The Devil's Excrement

Few
personalities in the robolution are as despicable as the People’s Ombudsman
German Mundarain, the so called People’s Defender who is such a Chavez loyalist
and comrade that he has spent all his time in office defending the Government
and not the people that he is supposed to serve. Famous are Mundarain’s
appearances when the opposition used to be gassed and abused during marches,
where he would come out and tell us how the Government had followed the law and
not overstepped its boundaries.

Well, I don’t know what exactly happened to get Governor Rosales so mad today,
but he was furious at the Ombudsman as detailed in this report from
Globovision, for those that do not speak Spanish here is a translation of
his statement:

“The People’s Ombudsman, as everybody knows-is a leader of PPT, a
political criminal. Everyone knows that the People’s Defender is not a defender
of the people. Why isn’t he defending the rights of the people kidnapped in Zulia State?
Why doesn’t he defend the interest of the people who have been extorted, of the
families of the people who have been assassinated?

…The
Ombudsman is meeting with people who border on the criminal, the famous Teletubbies;
they are plotting against the institutions in Zulia State”

Well, I am
not sure what got to Rosales, but it was about time that someone called that spade
a spade. Is this the beginning of his campaign? I hope so.

Does Gerver Torres have a sense of humor or is he just very cynical
these days?

The
Margabel House by Gerver
Torres

With the discovery of the Margabel house, a number of problems have now
been solved in the country all at once. First of all, there is the problem of
housing. Now that we have discovered that almost 2.3 million people can live
comfortably in a single home, there is no doubt that the accumulated housing
deficit we have in the country, of roughly 1.7 million units, that was considered
necessary to house 10 million and a half of all Venezuelans, can be solved by
building five Margabel-style houses and we even have some space leftover. It
also happens that since the number of new people that need housing every year
is around half a million, what we will need afterwards is to build one house
every four or five years.

The second problem that is proven that it should never have existed is
that of transportation. It just so happens that the 2.3 million people that
live in Margabel registered in the Electoral registry in six states which are
far part from each other: Anzoátegui, Cojedes, Falcón, Guárico, Sucre y Vargas.
This surely means that they work during the day in these states and then they return
to sleep in Caracas,
where the famous house is located. This proves that the means of transportation
are more agile and efficient that people want to admit.

The third problem is that of public services. We see that 2.3 million
people can live in a reduced space without anyone complaining about the lack of
water or any electrical failure. Those that say that public services in Venezuela fail,
do no want to see the reality of the Margabel house

But
the most urgent problem solved by the Margabel house is that of the ten million
votes that President Chavez needs in December. With 2.3 million votes per
house, the President would be all set with less than five of those homes. However,
it would be very convenient for the CNE to add up the numbers right, because of
they get tangled up in the numbers and instead of including five Margabel-like homes,
they include fifty, they could make the President win with 100 million votes.

I don’t
like to write about international affairs, but the Chavez Government has somehow
gotten involved in the Middle East dispute unnecessarily
taking sides and using the term “Zionist” in a pejorative way which simply
shows the
ignorance of the members of the National Assembly as to what the terms
means.

Since I
suspect that Iran
is behind
this whole conflict, I guess I should not be surprised, somehow Chavez
finds some affinity with the Iranians, but I bet he had never met one before he
became President. He probably now believes that they are his blood brothers. But
they are not; they are religious zealots taking advantage of Chavez’s political
position. Very sad for Venezuela
to take sides and find the Israeli Government questioning not only the Assembly’s
statements, but Chavez’ own
words when he blamed the US
for being behind Israel.
Well, I am no expert on Middle East affairs, but I can assure you that Israel does not need the US telling it
what it should do.

As of the
conflict itself, I think that any civilized country rather than taking sides
would actually do the opposite, not take sides, and use its influence, if any,
to try to help achieve some peace, a cease fire, a break that would allow the
two sides to back down. That is what being civilized is about and Venezuela has a
long history of neutrality in these conflicts that should be respected..

And I do
feel bad for the Venezuelans who are of Jewish origin, who live here and love
this country but they now find their own Government taking sides in a battle
that is not their own and where no side should be taken. Moreover, it is a
Government they have always been very suspicious about in terns of their relations
with their own community. Venezuela
has large group of citizens of Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian and Jewish origin.
But somehow the Chavez administration takes sides largely with the Iranians,
probably the only group with no significant population in this country. But
even if they did, Chavez should show some respect for those who live here, take
no sides and ask for peace. But he is a man of war.

He would be
right at home in the Middle East

Given the outcry of the opposition over the Electoral Registry
in the last two years the former President of the Electoral Board always claimed that the registry
was pristine and that the opposition was just making noise. Then last year, the
CNE hired CAPEL to do an audit of the registry and we were told that the registry
was fine and that, once again, the opposition was making much ado about nothing.

Nevertheless the CNE refused to hand over the complete registry
with addresses to political parties because this would “violate the privacy of
the citizens” in a country where the tax office rqeuires that you give your address for purchases. In the past the registry, with addresses was turned over to the
political parties for revision and it was clearly given to the Chavistas since
the Chavez/Tascon/Maisanta database contains the addresses of all those registered
to vote as well as their voting record.

Recently, someone actually leaked the complete Electoral
Registry for all but one state (Amazonas) to the Social Christian party COPEI. The
findings are just incredible:

1)      Between
January 2004 and May 2004, two million new voters were registered. Of these,
1.7 million do not have addresses.

2)      2.1
million voters in the registry have the same address: Quinta Margabel in the El
Llanito area of Caracas, Miranda State.
This is a small house whose owner is dead. Now, what is interesting is that
these voters are found to vote in many states from Nueva Esparta (Margarita Island)
to Tachira in the border with Colombia.

      3)      4
million voters have as an address the cryptic entry: D.L. 345 P.N.I. 

This means that more than 8 million voters are illegally registered
to vote. You see, Art. 100 of the suffrage law states that voters are obligated
to provide the address of their residence and if you change residences you have
45 days to provide your new data. Not doing is penalized by law. 

The reason for this is obvious. If you do not provide your address
you could register to vote anywhere and political parties could manipulate groups
to change the outcome of elections that are very tight, particularly in
regional contests where the outcome may be determined by just a few hundred
votes. Thus, you are supposed to provide your address and you have to vote in
the same electoral circuit where you reside.

In any other country this revelation by COPEI authorities,
which included the accusation that the registry was manipulated at an office in
a separate building from the CNE, would have been a scandal, elections would be
postponed until the registry could be fixed and those responsible would be
fired. 

But in revolutionary Venezuela the response is the usual:
The Electoral authorities respond by saying that the alternate building is part
of the CNE, but say absolutely nothing about the other charges.

And some fools still think this is a democracy!

You have to wonder what goes through the minds of some of the revolutionaries
that are within and around the Chavez administration. These are nationalistic
and militaristic ideologues that for the last few decades have been yelling and
screaming about the defense of the country’s sovereignty. In fact, sovereignty
played a very significant role in Chavez’ presidential campaign in 1998, where
he would accuse the Caldera Government of being a threat to the fatherland, of
not having the best interest of the country and its citizens in mind and
allowing other countries to intrude in its “national sovereignty”.

The problem is that sovereignty is
invoked in a lackadaisical and inconsistent way by the same people who used to
find a threat of the country’s sovereignty at every step. In fact, they still
do, if it helps in prosecuting or discrediting their enemies such as in the
Sumate case. going as far as calling primary elections a “conspiracy”.

But then this same people allow
Chavez to throw money around the world at will, without even consulting the
National Assembly, giving oil to countries richer than Venezuela, offering
money for projects that have little benefit for Venezuela, buying bankrupt
companies in other countries, subsiding the issuing of debt of other nations
and spending billions of dollars in the name of sovereignty, while poverty,
crime, malnutrition and bad healthcare are part of the everyday life of most
Venezuelans.

But what left me absolutely
livid was to hear that William Izarra, one the ideologues of Chavismo held
a ceremony to honor a man who led a Cuban mission into Venezuela,
on the 39^th. anniversary of their boat landing in the Machurucuto
coastal area of Miranda
State.
Indeed, in 1967, while Raul Leoni was a well liked and democratically elected
President of Venezuela, Fidel Castro was trying to undermine that same
democracy and sent a boat of Cuban soldiers to help subvert the country. One
Cuban officer was captured and was shot dead when he tried to escape. This is
the man that was honored by these despicable revolutionaries on June 27^th.

Now this man came to our country to
help kill Venezuelans and to help overthrow and undermine our established
democracy. Doesn’t it go against our sovereignty to go and honor him now? To
make it even worse, there was a
bleeping enactment of the invasion, which, to make matters worse, was
widely covered by official media!

Do these people have anything in
their brains? This immoral act does not bother them? What are the definitions
of sovereignty, homeland and fatherland in their deficient minds? Are they so
blind with ideology that they can’t even grasp the most basic concepts of
solidarity and charity with their countrymen first?

The problem is that these people as
so embedded and dazed in their ideology, that they simply have lost sight and
track of what the original motivation behind their ideology was. They have
become prisoners of their own doctrine. It has simply become ideology for
ideology’s sake. Those that share and identify themselves with their ideology
abroad are more important that Venezuelans that support the Government but are
not unconditional. Those that are useful abroad deserve more than Venezuelans
that are unconditional.

In the end whether it has been 7
plus years (like Chavez) or 48 years (like Castro) without the lot of the
population improving, is simply irrelevant for them. What is important is that
the ideology survive, that it be preserved, that it be immortalized and
idolized, whether in the image of and old man that begins to sound like a
buffoon, or by a an incompetent former military who is the host of a TV talk
show, but sounds like a preacher.

It is indeed very sad to see
Venezuelans, who claim to love their country, acting this way. It is quite
offensive to hear these people honoring those that came to subvert us and kill
us. Those that came to terrorize, hurt and rape the Venezuelan population. In
honoring these invaders and terrorists, these people are indeed incurring in
treason against their own country. All in the name of their ideology and their
empty revolution.

Hopefully when this nightmare is
over, whenever that may be, they will all be punished for it.

So
yesterday we saw fascist Deputy Luis Tascon outraged. Why? His Mickey Mouse
rights were revoked by the Homeland Security Department of the US, which
cancelled his visa, reportedly along with a couple of dozen other Deputies. Tascon
has been the only one to complain publicly so far, calling the measure a “provocation”.

Well, the
fascist Deputy will no longer be able to go to Orlando
or shopping in Miami.
Only a month ago he was seen on his way to Seattle to visit that XXth. Century
Capitalist company Microsoft as part of his duties in the committee that makes
decisions on the implementation of open software at all levels in Venezuela. I
guess no more trips to Redmond
either. The oysters and the salmon will be sorely be missed!

The Deputy
was kind enough to provide us with the specific
article of the Immigration and Naturalization Law which induced the
measure. It happens to be section 212 (a) (3) (B) which
says:

B) Terrorist activities-

(i) 3/ 4/ 4a/ IN
GENERAL.-Any alien who-

(I) has
engaged in a terrorist activity,

(II) a consular officer, the Attorney
General, or the Secretary of Homeland Security knows, or has reasonable ground
to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist
activity (as defined in clause (iv));

(III) has, under circumstances indicating
an intention to cause death or serious bodily harm, incited terrorist activity;

(IV) is
a representative (as defined in clause (v)) of–

(aa) a terrorist organization (as defined in clause (vi)); or

(bb) a political, social, or other group
that endorses or espouses terrorist activity;

(V) is a
member of a terrorist organization described in subclause (I) or (II) of clause
(vi);

(VI) is
a member of a terrorist organization described in clause (vi)(III), unless the
alien can demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that the alien did not
know, and should not reasonably have known, that the organization was a
terrorist organization;

(VII) endorses or espouses terrorist
activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support
a terrorist organization;

(VIII) has received military-type training
(as defined in section 2339D(c)(1) of title 18, United States Code) from or on
behalf of any organization that, at the time the training was received, was a
terrorist organization (as defined in clause (vi)); or

(IX) is the spouse or child of an alien who
is inadmissible under this subparagraph, if the activity causing the alien to
be found inadmissible occurred within the last 5 years, is inadmissible.

Unfortunately, they did not say which of the eleven sections was applied
to Tascon. In the past he has made some outrageous statements and he was
reportedly Chavez contact with the FARC in 1998-2000, before Chavez broke
visible contact with that group.

I guess
Tascon took offense to his visa being revoked calling the action a provocation, in contrast to many others who
have received the same treatment but stay quiet about it such as Tal Cual
Editor Teodoro Petkoff, Tascon’s Fellow Deputies in the Assembly and the “nuveau”
rich revolutionaries businessman, many of which, have also had their visas
revoked.

The Florida economy will miss him.

In another act of
financial irresponsibility and stupidity, the Venezuelan Minister of Finance announced
that Venezuela will issue a
bond with Argentina.
The two countries will issue a “b-national” bond with Argentina, which was confirmed today by
President Kirchner.

While all details are unknown,
the idea would be to issue a joint bond so that Argentina
can benefit of Venezuela’s
better financial strength to pay less. Some deal, no? These are the same guys
that scream sovereignty anytime the word Venezuela is said with an accent,
but then could care less about using the country’s funds to benefit others or
crime rising 200% since Chavez took over. Some sovereignty!.

The whole thing is in
the end a tremendous rip-off for Venezuelans. Argentina
will piggy back on Venezuela’s
better credit rating to pay less, which means Venezuela will pay more. Moreover,
at least part of the operation is likely to contain bonds sold in Venezuela
in Bolivars. The way this would work, would be for the Venezuelan Government to
place the bond locally in Bolivars, say US$ 1 billion, turn around buy US$ 1
billion from the Central Bank at the official rate of exchange and send it over
to Argentina for their financing needs. In this process, Venezuela has fewer reserves and will be
partially responsible for the bond if Argentina ever stops paying.

There have been rumors
that Venezuela
would offer some for of collateral or guarantee, but today the Minister denies
this will be the case and it will be a mixture of the two risks. The country
can not offer any collateral because that would violate clauses of other issues
outstanding that would have to receive the same treatment.

The Minister said
again that Venezuela
had made a profit buying Argentinean’s Boden during the last year. Such profits
only exist because the Government has access to the official arte of exchange
as I explained on Sunday. Meanwhile, Merentes also announced that
the country had bought US$ 25 million in Ecuadorian bonds and the Head of
Bandes said they would buy US$ 100 million in Itaipu Falls
bonds. The same bonds that Lula said could not be sold to Venezuela by Paraguay.

What makes all of
these operations even more mysterious is the fact that Argentina needs no more financing
to fulfill all of its obligations during 2006, according to most research from
international brokerage firms. So, what is the rush for Venezuela to subsidize Argentina instead of issuing its
own new debt at lower costs? Why do something that goes so clearly against the
national interest and the country’s finances?

A we say in Spanish:
“Think badly and you will be right!”

The
revolution can be truly amazing. None other than the Armed Forces University (UNEFA), gave
this week an Honorary Doctorate degree to Mikhail Kalashnikov for his
research in the area of weapons manufacturing and his contributions to the
defense of the sovereignty of Nations. To make the matter even more hilarious
supposedly Kalashnikov said that it was an honor to be part of “such a body of
well known scientists”. Well, he must known something we don’t, there are
hardly any scientists at UNEFA, let alone well known. Some General or other
even went as far as calling Kalashnikov a scientist, which goes to show that
these ignorants can be easily fooled. He is an inventor, not a scientist and
honoring him in the name of sovereignty and peace is in my own opinion
absolutely immoral and absurd.

Venezuelan
military officials seem to have trouble with certain concepts. Sovereignty is
not only the defense of our territory, but also the defense of what we have and
own and how we think. Where is sovereignty when Chavez gives away billions to other countries? When
ill prepared Cuban Doctors take the jobs of Venezuelan Doctors? (BTW check out
this, a former Minister of Health saying
4,000 Cuban Doctors have defected). Science is something they have yet to
understand as nutty scientific planners and theorists of science have taken over
science and the scientific bureaucracy in Venezuela.

Actually,
given the high consumption of hard liquor in Venezuela, mostly Scotch whisky, UNEFA
should have given the Honorary degree to Kalashnikov for inventing, owning and
selling his own brand of vodka,
another one of his “scientific” contributions.

I can
still remember some twenty years ago when a very humble 80 year old man came and visited Venezuela. Nobody
paid much attention, as he gave a couple of lectures, visited labs and friends
and was honored by the Venezuelan
Academy of Sciences. He was John
Bardeen two-time Physics Nobel Prize winner, the Government and UNEFA
ignored his visit, they could not recognize a true scientist if they saw one. They
still can’t!

—The Minister
of Justice called one day for the disarming of the population in order to
reduce the rampant wave of homicides which have almost tripled in the almost
eight years of the revolution. The next day, at a meeting with civilian groups,
where only the Heil Chavez! Were missing, Chavez called for giving the youth
group 15,000 Kalastchnikov rifles. Thus, it seems that they will get an
upgrade. BTW, these pseudo fascist meetings led by the tropical fuehrer himself
received little coverage by the press, but the spirit of Hitler, Franco, Peron
and Fidel was very much alive.

—The
Venezuelan Supreme Court rejected the consideration of the human rights case of
those assassinated on April 11 2002. against Government officials. The
argument? Individuals have no legal rights to defend themselves in front of the
Court system when it comes to “the sphere of collective or diffuse rights of a
society” such as human rights. Only the people’s ombudsman can assume that role
for them. Case closed. The Government controls the Ombudsman, thus, there are
no human rights directly but only “diffusively”. What a racket!

—The
Prosecutors office will investigate the origin of the wealth and properties of
former Justice Velasquez Alvaray. Amazing, for two years people had accused him
of accumulating wealth but nothing was done, now that he is in disgrace, the
investigation is opened without anyone even asking for it. Watch out those that
have accumulated similar wealth in the last seven plus years! You may be next
if you fall from grace.

—I will
talk about the “binational” bond later, but you have to hand it to Minister of
Finance Merentes who once again defended the purchase of Argentinean bonds by Venezuela
claiming the country has made a profit by selling them of US$ 200 million. This
profit only exists in the fertile mind of the Minister. Venezuela buys the
bonds let’s say at 77%, sells them to local banks in bolivars at 81%, but at the official rate of exchange,
these banks turn around sell them in New York for 77% in US dollars and bring
the money back at the parallel rate. These are the guys making the money; the
rest is just smoke and mirrors.

—And how
about the candidates from the opposition! One, Teodoro Petkoff blames Sumate
for assuming what nobody wants to assume and giving a deadline because they
just have not agreed on anything since they started talking about primaries in
mid-April. Another, Manuel Rosales, registers for a primary, but he has yet to
announce he is a candidate. Weird politicians we have been blessed with in Venezuela. Somehow
I get the feeling that I have many decades left in the opposition, even if we
can get rid of Chavez.

—And how
about Alek
Boyd getting word straight out of UNESCO that it ahs never certified or declared
officially Venezuela
as an illiteracy-free territory! So, we have a couple of Education Ministers
and Vice-Ministers who are simply liars, a President who was either told a lie
or collaborated with it, but the interesting question is whether they will
remove the banner with the claim that is outside the Education Ministry. (Or
was last time I looked!)

—And how
about the Electoral Board proposing that all Government workers can openly campaign
for Chavez and Chavez can openly use all of the resources of the state to
campaign! I love how they can just ignore the law olympically!

—O yeah,
I almost forgot a Government audit recognized the irregularities in the handling
of the cooperative Invepal, something I have covered regularly here. The money
is missing, as simple as that.

—Has
anyone told Chavez that Mercosur is more neoliberal than the Andean Community?
What will he do when the flood of Brazilian products come in?

—And how
about the Central Bank reporting it is the Government that generates the
largest amount of capital flight?

—And we
have a new Minister of Housing; the last one did as badly as the previous ones
in the last eight years and worse than all the Housing Ministers between 1990
and 1998.

—IB tells me that if you look at PDVSA’s website under business plan in English it says the company now is inyto “refinement”. I guess thye will turn out some fine people with that program. About time. Sloppy is, sloppy does…

—Italy won the World futbol Cup by
penalties, somehow a very unfitting ending to the whole thing. Time to change the rules!