The Devil's Excrement

A few people have asked me why I have mostly ignored in my blog the World Social Forum which took place in Caracas last week. Well, I am sure that those that came to Caracas had a great time in this beautiful city and that Venezuelans were very nice to them, as Venezuelans are friendly and helpful. But I have no doubt that the event was mostly a non-event in terms of its goals and origins for too many reasons.

The problem was the way on which the Venezuelan Government controlled the event. This not only put off some people, because it went against the very nature of the Forum, but it also meant that all of the organizational details where in the hands of the Venezuelan Government and thus the participants were able to see the managing incapabilities of Chavismo first hand.

The Government tried to hide the dismal failure that the event was by simply trying to ignore it by the end of the week, but let’s take a look about what Government officials told us before the event and what truly happened:

1) The Organizers said that 120,000 would come from abroad. The number was truly outrageous anyway, but it is likely than fewer than 10,000 people actually came from outside the country.

2) The Organizers had said that the La Carlota military airstrip in Caracas would be used as a camp for participants to stay at. Then, we were told, events and conferences would take place in Parque de el Este right across the highway. (Parque del Este had refused to allow people to camp in it). In the end it was unnecessary. La Carlota was only used one day for an event, but nobody stayed there anyway, there was plemty of room elsewhere.

3) We were told that some Latin American leaders like Lula and Kirchner may come, in the end neither showed up, worried that Chavez would upstage them in a street event much like Mar del Plata. In fact, the only event in which Chavez participated was one in Teresa Carreño which must have been fairly exclusive given the size of that theater. In fact, Chavez did not even show up to the closing ceremony, indicating that the Government realized the whole thing was not a success and moved on. The highest ranking participants were from Brazil, inclduing the infamous Mr. Jose Dirceu, who had to resign his Government post when it was revealed that he had been buying votes in Congress.

We were told over and over, that this was not costing Venezuela a cent, but we also saw signs that this was simply an outright lie. Clearly there was coordination as to promoting this party line among Government officials, because that is all they talked about before the meeting began. in a clear sign that that Government polls are registering the unhappiness of Venezuelans over Chavez’ largesse abroad.

But it was hard to hide the truth as attendants were met at the International airport and shown by TV cameras to be given packages (Which supposedly contained money, maps, programs and condoms) at their arrival and taken to Caracas in fancy buses. According to this site, “The Venezuelan government has opened a route specifically for passenger vehicles during specific hours of the day in order to accommodate the large number of WSF participants.” which I don’t think ever really happened.

The presence of numerous musical groups in Caracas especially brought for the Forum also flew in the face of the “no cost” explanation. Which NGO would finance these groups to come and entertain them? Parties there were many and I am sure everyone had a good time, given the quality of the groups from many countries.

Posts in the blog mentioned above tell you enough about how disorganized the whole thing was. This was the most common complaint. language problems, cancelling of events, scheduling of events, transportation between events.

There were four levels of housing: The “Stars” friends of the revolution stayed at the five star hotels of Caracas, other radicals of prominence stayed at lower class hotels, then came those that camped in Los Caobos, followed by those that stayed in Parque Adames. The latter revolted and since attendance was so bad, they were moved to Los Caobos, where there was mud but it was not as bad as in the other site. Finally, there were those that stayed at private homes who were charged US$ 4-8 per person per night, sharing rooms. I heard that some people who had their airfare refunded by the Venezuelan Government upon arrival, moved to hotels with their “savings”.

Venezuelans did benefit from the event. The visitors bought all sorts of trinkets, which our street vendors (“buhoneros”) had plenty of, in all styles,sizes and shapes, including a Chavez/Che/Bolivar watch (above) which I find absolutely obnoxious. On Monday, I know firsthand of someone who was paid Bs. 150,000 to be at the march against imperialism and was handed out a Cuban flag to wave. He was actually given an explanation for this: they needed people because foreigners were all late to the event, due to the problem with the viaduct.

Venezuelans in general were indifferent to the event, some complained about traffic, but the nightmare that was projected from the Youth Festival last fall never materialized. But the week and the activity in the city was dominated by the final week of Venezuela’s Winter Baseball league, more so with the team from Caracas, Los Leones del Caracas, playing the Tigres de Aragua for the title. This contributed to traffic as much as the Forum. The same day that the Forum ended, the Leones won 5-1 their fourth game of the series, sending the people of Caracas into a frenzy. It had been 11 years since their last league victory. And that, in contrast to the Forum, they will never forget.

I have yet to find a great copy of the obscene spectacle given by the Venezuelan Supreme Court last week, this is the best one I have found so far, even if the sound is not great. The main problem is that only the state TV station was allowed in the Hall in another demosntration of the divisive nature of this Government. (Thanks urru)

At a seminar last week, which I was unable to attend, an economist presented some general graphs about the Venezuelan economy in 2005 and 2006. I got the presentation and reviewing it ,was surprised by a header which said that the price of one Venezuelan “Basic Food Basket” was at an all time high in US dollars. This seemed counterintuitive to me, because this should only happen at times of overvaluation of the currency, which is not the case at this time. I then decided to plot in the same graph the minimum salary (in red, scale on the left) in those same years and compare it to the average price for the Venezuelan food basket (in blue, right scale), both in US dollars. This has the advantage of being a fair comparison, as both are numbers generated by the Government and if anything the food basket is underestiamted, since the Government uses only Mercal prices to calculate it. Moreover, below classes C, people who have a job make only minimum salary

The graph is amazing. What it says is that while the minimum salary has yet to recover to the level of the year 2000, in the meantime the price of the food basket (which I think is for one person in this case, but was not defined in the presentation) has gone up by 150%. This is truly perverse, as it implies the purchasing power of those that have a salary has done terribly in the last five years.

Economists in Venezuela are mostly againt the dollarization of the economy, but when I see a graph like the one above, being an amateur economist, I can’t help but disagree. The argument against dollarization is that growth becomes harder to achieve. Well, the argument for dollarization is that people would not get screwed by irresponsible Government policies, like in the last five years (and in 1989 and 1995) when devaluations decimated the purchasing power of the common people without any compensation. If the economy were dollarized, salaries would retain their purchasing power and the availability of imported goods, which are determined in US$ by inflation abroad and not in Venezuela, would keep prices in check. Only politicians benefit from a devaluation in the end.

Not being an economist, I still find the huge increase in the price of the food basket above quite surprising. I knew that inflation in food was much higher bthan the CPI quoted by the Central Bank, but had no idea it was so bad. It also shows how ineffective price controls are as it is precisely foodstuffs which are controlled since 2003. It would seem to me that the graph says that there is too much money going after few goods which is the result of the lack of production locally, which dropped in the last few years. Any alternate explanations would be welcome.

Kudos to Chavista Deputy Earle Herrera, for having principles and the guts to state the obvious and defend the media right to publish the files on the case of the Danilo Anderson assasination. While other Chavista reporters have been wishy washy at best, Herrera, who is a Professor of Journalism sticks to his principles:

“the protection of the case files, procedural confidentiality, all of that corresponds to the offices in charge of administering Justice. If I had access to any of those documents as a journalist, I would publish them”

I guess he is now suspect as a loyal member of Chavez’ MVR which elected him to the National Assembly.

I really could care less if Cindy Sheehan is fighting the war or is agaisnt Bush, but it seems naive, disingenous and silly to come to Venezuela to speak against “militarism” at the World Social Forum, in a country run by an autocratic former military officer, coup plotter, who has over half his Government run by former or active military officers ( also see here, here and here) and is spending billions in weapons, while claiming to be fighting poverty. I mean, who does she think she is kissing?

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

If there was ever a scene that stunned me and shamed me, was to see today the tape of the opening of the Supreme Court sessions for the Judicial year 2006 which took place two days ago. President Chavez was in attendance, the President of the Supreme Court gave a speech in which he spoke of Justice and independence. The Hall was packed with Justices and the employees of the Court. Then the session ended and the Justices in their solemn robes proceeded to show why this revolution is absolutely grotesque and immoral and why everything that was expressed during the session is as fake and empty as the revolution itself

The Justices got up and started in a chorus to sing the Chavista chant “Uh Ah Chavez no se va” (Uh Ah Chavez is not leaving)

The picture of the exact moment when this happened is shown above. I have never been so ashamed, stunned, amazed in my life. That the men who are in charge of administering Justice in my country could stoop so low, could be so servile to the man, to the so called revolution, that they could be so afraid, so scared that they would suck up to him by putting on such a unethical display of emotions is simply disgraceful. They should all resign effective immediately after that shameful show of disrespect to Justice and to all Venezuelans.

(P.S. You can read about it in Tal Cual or Noticiero Digital)

Caracas has some hidden places that make it an interesting and cosmopolitan city. One of them is the “Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas Sofía Imber”
(MACCSI) that has a remarkable collection of modern art that can be
compared to that of larger and richer cities around the world.

The newcomer is pleasantly surprised to find such an incredible congregation of excellent pieces in an artistic oasis in the middle of Caracas. The Museum was an object of pride among Venezuelans and represented what Venezuelans were able to achieve when they left politics aside and followed only a criteria of excellence and knowledge.

When such an achievement happens in an unlikely society, it is very often because someone was behind it. That someone in this case is Sofia Imber, a well known journalist and art patron that put all her soul and positive stubbornness into creating and maintaining a first class International Museum.

Sofía Imber was the Museum director for many years, and during the tenure of many governments. Four years ago, however, she was kicked out of the Museum by the Chavista government. At that time, she learned she had been fired on TV.

Two days ago we learned that the MACCSI will lose its “SI”: the government has decided to remove the name of the founder, Sofía Imber, from the official name of the Museum.

Why? Why four years after removing Sofia Imber from her post does the government decide to remove her name? Wouldn’t have been more natural to remove it four years ago? Why now? What has Sofia been doing that insulted the government so much?

Well, Sofia has been signing a letter and, in Chavez’s Venezuela, signing your name has become a risky event.

Sofia, who also happens to be jewish, signed the letter repudiating Chavez’s recent anti-semitic remarks.

As this ghost blogger reported, the letter, signed by hundreds of well known personalities, professors and intellectuals, enraged the government so much that they did not lost any time in writing an offensive attack against all that had signed in the official MCI page. The government states, among other things, that the letter is a product of a Bush campaign, that the signatories are intellectually dishonest and that they are lying to delegitimize the government of Venezuela and “justify a military intervention in the country”.

The readers can judge by themselves if any of those statements are present in the letter that was published and that I include here:

So today in Tal Cual there is an interview with Sofia Imber where she says that she was not surprised of the government move, that she had been expecting that to happen. To the question of why now, she answered that it was because she just signed the protest letter against Chavez anti-semitic remarks.

I can see that Sofia and I had the same interpretation of the events and so has PAM-CHITO from Notitarde:

To finish this ghost blogging piece, I will leave you with today’s caricature of Pedro Leon Zapata, who is another Venezuelan institution and happens to be the last signatory of the letter:

It says:

“The Museum, for the time being (*), does not have a name, but we have an alternate route (**). To Tattoo a number in its arm! ”

Jorge Arena

Distinguished Ghost Blogger

http://www.arenaspace.blogspot.com

http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com

(*) Reference to the famous “Por ahora” used by lieutenant colonel Chavez when he appeared on TV after the failed coup of February 4, 1992.

(**) Reference to the lack of an alternative route for the viaduct that links Caracas with its port and airport and failed a few weeks ago due to neglect.

Laughing at CENSORSHIP: Left: Chavista on the left: Think about it, what future could this country have if we allo everybody to go around telling the truth. Cartoon on the right: A caricature of Dicttaor Marcos Perez Jimenez: I never liked to be at war with the media nor violate their right to inform, that is why I eliminated them.