The Devil's Excrement

Today, there are rumors that the President of PDVSA Ali Rodriguez will be removed from the post and appointed as Minister of Foreign Relations. While this is being denied by the Foreign Minister “por ahora”, the rumors appear to be true. Coincidentally I was going to talk about Rodriguez in the context of an excellent article about him in Descifrado by Mery Mogollon, entitled “Ali is naked” which I was going to comment on, adding my own information.

To understand what Mogollon is saying, it is important to place yourself in the proper context. Rodriguez, “Commander Faust” when he was a guerilla member has a curious past, to say the least. He was in the guerrillas for so long that he still lived in the mountains in 1983, when only him and Gabriel Puerta of Bandera Roja (now in the opposition!) were fighting a guerilla war in Venezuela.

Rodriguez, a lawyer, gave up his weapons to no one in particular (there was nobody looking for him) and managed to get elected to Congress in the 90’s, where he specialized in oil and oil policy. When Chavez decided to run for President, it was Rodriguez that tutored and advised him.

Chavez’ and the MVR’s campaign was based on a three tier strategy, questioning the “oil opening” strategy, which they said was unconstitutional, calling PDVSA a “black box” which had no accountability to the Government or the people and saying the strategy of expanding production to six million barrels a day was demential. The oil opening was a mechanism found to turn over unexplored or old oil fields to foreign companies to exploit, under a profit sharing agreement. These fields were sold at auction and the Government received over US$ 2 billion simply for the right to have the fields.

The black box charge was more difficult to fight. At first, Chavez named a PDVSA manager to lead the company, but quickly replace him by Hector Ciavaldini who had been fired from the company from a fairly low level position. Ciavaldini promised Chavez that he would hold union elections and the Government would win, but failed to deliver. He was then replaced by Gral. Guaicaipuro Lameda, he Head of Chávez’ Budget Office for the first three and a half years of his Government and a close confidant at the time.

Lameda arrived at PDVSA ready to question everything and everyone. Unfortunately for him, he realized quite quickly that PDVSA was in fact an institution where mystique and meritocracy were the main drivers. In fact, he even decided to focus more on these values explicitly defining the core values of the company and creating a campaign to make the industry’s workers aware of it. Within months, Lameda the outsider, became Lameda the insider, ready to defend the “black box” and its people at every instance. For Chavez, this was not why he appointed Lameda to PDVSA; he was not getting rid of the yuppies, engineers, scientists and technocrats. It was time to act and get rid of Lameda the traitor.

And act he did. In late February 2002 Chavez named a new Board for PDVSA led by a bunch of dinosaur academics led by Gaston Parra Luzardo, who had no corporate experience and removing most of the veterans of the industry from it. Lameda and his former Directors led a fight against setting aside the PDVSA merit system. Workers went on strike, Chavez himself fired some of the PDVSA managers live on TV, the strike grew and popular support for the strike led to the march on April 11^th. Chavez resigned, came back and that is a whole other story.

Upon his return, a contrite Chavez named Ali Rodriguez as President of PDVSA to make peace within the oil company. Rodriguez was then President of OPEC and as Minister of Energy and Mines had developed an image as one of the few efficient and effective Ministers of Chavez’ early Cabinets. People were forgetting his radical and devious past.

Upon his arrival at PDVSA Rodríguez was conciliatory, but nevertheless called for the same exhaustive audit of the black box that would reveal all of the ills of PDVSA to the country and the world. We are still waiting for audit #1.

He also promised an audit of the profitability of the PDVSA assets abroad such as CITGO, Veba oil and a Swedish lubricant company. None of them have been sold or restructured and we are still waiting for audit #2.

When the 2002 December strike broke, it was supposed to be a three day event. On the third day, the National Guard gassed protesting oil workers, guaranteeing its continuity. A week later, an assassin killed three and injured twenty seven at Altamira square and the strike had no turning back. Within two months Rodriguez had fired 20,000 of the 43,000 oil workers of the industry. From messenger boys, to laborers, secretaries, engineers and managers, they all had to go.

During the strike, gasoline was delivered at gas stations without payment, oil was traded without any records and tankers left port without authorization. Rodriguez promised an audit of these transactions. We are still waiting for audit #3.

In April of 2003, PDVSA had to submit audited financial statements to satisfy US SEC requirements since the company had issued debts in the US markets. Since the company had not only fired its outsourcing company, a joint venture with US SAIC, but also 95% of its IT workers, it was difficult to reconstruct the month of December 2002, without the SAP system. It all had to be done manually. The audited financials were promised for the end of May. Then June. Then July. Then October. They were actually handed in October. Rodriguez fulfilled the promise of audit #4 even if a tad late.

In September 2003 Ali Rodriguez said the country wanted to expand production to five million barrels of oil a day. With this statement, one of the main criticisms of the pre-Chavez PDVSA had been reversed. Giusti had to feel vindicated.

In May of this year, once again, there were promises of audited financial statements for April. Then May. This time around it was more difficult to get them. Besides the fact that much of 2003 was still done manually, it would not be an easy task to get any international reputable audit firm to sign off the financials of a company with unknown production levels and a labor liability that could be in the billions. After all, none of the thousands oil workers fired had been paid their severance and their own private pension funds have been confiscated to this day. Moreover, Venezuelan labor laws do not allow massive firings; people can only be fired individually.

May, June and July came and went and no financials. But there was a problem: the newly enacted Sarbanes-Oakley act made the members of the Board of Directors of PDVSA individually responsible for failing to file or inaccuracies in the filings. A perverse and irresponsible solution was found, no filing, let’s buy back all of the US$ 2.7 billion in PDVSA debt to save the behinds of the members of the Board. No debt, no requirement to file, as easy as that. The information was leaked, many profited handsomely ahead of the news, PDVSA had to pay even higher prices and yields that it would need to pay to issue new debt. International reserves went down by US$ 2.7 billion to save the revolutionaries. So much for a black box, this was turning into a black hole. Screw the people, save the leaders!

It is now almost December and Rodriguez has yet to come up with audit #5. It may not matter anyway, he is leaving…

Meanwhile, for the last year and a half, OPEC and the US Energy agencies were saying that PDVSA was only producing 2.-2.5 million barrels of oil a day, while the company insisted it was producing 3.1 million barrels a day and promising 3.6 for 2005. Last week, Rodriguez had to testify in front of Congress and he said he would hire an international firm to audit the country’s oil production. We now await audit #6.

Even worse, Baker Hughes says that only 54 oil rigs were currently drilling in Venezuela out of 108 in 1998. The Venezuelan Central Bank says that oil production and price figures do not match what PDVSA says and at the Venezuelan Geophysics Congress it is stated that as many as 16,000 oil wells with lower production and high maintenance are currently not in operation. International reserves do not rise with oil prices. From black box to black hole in only five years!

Criticism number two of the pre-Chavez era is now moot too, the new PDVSA wants foreign companies to come in and provide the oil production that the company can not provide. Thanks to Giusti’s much-maligned oil opening, they already provide more than a million barrels of PDVSA’s current production.

My contacts in the inside tell me PDVSA is currently a royal mess. Political groups fight it out inside the company, attempting to control it. Rodriguez’s PPT currently predominates over Chávez’ MVR. The father of Chavez’s son in law General Prieto was finally left aside after becoming a power within the power at the company. Former Minister of Finance Jose Rojas appears to be the only voice of organization and reason within PDVSA. Personnel turnover is the highest ever, as groups fire their opponents whenever they can. Corruption is simply rampant.

Thus, Commander Faust has left a sorry and very unrevolutioabry trail at the company. PDVSA is now truly a black box. Even more it has become a black hole that sucks everything into it. There is no transparency. Nobody even knows how much oil is even produced by the country. Or how much gas. Or how much gasoline.

A US$ 30 billion for profit company has now had five different Presidents in almost five years. All of this while undergoing trauma year in and year out. No longer a black box, if it ever was one, but a black hole. All in the name of the revolution. All in the name of the people. And the three big criticisms of the previous administration of the company have now fallen by the wayside. Where are “the people” in all this? Where is the “revolution”? Rodriguez is indeed naked. Maybe he should have stayed in the mountains. At least there, he was true to himself and his ideals.

Today, there are rumors that the President of PDVSA Ali Rodriguez will be removed from the post and appointed as Minister of Foreign Relations. While this is being denied by the Foreign Minister “por ahora”, the rumors appear to be true. Coincidentally I was going to talk about Rodriguez in the context of an excellent article about him in Descifrado by Mery Mogollon, entitled “Ali is naked” which I was going to comment on, adding my own information.

To understand what Mogollon is saying, it is important to place yourself in the proper context. Rodriguez, “Commander Faust” when he was a guerilla member has a curious past, to say the least. He was in the guerrillas for so long that he still lived in the mountains in 1983, when only him and Gabriel Puerta of Bandera Roja (now in the opposition!) were fighting a guerilla war in Venezuela.

Rodriguez, a lawyer, gave up his weapons to no one in particular (there was nobody looking for him) and managed to get elected to Congress in the 90’s, where he specialized in oil and oil policy. When Chavez decided to run for President, it was Rodriguez that tutored and advised him.

Chavez’ and the MVR’s campaign was based on a three tier strategy, questioning the “oil opening” strategy, which they said was unconstitutional, calling PDVSA a “black box” which had no accountability to the Government or the people and saying the strategy of expanding production to six million barrels a day was demential. The oil opening was a mechanism found to turn over unexplored or old oil fields to foreign companies to exploit, under a profit sharing agreement. These fields were sold at auction and the Government received over US$ 2 billion simply for the right to have the fields.

The black box charge was more difficult to fight. At first, Chavez named a PDVSA manager to lead the company, but quickly replace him by Hector Ciavaldini who had been fired from the company from a fairly low level position. Ciavaldini promised Chavez that he would hold union elections and the Government would win, but failed to deliver. He was then replaced by Gral. Guaicaipuro Lameda, he Head of Chávez’ Budget Office for the first three and a half years of his Government and a close confidant at the time.

Lameda arrived at PDVSA ready to question everything and everyone. Unfortunately for him, he realized quite quickly that PDVSA was in fact an institution where mystique and meritocracy were the main drivers. In fact, he even decided to focus more on these values explicitly defining the core values of the company and creating a campaign to make the industry’s workers aware of it. Within months, Lameda the outsider, became Lameda the insider, ready to defend the “black box” and its people at every instance. For Chavez, this was not why he appointed Lameda to PDVSA; he was not getting rid of the yuppies, engineers, scientists and technocrats. It was time to act and get rid of Lameda the traitor.

And act he did. In late February 2002 Chavez named a new Board for PDVSA led by a bunch of dinosaur academics led by Gaston Parra Luzardo, who had no corporate experience and removing most of the veterans of the industry from it. Lameda and his former Directors led a fight against setting aside the PDVSA merit system. Workers went on strike, Chavez himself fired some of the PDVSA managers live on TV, the strike grew and popular support for the strike led to the march on April 11^th. Chavez resigned, came back and that is a whole other story.

Upon his return, a contrite Chavez named Ali Rodriguez as President of PDVSA to make peace within the oil company. Rodriguez was then President of OPEC and as Minister of Energy and Mines had developed an image as one of the few efficient and effective Ministers of Chavez’ early Cabinets. People were forgetting his radical and devious past.

Upon his arrival at PDVSA Rodríguez was conciliatory, but nevertheless called for the same exhaustive audit of the black box that would reveal all of the ills of PDVSA to the country and the world. We are still waiting for audit #1.

He also promised an audit of the profitability of the PDVSA assets abroad such as CITGO, Veba oil and a Swedish lubricant company. None of them have been sold or restructured and we are still waiting for audit #2.

When the 2002 December strike broke, it was supposed to be a three day event. On the third day, the National Guard gassed protesting oil workers, guaranteeing its continuity. A week later, an assassin killed three and injured twenty seven at Altamira square and the strike had no turning back. Within two months Rodriguez had fired 20,000 of the 43,000 oil workers of the industry. From messenger boys, to laborers, secretaries, engineers and managers, they all had to go.

During the strike, gasoline was delivered at gas stations without payment, oil was traded without any records and tankers left port without authorization. Rodriguez promised an audit of these transactions. We are still waiting for audit #3.

In April of 2003, PDVSA had to submit audited financial statements to satisfy US SEC requirements since the company had issued debts in the US markets. Since the company had not only fired its outsourcing company, a joint venture with US SAIC, but also 95% of its IT workers, it was difficult to reconstruct the month of December 2002, without the SAP system. It all had to be done manually. The audited financials were promised for the end of May. Then June. Then July. Then October. They were actually handed in October. Rodriguez fulfilled the promise of audit #4 even if a tad late.

In September 2003 Ali Rodriguez said the country wanted to expand production to five million barrels of oil a day. With this statement, one of the main criticisms of the pre-Chavez PDVSA had been reversed. Giusti had to feel vindicated.

In May of this year, once again, there were promises of audited financial statements for April. Then May. This time around it was more difficult to get them. Besides the fact that much of 2003 was still done manually, it would not be an easy task to get any international reputable audit firm to sign off the financials of a company with unknown production levels and a labor liability that could be in the billions. After all, none of the thousands oil workers fired had been paid their severance and their own private pension funds have been confiscated to this day. Moreover, Venezuelan labor laws do not allow massive firings; people can only be fired individually.

May, June and July came and went and no financials. But there was a problem: the newly enacted Sarbanes-Oakley act made the members of the Board of Directors of PDVSA individually responsible for failing to file or inaccuracies in the filings. A perverse and irresponsible solution was found, no filing, let’s buy back all of the US$ 2.7 billion in PDVSA debt to save the behinds of the members of the Board. No debt, no requirement to file, as easy as that. The information was leaked, many profited handsomely ahead of the news, PDVSA had to pay even higher prices and yields that it would need to pay to issue new debt. International reserves went down by US$ 2.7 billion to save the revolutionaries. So much for a black box, this was turning into a black hole. Screw the people, save the leaders!

It is now almost December and Rodriguez has yet to come up with audit #5. It may not matter anyway, he is leaving…

Meanwhile, for the last year and a half, OPEC and the US Energy agencies were saying that PDVSA was only producing 2.-2.5 million barrels of oil a day, while the company insisted it was producing 3.1 million barrels a day and promising 3.6 for 2005. Last week, Rodriguez had to testify in front of Congress and he said he would hire an international firm to audit the country’s oil production. We now await audit #6.

Even worse, Baker Hughes says that only 54 oil rigs were currently drilling in Venezuela out of 108 in 1998. The Venezuelan Central Bank says that oil production and price figures do not match what PDVSA says and at the Venezuelan Geophysics Congress it is stated that as many as 16,000 oil wells with lower production and high maintenance are currently not in operation. International reserves do not rise with oil prices. From black box to black hole in only five years!

Criticism number two of the pre-Chavez era is now moot too, the new PDVSA wants foreign companies to come in and provide the oil production that the company can not provide. Thanks to Giusti’s much-maligned oil opening, they already provide more than a million barrels of PDVSA’s current production.

My contacts in the inside tell me PDVSA is currently a royal mess. Political groups fight it out inside the company, attempting to control it. Rodriguez’s PPT currently predominates over Chávez’ MVR. The father of Chavez’s son in law General Prieto was finally left aside after becoming a power within the power at the company. Former Minister of Finance Jose Rojas appears to be the only voice of organization and reason within PDVSA. Personnel turnover is the highest ever, as groups fire their opponents whenever they can. Corruption is simply rampant.

Thus, Commander Faust has left a sorry and very unrevolutioabry trail at the company. PDVSA is now truly a black box. Even more it has become a black hole that sucks everything into it. There is no transparency. Nobody even knows how much oil is even produced by the country. Or how much gas. Or how much gasoline.

A US$ 30 billion for profit company has now had five different Presidents in almost five years. All of this while undergoing trauma year in and year out. No longer a black box, if it ever was one, but a black hole. All in the name of the revolution. All in the name of the people. And the three big criticisms of the previous administration of the company have now fallen by the wayside. Where are “the people” in all this? Where is the “revolution”? Rodriguez is indeed naked. Maybe he should have stayed in the mountains. At least there, he was true to himself and his ideals.

This morning I posted as a comment the presence in the Exchange Control Office’s official website of a page which describes a prophecy by self-described prophet Cindy Jones. Many people have written to me about it because it took them a while to realize that this is actually an official page where individuals and companies register to obtain foreign currency at the official exchange rate.

First of all, an explanation, the presence of this page can only be termed as bizarre in a country which is mostly Catholic and where there is supposed to be a clear separation of church and state. The President of the Exchange Control Office CADIVI Captain Hernandez Behrens is a very religious fellow who always mentions Gods in press conferences and clearly is evangelical. When the CADIVI website first appeared, everyone was surprised by this “mild” religious reference:

Top: God is love and prosperity Bottom: Let us pray for a Christian Venezuela

But this certainly was stunning to many.

Looking deeper into this, I found that Captain Behrens left similar references at the Regional Development Bank of Los Andes when he was President of that institution, where he left not one, but two web pages referring to this lady’s prophecies about Venezuela. Delving a little deeper into it revealed an article about Prophet Jones in Government sponsored page aporrea.org too.

This seems to be the week for the weird or the bizarre, from Che look alikes to the senior Little red riding hood, it ahs been indeed a strange week, but this definitely tops it all. Prophet Jacobs is a “prophet for the nations” co-founder of a missionary organization called Generals of Intercession and is called a “charismatic Jezebel” by some.

Her prophecy about Venezuela is there to read, for those that don’t speak Spanish some excerpts:

“The Lord says I am going to bring a tremendous unity to this country” (Not on the money so far)

“Don’t get involved with the confusion that Satan is trying to bring you. But know this” that I will remove and move and move and at the end of that moving, the Lord says there will be a nation that will rise (My note: at then end? Watch out Hugo!), that it will be a wealthy nation (My note: Not that wealthy). And this nation will be blessed (My note: Oil to $200 a barrel?), wealthy, will go to the nations. One of the reasons will be because they will take care of the poor.

Alleluia

I feel a wave of God coming, it is already coming, it is like a wave, a manifestation never seen before”

As a friend wrote to me today: ‘Electronic or virtual Macondo”

Thanks SC for pointing out the original site

This morning I posted as a comment the presence in the Exchange Control Office’s official website of a page which describes a prophecy by self-described prophet Cindy Jones. Many people have written to me about it because it took them a while to realize that this is actually an official page where individuals and companies register to obtain foreign currency at the official exchange rate.

First of all, an explanation, the presence of this page can only be termed as bizarre in a country which is mostly Catholic and where there is supposed to be a clear separation of church and state. The President of the Exchange Control Office CADIVI Captain Hernandez Behrens is a very religious fellow who always mentions Gods in press conferences and clearly is evangelical. When the CADIVI website first appeared, everyone was surprised by this “mild” religious reference:

Top: God is love and prosperity Bottom: Let us pray for a Christian Venezuela

But this certainly was stunning to many.

Looking deeper into this, I found that Captain Behrens left similar references at the Regional Development Bank of Los Andes when he was President of that institution, where he left not one, but two web pages referring to this lady’s prophecies about Venezuela. Delving a little deeper into it revealed an article about Prophet Jones in Government sponsored page aporrea.org too.

This seems to be the week for the weird or the bizarre, from Che look alikes to the senior Little red riding hood, it ahs been indeed a strange week, but this definitely tops it all. Prophet Jacobs is a “prophet for the nations” co-founder of a missionary organization called Generals of Intercession and is called a “charismatic Jezebel” by some.

Her prophecy about Venezuela is there to read, for those that don’t speak Spanish some excerpts:

“The Lord says I am going to bring a tremendous unity to this country” (Not on the money so far)

“Don’t get involved with the confusion that Satan is trying to bring you. But know this” that I will remove and move and move and at the end of that moving, the Lord says there will be a nation that will rise (My note: at then end? Watch out Hugo!), that it will be a wealthy nation (My note: Not that wealthy). And this nation will be blessed (My note: Oil to $200 a barrel?), wealthy, will go to the nations. One of the reasons will be because they will take care of the poor.

Alleluia

I feel a wave of God coming, it is already coming, it is like a wave, a manifestation never seen before”

As a friend wrote to me today: ‘Electronic or virtual Macondo”

Thanks SC for pointing out the original site

Once in a while, there is a small ray of light. Maybe it was international pressure, maybe not, maybe these people or some of them have some decency left in them, but the truth is that today’s decision by the Supreme Court to take away the case against Sumate from the Courts, is  indeed very good news.

Essentially the Court said it would take over the case against Sumate’s leaders Maria Corina Machado, Alejandro Plaz and others seen in the picture above and orders the Court to accept the evidence provided by the defense. It orders the process to continue with the accused in freedom and goes as far as saying that a trial may not even take place! Moreover, the Court says the defendants were denied their right to due process by both the Cpurt and the Prosecutor’s office. .

Now, just to put it in the proper perspective, this is the same accusation against Suamtethat the Attorney General/Prosecutor called only ten days ago “the exhaustive investigation carried out by the Court….led to 36 elements to prosecute”.

In any other country, the decision today by the Supreme Court and the charges made should lead to the resignation or removal of the Prosecutors and/or the judges involved. But not here. When there is no sense of decency, when revenge and political motivations determines the priorities of mediocre people placed in important positions to defend the indefensible, this is not what happens or may happen.

Attorney General/Prosecutor Isaias Rodriguez is morally corrupt, turning an independent power into an arm of the Government to persecute rather than prosecute the opposition.  While illegality is the rule of the day, crime is up, corruption is up, Rodriguez directs his office towards intimidating those that dare question or challenge the Government. In the case of Sumate, the hate and need for revenge is extreme. Imagine a group of people who dared to help organize things so that the Government would not cheat in the petition to request Chavez recall. The truth is that without Sumate, there would have been no recall vote. Moreover, Sumate did not have to pay the thousands of volunteers that worked for it like the Government does whenever it needs its supporters to do something. Sumate was in fact capable, efficient and its work was done largely by volunteers. This had to be eliminated so the Rodriguez came up with the ridiculous charge that Sumate “conspired against the political form that the Nation has been given”. When a Government calls true democracy a conspiracy, you know there is something very rotten in the minds and hearts of its leaders.

Note: I was a proud Sumate volunteer

Once in a while, there is a small ray of light. Maybe it was international pressure, maybe not, maybe these people or some of them have some decency left in them, but the truth is that today’s decision by the Supreme Court to take away the case against Sumate from the Courts, is  indeed very good news.

Essentially the Court said it would take over the case against Sumate’s leaders Maria Corina Machado, Alejandro Plaz and others seen in the picture above and orders the Court to accept the evidence provided by the defense. It orders the process to continue with the accused in freedom and goes as far as saying that a trial may not even take place! Moreover, the Court says the defendants were denied their right to due process by both the Cpurt and the Prosecutor’s office. .

Now, just to put it in the proper perspective, this is the same accusation against Suamtethat the Attorney General/Prosecutor called only ten days ago “the exhaustive investigation carried out by the Court….led to 36 elements to prosecute”.

In any other country, the decision today by the Supreme Court and the charges made should lead to the resignation or removal of the Prosecutors and/or the judges involved. But not here. When there is no sense of decency, when revenge and political motivations determines the priorities of mediocre people placed in important positions to defend the indefensible, this is not what happens or may happen.

Attorney General/Prosecutor Isaias Rodriguez is morally corrupt, turning an independent power into an arm of the Government to persecute rather than prosecute the opposition.  While illegality is the rule of the day, crime is up, corruption is up, Rodriguez directs his office towards intimidating those that dare question or challenge the Government. In the case of Sumate, the hate and need for revenge is extreme. Imagine a group of people who dared to help organize things so that the Government would not cheat in the petition to request Chavez recall. The truth is that without Sumate, there would have been no recall vote. Moreover, Sumate did not have to pay the thousands of volunteers that worked for it like the Government does whenever it needs its supporters to do something. Sumate was in fact capable, efficient and its work was done largely by volunteers. This had to be eliminated so the Rodriguez came up with the ridiculous charge that Sumate “conspired against the political form that the Nation has been given”. When a Government calls true democracy a conspiracy, you know there is something very rotten in the minds and hearts of its leaders.

Note: I was a proud Sumate volunteer

DBC posted this comment that I think deserves to be posted for everyone to read:

Brunilde — I was following up on your comment to SH “Chavez transformed a pluralistic society into a “we and then” society where everything is black and white. This happens only in fundamentalists states. Your views then, clearly show the type of Chavist fundamentalism that is currentl! y governing Venezuela.” It’s frustrating to watch as the norms and mechanisms of a democratic society are used to construct a militaristic, monopolistic one-party police state, irreversibly. Like a virus using its host until it dies. The opposition has lost, and lost, and lost again – legitimately at times, questionably at others.There is less and less transparency as time goes by and power accumulates. A comment by one of the Brit camaradas after the RR,over on Fernando Toro’s blog, sticks with me – to paraphrase, “The victor doesn’t ask for a post-mortem”. When El Proceso is complete, and the opposition says “But, you cheated”, the Chavistas/SinestroFascists/Mullah-equivalents can say “The victors don’t ask for post-mortems, and to the victors go the spoils”. The thing the Bolsheviks said to the Mensheviks (sp?). It’s futile to carry on a political discussion with the internacionalistas, when for the true-believers, politics are just a means to an end. The public face is a neutral observer, but the actual face is that of a Missionary eager to see a Utopian sociopolitical experiment implanted in Venezuela. Whether the Venezuelans want it or not. If, when Venezuela ends up like Iran, with a popular political fury that turns into a totalitarian, unending rule by the keepers of the Revolution, with a new generation fed up with the mullahs, but unable to express that frustration electorally, meaningfully—what do the Weisbrots and Pallasts, the Pulpos and Roy Carsons, the Guardians, the Canadian Professors holed up in posh hotels, “observing”, the Steven Hunts—-what will they have to say to those future Venezuelans? They won’t be accountable for the Proceso they are cheerleading, helping to build, and most likely the internacionalistas would call them contrarevolucionarios, Esqualidos. Fascistas, gusanos, what have you. The political convulsions in Venezuela aren’t Black/White – had Miquilena opted to annoint Arias Cardenas, you wouldn’t have this insane confrontational political realignment- but the stakes have become just that. The true believers, in Venezuela and abroad, understand this, be they firebrands in the AN or wolves-in-sheeps-clothing supporters carrying Chavez’s water. The opposition in Venezuela hasn’t this clarity, or has intended to ride the tiger, or has been forced into th defensive, into a smaller and smaller corner. This isn’t a debate at Oxford, it’s a contest, and the parties aren’t playing by the same rulebook. The future of Venezuela is at stake -or was-, so debating some extranjeros entrometidos, lecturing Venezuelans about –their own country– while they’re sitting back in the States, or Britain, or Academia—they’re cheerleading or actively building a state they won’t live in, one they’d never allow the opposition in their own countries to install, without accountability. Me choca. I suppose I’d like to see, say, the late Amalia Perez Diaz (a true reencauchada) giving them hell – “Atrevidos, insolentes, sinverguenzas,fuera de mi pais! Larguense”…

DBC posted this comment that I think deserves to be posted for everyone to read:

Brunilde — I was following up on your comment to SH “Chavez transformed a pluralistic society into a “we and then” society where everything is black and white. This happens only in fundamentalists states. Your views then, clearly show the type of Chavist fundamentalism that is currentl! y governing Venezuela.” It’s frustrating to watch as the norms and mechanisms of a democratic society are used to construct a militaristic, monopolistic one-party police state, irreversibly. Like a virus using its host until it dies. The opposition has lost, and lost, and lost again – legitimately at times, questionably at others.There is less and less transparency as time goes by and power accumulates. A comment by one of the Brit camaradas after the RR,over on Fernando Toro’s blog, sticks with me – to paraphrase, “The victor doesn’t ask for a post-mortem”. When El Proceso is complete, and the opposition says “But, you cheated”, the Chavistas/SinestroFascists/Mullah-equivalents can say “The victors don’t ask for post-mortems, and to the victors go the spoils”. The thing the Bolsheviks said to the Mensheviks (sp?). It’s futile to carry on a political discussion with the internacionalistas, when for the true-believers, politics are just a means to an end. The public face is a neutral observer, but the actual face is that of a Missionary eager to see a Utopian sociopolitical experiment implanted in Venezuela. Whether the Venezuelans want it or not. If, when Venezuela ends up like Iran, with a popular political fury that turns into a totalitarian, unending rule by the keepers of the Revolution, with a new generation fed up with the mullahs, but unable to express that frustration electorally, meaningfully—what do the Weisbrots and Pallasts, the Pulpos and Roy Carsons, the Guardians, the Canadian Professors holed up in posh hotels, “observing”, the Steven Hunts—-what will they have to say to those future Venezuelans? They won’t be accountable for the Proceso they are cheerleading, helping to build, and most likely the internacionalistas would call them contrarevolucionarios, Esqualidos. Fascistas, gusanos, what have you. The political convulsions in Venezuela aren’t Black/White – had Miquilena opted to annoint Arias Cardenas, you wouldn’t have this insane confrontational political realignment- but the stakes have become just that. The true believers, in Venezuela and abroad, understand this, be they firebrands in the AN or wolves-in-sheeps-clothing supporters carrying Chavez’s water. The opposition in Venezuela hasn’t this clarity, or has intended to ride the tiger, or has been forced into th defensive, into a smaller and smaller corner. This isn’t a debate at Oxford, it’s a contest, and the parties aren’t playing by the same rulebook. The future of Venezuela is at stake -or was-, so debating some extranjeros entrometidos, lecturing Venezuelans about –their own country– while they’re sitting back in the States, or Britain, or Academia—they’re cheerleading or actively building a state they won’t live in, one they’d never allow the opposition in their own countries to install, without accountability. Me choca. I suppose I’d like to see, say, the late Amalia Perez Diaz (a true reencauchada) giving them hell – “Atrevidos, insolentes, sinverguenzas,fuera de mi pais! Larguense”…

DBC posted this comment that I think deserves to be posted for everyone to read:

Brunilde — I was following up on your comment to SH “Chavez transformed a pluralistic society into a “we and then” society where everything is black and white. This happens only in fundamentalists states. Your views then, clearly show the type of Chavist fundamentalism that is currentl! y governing Venezuela.” It’s frustrating to watch as the norms and mechanisms of a democratic society are used to construct a militaristic, monopolistic one-party police state, irreversibly. Like a virus using its host until it dies. The opposition has lost, and lost, and lost again – legitimately at times, questionably at others.There is less and less transparency as time goes by and power accumulates. A comment by one of the Brit camaradas after the RR,over on Fernando Toro’s blog, sticks with me – to paraphrase, “The victor doesn’t ask for a post-mortem”. When El Proceso is complete, and the opposition says “But, you cheated”, the Chavistas/SinestroFascists/Mullah-equivalents can say “The victors don’t ask for post-mortems, and to the victors go the spoils”. The thing the Bolsheviks said to the Mensheviks (sp?). It’s futile to carry on a political discussion with the internacionalistas, when for the true-believers, politics are just a means to an end. The public face is a neutral observer, but the actual face is that of a Missionary eager to see a Utopian sociopolitical experiment implanted in Venezuela. Whether the Venezuelans want it or not. If, when Venezuela ends up like Iran, with a popular political fury that turns into a totalitarian, unending rule by the keepers of the Revolution, with a new generation fed up with the mullahs, but unable to express that frustration electorally, meaningfully—what do the Weisbrots and Pallasts, the Pulpos and Roy Carsons, the Guardians, the Canadian Professors holed up in posh hotels, “observing”, the Steven Hunts—-what will they have to say to those future Venezuelans? They won’t be accountable for the Proceso they are cheerleading, helping to build, and most likely the internacionalistas would call them contrarevolucionarios, Esqualidos. Fascistas, gusanos, what have you. The political convulsions in Venezuela aren’t Black/White – had Miquilena opted to annoint Arias Cardenas, you wouldn’t have this insane confrontational political realignment- but the stakes have become just that. The true believers, in Venezuela and abroad, understand this, be they firebrands in the AN or wolves-in-sheeps-clothing supporters carrying Chavez’s water. The opposition in Venezuela hasn’t this clarity, or has intended to ride the tiger, or has been forced into th defensive, into a smaller and smaller corner. This isn’t a debate at Oxford, it’s a contest, and the parties aren’t playing by the same rulebook. The future of Venezuela is at stake -or was-, so debating some extranjeros entrometidos, lecturing Venezuelans about –their own country– while they’re sitting back in the States, or Britain, or Academia—they’re cheerleading or actively building a state they won’t live in, one they’d never allow the opposition in their own countries to install, without accountability. Me choca. I suppose I’d like to see, say, the late Amalia Perez Diaz (a true reencauchada) giving them hell – “Atrevidos, insolentes, sinverguenzas,fuera de mi pais! Larguense”…

It has now been two weeks since the Silvino Bustillos disappearance and as usual the Chavez Government has made a masterful job of making it a non-issue, but anyone that analyzes the details should be very disturbed by the whole affair and how it ahs been handled. I don’t know if Bustillos disappeared on his own or was abducted and tortured. What I do know is that his disappearance has followed a pattern of illegalities and in the end the only thing being investigated is those that reported him missing. Let’s look:

–Bustillos was on line to vote on Oct. 31^st. when motorcycles with two people on it show up and attempt to arrest him. The people trying to arrest him identify themselves; Bustillos calls his wife and tells her the names. According to the Minister of Defense Bustillos was creating an “incident”, but none of the witnesses at the voting center recall any disturbance but for the arrival of the armed military intelligence members. The crowd waiting to vote defends Bustillos who ahs a chance to escape.

–Bustillos goes to the Baruta police station where he is followed by the military intelligence officers. At the station they attempt to detain him, but a prosecutor is there and asks for an arrest warrant which the officers did not have. In fact, The Minister of Defense says the officers were following Bustillos, but he has never revealed why. It is not legal to do what they were doing it without a prosecutor ordering it. Moreover, the Minister has acknowledged that those following Bustillos are the same people the missing Cl. identified on the phone.

–Bustillos leaves goes towards the building where he lives and has not been seen since then.

–Reporter Manuel Isidro Molina reports his sources tell him that Bustillos was detained tortured and died in the cells of military intelligence.

–Bustillos reportedly called his 68 year old sister who says she thought it was him only because the voice called her by a specific name few people use with her. Nothing ahs been heard since from Bustillos.

–The Minister of Justice says Bustillos, whose wife claims does not drink, was simply having a good time and partying.

–The Minister of Defense opens a procedure against the reporter for defamation under military law.

So, we have the illegality of Bustillos being followed, that of trying to arrest him without an order, the illegality of trying a reporter under military law, but the first two are not even being considered.

Could Bustillos or his family sue the Minister of Justice for saying he was partying?

I bet nothing would ever be done in such a case. But the case against the reporter will now continue even if nobody can actually prove that Bustillos is alive or not. Venezuelan justice only considers now cases brought by the Government against the opposition. Whether defamation or corruption, it is only opposition officials, who are a minority, who are being persecuted and indicted for whatever charges while the hundreds of corruption cases involving Chavez or his cohorts are simply being ignored and set aside. Only today Primero Justicia Mayor Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo Lopez were called to the Prosecutor’s office to charge them with a new crime (remember Capriles was freed on a different charge). Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that they both got 80% of the votes and if found guilty they have to resign their positions and may never hold public office again.

Also today, the president of the Carabobo Electoral Board was jailed as the intelligence police DISIP took over the regional Electoral Board where the tallies of the Governor’s race are being held. The Intelligence police is denying acces to the opposition political parties in another act of totalitarism. Do they have something top hide? Obviously they do…

This is what is called justice democracy under this so called revolution.