studying and political fights!

Our graduating class was named after Simon Bolivar and my father, Aquiles Nazoa, was its godfather. We believed in a pretty Bolivar, tolerant, a gentleman, brave, elegant, fine. Liberator of nations, incapable of insulting a lady, even if she was the Queen of Spain.

Omar, do you remember those meetings we held with my father in Casalta? Do you remember how many times he went to the high school and gave us talks on Bolivar. We fought against all of the Governments which we lived through, even against the last one of Caldera, who barely said anything and had Chavez in jail.

We were happy and we were not aware of it.

We had so many projects, and note that most of those that graduated with us fulfilled them.

I thought that one day I would be President of the Supreme Court and you, a comedian…It’s a joke. The truth is that we both have different professions, the goal of which should be the same, to make people happy, you with your laws and me with my jokes.

Jesus, Omar, here comes the bad part…How do I say it? Ahhh, well! There it goes!

Mora, sometimes life is strange. It is now you who are that gentleman that we used to protest against when we were beautiful and dreamers. I am still throwing rocks at the same Government that we used to throw at when we were young, but now my rocks are my writings and I swear that the motives are the same we shared one day.

Omar, look around you; this is not what we endangered our lives for. It is not possible that you think the military that used to hit us with their machetes when we protested are now wonderful.

We fought and dreamt together of a country filled with happy kids, full of Aquiles Nazoa, full of brilliant students like you, of Indians that would not beg in the streets of the right to sign and say without fear ”I don’ like the President”. We dreamt of a country filled with dignified military officers, that would not burp in the face of women.

Omar, I learned that revolutions begin with being at peace with individual forms, without hate, with ourselves, so that from there we can irradiate concrete deeds for collective well being.

I liked it a lot that you said that we had to make all of us equals from the top and not from the bottom.

You and I fought for pretty causes and felt anger for the injustices we saw surrounding us, but I do not remember that in our hearts we had sentiments of hate, nor rancor.

I invite you to accompany me in throwing rocks again and for that I remind you of a phrase by Che Guevara:” If you are capable of outrage every time an injustice is made in the world, then we are brothers”. And I believe Omar that two things are happening: there is a lot of injustice and it is now in your hand that this does not continue to happen. Amazing! No?

The problem, Omar, is the “revolution”.

Revolutions are like marriages: wonderful as long as you are not the one getting married. “The revolution” here is wonderful as it is enjoyed by intellectual Ignacio Ramonet, who I assure you would never suffer this shit in France, neither Chavez nor Fidel.

I am sure that if things continue being the way they are going, I am going straight to jail. I bother you to request from you only one thing, please, send me to a jail where inmates will not rape me and tell the guards to allow my mom to bring me food.

Loves you like Hell, your forever friend.

P.S. Just in case I am not a coupster, nor do I belong to the CIA…but I would love to be both.

Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez must really be going crazy now that both major newspapers in Caracas published today complete transcripts of the statements made to the Prosecutor’s office by the sister of murdered prosecutor Danilo Anderson. If the Attorney General were a principled and consistent man, he would have to raid the homes of El Universal’s reporter Pilar Diaz and El Nacional’s reporter Alfredo Meza.

But of course he will not. The raid on Patricia Poleo’s home was simply part of the political vendetta against that particular reporter for her consistent reporting about how the Attorney General’s office was rotten to the core. And today’s leaked transcript only contributes to confirm once more that the one time hero of the revolution, that martyr barely three months ago, was simply involved in some very dirty businesses indeed.

According to Anderson’s sister Lourdes, she had never met lawyer Socrates Tinacos until he called her to give her Bs. 80 million (US$ 41,677) telling her that the “rest” had been given to others according to an agreement he had reached with her brother. She said Tinacos mentioned two more prosecutors, four judges and three lawyers. Amazingly enough, the two prosecutors mentioned are none other than the ones that are in charge of finding out who was behind Anderson’s murder. And the Attorney General blames the cops for the lack of progress rather than looking into his own putrid office!

But there is even more as told by Mrs. Anderson. She says that a few days after Anderson’s assassination, his girlfriend’s home was also raided by the police and she was present. What did they find? A laptop, a rifle and a briefcase with Bs. 300 million (US$ 156,000). According to her, her brother also owned a Toyota Land Rover, the Toyota Autana in which he was killed, two ski jets, a farm in San Sebastian de Los Reyes, an apartment in Maiquetia as well as an amount of cash in his apartment which appears to have been of the order of US$ 500,000.

Now, the readers should have something very clear, Mr. Anderson’s salary as a Prosecutor was Bs. 2 million, around US$ 1,000 a month, which with benefits, year end and vacation bonuses may have reached Bs. 34 million, a paltry US$ 17,700. Thus, the question that the Attorney General and the Prosecutor’s office have to answer is where did all the money come from?

In any other country, the Attorney General would have already resigned or have been fired, shamed by the corruption taking place under his nose by his closest collaborators. Moreover, as the investigations are redirected towards the apparent extortion ring surrounding the dead prosecutor, someone, beginning with the Attorney General, should explain to the country why two apparently innocent people were killed by the police the day after Anderson’s murdered. It is still fresh in everyone’s mind how this same Attorney General justified those deaths because they were involved in Anderson’s murder. How would he explain these deaths now that we know what we know?

But nothing will happen. Time and time again, Mr. Rodriguez has shown his lack of scruples and Chavez his tolerance for his lackey. His ability to twist and turn the law and the powers of his office to persecute the opposition in order to please Chavez and satisfy the political appetites of the revolution. Over one hundred politically related murders remain open, without anyone being charged for them, while Rodriguez’ office continues investigating and charging the 400 members of the opposition who went to the Presidential Palace on April 12^th., or intimidating reporters, or protecting the President and his Ministers from real charges of violating the law or reviving cases already tried even by the Venezuelan Supreme Court.

Justice in Venezuela is managed and exercised by a man that in my personal opinion is simply immoral and lacks any scruples. My only hope is that one day, whether next year or ten years from now, the current Attorney General will be held accountable for his omissions, abuse of power and mishandling of the law. It will not be revenge, it will simply be justice. 

Introduction

During the last week, the weather in Venezuela has been extremely atypical with rainfall establishing records and flash floods killing over one hundred people while thousands have lost their homes. This is obviously an abnormal natural phenomenon and nobody can be blamed for it. However, the case of Vargas state, a densely populated and small state north of Caracas, is very particular, because that state was the victim of an even larger tragedy in December 99, when tens of thousands were killed due to generalized mudslides.

That tragedy was like nothing Venezuela has ever seen in its history, coinciding the peak of the mudslides with the referendum ratifying the new Bolivarian Constitution proposed by Hugo Chavez. After the tragedy, Chavez created the “Unique Authority for the Reconstruction of Vargas State” which was presided by Carlos Genatios who had been Minister of Science as well as Minister of Infrastructure. That authority was put in charge of developing the plans for the reconstruction of the state, obtaining the funds and coordinating the effort to insure that the appropriate canalization would be built to avoid a similar event.

Vargas State

Vargas state is a rather small and densely populated state whose history is strongly tied to the history of Caracas. The state is long and extends along the northern Coast of Venezuela right north of Caracas, as shown in the map below, where the orange part is the Federal District of Caracas and the pink area is Vargas State. Vargas has been a state since mid-1998. Before that, it had been a “Federal Territory” and even earlier a municipality that was part of Caracas. The history of Vargas is closely tied to Caracas. In its earlier days, all commercial traffic to Venezuela entered via the port of La Guaira, with the rest of the state being isolated farms in its Eastern part devoted to the cultivation of cocoa. Later, the main airport for Caracas, Maiquetia, was built there (see map).(Note that there is a mountain range separating those towns in Vargas and Caracas, which is 1,000 meters (3000 feet) above sea level)

Before the Caracas-La Guaira highway was built in the 1950’s (a rise of 3,000 feet in only 10 miles), people went down to Vargas from Caracas via the old highway or the railroad. Some people would own or rent little townhouses, mostly in the town of Macuto (see map) which was the main tourist destination of vacationing Caraquenos. When the highway was built, construction began on apartment buildings and beach clubs for vacationing, which dotted the state all the way to Camuri, making the economy very dependent on Caracas. Later, many of these communities became also dormitories of Caracas, with people living there and coming to work to the city daily. Beyond Camuri, there was a Government built “workers paradise” built by Dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez and beyond that a bunch of towns joined by a road whih has never been fully complete.

As is usually the case, people took advantage of the topography of the state. In this case, all of these towns were located in a sort of one dimensional strip line with population centers in land areas formed in time by nature, as water, mud and rocks came down from the mountain range. In fact, a satellite photo of the area shows that most of the towns along the Coast are on sort of protuberances formed by the rivers that come down from the mountains. There are 23 such brooks or rivers to the East of Maiquetia where the Caracas internationa airport is located.

A tale of two tragedies

While the Government has been selling the idea that the 1999 tragedy and this one are similar in scope, this is simply not true. The 1999 tragedy was truly a “one hundred year” phenomenon. There was continuous rain for forty days. In the last fifteen days rains increased their intensity and in the last three days a total of 1000 millimeters (39. 4 inches) of rain were recorded. In contrast, only 4 inches of rain fell in the two and a half days of rain earlier this week.

Thus, in the 1999 floods, water had saturated the ground to the point that the new rains flowed all above ground, leading to mudslides all the way from the top of the mountain range which is as high as 2980 meters (9776 feet) in height. Mud, rocks and water came tumbling down the mountain taking everything on its way with it. This is what is called in Spanish a “deslave”. There is a very good gallery of pictures from that tragedy here, from which I have stolen four, to indicate the magnitude of what happened. Notethe size of the mudslides in the first two, its height in the third one and the “scratches” on the mountains as the water washed all of the topsoil.

This time around, what we have had up to now, cross your fingers, is simply flash flooding with mud and sediments being moved at the lowest level, but so far there has been no rocks or mud coming from the mountains.

The deslave is a phenomenon that has been known to occur every fifty years or so, the previous one on record taking place in 1951. In contrast, there have been torrential rains before, but never had their impact been so large. True, the amount of rainfall was the highest for any two day period, but there have been comparable periods recorded before.

The Reconstruction

After the tragedy in 1999, the Chavez administration created the Autoridad Unica de Vargas and put in charge of it Engineer and Professor Carlos Genatios. This office coordinated a project that involved all of the aspects of the reconstruction of the state, from building the new roads and bridges, to the new canalization of all of the 23 rivers that come down from the mountain, ending with the urban planning surrounding al of it. The projects originated in a combination of studies and plans made by engineering firms and academic institutions. The academic institutions, mainly Universidad Central de Venezuela, Universidad Simon Bolivar and Universidad Metropolitana, worked mostly for free.

Right after the tragedy, the US Government sent three ships with members of the US Core of Engineers to donate the road that needed to be built from Macuto to Los Caracas. The estimate was that this could be done in sixty days. After the ships were on the way, the Venezuelan Government, which had initially asked for the engineers, said they were not needed. No such road has completely been built in the last four years.

When the plans and projects were completed, Genatios himself addressed the nation to tell people about the plans. A little more detail is found here.

The Venezuelan National Assembly approved US$ 1 billion for the project, which at the time was hailed as the showcase for how effective the revolution could be. This was on top of another US$ 200 million used for the clean up, as well as international contributions in the amount of roughly US$ 185 million.  The project in fact had detractors within the Chavez administration. To some, Vargas represented what was wrong with the population distribution in Venezuela; they disagreed with devoting huge resources to promote that concentration. In fact, many of those displaced by the tragedy were relocated in the so called “Orinoco-Apure axis”. Most of them returned to Vargas when they could not find jobs in that area.

Corpovargas

The Autoridad Unica executed some of the initial plans for the project, mostly the clean up and removal of mud, rocks and debris and the initial build up of roads. At that point, the Government created Corpovargas, a development corporation to execute the plans which had been budgeted. The first President of Corpovargas was an engineer, the next two military officials.

To date, Corpovargas has completed only 4 of the 23 canalization projects included in the original design, it has done little in terms of urban planning and has only built a few of the new bridges that were contemplated in the original project. What is worse is that the carefully designed projects by the Autoridad Unica were all ignored and designs were changed. Let’s look at four cases:

–Camuri Grande Bridge: The Camuri Grande Bridge had been planned to be well above the highest water level of the 1999 flooding. It was supposed to rise from the level of the road, which was overflowed in 1999, on one side and come down on the opposite side. This was bypassed and a simple bridge was built at the same level as the road. This bridge is no longer there, the flood washed it away this week after the water level rose to about one meter (one yard) above the road.

-Carmen de Uria: This was the area most affected by the 1999 tragedy. The road and canalization were never built. This was the first point in which flood wates isolated one side of the state from the other as the coastal highway, which had just been paved superficially, was simply washed away.

-Camuri Chico and San Juan: In these two cases the canalization gave way. In the project as designed by the Autoridad Unica, the retention walls were all concrete with steel bars. In the executed project, it was rock inside steel mesh, which was explicitly discarded in the earlier proposals and studies.

-Roads in general: There were many landslides and the roads gave way in many locations. This is hard to predict where it will occur, but it happened in locations that were supposed to have special reinforcement, like in one of the pictures I show below.

All of this shows a pattern of negligence, incompetence and ignorance which borders on the criminal. Those responsible should be punished and the Attorney General should initiate an investigation with the same expediency and dedication that it does in political cases. But even worse, there is the usual question hanging in the air: Where is the money?

And that is one of the biggest mysteries of the reconstruction project, funds were budgeted to complete the road and all 23 canalization projects. But, designs were changed to make everything cheaper, the road was never finished and only 4 of the 23 canalizations was completed and this was considered to be the top priority in the original project.

The Warnings

There were plenty of warnings about all of these problems. Two people led these charges: the former President of the Autoridad Unica Carlos Genatios and National Assembly Deputy for Vargas state Pedro Castillo. Genatios is still considered to be pro-Government and Castillo is a member of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party. Both have been relentless on their criticism and asking for accountability of how the funds were spent.

El Nacional had excerpts from some of Genatios’ statements:

Dec. 22 2003: “Corpovargas has built open metallic dams, changing the original designs. Some of these dams do not do not fulfill the safety requirements, especially the metallic mesh with rock, which could be destroyed by high water flows, increasing the danger for the population.”

Jan. 16 2005: “Projects were changed, they did not use concrete with steel bars and made them open structures, they have done nothing about urban planning and the strict security and risk requirements. It is necessary to act and prevent…Corpovargas can and has to reconsider and repair the public works that were badly built for the good of the population.”

Conclusions

I must say that, when I began researching this topic, I did not believe situation was as bad as I have found out. This whole thing is so irresponsible that those Government officials that are saying that it would have been worse if they had not done all of the public works had not been built, should be ashamed of themselves. The Government should look in detail at how the funds were spent and why things were changed. They should prosecute with energy, but I am not very optimistic.

The military and civilians have done a very good job at rescuing and aiding people. Thanks God, they military and the whole civil defense system was already deployed to protect Venezuelans taking their Carnival vacation in the affected areas in Vargas state.

Note Added: Francisco Olivares in today’s El Universal describes very much what I posted here last night.

Introduction

During the last week, the weather in Venezuela has been extremely atypical with rainfall establishing records and flash floods killing over one hundred people while thousands have lost their homes. This is obviously an abnormal natural phenomenon and nobody can be blamed for it. However, the case of Vargas state, a densely populated and small state north of Caracas, is very particular, because that state was the victim of an even larger tragedy in December 99, when tens of thousands were killed due to generalized mudslides.

That tragedy was like nothing Venezuela has ever seen in its history, coinciding the peak of the mudslides with the referendum ratifying the new Bolivarian Constitution proposed by Hugo Chavez. After the tragedy, Chavez created the “Unique Authority for the Reconstruction of Vargas State” which was presided by Carlos Genatios who had been Minister of Science as well as Minister of Infrastructure. That authority was put in charge of developing the plans for the reconstruction of the state, obtaining the funds and coordinating the effort to insure that the appropriate canalization would be built to avoid a similar event.

Vargas State

Vargas state is a rather small and densely populated state whose history is strongly tied to the history of Caracas. The state is long and extends along the northern Coast of Venezuela right north of Caracas, as shown in the map below, where the orange part is the Federal District of Caracas and the pink area is Vargas State. Vargas has been a state since mid-1998. Before that, it had been a “Federal Territory” and even earlier a municipality that was part of Caracas. The history of Vargas is closely tied to Caracas. In its earlier days, all commercial traffic to Venezuela entered via the port of La Guaira, with the rest of the state being isolated farms in its Eastern part devoted to the cultivation of cocoa. Later, the main airport for Caracas, Maiquetia, was built there (see map).(Note that there is a mountain range separating those towns in Vargas and Caracas, which is 1,000 meters (3000 feet) above sea level)

Before the Caracas-La Guaira highway was built in the 1950’s (a rise of 3,000 feet in only 10 miles), people went down to Vargas from Caracas via the old highway or the railroad. Some people would own or rent little townhouses, mostly in the town of Macuto (see map) which was the main tourist destination of vacationing Caraquenos. When the highway was built, construction began on apartment buildings and beach clubs for vacationing, which dotted the state all the way to Camuri, making the economy very dependent on Caracas. Later, many of these communities became also dormitories of Caracas, with people living there and coming to work to the city daily. Beyond Camuri, there was a Government built “workers paradise” built by Dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez and beyond that a bunch of towns joined by a road whih has never been fully complete.

As is usually the case, people took advantage of the topography of the state. In this case, all of these towns were located in a sort of one dimensional strip line with population centers in land areas formed in time by nature, as water, mud and rocks came down from the mountain range. In fact, a satellite photo of the area shows that most of the towns along the Coast are on sort of protuberances formed by the rivers that come down from the mountains. There are 23 such brooks or rivers to the East of Maiquetia where the Caracas internationa airport is located.

A tale of two tragedies

While the Government has been selling the idea that the 1999 tragedy and this one are similar in scope, this is simply not true. The 1999 tragedy was truly a “one hundred year” phenomenon. There was continuous rain for forty days. In the last fifteen days rains increased their intensity and in the last three days a total of 1000 millimeters (39. 4 inches) of rain were recorded. In contrast, only 4 inches of rain fell in the two and a half days of rain earlier this week.

Thus, in the 1999 floods, water had saturated the ground to the point that the new rains flowed all above ground, leading to mudslides all the way from the top of the mountain range which is as high as 2980 meters (9776 feet) in height. Mud, rocks and water came tumbling down the mountain taking everything on its way with it. This is what is called in Spanish a “deslave”. There is a very good gallery of pictures from that tragedy here, from which I have stolen four, to indicate the magnitude of what happened. Notethe size of the mudslides in the first two, its height in the third one and the “scratches” on the mountains as the water washed all of the topsoil.

This time around, what we have had up to now, cross your fingers, is simply flash flooding with mud and sediments being moved at the lowest level, but so far there has been no rocks or mud coming from the mountains.

The deslave is a phenomenon that has been known to occur every fifty years or so, the previous one on record taking place in 1951. In contrast, there have been torrential rains before, but never had their impact been so large. True, the amount of rainfall was the highest for any two day period, but there have been comparable periods recorded before.

The Reconstruction

After the tragedy in 1999, the Chavez administration created the Autoridad Unica de Vargas and put in charge of it Engineer and Professor Carlos Genatios. This office coordinated a project that involved all of the aspects of the reconstruction of the state, from building the new roads and bridges, to the new canalization of all of the 23 rivers that come down from the mountain, ending with the urban planning surrounding al of it. The projects originated in a combination of studies and plans made by engineering firms and academic institutions. The academic institutions, mainly Universidad Central de Venezuela, Universidad Simon Bolivar and Universidad Metropolitana, worked mostly for free.

Right after the tragedy, the US Government sent three ships with members of the US Core of Engineers to donate the road that needed to be built from Macuto to Los Caracas. The estimate was that this could be done in sixty days. After the ships were on the way, the Venezuelan Government, which had initially asked for the engineers, said they were not needed. No such road has completely been built in the last four years.

When the plans and projects were completed, Genatios himself addressed the nation to tell people about the plans. A little more detail is found here.

The Venezuelan National Assembly approved US$ 1 billion for the project, which at the time was hailed as the showcase for how effective the revolution could be. This was on top of another US$ 200 million used for the clean up, as well as international contributions in the amount of roughly US$ 185 million.  The project in fact had detractors within the Chavez administration. To some, Vargas represented what was wrong with the population distribution in Venezuela; they disagreed with devoting huge resources to promote that concentration. In fact, many of those displaced by the tragedy were relocated in the so called “Orinoco-Apure axis”. Most of them returned to Vargas when they could not find jobs in that area.

Corpovargas

The Autoridad Unica executed some of the initial plans for the project, mostly the clean up and removal of mud, rocks and debris and the initial build up of roads. At that point, the Government created Corpovargas, a development corporation to execute the plans which had been budgeted. The first President of Corpovargas was an engineer, the next two military officials.

To date, Corpovargas has completed only 4 of the 23 canalization projects included in the original design, it has done little in terms of urban planning and has only built a few of the new bridges that were contemplated in the original project. What is worse is that the carefully designed projects by the Autoridad Unica were all ignored and designs were changed. Let’s look at four cases:

–Camuri Grande Bridge: The Camuri Grande Bridge had been planned to be well above the highest water level of the 1999 flooding. It was supposed to rise from the level of the road, which was overflowed in 1999, on one side and come down on the opposite side. This was bypassed and a simple bridge was built at the same level as the road. This bridge is no longer there, the flood washed it away this week after the water level rose to about one meter (one yard) above the road.

-Carmen de Uria: This was the area most affected by the 1999 tragedy. The road and canalization were never built. This was the first point in which flood wates isolated one side of the state from the other as the coastal highway, which had just been paved superficially, was simply washed away.

-Camuri Chico and San Juan: In these two cases the canalization gave way. In the project as designed by the Autoridad Unica, the retention walls were all concrete with steel bars. In the executed project, it was rock inside steel mesh, which was explicitly discarded in the earlier proposals and studies.

-Roads in general: There were many landslides and the roads gave way in many locations. This is hard to predict where it will occur, but it happened in locations that were supposed to have special reinforcement, like in one of the pictures I show below.

All of this shows a pattern of negligence, incompetence and ignorance which borders on the criminal. Those responsible should be punished and the Attorney General should initiate an investigation with the same expediency and dedication that it does in political cases. But even worse, there is the usual question hanging in the air: Where is the money?

And that is one of the biggest mysteries of the reconstruction project, funds were budgeted to complete the road and all 23 canalization projects. But, designs were changed to make everything cheaper, the road was never finished and only 4 of the 23 canalizations was completed and this was considered to be the top priority in the original project.

The Warnings

There were plenty of warnings about all of these problems. Two people led these charges: the former President of the Autoridad Unica Carlos Genatios and National Assembly Deputy for Vargas state Pedro Castillo. Genatios is still considered to be pro-Government and Castillo is a member of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party. Both have been relentless on their criticism and asking for accountability of how the funds were spent.

El Nacional had excerpts from some of Genatios’ statements:

Dec. 22 2003: “Corpovargas has built open metallic dams, changing the original designs. Some of these dams do not do not fulfill the safety requirements, especially the metallic mesh with rock, which could be destroyed by high water flows, increasing the danger for the population.”

Jan. 16 2005: “Projects were changed, they did not use concrete with steel bars and made them open structures, they have done nothing about urban planning and the strict security and risk requirements. It is necessary to act and prevent…Corpovargas can and has to reconsider and repair the public works that were badly built for the good of the population.”

Conclusions

I must say that, when I began researching this topic, I did not believe situation was as bad as I have found out. This whole thing is so irresponsible that those Government officials that are saying that it would have been worse if they had not done all of the public works had not been built, should be ashamed of themselves. The Government should look in detail at how the funds were spent and why things were changed. They should prosecute with energy, but I am not very optimistic.

The military and civilians have done a very good job at rescuing and aiding people. Thanks God, they military and the whole civil defense system was already deployed to protect Venezuelans taking their Carnival vacation in the affected areas in Vargas state.

Note Added: Francisco Olivares in today’s El Universal describes very much what I posted here last night.