The Devil's Excrement

Act 1) Eleven days before the August 7^th.
Regional elections, an injunction
was requested of the Supreme Court asking that the so
called “Twins” or “morochas” be banned. The Court
failed to grant the injunction before the elections and a few days ago, the
Court “rejected” the request on the basis that if there had been a
violation of rights, the damage would be “irreparable”. Remarkably,
two and half months had to go by for the Court to decide on the injunction.
According to Article 27^th. of the Venezuelan
Constitution, the request for an injunction based on the Constitutional
protection of your rights: “will be handled with preferential treatment
over any other matter”. Interestingly enough, the Court took that long to
only not grant the injunction, without ruling on the important matter: whether
the use of the “morochas” violates or not the Constitution, despite
its relevance for the upcoming elections for Deputies of the National Assembly.

Act 2) The Head of the CNE Jorge
Rodriguez states
(or threatens?) out of the blue, that if the “twins” or
“morochas” are banned by the Supreme Court, there will be no
elections in December. A number of things are interesting about this statement:


— First, this is the first time Rodriguez makes such an assertion despite the
fact that there have been roughly a dozen requests of injunctions on the matter
brought to the Venezuelan Supreme Court.

— Second, last spring and summer, Rodriguez admitted as Head of the CNE, the
registration of candidates of phantom political party UVE, used by Chavez’ MVR
to set up their “morochas” in the regional elections, before
that party had been even recognized, which only happened one week
before the regional elections were to take place. What would have happened if
that party had not been recognized? Would the elections have been cancelled of
the “illegal” candidates simply would not have been able to participate?

— Third, Rodriguez said in
an interview that he had no legal way of banning the morochas, despite the
fact that Article 293 of the Venezuelan Constitution says that the Electoral
Power has as its function: “to resolve the doubts and voids
that arise” Isn’t that extremely clear? It is the job to resolve precisely
on those issues like the morochas that violate the rights of people which are
supposed to be guaranteed proportional representation by the Constitution.

Act 3) Two days later the Venezuelan
Supreme Court admits
the request for an injunction against the morochas, curiously choosing
one of the many requested. Why
that one? Is it because with one elections will be delayed and not with the
other as suggested?
Did the Court give the CNE President advanced notice of admitting the case and
that is why he made the warning about canceling the election? How did the CNE
Director know that it would be precisely the AD case that would be admitted?

Act 4) Precisely the day after the
injunction is admitted, the CNE Director today says
that he is totally certain that the elections will take place on Dec. 4^th.
as established. Doesn’t this contradict his own earlier statement? Does he know
something we don’t know?
Why all this? Is the Court seriously considering stopping the
morochas, or is this simply a parody to make us believe there is still some
Justice in Venezuela?
Or are the Justices concerned that with the morochas Chavez will have too much
power as he will be able to modify the Constitution at will? How come the Head
of the CNE appears to have inside information? Why didn’t the Supreme Court
admit all injunctions requested since they all basically are requesting the same?
Couldn’t the CNE simply say that the parties that were registered as
“twins” or “morochas” will be taken as the same party and
the upcoming elections could proceed just as planned?

What do you think?

I don’t know Anamar Gonzalez. I just saw the following letter in
today’s Tal Cual and knew I had to ask her for her permission to
translate it and post it. It is written with humor and intelligence and
it reflects the incompetence of this Government. If it was difficult to
get a passport before, now it seems as if a virtual barrier has been
placed on the process. Oh yes, corruption reportedly has been
eliminated, but so has the possibility, briefly available to those that
opposed the Government in the recall referendum, of obtaining this
travel document.

Misión Passport by Anamar González

Starting eight days ago, my life has been turned upside down and all
because of my stubbornness
in requesting a passport through the new service of the Onidex. I-who would
wake up after six hours of refreshing sleep, would have breakfast, would go to
the gym and would start my work day- now wakes up at unusual hours of dawn and
come and sit in front of the computer, trying to catch that magic moment in
which the server will allow me to be one of the 6,000 elected for that day to
request the blasted document. I now drink one coffee after another, the bailoterapia
classes are now history, my clients demand their translations and –to add
insult to injury- I am about to suffer from tunnel carp syndrome due to the repetitive
task of pressing the left button on the mouse.

At last I
got in! I empty my data to “compose the Request Form” and I click on the “Save”
tab.

I forget
my religious skepticism and I entrust myself to Saint Christopher (The patron saint
of travelers), to Jizo-san (a Japanese deity that accompanies those that begin
long journeys) and to Ulysses (the mythical Greek hero of the Odyssey). The
dreaded message of error appears once again. Time continues to go by and a huge
ominous threat closes over my necessary visit to Spain, No, it is not a leisure
trip.

I am going to a Workshop about literary translation in
Tarazona and to look for new professional and work horizons. No, I am not
pretending to return to the land of my grandfather. I want to offer my services
as a translator to a number of Spanish publishing houses and continue working
from here, my country. No, I do not know discouragement, nor I give up. I do
not wish anyone to provide me with the name of the patron saint of lost causes.

I keep trying it and I remember four Government clerks comfortably laying in
their chairs, as well as the tour girls, uniformed with brown vests and red
berets, fighting the anti corruption battle, in the recently inaugurated office
of Onidex in Maracay, and I ask: Why in an office as modern and full of workers,
by all indications idle, can’t they process, let’ not say 6,000 daily requests,
but all of those that are presented? Meanwhile, in a box on the left side of
the screen, I see the image of the President and some words that I assume are
his: “The strength of a Nation resides in its identity”. I swear, I never have
felt so weak in my life!

A couple of days ago I reported how the National Assembly was
considering expropriating the Coca Cola plant because supposedly
Panamco had not paid fired workers what they were due. Today I learn
that the Court’s have actually resolved the issue. In fact, according to today’s Universal it was the Supreme Court, which in 2004 ruled that the workers’ demands were not warranted.

Then yesterday I reported
how a person democratically elected to the city council of the
municipality of Sucre in Caracas, was never reinstated to his elected
position despite the Supreme Court saying that he could not be removed.

Well, today I read
that the Supreme Court ruled that the Santa Rita farm had been taken
over illegally by the Government and had to be returned to its rightful
owners. But this does not seem to help them, as the Head of the Land
Institute (INTI) said on Saturday that the Court’s decision was simply
a technicality and that the people who had taken over the land were
doing productive activities and would be protected by INTI. He also
said that he did not discard that the cooperative working the land
would leave one day and return the next with new papers gving them th
rights over it. Well, it seems like they are going to have to remove
the word Supreme from the Court as nobody in this Government seems to
take it seriously or have any idea that Supreme means the highest
ranking authority in the land.

So much for the rule of law in the not so pretty revolution!

Last week
the Electoral Board’s (CNE) President Jorge Rodriguez gave a press conference
in which he came very close to accusing the opposition for the killing of the
CNE representative in Amazonas state. This man was taken from his Hotel at
gunpoint, driven in a car and then knifed to death. The whole thing was a
little bit too much, Rodriguez was calling for the military to begin the
operation that protects the electoral process, as this is the second CNE
representative killed this year. While Rodriguez was making the accusations,
saying that attacks of the Electoral power had to stop, the investigative
police (CICPC) was saying that this appeared to be a robbery by common
criminals. I decided not to write about it, thinking that Rodriguez was simply
shocked at the news.

Well this morning the
Prosecutor makes statements saying that this is indeed a robbery and not a
political crime and he can “responsibly say that up to this point the
investigations do not suggest such a motive but it is a common crime”. But
then he says that the investigative police have been removed from the
investigation because “some officers may have participated in the crime”.
I said: Waaaaaait. This was a “common” crime committed by officers of
the investigative police? Is this a common crime?

Just a couple of hours later, the Minister of the Interior and Justice who
happens to be the boss of the investigative police comes
out and says that it has been ruled out that it is a crime of passion and
it is either a political crime or it was done for economic reasons. He then
rambles about how the dead CNE officer imposed supervision which eliminated
“corruption” in electoral activities in that state and that once
“profits” disappeared from electoral activities, some groups tried to
“displace” him to “regain” control. He even says that they
tried to simulate a robbery to hide the true objective.

Hold it! Can someone explain to me how you make money within the electoral
process? This is not political? How is this a common crime? Why does the
Prosecutor, who is the one that is supposed to substantiate crimes, say it is a
common crime, while the Minister of Interior and Justice says the opposite just
hours later? What is going on within the Government? Why the charges and countercharges?
Is this public infighting?

It just
reminds of the Marx brothers movie when they asked:Who is on first?

Truly, who
is on first?

(Note added: Somebody noted that this is a line from the Stooges, I
guess I was thinking of Why a duck? Will leave it as posted, but
I stand corrected.

Correction to the correction: I guess I can’t shoot straight the
comment said that it was Abbot and Costello and I switched it once
again this time to the Stooges. I guess it was not from I love Lucy for
sure. Sorry guys)

Cesar
Millan was elected city councilor for the alliance between Chavez’ MVR and MAS
in 2000 for the Sucre municipality of Caracas.
Millan began denouncing irregularities and the Mayor (who just happens to be
the VP’s son) and the other pro-Chavze councilmen began having problems with
him.

In
September of 2001, the Comptroller removed him from office after the City
Council had suspended him in his function for being associated with a group
opposing the Mayor. But Millan believed in the law, knew that nobody could take
away what the electors had given him and went to the First Circuit Administrative
Court (Coincidentally the one in which Judge Perkins Rocha who wrote the article
below was part of). To ask for an injunction to be reinstated in his elected
position. The Court ruled in his favor.

Unfortunately,
the City Council of Sucre refuse to even acknowledge the injunction issued by
the Administrative Court.
So, Millan, ever the believer in the system, went to the Venezuelan Supreme
Court to ask for an injunction to be reinstated in his position. The Supreme
Court also ruled in his favor and asked the City Council to reinstate him. But .he
was not reinstated. The Courts decisions were simply ignored.

Millan continued his battle by going to the
Electoral Council and asking that the election for the Circuit that he had been
elected to for four years be suspended, since he had been unable to fill the
mandate of the voters. He presented his request in May, the elections took
place on August 7^th. and Millan has yet to hear from the CNE. This
is also a clear violation of the administrative procedures law that says any
public office that your request something from has to respond to you within
fifteen days.

But
who do
you go to in these cases? Decisions in this case seem to come directly
from the top, how else can the VP’s son manage to ignore decisions by
teh Supreme Court without anything happening to him? Of course,
Chavez’s supporters will likely use the common excuse these days to
justify the incompetence of the Government: I bet Chavez does not
know anything about this!

This is
what happens when independent powers disappear. This is what happens when
autocrats pull all of the strings of power in a country or a society. Is this democratic?

Wait until it affects you, no matter if you are pro or against Chavez!

I usually write posts in this section and just post pictures in my orchid
section, but this time there is a story to this beautiful picture, so check it out:

Bicha is a
pejorative term for an animal in Spanish, in this case female. For quite a while, Chavez referred to
his Bolivarian Constitution using that very term. It has been a while since we
have heard the term, as the “bicha” no longer serves the “process”very well. In the
following translation of a very good article by Perkins Rocha, former Justice
of the Administrative Court, which was simply eliminated by Chavez’ Supreme
Court with one swipe, I have left the term in Spanish, it just seems unfair to
attempt to translate it in any possible way. This
excellent article appeared in El Nacional Friday October 7^th. (By subscription
only)

Goodbye to
the bicha by Perkins Rocha Contreras

We still
find fresh in our minds all of those sublime adjectives that would place it
superlatively at the same level as the great books of humanity such as the Bible,
the Koran or the Quixote. “The greatest masterpiece written in the Spanish Language!”
The best constitutional text in the world!”

By the
way, now, retrospectively, I don’t understand why it was not compared to Marx’s
Das Capital or the Five philosophical pieces of Mao, whose pocket edition-but
in the red version, not the blue one-I imagine the leader  always keeps on
the left side of his suit waiting for just the precise moment to use it.

And
obviating its evident conceptual failures (a decentralized federalism, a
Constitutional Hall and not a Constitutional Court, a citizens power that is
neither autonomous nor independent, Government functions within the judiciary,
etc.), incongruences (a federal state without a Senate) and even the wrong
legislative technique (the annoying and unnecessary use of the feminine
gender), truth be told, we learned to love it thanks to the way in which it
approached institutions such as effective judicial guardianship, states of
exception, due process, the referendum, concurrent competences, the Federal
Council of Government and Constitutional protection, among others, all treated so
successfully, that it made us forget momentarily, the bad taste left by its
gestation.

The
transit from a programmatic text to one with real regulatory value of immediate
application, gave us after some time a little breath after the storm.

However,
the “War till death” (Guerra a muerte) has already been declared and the decree
that contains it was formalized at the event where the candidates for Deputies
of the officialdom were named. And I ask, what has happened to that same text
printed in the same shops of the Parnassus in
the image and similarity of the noble and exquisite spirit of our tropical Zeus?
Well, that the bicha became an uncomfortable animal. The bicha is biting the
conscience every night. She was politically written so that the leader would
return to his ashes after his first Government, with civil society
strengthened, but not to maintain him in power. It was written with the frame
of mind of being opposition, not of being Government.

And now it
has to be killed, because each time a farm is taken over by assault, without
being preceded by the public affectation contemplated in the law, the bicha
bites over there in that land that borders between the Me and the Super –Me,
that one that perturbs us at night and does not allow us to sleep. Because
besides not talking about the “social role” of property (in contrast with that
of 1961), the bicha of 1999 requires public utility and social interest, a firm
sentence and the payment of prior idemnization as presupposed and indispensable
facts to take over the assets, and he knows it, but because he believes that
all property has been stolen, then, according to his criteria-it comes form
some illegality that someone made at some time in the chain of titles, the animal
of 99 makes it inconvenient.

She
defends those that have the best title and the burden of proof is placed upon
those that pretend to take away the property, not the current owner or beneficiary.

He also
knows that the kids that accompany him, despite being leftists, ultra leftists,
stone throwers and perfect rabble rousers, were born and grew within a system
that with all of its imperfections, did not establish when, push came to shove,
bigger political differences that those of the white ones, the green ones and
the red ones, with all of the intermediate tonalities included. A world without
hierarchies and without no major homage if not for those like comrade, “compa”,
“broder” for the reformers and “camarada” for the most radicals.

That stuff
about saluting a guy dressed in olive green and asking for permission to speak
sounded in those times like fascism and unfortunately for him, that libertarian
and irreverent sensation is hard to lose. It is there right below the skin. And
when those comrades become Governors and Mayors, nothing stops them and their
heads begin to be filled with flapping of the greatness of a true revolution, romantic
and idealist and that is where the problem begins. But, because the bicha
protects them, since it establishes a federal system that even if imperfect, consecrates
direct and secret election for state Governor and Mayors, it is necessary to create
a monster that will return the power to the boss, a Unitarian state, communist,
which does not share power nor establishes common responsibilities.

The bicha
disrupts. The bicha took its own shape in the streets and in the leadership in the
barrios, in the universities and in the unions. The bicha with all of its ailments
is an instrument of the international democratic measure of his democratic
aptitude.

They have to kill it before it continues to grow, just in
case one day we might truly believe the tale that it is a beast at the service
of our rights.

Deputy Iris Varela, the so-called “Fosforito” DEputy of Chavez’ MVR,
announced on Thursday that the National Assembly may ask the Executive
branch to declare the Panamco-Coca-Cola plants in the country as
“public utility” and have the workers run them, if the company does not
give fired workers their rights.

The statement comes after she met with workers fired from the Coca-Cola
bottling plants in the 90’s who claim they have not received what they
were due. Curiously, the Venezuelan courts have failed to rule in favor
of these workers either on those rights that the Deputy is claiming to
defend. According to the Deputy, Coca Cola made all workers partners by
giving them shares in the company, but this was simple to exploit them.

Will Coca Cola sell them the secret coke syrup or will I simply have to start drinking Pepsi?

(Afterthought: Who is next McDonald’s or Microsoft?)

Long article in today’s El Nacional on what has happened with the land
distributed by the Chávez administration three years ago in the area south of Lake Maracaibo.
Verbatim translation of a couple of parts:

“Ernesto Baptista works as a laborer of the “Zamoran” project
located in the old La Conquista farm which was expropriated in 2001 to turn it
into the first expropriation project of the Government when the Head of the
Land Institute was General Wilfredo Silva. He says that currently the farm is paralyzed
and that there is no production of any kind in the first agricultural project
of the regime. -There is no planting of anything, why should I deny it. There
is no production of anything because the Executive left us alone, without projects
and without any money. Nobody here is working, because nobody ahs helped
us-“

“Even worse luck was that of the 450 hectares of the Angus Urdaneta
producer handed over by President Chavez himself on September 8th. 2001 to 40
families of the Caiman brook and Caricaiman, in the distant population of Encontrados.
All of the families have abandoned the lands given them due to the lack of
support and resources”

“The President of Fegalago pointed out that all of the agricultural
projects implemented by the Government in Zulia have been a failure. -The facts
demonstrate that the farms intervened by the Government began to suffer from a
decreasing production in all of its categories, something that has little to do
with what was going on when they were managed and administered by their
owners-“

“Martinez called on the President to come to the town of Santa Barbara and
the whole axis south of the lake…-It is possible that he is being deceived by
those interested in taking over and divide out among themselves Venezuelan
farms with the tale of agrarian socialism-“

Of course, after this roaring failure, the Government is now
threatening to take over this week three of the thirty productive farms
of the area.

Way to go!

It wasn’t that long ago that Hugo Chavez was blasting Venezuela’s telecom company
CANTV, majority owned by Verizon, for “not paying the workers “what the
Supreme Court had ordered in the case of workers asking to have their pensions
upgraded to current salaries and threatening to apply the
“acid and sword of the law” if the company failed to pay. Of course, the
Supreme Court has not even told CANTV how much it has to pay the workers, let
alone give them a schedule to pay. Moreover, CANTV will certainly appeal the
decision. Thus, Hugo was just grandstanding, playing for “his” gallery, pretending
to be the savior of the workers. Pretending to care so much for them…

Unless…

they are Government employees. In that case, watch out! He does not care! This
was proven yesterday when one of Chavez’ poster boy companies for “co-management”
between the workers and the ownership, state-run aluminum company Venalum,
appealed to the Supreme Court the decision by a Labor Court to make the
salaries of pensioned off workers equal to those that are currently holding the
positions. These workers were the same ones that helped block off the
President’s path when he went to Ciudad
Guayana a couple of weeks ago. This awoke Chavez’ ire
leading to his infamous statement that nobody should aspire to be rich.

Thus, in contrast with the CANTV case, in this case, it is the State that does
not want to help the workers, but you don’t hear Chavez talking about it or
threatening the company, or ordering the CEO to pay the workers, after all he
happens to be the boss of the CEO of Venalum. I guess if they work for the
state, they want to get rich, but if they work for the private sector, they
deserve what they are owed.

What a cynical double standard!