The Devil's Excrement

At a time that Venezuelans are clamoring for a referendum (which can be called by the National Assembly at any time). The week after the Vice-President (not the President, who refused to sign it, which was requested by the opposition)signed the declaration of principles with the OAS, which includes a dialogue to solve the political crisis of Venezuela, the National Assembly with the vote of only Chavez’ MVR party approved yesterday modifications to the Electoral Law. If approved by the President and the Cabinet, this will become the law. What is the problem?. Well, only that according to the Venezuelan Constitution, article 298, there can be no changes to the law between the day of an election and the previous six months. This means there can be no elections for the next six months. Will they also change in in six months and so on and so forth?

Curiously, only a year and a half ago, when he was still popular, Hugo Chavez refused to sign the so-called Declaration of Quebec, because he did not believe in “representative” democracy, but something more primitive called “participatory” democracy in which people have the right to have everything decided by referenda. How times change, no?

If you look today at Cuba’s daily Granma, the image of the opposition march used in the article of Chavez’ march has dissapeared. I am not quite sure why it still is in my story about it, I still have the right image even with the same size of justification. I have the old image of the full article saved, I just can’t figure out yet how to post it. I will.

(Note added an Oct. 21st: I added the picture to the section Granma Lies on the left, you can see the original story with the picture in it)

This is my translation of the Editorial two days ago by one of Lima’s leading newspapers:

The large demonstrations against President Hugo Chavez express the high level of popular discontent caused by his authoritarian ways and his poor economic performance.

It is a fact, that the so-called “Takeover of Caracas”, last Thursady the 10th. exceeded the expectations of the organizers: It is calculated that more than one million people went to protest agaisnt the Government, without resorting to violent excesses.

Now a work stoppage is announced if Chavez does not resign or hold anticipated elections at the same time that Chavez’ supporters participated in a demonstration to back the Government which was presided by the Head of State himself.

Perhaps the requests may be polemic and even extreme from the point of view of the principles of a democratic system. However, there is no doubt as to the legitimacy of the demonstrations organized by the Democratic Coordinator which groups almost all political parties, civil associations, unions and the private sector. Thus, they should serve as a wake up call to the Chavez Government to rectify and to reopen democratic spaces in Venezuela.

Venezuela faces a profound economic crisis,  together with high unemployment and high inflation indices which contribute to radicalize the social climate. To this inefficient management of the economy with a bias towards the state, one should add corruption charges against the highest levels of the Government, which only makes matters worse.

That is why it is urgent to promote dialogue mechanisms between the Government and the opposition before the situation gets out of hand. This requires that before anything else the President should set aside his defiant and anti-Democratic speech, who never doubts in threatening freedom of speech and the press and who polarizes the country and increases the instability in dangerous ways.

(Amen!!)

A friend, Cambridge graduate, fellow scientist and long time acquaintance of mine Jaime Requena has been very active in questioning the seminar that the International Human Rights Seminar is holding on Oct. 17 th. with Hugo Chavez as a speaker. I understand according to the Financial Times that they have had the decency of changing the name to Globalization and Poverty. (I imagine Mr. Chavez will talk about how to create poverty, he has a lot of expertise in this field, having created close to 2 million new poor people in his brief stint as President)

In any case. Dr. Requena has been kind enought to give me copies of his correspondence  with Oxford University and IHRS which I will compile in a new section called the “Requena Files” on the left. Enjoy!!

(If Oxford University can’t even get their IP’s straight, you wonder if they even know where Venezuela is, let alone the sterling record of Hugo Chavez in violating Civil Rights, the Constitution and Human Rights)

The power of the web

The web has some incredible features as yet not fully realized. Last Friday Caracas’ newspaper Tal Cual published a picture of last Thursday’s opposition march:

Yesterday Cuba’s glorious Government newspaper Granma published the same picture accompanying a story of Hugo Chavez’ glorious “two million people” march  which took place three days later on Sunday:

 How about that, the net does not allow you to lie!!! You can lie but you can’t hide!!!

Thanks to my friend Guadalupe for the tip!!!

Via CNET I learn of this patent from IBM which somebody questioned and the company has now withdrawn its application:

“The present invention is an apparatus, system, and method for providing reservations for restroom use. In one embodiment, a passenger on an airplane may submit a reservation request to the system for restroom use. The reservation system determines when the request can be accommodated and notifies the passenger when a restroom becomes available. The system improves airline safety by minimizing the time passengers spent standing while an airplane is in flight”

After reading the patent I have to wonder not only what were the scientists who submitted it thinking, but what did the patent examiner find that he thought was original. Sounds like a Venezuelan butcher with software.

While I am sure President Carter has made contributions to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, I really don’t understand the role he has played in the Venezuelan crisis. Either he was naive and believed what our President told him or the Carter Center received a contribution from the Venezuelan Government that now stops them from speaking out. A few days ago I translated and posted a very good article with the promises made by Hugo Chavez to Jimmy Carter. venezuelans are still waiting to hear from the Carter Center on these issues.

The Carter Center published a denial about receiving a contribution from the Venezuelan Government that was too carefully worded for my taste. It says:

“Son erróneos los reportes recientes aparecidos en Venezuela que indican que el Centro Carter habría recibido una donación de parte del Gobierno venezolano en relación con la invitación para ayudar a facilitar la reconciliación nacional y el diálogo. El Centro Carter no ha aceptado y no aceptaría fondos de parte del Gobierno venezolano en relación con este esfuerzo”

Translated:

“The reports that recently appeared in Venezuela which indicate that the Carter Center received a donation from the Venezuelan Government related to the invitation to help facilitate the dialogue and national reconciliation are erroneus. The Carter Center has not accepted and will not accept funds from the Venezuelan Government related to these efforts”

Note how carefully it is stated TWICE using the word “related”  when it says “related to the invitation” or “related to that effort”, clearly defining that there is no donation in relation to the visit.  My reading is that the Center did receive a donation unrelated to the visit to mediate between the Government and the opposition, likely into some other project of the Carter Center. So far, the Carter Center has not issued a denial that it NEVER received a donation from the Hugo Chavez Government. Once the Chavez Government leaves, which will happen soon, we will know the complete truth. The shame will now taint not only Jimmy Carter’s  reputation, but also that of the Nobel Peace Prize. (Well, maybe its too late for that anyway, didn’t they give it to Arafat too?)

One of this year’s Nobel Prize winner in Physics Masatoshi Koshiba descibed how he was at the bottom of his class and said  that academic records are not necessarily a determining factor in setting the course of one’s life. While such statements sound romantic, as one of his former classmates says later in the article, Dr. Koshiba was extremely bright, so that his poor performance might have had more to do with attitudes than with the true value of grades. In my opinion, Dr. Koshiba is probably the exception rather than the rule. Moreover, I bet he did quite well in Graduate School or he would have never received the resources required to do the high quality research that led to the prize. I always remember a friend of mine who worked for a very famous physicist who told me that the scary thing was not that his adviser was brilliant, but that he also worked 18 hour days.

I continue to puzzle at the behavior of Human Rights Watch. On a day that the opposition organized a perfectly peaceful, legal and beautiful march. On a day when Chavez asked the Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff to allow him to establish a state of emergency to stop the march. On a day when there were six people injured and one killed by Government supporters due to the non-intervention of the National Guard, this is what Jose Maria Vivancos of HRW had to say to the New York Times:

“Our main concern really is not the demonstrations or civil disobedience,” said José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Latin America division of Human Rights Watch. “The problem are those members of the opposition who have no patience, no tolerance anymore for the government, and are looking for extra-constitutional ways to get rid of the government.”

Patience, tolerance? For three years the Constitution has been stepped on by Chavez and his supporters. Crimes against humanity were committed by Hugo Chavez in April. For the last three months arrests are made illegally and military officers have been tried and arrested illegally. Chavez has armed civilian groups and yesterday called (again!!) on his supporters to be ready to give their blood to fight for “his” revolution. Where is the Constitution in those cases? Who will preside over any possible elections? Chavez’ Electoral Council? To impeach Chavez the Supreme Court has to allow it. Does HRW know how the current Supreme Court was elected? It did not even follow the Constitution!!!! Chavez and his Governmet violate the Constitution daily and we can do absolutely nothing about it. Did HRW listen to what Chavez’ Armed Forces Chief of Staff said?. He presented a litany of illegalities and violations of due process by Chavez and the Chiefs of Staff. He even charged Chavez with supporting guerrillas. Patience? Tolerance? We have to ask for Chavez’ resignation, he does not have the moral, ethics or rights to oversee his own Constitution. What HRW thinks is the problem is not the problem. It is the totalitarian mind of Hugo Chavez which is the problem. HRW shame on you again, for the second time in two days!!!

Absolutely awesome march today. Estimates range from one million in the Associated Press, to 1.2 million by a local expert, to 1 milion in Spain’s El Pais.The eigth Km. march was incredible. I began marching a little past 11 AM after arriving at the starting point at 10 AM. I reached the end of the march at 2:15 PM and one hour after when I came back there were people still marching. (I took some pictures which I dont know why I cant post them, but they are in my brother’s weblog). During the march the Head of the Chiefs Staff resigned his position accusing the President of violating the law and corruption. He also suggested Chavez supports guerrilla groups in Colombia. He also asked Chavez to resign.

The success of the march adds to Chavez’ problem, His Government has little credibility and to have over a million people march in a city of over four million is simply a sign of how bad his popularity is. For a man who only a year ago was saying that he would be President until 2021 and that he would bring participative democracy to Venezuela, this is a severe blow. Given the state of the economy and his low popularity, whether he leaves or not is a matter of when, not how. To top it all off, it was revealed today that Chavez asked the Cabinet and Chiefs of Staff to authorize him to implement a state of emergency to stop the march, but they both said no. More high ranking military are reportedly going to split from Chavez in the next few days. The Federation of Workers Union has called for a strike on October 21st. if President Chavez has not resigned by then.