The Devil's Excrement

Yesterday, in a somewhat surprising move, the usually diplomatic OAS and Carter Center representatives gave a press conference in which they called for the CNE only to allow people to withdraw their signature if they had not signed in the November Reafirmazo. According to both international organizations, this is the usual spirit in such processes worldwide and is also the spirit which can be derived from the text of the regulations.

The statement caused the outrage of two of the three pro-Chavez members of the Electoral Board who accused the observers of going beyond their duties and threatening them with reconsidering their role in the process, unless they retracted their statement. While one of the CNE directors indicated that his outrage was aimed at the questioning of the spirit of the regulations, it may actually be that the OAS and the Carter Center explicitly referred to the intimidation of people by the Government to induce them to withdraw their signatures.

Today both Carter center and OAS representatives held another press conference where they certainly fell short of retracting their statements, giving a vague clarification of what they had said and why. They certainly did not seem to retract their statements and it would be interesting to see the reaction by the CNE Directors tomorrow.

The statements by the CNE Directors simply show, once again, the partiality of its members against the process and how they are willing to go to any length to stop the opposition from getting the required number of signatures to call for the recall referendum against Hugo Chavez. As the former head of the CNE said today, the attitude of the CNE Directors is unheard of in their attempt to block any possibility of the recall referendum ever taking place as well as not facilitating the people’s rights to express their will.

Dictators don’t hold clean elections, as simple as that. And this particular one has a bunch of servants at the service of his abuses agaisnt the people and their rights.

Yesterday, in a somewhat surprising move, the usually diplomatic OAS and Carter Center representatives gave a press conference in which they called for the CNE only to allow people to withdraw their signature if they had not signed in the November Reafirmazo. According to both international organizations, this is the usual spirit in such processes worldwide and is also the spirit which can be derived from the text of the regulations.

The statement caused the outrage of two of the three pro-Chavez members of the Electoral Board who accused the observers of going beyond their duties and threatening them with reconsidering their role in the process, unless they retracted their statement. While one of the CNE directors indicated that his outrage was aimed at the questioning of the spirit of the regulations, it may actually be that the OAS and the Carter Center explicitly referred to the intimidation of people by the Government to induce them to withdraw their signatures.

Today both Carter center and OAS representatives held another press conference where they certainly fell short of retracting their statements, giving a vague clarification of what they had said and why. They certainly did not seem to retract their statements and it would be interesting to see the reaction by the CNE Directors tomorrow.

The statements by the CNE Directors simply show, once again, the partiality of its members against the process and how they are willing to go to any length to stop the opposition from getting the required number of signatures to call for the recall referendum against Hugo Chavez. As the former head of the CNE said today, the attitude of the CNE Directors is unheard of in their attempt to block any possibility of the recall referendum ever taking place as well as not facilitating the people’s rights to express their will.

Dictators don’t hold clean elections, as simple as that. And this particular one has a bunch of servants at the service of his abuses agaisnt the people and their rights.

The pro-Chavez majority in the National Assembly just reached a new level of indecency, totalitarism and intolerance when it passed a resolution to ask the Attorney general to revoke the nationality of Robert Alonso (the man who owned the farm where the paramilitary were caught), Norberto Mazza (a TV reporter), Marta Colomina (a radio and TV reporter who has been one of the Government’s harshest critics), Napoleon Bravo (a radio and TV announcer who supported Chavez initially but turned quickly against the Government) and Gustavo Cisneros (who owns TV station Venevision, the Coca Cola Distributor in Venezuela and the Regional beer brand and is in the Forbes list of the world’s richest men).

Like in all totalitarian regimes, pro-Chavez Deputies have no morals or any limits to their lack of scruples.

The pro-Chavez majority in the National Assembly just reached a new level of indecency, totalitarism and intolerance when it passed a resolution to ask the Attorney general to revoke the nationality of Robert Alonso (the man who owned the farm where the paramilitary were caught), Norberto Mazza (a TV reporter), Marta Colomina (a radio and TV reporter who has been one of the Government’s harshest critics), Napoleon Bravo (a radio and TV announcer who supported Chavez initially but turned quickly against the Government) and Gustavo Cisneros (who owns TV station Venevision, the Coca Cola Distributor in Venezuela and the Regional beer brand and is in the Forbes list of the world’s richest men).

Like in all totalitarian regimes, pro-Chavez Deputies have no morals or any limits to their lack of scruples.

The pro-Chavez majority in the National Assembly just reached a new level of indecency, totalitarism and intolerance when it passed a resolution to ask the Attorney general to revoke the nationality of Robert Alonso (the man who owned the farm where the paramilitary were caught), Norberto Mazza (a TV reporter), Marta Colomina (a radio and TV reporter who has been one of the Government’s harshest critics), Napoleon Bravo (a radio and TV announcer who supported Chavez initially but turned quickly against the Government) and Gustavo Cisneros (who owns TV station Venevision, the Coca Cola Distributor in Venezuela and the Regional beer brand and is in the Forbes list of the world’s richest men).

Like in all totalitarian regimes, pro-Chavez Deputies have no morals or any limits to their lack of scruples.

Amnesty International has just released a report on Human Rights and impunity in Venezuela.

Once again the CNE is getting ready to set us up for the kill.  It’s subtle, but we know that is their specialty. But, after reading about the proposed regulations for adding up the totals for the ratification process I am sure that something is up. As if this were not enough, then the chief cynic Jorge Rodriguez comes out and denies the proposal, making arguments that to me indicate that something sinister is once again going on.

The proposed regulations are simple, the results that have “erasures, changes or other type of observation that compromise the veracity of its contents will not be added up”. This is nothing more, nothing less than the same trick used during the Reafirmazo to completely invalidate close to 15% of the signatures presented by the opposition. These signatures were simply disqualified because of problems with the “cover sheets” a technicality not even present in the earlier regulations. Despite this, those that had their signatures invalidated because if this problem will not be able to participate in the upcoming ratification process.

No sooner had we seen the text of this proposal that Chief CNE cynic Jorge Rodriguez denied “categorically” that irregularities in the cover sheets could “Kill the ratification” saying that any inconsistencies will be resolved appealing to the direct totalization of what is in the so called electoral notebooks.

Up to here, so far so good. But where I know there is a trick is when he says “We are establishing a guide for totalization that has the same characteristics that have occured whenever we have had electoral processes in Venezuela”

Well, sorry Jorge, this process is nothing like any electoral process we have ever had. In the country’s electoral processes up to this one, the polling booths have always been manned by the people, never have they been manned like in the upcoming ratification process by employees of the Electoral Board, so there is no reason to appeal to “the way electoral process have always been run” like you are doing. In fact, I am sure somewhere in there lies the final trick that will screw us once and for all.

Chavez was right in is speech today, Venezuela has indeed been invaded but not by those he accuses, but by him and those hoodlums without scruples and ethics, which are now everywhere and that, like Jorge Rodriguez, the Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the military, simply suck up to him because he is powerful. But temporal power is fleeting and there will be a day of reckoning for those that have kidnapped and violated our rights.

Once again the CNE is getting ready to set us up for the kill.  It’s subtle, but we know that is their specialty. But, after reading about the proposed regulations for adding up the totals for the ratification process I am sure that something is up. As if this were not enough, then the chief cynic Jorge Rodriguez comes out and denies the proposal, making arguments that to me indicate that something sinister is once again going on.

The proposed regulations are simple, the results that have “erasures, changes or other type of observation that compromise the veracity of its contents will not be added up”. This is nothing more, nothing less than the same trick used during the Reafirmazo to completely invalidate close to 15% of the signatures presented by the opposition. These signatures were simply disqualified because of problems with the “cover sheets” a technicality not even present in the earlier regulations. Despite this, those that had their signatures invalidated because if this problem will not be able to participate in the upcoming ratification process.

No sooner had we seen the text of this proposal that Chief CNE cynic Jorge Rodriguez denied “categorically” that irregularities in the cover sheets could “Kill the ratification” saying that any inconsistencies will be resolved appealing to the direct totalization of what is in the so called electoral notebooks.

Up to here, so far so good. But where I know there is a trick is when he says “We are establishing a guide for totalization that has the same characteristics that have occured whenever we have had electoral processes in Venezuela”

Well, sorry Jorge, this process is nothing like any electoral process we have ever had. In the country’s electoral processes up to this one, the polling booths have always been manned by the people, never have they been manned like in the upcoming ratification process by employees of the Electoral Board, so there is no reason to appeal to “the way electoral process have always been run” like you are doing. In fact, I am sure somewhere in there lies the final trick that will screw us once and for all.

Chavez was right in is speech today, Venezuela has indeed been invaded but not by those he accuses, but by him and those hoodlums without scruples and ethics, which are now everywhere and that, like Jorge Rodriguez, the Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the military, simply suck up to him because he is powerful. But temporal power is fleeting and there will be a day of reckoning for those that have kidnapped and violated our rights.

Once again the CNE is getting ready to set us up for the kill.  It’s subtle, but we know that is their specialty. But, after reading about the proposed regulations for adding up the totals for the ratification process I am sure that something is up. As if this were not enough, then the chief cynic Jorge Rodriguez comes out and denies the proposal, making arguments that to me indicate that something sinister is once again going on.

The proposed regulations are simple, the results that have “erasures, changes or other type of observation that compromise the veracity of its contents will not be added up”. This is nothing more, nothing less than the same trick used during the Reafirmazo to completely invalidate close to 15% of the signatures presented by the opposition. These signatures were simply disqualified because of problems with the “cover sheets” a technicality not even present in the earlier regulations. Despite this, those that had their signatures invalidated because if this problem will not be able to participate in the upcoming ratification process.

No sooner had we seen the text of this proposal that Chief CNE cynic Jorge Rodriguez denied “categorically” that irregularities in the cover sheets could “Kill the ratification” saying that any inconsistencies will be resolved appealing to the direct totalization of what is in the so called electoral notebooks.

Up to here, so far so good. But where I know there is a trick is when he says “We are establishing a guide for totalization that has the same characteristics that have occured whenever we have had electoral processes in Venezuela”

Well, sorry Jorge, this process is nothing like any electoral process we have ever had. In the country’s electoral processes up to this one, the polling booths have always been manned by the people, never have they been manned like in the upcoming ratification process by employees of the Electoral Board, so there is no reason to appeal to “the way electoral process have always been run” like you are doing. In fact, I am sure somewhere in there lies the final trick that will screw us once and for all.

Chavez was right in is speech today, Venezuela has indeed been invaded but not by those he accuses, but by him and those hoodlums without scruples and ethics, which are now everywhere and that, like Jorge Rodriguez, the Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the military, simply suck up to him because he is powerful. But temporal power is fleeting and there will be a day of reckoning for those that have kidnapped and violated our rights.

I cant’ help but be extremely worried. A new wave of repression and intimidation seems to have started today, as the Government attempts to leverage the paramilitary charade into a full scale witch hunt:

-Baruta Mayor Capriles Radonsky is jailed, despite the fact that the Penal Hall of the Venezuela Supreme Court had already ruled that Mayors have to be tried while they are free, as they represent no escape risk.

-Not only was Deputy Rafael Marin’s house raided without a warrant, but from well-informed sources I understand he was held at gunpoint with a machine gun. Moreover, the Head of the intelligence police told the media that “It is very clear that (Marin) is involved, so he should stop complaining”. Well, if it is so clear, why doesn’t he go to the assembly and has the Deputy’s immunity removed? Marin later called him a “bandit”

-The Head of the intelligence police says they have an eight page “Counter revolutionary plan”, warns of further searches and announces “surprises”. He says “Don’t say names, but you will see”. Eight pages!! Wow! How elaborate!

-The farm of media tycoon Gustavo Cisneros is also searched, his only sin apparently that it was close to (miles!) where the paramilitary were captured last Sunday.  President Chavez had accused Cisneros of plotting against him, but nothing was found in the raid.

-Reporters from El Universal covering the home raids around Caracas were stopped by a military intelligence Colonel named Manuitt, abused and threatened. My translation of one of the reporters’ articles follows.

-A Judge ordered both active and retired military; most of them low rank and not well-known, captured.

-The People’s Defender says that he is suspicious of US participation in the paramilitary charade due to “historical evidence”

-The Minister of Defense warns that people should be on alert because they have “suspicions” that there will be attacks on both opposition and Government leaders by paid assassins. If he knows so much, how come he does not stop it? I thought that is part of his job.

The whole charade is getting to be suspiciously blown out of proportion by the Government. I am now leaning toward the belief that the paramilitary force was indeed a Government plan to justify arbitrary detentions in the name of national security. They were discovered and had to advance the plan, making it look really bad. Reportedly, the owner of the farm where the paramilitary were supposedly kept said that his farm would be about the worst possible location for something like that, as it has a church and a Bolivarian circle less than half a mile away.

This is the first time that I have felt the Government was stepping over the legal line in very clear fashion, without shame. People are being jailed right and left, in violation of rulings and with little or no evidence. The raids on homes are not even legally supported. A deputy had his immunity violated. Reporters are once again abused, but this time threatened with death by the military police!.

Hopefully, this is not a sign of worse things to come, but it looks very bad and bleak to me.