The Devil's Excrement

To add
fuel to the questioning of all of the actions and words by the Prosecutor General Isaias Rodríguez
in the Danilo Anderson case, today pro-Chavez General Jaime Escalante went
to the Supreme Court to ask for an injunction against the Prosecutor
General, to stop him from damaging his honor, his reputation and his rights.

You see,
according to the Venezuelan
Constitution in Article 266, high ranking military officers can not be tried unless
the Supreme Court reviews the evidence against them and decides whether there is sufficient
merit or not totake the officer to trial on the charges. Well, like so many things in the Danilo Anderson
process, the Prosecutor General Isaias Rodriguez, has done an abominable job. In
the case of General Escalante, he accused him and named him publicly of being involved in the Andetrson murder almost a
week ago, but has yet to file the case and provide any evidence with the Supreme Court to review
it and decide whether there is merit to the charges. In the meantime General
Escalante’s image and reputation has clearly been damaged by the accusation
that he did have something to do with the assassination of Anderson.

In fact
the whole case has been really strange, with the Prosecutor General giving almost
daily press conferences at which he reviews the case in public and says things
like: “I will accuse four people, one of which will surprise nobody”. Then last
Friday he said he would charge three more people, two of which were quite well
known. Or one of my favorites: “From the testimony of the star witness, I could
tell that 80% of what he was saying was true”. Jeez! 80% truth, anyone that lies 20%
of the time is very unreliable in my book, but I guess Isaias must regularly
meet with some really untrustworthy and seedy people if these are his standards!

He then
accuses the press of trying the case in public, while he is the one that daily
has come to talk about the case, answered questions from reporters about
whether so and so, may or not be involved in the case and has never explained
while certain leads have never been followed. I looked over the book by the Pablo
Medina on the Danilo Anderson case today and if half of what Medina
says is true, then
there are too many leads that have not been followed and too many
inconsitencies. It simply can not be
incompetence, it has to be either negligence or deceit. Take your pick,
in
either case Isaias Rodriguez is the man that has the mandate by the
Constitution to defend and uphold the law! There is no rule of law in
Venezuela as long as that man is in charge of the Prosecutor’s General
office.

Can any of
the readers of this blog imagine if in any their respective countries a high ranking
General was charged with being involved in an assassination of a Government
official and a week goes by without a single piece of evidence presented by the prosecutors
accusing him in any court? Do you think that this General’s reputation can ever be
restored as long as this Government remains in power? Can this General’s military
career ever be resumed?

Such is the
state of the rule of law in Venezuela,
not even those close to the center of power are immune to being destroyed, if
someone decides to do so. And to think that some people actually think they
will never be affected by all of this and that there is some redeeming value about this
silly and random revolution.

The ad
below represents in all of its extent why I think this autocratic Government is
indefensible, deceitful and arrogant. As I detailed in my
post a few days ago, the
law is very clear, at least the number of ballots in ALL boxes have to be
counted on Election Day and their total compared and matched with the number of
voters tallied by the electronic machines. This has been noted by Sumate and studied
by others that were not aware of it who reached the same unavoidable conclusion.
In fact, if the number of “paper ballots deposited” (As stated in the law) is
not the same, ALL of the votes from that polling station are simply invalid according to the Suffrage law!

Now, you have to understand that this was not done with
the recall vote, or in the Governor and Mayoral elections in October 2004 or in
the regional elections this summer. And it will not be done in the upcoming
elections either! In fact, the CNE intended to audit only 8-10% of all ballot
boxes, made a “big” concession (we should all be so grateful) and then said it will do 33% of them and via the
mediation of the OAS last week, will now audit 45% of all ballot boxes. Note
that an audit is more extensive in that the actual votes for each candidate are
also counted, which was my point, if you have to count the number of ballots,
why not count the votes while you are at it? All of them. This would make the
whole process transparent; people would trust it and our democracy would be
better. (Even the OAS, which just got here noted that there was someything fishy because the CNE has not released the electoral registry)

Instead, the CNE agrees to audit only 45% of the ballot boxes, which
statistically is a good sample of course. But this will not be a hot audit.
This vote count will not be matched to the actual machine results, but sent
under separate cover to the CNE, who will have five weeks to compare them. I am not making this up; it is in the
instructions for the vote process on Dec. 4, very clearly stated. It is a long
document, so please trust me, it is there spelled out in detail. By the way, in the
August election the comparison was instant in the limited ballot boxes where the audit was performed.

But the truly arrogant thing is this in your face ad by the Electoral Board, in which they imply there is
some sort of magnanimous concession in its part by agreeing to look at 45% of the
ballots, while bypassing and disobeying the law. This Goebbelian ad, represents
the dishonesty and travesty that the law has become under Chavez, which is supported
by eunuchs like the President of the CNE, who only aim to please the leader and
gain indulgences for future promotions. This is possible, only because the Electoral
power has been kidnapped by the Chavez administration, thanks to its control of
the Supreme Court, which named the CNE and even named Board members when its
President was named to the Court for conducting a very biased recall process. You
see, according to the Constitution it is the National Assembly that names the
Board, which has not been done because it requires a qualified majority,
something the autocrats do not have and were not willing to find someone
impartial, since they need and want to control everything. Such is the way of fascists!

So my friends laugh at the existence of the rule of law or the
possibility of a level playing field, when after all of this is done,
the CNE publishes the following
ad translated below, which I find is simply an insult to the
intelligence of
Venezuelans, as well as a clear demonstration of the rule ofthe outlaws
in this
poor country:

Strengthening guarantees45% of the protecting boxes will be
audited in front of your eyes

This December 4^th. we
will offer you one of the most secure and reliable processes in the world. Once
the vote is finished, we will initiate the opening of 12,266 ballot boxes and in
public fashion they will be audited in the presence of national and international
observers.

CNE promotes protagonical and
democratic participation

Well, fist of all, the law says 100% should be counted
which is not being done (Do I hear rule of Law from any of the Chavistas
readers?). Second, there is no audit, this is simple counting of the votes,
nothing is being checked for accuracy, comparison or verified, which is what
the word “audit” means and implies. Third there is a claim this is secure, why? None
of the “security” aspects were checked or have ever been checked, by anyone, anywhere.

As for claiming this is one of the most secure and reliable
processes in the world, please don’t make me laugh, nowhere in the world do
they count only a fraction of the paper ballots, period.

So, please don’t give me any BS, the CNE promotes no
democratic participation and the fact that the CNE is not looking for
transparency can only raise doubts about what they really intend to do on Dec. 4^th.
Follow the law, at least count all of the ballots in all ballot boxes.
As we have said every single time, there is only one way that
there can be transparency the CNE claims should have and the trust will follow:

Open
all of the boxes and count and compare all of the ballots with the
automatic results, only then will there be trust in the veracity
of the outcome!!!

Somehow Daniel posted
this picture of the march yesterday, but posted it on such small scale
that it did not show how small it was, more people showed up at the
end, but hey Patricia Poleo before she was charged was gathering as
many people as this, every single Saturday. Without paying anyone to show up! The picture is the best one
the Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias could find!

I did not write
much about the statements by the President of the National Assembly Nicolas
Maduro, charging that The President of TV station Globovision was at a meeting
with banker Nelson Mezerhane, where they attempted to bribe the judge in the
case to the tune of US$ 3 million. The charge seemed preposterous because
Mezerhane had turned himself at noon on the same day that Maduro had charged
the meeting had taken place in the evening. Moreover, the President of
Globovision was at a meeting at the station with some 200 people organizing the
sale of ads for the 2006 season. When a reporter asked Maduro about the fact
that Mezerhane was in jail that night, he was certainly taken by surprise.

But lost
in the shuffle and the noise, was the fact the accusation was broader than this.
What Maduro had actually said was that Mezerhane, the President of Globovision and Tobias
Carrero were reportedly at this meeting.

Who is
Carrero? Well, that is where it gets interesting:

Tobias
Carrero is the owner of one of the largest insurance companies in the nation,
Multinacional De Seguros, as well as hotels, radio stations and newspapers. Carrero
was in fact, the main financer of Chavez’ Presidential campaign. Carrero is
from Chavez’ Barinas state and went to the same high school as Chavez. Chavez
went around Venezuela in Carrero’s car, had offices at Multinacional de Seguros
during the campaign and Carrero and Luis Miquilena were in charge of collecting
funds for the campaign including the infamous illegal campaign contributions by
Spanish bank BBVA and Santander to the tune of a few million dollars.

Once Chavez
won, Carrero’s empire blossomed as the Government contracted with his insurance
company and awarded him licenses to radio stations without competitive bidding.
Lawyers from Carrero’s companies were named to the Supreme Court after the
Constituent Assembly (and are still there, dominating the Constitutional Hall).
Carrero has seldom appeared with Chavez in public and has kept a low profile,
but I doubt they are no longer close.

The
question is then why did Maduro included Carrero in the accusation, given that Carrero is close to Chavez? Moreover,
why has the media played down this inclusion, deciding instead to simply ignore
it? It certainly sounds like this was a political move on Maduro’s part,
including Chavez’ financial buddy for a specific reason. The question is why? And why is
the media ignoring it? Simply Fear?

A while back I wrote this long post
on the corruption racket in Venezuela with
official deposits in the private commercial banking system. Basically,
28.6% of all the country’s monetary liquidity is owned by
the Government and deposited in private banks, which makes no sense,
since the
Government issues bonds in local currency in order to get liquidity to
pay
Government institutions. But then, these same institutions simply turn
around
and deposit the funds in private banks getting interest, and the banks
use those funds to buy the more
Government debt at higher interest rates. The amount is simply
staggering, it was US$ 6.76 billion when I
wrote the article. This means that the Government is getting financing
that it
simply does not need in huge amounts. While people don’t say much
publicly
about this, there is a simple explanation for it: corruption, these
deposits move around on the basis of commisions paid by some private
banks to attract them.

Well, last week two economists who used to work at the Central
Bank decided to do something about it and went to the Comptroller’s Office and asked him to investigate the “equity
damage” for the country, implied in the Government issuing debt without needing it. This
essentially asks the Comptroller to investigate, without specifically telling
him where the source of corruption is, let him figure it out!

According to the two economists, the Ministry of Finance issued
new debt in the amount of Bs. 9.9 trillion (US$ 4.8 billion) in 2004 and 2005, despite the fact that the
Government did not need to issue any debt, as it had almost twice that amount deposited in the
private banking system.

Thus, these two economists ask:” If the Government has such
a high surplus, why does it need to issue debt?” They claim the
Government paid Bs. 1.34 trillion (US$ 640 million) in the last two years
in unncessary interest. Moreover, the damage will continue as
most of this debt is medium term and additional unnecessary interest will need
to be paid before it matures. They ask the Comptroller to investigate the reasoning behind all this, which would lead to
what I posted about in August.

The only question is whether we will ever hear anything from
the comptroller; after all he has not acted in previous cases of blatant
corruption as he is an integral part of the support system for the “robolucion”

Last week,
a document which had been circulating via the Internet was actually posted in
its entirety at this web
address. The document entitled “Pensamiento Militar Venezolano” or “Venezuelan
Military Thinking” looked too elaborate to be a fake, but doubts lingered in
some circles. Well, today a number of those that were linked to the creation of
the document, including a retired General, Gral. Muller Rojas, and the Minister
of Defense, Gral Maniglia, were asked about it in local newspaper El Nacional (page-A5).
The first one said that the document is an earlier version that is missing the
last chapter and goes on to describe that what is missing is a historical
recount of the thinking of Venezuela’s
forefathers. The second one considers it unlikely that it is the “true”
document , as only one person of those involved in writing the document has an
electronic copy. But Gral. Muller Rojas is supposed to be the coordinator and
seems to have vouched for its veracity, which is downright scary.

As
described in PMBcomments
in Chapter V of the document, the military defines its views and their role in
Venezuelan political life in a very confrontational manner, defending the
historical and geographical heritage of Venezuela as originally “developed
by the forefathers of the homeland”. The whole document is based on a perverse
view of ideological differences in terms of military confrontation, conflicts
and war, defining the US as
the enemy, envisioning provoking the US
into invading Venezuela
in order to develop a demoralizing war of insurgency against that country. It
presents a romantic view of Venezuelan’s ability to use creativity and ingenuity
to defend their homeland, as well as their idealized solidarity to help defend “that
peripheral world, condemned to exclusion by Darwinian policies advanced by the
neoconservative forces”. Moreover, the
document even includes a justification for military action against those that
oppose the Government locally, viewed as a “fifth column”, who simply wants to
defend the “Empire” and the ideas of “Free Markets”.

This
document defines a scary outlook of the role of Venezuela as military
interms of confrontations, where instead of using ideas (even if claims science and
technology are integral part of the weapons for the upcoming battle), force and tactics will be used to
impose on others the “only correct” ideas, those of their leader Hugo Chavez expouses,
whatever they may be now or evolve into in the future.

In the next
few days this document should continue hitting the news with force and showing
the true face of this not so pretty revolution, whose main goal is to promote the
image and increase the power of autocratic Hugo Chavez. Maybe its veracity will begin to be denied. For those supporting Hugo
Chavez, here and abroad, they will have to face an important decision in the upcoming
days if the document is defended by the Government: Do they fall on the side of
an autocratic, corrupt, incompetent, fascist, militaristic, warmongering and
non-democratic revolution, or do they defend the most basic rights of human
beings? The choice is clear.

The show was good. Backed by a good group of Mariachis, the star
of the main event sang some of his top hits, including “El Rey”,
“Mexico Lindo” and “No soy monedita de oro”. The small audience asked
for crowd favorites such as singing “La Bamba” or dancing “La Raspa”
and insults for Vicente Fox, but it was not to be. The star refused to
repeat his perforamnce, despite his success with it last week. Below
some pictures of the star during his performance, wearing his
traditional revolutionary and colorful red costume, combined with a
beautiful Mexican sombrero, making him look like a very different charro. The Caracas Pop
Festival will continue tonight with Ricky Martin as the main event, Black Eyed Peas to follow tomorrow.

The revolution was caught on three big lies in the past two days, but
other bloggers have beaten me to most of it, so I will be brief:

-Response to Ted Koppel: Ted Koppel had challenged the Chavez
administration for evidence that the US Government was planning to
invade Venezuela under the so called Balboa plan. Two months later nothing had been sent. But then a couple of days ago the Minister of Information sent the “so called” evidence as reported by vcrisis.
Well the infamous Balboa evidence truned out to be 2001 Spanish
military exercize that can even be found over the Internet. (Will link
to the documents sent by the Government here when I can manage to
upload them to the Internet). PMBcomments correctly notes
that if it were true, then it was Spain King Juan Carlos who was
planning to invade and not Mr Danger, thus the true headline should
have been: “King Juan Carlos wants to recolonize us…Hugo Chavez” .

-The Head of the National Assembly accused today
the President of the Globovision TV channel of being at a meeting
Monday night with banker Nelson Mezerhane, accused in the Danilo
Anderson case, in which the judge in the case was bribed with US$3
million in cash as described in detail by Daniel.Unfortunately
for Maduro, Mezerhane was in jail Monday night (which could be
explained away in a country full of corruption), but the President of
Globovision was at a meeting with some 200 people at the TV station and
this meeting supposedly had taken place outside of Caracas. Way to go
Maduro! Your credibility remains intact as President of the National
Assembly! You are at good making up stories as you were at not getting
elected to be Head of the subway workers union.

-The Government tried indirectly to explain away the discrepancy
between the ID number of the Minister of Information and his age, by
saying that Mr. Pimentel came to Venezuela as a young kid, was born in
Angola and nationaized when he was thirteen. Well, they almost got it
right, but…thirteen years old corresponds to that cedula number
V-21759900 today,
not when Mr. Pimentel was 13 years old!It still does not explain why
such a loyal member of the revolution did not register to vote for
Chavez in 1998, 2000 or in the recall vote in 2004.

For
the past few days Sumate has been blasting the Electoral Board, but it
appears as if the whole country has been anesthetized into a stupor as
nobody seems to care, either within the political parties or the
voters. Essentially, Sumate has found numerous violations of the
Electoral Laws of Venezuela, none of which can be explained as simple
mistakes, omissions or misinterpretations. In fact, most of them
suggest to anyone with any ability to reason, a concerted effort to
deceive, manipulate and control the election. While there was some
progress yesterday, as the OAS met with the CNE and attempted to
convince the Electoral Board to a) count more of the ballots and b)
allow political parties to have access to the Electoral Registry,
conditions are still iffy as best as Sumate has shown.

Sumate’s criticism is centered on the following issues:

Counting the Ballots: Article 172 of Venezuela’s Suffrage law
says that even if electronic means are used in the voting
process, all ballots have to be counted manually and their number
compared to the total number indicated by the voting machines.
According to this all ballot boxes should be opened, their number
counted and totals compared. According to the same law, if this total
is not in agreement, the votes from that machine are simply not valid.
None of these steps were followed in the 2004 recall vote, regional
elections in October 2004, and regional elections in August 2005 or is
being planned for the upcoming Assembly elections in December. Do I
hear Rule of Law from any of my readers?

Now, the law is obviously screwy, but it is the law.
This is part of the problem with the autocratic style of this
Government, just because the law says you have to count the ballots
without reading them, which is non-sensical; it does not mean it should
not be done. In fact, do it and once you are there, read the pieces of
papers and give the whole process more transparency to do it! Instead,
international observers are negotiating to increase the ballots that
would be “audited” (not tallied, audited) and the Electoral Board in a
magnanimous offer is willing to consider increasing the “audit” from
32% to 47% of all boxes. And we are expected to be grateful!

The Audit: On
top of the above, the “audit” that is being planned has been suddenly
changed. In the August regional elections, ballot boxes were opened and
on the same tally sheet printed by the electronic machines, the manual
count was inserted. This time around, the regulations which were
approved last week, instead of the six months established by law, say
that the tally sheet printed by the machine will be put in an envelope before
the manual count begins. The manual count will then proceed and will be
written on a separate sheet, put in a different envelope and sent to
the CNE, which will have five weeks to compare the results! Yeah, sure,
the CNE itself will do the audit and tell us what happened. That looks
more like a secret audit and certainly makes no sense.

Electoral Registry: No
Electoral Registry was handed over to the political parties as required
by law six months before the election. Then, it was handed over a month
ago and it has many errors. I already reported on the amazing Gonzalez family
of Zulia state, which had 2002 people with that last name born on the
same day in 1974. Moreover, many of them only had one last name,
illegal according to the law. The President of the CNE dismissed this
as “errors” common in all electoral registries in the world which
typically have 5% of errors. And we are supposed to believe it

      But
Sumate has expressed other concerns. There are for example, the
“immortals”, those Venezuelans who are one hundred years of older and
are still in the electoral registry. They happen to be over 0.1% of the
population, outside of actuarial ranges as shown below

Besides
this remarkable number of very old people, which should call for a team of
experts from the WHO to come and study them, there is the peculiar
person born in the XVIII th. Century which should be the subject of
investigation on his/her own.

Besides
this, there is the growth in the number of people registered to vote as
well as migrated from one municipality to the other as seen in the
table below:

The
number of new voters increased between August 03 and October 05 by
18.3% (and has reached 20% at the time of this writing). The Government
explains this by saying that this is the result of a program to include
people in the electoral process, however, the “inclusion” is highly
non-uniform concentrating in the border states and Caracas.
At the same time 21.8% of the voters have moved since August 2003,
13.9% since the recall vote which is quite surprising more so when you
find out that an inordinate proportion compared to historical patterns
is to a different state (20%) or a different electoral circuit (10%).