The Devil's Excrement

Alberto Barrera has
this absolutely brilliant article about militarism and the revolution,
which accompanies well the last post. I have the same problem as Alberto, for a
long time, even before Hugo Chavez I believed Venezuela should get rid of its
military, because they were an unnecessary and destabilizing force. Well,
somehow we have gone in the opposite direction the military run everything today
and they do not understand dissent or democracy. Now, Chavez seems ready to
turn the country and his political party into a single military and
militaristic unit. Adventures like that have always ended badly in Latin
American history and too much blood has been spilled. It´s hard to believe it
will be different this time.

The Spring of the Patriarch by Alberto Barrera in El Nacional

I never even did my
military service. One afternoon, in Barrio Las Brisas in Barquisimeto, some soldiers grabbed me,
pushed me inside a patrol car and detained me in a classical recruiting
operation. That afternoon, inside a patio at the Fort is the deepest I have
ever been to the army. In the demonstrations of those years, I was close, but
always for only a short time and on the opposite side. It is not a glorious
story: a raid, two hits with the back on the rifle on my left butt and a cadet
that let me go in exchange for hitting me with his helmet on the head. I
suspect now, however, that this ignorance about the military world, maybe has
barred me from better understanding what is happening in my country.

I have always had a
hard time understating what can be interesting, deep, fun or exciting to live
like a herd of men that sleep together, speak in shouts to each other, only
function on the basis of orders rather than agreements and on top of that,
dress the same way everyday. I have never been able to learn why obedience is a
value, an institutional dogma, a guideline for the exercise of human relations.
It is not easy either for me to value the military meritocracy. I am amazed at
such a static and definite structure. The experience of mobility that we have
in the civilian world-where we can vary roles, positions, status,
responsibilities, ideologies –. with relative ease-is probably unthinkable
with the Armed Forces.

Over there, to live,
more than a verb, seems to be a rank.

Maybe that is also
part of the sense of asphyxia that we have been feeling in the last few years.
The internal nature of the country, its mood, the culture, the values,
relationships have become more militarized. Now without any qualms, with
absolute transparency, it would seem as we are facing the reinvention of the
Latin-American caudillo. This is a new version, with oil and ultramediatic, of
the spring of the patriarch. Maybe we don’t know it and, nevertheless, the only
thing we are really inventing is XXIst. Century Militarism.

Or isn’t the unique
party promoted and managed from the State, a new military form of articulating
power? On what values do you create an organization that bumps off any
differences and only asks that you submit to the Commander? It is a marvelous
mirror of the project for a society that is being founded in the country.
Repression is no longer necessary. Censorship is not needed. To babble the
smallest dissent, to stay alive, it is necessary to ask for forgiveness. That
is the way the rest of the country seems to be going. We can all exist thanks
to the benevolence of the power.

Maybe it is the
unwritten law that begins to breathe underneath all of us. Allow me to be the
way I am. Can I be Chavista and belong to an independent chavistas coop? Can I
live in the country and watch cable TV? Can I not be Chavista and work at a
Ministry? Can my children study at a high school and not be subjected to
periodic intoxication of Trotsky and company? Can I have an ID card without
being a socialist? Can I stay in the country even if Simon Bolivar bores me?
Can I listen to Cesar Franck without being a traitor? Can I save in Guatemalan
quetzals? Can I say that the military world bores me and that the country’s
history is a bore? Maybe this is the new national protocol. A legal framework
is not needed. It is not necessary for it to have a presence on the
Constitution. Allow me to be the way I am. The military spirit is slowly
sequestering civilian life. A news item in the paper says that General Rafael
Eduardo Arreaza Castillo gave instructions pointing out that “subordinate
personnel should salute and respond to a superior and request permission to
leave saying “Patria, Socialismo o Muerte”. The press report, signed by
reporter Sofia Nederr in El Mundo, adds that they gave some concrete examples.
“Patria, socialismo o muerte, good morning my commander”. The
subtitle should have warned us: This is not a joke.

It already seems part
of the natural process that we live in. The delirium has become a daily
procedure. The armed forces are being turned into a political party, while
political parties subject their diversity and reorder themselves into a unique
organization of military character. Order us, my Commander.

Maybe many of you have seen the military order below which has been going around for a few days. Basically, it is an order to use “Patria, Socialismo o Muerte” every time an officer is saluted. I had not posted it because I doubted its authencity and did not know how general its use was. Well, on Thursday General Muller confirmed that this was now official policy. Muller’s arguments that this is fine “because in the past the military was policiticized anyway” simply does not wash, this is a political slogan, from a political party and by law, the military are not supposed to be involved in politics. This is simply illegal and a violation of the Constitution.This is just a step towards total control and is not much different from using the well remebered and infamous Heil! in thst certain place and time that you all know.

The saddest part is that the slogan is a poor copy of a Cuban one: “Patria, muerte, venceremos”. Except the autocrat’s grammar is not very good. The way it is used “Patria, Socialismo o Muerte”, makes it sound like a choice between the three words and obviously, given the choice, I and most people, would choose “Patria” every time.

Today, human rights organization Amnesty International
warned about the dangers to freedom of speech in Venezuela as the Government
threatens TV station RCTV with shutdown after announcing that it would not
renew its concession.

According to the human rights organization, this is the last
in a series of measures that have increasingly reduced the rights to freedom of
speech in Venezuela.
Others include aggression against reporters, threats to reporters, including
the murders of two of them in the last year and prosecution of reporters
together with legislative measures which are aimed at limiting freedom of
speech.

“ It is imperative that that Venezuela authorities protect
the right to freedom of speech, particularly in moments of political
polarization and that they send clear message of rejection to any attack to
reporters, opening investigations of these attacks” said Amnesty International
in their communiqué.

With this report, Amnesty International is taking a strong
position in the face of the arbitrary shutdown of broadcast station RCTV, which
is scheduled to take place in 18 days. Such a shutdown will deal a blow to the
rights of all Venezuelans, as well as the availability of channels for
Venezuelans citizens to provide criticism and complains about Government
actions, which have been closing down in the last few years under the
Government of President Hugo Chavez. 

An article that contains the term The Devils’ Excrement
already has something going for it in terms of being translated for my blog,
but today’s Editorial in Tal Cual easily is worth the effort, even without the
term as parts of it are truly priceless.

We do have it Editorial in Tal Cual

The President is right: if oil is the Devil’s
Excrement, ethanol must be the entire accumulated defecation of all of Hell.
Later Fidel was able to recognize the error on time, before the enemy had been
able to be incubated within our Fatherland and, to save us from the
misadventure-thank you Father Comrade!-he has already published six articles on
the subject in Granma. It so happens that it has not even been three months
since the Governments of Caracas and Havana signed an agreement to plant in the
country 276,000 hectares of sugar cane to provide the raw material for eleven
ethanol plants that both nations were planning to build, just when Venezuela is
suffering the calamity of food shortages. Only that curse that alcohol entails,
as pernicious as all of the alcohols that emanate from sugar cane, can explain
this phenomenon.

There is no sugar in Venezuela, despite the
fact that the revolutionary Government has invested thousands of dollars in the
reconstruction of the sugar processing plants such as Caaez and that the Cuban
brothers were always willing to send u “for free”, like the oil-tons of the
sweet product that sustains its economy. There is no meat, even when the
revolutionary Government has advanced at the pace of winners in its fight against
large farm states and has created as many cooperatives as were necessary to
help the food independence of the country and, as if this were not enough, they
have also imported thousands of cows from Argentina and Brazil so that the
freezers may be full of sirloin. There is no powdered milk, despite the fact
that the revolutionary Government invested US$ 15 million in refloating of
Argentinean milk concern Sancor and despite having invested a few hundred more
in the construction of milk plants south of Maracaibo Lake, with the
disinterested cooperation of our brothers from Iran. There are no black beans,
even though the revolutionary Government has bought thousands of pods from the comrades
from the Popular Republic of China (we should note here that even is some
empirical studies have demonstrated that the black beans are good raw material
for the production of gases, science has determined that those can not be
converted into a fuel like ethanol). There is no chicken, nor eggs, even if Brother
Lula sent a flock of carioca laying hens.

And the worst part of the shortage is that Yankee
imperialism has overflowed the internal market with imported garbage: you can
get Dutch cheeses at the supermarket but not white criollo cheese to grate,
there is scotch güisqui by the gallon, but no whole milk in a carton.

There is no doubt that the Bolivarian
revolution is facing the vilest conspiracy that it has had to face. That is
why, in order not please the right, the fascists, the Government ahs made its
own the saying that collective wisdom willed us: fellow corner store owner:
instead of telling the client don’t say “we don’t have it”, say “we do have it,
but we ran out of it”, as we say in Venezuela. Because the people are NEVER
wrong.

In nineteen days, the Chavez Government is likely to execute the shutdown of TV station RCTV, which has been broadcasting for more than 50 years in our cuntry. While some people cling to the hope that Chavez is so concerned about the international repercussions of the canceling of the concession that the Supreme Court will intervene, I just don’t buy it. This is another whim and another very calculated move in Chavez’ quest for total power and control of Venezuela.

The move is another step in silencing any form of opposition to the Chavez regime. While the Government TV station VTV has simply become the voice of Chavez’ party, whether the old MVR or the new PSUV, the Government has been using its resources to start up, buy or take over both TV and radio stations to push Chavez’ message across and brainwash Venezuelans day after day. On top of that, any time the President so orders, all TV and radio stations have to broadcast live any speech he gives, no matter how inconsequential. Sometimes these interventions can last hours; they are free to the Government in yet another way in which a very wealthy and powerful Government takes advantage of its position of strength.

As if this were not enough the Government regularly threatens reporters and the media, directly or indirectly, via its supporters, new muzzle laws or simply wit veiled threats that have made self-censorship the norm in Venezuela these days.

The most emblematic opposition reporters have been mysteriously fired from their places or work or even accused of terrorism as a way of neutralizing them. Most TV stations and newspapers have obeyed. One time “worst enemy” Venevision, today is even silent about what is going on at RCTV, opinion programs have been cancelled and their news report do not show anything that might antagonize the autocrat.

And RCTV is accused of opposing the Government in the tragic days of 2002, as if it was not Chavez that forced TV stations to carry his image and speech instead of showing what was happening outside, as people were being murdered on the streets.

But this proves that RCTV is being singled out not because of what it did in 2002, but because of what it has refused to do since then. All of the TV stations were against what Chávez was doing then, all of them opposed the activation of Plan Avila a military plan to control the civilian population which had already been ruled by international organizations not to comply with human rights principles and treaties.

But beyond freedom of the speech and the public’s right to know, is the way in which the Chavez Government has undertaken the shutdown of RCTV. It was a political decision taken by an autocratic Government, which legally does not have the power to make that decision. It accused RCTV of violations, which it never was accused of. Basically, the rule of law, the right to defend yourself and due process were simply bypassed to satisfy the desires and whims of Hugo Chavez, in yet another violation of the rights of those involved.

Some are happy because the shutdown of RCTV will wake up international opinion to what Hugo Chávez is all about and those foolish enough to believe that militaristic Hugo Chavez in some way represents a democratic alternative, may be awakened to a stern reality. But much like I said almost five years ago in my blog, Venezuelans cannot expect international leaders or opinions to solve our problems. We have to do it ourselves. At the time, I was referring to the upcoming visits of Jimmy Carter and OAS secretary General Cesar Gaviria.

Today, we cannot expect and should not expect international reaction to this violation of the basic and fundamental rights of our Constitution to do the job for us. If we do not stand up for our own rights, then we should not expect, nor should we deserve, that anyone else stands for them.

To that end, I will be regularly be blogging at the twin sites http://www.freerctv.com and http://www.rctvlibre.com below, where you should frequently look for news, events and the latest on this very important threat to our own present and future freedom.

Act now to defend your rights and stop censorhip!

Timidus se vocat
cautum, parcum sordidus (The coward calls himself cautious, the miser thrifty)
(Roman saying)

I have been dismayed by the reaction by the banking system
to President Chavez’ threat that he would nationalize the whole private
financial system if they did not obey a decree that he has not even published.
Dismayed, because it shows a basic fear to respond to Chavez’ threat, as if
like an ostrich with its head in a hole, replying t the autocrat in a nice way
would somehow protect them for the whims of the dictator. They are stupid or
foolish enough to believe that by not saying much, they will not suffer the
fate that clearly awaits the whole private financial sector in the medium term.
Even worse, with one very honorable exception, they not only remain silent in
the face of the threat, but also respond that they do not feel threatened and
they will collaborate in the growth and development of Venezuela, as
if there was not a very explicit threat to do away with them altogether.

Thus, they appear to have given up without a fight, they do
not defend their property, but even worse, they fear defending their
principles, which may be the reason why we are where we are today. The threat
to nationalize the banking system by a State which is incapable of running the
banks it currently owns, under incredibly favorable conditions for the banking
system, represents another crazy idea by the autocrat, who still believes that
his Government can actually run anything efficiently, when the opposite is
precisely the truth. Banco Industrial de Venezuela, Banco del Tesoro,
Banfoandes, Banco de la Mujer and Banco del Pueblo show why the Government
should stay out of banking altogether. These institutions credit portfolios are
amazingly enough smaller, percentage wise, than those of the private banking
system, but their bad loans clearly top those of the private system, their
profits lag and corruption rules and service is absolutely the pits. But in this
upside down world of the Chavez revolution, all of this represents an
opportunity to make things worse or destroy, which, is what the revolution
seems to love.

Venezuela
already lived partially through this during the financial crisis of the
mid-90’s. The Government took over some of the best banking franchises in the
country, many of which were shut down, and others simply deteriorated in time
but were fortunately sold to private investors. This was actually good for the
surviving banks, many of which grew fast during those years at the expense of
the Government banks. It was only when some of the Government banks were
privatized that more competition came into the system.

But competition has never applied to the state banking
sector. Despite having the advantage of being able to direct Government
deposits to their coffers, they have always been mired in corruption, cronyism
and incompetence. Seldom have Governments appointed anyone with real banking
experience to run these banks and in some cases, like Banco Industrial de
Venezuela, the Government has had to capitalize the bank at least twice that I
can recall, probably more and the financial indices are so shameful that
sometime months can go by without any financial statements from them being
published.

Thus, there is no rational reason to propose the
nationalization of the banking system, other than the goal of controlling and
obtaining even more power. In fact, the banking system has been nationalized
already in the sense that financial institutions are overtly dependant on the
State, with over five times their equity invested in Government paper that
could one day become worthless.

But when the “Banking Association” is incapable of fighting
for itself or their property, after four years of obscene profits. When they
are silent in the face of threats against their own living and beliefs, maybe
they deserve what is coming to them. If they do not believe in their own
institutions and activities sufficiently to defend them, fight for them and
tell the country the consequences of the Government taking the whole system
under its wings, then good riddance, maybe they don’t even deserve the
privilege of running or owning their institutions.

Perhaps that is the reason why we have reached the level of
absurdity and Government control we have reached in Venezuela, there are too many
cowards among us. Yes, I understand why there is fear, self-censorship and
silence in the face of a powerful autocrat and Government that not only
controls everything but also can squash you at will. But in the end, if there
were nobody left to stand, to speak out in defense of our rights, we will end
up not having rights at all anyway. 

Nothing says this autocratic Government in the end will not
squash us anyway, but at least we should be able to say we put up a fight with
dignity and honor, which is exactly what we are not seeing today. 

What a shame!

I know the revolution likes to take short cuts and use Photohop a lot, as we saw with the fake crowds and the logo of the Caracas municipality, but it is getting a little ridiculous as the logos of Chavez´new political party Partido Unico Socialista de Venezuela (below on your left) is a photoshop version of that of the Cuban Communist Party (below on your right). I know some of you are going to see some sort of ominous sign in this, I think is laziness.

President
Chávez is razing to the ground anything that seems to him to have the slightest
whiff of capitalism, free market or private enterprise. This Thursday, the
President’s nationalization maelstrom threatened Siderúrgica del Orinoco
(SIDOR) and the private banks if they fail to act in accordance with the
socialism (read communism) that, to satisfy a whim of the President, prevails
in Venezuela.

It could be that some still think that, in the 21st century, it will not be
possible for the government to make good these threats, particularly in the
case of the banks. But it is worth remembering that, unfortunately, the vast
majority of Chávez’ threats of yesterday are today faits accomplis.

A few years ago, for example, he said he was going after rural land. Today,
more than 1,500,000 hectares that formerly belonged to private farms and
ranches and were under full production have been confiscated or expropriated.
Now this land is in the hands of the government, most of it abandoned and not
producing anything. Back then, many continued to believe that nothing was
happening.

Then he went after private companies, such as Constructora Venezolana de
Válvulas and Venepal, both of which generated employment and investment. Today,
the co-managed Inveval and Invepal are being eaten away by politicization and
inexperience. At that time, most Venezuelans couldn’t have cared less about
these confiscations.

After that he went after PDVSA’s service contractors, who were forced to become
mixed enterprises with the State as the majority shareholder. And as though
that were not enough, the government mounted an attack on the crude upgraders
in the Orinoco Oil Belt, so scaring off foreign investment and condemning PDVSA
to becoming even more mired in inefficiency and corruption. Many Venezuelans
believe that this will not affect them.

The telephone company CANTV and the electricity company La Electricidad de
Caracas also fell into the clutches of the government. Once again, very few
were concerned over this turn of events and many, believing in the government’s
promise, expect to pay less for these services.

Chávez is also threatening to pass private clinics and schools and the food
marketing chain over to public ownership, and the sword of expropriation is
even hanging over a large number of housing units and plots of land in urban
areas, not to mention the media, which are faced with the choice of either
toeing the government’s line in matters of communication or run the risk of
having their concession confiscated, as is happening to RCTV.

The cherry on the cake of this disaster that is Venezuela today is the threat to
pass the private banks over to state ownership. When this happens, the fate of
the entire banking system will be the same as that of the state-owned banks,
such as Banco Industrial, Banco del Pueblo, Banco de la Mujer or Bandes, in
other words, inefficiency, unaccountability and lack of transparency.

The consequence of a barbarity of this magnitude is that the government will
take control of the savings of all Venezuelans to finance “social” projects of
any kind, on the one hand, and on the other, the banks will fast run out of
capital and the source of financing for productive investment will collapse.
But, what does that matter? After all, as far as the President is concerned,
obtaining a profit, which in turn makes the economic growth of the country
possible, is simply one of the sins of capitalism.

Today it was the turn for the banks and steel company Sidor
to be threatened and you know when Chávez threatens, he will do what he wants,
whether you comply or not. Remember the threats against CANTV? Chávez would
threaten that if the company did not pay the pension liabilities, he would
nationalize it. The company was never behind in the payments, paid every penny
the Court ordered, but… Chavez wanted to do it anyway. Now he is screwing the
company’s workers buying their shares from them at a half of what they paid and
the workers claim the Government is not paying them all that was owed now.

Steel company Sidor used to be protected because Argentinean
President Kirchner asked Chávez to protect his buddies from Techint, but
apparently the recent corruption scandal involving that company has changed the
rules of the game, as the Government of Argentina is now against current
management. Thus, Chavez’ threat seems now very real and he claimed he had
asked for a report and within 24 hours will know what the situation at Sidor
really is, as he is accusing the Argentinean owners of exporting all
production.

Clearly we now have steel, cement and banks in line as
Chavez thinks he is Daddy Warbucks and has funds to buyout the whole country. Private
property rights are slowly withering in the autocracy and no matter what are of
the private sector people are, they are finally worried. Wait for the new
Constitution and they will panick!

But he doesn’t. In fact, the Government continues to
misunderstand the implications of the withdrawal from the IMF for its debt.
Today the Government ratified that it would withdraw from the IMF because it
was sure “that bondholders would not exercise the default”. Well, last time I
checked, the funds that invest in Venezuelan debt are not into it out of
solidarity or altruism, but they are there to make a buck. And the can make a
few million bucks by asking for the Government to accelerate payment. You see,
there are three bonds issued by the Venezuelan Government (all under Chavez!)
which are under 100 in price and which 25% of the bondholders could call for
acceleration in payment. That would amount to US$ 4.5 billion, a nice piece of
change on a day that international reserves dropped to US$ 26.3 billion and
next week we should see another drop as the Government pays for CANTV and
Electricidad de Caracas to the tune of US$ 2.6 billion, some part of it will
come from Fonden, but reserves will take another hit.

The problem for the Government is that a technical default
will lead to a downgrade and to higher expenses if it tries to issue new bonds.
In any case, if it allows the technical default to occur, interest will also
drop in buying the country’s debt. Today one Wall St.bank held a conference very concerned about the situation and essentially telling investors to sell the country´s Sovereign debt. In the end this is all the result of
mismanagement as the Government has slowly been putting itself a corner with
its economic bad policies as noted here as far back as October.

What this means is that devaluation looms large at this
time, as the budget continues to expand. Just the salary increase decreed last
Tuesday would cost another US$ 3 billion to the Government, adding to the
growing 2007 deficit, despite high oil prices. Add a bit of nervousness to the
parallel market, increasing liquidity as the Government spends more than it has
and what you have is a recipe for disaster. It is just a matter of time.