(We are with Chavez, you better eat the rotten food. Kid: I don’t want to)
When you think you have heard enough, the headline shows that the Dominican Republic sent back a Venezuelan ship with rotten food which Venezuela sent to Haiti as “humanitarian” aid. The ship arrived in Venezuela on June 6th. and has been sitting there with all of its 39 Tons of spoiled food.
Thus, this happened ten days ago and the Government knew about it, but has done nothing about it. Who was the “humanitarian” in Government that decided to do this gesture? Who organized this shipment? Who financed it? Who paid for the ship? Where did the food come from?
Those would be normal (and moral!) questions that in any country with checks and balances and the rule of law, the Government would be asking. This case has corruption, incompetence, misuse of funds and inhumanity all rolled into one. (And I suspect some discrimination too)
Instead we get total silence from Chavez on down. Where is the Comptroller? The Prosecutor? The People’s Defender? (Yes, Haitians should be protected from amoral Venezuelans). If Chavez were against corruption and felt for the people of Haiti and the people of Venezuela he should be calling for the jailing of whatever chain of command did this, whomever it may take down. Instead Chavez defends those responsible for 82,000 Tons of rotten food in Venezuela, calls it a “small” amount, with his total disregard for human life and dignity. And these people are ripping off Venezuela right and left.It’s all about corruption in the end.
Every time I think I have heard enough bizarre stories in Chavez-land, the incredible ability of the “robolution” surprises me once again.
It also shames me.
The Devil's Excrement 
May 23, 2011 at 4:53 am
[…] mer här (om maten till Haiti), här och här (alla på […]
December 3, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Hilarious. The fascists are ranting because the communists are failing at a humanitarian enterprise the fascists would have never attempted (and would have probably failed at if they had).
Venezuela is a nation of corrupt failures and has been since modern history. The wealthy have been so content sitting on this heap of refuse floating on a lake of oil as long as they could enjoy their obscenely over-sliced hunk of the pie in security and peace. ONLY now that the pie is being sliced divided, suddenly they notice the failure and corruption that has dominated the national psyche since anyone can remember.
It was OK before when the government constantly failed and their cronies made off with fortunes, because the masses would just take the brunt of it. Now that everyone gets to share in the failure, suddenly the rich notice that something is deeply wrong with Venezuela. Sadly, they don’t look at themselves… because they have such a great scapegoat to whack away at instead.
June 19, 2010 at 6:07 am
If this is true the PDVAL affair goes to a whole new level:
http://www.codigovenezuela.com/2010/06/analisis-de-damianprat-el-sorprendente-informe-de-pdval-a-chavez/
June 18, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Robert,
I spent some time in Cuba about 15 years ago. The economy sucks and nothing works, but it does have a certain charm. In many ways, it is a country and culture frozen in time since 1958. The Cubans are extremely friendly and outgoing. I liked it a lot.
At the time I was there, the general attitude of the people was that they were just waiting for Castro to die, so that they could rejoin the rest of the world. 15 years later, and they are still waiting.
There are two ways to visit Cuba. One is to stay in the large tourist hotels and resorts. However, this is the same as manufactured tourism any where in the world. The other one requires Spanish, a sense of adventure, and a healthy set of street smarts, but it is not expensive. You can stay in private houses “casas particulares” and eat in private restaurants in peoples houses called “paladars”. That way, you bypass the Cuban Government and avoid supporting the Castros. If you are truly interested, I am sure you can find guides and blogs on the internet that would tell you everything you need to know.
June 17, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Comida Podrida has a good rhyme to it.
There ought to be a song in that.
June 17, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Oh well. From what our friends tell me we can’t afford the gringo section of Cuba. But I still wonder if Bs are good in Cuba as they are otherwise worthless elsewhere. Cuba is hurting for dollars same as Hugo with the difference of Hugo’s hurt is self inflicted and Cuba’s pain is lightened thanks to him.
I think it’s back to Margarita. I used to know a Syrian shop that would change money in the back room. Maybe they are still in business.
June 17, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Robert: Whaaaattttt ?
Do not loose your money, go to Curazao, Aruba, Bahamas, Trinidad Tobago, Provably you can change your BsF, and see somethin good.
For Cuba, you have your nighmares free in your dreams at nigth.
June 17, 2010 at 2:54 pm
A little bit off topic. Does anyone know if I can spend bolivar fuertes in Cuba? Can you buy BF with US dollars in Cuba at a good rate or is it 4.3 or 5.whatever?
Wife and I are honestly thinking to go there to see the future of Venezuela. Seriously.
June 17, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Kepler: if your point is that Mugabe is still in power, then: also Fidel
June 17, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Something is rotten in the Republic of Venezuela.
And not just in these times. The rotten food for Haiti is not at all surprising, considering that they did worse by Venezuelans:
In mid-2000, a close relative of mine went shopping at IPSFA (the military’s discount mall at Los Proceres, operated by their “Instituto de Prevision Social”) and found, much to his surprise and anger that they were selling packages of food marked with something like “A gift from the people of Italy” (in Italian) and AmeriCares (from the U.S.A.) . Now, these packages had been intended for the relief of the homeless and hungry from the Vargas landslide (of which there were plenty to go round then).
Figure what this meant if our military offered it for sale at discount, and how they did it without trying to half-conceal it. In 2000. From that on, it’s been downhill.
June 17, 2010 at 10:51 am
I think Hugo’s fans are now a fraction of what they used to be here in Western Europe.
In any case: it really does not matter that much. Remember Mugabe.
June 17, 2010 at 9:25 am
My son just brought a Chavez Matroyashka doll(a wooden doll within a doll within a doll) back from Belarus.They are selling them everywhere in Minsk.
There is a Chavez within a Chavez within a Chavez and at the end, the core is a tiny Simon Bolivar.
Belarus is now a spiritual part of Hugolandia.Chavez is expanding his Empire.
A this point people are believing less in Venezuela, but foreign believers are taking up the slack….Journalists are very much responsible for this.
June 17, 2010 at 7:35 am
There are also surfacing every day more reports of tons of food (rice from Cuba) & expired medicines in warehouses.
It’s just amazing that there is not more of an uproar.
In any other country the government would resign.
Of course that’s laughable here in Wonderland.
June 17, 2010 at 7:07 am
There is an article in a Haitian newspaper:
http://www.lenouvelliste.com/article.php?PubID=1&ArticleID=80550
Their sources are Venezuelan newspapers…and it seems they know it from
the Dominican authorities, which were the ones getting the shipment first, I suppose as Haiti is still absolutely collapsed.
I just translate the 2 last sentences:
“it seems they (the food products) had been imported by Venezuela in 2009 but had never been distributed by PDVAL for unknown reasons.
The South American country, main oil exporting country in the region, is nevertheless largely an importer of food products.
June 17, 2010 at 6:13 am
OT, Miguel, look at this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8732857.stm
Just go to “calm down”
That detail is PRECIOUS.
June 17, 2010 at 6:12 am
The other day I talked to a Haitian here in NY and he said that the people in Haiti just love Chavez because of the humanitarian aid that Venezuela is sending to that country. I told him that they just don’t know Chavez, but then this is a country that has had its fill of dictators and quite used to the type of government that Venezuela is trying to turn into. When the common people in Haiti found out about the rotten food that was sent to them as aid, maybe they won’t love Chavez so much.
June 17, 2010 at 5:51 am
Miguel:
The reports talk about 50 to 60 containers, and 39 tons make for about 700 kg/container. That’s too low. Also, to move a cargo ship just for 39 tons has no sense.
Are you sure the 39 tons are not PER container?.
June 17, 2010 at 5:37 am
The timing of when this shipment must have left to Haiti and the discovery of the rotten food at the ports is just too perfect to be a coincident. Sounds like someone trying to hide evidence by shipping it out!
June 17, 2010 at 5:17 am
After the more than 3000 containers with rotten food came the medicines in Tachira (?), than the rotten aid for Haiti … and it goes on and on …
Carabobo 1.600 t of rotten rice
http://www.el-nacional.com/www/site/…to-en-Carabobo
School in Vargas rotten food for the kids
http://www.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/ca…t=56750&tipo=2
June 16, 2010 at 9:15 pm
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