The Devil's Excrement

I simply translate what our illustrious Minister of Health said in Geneva. Did he think nobody was listening? Is this guy as idiotic as he sounds? Will he go back to fixing varicose veins soon? You be the judge:

Venezuela intends to put under state control private medicine institutions, among them hospitals and insurance companies, said the Minister of Health Roger Capella, accusing these companies of benefiting without investing anything.

“We are going to rescue what the private organizations robbed and kidnapped from the state” said Capella where he is attending the WHO meeting.

We have financed (??) the private system in Venezuela that has taken advantage of the money of the State, said the Minister at a meeting with reporters.

Capella specified that “we are not taking anything from anyone; we are recovering what was slowly given to private groups during five decades, damaging public health in the country”

“The private sector did not invest one cent (??), they only made money”, said Capella who specified that the process of controlling those companies would take two to three years.

The Minister of Health noted that among the private insurance that he wants to place under state control there are companies “both national as well as multinational’, among them some European and Spanish ones.

He said the objective of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, will be to implement a unified public health system that would group all 68 public institutions that currently exist.
  
He said that currently the health system in Venezuela functions in disperse fashion, fragmented and uncoordinated, and of course, totally inefficient”.

There is no national orientation for expenditures, said Capella who pointed out that public health expenditures have tripled in the last few years and represent 4% of GDP, but if you add all resources it reaches 10 to 12%.

For now, all I will say on this issue is that Mr. Capella is famous for putting his foot in his mouth. I think the Government will not welcome these statements and most likely they will deny he ever said that. He has been Vice-Minister and Minister during much of this increase in budget (which is in Bolivars, so it is not real), if it is run inefficiently, he has had a huge share of responsibility in it. As far as I know, there has never been public financing of private medicine in Venezuela. In fact, many years ago, I was in a committee that rejected purchasing a piece of equipment for a medical doctor for scientific research because the equipment would go in the office where he had his private practice. I also wonder whether he plans to put under state control his clinics for varicose veins…

The Directors of Sumate held a press conference to inform the public that they have been asked to go to the Attorney General’s office to testify as “accused” in the case of the contribution by the National Endowment for Democracy from the US to their cause. NED contributed $53,400 to Sumate’s efforts. Curiously, the same Attorney General never found any cause for concern with the illegal campaign contribution by Banco Bilbao y Viscaya to Hugo Chavez’ presidential campaign. That contribution was not only illegal, but was never reported by Chavez’ MVR, despite this, the Attorney General never pressed charges. (By the way, NED gave over US$ 1 million in contributions in Venezuela to 15 projects in 2003 alone, how come Sumate is the only one under investigation)

The Directors of Sumate held a press conference to inform the public that they have been asked to go to the Attorney General’s office to testify as “accused” in the case of the contribution by the National Endowment for Democracy from the US to their cause. NED contributed $53,400 to Sumate’s efforts. Curiously, the same Attorney General never found any cause for concern with the illegal campaign contribution by Banco Bilbao y Viscaya to Hugo Chavez’ presidential campaign. That contribution was not only illegal, but was never reported by Chavez’ MVR, despite this, the Attorney General never pressed charges. (By the way, NED gave over US$ 1 million in contributions in Venezuela to 15 projects in 2003 alone, how come Sumate is the only one under investigation)

The Directors of Sumate held a press conference to inform the public that they have been asked to go to the Attorney General’s office to testify as “accused” in the case of the contribution by the National Endowment for Democracy from the US to their cause. NED contributed $53,400 to Sumate’s efforts. Curiously, the same Attorney General never found any cause for concern with the illegal campaign contribution by Banco Bilbao y Viscaya to Hugo Chavez’ presidential campaign. That contribution was not only illegal, but was never reported by Chavez’ MVR, despite this, the Attorney General never pressed charges. (By the way, NED gave over US$ 1 million in contributions in Venezuela to 15 projects in 2003 alone, how come Sumate is the only one under investigation)

All of a sudden and as if by magic, the Directors of the CNE, the same ones that on Saturday were saying that the OAS and Carter Center representatives had not retracted, said today that all “edges were smoothed out” and after informal communications the international missions had reiterated their respect for their CNE to make decisions.

This time around, not everyone was informed that the two sides had smoked the peace pipe as PPT Deputy Albornoz, made statements shortly afterwards that the representatives of the two international organizations should be replaced. Albornoz accused the OAS and the Carter Center of taking sides and being politicized.

But what can you expect of a Government whose Foreign Minister says that his own Government may have exaggerated the role of the paramilitary force captured last week, only to be contradicted by Chavez himself a few hours later, when the President said that they were planning to bomb the Presidential palace.

Continuing with the contradictions, tonight the Vice-President said that Generals Gonzales Gonzales and Uson are sought in relation to the paramilitary cases. Gonzales Gonzales was on of the Generals from Altamira Square, but Uson, who was Chavez’ Minister of Finance, has always distanced himself from the anti-Chavez movement. However, after the Vice-President said this, the military prosecutor refused to confirm that this was true.

Meanwhile the Government held a large rally yesterday against terrorism at which Chávez called for all citizens to become soldiers to defend the country. The concept was severely criticized by all opposition parties, rejecting the concept of having Venezuela become a country of militiamen. 

Over twenty years ago a reporter took me and four friends to almost every Venezuelan TV talk show in existence. We were young and somewhat nervous about the whole experience, so she suggested essentially ignoring the questions and just prepare what we wanted to say and simply start answering questions and quickly twist our answer to fit whatever it was that we wanted to say.

There is an analogy to this in a very well known joke in Spanish about the little kid who only studies the Phoenicians for his world history oral exam. No matter what he is asked, his answer will always somehow tie the part of history he is asked about to that of the Phoenicians, at which point he will relate verbatim all the knowledge he has acquired about them.

These stories come to mind after watching again the outraged words of CNE President Carrasquero and reading Caracas Chronicles’ article on Article 31 of the rules for recall referenda. In FT’s translation Art. 31 simply says:

“…electors who allege that they did not sign the petition form may go to the National Electoral Council to petition their immediate exclusion from the signature tally…”

This is fairly straight forward. If there was an error you may go to have your signature included or “repararla” and if you did not sign, Art. 31 says in unequivocal and simple terms that you may go and exclude your signature. There are no alternative options or interpretations to Art. 31 like the pro-Chavez CNE Directors have intended to do in order to allow the Government to pressure Government workers and contractors to withdraw their signatures. The outrage with which both CNE President Carrasquero and Director Jorge Rodriguez asked the OAS and the Carter Center to retract, is simply proof of their cynicism and of the fact that they are not fair minded and the last thing in their minds is to allow the electors to express their will.

But going back to my original story, what I do not understand is why the Coordinadora Democrática does not implement its own version of the Phoenicians strategy. They should all memorize Art. 31 and no matter what they are asked on TV, the press or the radio, always answer by first reminding everyone that withdrawing your signature if you did sign is simply not a legal option and quote Art. 31 word by word for emphasis.

I am sure that if all major politicians did this for the next two weeks, every Venezuelan that participated in the Reafirmazo in November would hear it a few times and understand it, making the Government’s campaign to intimidate fail completely. In fact, the Chavistas have used this same technique to make lies become true, changing history, simply by having everyone around Chavez repeat and parrot, over and over, their version of the truth, however farfetched or distorted it may be.

I really do not expect large number of people to go and withdraw their signature later this month, but the opposition needs the widest possible margin of success in having people ratify their signatures in order to deflect and block any new attempt at cheating by the CNE and the Government. You all should do the same, memorize it, discuss it, argue about it at every chance. Each signature counts and in fact, Art. 31 is much simpler and shorter than learning all about the Phoenicians.

And it seems to have gone unnoticed that the Penal Hall of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled today that the Fort Mara case of the burnt soldiers will have to be decided in a civilian court. Not that I have much hope that this will help in solving the case, but it will certainly eliminate the total cover up that has so far been performed by the military. Of course, these Justice face the risk with theoir decision that they will be investigated like the President of the Electoral hall Martini Urdaneta “for faults in the fulfillment of his duties”. This simply means that he ruled against the Government’s wishes, which in a totalitarian state is considered to be a very grave fault.

And it seems to have gone unnoticed that the Penal Hall of the Supreme Court unanimously ruled today that the Fort Mara case of the burnt soldiers will have to be decided in a civilian court. Not that I have much hope that this will help in solving the case, but it will certainly eliminate the total cover up that has so far been performed by the military. Of course, these Justice face the risk with theoir decision that they will be investigated like the President of the Electoral hall Martini Urdaneta “for faults in the fulfillment of his duties”. This simply means that he ruled against the Government’s wishes, which in a totalitarian state is considered to be a very grave fault.