The Devil's Excrement

The Inter American Commission on Human Rights sued
the Venezuelan Government for the first time in history for failing to meet
the recommendations made by that Commission as well as violating the fundamental
rights of reporters and workers with RCTV.

You see, that Court had warned the Venezuelan Government of
not attacking the reporters of RCT as well as asking for the prosecution of
anyone doing so.

This is a suit under international law, accusing the
Venezuelan Government of violating fundaments human rights of free speech.

Of course, Foreign
Minister and his
wife President of the National Assembly, called this Court a spokesman for
the opposition and claimed no rights are being violated, since they could not
recognize one if they saw it.

Teodoro Petkoff was talking
the other day about the fact that he knew actor Yanis Chimaras, who at one time was a member of Petkoff´s party Movimiento al Socislismo and who was killed
the other day in an apparent robbery. He was clearly quite offended by the
words of Minister of Interior and Justice Carreño, as shown in this Editorial
today.

Chimaras and Carreño by
Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

When you hear the
statements of Pedro Carreño, Minister, for now, of Interior and Justice, about
the beastly assassination of Yanis Chimaras, one can not but ask how long we
have to go before we touch the bottom of this ravine through which we have been
falling through in the last few years. Carreño said that it was suspicious the
coincided of this crime against Yanis and the one that took place a week
earlier against the leader of the motorcycle organization. Both, note Carreño,
were militants of the “process”, thus, always according to the sage Minister,
one could suspect that some sectors of the opposition could be behind both
murders.

This manipulation is pure
indecency.

As big as that of some of
the “reporters” of one of the TV channels of officialdom that
tried-unsuccessfully by the way- to get out of Lucy, Yanis’ wife, a statement
against RCTV. To use in such a crude, inhuman and clumsy way Yanis’ political
militancy, particularly in moments of so much sorrow for his family, colleagues
and friends, slating the case and insinuating, against all evidences, the
possibility of a political crime, which could be attributed generically to the
“opposition” (besides trying to use the unfortunate circumstance to attack
RCTV) happens to be a thru monstrosity, a total loss of the sense of
proportion.

From this tribune we want
to call to reflection the main actors of this outrageous behavior. The country
is sufficiently and unfortunately polarized so as to try to take advantage of
hurtful circumstances-in this case, the death of a dear and popular actor-which
generate unanimous reactions of affliction and solidarity among Venezuelans and
artificially accentuate with it, the political differences, powering hate among
fellow countrymen. We know well that in this matter nobody should throw the
first stone, but the responsibility of people in Government in trying to
prevent that we reach aberrant levels of dividing victims of tragedies between
“our dead” and “the others”, is much larger than that of any other sector

A Minister has no right to
speak the way in which Pedro Carreño did.

When a society reaches the
point of being indifferent in the face of these conducts it is because the
deaths of “the others”, specially the tragic an unexpected ones, have been
trivialized in such a way that they can be employed, with a shrug of the
shoulders, as a threatening weapon against those that think differently. The
political evolution of the country cannot be rules by the premise that in this
terrain “anything is valid”. Not everything can be valid, no matter how rough
that political controversy in itself may be. Even for war there are conditions
established by the Geneva Convention; not even in war everything is valid. In
politics, even with more reason, there are limits that should never breached
because of the danger that, as Mahatma Gandhi said, with an everyday policy of
an eye for an eye, one day we will all be blind.

Cesar Marin, Amnesty International’s representative in Venezuela said today at a local conference that there are 1,000 deaths everyday in the world caused by gunshots. Venezuela, with 0.3% of the population has 4.4% of these deaths. It is estimated that there are five times more handguns than the 1.5 million that are formally registered.

La Ley de la Selva…

You hear what you think are firecrackers in the barrio next door. You wife looks out the window. She says they are shots and the cops are coming. You go to the window and see the cops carrying the dead body out. Another senseless death. This guy is not even likely to be mentioned by the papers tomorrow. This is the daily reality whether you are known or not.

And this is one of
the articles from Latin American newspapers that irked the Lt. Colonel. El
Mercurio is Chile’s
premier newspaper and it was the subject of the same pressures and
self-censorship during the days of that other Dictator Augusto Pinochet, so they
know exactly what the mechanisms and strategies of these types of Governments
are.

Protests
in Venezuela in Chile’s El
Mercurio

Hugo
Chávez has left aside even the appearances of a democratic regime. In the same
days in which he has praetorized the Armed Forces, imposing on them the
slogan  “socialism or death”, and he
announces a mandatory program of Marxist indoctrination in all companies, he
gets ready to give freedom of expression another blow, when he confirms that he
will shut down Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) on May 27^th: he did
not renew the concession because he considers it a coupster media station. Each
night, his brigades cover the walls of the station with graffiti that says
things like “fascist station”. The police and the courts, controlled by Chavez,
do nothing.

The
shutdown of RCTV has been criticized by the Catholic Church and by voices and
international organizations (like the Secretary General of the OAS, Jose Miguel
Insulza, the Chilean Senate, SIP), as well as many members of the
telecommunications media. An injunction has also been presented in the
Interamerican Human Rights Court. But beyond its testimonial value, there is
little these protests can do against a Government that controls all the
institutions of the State and silences the media: the Venezuelan Minister of
Information has responded by denouncing a supposed “confabulation” by the group
of dailies of the Americas-including “El Mercurio” to initiate a campaign of
“lies” against the Chavista Government. In reality that group of papers has
acted invariably in the defense of human rights-to cite some examples, in April
1992, against censorship in Peru,
in November 1994, with respect to the “reform” in Mexico,
in June 1997, of “La Nacion” in Argentina
and will continue to do it.

Even
with all this, last Saturday, a small ray of hope was seen for basic liberties
in Venezuela,
when thousands of people took to the streets to protest the closing of RCTV.
Convoked by opposition leaders and the workers of the TV station the march
traveled across the center of the city. It is believed that tension will
increase as the date of the closing approaches. “If they shut down one, they
will shut them all down” said a protester. The Government declared an “alert” n
the face of possible plans of “radical” opposition groups that would look to
assassinate reporters to create a climate of violence and blame the Executive”
None of this happened but there seems to be in it a new threat to dissident
reporters. In any case, the Chavista warning to the media is explicit: if you
“don’t behave, you will enjoy the same fate as RCTV”.

According
to polls more than 80Y% of the population rejects this closing and the
Directors of the broadcasting station announce that, in one way or another,
they will continue working after May 28^th: “We will continue to
denounce Chavez. This is not going to die on May 27^th. Their fight
deserves the backing of all democrats in the Continent.

The Bolivarian Assembly of workers
of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research ,
the country’s most prestigious scientific institution, wrote the Communiqué below. This pathetic document
pretends to attack the integrity of some of the most distinguished scientists
by people who live off science but have no clue what it is or does for a
country. Once again, they attack one of the country’s most distinguished
researchers Claudio Mendoza who is called a traitor for is excellence in
research and his refusal to be quieted down by the hounds of the regime. This is clearly a censorship and intimidation brigade sent by the Government.

As if in synchrony with the
Minister of Communications, it is all made into a destabilizing conspiracy,
which supposedly has nothing to do with freedom of speech as if Dr. Mendoza
hasn’t been warned many times for going public. Moreover, it shows total
disrespect for many Venezuelan scientists that have distinguished careers and
who continue to work for the country. The accusations are ironically linked to
the shutdown and censorship of TV station RCTV, as simply being part of the
conspiracy that the opposition is preparing, as if free speech was not under
severe threat in Venezuela. In closing, they also manage to insult the
intelligence of foreign reporters calling them ignorant of what is going on in Venezuela.

This communiqué was so badly
written that there are some spots where it is basically impossible to fix the
writing without changing what was said in it, I did the best I could.

Thus, here you have it, the
Bolivarian union of workers of an institution of excellence, persecuting and
trying to shut down the same people that make that institution what it is,
simply because they dare say what they think and it goes against their
political ideas, if not fanaticism. I cant help but thinking that this letter
was prompted from above in what is clearly yet another campaign against the
basic human rights of a group of very distinguished Venezuelans.

Public Communiqué

The Bolivarian Assembly of Workers
of IVIC (ABTIVIC) publicly deplores the grave damage that has been caused to
the image of the Institute by the persistent campaign of lies and ambiguities
orchestrated in the printed media by Claudio Mendoza and political propaganda
groups invested in academic clothing. Like organized gangs, these irresponsible
people have elaborated a destabilization strategy using a discourse which
represents treason to the fatherland, making a scandal out of a domestic and
insignificant issue, which was the change in the Head of the Laboratory of
Computational Physics of this Institute; a transfer of responsibility that is
the exclusive and legitimate responsibility of the Board of Directors in use of
its attributions (For personnel of trust)

ABTIVIC recognizes behind the acts
mentioned the most decrepit ideals of the Fourth Republic, summoned to gestate
confusion in public opinion, restlessness and destruction of the fundamental
values that maintain our national institutions. With this regrettable advice, a
small group of activists come out in defense of the lies of Claudio Mendoza,
defaming and slandering individualities, sabotaging the organization of
scientific meetings of international character and destroying the little
credibility left in some national institutions such as the National Association
for the Advancement of Science (ASOVAC) and the Academy of Physical,
Mathematical and natural Sciences, driven to lose the reason for their
existence and reduced to roundtables for political discussion, condemning them
to disappear due to their loss of credibility. The members of these
“scientific” institutions are Dr. Carbonell, Dr. San Blas, Dr. Hilda Perez
among others, and all of the traditional members of the scientific community of
IVIC and of the Universities that oppose the end of their privileges and that
science once and forever finds the course of benefiting the country and not
small groups that they lead benefiting from the economic kindness of this
Government and persisting in their discourse that there are no possibilities to
do science in Venezuela.

ABTIVIC also publicly denounces,
that selling the image fabricated of a martyr Mendoza, these groups have
transgressed the imaginable limits of confusion, massively deceiving and at a
world scale, for which they have made improper and abusive use of scientific
journals. We energetically protest the Editor of Interciencia (one of the few
Venezuelan journals with ample world circulation), Dr. Miguel Laufer who
allowed himself the slip of publishing a yellow, superfluous and badly written
editorial, which relapses with stupidity and without foundation about the
fallacious statements by Mendoza about the use of nuclear energy in Venezuela,
accusing once again the authorities of IVIC of supposed violations of freedom
of speech. Dr. Laufer is a former Director of IVIC and we have evidenced how
the Institution through its authorities have backed him unconditionally, but
evidently neither him, nor his group have among their values the respect
towards the Institution that gave them everything.

On the bases of lies, this group
of agitators, abused of the ignorance of international reporters in relation to
the reality that the country is currently living, once again they publish an
Editorial and a news item in science journal Nature (London) where the grave
suggestions of Mendoza are treated as if it was a joke, which contrasts with
the national articles where he asserts that Venezuela wants to sneak into the
club of countries that have a nuclear bomb, together with Iran and Korea. It is
already customary for this stateless group of researchers to take this journal
to give negative information about the country.

That is why we denounce the
international relations of these people, with the actions deployed by the end
of the concession of RCTV and its non renewal on the part of the Executive, and
we insist that such a propaganda deployment is framed within a destabilizing
plan fro May 28^th. of this year.

Teodoro Petkoff writes to the President telling him how he is violating the Constitution daily and he has become an autocrat in this militaristic charade called the Bolivarain Revolution.

Letter to the President by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

In my condition as citizen
of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in full use of my political rights and
precisely because of the duties that they impose on me as a citizen, I address
you publicly to get to you some considerations about some recent acts of yours
in relations to the National Armed Forces.

You expressed on April 12^th.
, in a speech at Fuerte Tiuna the following concepts: “The so called
institutionality of the Armed Forces was way of hiding and of assuming a
position opposed to that of the Government (…) All commanders of units are
obligated to repeat from their soul and raise the flag with the slogan
“Fatherland, socialism or death” without ambiguities (…) If someone feels
uncomfortable because of this, it is better that they process their discharge”

Those phrases happen to be
a grave violation to the Constitution of the Republic, which in its Article 328
establishes that the Armed Forces are “an essentially professional institution,
without political membership, organized by the State to guarantee its
independence as a Nation and insuring the integrity of the geographical space
via military defense, cooperation in maintaining internal order and active
participation in national development”. Similarly, Article 330, which gives the
military the right to vote, forbids them however, from “participating in acts
of propaganda, membership or political proselytism” 

When you affirm that the
Armed Forces are a “roja, rojita” institution and when you ask its commanders
to voice slogans of political parties, you place yourself outside the
constitutional norm and, if this were not enough, you request that active
military do it too. The profession of the armed forces, exercised by its
members, is incompatible with the request that the institution assume the role
of a political party, because with it you would consecrate a contradiction of
an armed party in the midst of a system in which no political organization is
armed and least of all in the magnitude of an organization that handles
powerful war weapons. When you declare it “roja, rojita” you attribute to it
the color of the political party that you direct and when you ask that they
make their own a clearly political slogan, the property of the political party
MVR, you are demanding that they solidarize themselves politically with this
party, placing themselves in a position contrary to constitutional norms. The
armed forces are subordinated to the civilian political power and the
Constitution does not attribute them with the role of being the arbiter in the
Venezuelan political controversy.

What could arise from the
political project known as XXIst. Century Socialism pertains only to civil
society and it is not to the Armed Forces, which are called to decide on it.
You should remember that the only political compromise of the armed forces is
with democracy because precisely that is what is established in the
Constitution, when it defines the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela as a democracy.

In that same order of
ideas, it constitutes an unheard of and unacceptable transgression of
constitutional mandates as well as of the respect that the institution
deserves, to use military installations such a the Theatre of the Military
Academy or the Honor Patio to place slogans and hold events with the clear orientation
of a political party. In the same manner, it violates constitutional
regulations to use military vehicles to exhibit political slogans as happened
in the parade of June 24 2006 in the Carabobo Battlefield. The participation of
cadets from the Military
Academy in the political
meeting of the recent April 13^th, in front of the Presidential
palace, is simply inexcusable.

There is no prior precedent
of such political manipulation of the students that the whole nations is
forming so that once they graduate they represent them, without distinctions of
gender, in the custody of national sovereignty.

It is also necessary that I
also mention, as contrary to the constitutional letter and spirit, the
designation of General Alberto Muller Rojas, who is the Chief of State of the
Commander of the Armed Forces, as a principal member and spokesman for the
advisory committee of the PSUV political party. In the already mention Art. 330
of the Constitution it is very clear and specific: active military officials
(the General is this once again, after 25 years of retirement) are not allowed
to participate in acts of “propaganda, membership or political proselytism”.
The public conduct of the General mentioned has been one of a political
militant, in open attitude of proselytism and political propaganda.

All of this accentuates the
militaristic features that characterize the regime, the climax of which was
achieved with the reform of the Organic Bill of the Armed Forces (Lofan) in
whose Art. 40the military grade of Commander n Chief was created for the
President of the Republic. To the constitutional condition, strictly political,
of the President as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, it is now added the
purely military condition of the President as Commander in Chief. The Armed
Forces an institution of the State, has derived, simultaneously, in an
institution of the Government.

In closing and with respect
to the institutionalism of the Armed Forces, it must be mentioned that if this
one was born literally as the praetorian guard of General Gomez, and later, in
some fashion, it was also that of General Perez Jimenez, it is also not less
true that after 1958 it began to assume an ever increasing national and
institutional role. It is true that there ere cases in which not a few number
of officers looked for “godfathers” in AD and COPEI, in order to obtain
particularly promotions, but the Armed Forces, as an institution, was never at
the service of any of those parties nor of any of its leaders. In fact, during
the four decades in which the Armed Forces settled with some institutional
criteria subordinated to civil power, without involving itself in the field of
political parties.

When you pretend to destroy
institutionalism, in truth what you are aspiring to is to make it obey again as
a praetorian guard, this time at your personal service, in clear negation of
constitutional postulates. Surely you have in mind to reform the Constitution
in these aspects, to consecrate the condition of political armed forces and
ideologically compromised with your project, but for now, the 1999 Constitution
is valid and you are fragrantly violating that which is one of its more
substantive norms for obvious reasons, that one which establishes with all
precision the attributions of military power and its relation with national
powers.

I write this letter, Mr.
President, to ask you if you are conscious of the position that you have
assumed in front of the Armed Forces and that it represents a definite and
systematic violation of the democratic and constitutional order.

Sincerely.

Teodoro PetkofF

Even before I placed the picture of Gustavo Dudamel with the
Pope, I have been thinking about writing a post about Venezuelan Classical
music, not so much because of the recent success of people like Dudamel, but
more because that area has a level of institutionality that surpasses end even
survives above the current Government, which led me to conclude that in the
area of music, Venezuela is like a developed country. And I say this for a
number of reasons, no only because of the success of the Venezuelan musicians
and the structure of music in Venezuela, but also because unlike other
institutions, like the Modern Art Museum, Venezuelan Science and Conare, the
reforestation institute that seems to have disappeared under Hugo Chavez.
Gustavo Coronel wrote
about this recently but more about the individuals than the size of the
project, but I wanted to give some numbers so that people can get an
idea of the size and extent of the musical system in Venezuela.

The origin of it all, after a tradition of composers and
guitarists, economist Jose Antonio Abreu started what would become the National
System for Youth Orchestras. Abreu founded in 1975 the Simon Bolivar Symphony
Orchestra and the next year he founded the system. Beginning with funding from
the first Government of Carlos Andres Perez, funding that has never stopped on
the part of any Government, adding to it both international and private
funding, Abreu has built a remarkable system of orchestras. Today, Caracas alone has five
symphony orchestras, there are 300 orchestras associated to the system created
by Abteu, 143 teaching centers and a total of 673 groups that play under the
system. There are a total of 293,000 musicians who are pat of the system in all
states of the nation and 60% come from the lower social strata of the
population, demonstrating the penetration of Abreu’s work.

Everyone calls it the system, even if it has a more complex
name Foundation del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de Orquestas Juveniles e
Infantiles de Venezuela (FESNOJIV). This “system” encompasses four levels, the
infantile, pre-youth, youth and professional systems and even has its won
educational institution the Instituto Universatrio de Estudios Musicales.

While Dudamel is one clear example of the success of the
“system”, it may be that his precociousness is part of it; it always surprises
people how young he is and the level of international success he ahs achieved.
But there are others like Aquiles Machado, an opera tenor who has sung in the
Metropolitan Opera in New York and in Milan’s La Scala, Edicso Ruiz, who played bass for the
Berlin Philharmonic before he was 18, or Francisco Colmenares. a trumpet
player who won the Maurice Andre trumpet contest in Paris.

Thus, thanks to Jose Antonio Abreu, his vision and hard
work, Venezuela
counts today wth the infrastructure in music that it should be able to have in
every area of human endeavor given the resources it has enjoyed n the last few
decades, as well as the local talent available. Unfortunately, politics has
always interfered and is interfering today with all institutions, driving
people away from the country and from working for the Government.
Unfortunately, very few of those left have been left standing with any
integrity by the fake revolution.

Always something going on in the revolution, even when all
the leaders are busy in Margarita:

–Minister of Finance Cabezas held a press conference to
announce with great pride that Venezuela had cancelled all of its debts with
the World Bank.

Well, it was only US$ 53 million left, a meager 0.5% of what
the Government wants to obtain in new debt this year. World Bank debt is
actually quite good as it just does not go into a general pot but is earmarked
for specific projects. Just out of memory I recall some 5,000 day care centers
built in the mid 90’s with World Bank funds, the project to modernize the tax
authority SENIAT, a project fro better management of the National Parks, a
project to create the economic office of the old Congress (since canned) and a
project to reduce poverty.

–And there is so much freedom of speech in Venezuela that
the police and the Bolivarian Circles stop the showing of the movie “La Fiesta del Chivo” on April 9^th.
at the Universidad Nacional Experimental del Tachira and not one of the major
newspapers or broadcasting stations has the guts (I wanted to use a different
word) to report it.

Jeez, I wonder why they are bothered by a movie about an
autocratic Dictator, who develops a cult of his personality, creates a single
political party and destroys all semblance of institutionality in the Dominican
Republic? I really can’t see the parallel!

–Best phrase at the Margarita Energy Summit: That of the
Minister of Agriculture from Uruguay on Chavez’ proposal to create a regional
energetic union in Latin America “es una discussion boluda…estamos discutiendo
pavadas”, which loosely translated means “This is a stupid discussion…we are
discussing silly stuff”

I guess some of our regional neighbors are not as dumb as we
think sometimes. I hear Uruguay’ s Parliament’s will issue a condemnation of
the closing of TV station RCTV similar to that of the Chilean Senate. According
to the ever cynical Minister
of Communications, there is now an international media conspiracy against Venezuela
now on this issue. Using his perverse logic the fact that there was a
demonstration today against the arbitrary shutdown of RCTV, demonstrates there
is freedom of speech on Venezuela. Goebbels would have been proud of him combining a number of his
principles in such a compact form.

–And the latest bright idea by the revolution is price
control for the private health care system, clinics and hospitals.

I guess the more controls fail; the more they want to impose
them on all areas of the economy. I am not even quite sure why the
Superintendent of Taxes makes
announcements about this and talks about inflation he should work and speak
on tax matters.

–The Penal hall of the Venezuelan Supreme Court voided the
decision to let go the 29 prison workers accused of allowing former Governor
Lapi to escape from jail.

Funny how they voided the first decision and ignored the
obviously illegal second decision by the replacement judge…

–Today some sectors of the opposition took to the streets with a
march to the TV stations headquarters, to protest the promised shutdown of
RCTV.

Despite threats that it would be violent by the Minister of
Interior and Justice, who is charge of security and justice in the country,
people did turn out today and it was peaceful. It was not the best of dates as
Thursday was holiday and many people took the long vacation, which we call
“Puente” (Bridge) in Venezuela.

–And you can read everything about the collusion between Venevision and VTV here in Quico’s blog.

I don’t believe everyone has a price, but I am constantly surprised by how many people do.

Jeez, so much outrage on
the part of the Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro because terrorist Posada
Carriles was freed on
bail and will stand trial in the US in May while in freedom. Maduro
called this a disgrace and was absolute outraged about it.

I always wondered why it was the US did not send Posada to
Venezuela, where because of his age, he would not only be free while waiting to
be tried, but even if found guilty, would never be jailed, but would serve
house arrest for up to four years and then be free. Maduro could not be
outraged then, it happens to be the law! Of course, the concern has always been
that Posada, who was already tried once in Venezuela,
would be sent to Cuba
to stand trial.

I wonder what Maduro tells his Cuban, Iranian, Syrian and
even Russian counterparts when he talks to them about their terrorist
activities?

What cynics!