The Devil's Excrement

So far, Hugo
Chavez’ campaign has been somewhat weird and inconsistent. First, it was the “statesman”
look, jetting around the world solving everyone’s problems. Then came the
campaign jingles, which sounded more like martial music than anything else. This
was followed by a new “mellower” Chavez, which two days later remembered the
weapons he wants to give to the people to defend the revolution. Since then,
Chavez has been mostly reactive, snapping back at Rosales’ accusations and announcements,
rather than setting his own agenda, like we had grown accustomed to. Even Chavez’s slogan “Bravo Pueblo” sounds like the name of an oppsostion party. And one that promotes abstention, to make it even worse. Whoever thought of that one should be fired. Immediately. But those in the camapign don’t read my blog.

Tonight,
it is a different Chavez that shows up, saying he feels the pain and aches, because the
image for Rosales’ debit card is “racist” because it is called “Mi Negra”. In that
same statement Chavez calls on the most repulsive, racist and divisive TV program, which is shown on state TV, called “La Hojilla”
which spews hate daily, to show these ads. I listen to this and have to wonder
what my cousin AM must thing of this. See, AM was always called “El Negro” in
our family. It was so linked to him that when my youngest brother was baptized
and AM was named his godfather, my little brother acquired the same nickname at
his Baptism. “El Negro” became his name and to this day many use it. Yes, neither of them was completely white, but who cared?

And I can’t
help but wonder what Chavez’ Minister of Education El “Negro” Isturiz thinks of
all this. Or how about legendary historic figure and heroe of our independence “Negro Primero”
, Paez’ second in command would think about this. And isn’t one of Chavez’ “misiones” called “Negra Hipolita”?
So what is the fuzz all about? Why is his “Negra” namesake mision ok, but Rosales Mi Negra card racist? Why does Chavez have an exclusive? Doesn’t Chavez
drink during his Alo Presidente the same “negrito” (small black coffee) I do, which he reportedly also drinks all day. What does he call it? Small black coffee? Yeah sure!

This is
simply Hugo Chavez the divisive figure, the rewriter of Venezuela’s
history, the man that wants to separate us into the “good” guys and the “bad”
guys. But good or bad is just a matter of whetehr you are with him or agaisnt him. This is the same man that wants to arm all Venezuelans.

But just
as I can’t understand what is going on, from the man that has always run
political campaigns with exquisite timing and execution, we get this mushy
stuff, the “new”, “improved”, “looking for love” Hugo Chavez in this ad that
appeared in most of the country’s newspapers today (This one from page B18 in El Nacional):

A pensive looking Hugo Chavez, looks towards infinity and
in the ad says:

Message of love for the people of My Venezuela

Always, I did everything for love

For love towards the tree, the river, I became a painter

For the love of knowledge, of studying, I left my dear
hometown, to study

For the love of sports, I became a baseball player

For the love of the homeland I became a soldier

For the love of the people, I made myself President, you
made me President

I have governed for these years for love

For love, we made Barrio Adentro

For love, Mision Robinso

For love, we made Mercal have done all for love

There is a lot more to do. I need more time.

I need your vote

Your vote for love.

By now you must be like me, saying :”For the love of God, please stop it! I can’t
stand it! Where did all this mush come from?”

Well, it turns out that all of the above is true, just add the
word “Chavez” or “of Chavez” everywhere after the word love and the puky ad becomes the truth.

It is all done for the love of Hugo.Nobody else.

(Please if anyone has any info on Chavez the painter, please drop me a note, I had not heard that one before. Will we now see the collected works of Hugo suddenly resurface?)

Venezuela continued acting rather undiplomatically,
for a country that is trying to get elected to the UN Security Council. After the incident
with Venezuela’s Ambassador
to Chile last week, which
forced his exit, the Chavez administration continued creating conflict around South America in the last three days and apparently there
are no plans to stop.

At the
center of this new friction is Venezuela’s
cozy relationship with Bolivia’s
Evo Morales. Former Minister of Housing
Julio Montes said
yesterday in Bolivia, where
he is now Venezuela’s
Ambassador, that our country was ready to defend “with its own blood” the
revolution led by Morales. Montes was quite clear and explicit when he said :”
If for any reason this pretty Bolivarian revolution were threatened and they
asked for our blood and our lives, we would be here” said the incompetent
Montes who was a complete failure in his previous position and was thus rewarded
for his lack of accomplishment with the Bolivian position.

Now, while
Montes may have been referring to defend the revolution from outside
interfernce, he was not explicit and the statement sounded like direct meddling
in that country’s internal affairs. In fact, the Bolivian opposition asked the
Government today to declare Montes not welcome in that country in the belief
that Montes was implying that if the recent political crisis (among a dozen of them)
with the miners killed in that country in any way threatened Morales’ stay in
power, Venezuela was ready to intervene there by sending soldiers or even
civilian citizens to defend the current Government.

Moreover,
at this time Evo Morales may have enough crises to deal with, to have Chavez say
tonight that he is sure that Morales will not declare the Venezuelan Ambassador
not welcome in that country. Chavez certainly overextended himself with tonight’s
defense of Morales and his revolution as well as the attacks on the Bolivian opposition,
calling them oligarchs as if he was dealing with local politics. This is clearly
interfeering with someone else’s internal affairs, no matter how close he may
be to Morales. In fact, he makes Morales look bad, by implying that he somehow
sets Evo’s agenda. Even worse, both Chavez and Foreign Minister Maduro, defended
what Montes said, saying that indeed Venezuelans back Morales’ revolution and should
be ready to bleed for it

All of
this may seem like a simple misunderstanding form afar, but the problem is the
background leading to all this. Chavez has not only been openly supporting
Morales, but hundreds of Venezuelan advisors are in that country. In fact, before a recent visit by Morales to Chile, it was Venezuelan security personnel that
checked the Foreign Ministry in Santiago
for bugs.

But
nothing has upset that neighborhood more than the recent mutual defense treaty
signed between the two countries. The
treaty calls for cooperation, mutual aid, donations and “credit lines”, but
everyone knows who has the money in this relationship. The treaty itself could
be thought of as innocuous and just a mutual desire to help, but there is much
more to it.

First of
all, it has been a tradition in South America
that military treaties are always multi-country and never bi-lateral, so as not
to raise suspicions of the pact being against a third country. Second, the
Venezuelan Government has already pledged US$ 49 million to build the first two
of as many as twenty military bases, mostly along the borders of Bolivia. And it
will be the Venezuelan military that will build these bases. Just as a reminder,
Bolivia is not only land locked
but it shares borders with Peru,
Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina
and Chile.
While Argentina is not a
problem, of the other four countries Venezuela was
counting on getting at least three votes for the UN Security Council, a vote
which takes place in two weeks.

Paraguayan’s
are not too happy now and a Chilean newspaper says that the local Paraguayan
press claims that Morales is getting ready to attack Paraguay. You see, that common
border between the two countries also shares ethnicity common to them and Morales has in the past talked about unifying it all.

Peru, according to the same article, considers the
cooperation between Venezuela
and Bolivia “atypical”, thinking it is an interference with the affairs of another country and
expressing its surprise that Bolivia
accepts that interference from Venezuela.

But the
whole affair is now threatening Chile’s
vote for Venezuela
for the Security Council, which President Bachelet clearly wants to cast, but Venezuelan
seems to be trying to scare away.

The
Chilean opposition, still reeling over the statements by the now departed
Venezuelan Ambassador, has
asked both the Minister of Foreign Relations and the Minister of Defense to
testify tomorrow in Congress about the Bolivian-Venezuelan treaty. Chile considers that this treaty is simply a way
for Chavez to export his revolution and belives that this may threaten Chile’s new Government disposition to at least
discuss the possibility of opening a way to the sea for Bolivia.

Thus, Venezuela
continues to send mix signals and step on everyone’s toes. Today, the
Venezuelan Foreign Minister joined
the world’s condemnation of North Korea’s
nuclear test, after the Security Council unanimously had done it, clearly
siding with the majority on an issue that people thought Venezuela would back North Korea’s rights to join the
nuclear club. But at the same time, it failed
to back the unanimous decision to elect a South Korean to be the new
Secretary General of the UN, while calling for more democracy within that institution.

Most local
foreign relations analysts believe that between Chavez’ “devil” statements at
the UN in September and these new conflicts between countries that a month ago
were sure to vote for Venezuela,
have placed the country’s election to the Security Council in peril. Guatemala may not win, but a third alternative
may be found that would satisfy most countries more than electing a conflictive
Venezuela.
Fortunately for the opposition’s candidate, this is time away from the campaign
for the autocrat and he may in the end lose face by losing, while gaining
little locally by winning. In fact, were some of these countries publicly
withdraw their vote from Venezuela,
it would be a terrible loss for our current Government.

All in all
the typical random, incompetent and unprofessional behavior of those in charge of
our diplomacy. Led by the autocrat, they continue to make the country look bad,step
on everyone’s toes, while the world learns more and more about the intolerance,
undemocratic and disrespectful style of Chavez towards those that do not agree
with him.

Yesterday
during the rally, as Manuel Rosales was speaking, this guy got up on
top of this scaffolding right in front of the stage from which Rosales
was speaking as seeing above. Everyone thought the guy was drunk and the fear was he
woudl fall down. Some of the security people started climbing up the
scaffolding trying to talk to the guy into clmbing down without any
luck. After a while, Rosales noticed the guy was there and what was
going on and asked him:

“What do you want” shown the picture below

the guy replied: “I just want to talk to you”

Rosales said “Then come down and come over and talk to me”

The guy simply started climbing down as shown below

and
the security people took him to the stage, where he simply spoke into
the microphone, saying “This man is the next President of Venezuela” At
that point, he gave Rosales a big hug (see below), which made the security people
quite nervous and they just took him away.

Could you imagine the autocrat even paying attention, or briging someone like that near him? (Thanks Alek for the pictures from his side!)

“All of it’s Ph.D.’s have not harmed Venezuela as much as a single member of the military.”

Manuel Caballero in Elites and Elitism in today’s El Universal

Could not agree more!

That is not a machista question, but a valid question to ask about whether today’s Avalancha was or not biggers than Chavez’ Sept. 9th. rally.We have in fact done the preilimnary work on this, when we actually used Google Earth to measure how big Chavez’ rally was. In fact, the density in the back of Ave. Bolivar of the pictures shown in this post, was quite poor, but we will obviate that.


We could then argue whether Ave. Bolivar is or not wider than Ave. Libertador. This depends on what you are considering. Way at the front near where the stages of Chavze and Rosales were, both avenues are wider than the rest of the way. Above left and right I show this part of both Avenida Bolivar (Top left) and Avenida Libertador ( Top Right). It seems as if Ave. Libertador has the edge, but the differenec is not huge so we will call it even. (Or slight edge Libertador)

We can then move further away and they both narrow. Once again, it would seem as Avenida Bolivar (Above left) is a little narrower than Ave. Libertador, but it would be silly to even call it a big difference.

Where differences can be clearly observed is in the length of both rallies. Below, the first picture shows the length of Avenida Bolivar filled by Chavez’ Sept. 9th. rally. We are being generous as the pictures clearly show how thin the crowds were in what would be the right hand side of the picture below.

However, in the post below, I showed pictures of the density being thick all the way to the elevado in the Avenida Principal de Mariperez which corresponds, in the same scale of the pictures from Google Earth to the picture above to the one below:

Clearly, Rosales’ rally had more people than Chavez’, since we assume the Avenues have the same width but Rosales’ rally was longer.. However, in the pictures section, I have pictures (middle pictures four rows up from the bottom) which show density as far as las Acacias Ave.of La Florida, this would correspond to the picture below, which is substantially longer than the picture of Chavez’ rally (Similar pictures can be found here, that show density all the way up to Las Acacias). Once again, all these pictures are in the same scale in Google Earth for equivalent comparison.

Now, you have to understand that I would have been perfectly happy to have them be the same size for a number of reasons: First, Rosales does not yet have the following in Caracas he enjoys elsewhere. Two, the Government can throw much, much more money at these rallies than the oppsoition can (or has). Three, it is precisely in building the enthusiasm of the opposition that its chances for success lie. Given what today’s rally shows, something very interesting is certainly happening in that respect. Finally, there is still the problem of peer pressure in the barrios which makes it look bad if you go to an opposition rally. Well, it seems like lots of people lost that fear today.

In any case, in polling and political popularity it is the trend and the slope that matter and Rosales’ is certainly on the up an up, and you know who is sliding down fast, so if I were Chavez I would be worried.

In fact, I understand the Government is quite concerned. So concerned, that you can expect Chavz to announce a debit card much like “Mi Negra” in the next few days. The question is what will he call it? Mi Catira? My red card? Better red than dead?

What this would show is that it is is Rosales that is setting the agenda. It is Rosales who is in touch with the people. It is Rosales who is beginning to occupy the hearts and minds of the Venezuelan people.

More people are daring (Atrevete!) each day!

While I am
not thrilled with some of Rosales’ economic proposals, I can’t help but be
fully behind his candidacy, for the simple reason that Manuel Rosales’
principles and values are much, very much closer to mine than those of the
militaristic, autocratic, egotistical, intolerant and divisive man that has
been our President for the last eight years. In fact, have nothing in common
with the autocrat at all levels.

–To begin
with, Rosales is a family man. He not only has a family, but has a proven track
record that he really and truly cares about people the poor and those without resources. While our current President talks about
the kids on the streets, Manuel Rosales has adopted three of them so far, for a
total of ten kids, including just as a curiosity, triplets.

–Rosales
is running to be President of all Venezuelans, without the sectarism of the
current President and his party MVR. As Mayor of Maracaibo and Governor of
Zulia he has proven this is the case. He is a true democrat, respecting others
and talking to everyone. People have forgotten how well Governor Arias Cardenas
got along with Rosales, working as a team to make a difference in Zulia.

–Rosales
has handled his candidacy and unified the opposition with exquisite timing and
ability, managing to do what no leader of the opposition has done in years. You
don’t hear bickering and infighting and the people that I have contacted that
work with him, talk about openness and reachability (If this word exists)

–Rosales
has made fighting crime and security one of his main priorities, while the current
Government ignores the problem in the face of absolute failure to fight it.
Militaristic solutions to the crime problem don’t work as the last eight years
have shown.

–Rosales
is the only President in modern Venezuelan history to talk mainly about elementary
education as his main priority in the educational field. Yes, he has plans for
the other sectors but he seems to understand the problem better than many of
the educators that have gone through the Ministry of Education and have typically
emphasized or paid attention to higher education.

–Rosales
has promised to establish nutritional programs aimed at pregnant women and kids
under six and basic education kids by reestablishing and expanding the milk and
school lunch’s programs that this Government canned when he got to power.

–Rosales
has made contact and has on board the country’s best experts on social programs and
problems. He believes in knowledge and know how and not the trial and error and
intuition that has destroyed Venezuela
and its infrastructure in the last eight years.

–Rosales
has an ambitious US$ 40 billion program for infrastructure, housing and barrio
refurbishing, including electricity, water, sewage and water treatment. I have
not seen the details, but I imagine, he is reviving the program generated
informally by a bunch of planners and architects from Central University.

–Rosales
said he will revive and pass the pension system that was shelved by this
Government and had been approved in 1998 by Congress. This project creates
pension funds and makes retirement uniform in ages and requirements.

–From
what I have heard from Rosales he understands the need to create employment for
all and how the Government can not do it alone and needs to attract investment.

–Yes, I
do not like Mi Negra. I find it populist, hard to finance, cyclical and a
concern. Given the distortions in the economy, there will be a need for
devaluations in the next three years, no matter who wins. What happens then to
the amount given to people through Mi Negra? If they stay the same, it just
does not help. We have to tie up the politicians hands, eliminate the Bolivar.
Create a basket of hard currencies to back the circulation of the US$ in Venezuela. That way, Government’s
will have to hold spending if oil prices drop and the purchasing power of poor
people will never go down.

–It is
clear Rosales does not want to antagonize the military but he has clearly
stated that he will cut spending on new military equipment other than that
needed for internal security.

–Finally, as Governor Rosales has been effective, efficient and practical, a Governor appreciated and loved in his own state of Zulia.

That is
why tomorrow I will go to the Rosales “Avalancha”, we need to mobilize people
to get the autocrat out of power in December, restore democracy in Venezuela and
have a Government that cares for all Venezuelans.

Atrevete! Go tomorrow!

I have written three times about the La Paragua massacre by the Venezuelan military (1,2,3). The Government has tried to cover it up and has shown a remarkable insensitivity to the whole issue. These are people and people’s lives we are talking about. As usual, a few soldiers have been jailed, but none of the bosses. Am I to believe that the 26 kilos of gold were stolen by mere soldiers? And more people are missing than the Government claims, admits or says.

In contrast to the prisoner of Miraflores or the insensitive Minister of Defense Baduell, Manuel Rosales went to La Paragua to check things firsthand and vcrisis not only provided the picture above, but also a great story on it. Meanwhile Daniel gives us his historical analogy to Dukakis’ demise in the 1988 election when he remained aloof from events.

All of this happening, more deaths from abuses and all Chavez can do or say is hail the supposed alliance between the people and the military. Some alliance! But the people only see death and pillage as the military hiearchy becomes very rich indeed. Remember General Cruz Weffer? He was the one in charge of Plan Bolivar 2000, the first big corruption scandal of the Chavez Government. He has his own million dollar private jet now. He doesn’t even hide it. I can write about it, because he could not deny it.

These are the truths of the “pretty” robolution.

This article was distributed yeasterday by the people at Veneconomia, written by Toby Bottome. It speaks for itself, but I can’t help but point out the destructive character of this so called revolution, which can’t stand those that do things well, whose own incompetence and inefficiency leads them to be jealous of those that can do and who in the face of failure of their own cooperative program, prefer to destroy than to allow them to suceed at their own game. This is the reality of the robolution, no values, nothing to admire, full of hate and jealousy. What kind of legacy can be derived from this for future generations? Is this the “ideology” that Chavez wants to introduce into our educational system?

The cannibalism of the revolution by Veneconomy

The
quality of Venezuelan cacao goes back to before Colonial times. The varieties Maracaibo, Chuao and
Choroni are equal -if not superior- to the world’s most prized fine cacaos.
Today, the fine cacaos account for 5% of the world’s total cacao crops, and Venezuela has
excellent possibilities of its fine cacao capturing 50% of the total world
export market.

One would think that the Bolivarian government, which is
constantly trumpeting the importance for the economy of “banner products” and
endogenous production, would give support and incentives to the small cacao
producers who eke out a living in the eastern (Sucre and Delta), central
(Miranda and Aragua), and western (Barinas, Zulia and Tachira) regions of the country.

But, if the experience of some small producers in
Barlovento, Miranda state, is anything to go by, it seems as though the exact
opposite is true. These small producers are receiving absolutely no protection
from the law and have been left at the mercy of groups of vandals who have
damaged their property and crops and threatened them with violence while the
National Lands Institute (INTI) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands
remain totally indifferent.

What happened recently at Hacienda Agricola La Concepcion,
located between Panaquire and El Clavo (Miranda), is a case in point. This is a
privately owned farm with proven deeds of title going back to 1738 and it is
fully productive with 308.75 hectares given over to fine cacao and trees for
timber.

Agricola La Concepcion C.A., the owner of the farm, has
worked hard at developing an excellent cacao of the highest quality that has
won international recognition. This small company exports its entire production
to Europe Japan, and the United
States, where it has positioned Venezuelan
cacaos with chocolate houses such as Michel Cluizel and Scharffen Berger. It
also gives technical, financial, and marketing assistance to another 47
producers in the area and in Aragua state. Moreover, in the purest Bolivarian
spirit, Agricola La Concepcion supported some of its former workers in setting
up a cooperative (Cooperativa Emprendedores del Cacao 1902), which operates and
maintains production both at La Concepcion and the Cacao Processing Plant,
where all member producers in the area process their cacao.

On September 20 this year, the farm was invaded -with
violence- by a group calling itself a cooperative and with the support of the
INTI. As a result, nearly a hundred people were prevented from working, the
property was ransacked and wrecked, seeds destroyed, and the crop stolen. Now
this group poses a permanent threat to owners and workers alike, keeping them
in a state of anxiety, while the authorities have turned a deaf ear to the
complaints and requests for help filed by the farm’s administrators.

It seems that neither small producers nor those who, in
good faith, have tried to follow the guidelines of the cooperativism preached
by the Bolivarians are safe from cannibalism in this revolution.

I have
just finished reading the book “Venezuela Endeudada” (Venezuela in Debt)
by Jose Guerra just published by De la A a la Z Ediciones, a very timely and
well documented contribution to understanding the effects of the Devil’s
Excrement. Guerra was Chief Economist of
the Venezuelan Central Bank until 2005 and is a Professor of Economics at
Universidad Central de Venezuela. The book is subtitled “From Carlos Andres
Perez to Hugo Chavez

The book
draws parallels to the Presidency of Carlos Andres Perez (CAP) to that of Hugo
Chavez, exploring the contradictions and similarities between the two periods. The
book explores and shows the paradox that the country tends to go higher into
debt in periods of oil bonanza, as Governments do not only spend the windfall,
but actually spend more, making the economic cycles sharper when oil prices
drop. Thus, debt service conditions economic policy because of the weight it
represents in the budget. Guerra notes in particular how periods of high oil
prices in 1974 to 1978 and now from 1999 to 2005, have coincided with the
periods of highest deficit spending in the country’s recent history. In both
cases, the deficits were associated to the expansion of the Government in the
country’s economy, which required and is currently requiring huge expenditures.

Guerra
goes back to the 1920’s reminding us that Dictator Juan Vicente Gomez actually
paid the country’s external debt in 1930, thanks to the application of the hydrocarbon
bills of 1920 and 1922. From then until 1969, the country’s debt was basically
nil, with the Government spending only the income it received. It is not until
CAP’s “Gran Venezuela”
project that the country in the midst of extraordinary oil income, also
increased its debt from 9.2% of GDP in 1974 to 29% of GDP by 1978 when CAP’s Presidential
term ended. The next Government controlled interest rates, discouraging savings
in local currency, encouraging people to save abroad (sound familiar?). When
oil prices dropped, there was a deficit in the balance of payments and the currency
was devalued sharply for the first time in more than 20 years. As oil prices
dropped in the mid 80’s the Government acquired more debt as the only way of
sustaining spending.

In the 90’s
despite low oil prices, debt as a percentage of GDP actually went down, as the
Caldera Government reduced debt to only 18% of GDP from a high of 72.6%,
despite the lower oil prices.

Finally,
Guerra arrives at the Chavez era, showing that the first two years were
completely the opposite of the last sixand that the more things change the more they stay the same. The first two years spending went down
due to low oil prices; no new debt was issued internationally turning erroneously
to the internal market. The result of this were two years of recession, which
made the Government turn its policies 180 degrees, with the Government
developing a policy of increase and deficit spending while anchoring the
exchange rate, which led to the sharp devaluation of February of 2002.

Since then,
Guerra quantifies how the Government increased spending, going from 21% of GDP
to 27.4% in 2005, while total debt increased to 33.4 % of GDP, without considering
that of the Central Bank, which reached 10.3% of GDP (from essentially zero in
2000) in , which gives a total of 44.1% of GDP in 2005.

The
problem is that this is another severe distortion in the economy. Debt service
has increased sharply at a time of high oil prices. When and if prices drop,
debt service, already higher than social spending, will be difficult to be
covered, unless there is a devaluation that reduces internal debt, but impoverishes
the population. Add to it military spending, funding for the “reserves”, direct assistance
programs and the recipe for disaster has already been formulated. And Guerra gives us all of the quantitative details.

The book
also has a very nice introduction by economist Gustavo Garcia, who notes the
absence of “economic rationality” in Venezuela’s current finances. Add to this
the nice tables of statistics throughout the decades (and the book!) and I can
not but recommend this book to anyone interested in the dynamics of the country’s
debt and the strong support to the idea that oil is indeed “The Devil’s
Excrement