The Devil's Excrement

A week ago, I heard Hugo Chavez say in a very sweeping statement that he had ordered commanders and Governors, not to listen to the Courts whenver they contradicted his decrees. I not only heard it, but all newspapers covered it in the same way, Tal Cual even used it the next day in its headline saying “Being Crazy” with a picture of the President and the same statement everyone heard. Well, today President Chavez wanted to change history saying the media distorts what he says and a comment he made about a judge in Maracaibo, was completely misrepresented. He denied ever saying that or doing it. Interestingly enough, the Court cases that Chavez was referring to that day had nothing to do with a judge in Maracaibo, they dealt with a decision by a control judge in Carabobo state and a decision by the First Circuit Administartive Court of Caracas, one of the best respected Courts in the country. Such is Mr. Chavez’ virtual world!

Hugo Chavez said today on his weekly TV program that the oil industry is going back to work. So far only one ship (there are more than one hundred) has moved, and gas lines are huge, so we are not sure what he means by that. Additionally, he said that all oil workers that are on strike are being fired. He denounced corruption in PDVSA and withour giving details, said they will be revealed later.

Separately, many lawyers continue to say nobody can be jailed for not following orders from PDVSA. Lawyers say that the penalties are only when the injunction is accepted, but there is no decision on that, the audience will take place later next week. They also inform that this is not a labor strike and thus the Governemnt can not order people to go back to work like it is pretending to.

Priscilla West, a US citizen who worked for PDVSA in Venezuela for two years has written these two letters that I think are very good and deserve to be read by many both here and abroad. One of them has been published here the other one is this one:

I have never been involved in US politics, but two years working within Venezuela’s petroleum industry placed me squarely in the middle of that country’s political arena. Now back in the US, I am in close contact with Venezuelan counterparts as the current crisis unfolds.  The protests, strikes, and eventual violence of the past several weeks have been a greatly intensified repeat of the events of last April…  And once again, the scant US coverage of the crisis has been disturbing.

For years I had discounted references to a “liberal media conspiracy.”   However, events of the past few weeks have opened my eyes.  I became incensed enough to write this letter after reading postings on a pro-Chavez website thanking “brother communist” Ted Turner for his sympathetic treatment of the issue.

CNN Viewers should know that what CNN means by “Chavez was overwhelmingly re-elected to a six-year term in 2000…” is really “Chavez re-wrote the   nation’s constitution, increasing his own term to six years.” NPR   listeners hearing “…it remains unclear which side is responsible for the   shootings,” should know that the shooter had thousands of witnesses, admitted his guilt, and was lauded publicly by president Chavez for his actions. Venezuelan ship captains are NOT “pirates” who have “hijaked” oil tankers off the coast — they dropped anchor in solidarity with over 90% of the nation’s workforce engaged in the strike. The limited US coverage of this crisis is filled with such misrepresentations.

Chavez is a known ally of Fidel Castro, and since his election he has systematically ousted the congress, re-written the constitution, taken away land rights and other freedoms, and imposed a corrupt and non-commercial rule over the state-owned oil company PDVSA. As oil prices have surged, his oil-rich nation’s economy has toppled.

The US media should consider that the leftist Chavez regime it subtly defends has repeatedly tried to revoke Venezuela’s own right to free press.  During last April’s protests, local television broadcast signals were suddenly blocked: Live coverage of protestors outside the presidential palace was replaced with a prerecorded speech in which Chavez insisted the “situation (was) normal.” (Several stations were able to reroute signal to broadcast a split screen juxtaposition of Chavez’s absurd speech alongside footage of the actual scene in Caracas.)  During the past two weeks, Venezuelan television and radio headquarters have been ransacked and media workers have been physically assaulted at the hands of  angry Chavez supporters.  Chavez accuses the media of “criminal behavior” for it’s open coverage of the national strike.

We have been preoccupied with Iraq for good reason;  However, war with Iraq would make Venezuelan oil supply that much MORE important to our nation.   Do we want to be courting a communist dictator in Venezuela?  The people of Venezuela have submitted over 2.2 million entries on an official petition for national referendum on Chavez’s rule, organized numerous nationwide labor strikes and peaceful protests, and petitioned the Organization of American States.  The nation’s economy has ground to a halt as exports have stopped and local gasoline supplies dwindle.  As I type this letter, many of PDVSA’s petroleum professionals are in hiding, because armed national guardsmen have tried to force them from their homes into the office.

These workers want Venezuelan oil to flow freely into the world market just as badly as we do…. But first, they want their democratic nation back!

  Concerned Oil Professional

  Tulsa, OK

  Priscilla West

Antonio Guzman Blanco pointed out this very good article by Alvaro Vargas Llosa about the Venezuelan crisis, which I have liberally translated:

We are all Venezuelans by Alvaro Vargas LLosa

With fanfare and ostentation, we Latin-Americans signed the Democratic Charter and said: Never again

But the first test was enough for the Charter to be reduced to wet paper and those that signed it reduced to the condition of Tartuffes. Venezuela has been doing for a year what we Peruvians never had the strength to do during eight years and each day the lack of Latin-American solidarity with its civil resistance becomes more heart rendering. Fortunately, that resistance exhibits courage and organization and –with the paralization of two thirds of the oil industry- some results that could overthrow the regime.

But if this happens, it will be despite Latina America. It will not be our party. Hugo Chávez won elections in 1998 and he immediately disfigured democracy, first designing a Constitution-delirium made to his measure, later having himself reelected with an extension of his mandate, even later capturing the supervisory organizations while arming militia units that he called “Bolivarian Circles’ and finally, assuming powers to capture by decree the economic system. 

Last year, he precipitated the crisis with 49 expropriatory decrees which concentrated in the Presidency the destiny of all homes. On December 10 2001, with the first strike against Chavez, civil resistance was born. Since then it has never stopped. Chavez has sustained his power on the military, on the mobs that terrorize politicians, reporters and demonstrators, and oil, which, with almost three million barrels a day, of which two million are exported, oxygenated an economy in ruins. So far in this fight, Chavez has fathered two massacres, one in April and another in December and has continued to refuse to a disproportionately cautious request: early elections or referendum.

While this drama is displayed, Latin America makes faces once in a while so that it does not appear as if it is not doing anything. Cesar Gaviria, allowed himself to drop by Caracas. He did not arrive like the leader of the OAS to tell Chavez: You have overflowed legality, thus, honor the Democratic Charter and unless you fix an acceptable date for elections, we will apply the sanctions. No: without the mandate that he was not given, but also without the leadership that he did not give himself, he arrived as a tourist. He proclaimed the equivalence of the parts and asked for a negotiated solution. While this happened, the brains of the opposition were flying through the air of Plaza Altamira, Chavista mobs assaulted TV channels and soldiers captured Captains of the Merchant Marine joining the strike aboard their tankers (potential torches) filled with fuel.

The dialogue table, like what happened in Peru, is virtual. What is real is what happens outside: without the “vladivideo”, Fujimori did not make a single concession despite the saliva spent in that negotiation, and, without the addition of Petroleos de Venezuela and the Merchant Marine to the strike, he wouldn’t even have offered a popular election in August.

The OAS is a ship adrift and it reaches good port only when the drift takes it there-after many deaths and injuries. Latin-American Governments believe that, by avoiding the application of the Charter, they avoid being victims of their own people. Poor devils. The number one problem of the continent, that which precisely has it under the threat of civilian overflow over the Governments is the lack of legitimacy of its leadership class.  

To sustain the tyrant of a neighbor country and abandon to their luck the people which are being shot at in the streets is the worst form, for a Latin American Government, to make itself legitimate in front of its own people. Illegitimacy of the governing class is born in the loss of credibility.

It is a sentimental abyss that the treason against the Venezuelan people increases rather than decrease. That is why, the coward calculation of our Governments, which believe they can buy internal peace looking the other way in Venezuela, is in the end the best demonstration that its rebel civil societies are correct in believing that they are not credible.

Maybe the Governments have turned their backs to you, dear Venezuelans. But we, those on foot, have not done so. I remember with emotion having accompanied you in the streets last year and having forecasted, in “Letras Libres’ that that December 10 was the memorable beginning of a memorable campaign. In this era in which it is not so much the Governments, up there, like the societies, down here, the ones that represent countries, know that you are not alone.

Our leaders have not found out yet, but in the plains, we are all Venezuelans! 

The tanker Pilin Leon, has began moving, reportedly being piloted by a Cuban crew. This violates Venezuelan laws that require the Captain and 50% of the crew to be Venezuelan. Image loss for the opposition, but it took the Government over two weeks to move it.

President of PDVSA is saying that the crew is Venezuelan. The Pilin Leon was carrying 44 million liters of gasoline, roughly one and a half tanks per car in the country or two days consumption when people are not worried about how much gas is  present in their tanks. Given that it everyone is running on empty, the joy will not appear to last very long. They claim another tanker the “Bora” will arrive tonight, but that ship is carrying nafta, which can not be used as gasoline. The country is still producing less than 300,000 barrels of oil a day, out of a regular production of 2.8 million barrels a day.  After the succesful movement of the Pilin Leon, it was “revealed” that Chavez himself was on it, yeah, yeah, yeah…

The Government, by the way, also attempted to hold a large march yesterday. Despite busing people to it (see the white line of buses on the right in the picture below), the TV cameras could not hide the fact that it was tiny. Estimates range from 10,000-15,000 people versus way over a million for the opposition. Here is the picture:

Note that once you get to the overpass there are no people. I don’t even believe there were 10,000 people there. Three or four neigborhood opposition pot-banging marches, which take place nightly, gather as many people as that. So much for revolutionary fervor.

The team that represents the Chavez Administration at the negotiating table with the opposition and the OAS, did not show up yesterday. The Government did not inform the Secretary General of the OAS the reasons for their absence. Is this called bad faith?

Once in a while I receive an e-mail that makes me feel like I may be wasting my time trying to explain to the world what is happening in Venezuela. On second thought, I realize that people tend to be quite superficial and the amount of material as well as the chronological order of this weblog makes it difficult for someone who discovers it, to go back and read every post. But these e-mails are also useful in that it allows me to go back and say things that are buried in the many pages I have written since I began, most of which even I may have a difficult time pinpointing exactly where they are.

A certain Mr. Cassio Lira, whom I surmise is from Brazil writes:

“Miguel, your weblog is a very well crafted attempt to show ONE part of the
question. You should mention that the last time the anti-Chavez opposition
in Venezuela took power, some months ago, they closed the Congress and
installed a OpusDei-led dictatorship. Their Pinochet-inspired regime only
lasted for one day, but clarified the situation for observers around the
world.
A 70 or 80% disaproval rate for the president is a very common thing in
democracies, although it doesn’t follow that elections shoud be called every
time it happens.
However, considering the situation, I really hope there are elections next
year – and that Chavez wins. What will you do then? Call the CIA to finish
him off, like they did with Arbenz, Goulart, Allende, etc?
 What a shame 😦

First of all, I have mentioned what happened in April and I have been critical of the turn of events, but I have also explained exactly what happened and the chronology is important. In April, Hugo Chavez resigned a fact that was announced by the Inspector General of the Armed Forces, who became Minister of Defense upon Mr. Chavez’ return. After Mr. Chavez left, a Government was named  chosen mainly by two Generals, this Government issued a decree that did indeed violate the country’s Constitution. Interestingly enough, the first decree that shut down Congress was rewritten six hours later reversing that decision, indicating that the brief Carmona Governemnt understood its mistakes and was willing to change, something that can not be said about Hugo Chavez and his regime.

Accusing that brief Government of being “Opus-Dei-led Pinochet style dictatorship” is absurd. One Cabinet post  was held by a highly regarded Social-Christian who happens to be a member of Opus Dei, but in a 17 member Cabinet, this is far from being Opus-Dei led. In fact, there is one member of Mr. Chavez’ Cabinet (Curiously in the same position) who was a member of the same organization and nobody seems to even note it.  As to the term Pinochet-style dictatorship, that first decree established that there would be elections within 12 months, so it can’t be the absence of democracy that that the term refers to. It must then mean that somehow these people were ready to violate individual’s Human Rights, kill people or jail them without charges. Well, interestingly, the officers that asked Hugo Chavez to resign in April, including the two that were part of the brief Government later, refused to obey the orders of Hugo Chavez to execute a repressive plan called “Plan Avila”  against the peaceful demonstration that day (A Court in The Hague has ruled that Plan violates people’s rights). Curiously, once again, none of them (thirteen total) has ever been accused or charged of violating anybody’s Human or Civil rights. In contrast, two of the most powerful Generals in the current Government, Generals Garcia Carneiro and Acosta Carles, have repeatedly been accused of violating both in the last few months, weeks and days. Moreover, General Rosendo, Chavez’ close aide until the April events, testified in Congress that he was present at a meeting where Mr. Chavez discussed how to repress the April march. There are videos which show officials of Chavez’ MVR party shooting at the peaceful march and it took an order from the Venezuelan Supreme Court to jail only two of them despite the clear proof of their actions. It is Chavez’ MVR party which has refused to appoint a “Truth Commission” to establish what happened in April. My dear friend, Hugo Chavez is closer to Augusto Pinochet’s style than any of those that participated in the brief, irresponsible and stupid, Carmona Government in April. For proof, you only have to go back a couple of weeks and read the links on the decision by the OAS Human Rights Commission against the Hugo Chavez Government or read what the Minister of Planning said today (link below) or the attack on the media last week (all documented by the way).

The current political crisis is not due to Chavez’ high dissaproval rate. Rafael Caldera had a similarly high rating in 1996 and, curiosuly except for Hugo Chavez himself, nobody was asking for Caldera to leave. (Somewhere in this blog I have two video clips in which Hugo Chavez literally says” if a million people take to the streets asking me to resign, I would).

The problem is that Hugo Chavez ran for President criticizing the previous 40 years of democracy. People believed he would reduce crime, improve the economy, make the country more just and democratic and eliminate corruption. Instead, Hugo Chavez has devoted himself to obtaining the tightest possible control of the whole Government, including a Constitution written for him, a Supreme Court named by a “temporary” Congress with no legal bases and a “revolution” whose content appears to be he is the law and his military cronies can do anything they want. Meanwhile 40% of the companies in the private sector have shutdown and despite the largest oil income in any four year period of the country’s history, eight out of the last sixteen quarters have shown economic contraction and GDP this year is likely to contract by 7- 8%. Legality does not exist, the consultative referendum has been challenged twice by Chavez and the Supreme Court has rejected the cases both times. Despite this, the Government refuses to fund it. Last week eight judges of the Supreme Court suspended all work until the Government stops persecuting and pressuring them. Chavez Government is simply no longer legitimate.

What we have in Venezuela is a total rebellion by the people against Chavez and his revolution, called now “robolucion”, for “robar” the Spanish word for stealing. People (close to 80%!)now dislike everything Chavez stands for, including trickery, treachery and corruption. They are so fed up, that millions march four hours a day, everyday, go home have dinner and then go out again in pot-banging marches that last one to two hours every night. They are so fed up, that the private sector has been on strike 21 days, in the best season of the year for business. 90% of oil workers are on strike, university students and all unions are also on strike. Weird isn’t it?  A leftist Government with no union or student support.

If Chavez wins the election, we will become like Cuba, but he can only win by cheating, which is quite possible. You give  a list which includes Goulart, Allende..etc.., Why not,  Hitler, Noriega, Hussein. It offends you? Is not a shame, its the truth, Hugo Chavez is a bizarre  cocktail of left-wing ideas, with right-wing facist militarism, which in my mind is closer to Pinochet than anyone I can think of. Read the decrees he had ready when he tried a coup in 1992 (They used to be in the MBR200 website, but they have dissapeared), had he succeeded he would have outdone Pinochet many times over. Is there a risk of an undesirable Government taking over if Chavez leaves? Yes, Chavez’ stubborness and refusal to respect the law and democracy creates that risk, but we are willing and desperate to take it.

(Technical note: Elections can be called anytime the Constitution of a country allows them, each democracy has its own rules. In a Parlamentary system, which is democratic, 70-80% dissaproval usually leads to elections. In Venezuela’s Constitution 10% of the electorate can request a referendum on any legal question, the Supreme Court has ruled the question requested by 16.5% of the electorate is legal (Roughly it says: do you want Hugo Chavez to voluntarily resign?). A recall referendum may only take place after the half point of the term. The term here is six years, Chavez has been in power four years already. BUT, after the new Constitution was enacted, he decided he had to run again (Yes, there was no reason for him to do it, he decided it, a la Louis XV). The Court interpreted that the “half term” was half term of the new term, not three years, which seemed more logical)

The Minister of Planning said today:

“soon the gangster mafia of PDVSA is going to leave”…”after PDVSA the people (which people??) will take over the media”….”The media that does not present biased news and does it in optimistic fashion will survive”

All I can say is this is the type of facist Government Venezuelans have…….these are not democrats!!!

TSJ no ordenó cese del paro