The Devil's Excrement

A year ago today, the day after the recall referendum, a group of
people, mostly women, were protesting at Altamira Square the results of
the recall referendum, when three guys in motorcycles showed up and
started shooting at them. One lady, Mrs. Maritza Ron was shot dead,
seven others including one Deputy of the Solidaridad Party were injured
in the shooting. The world press caught the shootings on video and
photos. You can see some of them below

Below
are also a picture of Mrs. Ron being taken away, as well as a picture
from her burial, when other women carried her coffin, a very symbolic
act and tribute in a country where by tradition men usually carry out
that task.

A
few days later two of the men were captured, including the man in the
red beret. Amazingly enough their attorneys are arguing self-defense
against unarmed men and women who were peacefully exercizing their
right to protest. To this day, there has been no condemnation of the
murder by the Government, no speedy trial, or priority given to the
case as in those against opposition figures. What we do know is that
the same guy appeared as if by magic
at the burial of murdered Prosecutor Danilo Anderson, at a time that he
was supposed to be in prison. Even the murderers have special
priviliges in this outlaw Government.

The murder of Maritza Ron
is another tragedy of this confrontational administartion that has
divided Venezuela, where hundreds of murders and injuries remain
impune, while the full force of the Prosecutor’s office is used daily
to keep opposition figures in check, with nothing ever resolved. Where
obscure articles of outdated laws are revived to prosecute their so
called enemies, new laws are created to limit them or new charges
applied with remarkable efficiency. But her murder is more symbolic to
me, because that day she was just being the true opposition to this
Government we really have, the acts of common people like her, of which
there are millions, and not of political parties, people that despite
the very real and veiled threats, the impunity and the overwhelming
control of the institutions by the Government, live to fight another
day, to demand that their rights and the law be respected and to unmask
the true nature of this autocratic and militaristic Government. May she
rest in peace.

Ana Julia Jatar wrote this excellent article which was published in
yesterday’s El Nacional (by subscription) and you can also find the
original in Spanish in her website. Here is my translation:

Mr.
President…What are you laughing at? by Ana Julia Jatar

When I see
the Venezuelan President smile with joy and satisfaction when signing an
economic agreement with his counterparts of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, it
reminds me immediately of the words of that famous protest song that Soledad
Bravo used to perform entitled “Mister Minister, what are you laughing at?,
dedicated to all of those that reach the heights of power and forget the
poverty and anguish of those “down below”.

The smile
of the President and his presents to other countries has an impact when you
contrast it with the desperate cries of the mothers of the prisoners at the La
Pica prison. Those poor mothers clinging to the bars of the jail, as if it were
an imaginary rope that is tied to her son at the other end and that, when she
holds on to it, may help her prevent that he may be taken away by that horror.
It just so happens that those women do not know if their loved ones may be
among the nine dead. In the face of that mistreatment and in the absence of
information on the part of the authorities, they can’t even manage to see among
the decapitated and burned bodies that were thrown at the courtyard some
familiar feature that will confront them with the terrible pain that, finally,
the rope broke and that holding on to the bars will not return their jailed
son, husband or brother. The situation in Venezuelan jails is a shame for all
of us. Because of it, we can not understand why one can subsidize Argentinean shipyards
so they can build ships without competitive bidding, but one can not alleviate
the souls of the Venezuelan men and women that have to live with the humiliation,
pain and shame generated by a prison system, criticized by all organizations of
human rights of the world. That is why I ask Mr. President…What are you
laughing at?

The President’s smile and his presents to other countries impacts us, while his
own followers realize the vices of an electoral system servile to the designs
of the Miraflores Palace and because of it, the resounding failure of his much
ballyhooed representative democracy starred by the people themselves. The
tupamaros, ideological allies of the President, have taken to the streets to
protest against the National Electoral Council.

These
rabid followers of yours Mr. President have been battling with bottles and guns
other followers of yours, because they feel that their votes were not counted
and they demand the democracy that you promised them. That is why, Mr.
President, when you run to Brazil to give a ”resounding backing” to Lula’s democracy
and you hug with a big smile the Brazilian President, I can but ask you…

 What are
you laughing at?

The
President smiles next to his Uruguayan counterpart, Tabaré Vázquez,  who gladly accepts (how could he not to?) not
only the subsidy to Venezuelan oil but a block of the Orinoco oil belt, which
requires for its production technology of which the Uruguayan oil company Ancap
has no idea about. To make matters worse, when the agreement was signed, he
makes it clear that the Uruguayans will have up to 15 years to pay and that,
according to him; Venezuelans will accept barter in case they can’t pay us. Who
has President Chávez asked to dispose of the inheritance of our grandchildren
in this manner?

The picture of the smile of the President turns into a hateful grimace, when
you compare it to the desperation in the faces of those ill with cancer that
can not be taken care of today because there aren’t sufficient radiotherapy instruments
in the country. In a cry of desperation, the Venezuelan Society for Oncological
Radiotherapy has asked that a national emergency be declared on the treatment,
that a “Mision Radioterapia” be decreed if it is necessary, because gentlemen, cancer
does no wait for anyone. And until when, do we Venezuelans have to wait for the
President to devote himself to solving the problems of this one, his country,
instead of going around solving those of our “other” brothers, by the way much
richer than us?

Venezuela is falling apart…

literally speaking, roads sink, hospital can’t cope, the promised housing does
not show up, there are riots in the penitentiaries, elections do not solve the
problem, because there is a huge problem with the elections, the money is not
sufficient but the President decides giving countries such as Brazil a lot of
money, which has an income per capita 58% larger than Venezuela’s, or to
Uruguay with citizens 68% richer than us, we understand that Kirchner, Tabaré
Vázquez and Lula laugh, but you Mr. President…What are you laughing at?

Ana Julia Jatar wrote this excellent article which was published in
yesterday’s El Nacional (by subscription) and you can also find the
original in Spanish in her website. Here is my translation:

Mr.
President…What are you laughing at? by Ana Julia Jatar

When I see
the Venezuelan President smile with joy and satisfaction when signing an
economic agreement with his counterparts of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, it
reminds me immediately of the words of that famous protest song that Soledad
Bravo used to perform entitled “Mister Minister, what are you laughing at?,
dedicated to all of those that reach the heights of power and forget the
poverty and anguish of those “down below”.

The smile
of the President and his presents to other countries has an impact when you
contrast it with the desperate cries of the mothers of the prisoners at the La
Pica prison. Those poor mothers clinging to the bars of the jail, as if it were
an imaginary rope that is tied to her son at the other end and that, when she
holds on to it, may help her prevent that he may be taken away by that horror.
It just so happens that those women do not know if their loved ones may be
among the nine dead. In the face of that mistreatment and in the absence of
information on the part of the authorities, they can’t even manage to see among
the decapitated and burned bodies that were thrown at the courtyard some
familiar feature that will confront them with the terrible pain that, finally,
the rope broke and that holding on to the bars will not return their jailed
son, husband or brother. The situation in Venezuelan jails is a shame for all
of us. Because of it, we can not understand why one can subsidize Argentinean shipyards
so they can build ships without competitive bidding, but one can not alleviate
the souls of the Venezuelan men and women that have to live with the humiliation,
pain and shame generated by a prison system, criticized by all organizations of
human rights of the world. That is why I ask Mr. President…What are you
laughing at?

The President’s smile and his presents to other countries impacts us, while his
own followers realize the vices of an electoral system servile to the designs
of the Miraflores Palace and because of it, the resounding failure of his much
ballyhooed representative democracy starred by the people themselves. The
tupamaros, ideological allies of the President, have taken to the streets to
protest against the National Electoral Council.

These
rabid followers of yours Mr. President have been battling with bottles and guns
other followers of yours, because they feel that their votes were not counted
and they demand the democracy that you promised them. That is why, Mr.
President, when you run to Brazil to give a ”resounding backing” to Lula’s democracy
and you hug with a big smile the Brazilian President, I can but ask you…

 What are
you laughing at?

The
President smiles next to his Uruguayan counterpart, Tabaré Vázquez,  who gladly accepts (how could he not to?) not
only the subsidy to Venezuelan oil but a block of the Orinoco oil belt, which
requires for its production technology of which the Uruguayan oil company Ancap
has no idea about. To make matters worse, when the agreement was signed, he
makes it clear that the Uruguayans will have up to 15 years to pay and that,
according to him; Venezuelans will accept barter in case they can’t pay us. Who
has President Chávez asked to dispose of the inheritance of our grandchildren
in this manner?

The picture of the smile of the President turns into a hateful grimace, when
you compare it to the desperation in the faces of those ill with cancer that
can not be taken care of today because there aren’t sufficient radiotherapy instruments
in the country. In a cry of desperation, the Venezuelan Society for Oncological
Radiotherapy has asked that a national emergency be declared on the treatment,
that a “Mision Radioterapia” be decreed if it is necessary, because gentlemen, cancer
does no wait for anyone. And until when, do we Venezuelans have to wait for the
President to devote himself to solving the problems of this one, his country,
instead of going around solving those of our “other” brothers, by the way much
richer than us?

Venezuela is falling apart…

literally speaking, roads sink, hospital can’t cope, the promised housing does
not show up, there are riots in the penitentiaries, elections do not solve the
problem, because there is a huge problem with the elections, the money is not
sufficient but the President decides giving countries such as Brazil a lot of
money, which has an income per capita 58% larger than Venezuela’s, or to
Uruguay with citizens 68% richer than us, we understand that Kirchner, Tabaré
Vázquez and Lula laugh, but you Mr. President…What are you laughing at?

Even though Daniel
is the Electoral blogger expert, I have tried all week to understand
the results from last Sunday’s municipal elections, without much luck.
Then today the CNE announces
that data on its website is just wrong, which certainly does not help.
No explanation to how this happened, but an institution that first told
us in real time how many people had voted, then took almost day to give
us results, has now taken a week to “straighten them out”, or at least
tell us that they are not correct. So much for transparency!

My
problems began last week when the CNE announced abstention was 69.2% ,
so I quickly calculated that 4.37 million people had voted for someone.
But the numbers did not make much sense even then. Chavez’ MVR had
received 1.3 million slate votes, which was only 30% of the total vote,
not the higher numbers (38%) being announced by that party’s leaders
and colorfully shown in the CNE’s website.
Even harder to understand was that MVR had only obtained the votes of
only 9.1% of possible voters. So much for Chavez’ popularity. But that
was the truth. Even with the extra three hours, which are questionable
from a legal point of view, in which reportedly 481 thousand people
voted, Chavez’ MVR had only obtained 9.1 % of the votes of all eligible
voters. I would be worried if i were them The revolution seems to be
running out of gas.

But
the numbers still did not make sense until it was announced that of the
4.3 million votes, 766 thousand and were null or voided. How do you explain that? So far I have not heard a single good explanation, from the CNE, the Government or the opposition..

You
see, in order to have your vote voided or nullified there were only two
ways of doing it. One, don’t vote for anyone and press the “Vote”
button. Two, wait three minutes, don’t vote, ask for an extension,
three minutes go by, still no vote. While the second option was
proposed by some as a better one than abtaining, as it required those
manning the polls to register it as a null vote, I heard nobody mention
that this actually happened in large numbers. At 766 thousand null
votes, this was roughly 38 per voting machine and most machines had
about one to two hundred voters, so it would have been quite noticeable
if this had happened. None of the people manning the tables that I
talked to, said this was the case in their machine.

So, what is the explanation for these 766 thousand votes? To
think that a number of people which is equivalent to 57% of the people
that voted for Chavez’ party, decided to vote for nobody, seems truly
amazing. It would make them instantly the second largest political
force, or at least voting political force in the country.

But
you see, Venezuelans are well known for their “economy” of the vote.
Venezuelans hate to lose a vote, which sometimes has led them to vote
for the “winner” just so that they could say they did. In fact, in the
vote to recall Chavez in which 9.8 million people voted, only 26,000
votes were voided, thirty times fewer than in this election, but less
than half the number of people went to vote this time
around compared to the recall vote. Strange, no? All of a sudden we
have a “silent almost majority” that sponteusly decides to vote the
same way.

Unless,
the problem is technical. But you see, once you voted the machine would
print up your vote so that you were sure that it registered your wish,
so if there was a technical glitch, people would have realized that
something was not working properly. And at least one machine per voting
center was counted manually.

Or,
God forbid, we could suggest some form of electronic/software
conspiracy to allow the data to “fit” the desires of the Government.
Like pollster Alfredo Keller who voted for an acquaintance for
citycouncil, saw the printout was correct, but that candidate got no
votes at that poll booth.Or maybe that would explain how Carmen Lopez,
Haydee Delgado and Marlene Carpio, received no votes in their attempts
to get elected as councilwomen of Petare, despite the fact that they
assure us that their family voted for them, but in any case they are
sure they voted for themselves. But their votes are nowhere to be
found. They got zero votes (0), each and everyone of them. Explain that
Jimmy Carter! These three ladies were candidates for the infamous
Tupamaros party, who after protesting all week of being robbed,
received a direct warning from one of their leaders, that
anyone accusing the Government of fraud would be disciplined, proving
that despite its claims to now be a democratic organization, it
maintains its strict militarist and hierarchical structure. Unless, of
course, somebody got to them (money?), but how can I even think of that
in this so ethical revolution.

And
it has been the Tupamaros that have been so far in the middle of this
sea of null votes. In Aragua, the Tupamaros claim they won 5 positions
in the Negro Primero district, but somehow their votes disappeared as
the null ones went up and they got none, talk about being nullified!.
They denounced the same in Aragua and Sucre States.

The
opposition did not do well either, that is very clear. But it does not
help when half of it is calling for people not to go and vote. Primero
Justicia only got 144 thousand votes nationwide, but they were focused
on only a few municipalities most of which they won control of. Rosales
in Zulia did very well, capturing 68% of all councilmen in Zulia by
using the same unethical and illegal “morochas” that Chavez and UVE
did. Some will argue that all is fair in love and war. I will argue
that if it takes a thief to beat a thief, I may always be in the
opposition if this is what it takes to get rid of Chavez.

Below
is the table with the electoral results taken from Tal Cual, which I am
sure, can not vouch for them. Unfortunately, neither can the Electoral
Board (CNE). So much for US$ 130 million spent in voting machines
to make the process cleaner and transparent. We know as much (or as
little) today as we did when the voting was manual. Except that then we
could see and count the votes, each and every one of them. Go figure!

Somehow, being against Chavez is interpreted by some as not being
patriotic, not caring about Venezuela’s sovereignty and being pro US.
This is confusing, because, first of all, there is nothing about being
against Chavez that points to that, but, more importantly, it is Chavez
that seems to be acting agaisnt the interests of Venezuela, when he
gives away Venezuelan money and oil to richer countries, when he allows his
personal security to be handled by Cubans and when even the Venezuelan
military goes to Cuba to have Fidel Castro preside over their
graduation ceremony. But I do not see pro-Chavez people questioning any
of that.

All of this comes to mind because Chavez offered yesterday in Brazil to
allow the Brazilians to exploit the Cerro Negro oil field of the
Orinoco tar sands. Now, to those that may not know what that field is,
it is supposed to be the largest oil field in the world, with an
estimated 50 billion barrels of oil in it and only about 200,000
barrels are produced daily.

As a Venezuelan, I have to ask why? Why does Venezuela offer its
largest oil field to another Nation, rather than exploit itself? Does
this make sense? Isn’t it anti-patriotic to happily “give away” in a
non-compettitive process such huge resource? Why not offer it to the
Venezuelans? All of us?

You see, Chavez could place the Cerro Negro oil field in a trust. The
beneficiaries of this trust would be all Venezuelans. The trust would
issue debt to invest in the exploitation of the field. Technical teams
would have to establish how long it will be before the field generates
cash flow. The bond issued would not pay interest for that period of
time. Then, once cash flow is positive interest would be paid and
whatever is left over would be given to all Venezuelans, each and
everyone of them.

Alternatively, 20% of the field could be floated as shares in the world
stock markets. With that money the field would be exploited and its
earnings given to Venezuelans directly.

Or, more simply, PDVSA could issue debt (it has none, which does not
make sense for a company that size!). Use the proceeds to fund the
exploitation of Cerro Negro and make more money so that Venezuelans
could benefit from it.

All of these ideas sem to me more “patriotic”, “nationalistsic” and
“sovereign” than just handing it over to the Brazilians. But I don’t
see the pro-Chavez forces criticizing him for it. Why?

Does anyone understand the rationale behind Chavez’ offer? Does anyone
consider it patriotic? Is is in the best interests of Venezuela and the
Venezuelans? Do we need the Brazilians? I just can’t understand any of
it.

— “Argentina’s
bonds are thousands of times safer than US Treasury bonds”

Tell that to those that had them before than country
defaulted three years ago

–“There is a
savage and relentless attack on President Lula that has to come from a
planning center of his own country or abroad…it is a rightwing conspiracy”

Only hours later, Lula himself went on TV
and ask Brazilians to forgive him and his party. “I feel betrayed by
unacceptable practices, practices of which I was never a part of” said Lula,
showing why he is so different from Chavez.

–“Oil prices will never go down”

He should talk to Carlos Andres Perez, who thought exactly
the same thing in the 70’s.

–Venezuela
can help alleviate the oil crisis that is coming”

According to reports, Venezuela’s oil production went
down in 2003, again in 2004 and has gone down so far in 2005. You know why?
Lack of investment. You know who decided that? Hugo Chavez. It is a vicious
circle, in and outside his mind.

Don’t forget to read Daniel’s letter to the opposition,
hopefully they will pick up on some of these ideas. All I can add  to it is:
When in doubt, hold a primary, people want more democracy, give it to
them.