The constant disregard for the law and the promotion of the revolution, whatever that may be, is beginning to take its toll in Venezuela. In many cases, while groups ask that the law be followed, the Government ignores it or forgets about it if in doing so, it will promote the revolution.
The problem is that these days, it is the Government that is in both sides of the conflict or the controversy and there is a significant breakdown in the established order which threatens to get out of hand as it did last week in Barcelona in Anzoategui State.
The conflict began when MMC, the company that assembles Mitsubishi cars in Venezuela, decided to terminate its outsourcing contract with a company called Induservis at the end of 2008. This was a legal and valid decision by MMC and why it did it should be of no concern or importance to anyone outside the company.
Except that as the rule of law has broken down, pro-Chávez unions have learned that they are on the side of strength and they decided that they would not accept the decision by MMC and would go beyond it: they began demanding that MMC directly hire all of the 135 Induservis workers.
The company obviously refused, as it just wanted to switch which company provided the maintenance services, not add to its payroll at a time when the auto industry in Venezuela faces a sharp drop in production and sales.
When it refused to hire them, then the union of workers of MMC backed the take over of the company’s installations by the 135 Induservis workers, holding regular MMC workers hostages inside the facility and threatening not to leave until the MMC hired them all.
MMC went to Court and asked for three separate injunctions, demanding that the authorities act and remove the workers who had taken over the company and the release of the workers who were inside.
A judge granted the injunction and when the Judge went to the MMC installations with the police of Anzoategui State the workers turned violent against the police and the owners of the plant and in the ensuing scuffle with the police, two of the workers were shot dead by the police.
Now, just as a refresher, Anzoategui State has been run by Chavismo for the last ten years and its current Governor Tarek William Saab is a staunch Chavista supporter, but it was his police that killed the workers.
Nothing has been resolved. the plant remains under the control of the workers who demand to be hired, the judge’s orders have not been implemented, fifty cops have been suspended and there seems to be no way to resolve the conflict.
Now all of the auto unions are threteneing with a strike, everyone is blaming the other side and no cars are being built. And has been the case in most of similar cases, nobody dares intervene to resolve it. Maybe they are trying to figure out first on which side of the conflict Hugo chavez stands, before acting.
Of course, today they are all celebrating how we got here during the last ten years.
The Devil's Excrement 
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