The Devil's Excrement

Despite the reported elimination of the “notas en positivo” section from the MINCI web site, there is always
something interesting going on in the MINCI pages. I learned from this MINCI article that
there is a group of Venezuelans identified by the new term “Afrodescendientes”
(of African Descent) and that the government has designated May 10 as the day
of the “Afrovenezonalidad”.

In this piece of news, there is also a report on the recent
International Encounter of Afrodescendientes in Caracas
to which Minister Andres Izarra, the Cuban minister of Cultural affairs, Abel
Prieto, as well as the president of the National Assembly, Nicolas Maduro,
participated. Maduro reported on the occasion that it is possible that the
National Assembly would even pass an “anti-discrimination” law.

I was very surprised to learn that Nicolas Maduro, the president
of the Venezuelan highest legislation entity, would propose such a new law. There
is already a law in Venezuela
that protects against any type of discrimination. It is called the
Constitution.

Race discrimination, Nicolas, is specifically mentioned in
the first paragraph
of article 21.

Readers from around the world may wonder why I am making
such a big deal about this new terminology introduced by the Chavistas. I know
that in many countries, the population is often differentiated based on race,
language, ancestors and/or origin, but in Venezuela,
the situation is, or was, quite different.

Due to a history of repeated wars and immigration waves,
Venezuelans ended up being a true racial melting pot. In a single family, one
may find as many variations of skin colors as types of Espressos and Cappuccinos
in a Starbuck’s C ©. I have had the opportunity to travel and live in several
countries and I have never seen such a permeable society as the one we have (we
had?) in Venezuela.
Venezuela used
to be a country of real opportunities, regardless of race. And if one would
have to choose one single unracist country in the whole world that would be Venezuela.

Then came Chavez.

His revolution feeds on hatred and division. So he cleverly started a policy of reminding
people that they were somehow “different” from each other. I say it was clever
because he reached two different goals with that policy: to put Venezuelans
against Venezuelans and to gain the sympathy of the politically correct elites
of this world.

Why does he want to put Venezuelans against Venezuelans?
Because he is inefficient, he does not know how to run the country and the only
way to keep his popularity up is to divide, to create an “enemy” and to be
constantly seen as the savior from that enemy. And, of course, if that comes
with increasing popularity abroad, the better.

I categorically refuse to use my mixed Venezuelan background
for hatred or reverse racism. To do that, would be to undermine the suffering
of those that have been real victims of racism in the world. But that is exactly what Chavez has been doing
since he took power. He has systematically underlined and confused race with
political factors to manipulate international opinion. He even takes advantage
of his own mixed racial features to make believe that his enemies are racists
and that his revolution is somehow related with race.

That is preposterous. I challenge anybody to have a look at
the pictures of Chavista ministers and of opposition leaders and to be able to
tell, just by their racial features, which is which.

So, it is with no surprise at all, that I find out that the
Chavista government is supporting more race differentiation. It simply intensifies their campaign to
divide Venezuelans and to look politically correct from abroad.

The funny thing is that the use of the term “afrodescendientes” has no sense at all in Venezuela
since nearly everybody is an “afrodescendiente”. We may as well replace it by
the good old term that we used before:

“Venezuelans”.

Jorge Arena.

I just learned from the comments section that Eva Golinger
is going to participate  in the ALA  (American
Library Association) annual conference in Chicago.

Here
is the link announcing her conference that will be presented in the
“Destabilization, Disinformation, and Libraries” session sponsored by the
Social Responsibilities Round Table of ALA and by the Progressive Librarians
Guild.

The announcement specifies the time and the contact person:

“The program will be held at the
Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, Sheraton Ballroom I, 1:30-3:30 p.m. For more information about the program, to
request press access, or to arrange an interview with Eva Golinger, please
contact Tom Twiss, ttwiss@pitt.edu, (412)
648-7730.”

So, if you live in the Chicago
area or know someone who does, pass on the information. Also check if your
librarian friends are attending the meeting.

Keep us posted.

[thanks to Kensey and Jacques for their pointers].

Jorge Arena.

jorge.arena@gmail.com

Dear readers,

It is now becoming a de-facto superstition that every time
the titular bloggers go away, something happens so that this lazy ghost blogger
has to leave his laziness at home and start reporting. I really hope that this
time is the exception. As I have previously mentioned here, the pay and the
working conditions are bad, really bad, and they have not improved despite my increasing
work experience.

So keep your expectations very low; do not expect any
brilliant and dynamic ghosting during this period. I suspect that Miguel does it on purpose so
that you will all give him a hero’s welcome when he comes back.

I do not pretend to excuse my laziness but, since my last
ghost tenure, the job has become much more difficult. Some things have been
changed in my favorite government site. I am in fact quite disappointed that
the minci guys decided to remove their “notas en positivo” section from their
web page. How do they expect me to do a good ghost blogging job without their positive
notes? It was my favorite section because I could easily report all the
government’s good news, such as the ones on Chavez’s
Mathematics, MVR personnel coming up North or the government
arming peasants. Don’t they like that? And I did it for free! I am appalled and puzzled that they have removed
the notes from their site and I am seriously thinking on starting a signature
campaign to ask Minister Izarra to reinstate that section.

OK, OK, I heard
you….I will request Jorge Rodriguez to double check the signatures. I promise.

Jorge Arena.

I will be going away for three weeks in my usual “unplug from the world”
yearly vacation.I will be truly unpugged the first week as I will have
no Internet and no telephone, although I am told that in parts of the
way there may be a cell phone connection in some spots. I hope it is not
true.

Two people will be covering my abscence to report on important
developments while I am gone. I have told them to manage the blog as
their own. I hope things are quiet, although they have a knack to heat
up in my absence. It is not on purpose. Thanks for reading and
caring!

Rangel says it is the opposition that is trying to kill Chavez.

Then, why is he worried?

Good News: The Carter Center will not observe the upcoming elections. Bring on the EU!

Chavez confirmed
tonight
that the military parade of June 24th. was cancelled for security
reasons. According to the President, the Army detected a plan to kill
him during teh parade. He
added that this is not the first time that the parade is cancelled,
which I do not recall ever being cancelled. Chavez even said that we
have too many parades. This from the
same man that loves to play soldier, wear uniforms and hold parades as he
did during the first few years in office, when
he was not afraid to go out in public.

Well, the June 24th. parade takes place in Campo Carabobo, some 30 Kms. away from the city of Valencia, and it is a monument built in remembrance of the last
battle for the independence of Venezuelawhich
took place right there. Now, this is the most unlikely place to attempt
an assasination.
It is essentially a park with monuments, mostly open air, explicitly
delineated which could be easily sealed
and surrounded by military a couple of days before. And nothing should
happen to teh President or those participating in the parade. You can
see pictures of
Campo Carabobo here
or here.

Of course, all of the above is true unless those trying to kill Chavez
will be
the same ones that are participating in the parade. Unless they are
themselves members of his beloved military, which nobody has said.
There are many problems within the military today. Some groups are
upset over the
cubanization of Venezuela,
others at the levels of corruption reached out and within the military, others at how PDVSA has been
weakened to what they think is dangerous levels and even some others at the destruction of the
military institution and the attempt to create alternate parallel structures like the
reserves. In fact, rumors are going around that over half of the officers in
the Chiefs of Staff course have resigned because of the imposition of Fidel
Castro as the Godfather/sponsor of their graduating class by Chavez himself.
This out of no more than fifty members, the cream of the crop of each year’s
military class. By resigning, you destroy your military career, you will never
go above the level of Lieutenant and you will likely be retired anyway.

You can do so much positive spinning of the news. But the stories are
getting
too implausible to be believable. This is very dangerous, there are
some real nuts (Yes, even more than the current ones, believe it or
not!) in the Venezuelan military. Very scary indeed!

–“Everything
is normal” and “the press has to be more responsible” says the Government in
trying to deny unrest within the military, but the Head of the Unified Command
of the Army (CUFAN), goes
to Bolivar State to talk to the National Guardsmen of the garrison that was
“disappeared” on Chavez’ orders. The problem seems to have been extortion by
the Guardsmen of the miner in the region. The Army came in and brutally took
over the garrison which is what has led to the protest by National Guardsmen across
the country. It is a true story, no matter how much the Government wants to
deny it.

–As
Venezuela complains about the extradition of Posada Carriles from the US to
Venezuela (Which it has
yet to request while its leaders accuse
the US of delaying it), narco-guerrilla FARC leader Jose Maria Corredor “El
Boyaco”, escapes from jail in the Headquarters of the intelligence police. The
Minister of Justice has said that
he received help form intelligence police member that aided in the escape. The US
requested the extradition of “El Boyaco” to that country last year and in
December the Venezuelan Supreme Court approved the extradition, but the Chavez administration
had not extradited him because he could receive a sentence of more than thirty
years in jail, the longest possible term in Venezuela.

–A sub
committee of the National Assembly continued its investigation of CITGO
Petroleum. The auditor for the company said that the company had
too many “black boxes”. Meanwhile, the former Vice-President of CITGO, Captain Antonio
Rivero
gave his testimony in which he gave a picture which in general conflicts
with the official view about the company. Rivero said that Citgo has
paid over US$ 2 billion in dividends to PDVSA since 1998. He defended
keeping the company as a strategic investment and compared it to the problems Mexico has
placing its heavy oils because it does not have its own refining capacity. He also
described a policy of funding
travel by Deputies from Chávez’ party out of Citgo, as well as jet
setting by Citgo and PDVSA executives and their relatives in PDVSA’s jets.
(Didn’t Chavez say his first day in office he was going to get rid of these
jets?). Rivero defended
the profitability of Citgo, which contrasts with the words of his mentor,
Hugo Chávez, as well as Minister Ramirez.

–Is it really International Bloggers day today, or just an excuse to party?

Today, local newspaper El Nacional reported
that “the professional troop” which is composed of the soldiers from Sergeant
down of the ninth command of the national guard in Amazonas State had taken
over the command center as a way of giving support to the national guardsmen of
the CORE-8 in Bolivar State which had been deactivated and who claimed they
have been abused and humiliated by the Army.

According to the report the troop even burned down a vehicle
before the army took over by assault the command center yesterday. The same
report said that a deadline had been given for the reactivation of the CORE-8
command of the National Guard. The same report says that similar actions are
being planned in Bolivar state and in Anzoategui state the troop is already in
control of the command of that state.

The report was denied
almost immediately y the Minister of Information saying this was once again
a “mediatic” attack on the army and the oil industry.

Later this afternoon, the Minister of Defense defended
the role played by the National Guard in protecting the country and recogned the fact
that that military body “fulfills the parameters of discipline and obedience”
and that the discipline problems observed in CORE 8 were only present there. He
called on the media to stop the campaign against the National Guard.Garcia Carneiro also said that the Army recommended the
cancellation of the traditional June 24^th. military parade in Campo
Carabobo because of the possibility of an attempt on Chavez’ life and “above all
one has to preserve the life of the Chief of State”.

All of this happens as Chavez confirmed yesterday that the
sponsor or Godfather of the current graduating class for the Chiefs of Staff
course will be none other than Fidel Castro, the same one that used to send
guerillas to kill Venezuelan soldiers not that long ago.

Are we to believe everything is norma, when a full National Guard comamnd is deactivated and taken over by the Army?

Aren’t they ashamed of not being able to protect Chavez at a
National monument with restricted access?

Or are they afraid that a member of the military parade
would be the one attempting to kill Chavez?

Are we to believe the graduating class decided to name
Castro or did the order come from above?

Are we to believe that the Venezuelan military has no
Venezuelan they admire to choose as their sposnor for their graduation?.

Are we to believe that this is not all related?

Among the
many innovations of the 2001 Bolivarian Constitution, was the possibility of
introducing legal bills by citizens if a certain number of signatures were
gathered. The bill would be introduced by a group of citizens and the National
Assembly would be obligated to consider it and discuss it during the first
period of sessions after the Bill was introduced. If it was not discussed, then
Article 205 of the Constitution says that the Bill would simply be
considered in a referendum during the next election.

Well, in November
2002, ONG Queremos Elegir (We want to elect) submitted a reform of the “Citizens
Power Bill” for consideration by the National Assembly. The Bill was never discussed
so that Article 205 would apply. But nothing has been done on it. Thus,
Queremos Elegir met one month ago with the Head of the Electoral Board (CNE) to
inquire about the peculiar fact that another referendum, that of a Constituent
Assembly for the Metropolitan area of Caracas,
was approved in only one month.

Rodriguez
was very polite and said that first he had to check whether the Bill had or not
been considered (which he has not done after one month) and the truth is nothing
has happened since the visit.

The
problem?
Easy, under this reform, the members of the “Citizens Power” the
Attorney
General-Prosecutor, the People’s Ombudsman and Mr. Rodriguez himself
would have
to resign and new members selected by the National Assembly. So, the
much ballyhooed “participative democracy” can be put on hold whenever
it is convenient to those
that proposed it to begin with.

Thus,
another “right” of the revolution bites the dust in the face of political and
personal reality.

Oh! The
pretty revolution!