The Devil's Excrement

When Hugo Chavez won the presidency, people were really expecting him
to deliver on his promises. While I never liked him, because I knew too
many of the extremely mediocre people around him, many acquaintances
really believed he would deliver. I wish he had. Among the main
promises were fighting crime, eliminating corruption and reducing
poverty. The first one, he has done very little about. Crime in Caracas
alone has tripled in the last six years, as measured by the number of
people murdered each week. Unfortunately, they are mostly murders in
the poor barrios, where the police barely dares to go in. We all know
about the state of poverty, up significantly in the last six years,
despite all of the claims by the Government to be doing everything to
benefit the poor.

But attacking corruption would have been a smple task, given the
mandate and goodwill with which Chavez arrived in power and his
military background. He could have stopped it cold on its tracks. But
he hasn’t. I really can’t understand why. Beginning with the 42 cases
of corruption that forced Chavez’ buddy, co-conspirator and first Head
of the intelligence police, Jesus Urdaneta to resign from his position,
his friendship and his Government, corruption in Venezuela is rampant
today, reaching levels that would make the corrupt of the IVth.
Republic look almost like innocent babies.

The latest twist in what appeared to be a serious accusation was that
of the Comptroller of the Libertador District Jose Balza, a Chavista,
accusing the Chavista Mayor Bernal of widespread corruption and misuse
of funds. He was actually very specific with the accisations and
presented documents to the press.. This happened last Sunday and given
Chavez’ scolding of Bernal this weekend, made it sound like they were
going after him for corruption. Imagine my surprise when today, the
General Comptroller of tha Nation, the man in charge of fighting
corruption, whose voice has barely been heard in the last four years,
and who many even question whether he exists or not, actually came out,
and fired Comptroller Balza. Politics? Infighting? I don’t know and I
don’t care, all I know is that another chance to slow down corruption
has been wasted.

This entry was posted on May 4, 2005 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Venezuela.