Observations focused on the problems of an underdeveloped country, Venezuela, with some serendipity about the world (orchids, techs, science, investments, politics) at large. A famous Venezuelan, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.
I wanted to write a post around this picture, but could not do it…
Would you ask them: Take me to your leader?
or
Would you ask them where is Larry (Fine)?
But, don’t you find it disturbing that these are the leaders of the PSUV and the revolution?
Just scary…
Through the wikileak cables we conform what we always suspected: Ramirez and Chavez were a total failure in the sale of the natural ags and heavy oil crude projects and in the end had their arms twisted by the bid bad oil companies. The Venezuelan oil Emperor has no clothes, in fact, he does not even have rags on.
Just think, the defender of the sovereignty, the revolutionary, being blackmailed by the bad ass imperialistic oil companies and abandoned by his buddies from Russia and China when he needed them. Of course, nothing new here, we had always suspected all of this, after all, the Russians and the Chinese did not even bother bidding for the Carabobo oil field:
“That Russian and Chinese national oil companies did not submit bids in Carabobo suggests the Minister’s travel is to ensure support from “like-minded” countries and to avoid new public setbacks”
This forced Chavez and his combo to give the concession to none other than Chevron. Throughout it all, Ramirez and Chavez keep a straight face, kept lying through their teeth and hailed the success of their failure. What cynics!
The cables are a treasure trove of all the lies we have heard in the last two years as well as the ability of Chavez and friends to lie, for example, on natural gas:
“Senior PDVSA officials are reportedly upset over the failure to solicit bids from international companies for the Mariscal Sucre offshore natural gas project; PDVSA announced it would develop the resources on its own”
No way PDVSA will be able to do that on its own, it has no money to do it.And no matter how upset they were:
“In Beijing, XXXXXXXXXXXX expected Ramirez to focus on “bringing CNPC” back in line and advancing the various Chinese heavy oil projects in the Faja. XXXXXXXXXXXX believed Ramirez’s stop in Tokyo would be designed to seek additional financing for PDVSA, to advance the Junin 11 reserve certification study (Ref B), and to reprimand the Japanese companies for not submitting bids in the Mariscal Sucre bid round”
Well, CNPC never came back in the fold and the Japanese did not advance financing upset over the nationalization of briquette companies.
But the best part is how Italy’s ENI simply backmailed Chavez and Ramirez by threatening to leave thirty minutes before teh documents were to be signed:
“Thirty minutes before the ceremony was tto begin , the CEO of the Italian company Paolo Scaroni, told Ramirez: Take it or leave it, I can get on my plane and move on. Ramirez took thirty minutes to convince President Chavez to accept all of the terms proposed by ENI or rsik losing the deal, according to the cable, the italians said they would not pay the signing bonus, because PDVSA owed ot US# 1 billion”
There you have it, the empty and naked revolution is a bluff and an empty shell, not even its “buddies” like the Russians and Chinese participate in their projects because the terms are not attractive and they yield then to the “imperialistic” companies of Italy and the United States.
The Chavez revolution is simply a farce.
Today we learn that Russia sold our almighty leader 100 sophisticated air missile systems. It had been known that Venezuela had made the purchase, what was not known is that so many of them had been acquired. Thus, Chavez continues to arm the country for an unknown war with someone. The enemy used to be Colombia, now I gathered it must be back to the US and Obama, since Bush is no longer around.
There are two interesting questions. The first one is that according to Chavez’ original announcement, the purchase was made on credit from the Russians. Amazing no? A Government that is incapable of satisfying the most basic needs of the population, spends wildly on useless toys to satisfy the ego of our Dictator and keep the military men surrounding him happy with these expensive Xboxes.
But the second and more dramatic question is that the financing was for US$ 2.2 billion for some tanks and the 100 missile systems. I have no clue how much of these systems costs, but we go back to the example of a couple of days ago, For US$ 2.2 billion you could have built over 80,000 housing units, or 800 housing units for each missile system.
Which only goes to show that Hugo Chavez cares little for the “people” that he claims to love and that he has become the most irresponsible and insensitive President Venezuela has ever had by far. And we thought it would be hard for anyone to achieve this, but Chavez had done it by orders of magnitude. He finances Cuba’s invasion of Venezuela, guarantees that China will own the Heavy Oil tar sands by signing agreements impossible for PDVSA to comply with and borrows money to purchase absolutely useless weapons systems, while the people have water up to their necks…
I do hope Hugo Chavez rots in a jail cell in The Hague…
(Very appropriate to this post, given Chavez’ mouth:”The revolution is carried in the heart, not in the mouth to live off it! Che Guevara)
As I travel, I can’t help but find it hilarious how Chavez talks too much and his Vice-President denies less than a couple of hours later what he said. I mean, these guys still think nobody is watching them as they try to pull this silly doublespeak. I don’t think even hardcore Chavistas don’t see through this farce.
Because Chavez clearly said that he would take the hotels and the empty buildings of the rich, who would not go to Higuerote or Rio Chico right now. Even worse, Chavez gave the wrong diagnose. He claimed that the rich live in the upper parts and the poor in the lower parts because the rich could afford it. Nothing close the truth. Most of this coastal towns have been inhabited for long before the “rich” tourists came. And the locals always preferred to be in the low areas near the water, where their main livelihood, fishing, was. Thus as usual, Chavez is twisting the truth to fit his distorted ideas. In fact, in many of these coastal areas the farms were in the upper part and the workers still lived in the lowe lying areas where the towns have always been.
But no sooner had Hugo said this, that people started going towards Higuerote to defend their property and the Vice-President Elias Jaua, came out and denied that Chavez had said anything of the sort.Said the VP:
“We want to stop speculations…President Chavez did not order that apartments or houses be occupied”
No, Elias, he did not say that he said:
“We are going totake over the abandoned buildings of the rich, we are going to take them over”. Because, said Chavez, while those affected by the floods are in “smelly and dirty water, the buildings of the “rich” are in the best areas, where there is not even a puddle”
And to make sure nobody misunderstands what he meant by “abandoned”, he had said right before that statement: “Right now, I am sure the rich, because they see the “people” flooded” are not going to come here, they are going to go to Europe, or they are going to go to Miami, who knows where they are going to spend Christmas”
So, this was just another chapter of the Chavez and Jaua show, Jaua cleaning up the mess behind the brilliant ideas of the President. That’s all he really does in the end, clean up after the mess left by the big boss.
The floods began one month ago and today, the Chavez Government seems as unprepared to deal with them as the first day.
According to a PDVSA official in the local newspapers, Chinese companies will invest US$ 40 billion in the Orinoco oil belt of Venezuela, between now and 2016.
Let’s do the math:
Since all projects by law have PDVSA holding a 60% stake as a minimum, this implies that PDVSA will have to invest US$ 60 billion in five years or US$12 billion per year in the Chinese projects alone.
Add to that all of the other projects and the math is trivial:
At current oil prices, it ain’t going to happen.
In the latest news from the wikileak, it turns out that the Devil itself has now been wikileaked for telling the US Embassy’s “Econoffs“, exactly what I have said publicly in my blog many times (like, for example, here) that Venezuela does not have the scientific capabilities to do a nuclear program. In fact. I am blunter in my blog than I show up in the wikileak, in the blog I say:
“I can not take Chavez’ nuclear program very seriously, beyond the exhibitionist aspects of it”
or
“To do anything in the nuclear field, you need people and very simply, Venezuela does not have them. It would take years for Venezuela to put together a group of nuclear scientists to perform a small project whether peaceful or not. Unfortunately, educating high level people like that has not been and is not a priority right now and there is no local talent available to even begin doing it locally. The Venezuelan science establishment is getting old and in nuclear physics in particular, the people I know of are mostly retired or in the process of retiring and there are few people coming up below them.”
and
“The only thing that would change my mind on this was to learn that the country was importing huge numbers of experts from other countries for such a project.”
or in another more recent post:
“Not one nano watt of nuclear power will be in place in Venezuela in ten years, unless someone discovers simple cold fusion with tap water and an ipod charger. Please, don’t make it more complicated than that, the revolution could not handle it.”
About the main revelation from the wikileaked cable is that I have a Ph.D. in Physics, something that many readers may not know…
Another giant step by wikileaks into revealing public information…
(Thanks Larry Nieves for noting this to me)
So, through the magic of the bad, evil world of wikileaks we have learned so far the following:
-Some French diplomat says Chavez is crazy
What else is new? Even Edmundo Chirinos was saying that like in 2000
-Cuban intelligence officers compete with Venezuelan intelligence services for Hugo’s attention.
Well, duh, we have known about that for years. In fact, anyone that believes that the words Venezuelan intelligence services can all be used at the same time is out of touch.
-Venezuela’s Embassy sends a cable saying that medical services have deteriorated.
Jeez, replace medical with any word and you got a correct statement.
-Brazil’s Defense Minister all but acknowledged the presence of the FARC in Venezuela, except that admitting that would “ruin Brazil’s ability to mediate”
Wow! FARC in Venezuela! Who would have thought that? Those Brazilians are really clever. Do you mean they vacation in Venezuela? Or do you want videos proving it?
-The US is trying to isolate Venezuela.
You are kidding me? I thought Venezuela was trying to undermine the US openly, then isn’t that called fair play? Didn’t we know about it? Nothing new, that’s like saying Castro wants to end capitalism. Oh? You mean Hugo wants to do that too?
-Israel wants to blow Iran out of the water…
Change Israel for Iran and what else is new? It’s love at first blast, no?
So, so far, not much of interest, after all, who cares about Cristina and her mental state before or after Nestor’s death? Maybe now its more interesting. I am still falling sleep.
But if you ask for Hillary’s resignation Hugo, you should have resigned long ago, like you should have never been sworn in, just for being so out of touch. Do you know it’s raining?…
I was going to write about the fact that the Chavez Government stole Hato Piñero from its rightful owners, only to give it away to the Lybians for God knows what reason. But then I saw this Editorial in Sunday’s El Nacional and decided it was just best to translate it.
The Sad revolution, Editorial from El Nacional
Libya in Cojedes
Just about three years ago, the President traveled to Cojedes, and among his innumerable promises (you can’t deny the the richness of his imagination), he told the people of the area that the expropriation of Hato Piñero would take place ” with the objective of forming a unit of socialist development unit ” The revolutionary leader added: “We will place a large development center for the people of Cojedes and all the people of Venezuela and its products will not be to enrich minorities, because that is capitalism. The meat, food, animals, vegetables, milk, cheese, corn and everything will be produced here will provide cheap food and goods for the people of Venezuela. ”
The President, addressing the state’s governor, said, “Continue following down that road, Theodore. Hit hard the large farm estates and the capitalist speculators, always in defense of the people” He added that “the national government is committed to the recovery of businesses and estates and houses of leisure abandoned to consolidate projects in order to conform the socialist economy.”
That was in the midst of the campaign for the constitutional referendum in 2007. Chavez traveled around the country expropriating and promising villas and castles. Hato Piñero, a farming unit located between the municipalities of Pao and Girardot, in the southeastern state of Cojedes, had special connotations because it was sheltering large areas and preserved several species. It was one of the rare places in Venezuela, intimately connected with our history and traditions.
Three years later, there is no such socialist development nor is Hato Piñero being devoted to the enjoyment of the people of Cojedes. The decline replaced the splendor of nature that was preserved with passion with the care of the species that make their habitat there. Then after such demagoguery came the surprise filtered, incidentally, when the commitments signed with the Arab Socialist Republic of Libya, the country ruled for half a century by Colonel Gaddafi were revealed. It just so happens that Hato Piñero has been negotiated with Libya to develop it. (We Venezuelans are useless).
This is more serious than people realize when they see these stories lost among so many that overwhelm and confuse. We are an open country and we have no discrimination. But for those familiar with the ideas of Colonel Gaddafi criticized for his worldwide sponsorship of causes incompatible with freedom, and familiar with his doctrine of the Green Book, the handing out of Hato Piñero to Libya generates all sorts of anguish. Gaddafi will install in the 75,000 hectares a Lybian colony, and, when Venezuelans awaken, we will find an irreversible fait accompli. Grave. Very grave.
Alek Boyd has been hitting hard lately with his relentless digging, catching a few lies by pro-Chavez foreigners or pseud-foreigners. His latest coup is being able to prove that Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba has been lying when she says that she has never received money from the Venezuelan Government for political activities. Recall that Colombian police said they found a document about such funding in the papers of dead guerrilla leader “Mon-Joy”
What Alek did was go through the extensive documents he has on the Venezuelan Information Office (VIO) obtained as public documents from the US Department of Justice. And what he found is shown in this table, which shows that the Venezuelan Information Office helped Cordoba obtain at least ten separate meetings for lobbying for Cordoba on both Colombia and human rights, clearly an activity “funded” and supported by the Venezuelan Government, however indirectly.
Boyd has been on a great streak, showing and questioning the story of “la novia de Venezuela” Eva Golinger, whose cedula number does not jive with her story and her lies and violations of US laws, as well as showing how lawyer Marino Alvarado, of human rights organization PROVEA, who has been defending former ETA member Arturo Cubillas, received his Venezuela nationality in 2005 under Chavez.
Way to go Alek!
Today we get the news that the Government wants to extend the so called “Muzzle Law” to the Internet. While some have reported this as a “rumor”, this is not simply a rumor as this document clearly shows. It is a proposal made to the Venezuelan Vice-President Elias Jaua by the country’s telecom commission CONATEL and aims to:
“Have the State protect collective interests, particularly those of kids and adolescents, as receptors of messages via…electronic media, through resounding measures that would allow the control by these actors for the effective compliance with the laws”
later the document adds:
“Inclusion of electronic media as part of the Law; Due to the fact that this service has turned, thanks to the policies of the Bolivarian Government, in one of the main forms of communication which are received by the collective in general. basically without regulation in terms of content, which requires that the Government insure that it may be “apt” especially to kids and adolescents, because currently content is transmitted with apologies for crime which attempt against the peace, security and citizen education, it is necessary to establish responsibilities for those that issue these measures, because of the consequences it may have, as well as the adoption of immediate measures that allow for the withdrawal of such content”
Of course, this is nothing new, it just formalizes the intent of the Government to penalize the use of the Internet in any way it wants, punishing those responsible and forcing for the withdrawal of such messages.
The content is clear, while it aims at protecting kids and young people, making it sound as if the Government wants to control inapropiate content, it later includes messages that attempt against the peace and security as well as theeducation of citizens. i.e, anything the Government finds offensive.
Of course, to enforce these laws, the Government will have to be able to block content coming from abroad, since it will not be able to to force “the withdrawal of such content” and give way to all sorts of controls by the Government over the Internet.
This is simply an extension and formalization of previous actions, as offensive tweets by Venezuelan twitters have already been persecuted, showing clearly that the Government can pinpoint who and where tweets using cell phones originate (All cases so far have been those associated with cellphones, no land lines). Thus, this would become a more formal excuse to block sites, content and scare and persecute and prosecute content depending on Chavez’ whims.
Nothing new, just more of the same. Less democracy, more censorship, more totalitarianism by a Government that believes only in that and has a total disregard for people’s rights and democracy.
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The Devil's Excrement 
