The Devil's Excrement

Well, I must say I am absolutely amazed at the attention to my post Friday on the Tarek William Saab and how they faked the poster to take it look denser. Of course, it helped that a blog named littlegreenfootballs linked to it by saying “The revolution will be photoshopped”. You see littlegreenfootballs (lgf) is a well known blog which gets around 100,000 visitors a day, some of which saw the post and came over to see what this was all about (There were close to 6,000 visitors to the Devil yesterday). Interestingly enough, lgf did not reproduce the picture which I think was one key to the success of the post. I than the reader who sent it, all I did was use Photoshop to clearly prove the point.

Over the lifetime of this blog I have come to learn the meaning of “A picture is worth 10,000 words” or whatever number the true Chinese proverb uses. In October 2002, traffic to this blog started to pick up to what I then thought was an outstanding 200 visitors a day, when I began posting pictures of marches and demonstrations.

A picture is always more powerful than words. I can talk about the shenanigans of the new Supreme Court Justice in his last few days at the Electoral Board, or try to explain that Chavez announced today that the new interest rate for mortgages will be below 6%, in a country with 20% rates, but it is hard to beat the impact of a picture or a video showing unethical behavior. Maybe that was the problem with the recall vote; we just never managed to get a picture good enough to show people what was going on. I can explain, for example, that nothing was done in many places in Vargas after the 1999 flooding, but if I show you this picture of the Vargas town of Carmen de Uria two weeks ago, after the recent rains, it gives a more powerful statement that absolutely nothing was accomplished in some places. This is the place where Chavez said he would build parks, a spa and a beach.

The fact is we had some very damaging pictures. I spent about a month trying to get a copy of the video taped at a “phantom” center at the Universidad Bolivariana where supposedly the referendum data was interfered and processed. I saw the video and it had a picture of every single piece of equipment, model, brand name and even serial number. It would have been good stuff to have experts look at via the Internet and tell us what that equipment was good for.

But as with so many things with the opposition, despite continued promises that I would get it, nothing was ever done. Maybe it would have had a huge impact.

But the Tarek Photoshop post remains my top post, something I simply did not expect. I thought it was cute, but not as impacting as so many things that have happen here or happen regularly. Despite that, not only did lgl link to it, but also notiven, noticierodigital, americanthinker, hayekcenter, barcepundit, vcrisis, Daniel (of Course!), venezuelatoday (Could not miss it!),  old friend blogging friend secular blasphemy, blognorregis, publisupundit, raianr, chrismowder and last but not least Democracy Project. This last one actually had a post showing that the Chavez revolution is not alone at taking unethical advantage of Photoshop, but at the University of Wisconsin there was a similar attempt to manipulate pictures to obtain a benefit. In that case, the picture of a minority student was inserted into a crowd of cheering students at a football game to make the campus look more diverse. The picture was to be used on the cover of the new freshman application. .

The lessons for bloggers out there is think graphical! If you don’t make heavy use of pictures, drawings graphs, try to do it and see if it helps draw more visitors.

Ah yes, I am glad the post had so many visitors, but it also makes me just as happy to be mentioned in this post at rantburg, entitled “Carter up to no good in Venezuela”. You see, in the end I wish that as many people had read my article about the Carter Center report as they saw the photo shopped poster. But I guess, you can’t win them all!

(In fact, my Orchids section which is practically all pictures gets quite a few visits, so you may want to go see it, since I posted today pictures of four new flowers)

Olga Krnjasky de Aguirrebetia  whom I don’t know, wrote this very good and heartfelt article in today’s El Universal. The baby food jar (compota in Spanish) is references to a campaign to have people donate things to those that suffered from the recent Vargas tragedy.

My baby food jar is not needed by Olga Krnjasky de Aguirrebetia

Without preamble. My jar of baby food is not needed and I have the means to prove it. Because it was five years ago that a billion dollars was given to Corpovargas and of the 23 riverbeds only one was completed. Hello Clodosvaldo (The Comptroller)? That money is sufficient to buy many jars of baby food. Because I pay a VAT that nobody asks what it goes for. Then I ask it and I want to see an answer in Vargas, in jars of baby food and also in mattresses and blankets.

Because a debit tax is discounted from my money with which I fund everything the Government wants: from the bombs that they throw at me when I express my dissidence, to the witch doctors that surround the Commander with candles invoking the Obscure. From that there should be funds for tin cans.

Because there is too much money that purchases fingerprint grabbing machines so that all of the Rodrigo Granda’s of the regime can vote and so that Carter can endorse it, for a price. Because of the “tramparency” (Carrasquero’ famous word, trampa means trick in Spanish), the drinking water should come out of that.

Because the Board of the CNE donated five days of their salary that I also pay for and considering the service to the revolution of stealing our votes, those five days mean a number with a lot of zeroes after it. It is sufficient, more than for baby food, for tenderloin.

Because each trip of the “dollar sucker” costs an arm and a leg, that we have to pay for, you and me, and translating those kilometers into $$$ would be enough to rebuild the lost roads. Facing such waste, can my insignificant donation make a difference?

Because each pro-Government march moves thousands of buses, gives away thousands of t-shirts and pays million dollars in per diems. Me donating a jar of baby food?

Because if they gave the Chinese the manufacture of military uniforms in a gesture of solidarity with “The brothers of almond shaped eyes”, the same as that “one Bolivar for Asi”. Who can match so much generosity?

Because the revolution buys Russian weapons for two armies. Well, that indicates that our needs are covered and the next impertinent mudslide will simply be met with shots from the Kalashnikovs.

Because the revolution spends incalculable fortunes promoting throughout the universities of the world the achievements (??) of the revolution, distributing printed and translated material, because of which my humble collaboration can not be needed given such a bonanza for exports.

Because today, with the disaster repeating, I am not interested in knowing that the Army did a good job rescuing the victims when, if they had paid attention to the predictions and the warnings of the experts, they should have evacuated on time. I am not interested in how they run when there is a disaster but in what they are doing to prevent it. Because if they had done before what they had to and collected on the public works, then there would not have been a tragedy.

It seems as if nobody is noticing that we have spent six years of robbery and mud slides!

From bolivars to hope, from peace to future, from fraternal coexistence to votes.

Because the revolution screams unhinged “Repatriation of Rodrigo Granda now” and does not include in its scream the Venezuelans kidnapped by the guerrilla, the collection of bribes for protection at the border and the anxiety that our ranchers live in, which translates into higher prices, that you and I also pay and the dangerous risk of being useful to the country instead of being parasites of the payroll.

Because Vivas, Forero and Simonovis are in jail and those that stole our votes, nationality and assets, go free.

Because there is a perverse similarity between the irresponsibility of 99 of extending the time to vote in the Constituent referendum and the wasteful PerezJimenez –like (Dictator in the 50’s) carnival assembled with a Miss Venezuela choreographer to make it “shine” and maintain the charade of bread and circus for the people.  .

Because I heard Bernal (Mayor of part of Caracas) with incredulity taking advantage of the tragedy to make propaganda of the “Bolivarian efficiency” while his brooks exposed an unsustainable lie.

Because Chacao and Baruta (municipalities in Caracas under opposition Mayors) came out unscathed of the climatic crisis, because in them there was prevention.

Because I was stuck in my seat when Barreto (Mayor of Caracas), champion of divisions, disdain and indecency for those that oppose him, facing the new tragedy told us with uncommon  poetic accent “bring a baby bottle, the victims will preserve  it later as a remainder of the integration of all Venezuelans”

Because for five years I have been making payments with lots of sacrifices for the Vargas of my soul, to rebuild it and today, we go back to square one because the Bolivarian corruption and ineptitude allowed the rivers to take away my work, my money, my effort and, above all, my bet on the reconstruction.

Because I will not even discuss the absurdity of blaming the tragedy on Bush’s Government and the Kyoto Protocol, which is nothing but an insult to anyone’s intelligence.

Because if Alo Presidente is transmitted from Russia, Argentina and soon from India with immoral costs for the country, my baby food jar is unnecessary.

Because the new mudslides drowned without remedy my natural instinct to give a hand and give myself to others. I don’t know myself.

Maybe it just is that I just spoke to Manuel, a good man from Portugal who has the concession for the coffee shop of my building in Vargas, survivor of Carmen de Uria and who with a voice defeated with tiredness and the insurmountable loss told me with his characteristic accent”

Ms. Olga, we are all well, yes Luis, Gabriel and Mario too, but everything was lost again. I leave you now, I am going to get a colonel at Club Camuri because they want to come and loot …again.

In my own warped and simple minded brain, I have this vision of who I think should be in the Venezuelan Supreme Court. First of all, the person, he or she, should be someone with a long career as a lawyer, long and brilliant, someone that even those that have been on the other side of the judicial fence, express their admiration and even awe of them.

The second thing I would expect would be that the person is known as a man/woman of integrity. Ethical beyond reproach, no skeletons in the closet, not even the slightest suggestion of one. Such high ethical principles that after years of practice as a lawyer or in the bench, nobody can even dare accuse the person of anything even bordering on the improper.

Too much to ask? Not really. One would think that in a country of 24 million people one should be able to find a dozen or so people. Give them lifetime security so that they are freed from any partisan preferences and let them rule from the Supreme Court, so that everyone will obey the laws and follow the Constitution.

I may be naïve, but in many countries, the behavior of Justices and those named to the Court is followed closely and any deviation from the honest and legal behavior expected from such a high position is punished.

Thus, the nomination of the former Head of the National Electoral Council (CNE) to be a Justice would not have even been considered in any other country but Venezuela. Francisco Carrasquero presided over the CNE with mediocrity. He was partisan to the end, bending to the whims of the Hugo Chavez at each step, both in the petition to gather the signatures and the recall vote. He was the man that in the wee hours of August 16^th. announced to the world a result that to this day is being questioned. There had been no audit as agreed; even the other Directors of the Electoral Board were not allowed in the room where the votes were being totaled. It was a typical political operation in the middle of the night and the gray and obscure Carrasquero presided over it.

His partisan behavior earned him a position in the Supreme Court, which his credentials as a lawyer did not qualify him for. But he did the Government’s dirty work. He deserved it; he earned it, he got it.

But it is now becoming clear that the former Head of the CNE was so unethical, that he not only hired family members right and left, but ran the CNE like a corrupt warlord running his castle. Mind you, this is not my opinion, this I not my anti-Chavez posture getting the best of me. This is the truth as expressed yesterday by the new Head of the Electoral Board, when he announced that he will void 1,086 personnel movements approved by the former President of the CNE after he was named to the Supreme Court. No, I did not make a mistake, it is indeed a four digit number one, zero, eight and six. One thousand and eighty six people in an institution of 2200..

You see Mr. Carrasquero who has the ethics of gangster, was named to the Supreme Court on December 13^th. , but stayed in his post at the CNE until January 17^th. where he simply acted like the gangster he is. He approved hiring 354 new people and gave salary increases or named to other positions some 732 members of the staff of the CNE. Now, this was no small matter. The CNE has 2200 employees so Mr. Carrasquero increased personnel by 16% and without having the funds promoted 30% of them. This without consulting anyone! Way to go Francisco!

But see this is nothing new. Before this took place, Mr. Carrasquero had named two of his brothers Edwin and Enrique, to important positions in the CNE, one to a regional office and the second one as Head of Personnel of the CNE! In this position the CNE hired nephews and nieces of Carrasquero, his wife and even his bodyguards.

Let’s look at some of them as detailed by Tal Cual.

-Sor Elena Luzardo was executive secretary of the CNE since October 2003. She is the sister of Julio Luzardo who also started working there in 2003. They are the niece and nephew of Edgar Luzardo. All three are relatives of Carrasquero wife.

-Then, there is Jesus Duran who started working at the CNE in 2003, he is a cousin of Andreina Fuenmayor who also works there and Karelys Fuenmayor, also staff of the CNE. The two sisters are nieces of Carrasquero; their second last name is Carrasquero.

-Then, there is Soraya Gonzalez a lawyer for the CNE who is the niece of Nestor Perez, Carrasquero’s bodyguard and childhood friend. Oh! Nestor’s daughter Ana Karina also has worked at the CNE since 2003.

-Then there is Carlos Martinez, son of Altury Tavarez who was Carrasquero’s assistant. We also have Ana Carrasquero his niece. Ramiro Finol, Carrasquero’s neighbor.

Oh! I forgot, the CNE’s regulations do not allow any two relatives working there up to the fourth level of cosanguinity.

Thus, you can see that Carrasquero has no clue about why nepotism is not ethical and loaded the CNE with relatives and friends during his tenure there and after he was ready to leave.

Will Carrasquero be removed from the highest Court of the land? Of course not, it has already become the lowest Court of the land. What would be considered normal behavior in any other country would never happen here. In fact, rumor has it that he will write the opinion of the majority in the case of the reversal of the decision of the Constitutional Hall in 2003, which said that there as no coup in April 2002, but a power vacuum. This is remarkable jurisprudence; it is the reversal of a decision made by the Supreme Court itself!

Article 273 of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, written, passed and approved by Chavez and his comrades, created the “Moral Republican Council” to consider cases like this. They should, but I am sure they wouldn’t, as that Council is composed by three of the sorriest characters of the revolution: The People’s Ombudsman, the Attorney General and the Comptroller. All beyond reproach about their absolute loyalty and dependence from almighty Hugo Chavez. Thus, Venezuela’s Supreme Court will continue to have the presence of this unethical, incompetent and unprincipled man. Please don’t ever forget that this is the same man that rushed to announce on the night of August 16^th. that the No vote had won handily. Why? There was no need to do it. But he had to and was rewarded for it.

Carrasquero, a true hoodlum in our own Supreme Court!

In my own warped and simple minded brain, I have this vision of who I think should be in the Venezuelan Supreme Court. First of all, the person, he or she, should be someone with a long career as a lawyer, long and brilliant, someone that even those that have been on the other side of the judicial fence, express their admiration and even awe of them.

The second thing I would expect would be that the person is known as a man/woman of integrity. Ethical beyond reproach, no skeletons in the closet, not even the slightest suggestion of one. Such high ethical principles that after years of practice as a lawyer or in the bench, nobody can even dare accuse the person of anything even bordering on the improper.

Too much to ask? Not really. One would think that in a country of 24 million people one should be able to find a dozen or so people. Give them lifetime security so that they are freed from any partisan preferences and let them rule from the Supreme Court, so that everyone will obey the laws and follow the Constitution.

I may be naïve, but in many countries, the behavior of Justices and those named to the Court is followed closely and any deviation from the honest and legal behavior expected from such a high position is punished.

Thus, the nomination of the former Head of the National Electoral Council (CNE) to be a Justice would not have even been considered in any other country but Venezuela. Francisco Carrasquero presided over the CNE with mediocrity. He was partisan to the end, bending to the whims of the Hugo Chavez at each step, both in the petition to gather the signatures and the recall vote. He was the man that in the wee hours of August 16^th. announced to the world a result that to this day is being questioned. There had been no audit as agreed; even the other Directors of the Electoral Board were not allowed in the room where the votes were being totaled. It was a typical political operation in the middle of the night and the gray and obscure Carrasquero presided over it.

His partisan behavior earned him a position in the Supreme Court, which his credentials as a lawyer did not qualify him for. But he did the Government’s dirty work. He deserved it; he earned it, he got it.

But it is now becoming clear that the former Head of the CNE was so unethical, that he not only hired family members right and left, but ran the CNE like a corrupt warlord running his castle. Mind you, this is not my opinion, this I not my anti-Chavez posture getting the best of me. This is the truth as expressed yesterday by the new Head of the Electoral Board, when he announced that he will void 1,086 personnel movements approved by the former President of the CNE after he was named to the Supreme Court. No, I did not make a mistake, it is indeed a four digit number one, zero, eight and six. One thousand and eighty six people in an institution of 2200..

You see Mr. Carrasquero who has the ethics of gangster, was named to the Supreme Court on December 13^th. , but stayed in his post at the CNE until January 17^th. where he simply acted like the gangster he is. He approved hiring 354 new people and gave salary increases or named to other positions some 732 members of the staff of the CNE. Now, this was no small matter. The CNE has 2200 employees so Mr. Carrasquero increased personnel by 16% and without having the funds promoted 30% of them. This without consulting anyone! Way to go Francisco!

But see this is nothing new. Before this took place, Mr. Carrasquero had named two of his brothers Edwin and Enrique, to important positions in the CNE, one to a regional office and the second one as Head of Personnel of the CNE! In this position the CNE hired nephews and nieces of Carrasquero, his wife and even his bodyguards.

Let’s look at some of them as detailed by Tal Cual.

-Sor Elena Luzardo was executive secretary of the CNE since October 2003. She is the sister of Julio Luzardo who also started working there in 2003. They are the niece and nephew of Edgar Luzardo. All three are relatives of Carrasquero wife.

-Then, there is Jesus Duran who started working at the CNE in 2003, he is a cousin of Andreina Fuenmayor who also works there and Karelys Fuenmayor, also staff of the CNE. The two sisters are nieces of Carrasquero; their second last name is Carrasquero.

-Then, there is Soraya Gonzalez a lawyer for the CNE who is the niece of Nestor Perez, Carrasquero’s bodyguard and childhood friend. Oh! Nestor’s daughter Ana Karina also has worked at the CNE since 2003.

-Then there is Carlos Martinez, son of Altury Tavarez who was Carrasquero’s assistant. We also have Ana Carrasquero his niece. Ramiro Finol, Carrasquero’s neighbor.

Oh! I forgot, the CNE’s regulations do not allow any two relatives working there up to the fourth level of cosanguinity.

Thus, you can see that Carrasquero has no clue about why nepotism is not ethical and loaded the CNE with relatives and friends during his tenure there and after he was ready to leave.

Will Carrasquero be removed from the highest Court of the land? Of course not, it has already become the lowest Court of the land. What would be considered normal behavior in any other country would never happen here. In fact, rumor has it that he will write the opinion of the majority in the case of the reversal of the decision of the Constitutional Hall in 2003, which said that there as no coup in April 2002, but a power vacuum. This is remarkable jurisprudence; it is the reversal of a decision made by the Supreme Court itself!

Article 273 of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, written, passed and approved by Chavez and his comrades, created the “Moral Republican Council” to consider cases like this. They should, but I am sure they wouldn’t, as that Council is composed by three of the sorriest characters of the revolution: The People’s Ombudsman, the Attorney General and the Comptroller. All beyond reproach about their absolute loyalty and dependence from almighty Hugo Chavez. Thus, Venezuela’s Supreme Court will continue to have the presence of this unethical, incompetent and unprincipled man. Please don’t ever forget that this is the same man that rushed to announce on the night of August 16^th. that the No vote had won handily. Why? There was no need to do it. But he had to and was rewarded for it.

Carrasquero, a true hoodlum in our own Supreme Court!

–A Judge has prohibited eight Presidents of commercial banks, two ex-Presidents of the Central Bank and two former officials of the Bank Superintendence from leaving the country. They are being charged for usury in the case of indexed loans.

–A Judge ordered the capture of former President Carlos Andres Perez for activating the Plan Avila in 1989 leading to the death of 200 people. Of course, the 2002 “coup” occurred because Chávez activated the Plan Avila which led to more than 20 dead and hundreds injured, but if Chavez ordered he must have had a good reason to do it in his heart. After all, this is a pretty revolution.

–The Minister of Information Andres Izarra sent the foreign press to hell, because they did not respond to his lobbying efforts. He also said he would start the “ideological” battle by funding alternate media. Jeez, I wonder if I could get some funding, this is definitely alternate media. But I guess I inform, I don’t lobby, so I probably don’t qualify.

–Since opposition leaders Henrique Salas Romer and Salas Feo did not go to the Presidential Palace in April 2002 and can’t be charged for that, the Governor of Carabobo State “Burping” Acosta Carles, will charge them with corruption and make them ineligible to run for any office.

–The Attorney General “disqualified” Councilman Carlos Herrera accusing him of blocking and trying to hide those responsible for killing Anderson. Rodriguez, who is in charge of upholding the law in Venezuela, called Herrera “demential and mediocre”. The interesting thing is that Rodriguez said three months ago when Anderson was killed that the case would be solved within days, accusing the opposition. It was Herrera who revealed that there was a lot of money in Anderson’s apartment and there had been a group of lawyers blackmailing people, which turned the investigations towards a completely new direction which has been confirmed by all witnesses. 

This revolution is so fake that even the poster of their adoring crowds are sometimes faked. Below the picture of the poster being published in the papers as advertising for Governor  of Anzoategui Tarek William Saab, where he is shown surrounded by a crowd of admirers, supposedly on the celebration of the success of his first 100 days in office. Except that the picture is simply fake as shown in the three blowups, where one can see that the people in the picture “repeat” as the whole thing is simply acollage of the same people repeated in the picture. If he is so popular, why fake it? Oh, the fake revolution!

Ten days ago the sister of assasinated prosecutor Danilo Anderson denied knowing her brother had the property he was supposed to have had, including the two Jet Skis that she had supposedly admitted knowing about in what she said was her forged testimony which waseaked to the press. Well, yesterdy a video surfaced in which Anderson’s sister is seen with a group of people taking the two Jet Skis away from the place where they had been stored. Today, Teodoro Petkoff takes the Prosecutor Isaias Rodriguez to task for allowing the case to be meddled with:

Are you sleeping Mr. Prosecutor? by Teodoro Petkoff

In the decade of the sixties, poet Caupolicán Ovalles made famous a poem of his whose title asked President Betancourt: Are you sleep Mr. President? We could ask the same today to Isaias Rodriguez. (The Prosecutor). It must be difficult for him to get to sleep. Each day new evidence shows that some hairy hand wants to complicate the case of Danilo Anderson. A little while back his sister, Lourdes Suarez Anderson, categorically denied that she had had knowledge of the existence of two jet skis that her brother had acquired and that the testimony in which she supposedly recognized the existence of these aquatic vehicles were forged. Today, however, a video appeared where young Lourdes, together with a bunch of other people, takes the jet skis away from the place where they were being kept. That is, she did indeed know of their existence and the testimony, obviously was not forged. She did say what she later denied saying. Thus, the attempt to tangle up the matter, planting doubts over the authenticity of the testimony (which was leaked to the press) appears to have failed. At least the testimony with Lourdes Anderson’s statement was not forged, which lead us to believe that the other weren’t either. From whose arm, comes the hairy hand that wants to shuffle the cards again?

Weil on Vargas: Before and after the billions in aid:

Venezuelan Vladimir Chelmisky in today’s Wall Street Journal: Oil Revenues Hide
Chavez’s Economic Ineptitude

By VLADIMIR CHELMINSKI
February 25, 2005; Page A19

CARACAS — After six tumultuous years in power, the claim by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that he is leading Venezuelans toward greater prosperity cannot be sustained. Any serious analysis of our economy shows a dramatic deterioration in Venezuelan well-being. A series of feel-good government programs only help ameliorate the negatives that would otherwise accrue to Chavez with his disastrous handling of the economy.

In 1998, the vast majority of Venezuelans were very poor and had no good reason to hope for a better future. For decades, the quality of life had been deteriorating. The democratic process seemed to function well only for the benefit of politicians and their friends. The political parties that had alternated in power since 1958, Social Democrats and Social Christians, were very much the same. Both offered socialism with political freedom. Their policies paid lip service to the poor but always proved counterproductive. Private property and contracts meant little in their laws. Two-thirds of willing workers could not find employment in the formal economy and The Heritage/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom classified Venezuela as “mostly repressed.” The country needed dramatic change.

In that same year, presidential candidate Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez swept the country’s imagination with a good assessment of our problems, but wrongly naming economic liberalism as the cause of the misery. He promised a new state with new laws and sold hope to the poor. In December 1998 he won the presidency and for some time after his inauguration, he continued to gain popularity.

It is true that Mr. Chavez has expanded pension payments and implemented programs that did not exist before, like the 11 “missions” programs. Three of these programs are educational. “Misión Robinson” is designed to teach people to read. Participants receive a monthly stipend of 160,000 Bolivars (about $83) and in six months they may receive a sixth-grade diploma and can graduate to “Misión Ribas” where they have the same stipend and in six months may earn a high school diploma. In other words, an adult with no previous schooling can earn in just one year what normally takes 11 years.

There is no question that a monthly stipend is popular among the unemployed or those who earn very little but the quality of these diplomas is suspect. For the government, enrollment helps boost employment statistics since those studying do not count as unemployed.

Another “mission” program provides Cuban doctors, to live and work full-time inside poor communities, ready to help with minor health problems at any time, free of any cost to patients. But as in education, the quality of this care is an unknown. If a medical doctor with a Harvard degree arrives in Venezuela , he cannot work until he revalidates it. But a Cuban doctor’s credentials are taken for granted. Moreover, no one knows the cost of these doctors to the nation since they seem to be provided in exchange for Venezuelan oil to Cuba.

Yet another “mission” sells food staples at significant discounts from regulated prices. This is destroying the private sector at the retail, wholesale and industrial level.

Meanwhile the fundamentals in the economy are troubling. The central bank says the economy grew 17.3% last year, one of the highest rates in the world, but this was after a 9.2% economic contraction in 2003 and an 8.9% contraction in 2002. Despite exchange and price controls imposed to rein in inflation, in the past two years we have had an inflation rate only surpassed by Zimbabwe. In 2004 inflation was 19.2% and in 2003 it was 27.1%. The central government ran a deficit of 3.8% of gross domestic product in 2004, even with unusually high oil prices, fictitious central bank foreign-exchange profits and record tax collections.

The financial transaction tax of .5% is particularly damaging. Because most of the population is poor and does not use checks, the government says the tax won’t affect them. This ignores the fact that business passes its cost onto consumers. In addition, there are consumer taxes which I estimate create a 22% mark-up on staples. Tax rules now stipulate that even the purchase of a cup of coffee requires the consumer to tell the vendor his tax identification number and address.

A main characteristic of our repressed economy is the imposition of exchange and price controls two years ago. We’ve seen this movie before. Venezuela had these controls from 1983 to 1989 and from 1994 to 1996. In both cases, corruption ballooned, and the economy sank. In the end, they had to be discarded amid scarcities and hyperinflation.

Another economically pernicious measure introduced by this government is property confiscation. Earlier this year, the country’s most productive ranch, owned by the British company Vestay Group LTD since 1903, became the target of a potential confiscation with plans to partition it for “cooperatives.” This may be popular with the poor but if the past is any guide, the newcomers will either starve or go back to where they came from. Meantime, the nation will have lost a major productive asset. Next we’ll be wondering why there is not enough investment and job creation.

Mr. Chavez still has credibility among his disciples and his charisma may carry him for some time to come, despite rising crime, filthier cities, declining services, an expanding informal economy and more beggars in the street than ever before. His followers are so infatuated that they do not pay attention to the contradictions in his speech or his numerous promises never fulfilled. But when the price of oil comes down, the “missions” will be unsustainable and the bloom is sure to fall off the rose.

May 4^th. 2002: José Vicente Rangel: “I know from the best of sources that the possibility of a Presidential assassination is being considered and we also have the information that there are obsessed people that are pushing some military officers to embark in a new coup”

Oct. 20^th. 2002. Hugo Chavez: “Caliber 84 mm. length 1.20 meters, initial speed 290 meters per second, maximum reach 500 meters, average time of flight 1.2 seconds. It is an individual weapon, portable, easy to discard. We have aborted a Presidential assassination, a little more and we would not be here, a little more and we would not know what happened in Venezuela”

Dec. 14^th. 2002. Jose Vicente Rangel: “In Venezuela there are experts sharpshooters that are trying to catch the President at any moment. We don’t discard generalized terrorism, assassinations of various Government and opposition leaders. But a cold coup will not take place.”

Dec. 18^th. 2002. Hugo Chavez: “If for any reason the thesis of my assassination became a reality, if I get killed, there could be a war. Because it involves me, I take care of myself.”

March 13^th. 2003: Roy Chaderton (Foreign Minister): “I am bringing to this meeting evidence about the calls by the media in Venezuela and from other counties of the hemisphere made in favor of the assassination of the Venezuelan President. Venezuelan media and TV present this to the world as the most normal thing.”

July 27^th. 2003. Hugo Chavez: “They are preparing my assassination. I have told this to the Dominican President. If they were preparing here an attempt against the Dominican President and I did not do anything to avoid it would not be dignified”

May 9^th. 2004: Hugo Chavez: “There are people in the US that are thinking all the time on how to have a war in Venezuela, to later justify an invasion. And one of the ways they have thought about it is a presidential assassination…”

Oct. 27^th. 2004: “Hugo Chavez:” I have received warnings form other parts of the world telling me: Careful Chavez! Take care of yourself because this time, it is serious, there

are preparing your assassination. I say it responsibly and I promise I will take care of myself and they will not manage to do it”

Feb. 13^th. 2005. Fidel Castro:” If Chávez is assassinated the whole responsibility will fall on the Government of George W. Bush”

Feb 20^th. 2005. Hugo Chávez: “If something happens to me George W. Bush will be responsible”

Feb. 24^th. 2005. Nicolas Maduro: “We have identified the source of this threat  and the names of two people who are behind it, John Negroponte, intelligence tsar and Porter Gross, Director of the CIA.

Feb. 23d. 2005: Ali Rodriguez at the OAS: “I ratify the alert about a possible assassination; nobody can imagine the consequences of this action”

The sad thing is, it works, by now, people have forgotten about the floods, the fake data of how many died, Danilo Anderson’s murder, corruption, missing funds and all that…

Oh yes, and despite this great intelligence work, nobody is ever caught, no proof is ever revealed, nobody is ever prosecuted for trying to assassinate Chavez.