The Devil's Excrement

In this screwed up country two Ministers (here and here) gloat over the supposed victory of Venezuela at the OAS (which is just spinning) while another headline says :

A kid dies everyday as a consequence of malnutrition.

Guess who the real losers are….

While Government officials say that there is a free press in Venezuela,
in the sense that people say what they want, the truth is that there is
a self restraint by the media since the so called “muzzle” law was
approved. A few weeks ago, the media failed to report demonstrations in
downtown Caracas because they could have been interpreted as creating
“uncertainty in the population” as the muzzle law states.

Today around noon, there were protests in a suburb of Caracas. The tax
office tried to shut down a supermarlet, closing the doors while there
were still shoppers inside. People were upset and there was a protest
with about 100 people surrounding the supermarket with the tax office
representatives inside. The National Guard sent a contigent,
threatening to use tear gas and tempers flared. Streets were blocked
for a couple of hours.Tax office signs were taken down and things got
very heated as metropolitan police showed up to help the National
Guard.

I just checked Globovision, Unionradio El Nacional, Tal Cual and El
Universal and there is not a single word about this spontaneous
protest. This is the type of self censorship that takes place daily as
the media fears sanctions by the Government.

(There are also no published reports of the Chavista Governor of
Tachira state saying on the radio (I heard him) that the Minsiter of Defense ordered the army not to
pursue the Colmbian guerillas from the ELN earlier this month as had
been rumored)

Normally, the resignation of the President of Fogade,
the fund that guarantees bank deposits in Venezuela, who was reportedly
fired, would not be news. But in this case it is, because it shows once
again the lack of ethics of this Government and explains why corruption
runs ranmpant under Chavez.

Caldera Infante was probably the Government official that made the most
extensive use of the Tascon list in order to persecute the workers of
Fogade that had signed agaisnt President Chavez, firing over one
hundred career employees of that institution, but protecting his
buddies from the social christian party COPEI. He ahd been an actove
member of this political party and had occupied important positions in
Government during the
Caldera administration, before he saw the “light” of the process.
Unless, of course, he only saw an opportunity to profit personally.

Caldera Infante will obviosuly not be prosecuted or charged for these
political crimes and human right abuses as he will be protected the
same way this Government protects all of those that serve it.
Destroying careers, lives and people for political gain, is not a crime
under this administration. On the contrary it is a credential of fidelity and loyalty to the almighty leader.

But neither is corruption for those that work for it. Last Fall in the
transcript of the now infamous meeting in Fuerte Tiuna, Chavez
fustigated corruption, but did admit that nobody has been charged with
it in the six years he has been in office. Which is not strictly
correct, as he and his then buddy Miquilena were accused of receiving
illegal political campaign contributions in the millions of dollars, for which there was and there is
very precise and public proof. But these accusations by the opposition
never went anywhere. Miquilena was absolved by the Supreme Court and
the case agaisnt Chavez is stuck in a black hole in the drawer of the
Prosecutor’s office with so many others.

But the Government has always found reasons to accuse opposition
figures with corruption, such as acccusing Chacao Mayor Lopez of
illegally changing funds from one line item to another in order to pay
salaries, when Chavez increased them by decree three years ago. This is in a country where billions of US dollars are still
missing from the FIEM fund, where the difference between what PDVSA has
given to the Central Bank and what it should have, is also in the billions
and where it is still unclear whether the development bank did or not
spend the full US$ 2 billion in social programs last year. Or how it
was spent.

But corrupt Govrenment official after corrupt Government official has
been removed from office and not one has been charged by the
Prosecutor’s office. One can go back to the infamous Bolivar 2000 project
where mid-level officers would have hardware stores issue fake receipts
for tens of thosands of dollars. And nothing happened. Or more
recently, the President of PDVSA fired 24 managers in the Western part
of the counry for “corruption”. Buf not one of themhahs been charged,
or investigated. In fact, they were fired, their severance pay
cancelled and they have all shown the letters used to get rid of them,
in which no mention is made of theit supposed corruption.

Or we could point to the thosuands of buses used each time Chavez
decides to have a march, even if he does not show up. Who pays for
that? The Prosecutor or the comptroller have never even bothered to ask
such simple questions. Or the finances of food program Mercal. Does it
make sense to the Prosecutoir and the Comptroller that this
not-for-profit program, imports with official dollars, uses military
personnel
and facilities to transport foodstuffs, pays no taxes, no custom
tariffs and prices are just 15% below market prices? Yeah, and I
believe
in Santa Claus too.

But the Caldera Infante case is emblematic of the cesspool of
corruption this Government has become and the total impunity that
surrounds it. He was not only accused over and over of direct and
indirect corruption and mismanagement as Head of Fogade, but he ahs admitted wrongdoing in public. He has been
accused so many times, that even the National Assembly invited him to
testify to “clarify” some of these accusations. And in one of the most
irrelevant accusations, Caldera Infante demonstrated clearly his lack
of ethical and moral values when he justified the use of Government
planes for himself and his family “because I am a busy man”.

Busy trasnferring Government property in suspicious ways, busy firing
workers for political reasons, busy doing private deals, but apparently
not busy enough in protecting the financial integrity and property of
the many companies that Fogade has run since the financial crisis of
the mid-90’s. And he was fired, but he will not be charged. He was
careless. He was too open. He made them look back, but he will be
protected like so many others.

I could make a long list of all the corruption cases, those accused,
those fired by Chavez, those declared innocent. But I will make a
simpler list:

Name of those Government officials of the Chavez administration formally charged with corruption:

None

Name of those convicted:

None

Do I need to say more?

Our
illustrious Foreign Minister said the “people” have the mechanisms to control democracy
and, of course, we don’t need any new mechanisms from the OAS to observe
democracy in our countries,

Umm…I
wonder what he means. Let’s make a check of the newspapers of just today in Venezuela:

1) A
group of lawyers denounces that 1% of the prosecutors have all of the
political cases by the draw of the luck. One prosecutor has 43% of the cases,
another 32% and a third one has 25% of them. This in a country with 1,200
prosecutors! Moreover in 76% of the cases, you find the same Prosecutor, taking
the case to the same judge and later to the same Appeals Courts. In the case of
the 19 people who died on April 11^th. 2002, people have been charged
in only two of those cases, where the Prosecutor determined that the victims
were shot by police bullets and it has therefore jailed the Heads of the police
at the time, who are “opposition”. Note that the cases are supposed to be
assigned to Courts randomly; therefore the “blind” process is clearly being
interfered with.

Conclusion: The Prosecutor’s Office is suspect, guilty of
bias, something we have known all along, since it does not prosecute any
pro-Chavez Government officials for corruption, but opposition Mayors have been
accused of even allocating funds from one part of the budget to the other
following “irregular” procedures, while, for example, billions of US$ are
“missing”, “unaccounted for” and/or not exchanged for local currency via the
Central Bank. Way to go Isaias!

2) The People’s Ombudsman, a new position in the new
Constitution, which was supposed to defend the interests of the people, blasts
without any investigation charges by the US Government
that trafficking with human beings is still a problem in Venezuela.
Curiously, Venezuelan authorities told the US Embassy that they had taken
measures to fight it, admitting its existence. But to Mr. Mundarain who seems
more interested in defending the Government, the charges are simply political.
Meanwhile, he has said nothing about the fact that a prisoner dies every day in
a jail in Venezuela
(yes, they are Venezuelan too, even if criminals)

This is the same cynic who did nothing about the Tascon
list or proposed last week to introduce a Bill so that NGO’s can not receive
foreign funding, but failed to accuse President Chavez for receiving millions of
US$ from Spanish banks for his political campaigns, something which has been
proven in Spanish Courts and people have been jailed for. (Why wasn’t this
included in “The Chavez Code”?). This Bill is aimed at stopping Sumate from
receiving miniscule amounts in comparison. Mr. Mundarain clearly cares little
about those killed in marches either, as he has never shown up in any when
there have been problems. Typically, he is traveling with public funds, a
curios conception of his sadly useless position.

Conclusion: The People’s Defender or Ombudsman seems to be
concerned about defending the President as if he did not have enough people
sucking up to and defending Chavez. There is little the people can do to change
that. Two weeks ago there was a march to protest political prisoners and the
Ombudsman was not only not there to receive the document, but had his
headquarters surrounded by the National Guard against a harmless march.

3) Last Friday, a Judge ruled that the fine imposed by the
telecom regulator on TV channel Globovision was illegal and ruled that Conatel
had to pay legal fees in the case. That judge was removed today, much like
every judge that rules against the Government’s desires. Even Supreme Court
Justices have been removed for ruling against the Government’s whims. This has
gotten so ridiculous that
85% of the judges in the country are now temporary, meaning they have no
job security and better follow the party line.

Conclusion: The Judiciary is totally controlled by the
Government as shown by this point and 1). Those few judges that rule with their
conscience are removed expeditiously.

Finally, not from today’s news, the Electoral Board,
questioned by everyone for its acts, was hand picked 18 months ago by the
Venezuelan Supreme Court which also named a new member of that Board when one
of them resigned. This does not follow the Constitution in how such a Board
should be elected. This requires 66% of the Deputies of the National Assembly.
The current Board is composed of four pro-Chavez members who are party hacks and
one opposition member. Its Director, for example, blasted Sumate for meeting
with Bush, proving he is not independent and has no respect for others.

This Electoral Board has now redesigned voting districts
without approval of the National Assembly and without waiting the twelve months
for the new districts to go into effect, both of which are required by law. It
has accepted, without the fulfillment of the legal conditions required, a new
pro-Chavez political organization which will be used by Chavez’ MVR to
manipulate the results of the election by fielding two separate parties: One
for the candidates elected on their own right under their name and another for
those elected by party slate. In this way, the principle of proportional
representation guaranteed in the Constitution will be bypassed, Chavez will get
a majority of the National Assembly and then elect an Electoral Board with five
of his supporters and thus preserve forever the “origin” of this “democracy”.

So, I ask our distinguished Foreign Minister: How can the
people do anything, as
you claimed at the OAS, about this autocracy that you and your kind have
established in our country? Do you sleep at night? Is this why you were in the
guerillas for over thirty years? To lie, manipulate and violate the rights of
your fellow countrymen? To assume the role of wise man that “knows better than
the people” so it is OK for you to think for them and manipulate them? You
should simply be ashamed of what you are, but especially of what you have
become.

Because in the end, the excuses are the same ones always argued
by totalitarian regimes: Respect for our sovereignty, we can solve our
problems, give us self-determination, do not intervene in our affairs and the
like. The truth is that not only can the excuses be recognized, but the tools
are also the same. These states tend to be belligerent, create external enemies
and use money to attract allies. As we say in Venezuela, we have seen this movie
before, both here and abroad.

How were the following pictures ordered in the post below? Reading from left to right and down. By:

1) The meeting I would feel most comfortable at
2) The meeting where I would be able to talk the most
3) The meeting I would most interested in being at
4) Highest democratic score on any scale for those in the picture
5) The meeting where I know personally the people in the picture
6) Fewer people killed by those pictured
7) Fewer people persecuted by those pictured
8) Nicest sandals
9) Nicest smile
10) Highest level of education in the picture
11) Least Corrupt
12) Least Ugly
13) Least fascist
14) Weight of those in picture
15) Wealth of those in picture at highest point in their lifetime
16) Size of Picture

Winner gets a one year subscription to TDE

Bonus question: Why are Venezuelans always on the left, except with Castro?

Economist
Eduardo Mayobre wrote this article in El Nacional, that I think is quite interesting

Barrack socialism by Eduardo Mayobre

An old and dear friend of mine who died recently -Guillermo Pimentel-used to
say that adjectives were more useful for hiding the truth than to elucidate it.
When one says “a babe” everyone knows what you are talking about. But
when you say “a true babe” the statement becomes ambiguous. The same
happens with socialism. If you say “socialism” we know we are
referring to social ownership of the means of production, but if you speak of
“XXIst. century socialism” nobody knows what you are talking about.

In our country what little there is of socialism-if we understand it without
adjectives- we owe to Accion Democratica: the nationalization of iron ore and
oil, as well as some minor nationalizations that were later reverted during the
time that privatizations became fashionable. We would have to add to that what
is left of the state enterprises that drove the development of Puerto Ordaz and
Guayana. The agrarian reform of 1961 also made public property of a good part
of the land of the country. There they are today, even if many remain idle.

The decade of the nineties reverted the process of socialization of the means
of production initiated in the sixties and seventies. In that sense, one could
say that in the same way that the decade of the eighties is characterized as
the “lost decade”, that of the nineties could be characterized as the
“the kneel down decade” in which Governments allowed themselves to be
seduced by the siren songs of “globalization” and
modernization”. As a consequence, what little there was of socialism
receded substantially.

So far in the XXI’st century there has not been a single advance in the
socialization of the means of production. Thus, we have yet to see socialism in
this century. Up to now, it is nothing more than a concealing adjective. In the
oil area, as an example, private and multinational oil production increase all
the time, as the production of public companies declines. If we tried to be
understanding, we could say that perhaps there has been socialization in the
means of distribution-Mercal would be one case-but up to now it is difficult
for us to find a single case of socialization of the means of productions. That
is, of socialism.

Which leads us to ask: What is the qualification of “XXIst. century”
trying to hide when it refers to socialism? The answer is so obvious that it
almost shames me to write it. It tries to cover up the most evident
characteristic of this Government: its militarism.

Given the undeniable attraction of the idea of socialism, all Governments in countries
under development, in our case Venezuela,
have tried to be “socializing”. In the case of the social Christians,
which later due to a commendable Christian regret, called itself Christian
democrats, the Government of Luis Herrera spoke of the “communitarian
society” as a way od adopting a certain socialist tendency. At that time,
the adjective also threw us off base, because nobody ever knew what the
“communitarian” part meant.

Following that example, we could know talk about “barrack socialism”
to attempt to clarify what is meant by this new century socialism Because, for
now, instead of the social ownership of
the means of production, the only thing one can see is the leading role or
protagonism of some of the members of the Armed Forces (now called the
“Armed Force” because much like in monotheism, it is only possible to
adore one true God)

Said in a few words: more than XXIst. century socialism we have XXIst. Century militarism. One has to recognize that in
our national history, militarism has had much more importance than socialism.
For example, Juan Vicente Gomez and Marcos Perez Jimenez had more influence in
molding national life than Gustavo Machado or Salvador de la Plaza. From which
you could extract the conclusion that “the process” due to its
military character, is more Venezuelan.

In his book Venezuela,
Politics and Oil, Romulo Betancourt entitled a section-referring to the period
1948-1958- “the military neofascism functioning as Government”.
Perhaps saying “neofacism” was an exaggeration typical of the character
of the leader from Guatire, but it would also be equally wrong to qualify as socialism
the orientation of the new military regime that is currently governing us. Even
if it has the blessing of Fidel Castro, of whom one still does not know if he
is more of a socialist than military. But at least he took seriously the notion
of the social ownership of the means production.

In our poor Latin America, the
“isms” have served to justify all of the military oppressions that
have scorched us since independence. Bolivarianism, justicialism, corporativism
and modernism, have served as excuses for personal and group ambitions of
power. It now appears to be the turn of socialism. But because socialism has a respectable
tradition that includes thinkers of the stature of Karl Marx, Rose Luxemburg
and Edward Bernstein you have to put adjectives to it. now it has become XXIst.
Century socialism. The mere ideal of Norberto Ceresole. Or, for older people,
the New National Ideal, the slogan of Marcos Perez Jimenez. We have already
bumped into that socialism. It is a socialism that would make the idealists of
the XIXth. Century cry and would make the authentic socialists of the XXth.
century blush. Those like the leaders of the Spanish Republic,
or like Salvador Allende or Pablo Neruda or Albert Camus or Jean Paul Sartre,
who never thought that socialism was a military adventure.

–The US Ambassador to Venezuela
visits the President of the Supreme Court and openly tells the press that he
can visit the US
on official missions, but not on personal ones…umm.

–Chavez says
the hawks in the Pentagon want to kill him. Castro says
the US
wants to kill Chavez. Vice President Rangel says
the CIA wants to kill Chavez….umm.

–El
Nacional says that decrees in 1997 by the Minister of Energy and Mines authorized
heavy oil partnership Sincor to produce the amount that the Minister of Oil
said last week in his National Assembly testimony that was illegal and the
company should pay US$ 1 billion in back royalties over the “illegal”
production…umm.

–The
Governor of Carabobo state said, despite the Supreme Court telling him that he
can not make use of land without following legal procedures that he will
continue expropriating lands he needs…umm.

–Courts
reversed this week fines imposed on two TV stations for showing ads (mostly
political) at discount or no price…umm.

–Officers
graduation class in the military “High Staff” course chose
Fidel Castro as the “godfather” of their class…umm.

–Prosecutor
determines Lopez Catillos’s parents were
innocent…will someone apologize? What happens the day they determine their
dead son, killed by the police, was also innocent?…umm.

–Professor
Saez Merida dies after more than thirty days in intensive care after being
assaulted by robbers, cops show up at funeral to take body away as “evidence”,
wife refuses to hand him over…umm.

–Chavez
gives a speech to Mision Ribas (high school) graduating class. He said material
things have no value, points to his jacket and tie and says they have no
value. A guy shouted “Give me the tie then”…umm.

This article by Veneconomy
is too important to not reprint here, even if it can be found on
various other websites including Veneconomy (for subscribers only) and vcrisis and Daniel’s blog.

You could subtitle it “Debunking Eva’s Code or her sloppy work“

VenEconomy reviews for
the benefit of its readers the new “chavista” best seller titled “The Chávez
Code.” The book was written by Eva Golinger, a U.S.-Venezuelan dual national
whom President Hugo Chávez has personally baptized, “The Bride of the Bolivarian
Revolution.”

Why be subtle? The
Spanish-language version of “The Chávez Code,” launched officially in Havana before it arrived in Caracas recently, is 355 pages of organic
fertilizer dedicated to the memory of Danilo Anderson, the prosecutor killed by
a car bomb in November 2004. Anderson
was buried in a grand ceremony where President Chávez praised him as a hero of
the revolution. Then police investigators posthumously exposed Anderson as the presumed leader of a gang of
extortionists working out of the Attorney General’s office. Golinger should
dedicate a book of lies and distortions to the memory of a public prosecutor
who has been pointed out to be crooked instead of heroic. Golinger reportedly
is living in the Caracas Hilton as an official guest of the Chávez government.

A recent interview in
Exceso magazine, and anecdotal reports of her travels throughout Venezuela on
book-signing tours, confirm that Golinger is delighted with her 15 minutes of
fame. The Chávez government is certainly delighted with Golinger, whose
meteoric rise to Bolivarian fame started when she was interviewed on television
in the United States while
protesting in support of Chávez in New
York City. Now she is the author of the Bolivarian
Revolution’s “true” account of the forces and events surrounding the violence
of April 11-14, 2002, in which Chávez left the presidency and returned to power
less than 48 hours later. The official Bolivarian truth recounted by Golinger
is that the government of the United
States conspired to oust Chávez from power
by working through the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Endowment
for Democracy (NED) to finance, organize and train a civilian-military coup
against Chávez. Golinger bases this claim on documents she obtained through the
U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with the help of a U.S. photojournalist
named Jeremy Bigwood (if readers wish to know more about Bigwood, do a Google
search and click on his web page).VenEconomy read the book
from cover to cover. This included double-checking what Golinger claims in the
principal text of the book with the official U.S. documents that she obtained
under the FOIA and cited in the book’s footnotes. In every case involving a
specific quote linked by footnote to a specific U.S.
official document in the book’s appendix, VenEconomy found that none of the
statements she attributes to various U.S. diplomats in the main text of
the book are found there. She cites the U.S. documents included at the back
of the book in English as the source of these statements. This is odd,
considering that Golinger claims that her many professional skills – besides
immigration and entertainment industry lawyer, jazz singer and nouveau
glitterati of the Bolivarian Revolution – also includes certified translations.
VenEconomy did not count all of the factual mistakes, distortions and lies in
the book. However, following is a small sample of Eva’s deceits. First,
Golinger claims in her biographical description that she obtained
“ultra-secret” CIA documents through the FOIA. This is untrue. The CIA
documents in question were never even designated as classified documents. They
consisted of intra-government security briefings the CIA provides daily to a
restricted number of U.S.
government officials. The reports are confidential, but they are not secret.

Golinger claims that she
obtained her trove of official U.S.
documents through FOIA requests that Bigwood assisted her with. She claims in a
recent interview in Exceso magazine that no one helped her financially.
However, this is untrue. The U.S.
government charges fees for providing documents sought under FOIA requests.
Depending on how many documents are sought, the costs climb quickly to
thousands of dollars. Nevertheless, Golinger promises her readers the
investigation will “continue for decades.” Who will finance it?

On page 49 of her book,
Golinger claims that NED and the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) have spent “more than $20 million” in Venezuela since 2001 to “foment
conflict and instability.” Elsewhere in the book, Golinger says the sum spent
by NED and USIAD was $2 million. This could be a typographical mistake, of
course.

In Chapter 3, which starts
on page 59, Golinger discusses the natural tragedy that destroyed Vargas state
on December 15, 1999. She states that the torrential rains started on Dec. 14,
one day before the Avila
Mountain slid downhill
into the sea. This is mistaken. It rained almost ceaselessly for over a week
before Dec. 15, and civil defense officials reportedly warned Chávez on repeated
occasions that a natural disaster was imminent. However, Chávez was more
interested in campaigning for his new Constitution than in flooding rivers or
landslides. He ignored all warnings, and did not react publicly until at least
three days after hundreds died and tens of thousands were left homeless.
Golinger also claims on page 60 that the U.S.
unilaterally sent military warships and Marines towards Venezuela
without being invited in the aftermath of the Vargas tragedy. She goes on to
say that, when Chávez learned of the U.S. action, he issued orders that
the uninvited Yankees be turned away. This is also false. The U.S. government
officially offered humanitarian assistance, which the then-Venezuelan Minister
of Defense Raúl Salazar accepted. The President subsequently overruled him when
the boats were already on their way.

In Chapter 4, Golinger
discusses the International Republican Institute (IRI), a Republican offshoot
of the NED. The Democratic Party has the National Democratic Institute (NDI). She
describes Georges Fauriol as the head of the IRI’s Latin
America program on page 70. This is incorrect. Fauriol is the
IRI’s director of global strategic planning. He is the former director of the
Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His
expertise almost exclusively centers on Haiti. Fauriol was taken to the IRI
by its president, George A. Folsom, who has good Republican connections through
Brent Scowcroft but is not regarded as the brightest bulb in the Republican- Latin
American policymaking circles of Washington, D.C. Golinger does a fast shuffle
on page 74, where she refers to U.S. laws that supposedly prohibit the NED and
its offshoots financing political parties outside the U.S. She cites Title 2,
Section 441e of the U.S. Federal Criminal Code, as reportedly barring the U.S. from
interfering in any foreign local, state or national elections. In fact, the
statute she cites refers to foreign financiers of U.S. political campaigns. NED and
similar entities are regulated by other U.S. legislation. In any case, NED,
the IRI and NDI do not finance the political campaigns of foreign politicians.

In Chapter 5, Golinger
cites documents that purportedly show the U.S. Embassy knew a coup against
Chávez was being planned as early as September 2001. The documents she includes
in the book, and which are found on her web site, do not substantiate that
assertion even remotely. Golinger also claims in this chapter that other
documents, which she included in the book’s appendix, prove the U.S. government
shared and encouraged the political opposition’s desires to throw Chávez out of
power.

VenEconomy read the
documents in the appendix, and then consulted other documents at her web site,
and none of the documents substantiate her claim. VenEconomy wants to make it
clear that the criticism here centers on apparently sloppy research and
unsubstantiated claims not supported by any of the alleged evidence cited by
Golinger. In VenEconomy’s view, the book overall is disorganized and poorly written,
and its supportive documentation doesn’t validate any of the claims the author
makes about alleged U.S.
encouragement and advance knowledge of a coup against Chávez.That said, in the weeks
before the violence of April 11-14, 2002, the persons who most frequently
claimed that a military coup was imminent were Chávez and then-Defense Minister
(now Vice President) Jose Vicente Rangel. This is a matter of public record.

In Chapter 6, Golinger
claims that former U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro, who arrived in Caracas in February 2002, had been a military adviser at
the U.S. Embassy in Chile
when President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a military coup. This is
incorrect. Shapiro is a career foreign service officer, a diplomat, not a
military official. He certainly did have an image as a tough guy because he
spent time in El Salvador in
the 1980s and was the senior Cuban Affairs officer at the State Department
before arriving in Venezuela.

However, Shapiro wasn’t
sent to Caracas
because the Bush administration wanted to take a tougher stance with Chávez. In
the State Department’s ambassadorial seniority list, Shapiro was next in line
for an ambassadorship, and then-Ambassador Donna Hrinak’s term in Caracas was nearly over. U.S.
ambassadors rarely stay in one post more than two or three years. In any case,
Ambassador Shapiro soon earned the nickname of “Goofy” among opposition
leaders, which definitely is not a nickname appropriate to the tough guy image
that preceded his arrival in Venezuela.

When she discusses Otto
Reich, Golinger claims the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee blocked his
appointment as Assistant Secretary of State for the Western
Hemisphere. Actually, the culprit was Senator Christopher Dodd
(D-CT), who has a personal feud with Reich dating back 20 years. Golinger
claims on page 103 that the CIA had “detailed knowledge” about the coup against
Chávez that could only mean the CIA was in close direct contact with the
conspirators. However, the CIA documents she cites are not any different in
content than the reports that were being published and broadcast daily during
those tense days in April 2002 by the Venezuelan news media. The CIA reports
not claim to know more about the alleged coup against Chávez than what was in
the news media locally at the time. They do, however, contain analytical
judgments that lean towards predicting that some kind of move against Chávez
was imminent.

Golinger cites former CNN
correspondent Otto Neustadt’s alleged claim that on April 10, one day before
the march against Chávez ended in death by gunfire in downtown Caracas, he was approached by a group of
generals and admirals that wanted to pre-tape a message to be shown on April 11
after people had been killed and injured. Neustadt lost credibility. He was sacked
by CNN soon after the events of April 2002 because unedited videotape he
transmitted to CNN’s world broadcast center in Atlanta contained outtakes that showed the
CNN reporter had a close personal relationship with then-Vice President
Diosdado Cabello. CNN’s management concluded that Neustadt was compromised
professionally and they terminated his employment contract.

The timelines Golinger
cites for the violence that occurred in downtown Caracas do not match the known facts. She
claims video of rooftop snipers was destroyed by the private television
channels, which is also false. There hasn’t been proof that there ever were any
rooftop snipers. Forensic analysis and photographic evidence from April 11,
2002, presently consigned before an international court proves conclusively
that the descending trajectory of the bullets that killed 19 persons resulted
from the fact that “chavista” shooters were firing at anti-government
protesters from higher elevations and at a long distance. On page 111, Golinger
attributes to Shapiro a written statement in quotes that she footnotes to an
embassy cable in the book’s appendix of documents. The document does not
contain the statement. This is a recurring problem with Golinger’s footnoted
citations throughout the book.

“The Chávez Code” doesn’t
stop at the events of April 2002. It includes chapters on the oil strike of
December 2002-January 2003, and the August 2004 presidential recall referendum.
VenEconomy found many more inaccuracies in these chapters, but did not want to
deprive others of the chance to make their own discoveries as they read this
Bolivarian best seller. Besides, this book review is already too long.

Inflation, that untamable beast, also from Tal Cual

What is not going at the speed of a tortoise is inflation

In May it made a jump with a pole vault and placed itself at 2.5% so
that, annualized, from May to May, it is above 17%. There is no country in the
world that has such a level of inflation. It may seem unreal, but once again we
have a Government that believes that macroeconomics is a neoliberal invention.
It may also seem unreal that fifteen
consecutive years, before Chávez, with inflation above 30%, have left no lesson
and the Government seems engaged in repeating the same usual errors. They think
that price and exchange controls are sufficient, but the cost of living is
running, is escaping from them. With an inflationary rhythm of this magnitude
there is no Mercal which can counteract it nor public finances that can indefinitely
tolerate the food subsidies. A country with two budgets, one public, approved
by Parliament, another parallel, managed in the shadows, at the margin of any
controls, of unknown amounts, which transforms into a mystery the real amount
of the fiscal deficit, the uncontrolled indebtness and the constant
manufacturing of inorganic money by the Central Bank, transformed, against the
Constitution and the Law in the financier of the Government , an exchange
control which is destroying the country’s industries, all of this has to be
paid sooner or later. You pay it with a delay, in unemployment and informal
employment, to sum up, in misery.