Teodoro Petkoff writes to the President telling him how he is violating the Constitution daily and he has become an autocrat in this militaristic charade called the Bolivarain Revolution.
Letter to the President by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual
In my condition as citizen
of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in full use of my political rights and
precisely because of the duties that they impose on me as a citizen, I address
you publicly to get to you some considerations about some recent acts of yours
in relations to the National Armed Forces.
You expressed on April 12th.
, in a speech at Fuerte Tiuna the following concepts: “The so called
institutionality of the Armed Forces was way of hiding and of assuming a
position opposed to that of the Government (…) All commanders of units are
obligated to repeat from their soul and raise the flag with the slogan
“Fatherland, socialism or death” without ambiguities (…) If someone feels
uncomfortable because of this, it is better that they process their discharge”
Those phrases happen to be
a grave violation to the Constitution of the Republic, which in its Article 328
establishes that the Armed Forces are “an essentially professional institution,
without political membership, organized by the State to guarantee its
independence as a Nation and insuring the integrity of the geographical space
via military defense, cooperation in maintaining internal order and active
participation in national development”. Similarly, Article 330, which gives the
military the right to vote, forbids them however, from “participating in acts
of propaganda, membership or political proselytism”
When you affirm that the
Armed Forces are a “roja, rojita” institution and when you ask its commanders
to voice slogans of political parties, you place yourself outside the
constitutional norm and, if this were not enough, you request that active
military do it too. The profession of the armed forces, exercised by its
members, is incompatible with the request that the institution assume the role
of a political party, because with it you would consecrate a contradiction of
an armed party in the midst of a system in which no political organization is
armed and least of all in the magnitude of an organization that handles
powerful war weapons. When you declare it “roja, rojita” you attribute to it
the color of the political party that you direct and when you ask that they
make their own a clearly political slogan, the property of the political party
MVR, you are demanding that they solidarize themselves politically with this
party, placing themselves in a position contrary to constitutional norms. The
armed forces are subordinated to the civilian political power and the
Constitution does not attribute them with the role of being the arbiter in the
Venezuelan political controversy.
What could arise from the
political project known as XXIst. Century Socialism pertains only to civil
society and it is not to the Armed Forces, which are called to decide on it.
You should remember that the only political compromise of the armed forces is
with democracy because precisely that is what is established in the
Constitution, when it defines the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela as a democracy.
In that same order of
ideas, it constitutes an unheard of and unacceptable transgression of
constitutional mandates as well as of the respect that the institution
deserves, to use military installations such a the Theatre of the Military
Academy or the Honor Patio to place slogans and hold events with the clear orientation
of a political party. In the same manner, it violates constitutional
regulations to use military vehicles to exhibit political slogans as happened
in the parade of June 24 2006 in the Carabobo Battlefield. The participation of
cadets from the Military
Academy in the political
meeting of the recent April 13th, in front of the Presidential
palace, is simply inexcusable.
There is no prior precedent
of such political manipulation of the students that the whole nations is
forming so that once they graduate they represent them, without distinctions of
gender, in the custody of national sovereignty.
It is also necessary that I
also mention, as contrary to the constitutional letter and spirit, the
designation of General Alberto Muller Rojas, who is the Chief of State of the
Commander of the Armed Forces, as a principal member and spokesman for the
advisory committee of the PSUV political party. In the already mention Art. 330
of the Constitution it is very clear and specific: active military officials
(the General is this once again, after 25 years of retirement) are not allowed
to participate in acts of “propaganda, membership or political proselytism”.
The public conduct of the General mentioned has been one of a political
militant, in open attitude of proselytism and political propaganda.
All of this accentuates the
militaristic features that characterize the regime, the climax of which was
achieved with the reform of the Organic Bill of the Armed Forces (Lofan) in
whose Art. 40the military grade of Commander n Chief was created for the
President of the Republic. To the constitutional condition, strictly political,
of the President as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, it is now added the
purely military condition of the President as Commander in Chief. The Armed
Forces an institution of the State, has derived, simultaneously, in an
institution of the Government.
In closing and with respect
to the institutionalism of the Armed Forces, it must be mentioned that if this
one was born literally as the praetorian guard of General Gomez, and later, in
some fashion, it was also that of General Perez Jimenez, it is also not less
true that after 1958 it began to assume an ever increasing national and
institutional role. It is true that there ere cases in which not a few number
of officers looked for “godfathers” in AD and COPEI, in order to obtain
particularly promotions, but the Armed Forces, as an institution, was never at
the service of any of those parties nor of any of its leaders. In fact, during
the four decades in which the Armed Forces settled with some institutional
criteria subordinated to civil power, without involving itself in the field of
political parties.
When you pretend to destroy
institutionalism, in truth what you are aspiring to is to make it obey again as
a praetorian guard, this time at your personal service, in clear negation of
constitutional postulates. Surely you have in mind to reform the Constitution
in these aspects, to consecrate the condition of political armed forces and
ideologically compromised with your project, but for now, the 1999 Constitution
is valid and you are fragrantly violating that which is one of its more
substantive norms for obvious reasons, that one which establishes with all
precision the attributions of military power and its relation with national
powers.
I write this letter, Mr.
President, to ask you if you are conscious of the position that you have
assumed in front of the Armed Forces and that it represents a definite and
systematic violation of the democratic and constitutional order.
Sincerely.
Teodoro PetkofF
The Devil's Excrement 
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