The Devil's Excrement

The Venezuelan Central Bank made a very important discovery in its report on April’s inflation: Price controls don’t work! According to the Bank, despite price controls a number of items which are regulated increased in price or disappeared from the shelves.

Maybe they can publish it and win the Nobel prize in Economics, together with all of the economic authorities in Venezuela during the last forty years who imposed price controls and saw the same result. Politicians are indeed stupid, no?

The Economist just came out with its usual Bic Mac index for currencies (via PostPolitics). The Venezuelan currency the Bolivar is reported to be 15% undervalued, except that they are using the official rate, which essentially does not exist. After 100 days of currency controls not a single importer has been given foreign currency at the official rate. Thus, using the parallel rate of Bs. 2300 per US dollar the currency is 40% undervalued. Way to go Hugo!

Minister of Interior and Justice Lucas Rincon, infamous for his statement April 11th, 2002 “The President has resigned” , when he was the highest ranking member of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, showed his intolerance today when he called the opposition Mayors of Chacao and Baruta “vagabonds” adding “if it were for me, I would jail them”. The Minister was upset because the two Majors said that the level of insecurity was the fault of the Ministry, as well as saying that the Ministry does not even talk to the Mayors to attempt to solve problems such as the closing of a Caracas highway after the march on Thursday. Such tolerance!

The Chavez Government continues to attempt to downplay the death of an opposition marcher during Thursday’s demonstration. Minister of the Interior and Justice Lucas Rincon of “The President has resigned fame” said that the death was fortuitous and not political. However, there have been contradictions in the Government’s statements. From trying to say it was a personal dispute to the Head of the Intelligence police saying the killer had been drinking which lead to a discussion. However, the main prosecutor in the case said this was a personal problem between the suspect and the union worker that died. The same prosecutor suggested the person murdered was a shark loan, which his family denies. He also has said this was a problem over control of the union, later saying it was a discussion over some losses at the credit union of construction workers’ union.

The Government has failed to explain how this was not political if the suspect is Head of one of Chavez’s Bolivarian circles, is a well-known Chavez supporter according to neighbors and was taped in a video presented by opposition Deputy Gerardo Blyde hanging around the end-point of the march, a scene of which is shown here:

The man on the far right is Manuel Arias “el Pollo”, the suspect who is seen awaiting the arrival of the march with other reportedly Chavez supporters. Given that there was a pro-Chavez march at the same time; one has to wonder what these characters were doing there and if this was not premeditated. Despite this, Vice President Rangel said that the opposition was “necrophilic”, using these deaths to create scandals against the Government.

Lost in the shuffle was the fact that the prosecutor assigned to the case is Danilo Anderson, the environmental prosecutor chosen by the Attorney General to investigate the deaths of April 11th. 2002 of which all pro-Chavez supporters have been exonerated and freed. The Democratic Coordinator has asked the Attorney General “if he has any shame left” to remove Mr. Anderson from the case. The construction union had a similar request.

The Head of the intelligence police just came on TV and said that the death was nothing more than a discussion between two people and one ended up shooting at the other one, contradicting what various witnesses have said about a motorcycle showing up and one person shooting. The Head of the intelligence police , called DISIP, then said that this was just the opposition trying to increase hate within the population much like the case of the explosions at embassies. Asked by the reporter then what he could say about those explsions which took place two months ago he said something like ” I can’t say much because this is in legal proceeding and part of the summary, however, when we reveal what we know the world will know what type of opposition Hugo Chavez is facing”. How ethical, no?

It looks like history will be changed, once again, as we watch……It would be interesting for him to explain to us then if the opposition is to blame for everything, how come the whole downtown area has now been taken over by Chavez’ supporters who are now rioting with covered faces, armed and blocking traffic, very close to where the murders took place. These people are better than Goebbles!:

Note added: Union Radio is now reporting that the intelligence police car that took the assasin away had plate numbers 21534. Of Course, the Director of the Intelligence Police Miguel Rodriguez, alias “Goebbels” has already denied that this ever happened and the police car does not exist.

Opposition groups are now also blocking a local highway in protest. They are not armed.

During the opposition march celebrating MayDay a person in a motorcycle showed up and killed someone and apparently injured another one at the square that was the ending point of the march. The murdered person was a union worker that was in the march. Very confusing right now.

The march had not ended and most of the people had not reached the square, people are furious on TV, singing the national anthem as the police stops them from moving on.

Uinion Radio says that the shooting was part of a trap by Chavez’ supporters while TV station Globovision (live) is saying that curiously right before the shooting the municipal police disapeared. The intelligence police went into the building where supposedly the assasin was hiding and as they came out the outraged crowd started throwing stones at them. The police then started using tear gas on the demonstrators.

Now a group of Chavez’ supporters has shown up taunting the opposition people and a fight has started, people are throwing bottles and stones and the cops tear gas.

While witnesses are saying that it was indeed a trap in which a group of people showed up shooting, the Government is saying that it was a discussion between two people that ended up in a shooting. Another witness is saying that the shooter climbed in a police car after shooting. A Deputy is saying that the man was trapped and handed over to the cops and then the cops started shooting at the marchers too.

The dead worker was a construction worker from the West of Caracas. He was 46 years old. Two hours after his shooting, not a single Government authority has said anything or appeared on TV, including the Minister of the Interior and Justice who is in charge of security.

The US State Department said today that Venezuela has become a source of concern over terrorism. The Department mentioned Chavez critique over the use of force by the US in Afghanistan and his “mixed posture” in general over the fight on terrorism. This was par of the Department’s annual report on terrorism. The Department also accused Venezuela of not backing investigations and the “persistence of unconfirmed versions that there are links between the Venezuelan Government and the Colombian Revolutionary forces FARC. The full report in English is here and the section on Venezuela is here.

President Hugo Chavez announced today the increase in the minimum salary. The increase will take place on July 1^st. and will take the minimum salary to Bs. 218.592 on that date and later on Oct. 1^st. it will rise to 237.600. The numbers are somewhat unclear as Chavez spoke of percentages which do not correspond to the announcements. Apparently the correct percentages are 15% in July and an 8% on top of that in October which would not correspond to the numbers announced by the President. The increase is compulsory for both the private and public sectors. People do need increases as inflation last year was 34% and it has topped 10% so far this year. However, the economy contracted more than 10% last year (we are still awaiting the statistics) and is expected to shrink by more than 10% this year. Thus the likely effect of the salary increase will likely be even more unemployment.

Chavez took advantage of his nationwide address to invite Venezuelans to participate in the May Day march organized by his supporters and the new Bolivarian union sponsored by his Government (One more oxymoron in Chavez’ policies). There will be two marches/demonstrations here tomorrow (which is a holiday) one by Government supporters and another one by the opposition. Their paths do not overlap, but there is always a risk of violence.

Local daily El Nacional began charging today for using its on-line version. The paper will charge US$ 40 per year for its on-line version.  I doubt the policy will last as they will likely find that their on-line readership will drop off dramatically in the next few days. I would pay for it if it were useful for the information I try to document in my blog, but I actually find it to be a terrible source to use. First of all, if one looks at the prior editions section, one can only look at the last week or so which is too limited (Using the search engine is simply too cumbersome). But perhaps the most important reason is that El Nacional is using a software, apparently developed locally, which does not allow me to link to specific pages. (Tal Cual is using the same software). Thus, you will likely see more of El Universal links here, which has been the case ever since El Nacional began using the new software.

Francisco Toro, author of the very well written blog “Caracas Chronicles’ has decided to sign off and stop writing his blog, he will be missed. As with everything here in Venezuela these days, his reasons are multiple and complex. But nobody can explain it better than him. We wish him the best in his new venture!:

A number of you have written in to ask what’s up with Caracas Chronicles, which hasn’t been updated in a while now. The proximate reason is rather pedestrian: blogger.com, the service that hosts my blog, seems to have gone to pot over the last couple of weeks; it keeps giving me an incomprehensible error message and won’t let me post.

But let’s get real: the way Venezuelan politics is going, even if blogger was up and running, I probably wouldn’t have been writing much. It’s simply too depressing a panorama.

I don’t know quite how to describe it. The last couple of weeks have closed a kind of cycle of disenchantment for me. Starting from the heady days of expectation and excitement of 1999, the cycle took me through the slow disillusionment of 2000 and 2001, then through a kind of rekindled idealism with the growth of the opposition last year, and now to a new and very disheartening understanding of the depths of dysfunction this society, all of it, has reached.

It’s no longer interesting or fun or exciting or quirky observing public life here. These days, it’s sad. Just sad. A meaningless, intensely destructive fight that’s plunging millions of people into real destitution for no particular reason at all.

I could write so long as I kept faith, kept faith in a future that was both possible and worth getting excited about. At this point, I’ve just lost faith. I’ve seen one too many Globovision segment and El Nacional article that twists and stretches and omits for cheap political gain,
I’ve seen one lie too many coming from the opposition leaders who are supposed to save the country from the dregs of chavizmo. I’ve seen one instance too many of the appalling lack of integrity that permeates every aspect of public life here to retain any level of idealism at all. I
don’t even want to think of myself as a member of the opposition anymore: there’s too little honor in this opposition, too much willingness to tolerate the intolerable for political gain.

It took me a long time to come to this conclusion, it was an excruciating process coming to see things this way, but at this point, I just can’t believe that this kind of opposition holds out the slightest hope for a better future even if they were able to get rid of the mad autocrat –
which they aren’t.

What it comes down to is that I can no longer see a plausible path to a desirable future for Venezuela.  As the government’s quasi-dictatorial intolerance and the opposition’s reactionary myopia grow in tandem, feeding off one another in a vicious circle, it becomes impossible for me to imagine the path that links the country I live in now with the imagined country I would one day like to live in, the fair, decent and prosperous society everyone claims to be working towards, but that so few seem to be able to envision clearly. When I wrote the tag-line for Caracas Chronicles, it seemed fascinating to have a front-row seat to a society while it falls apart at the seams. It no longer feels fascinating. Today, it’s just a sad, soul-sapping spectacle, and I just
don’t know that I have the stomach to chronicle it anymore.

So, this fall, I’ll gladly become a statistic here, a figure in a chart detailing the exodus of university-educated Venezuelans during the Chávez era. Come September I’ll enroll in the doctoral program put together by the United Nations University and the University of Maastricht, in Holland. Four years from now, if all goes well, I’ll have a Ph.D. on the impact of innovation and technological change on economic development in the third world. It’s a mouthful, I know, I guess you’d call it Development Economics for short, but the long and the short of it is that I can’t live here anymore, it’s bad for my soul, and an escape into academia seems like just the solution at a time like this. I’m quite excited about the program, in fact, and definitely looking forward to life in a sleepy provincial town on the Dutch-Belgian border after the unremitting megacity craziness of Caracas.