The Devil's Excrement

While Correa was talking about “coordinating” strategy with Venezuela, for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Colombia, Venezuela went ahead tonight and announced that the relations had been normalized and the embassies would be reopened, which left the President of Ecuador once again holding Chavez’ bag for about the third time this week. The truth is that the obvious winner was the President of the Dominican Republic Leonel Hernandez, who appeared to handle things quite elegantly, even if his influence was not decisive. Uribe also seemed to come out ahead, as he never backed down from his right to defeat the FARC into oblivion.

Meanwhile, as some naive members of the foreign press were suggesting this was a triumph for Chavez’s diplomatic abilities, some were not as simplistic, suggesting a number of possibilities for the sudden turn of events on Friday afternoon at the Group of Rio Summit. Clearly, the suggestion that Chavez defused the crisis seemd somewhat abusrd as he seemd to eb the only one that ignited it. Among the favorites being mentioned about Caracas:

—Uribe did indeed have more information that was revealed in public, showing Chavez’ and Correa’s involvement in the affair, including information on Minister Larrea’s close ties to the FARc that Correa did not know. An agreement was reched not to reveal the evidence.

—Fidel Castro intervened, telling Chavez a conflict with Colombia was a lose-lose proposition for him, diverting attention from his internal problems and creating the risk that in the end he would be the loser anyway, further driving down his popularity. (The surprise visi to Cuba is taken both as evidence in favor and against of this theory)

—Despites Chavez’ intention to raise nationalistic spirits with the crisis, polls indicate that this was not the case. At least two polls, one public, indicate 90% rejection levels for an armed conflict with Colombia, 70% rejection levels for the FARC, 70% rejection levels for closing the border with Colombia and one poll shows a 66% majority do not believe Chavez when he says the FARC holds no Venezuelan hostages.

—Chavez negotiated with Uribe via OAS General Secretary Insulza cooling the conflict off, as long as Uribe agreed not to take the case to the international Penal Court.

I still place my bets on the first option. Uribe seemed to sure of himself and his position, even as te discussions were quite heated and in the end all he did was apologize and suggest he would not do it again, but he held fast to the fact that Colombia has a right to resolve the conflicts how it sees fit within ts borders. And he is clearly doing it.

Chavez asked Marulanda to release Ingrid Betancourt, which he now needs in terms of credibility. However, the FARC are clearly on the run as so many of its leaders have been killed an their communications problems increase as they do not know if this is what is giving them away.

Meanwhile, Chavez’ PSUV party was holding elections today, using Government resources and few visible lines. Not even 10% of the supposed 5 million members of the party seemed to have participated.

Maybe they were still walking back from the border…

Anyone watching the proceedings this afternoon at the Group of Rio summit at the Dominican Republic had to wonder what changed the tone at a certain critical point during the afternoon.

It all started quite tense, Uribe began speaking and started making charges against Ecuador attempting to explain why it was that he did not warn that country’s Government of the raid on the FARC camp a mile within the Ecuadorian Government. He read from the same emails we have seen, but he also read from letters or emails we have yet to see. At one point, Uribe said that to those that say it was not possible for a computer to survive such an attack, that the Colombian Armed Forces had actually recovered not one, but four computers from the camp. Uribe made many charges, avoiding mentioning Venezuela most of the time and concentrating on the problems with Ecuador, past and present. Uribe said he was handing over a folder with all of the material to te President of Ecuador and showed a thick folder, which he said would be brought also to the Penal Court in The Hague.

The President of Ecuador Rafael Correa replied to Uribe and was quite forceful even asking Uribe to shut up at one point and calling him a liar. Correa said his hands were clean and that Uribe did not even have to call him, that a military contact should have been sufficient. Then each of the various Presidents from the region spoke, except the Foreign Minister of Brazil, since Lula was not present. When Hugo Chavez spoke I was expecting something fiery and forceful, instead we got a bunch of meandering anecdotes which had nothing to do with the conflict, spiked with historical tales like if he does regularly on his Sunday program Alo Presidente (He also sang a merengue). I could not believe it, here was the man that raised the bar and the tension in the conflict and he was not even addressing the issues.

(In the middle of all these guys speaking the, news carried two items almost in sequence: 1) That the Colombian Government had killed the number 5 man at the FARC, 2) That the same Minister that Uribe had criticized earlier as lying to Uribe and having contacts with the FARC, was announcing in Ecuador that Ingrid Betancourt was going to be released with 11 other hostages.)

As Chavez was talking he asked Correa if the rumor was true, Correa said this was not the case. Then Uribe made a point by point rebuttal of everything that had been said and supported statements made by the Presidents of Argentina and Chile. But his tone was much softer than before, he was using examples and history more than rebuttals. He was quite forceful in saying that he could care less about Ecuador’s definition of terrorism or its policies, but he would not accept that Correa refer to the FARC’s leader Marulanda as a hero or a friend. (I am doing this from memory, so the words may have been different)

Then, Uribe who had earlier said that he would apologize whenever he thought it was appropriate, got up and shook hands with Correa, Correa accepted the apology, Nicaragua reestablished relations with Colombia, Chavez said he never broke them formally and he only “moved a few soldiers to reinforce the usual ones at the border”. Immediately afterwards, Uribe said he would not take Chavez to the World Court and everybody was happy.

Well, sorry, I just don’t buy it. There had to be something more. The sharp tone disappeared suddenly as if by magic, everyone backed down. (while in Caracas the Minister of Finance was making the stupid claim that in one month Venezuela would replace all imports from Colombia, a laughable statement. Meanwhile, the new People’s Ombudsman was saying that Colombia should give the FARC political recognition, which Uribe was ratifying he would not do)

My theory? Easy, Uribe a master politician, had only leaked earlier some of the information gathered at the guerrilla camp and there was much more than they had released to the press two days ago. Either the additional material was being passed on to the various Governments as Uribe spoke, or it was handed over at that point to Correa and Chavez. Chavez was simply too timid, talking about peace, religion, God, even calling for a mass (how cynical can he be?). My further guess is that the Colombian Government uncovered financial information compromising both Ecuador and Venezuela. In fact, Uribe read at one point a letter from a FARC leader mentioning a specific amount of aid to the FARC from the Ecuadorian Government. Recall also that reportedly information gathered from the guerrilla camp was used by Interpol to capture a Russian arms leader that was on the run in Thailand, far from all this.

Thus, Ecuador and Venezuela blinked and it is all fine and dandy all of a sudden. I am sure we will hear more details slowly as in Latin America secrets are not meant to be kept. Meanwhile, Uribe in my mind scored a huge victory, deflating the crisis. It is my belief that Chavez wanted to inflate it for his own political purposes, but his attitude today showed to me that he was rebuked and he will have to wait for another chance to generate another artificial crisis.

And today a group of Argentinean reporters were detained and clashed with the Military Police as they deviated from the program and attempted to go and tape and interview protesters right outside the Miraflores Presidential Palace. According to the reports, the police got violent with them and actually blocked their path so that they could not get to the protesters. They also attempted to take away their equipment but were helped by other reporters. They were later detained and are being investigated. You can hear the sound from an interview with the reporter here, clipped from Argentinean TV.

Of course, Chavez denied this was true and even laughed at it, pointing to the “lie” in the Argentinean newspaper that published it this morning. Fortunately, the press is able to say things openly in Argentina, Venezuelans found out about this protest from the Argentinean report, as local news media regularly fail to report these events for fear of reprisal by the Government.

Chavez threatened tonight to nationalize all Colombian companies in Venezuela, “rescuing” some of them and shutting down the gas pipeline from the Perija peninsula. He also said he would start looking at alternatives for the imports that come from Colombia. He asked his Ministers to make a “list” of all the companies and put them on a map.

Let’s analyze the irrationality of it all:

—First and foremost, this is all over the Colombian Government murdering a terrorist member of guerrilla group FARC, which ahs been trying to overthrow the Colombian Government for decades. Moreover, the man was a murderer.

—Second, recall there is a judge in the UK deciding tonight whether to freeze or not PDVSA’s assets worldwide. ExxonMobil’s argument has been that PDVSA and the Venezuelan Government acted in bad faith. PDVSA’s lawyers argued that PDVSA and Venezuela had acted in good faith and intended to honor the debt, which they fix at their own preconceived value. How do you think this judge is going to react to a vague threat of nationalization of all private Colombian companies by the President of Venezuela?

—Third, a Government which can barely provide food for its inhabitants after controlling borders, foreign exchange, imports, exports, will now start looking for replacements for all those imports from Colombian as if the almost US$ 1 billion in auto parts that comes from Colombian was not associated at established business relationships. To begin with, most auto factories in Venezuela will shut down in three or four days. As simple as that.

—Fourth, while we really do not import as much food from Colombia, recall there are widespread shortages of foodstuffs already. This will not help.

—Five, these incompetent Ministers will now waste their time making an inventory and by the time they give it to Chavez he is likely to have forgotten about it, much like so many of his “live” improvised ideas over the last nine years.

—Six, the gas pipeline from Colombia is minor in terms of the country’s gas volume used (10%), but the city of Maracaibo depends on this. Cut it off and it will have to be replaced with expensive diesel or fuel oil.

Clearly, the main man is losing it and very fast. In the end he will hurt his constituents the most at a time that he can least afford it.
The whole thing is so nutty that I am starting to get optimistic…things will unravel very fast at this pace, as predicted.

And while you were all looking towards the Colombian border:

—The Venezuelan Central Bank proved it no longer has any independence by deciding to create a new methodology for measuring the CPI and eliminating the calculation of the old one. The immediate effect was for inflation to drop significantly under the new measure with the CPI coming at 2.2%, which nobody knows what it means. We are also told that even a newer version of the CPI will be released in April.

—President Chavez showed us his personal revisionist vision of Venezuelan history when he said that “there had never been massive vaccination campaigns before his Government”. This contrasts with numbers released by the Panamerican Health Organization which says that coverage in most vaccines has actually gone down during the revolution, with polio coverage going from 85% to 73% and tuberculosis from 91% to 85%. I guess they have a new way of measuring “coverage” under the revolution.

—Six buses were burned in protests by the workers of steel company Sidor in Bolivar State. The National Guard angered the workers and a battle between the two lasted for a couple of hours.

—At the University of the Andes the opposition coalition defeated the pro-Government coalition by almost a five to one margin, this means that the opposition group will hold 72% of the positions of the Student Union, with two females holding the top two positions at that organization.

—In the Maletagate case a second one of the men charged, Carlos Kauffman, changed his plea to guilty, while the Prosecutor in the case revealed that another one of the men accused, Franklin Duran, was taped talking to not only the Head of the Venezuelan Intelligence Police (DISIP), t additionally to the Vice-Minister of the Interior and Justice.

—Much the money dissipated by the Venezuelan Government in the last few weeks trying to lower the implicit swap market parallel rate appeared to have been mostly wasted when the Venezuela/Colombia conflict drove the rate up to levels near those of two weeks ago, before settling somewhat at the end of today.

(Left: Son take care of yourself at the border. Don’t worry mother I will write daily. Right: If you can send milk, chicken and egs…)

As the Military Chief of Staffs finally announces the beginning of the troop mobilization to protect the FARC in Venezuela, Petkoff blasts Chavez and his cronies for their irresponsible behavior. The border appears closed to commercial traffic such as trucks today, which in the end only hurts Venezuelans. By now, this is a proxy war of the “fourth generation” type by the US, which is using Colombia as a peon to attack Venezuela. Funny, Colombia went a mile into Ecuador, not Venezuela, it was that country’s sovereignty which was violated, not ours. The fear is, of course, that the FARC has camps in Venezuela and it is likely that both Ivan Marques and Marulanda are in Venezuela in these camps. After all, it was Chavez’ phone call that gave Reyes away. If the Colombia Government dared to come in and kill them, the FARC would be mortally wounded. That is the only “principle” Hugo Chavez and his cronies are defending: The survival of a bloody and inhumane group which has made life for Colombians a tragedy for decades.

Media Show by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

That the Chief of State of a country sing., dances, insults or threatens people on TV may be a source of laughter or censured, according to your pint of view, but it definitely is nor offensive nor transcendental. What had never happened and can not be backed is to declare whole nations in alert, troops are ordered mobilize and to practically place the country at the edge of war, via Chavez’ TV program “Alo, President”. This time, Chávez went too far. To make such a decision and start dancing “hip hop” in front of the cameras does nothing but demonstrate a supreme irresponsibility on the part of the person that governs us.

The former Minister of Defense Raul Baduel is right, when he points out that Chavez pretense when he to involve us in a matter which concerns us all directly and provokes the Colombian Government to react to the verbal attacks and the threats of war, is nothing but staging a media show.

The President pretends to turn the Colombian Government into the “enemy” because he desperately needs to appeal to nationalism to distract the attention of Venezuelan with respect to the true and urgent internal problems and he is trying to gather wills around him, as a figure of power.

But that formula, as Baduel said, will not work. First, because Chavez is no longer the messianic leader of other epochs who the masses followed blindly. Second. Because the idea that Colombia, the closest brother of our neighboring countries, can be a real threat and a potential aggressor has been discarded, after the Colombian Government ratified that it will stick to peaceful means and announced that it will not mobilize any troops.

This Messianic career to promote by force a conflict was joined by Foreign Minister Nicola Maduro, who from the national Assembly denounced that the operation staged on the weekend by Colombia against the FARC on Ecuadorian soil had been prepared to take place on Venezuelan soil in September 2007.

That’s same night the Minister of the Interior, Ramón Rodriguez Chacin, presented his buffoon like story of the laptop computer left by the assassins of Wilber Varela (a.k.a. as Jabon) next to his corpse, so that Venezuelan authorities could, one month later, denounce the drug connections of Colombian officers. Such a clownish act, can only be conceived in the head of Rodriguez Chacin, an official with “impeccable operational and military” credentials since the massacre of El Amparo and who in political matters is virtually functionally illiterate. Chávez meanwhile, watches from the gallery the show he staged and is keeping a prudent silence.

General Raul Baduel held a press conference today to criticize Chavez’ actions on th last few days and very quickly the Government, which up to know had kept some semblance of open respect for him, unleashed the main bull dog of the Government, Minister Rodriguez Chacin on him, who accused hi mof enriching himself, deceiving Chavez and having ties to the oligarchy and the Colombian Government.

Baduel sent a very clear message in his press conference, rejection Chavez’ involvement in the crisis between Colombian and Ecuador and calling the whole thing a “personalistic adventure by Hugo Chavez who needs to promote or use nationalism to distract Venezuelans from the true internal problems”. He called on the military to remain calm.

He calls Chavez’ order to mobilize the divisions towards the border “like a reality show, improper and with a microphone in front”. Baduel said that Chavez had violated the law in making that decision, which represented treason and a violation of the security of the Nation. He called the decision to kick out Colombian diplomatic personnel “irresponsible and without scruples”

He said that the two people (Colombia and Venezuela) were brothers and a diplomatic solution should be sought. He also criticized the Venezuean Government for replying to the accusations made on the basis of the captured documents, saying the Government should have waited before expressing opinions that should be reasoned and supported.

He called on Colombians and Venezuelans to remain calm and not to fall into Chavez’ perverse game

The Government’s response tonight was made by the hatchet man himself, Minister of Interior and Justice Rodriguez Chacin, who said that Baduel has links to Colombian military and oligarchs and that the former Minister of Defense (until last July) was negotiating how to get his wealth out of Venezuela. he said he had proofs of this, but did not show it, claiming it was all being investigated. Rodriguez Chacin called Baduel a revisionist who deceived them (for 18 years?) who only wanted to cover up the neoliberal system so he could one day have access to power.

So, the gloves are off now, Colombia with Chavez saying and showing documents to prove what up to now diplomacy did not allow them to and the Government and Baduel, former buddies charging and counter charging each other. In both fights, more material is certainly to come out that in the end is likely to make the Chavez administration look worse and show how it ahs been working outside legality and in the support of a terrorist organization.