September 19, 2005


For the
last two and a half years it has been very difficult to get a passport in Venezuela,
between inefficiency and the Tascon list, which banned everyone who signed the
recall petition from getting a passport via “regular” means to a shortage of
the precious books, getting a new passport has been essentially Hell. Add to
that the paranoia of Venezuelans who dislike Chavez and you had lots of people
applying, paying and otherwise doing any necessary pirouette to get a valid
Bolivarian passport.

This
created a virtuous corruption cyrcle that allowed anyone willing to pay up to
one million bolivars (US$ 465) to get a passport, although prices ranged
somewhere below that around Bs. 600 to 700 thousand. Some refused to pay;
others could not, creating a huge backlog.

Then the
scandal over the Tascon list hit the international political circle, Chavez
said bury the list and the ID office ordered what it thought were sufficient
passports to satisfy demand. Except that they misjudged the backlog and the
fears and some 400,000 Venezuelans applied to get the much coveted document.

The Head
of the ID office a while back blamed the problem on the people of course. Saying
that people were irresponsibly requesting passports which they did not need,
doing what has become commonplace in the Chávez administration: blame someone
else, but never take responsibility.

Then last
week, the same official announced that beginning this week, Venezuelans would
be able to apply for a passport via the Internet, but they would be penalized.Under
regular circumstances, this would have not raised any noise, but
nothing is
regular in this country these days, the announcement of a penalty was
seen as a
threat against freedom and a plan to limit the movements of
Venezuelans. Moreover, the penalty would not be a fine, but the
“deactivation”of your passport, suggesting some form of movement
control.

Is that
the intention? I don’t know. It is very difficult to tell. We have learned not
to trust this Government in the last seven years. My personal feeling is that
this is only idiocy at work, but I have been wrong and naïve before.

This entry was posted on September 19, 2005 at 9:33 pm and is filed under Venezuela.

Leave a comment