The Devil's Excrement

In February 2005, during the second state of emergency due
to floods in the State of Vargas,
I was amazed at the absence of President Chavez. I wrote a post at the time
which title is “A
New Venezuelan Game: Where is Chavez?”. In that post, I recalled the
absence of President Chavez during the tragedy of the first Vargas emergency.

This seems to be a pattern: every time the country needs the
figure of a strong figure to show that they are in control, to help the
collective moral of the Venezuelan people, Chavez disappears.

In this moments in which the whole Venezuela,
Chavistas and non-Chavistas are in a state of shock because of the brutal murders
and kidnappings of the Faddoul brothers, Miguel Rivas and now Jorge Aguirre, the
commander in chief is nowhere to be seen.

This is the guy that uses 6 hours every Sunday of TV time to
say anything that comes to his mind. This is the guy that every other day asks
for a “cadena” to make silly announcements or to use the attention of the world
to insult his political foes. This is the guy that wants to be president for
life.

At first, I thought that I had probably overlooked a Chavez
declaration about the case. I searched my usual governmental sources and could
not find anything about Chavez.

Finally, I found this note
in El Universal this morning. It says that the executive repudiated the
assassination of the Faddoul brothers and of Miguel Rivas…it was the Minister
of labor, Ricardo Dorado, that declared
to the press! Did you guys know that Venezuela’s
minister of labor was named Ricardo Dorado? I did not.

Where are the heavy weights of the government in this
moments of profound sadness and collective crisis?

Where are the Rangels and the Maduros that are always so
quick in declaring when it is time to insult political dissidents?

But first and foremost, where is the President ?

Where is Chavez?
Jorge Arena

Puzzled Ghost Blogger.

Update.-10h30 a.m. The mother of the three kids gave an interview
this morning denying that she had attempted suicide. She is a devoted
catholic. She had very harsh words for the goverment and in particular
for President Chavez. She literally said “when he is overlooking and
not giving importance to the torture and killing of four people, of
which one was a handicapped kid, I, Gladys Diab declare, I despise him. I do not hate
him. For me this and other cases of apathy of the law of God will be
the begining of the end, that will route Venezuela towards the Divine
light of peace and Justice”

When Jorge Aguirre took his camera this morning to cover for
the spontaneous protests that were taken place in Caracas
for the deaths of the Faddoul brothers, he probably never imagined that that afternoon
his camera would contain the last picture of his life: the picture of his
killer.

According to the journalists that were with him, Jorge
Aguirre, a photographer for El Mundo, was shot by someone that was dressed like
a policeman (see here)
when he was in the car that was taking him and his peers to report one of the
protests.

In fact, this morning, people took to the streets and closed
some major arteries in Caracas to
protest for the Faddoul assassination and for the state of insecurity that
Venezuelans are living day in and day out (see
here).

In the evening, several vigils were announced all over Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Isaias Rodríguez said that they had a lot of
leads and that there is no connection whatsoever between the Sindoni case and
the Faddoul case. He criticized the sectors that are protesting to politicize the
case (see the MINCI news here). In other
words, protest in solidarity but do not protest if you find that the personal
security problem in Venezuela
is huge and you blame the government for the state of affairs.

The chief of the technical police that was in charge of
dealing with the kidnappers said that the investigation was not a failure but
what happened was a “desperation” from the kidnappers…

Rodriguez also said that the government had been in touch
with the kidnappers and from the accent they sounded Colombians. This was
repeated later by Minister
Chacon.This of course, is always convenient: blame the Colombians. I am not
saying that the assassins are not Colombians, they might very well be, but I
find it very particular that this would be the first tip that government
officials would give on this investigation.

You see, Venezuelan people have traditionally blamed the
Colombians for all their security problems. I do not know if that is true or
not, but it is accepted as a fact by many Venezuelans. So this is an easy way for any government
to get rid of its responsibility: find a
likely scapegoat and put the blame on him. The poverty, the corruption, the
state of the judicial and jail system, the drug dealing and the money
laundering, the government ineptitude and the state of hate that Chavez has
fostered over the years…nothing is the fault of the government. Just find the
appropriate Colombian and people will forget about the fact that they are
living in a state of siege led by an incompetent government.

In the meanwhile, other governmental entities have been busy
promoting their solution to the problem: more and different Police forces. As I
mentioned this morning, the mayor of Caracas,
Juan Barreto, even published today an
add in El Nacional to praise the neighboring police. Again, here is the add.

Barreto’s add says that with the People’s organization,
personal security advances. It says that in Caracas,
the fight against crime advances despite those that do not believe in the
People’s organizations. It is said that
with the Community Assemblies several security networks have been built: the
Security tables, the Neighbouring Police, the Motorized Police, the Tourist Police
and the Family Police to oversee the problems in Schools, Hospitals and inside
the Families.

More than 3600 neighbours have been trained and armed to be part of these new
neighbouring forces.

Today, Barreto, like
Rodriguez, also asked not to use the
pain and the death as a political flag (but wasn’t him the one that ordered the
add in today’s El Nacional?). He also
announced the Militarization of the current Metropolitan Police by creating the
“Mayor State of Citizen’s Protection” composed of 11 military members that will
be named by…the minister of the Defense and Chavez himself.

On the other hand, Barreto’s collegue, Freddy Bernal, asked
that the law for the creation of a National Police be passed as soon as possible.

So this ghost blogger, after having read and analyzed all
the facts, came to the conclusion that there are too many Policemen and too many Police forces in this story.

First the Sindoni case, next the Faddoul killing, then Jorge
Aguirre’s killing…in all there seems to be policemen involved. It is like the
Police forces have gone totally out of control or someone is really interested
in having Police officers portrayed as kidnappers and killers.

And, of course the solution of the Chavista government is,
as usual, instead of fixing what is already there, weaken what we have and
build new entities where they can control everything. What they are putting in
place is really scary: at your local level, a neighbouring police, a family police, a
tourist police….and on top of everything, a National Police directly controlled
by Chavez..and on the existing local Police forces, military men, also controlled
by Chavez.

I do not know about you, but I am REALLY feeling that there
are too many Police stories in this story

Jorge Arena

Worried and skeptical ghost blogger.

This is one of the saddest posts I have ever written

El Nacional reports that four bodies believed to be those of
the Faddoul brothers were found in the town of Yare
today. Two of the bodies had the T-shirt of the school attended by the brothers…in
later news it has been confirmed that it is indeed the
Faddoul brother’s bodies.

The three Venezuelan-Canadian
kids, ages 12, 13 and 17, were kidnapped with their driver when they were
taken to school on February 23. According to witnesses, the car with the kids
was stopped and then escorted by several
police officers in motorcycle. The 13 year old was said to have a physical
disability. A ransom of 4.5 million
dollars was asked for the release of the kids. The Government of Canada had
contacted and pressured the Venezuelan
government about the case, but said that had received minimal information.

This crime reminds me of last week abduction and immediate
killing of Venezuelan-Italian businessman Filippo Sindoni, the successful
owner of a pasta empire, a TV station and a newspaper. In this case, the car carrying
Sindoni was also stopped by what looked
like Police officers.

So Chacon just said that he hopes that this case is not
given a political bias. But, what is going on, Minister Chacon? How can you
explain those kidnappings? It looks like too many police officers involved in
those cases…and what have you been doing about the personal safety of
Venezuelans all these years? Why so many
kidnappings and killings?

I would also like to get Vice
President José Vicente Rangel’s version for those cases .

This is not a film to “falsify the truth” Mr. Vice
President (1), these horrible kidnapping and killings are for real. This is the
true state of affairs in Venezuela,
where there is no personal safety and where the justice and police system seem
to be in place just to persecute the government political opponents, but not to
protect its citizens.

Jorge Arena

(1) Referring to JVR comments about the film “Secuestro Express”.
—————————————————————————————
Update note.- Daniel also wrote about the story here
and showed a n image that appeared TODAY in El Nacional. A propaganda
by mayor Juan Barreto to justify the creation of a sort of armed
neighbouring seceurity forces, which in my view further pursues
the  militarization of the civil society. Was it bad timing or
Barreto was purposedly exploiting the death
of the Faddoul brothers to promote this new type of popular brigades?
Note that the bodies were found before 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Here is the link to the infamous add.

As if we did not know he is an autocrat, Hugo Chavez said this Sunday
that he suspected the opposition would not field a candidate in the
December Presidential elections. If that was the case, he said, and
then he will propose a change to the Constitution to allow for his
indefinite reelection.

This was spoken like a true autocrat with
no belief in democracy, rather than promotes more democracy, let’s have
less! Why not count all the ballots, have a balanced CNE or make the
electoral system more transparent. Nah!

But what is even worse
is that he is saying he will be President for life, as none of his
followers can even aspire to become President. After all, there are no
primaries to select him and he has no plans for any, ever.

This
is nothing new, but it amazes me that statements like these do not
bother those that claim Hugo Chavez is a democrat. The aim of term
limits is to provide more democracy, not less. To prevent someone from
grabbing so much power that it is impossible to remove. To stop someone
form perpetuating him or herself in the position a la Castro or his
imitator, Hugo Chavez.

Reading the comments session (thanks Deanna) I realized
there was this article on President Chavez. Here is the link.
Read it and tell the National Geographic what do you think.

The complete url below, just in case:
http://seabed.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/forum2.tmpl?issue_id=20060401&forum_index=2

Almost two weeks ago, in his 249^th Alo Presidente
when he heard, while on live TV, that the Viaduct had felt down, Chavez
minimized the impact of the news and stated the following

“El señor Viaducto se cayó.
Pues nos hizo un favor, nos ahorró el trabajo de tumbarlo

[Mr. Viaduct
felt down. It made us a favor, it saved us the work to demolish it]

Of course, regardless of what Mr.
President said in his Sunday show, the Viaduct had to be demolished.

So everything was settled for the Viaduct
to fall down TODAY. I guess that the day was chosen so that Mr. President would
say “mission accomplished” tomorrow in his Sunday show…¦my mistake, re-reading
the news I learned that the initial date was Thursday the 30^th but
because the new cardinal was coming back to town, the government did not want
to have the Viaduct falling that day.

Anyways, the Viaduct is definitely anti-Chavez
and has a mind of its own, or was paid by the CIA

Guess what?

It did not fall!

Not enough dynamite..

Of course now that the whole thing failed,
there was supposed to be a preplanned second phase. According to the CAVIM (the
company in charge of the dynamite) president this was just a very successful “phase 1″! Funny that we
were not informed of the phases before. But we were dutifully informed instead
that very sophisticated earthquake equipment was going to be installed to
monitor and avoid any negative effects and exactly measure the speed and acceleration
of the “mass of earth”.

BTW, isn’t it  the company in charge of the
explosives the same CAVIM company that produces the endogenous Zamorana
pistol, that is supposed to be the first endogenous product of the Chavista
goverment? And isn’t  his president the one that said that his company, that
produces arms and explosives, had a “social objective”?

As my boss says sometimes, the advantage of
having a blog is that, regardless of our old age (particularly Miguel), we bloggers (and ghosts) get
a good memory.

Reporting from Cyberspace
Jorge Arena
Amused Ghost Blogger.

Donkey, coward, genocide (“genocida”), drunk…those are some of the
warm words that President Chavez got for President Bush on National TV.

You’ve got to watch it to believe it. Alfredo put the video on Tyromaniac. Here is the link.

When, in a few years, or in a few decades, people think
about the Chavista era, they would probably remember that this was the first
regime that institutionalized intimidation and apartheid in Venezuela.

When the President is shown on TV reminding his viewers that
if they sign for a Revocatory Referendum their names and ID numbers will be
known, that is called intimidation. And later, when workers are fired or citizens
are denied access to jobs, passports or ID’s because they signed, that is a
state of political apartheid.

That had never happened before in Venezuela
and it is probably the darkest political and social legacy of President Chavez
and of any president of the so-called democratic era. I certainly hope that
History remembers Chavez on that account.

Last year, upon hearing president Chavez ask his followers
to bury the infamous “Tascon” fascist list, I wrote this
ghost posting demanding that Chavez assumes his responsibility and that the
country asks a single question:

“What did Chavez know and when did he know it?”

Almost a year has passed since that post, and nobody has asked
let alone answered that question. There has been no investigation, nobody put
on trial, no one, except some private newspapers to register the abuses that
the state of political apartheid has created in Venezuela.

However, in my view, two positive things have happened: the
List has no longer been referred as the “Tascon list” and the documentary called
“The list” has been created.

Referring to the list as Tascon’s, was a way to minimize the
importance of the political blacklisting. A way to overlook the fact that the
political apartheid system was instaured well beyond the petty views of a member
of the National Assembly with fascist tendencies.  We, Venezuelans, are happy people that do not
take ourselves or our governments  too
seriously, so talking about the list as a local colorful issue probably helped
us escape the reality that this was a serious matter that could change forever
our everyday lives.

So when the Tascon list becomes “la Lista” we, as
Venezuelans, are giving a step forward towards questioning the state of our
civil liberties and questioning a State that submits its citizens to a
systematic apartheid.  Remarkably, this
consciousness has happened in less than a year, which was also a year of high
oil prices that greatly improved the economy of the country.

Today, I watched the short version of La Lista that appeared
in Tal Cual multimedia and that you can see here.

I am not going to repeat what
Daniel and Miguel  have already written about that film, all I
am going to tell you is that you should watch it and see that the country is
little by little increasing its civic and political awareness. 

Ironically, despite the depressing subject, I was more
optimistic after watching it. I said to myself that maybe sooner than expected
Venezuelans will ask and even question the government with my original
question.

What did Chavez know and when did he know it?

Jorge Arena
Distinguished ghost blogger
http://arenaspace.blogspot.com
http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com

Scanning the official Ministry of Information pages of the
government of Venezuela
(the MINCI pages), I found the following news:

“The Ambassador of Cuba will ask that the major of Baruta be
investigated”

Here is the link:
http://www.mci.gob.ve/noticiasnuev.asp?numn=9550

I was quite intrigued by the title and, as a curious ghost
blogger that I am, started reading and digging some information about the case.

Henrique Capriles Radonsky is the very popular mayor of the
town of Baruta, in the East part of
Caracas where the Cuban Embassy is
located.

During the events of April 2002, a group of angry and
radical anti-Chavez people were protesting in front of the Cuban Embassy. After
being called by the Cuban Ambassador, Capriles Radownsky went to the site and talked with him.
According to Capriles, he assured the Ambassador that he was going to do
whatever was possible to insure the security of the diplomatic personnel and he
asked the protesters to leave the place, which they did.

After those events, the Public Ministry started an
investigation on the case and the Fiscalia accused Capriles Radonsky. Capriles was actually put in jail for several
months supposedly to prevent his leaving the country because the prosecution
said that he was not present on three occasions after being called. According
to Capriles, his lawyers were denied the access to the file where the
prosecution declarations were stated.

It follows a long and complicated judicial tail.

At one point even the TSJ declared that Capriles had been
sent to jail in an unjustified manner, but somehow the case was reopened.

The
Capriles version of the events can be found here and here.

Capriles asked recently that he be judged in an impartial
manner and he denounced that the Cuban Ambassador had meetings with
representatives of the Judicial Power (see here).

After this long introduction, I can take you back to the
note that called my attention and that appeared on March 23, 2006, on the very official MINCI
pages.

The page shows the communiqué of the Cuban Embassy not only
denying the allegations of Capriles (which would have been the normal thing to do
for a diplomatic entity) but also ASKING THE GOVERNMENT OF VENEZUELA TO
INVESTIGATE WHY HE IS MAKING THOSE ALLEGATIONS…I mean, the guy was put in jail,
has been harassed for several years for this event, his case has been reopened ….In
my humble ghost blogger opinion the guy has every legitimate right to be
concerned about the fairness of his trial and scared at the possibility that
the Cuban representatives be in contact with anyone in the Venezuelan judicial
system that is going to judge him…

But although I am quite bothered by the answer of the Cuban Embassy,
that is not what bothered me the most. What really put me in the alarm mode and
triggered me to write this post was the following paragraph that clearly
demonstrates the current state of justice, fairness and separation of powers in
Venezuela. It was
written by the officials in charge of the Venezuelan Ministry of Information
pages (I copy it verbatim in Spanish)

“El alcalde, que en los días del golpe de estado de 2002 tuvo una
participación en los actos de asedio a la embajada cubana, al no impedir que la
turba violenta mantuviera incomunicada a la sede durante 3 días, acusa al
embajador de conspirar en el país.

A continuación la nota completa emitida por la sede
diplomática:”

The
translation :

          “The
mayor, that during the days of the coup of 2002 had a participation in the acts
of siege of the Cuban Embassy when he did not prevent that the violent crowd
maintained the Embassy without communications during 3 days, accuses the
Ambassador to conspire in the country.
   

In what follows we present the complete note issued by the diplomatic
see”.

So what we essentially have here is the OFFICIAL pages of
the Goverment of Venezuela SAYING that a citizen that will stand
trial is already GUILTY. The note is written in the affirmative, there is no
presumption of innocence whatsoever in this note.

…And this is the same government that claims that there is
justice and independence of Powers in Venezuela.

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
Curious ghost blogger