The Devil's Excrement

An Appeals Court has just freed opposition leader Carlos Fernandez who had been detained accused by the Government for his part in the two month strike. Fernandez, the Head of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Fedecamaras, was relaesed accorrding to the Appeals Court, “for lack of evidence”. According to the Prosecutor from the Attorney General’s office, such evidence was unnecessary because the investigation was ongoing, but that is not the way it is supposed to work in Venezuela. To detain, there had to be evidence for charges like rebellion, which require armed insurgence against the Government, which Mr. Fernandez never did.

There are two clear things from this. First the Attorney General’s office is definitely rushing cases to the Courts in order to please the President. Unfortunately, to do this, he has to use political motivated prosecutors and judges in order to issue detention orders and they have proven to be fairly incompetent so far. . On the other hand, there remains within the judicial system judges who are unwilling to bend the law, even if their politics agree with Chavez. In two cases this week, the Courts have made the Attorney General’s office look very bad, not becaused the cases were reversed, but by using arguments like “manifest incompetence” in the case of the oil leaders or “absence of evidence” in today’s case. There is some hope after all.

Brazilian magazine Veja has become a good source of articles which are critical of Chavez, here is the spanish version of one called “The name of the problem is Chavez”, the original in Portuguese is here. I love the following description (not really, it is actually quite depressing):

“The Brazilians who celebrated in the Sao Paulo Social Forum, last January, perhaps did not know that left-wing parties were the first to abandon Chavez. Amost 30 Deputies changed sides……….Chavez spoke 40 hours in these 25 nationwide programs. His Sunday program Hello President! lasts from four to five hours. There, he tells jokes, sings, insults his adversaries. The one who has really changed in these four years of populism is Chavez himself. Besides gaining weight, he loves watches and Italian suits. he also bought an airplane for US$ 70 million. His oldest daughter is studying in Paris”

The Mayor of the Baruta municipality of Caracas denounced today that a number of high Government officials have failed to pay their home real state taxes to that municipality in the last few years. The list was quite long, but I love the fact that the Head of the Tax Office is on the list as not having paid his taxes for two years and the fact that the Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton, who is always pontificating about the poor and being a good citizens, has not paid his for “only” eight years. Another prominent name is none other than the Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez who is supposed to uphold the law, but we knew he has never done that anyway.

I love the consistency of French foreign policy, after opposing the war they now say they will join the fray if Saddam uses biological or chemical weapons. I also love how they toasted with champagne with Mugabe last month in Paris. Note that I have made no judgement on the war in Iraq, it would take another blog to explain my position on it, let me just say I don’t oppose it, I just think it was incredibly stupid not to finish off the job in ’91 and somehow it seems to me Colin Powell had a lot to do with it, no? As to the U.N. and the impact of the U.S. by-passing it, any institution that has Lybia chairing its Human Rights Commission can’t have it all together. To me that’s like appointing Venezuela to Head the commission on labor movements or democracy. My only concern is that our devious President may use this as an excuse to bypass the OAS, but somehow it seems he already has done it, so it is basically irrelevant.

Interesting article by Emma Brossard on what is going on in Venezuela called “The Destruction of Petroleos de Venezuela”. Dr. Brossard wrote a book about Intevep, the technology and development institute that has been essentialy destroyed by current Government.

No sooner had I written last night at the silence on the part of Chavez, his Government and his supporters on the issue of Iraq, that an MVR Deputy raised his voice. Today, Tarek William Saab, a Deputy from Chavez’ MVR of arab origin said he would propose a resolution to back the efforts of the United Nations to promote peace and punish war. Still a mild-sounding resolution, as it does not include the usual condemnation of the evil US Government, but I guess they could not contain themselves anyway.

Venezuela’s Attorney General showed once again his class, or lack thereof, when after the Appeals Court dealt his office and the Government a severe defeat, which questions the independence of judicial decisions, he failed to appear publicly to explain himself. Instead, he had a prosecutor from his office announce that his office will ask for an injunction on the decision by the Court, in the belief that the Appeals Curt exceeded its powers. Obviously, the Attorney General would have had to approve such a decision. What is not said or mentioned by the same office, is anything about the “manifest incompentence” of the judge to hear the case or the charges that the oil executives were actually denied their right to due process or a defense by the Court’s decision. Bear in mind that this was not simply a decision by a Court that was overturned by the Appeals Court. This was a decision by a Court, at the direct request of the Attorney General, to detain some very important opposition and union leaders on suspect charges. Thus, having their rights violated like that or using improper Courts to attempt to jail opponents, certainly smells like a political vendetta and appears to have nothing to do with justice.

Interesting, Venezuela’s Vice-President Jose Vicente Rangel leaves saying he will meet with the Presidents of four South American countries to explain what is happening in Venezuela. The visit includes Brazil. Well, today the Brazilian Foriegn Minsitry announces that there will be no meeting between Lula and Rangel,saying “it was never confirmed”. This happens days after Brazilian ex-President Cardoso says in an interview that the Brazilian Government has to stop Hugo Chavez from imposing an “absolutist” on Venezuela. Interesting…..

Hugo Chavez is an opinionated big mouth, whose Cabinet contains a number of equally irresponsible Ministers who can not only give extremely cynical opinions, but can defend any subject as long as it favors their rule and control over Venezuela. It is thus quite surprising that after months of the US pressing the UN for an invasion of Iraq, the Chavez administration and none of his Ministers or high officials has actually said much about the possibility of a US attack on Iraq, much less condem it. The question is not simply an academic one; after all, Hugo Chávez remains the only Head of State to visit Saddam Hussein in Baghdad since the 1991 Desert Storm operation. Thus, we wonder what explains the silence and ponder some possible explanations.

First of all, since Chavez and his Government have shown so little sympathy for the US Government, it can’t be that they do not want to offend US sensibilities in any form. More like it, it is the sensibilities of their partners within OPEC that they are trying not to step on. After all, most members of OPEC have strong, non-democratic Governments that get nervous by the presence of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and would prefer a weaker and less independent ruler. Moreover, some members of OPEC may have interests in picking up some of the pieces of a post-invasion Iraq. The leading country may be Iran, who may consider annexing those geographical areas that are dominated by the Shiites in what is today Iraqi territory. On the other hand, the Kuwaitis have been nervous about Saddam ever since he invaded that country in the summer of 1990. Finally, there is Saudi Arabia, one of those countries that Chavez considers to be “friendly” to his administration. The House of Saud has never been comfortable with Saddam Hussein and is increasingly nervous to countries that may support underground movements that may threaten its stability (Even if most of the Sept. 11^th. terrorists came from Saudi Arabia and were largely financed by wealthy Saudis)

Clearly, there appears to be little that Venezuela can gain from the upcoming conflict. On the contrary, a swift and quick war will likely make oil prices tumble, a trend which might actually last quite a while if Iraqi oil comes slowly on line after the war. Given the current production problems with PDVSA since the strike, this would have an extremely negative impact on the country’s finances. A second problem may be that once the US manages to get Iraq under control, it may focus more on the Venezuelan political crisis, after all, if Iraq has anything to do with oil how can Venezuela be ignored for long?

Given all this, the Chavez’ administration silence is all the more remarkable, unless their take is that an Iraqi conflict will actually drag on for a while, making oil prices go higher. While unlikely, Chavez intelligence and advice is not exactly the best in the world anyway given the quality of the advisers (except for the Cubans) that surround him. Thus, it appears as if Chavez administration is simply steering clear of the conflict as a way of simply pleasing everyone, its OPEC partners and its US enemies. Amazingly, for an uncoordinated bunch of radicals, Chavez’ MVR has held the official line quite well. Even more amazing, and a tribute to a quality we did not know he had, even the President has been able to shut his mouth up in order to comply with the official position the Government appears to have decided to follow.

President Hugo Chavez in his Sunday nationwide address said that he goes around the city in a motorcycle, with a long-haired wig and with dark glasses. Laughing, he said that he has been at Plaza Altamira at night and has heard the jokes that people make about him. Afternoon newspaper Tal Cual  took him to task in its daily mini-Editorial (page 2), suggesting that the President shuold not laugh much and that rather than going to Altamira Square, maybe he should go visit barrios and hospitals in his escapades, where rather than laughing he would likely start crying. The newspaper also wonders whether this means the threats on his life are now over.