The Devil's Excrement

I was planning to resume blogging on Monday, unfortunately my mother in
law passed away suddenly two days ago, which will keep me out of the
country at least until Thursday of next week. I have asked my
distinguished ghost blogger Jorge Arena to fill in, if possible, during
the next few days.

I will be travelling for Christmas today, I will be able to post, but I
am sure with all of the festivities, blogging will be light. I have to
work on Monday, so I will be back sooner than I would like. I just wish
all of my readers and friends the best for the holidays and hope 2006
can bring us the peace and tranqulity we all want. Thank you all for
your support and friendship.

Happy holidays to everyone!

The Government
continues to call for a meaningful dialogue with the opposition, but the
symbolism is all wrong. By this, I mean that if any form of dialogue is to take
place, the Government has to give a sign that it really means it this time
around. To do this, the right person has to propose the dialogue and the
Government has to cool its customary confrontational style as well as using the right kind of symbols in the way it
acts.

But what
is happening is exactly the opposite. To begin with, the main character calling
for a dialogue is the Vice-President, Jose Vicente Rangel, the same one that
hosted the failed dialogue after April 11 2002, the same one that sent the opposition
to hell (pa’l carajo) when it decided to withdraw from the parliamentary
elections ad the same one that makes in your face statements against half of
the Venezuelans any day he feels like it. Thus, for a dialogue to take place,
it has to be someone different that proposes it and promotes it. It will not be
Chavez because he will not stake his image on something that may fail or
backfire, but it simply can not be Rangel.

And the symbolism
is also very important. But all of the symbols since the Pyrrhic victory by Chavismo
on Dec. 4^th. have been quite negative. Two days after the elections, the prosecution
of Sumate leaders in that charade of a trial continued. The audience was
delayed simply because the Government noticed that this was being done while the
international observers were still around and some of the foreign embassies had
even bothered to send someone to follow the proceedings. But what is clearly a
political case, was not only continued, but threats were made against some of
the Sumate leaders, as their right to due process continues to be violated any time
an audience takes place.

The same
can be said of the trial of union leader Carlos Ortega. Carlos Ortega was not simply
a union leader, he was the elected (in 2002) leader of the federation of unions
that called for a general three day strike that has been ruled legal by
international labor organizations. (Just think what would have happened if Lech
Walesa had been jailed in Poland
when he led the strike that ended with the change of the Government in that country)
But to make matters even worse, Chavez himself said publicly that he created the
conditions to have that strike extended so that he could purge PDVSA. But, days
after the recent parliamentary election, Ortega was sentenced to over 15 years
in prison for civil rebellion, a vague term that does not exist in Venezuelan legislation
in what was clearly another symbol that the Government will continue
persecuting and harassing its enemies. So much for dialogue.

But the
most negative symbol we have seen in the last few days was the invited speaker
to commemorate the anniversary of the new Constitution last Thursday. The
Assembly invited none other than CNE President Jorge Rodriguez to give that
speech, in a clear demonstration that a dialogue is the furthest thought of the
now 100% Chavista National Assembly, sending a clear insult to the Venezuelans
whose rights have been blatantly violated by this arrogant man, who has shown
his partiality for the Government and total disregard for the law.

There is probably
no other Government figure that better represents the abuse of power and total
control of the Government by Chavez, than Jorge Rodriguez. The Comptroller may
be invisible, the People’s Ombudsman may act as the Government’s Ombudsman and
the Supreme Court may rule in the direction Chavez wants. But Jorge Rodriguez
has been a one man show of arrogance, violation of the rights of all
Venezuelans, violation of the laws, wasteful spending without supervision and blatant
partiality towards the Government. To choose him as the speaker to celebrate
the anniversary of the Constitution he has trampled over and disregarded
constantly, is simply another very clear symbol that the Government does not
care about a large segment of the Venezuelan population, even if they are a
majority.

And the
Venezuelans who do not trust the electoral system and the people who run it are
indeed a majority. Polls said it, the voters said it by not showing up and the
OAS and EU observers said it. But rather than taking this as a criticism, this
has enraged the Chavez administration and reportedly the man himself. Because
the EU observers report, with all of its damning comments about the elections
and the electoral system, made a very strong statement when it called for the
naming of a new Electoral Board composed of people with “professional prestige,
independence, diverse and with the trust of all sectors of society”. Can it be
clearer than that? Jorge Rodriguez does not represent any of those values.

And that is
the first symbol that the Government has to give in order to think that there
may be a dialogue: Announce that it will name a brand new CNE which will be
diverse and be composed of people that everyone will respect. And then go and do
it. Without conditions.

Without
this step, no call for dialogue, peace or trust among Venezuelans can result. There
can be no Presidential election in 2006 under the supervision of Jorge
Rodriguez and the current Electoral Board. The alternative is for Chavez to
have a true plebiscite for his mandate, the outcome of which does not bode well
for him at this time and may prove to the world that he is just another
militaristic autocrat, with no love of democracy.

Xmas, humor and  the revolution all in one:

Santa and
the CIA by Laureano Marquez in Tal Cual

And you thought:
“no, those little Indians swallowed the tale that Santa Claus, the sleigh and
Rudolph with his lighted nose, the elves and the North Pole”. But with our
country you are screwed. Since seven years ago, we are always watching out for things
that come from you, terrorists! I know you don’t like to be told this
Brownfield (the US
Ambassador). But you have to take it, you terrorist, fascist, narcissist and
coup monger.

We know
clearly that Santa Claus is one of the most terrifying inventions of the North American
Central Intelligence Agency, which created the character by appropriating two
of the fundamental symbols of Marxism: the beard and the red color, to put it
at the service of the bourgeois and globalized capitalistic society.

It doesn’t
go unnoticed to us, now that Venezuela
belongs to all of us, that little ideological message that if one behaves well,
we will receive a present from the North.  A North which Santa maintains reducing to
exploitation the elves in the toy factories, no unions, no food tickets, not
much. They try to buy our minds and make us believe that ALCA is the only path,
instilling the mentality of salvage liberalism in the weak minds of little
kids. There is no doubt that the man named Santa is a blue eyed, red faced WASP
and that because of the cold weather, the truth is that the never revealed truth
is that the famous personality has given himself to drinking to be able to
overcome the contradictions derived by an existence marked by exploitation.

We also
know that the custom of going down the chimneys is a way of promoting an
invasion by the marines of our homes: If we allow one to come in, why not the other
ones. I don’t know if you follow me:” The marines are coming
to town”, it will be something normal. And what about Rudolph and his nose:
Perhaps preparation for the total satellite control of our telecommunications.

Citizens: Do not become overconfident. What
guarantee do we have that the Canadian pine trees that we observe in all corners
of the city do not have inside a missile whose final objective is the
Miraflores Presidential palace? Ah?

But it so
happens that they found the a fit for their own of shoes, because now Venezuela
is different and we have a Government that does not allow a drop of aggression by
Mr. Danger to go simplyby.

Venezuelans: The sole of the insolent Santa
Claus has trampled the sacred soil of the homeland.

Let us march
to the American Embassy on December 25th. and burn all of the Christmas red
hats that we find. Enough of the imperialist aggression! Enough
of Santa Claus! Long live President Chavez, the true Saint Nicholas of America and for
all, Happy Chavidad!

–Can’t find the link but Hugo Chavez toured the repairs of
the viaduct that I wrote about last week and used his characteristic revolutionary
logic. First he said that the media had blown the problem out of proportion,
later he said that the problem with the viaduct could not be solved.

–The Supreme Court suspended
the use of the Sicri, the credit database used by the finance sector to look at
credit histories and risk. The reason? The People’s Ombudsman is seeking to
have the Court declare illegal the decrees that created the use of this
database, because its existence endangers the rights to “confidentiality, privacy
and intimacy”. This is the same “People’s Ombudsman who has never said or done
anything about the Tascon, Maisanta and Santa Ines lists, which grossly and
massively violated those same rights in addition to others like the secrecy of their
vote, the right to dissent and have been discriminated because of their
political views.

–The President of the Supreme Court said that the right to
dissent has not been eliminated but you have to assume responsibilities for the
damage you cause referring to the case of union leader Carlos Ortega who was
sentences to 15 years in prison for leading the 2002 strike. Mora said that “the
oil strike (it was a general strike) was a rebellion, it was not a labor strike”.
However, said Mora: “He can appeal” Jeez, imagine when the President of the
Supreme Court has already sentenced you publicly, is there any chance that the decision
can be changed.

–The President of the Electoral Board said
Venezuela
has the most modern voting system in the world. But the Vice-President of that
same Board says
that with such a modern system we should have known the results faster. In
fact, we still don’t know the results and the data was not presented in the
same fashion as in the August regional elections where you could see the
results online ballot box by ballot box.

–The Vice-Minister of Foreign Relations said
that the Government will revise the invitations for international observers. According
to none other than the sister of the President of the Electoral Board, the Government
told both the EU and OAS that they disagree with the reports written by both
groups of observers. Said Rodriguez: “This country is not no man’s land where
any foreigner can come and do what they please” You are right Delsy, but they
were not any foreigners, they were the ones you invited, courted, wined and
dined to show what a wonderful, clean and transparent voting system you had.
But somehow, their criteria for clean, wonderful and transparent are much
stricter than those of your brother’s.

–And how about Venezuela’s
Ambassador in Spain
who
now claims Sumate compiled and made the Tascon and Maisanta lists! Does he
know that it contains the Electoral Registry that the CNE has refused to give to
the opposition? Does he know it has cross references to whether the voter is
has participated in the “Misiones”. Does he know it classifies Venezuelans as “Patriots”
or not, where patriots are those who are not opposition? Does he know that it
is updated every time there is a new election for which Sumate has no access to
the data? To make matters even worse, he says that the list is not secret,
because anyone can buy it for about a Euro in the streets of Caracas. Does this
guy think people are stupid?

Have to go to work and I find that I did indeed win the Weblog Award
for 2005 for the best Latino, Caribbean and Sout American blog. I
really thank all of those that took interest and voted for me.
Initially I thought that Babalu or the Real Cuba
would win, these excellent blogs tell us about the plight of a country
which has had a perverse Government for almost 50 years and it is hard
to compete against such horror. But thanks to some friends found
through this three and a half years of writing Ed at Venezuelatoday and the people at Noticiero Digital, who told everyone to vote for me, I won, beating Alek of vcrisis,
another great blog about Venezuela. I am, of course, extremely pleased,
anything that turns eyes to what is happening to Venezuela is important
and gives me a special sense of accomplishment. Thank you to all of you and
perhaps it is best to thank you all with part of a song. Fortunately, you
will not have to hear me singing it, since I have a terrible voice:

Lend me
your ears and I’ll sing you a song,
And I’ll try not to sing out of key.
I get by with a little help from my friends,
I get high with a little help from my friends,
Going to try with a little help from my friends

It is Christmas, a time for joy and peace, I just came from a party at
my office that shows what a wonderful society we live in. All people are
nice, they like to have fun. But lurking in the background are all
these problems, most of them created by Chavez, that seem somehow
foreign to all of us. Revenge and hate have seldom been part of the
Venezuelan vocabulary, but Chavez has made them so. This is
unfortunate, there have been many chances for peace and reconciliation.
Unfortunately , I harbor no hope that the Chavez Government will take
advantage of this moment. as Petkoff suggests in this Editorial.

The trial by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

The trial and sentence of Carlos Ortega, because of a crime as indefinable
and undefined such as “civil rebellion” is simply a political trial. A
political conduct was tried and the sentences also carry a political meaning.
The field of justice is narrowly bounded by judicial coordinates and judges
must move within them. The political one has a margin which is much wider. The
trial of those that revolted on 4F (1992) and 27N (1992), which from a strictly
juidical point of view, should not have concluded and from the strictly
judicial point of view, if they had been followed up to the end, should have
concluded with a sentence for “military rebellion” from 25 to 30 years of
prison for their leaders. However, two years later, for political reasons,
having to do with the demands of a political juncture, the leaders of both rebellions,
as well as their followers, were all freed. Similarly, in the decade of the
60’s , the trials and sentences for armed rebellion were in the end treated
politically, from the perspective of a horizon of politically overcoming the trauma
that the country suffered at that time.

The sentencing of Ortega passes the football to the field of the
Government. It is the opportunity which it has to contribute so that the
country advances on the path to a political climate which is less conflictive.
Both the Government as well as the National Assembly, each of them separately
or together, has the opportunity to take the measures that can go from the
dismissal of the cases to a Law of Amnesty. Without any doubt the country would
welcome with approval acts that would tend towards the reconstruction of an
atmosphere of more tolerance and respect in national political life and to
reduce the levels of demential polarization that have exhausted the social
sectors of the country.

Opinion
polls about the values of Venezuelan society reveal that the first aspiration
of more than 90% of it, at all social and economic strata, is that of peace,
that of a quitter atmosphere, of less political conflict. It is a signal that
all political sectors should consider seriously, but above all, the Government,
whose capacity to act in this dircetion is much greater than that of all other
political actors. At the end of the day, those who get the most should be asked
the most.

A measure of amnesty that would free all political prisoners even corresponds,
to the best of Venezuelan traditions. Only the dictatorships pf Gomez and Perez
Jimenez produced perpetual prisoners, but even in the frequent civil wars of
our XIX Century, the mood of Venezuelans at the time manifested itself, among
other things, in the reduced prison sentences fulfilled for those that were defeated
in the battles

The total repudiation
that received, in their respective moments, the shooting executions of General
Matias Salazar by Guzman Blanco and Antonio Paredes by Cipriano Castro, is a
demonstration of how foreign to our idiosyncrasy is extreme retaliation,
revenge as a substrate for political confrontation. Carlos Ortega’s sentence,
even because of the evident disproportion of the sentence, opens an opportunity
for the Government that it should not allow to pass by.

So is any
of this “new” news, or just the same stuff, just a different day:

—Dialogue.-
The VP calls for dialogue, Chavez calls for dialogue of ideas, the Foreign Minister
calls for dialogue.

After the killings
on April 11^th. 2002, didn’t these guys have a dialogue and the only
thing ever to come out of it was the “Truth Committee” which never met?

And wasn’t
there a negotiation table with the supervision of the OAS and nothing ever came
out of that?

And wasn’t
there a dialogue to agree on basic things that would be done by the Electoral
Board on August 11^th. 2004 and as I recall none of this was done,
including the hot audits and the transmission only after the vote was completed?

So, who is
the dialogue with? Same guys, different Ministries!

—Conspiracies
to destabilize Venezuela.- The Deputies were
back today. No bazookas this time around, it would look funny. But more
illegal tapes of personal conversation between people. Apparently, when you are
a Deputy in the Venezuelan revolution you can violate the law and people’s
rights and nothing happens. They weave a net
of conspiracies by tying a Miami based
activist close to the exiled military, to a US Congresswoman who is mostly
known for her human rights work, but their intelligence is so good they can’t
even get the name of the Congress woman from the Democratic Party right. (Her
name is not Ileana Rosset it is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
From there they go to the CIA, OAS,
George Bush, the US
embassy, Globovision and whatever. Of course at the center of all this, is that
Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen was going to destabilize Venezuela…

Her plan
is awful, maquiavelic, even mean; she is going to denounce the Chavez
Government for human richest violations! Just imagine! What gall! To use such a
low class strategy. As if human righst were important! How could she? Watch out Amnesty International and HRW, you
better switch fields.

—Political
Prisoners. Carlos Ortega, that oligarchic head of the confederation
of unions, is sentenced to 15 years in prison for leading a strike that Chavez
confessed in nationwide TV that he provoked in order to purge PDVSA. But who
cares, the revolution loves to punish so that others are afraid. There are many
political prisoners, but those sentenced to jail terms so far, are only three:

General Uson, a
soldier of humble origins who rose to General and served Chavez well in the Office
of the Budget and the Ministry of Finance, but on Aril 11^th. he
could not stand idle in the face of the killings and resigned. (He had an
incredible vantage point over the killings from the top floor of the Ministry. He
saw who started it all, turned the perking lot of the Ministry into a makeshift
hospital and then resigned)

General
Alfonso Martinez: The retired General of the National Guard, at the time
the highest ranking General of the NG, another man of very humble origins. In
his testimony in the National Assembly after April 2002, Martinez spoke expressing the highest
standards of respect for human rights I have ever heard any Venezuelan military
officer speak about in my life.

But just
think, had Lt. Hugo Chavez been treated with the same vengeance and hate by the
political system he claims to hate so much after his bloody coup in 1992, in
which over 200 innocent people were killed, and given 15 years in jail, he
would be coming out of jail in two years.

Rule of
Law? Democracy?Independent Judiciary?

Yeah!
Yeah

How about this ad in Mercado Libre (The Latin American Ebay)!

For years, even before the Tascon list,
there were intermediaries that would “help you” get a passport for a
price. The price obviously went up after the Tascon list and this year
the Government announced with great fanfare that a new “high tech”
online system
would be in place to get your Venezuelan passport: You would download a
form online, submit it and then on a certain day you would show up, pay
fees, stamp your fingerprints and sign it and you would have your brand
new passport. Everything would be efficient and corruption would be
wiped out (Not very egalitarian either, in a country with low Internet
penetration).

Except that…

–The system did not work well for the first few days.
–Once
it started working, you had to get up early enough (3 AM, 4AM) to get
one of the limited forms available, if available at all, as Anamar told us.

Thus, getting the form was next to impossible and once again, no passport.

But
now, thanks to the benefits of free markets, corruption and modern
technology, you have this, an online auction for one of the limited
forms (With even a Buy it now feature!):

Yes! You can either participate in the auction
for a form to get a passport with an initial price of Bs. 85,000 or simply “Pay it now”! for ”only”
Bs. 100,000, you can and I quote:

“This
is your opportunity… leave it on our hands… we will get the form for
you legally (??) through the system… for only Bs. 85,000.

We are very responsible law professionals…(oxymoron?)

Consider
that the request forms are only available on Monday and Tuesday and are
subject to the availability or not of the online system .

You
will fill a form with your data that you will have to send me via
e-mail, data that we will use in the “preparation” of the form.

We
are not responsible for wrong data, that is why you fill it out,
similarly we only verify data such as Name, Last name, ID number, birth
date and sex, because the system already has them, if there were errors
we will let you know.

Make your offer if you are interested and ask all of the questions you want.

We accept five requests for each day (Monday and Tuesday), that is, 10 per week.

100% responsible (bold not mine!)

I
have gotten the appointment for public servants, their partners, to
complete sections graduating from high school and their teachers
without any problems, with experience since the online system began.”

(You
can pay with Visa, MasterCard or Mercadopago (like Paypal). The people offering the
service have provided a good service to 124 of 125 clients and are
amply recommended!)

Imagine that, the corruption of the
revolution allows free market practices to thrive. Does Closdobaldo
know about this? Does he care? Unfortunately, this takes away business
from the poorer “analog” intermediaries to professional (oligarchs by
definition) digital intermediaries, who have the contacts and the
Internet access. So much for helping the less well to do!

The pretty revolution never ceases to amaze us!

(Thanks to Milagros in Megaresistencia for the tip)

–Nicolas
Maduro, President of the National Assembly: “The new National Assembly will
legislate so that President Chavez can govern until the year 2030”

My take:
Hey! Why not eternal President? Or King?
Or Emperor?

–Juan
Barreto, Mayor of the Metropolitan area of Caracas: “People don’t want so much voting to
elect representatives, people want Chavez and power for the people…people
don’t want anymore of the representative democracy…”

My take: I
think we should have an election on that, but hey! What do I know!

–Nicolas Maduro,
President of the National Assembly: “Voting should be a social duty, let’s give
it an obligatory character so that citizens don’t evade their responsibilities
due to manipulations”

My take:
What if even then people don’t vote? Will they be jailed? Or will they just
make a new list?

–Francisco
Ameliach, former President of the National Assembly and reelected Deputy for a
new term: “We can’t do anything about those that did not vote, but we can do
something about the members of MVR who did not go and vote”

My take:
He should ask the Head of the Electoral Board (CNE), Jorge Rodriguez, to give him
that confidential list, he has done it before and they can screw their own people
illegally.

–Clodosbaldo
Russian, Head of one of the “independent” powers, the Comptroller’s Office
that is supposed to keep the Government in check, honest and efficient: “It
makes no sense for the opposition to participate in the 2006 (Presidential)
elections. After the errors made made in repeated occasions by the leaders of
that sector, they have no possibility of victory…”

My take: I
guess with a guy like that overseeing corruption, it will be rampant as long as
he is there and he must like his job a lot to defend it so strongly. But he definitely
is as independent-minded as he is democratic-minded.

–Vice-President
Rangel: “We should sanction the parties that withdrew from the election
because they made the Government spend money on them…who responds for this
damage to the state? There has to be some form of sanction.

My take:
What about those that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy fingerprint
capturing machines that are useless and were only used to violate the rights of
the people? Or the voting machines that did what they were not supposed to do
and were thus faulty? Or spent all that money in voting machines and eight days
later we still don’t have final results, but the people in Chile knew last
night their complete results with paper ballots? Shouldn’t they also be
sanctioned?

Many
Government Officials: Opposition parties are now illegal because they did not
participate in the election.

My take:
That is not what the law says, the law says two five year periods without getting
you enough votes, forces you to get the petition to become legal again. I know, who cares about the law in this Government…

Primero Justicia’s take:
Make us illegal, we will get the signatures anyway. “We are not scared”