The Devil's Excrement

This is my list of incongruous things going in Venezuela, I welcome new additions:

–            The Government that wants to block an election at all costs is democratic; the opposition that wants to have an election at all costs is accused of plotting against the Government.

–            The poor are with Chavez, 80% of Venezuelans are poor, but Chavez only has 40% support.

–            Chavez won an election with close to 90% of the popularity, but never got more than 60% of the vote.

–            We want everyone to respect our sovereignty, but ask for Chile to give Bolivia access to the sea.

–            We want to be independent and self-sufficient, but are destroying PDVSA

–            We hate capitalists, but love American oil companies.

–            We are poor, but give away to Cuba 2% of our income every day.

–            We want rural land reform, but 80% of the population is urban.

–            This nationalistic Government gives foreign investors and banks free money.

–            Chavez is so popular he would easily win any election, but he refuses to have one.

–            We are socialists, but our social services don’t work.

–            Gasoline in Venezuela is cheaper by volume than water.

–            Inflation is 30%-plus per year, but you can borrow money at 24% interest per year. Despite this, there is no credit demand.

–            One can get dollars at the official rate to import stuff, which one can then export at the parallel rate.

–            Government imported food at the official rate is sold at the same prices than private imports at the parallel rate.

–            This is a militaristic Government, which reduces the military budget.

–            The man who said Chavez had resigned in April 2002 is today his Minister of Interior and Justice.

–            The People’s Bank has no deposits.

–           The People’s Ombudsman does not defend the people.

This is my list of incongruous things going in Venezuela, I welcome new additions:

–            The Government that wants to block an election at all costs is democratic; the opposition that wants to have an election at all costs is accused of plotting against the Government.

–            The poor are with Chavez, 80% of Venezuelans are poor, but Chavez only has 40% support.

–            Chavez won an election with close to 90% of the popularity, but never got more than 60% of the vote.

–            We want everyone to respect our sovereignty, but ask for Chile to give Bolivia access to the sea.

–            We want to be independent and self-sufficient, but are destroying PDVSA

–            We hate capitalists, but love American oil companies.

–            We are poor, but give away to Cuba 2% of our income every day.

–            We want rural land reform, but 80% of the population is urban.

–            This nationalistic Government gives foreign investors and banks free money.

–            Chavez is so popular he would easily win any election, but he refuses to have one.

–            We are socialists, but our social services don’t work.

–            Gasoline in Venezuela is cheaper by volume than water.

–            Inflation is 30%-plus per year, but you can borrow money at 24% interest per year. Despite this, there is no credit demand.

–            One can get dollars at the official rate to import stuff, which one can then export at the parallel rate.

–            Government imported food at the official rate is sold at the same prices than private imports at the parallel rate.

–            This is a militaristic Government, which reduces the military budget.

–            The man who said Chavez had resigned in April 2002 is today his Minister of Interior and Justice.

–            The People’s Bank has no deposits.

–           The People’s Ombudsman does not defend the people.

This is a variation of something that has circulated in Spanish for a while, I have never been happy with the translation I made, but here it is. Read down and you will read the promises of this Government:

In our political party

We fulfill our promises

Only the stupid can believe that

We will not fight corruption

Because if there is something true for us it is that

Honesty and transparency are fundamental

To reach our ideals

We will show that it is very stupid to believe that

The mafias will continue being part of our Government like in past times

We assure you without any doubt that

Social justice will be the main goal of our mandate

Despite this, there are still stupid people that think that

It’s possible to govern with the ruses of the past

Since taking over power, we have done the impossible so that

Privileged situations and influences ended

We will not allow

Our kids die of hunger

We will fulfill our goals even if

Economic resources are exhausted

We will exercise power until

It’s understood that from now on

We are MVR, we are the revolution.

NOW READ BACKWARDS FROM BOTTOM TO TOP AND YOU WILL FIND REALITY

This is a variation of something that has circulated in Spanish for a while, I have never been happy with the translation I made, but here it is. Read down and you will read the promises of this Government:

In our political party

We fulfill our promises

Only the stupid can believe that

We will not fight corruption

Because if there is something true for us it is that

Honesty and transparency are fundamental

To reach our ideals

We will show that it is very stupid to believe that

The mafias will continue being part of our Government like in past times

We assure you without any doubt that

Social justice will be the main goal of our mandate

Despite this, there are still stupid people that think that

It’s possible to govern with the ruses of the past

Since taking over power, we have done the impossible so that

Privileged situations and influences ended

We will not allow

Our kids die of hunger

We will fulfill our goals even if

Economic resources are exhausted

We will exercise power until

It’s understood that from now on

We are MVR, we are the revolution.

NOW READ BACKWARDS FROM BOTTOM TO TOP AND YOU WILL FIND REALITY

As part of its recent decision on the petition for Chavez’ recall, the Electoral Hall of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, invited all parties concerned for tomorrow for a conciliation session. The way I understand it, the Hall in its last sentence encouraged all sides to negotiate, if they do not, then the Hall can force one or all sides to abide by its decision and immedaitely implement whatever was decided by it.

Separately, the Constitutional Hall admitted the request by Chvaez’ Ayacucho commitee to look into the case, intensifying the conflict bewteen the two Halls.

For almost two years I have been trying to explain to you what is happening in Venezuela. Tonight, the Venezuelan soccer team,. a country with no soccer tradition, beat Uruguay, a country with a great soccer tradition, by 3-0 in the Montevideo soccer stadium. The match was part of the World Cup qualifying process. As if this was not enough, the Venezuelans played a very good game, solid in defense and offense, this was no fluke. The victory is likely to be the most significamt victory in the country’s short soccer history.

Now, this is really, really hard to explain, politics may be easier.

During the Rafael caldera Government in 1997 Congress created the Economic Advisory Office of Congress, later converted into the Economic Advisory Office of the National Assembly. The Office was created as part of a Cooperation program with the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB). The idea was to create an autonomous office that would evaluate the impact of new legislation from an economic point of view to help out decision making by the Legislature. Given that IDB would be providing the funding, the Office would be able to pay international salaries to attract Economists with Ph.D.’s and Masters Degrees and would function independently of the Assembly.

The office began functioning under the direction of Economist Gustavo Garcia, a Professor from IESA, the most prestigious business and management school in Venezuela. When Hugo Chavez was elected Garcia began issuing reports that were too critical of the Government, thus, taking advantage of the new constitution and the change from a bicameral Congress to National assembly, the office was declared under reorganization, shutdown  and then reopened with Economist Tobias Nobrega, currently the Minister of Finance, designated as the temporary Head of the Office in charge of reactivating the office as well as opening the process to hire the most qualified Economists for this “new” stage in the life of the office.

In September 2000, self-described “left-wing” economist and then Chavez defender Francisco Rodriguez was named to Head the office in this new stage. Rodriguez had obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1998 where he had specialized in studying economic policies for the redistribution of wealth. At that time, Rodriguez was Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland.

In time, Rodriguez became an uncomfortable source of strong opinions for the leadership of the national Assembly and the Government. During the scandal of the FIEM, where US$ 1.9 billion went “missing” , former Minister of Finance Merentes “explained” in Congressional testimony how these funds were spent to pay for Christmas bonuses and salaries, “accepting” his responsibility for spending these funds without authorization. Except that Rodriguez came out the next day and showed how all of the funds to pay for these expenditures had been approved from other sources. The mystery of the missing funds was never resolved.

Since that scandal Rodriguez became a harsh critic of the way public funding was being mismanaged, issuing very critical reports about the violations of the rules of the FIEM (Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund), suggesting there was corruption in the direct sale of Government bonds to local broker CEDEL by the ministry of Finance, writing a report which said the general strike in December 2002 was much smaller than the Government was saying and finally writing a number of reports very critical of Chavez’ request for the Venezuelan Central bank to give the Government US$ 1 billion.

But what really incensed the current leadership of the National assembly were two recent reports by Rodriguez’ office accusing the leadership itself of irregularities. In one, Rodriguez accuses that the Government is ready to pay US$ 300 million of fraudulent Bandagro bonds. Rodriquez says that the person who supposedly had signed these bonds has sworn that the signature is not his and it was fraudulently forged. A foreign group has been asking the Government t pay it US$ 600 million in capital and interest from these bonds.

This week the President of the National Assembly suspended Rodriguez and the second Economist of the Office, informing all of the other economists that from now on they would be working for the National Assembly and that they no longer had stability as their position were now positions of “trust” and thus subject to removal by the leadership of the Assembly. When Rodriguez complained that these decisions were invalid, the issue was brought to the Assembly itself that today ratified the disappearance of the Office as it was functioning. The decision was made only with the votes of the pro-Chávez Deputies

Rodriguez says that this violates the agreement with the IDB and he will go to the Supreme Court to ask that the Office be reestablished as an independent entity.

In contrast, the proposal to censor Minister of Health Roger Capella for saying that anyone that signed the petition against Chávez was a terrorist, did not receive sufficient votes for approval. Such is justice and morality in the Vth. Republic.

During the Rafael caldera Government in 1997 Congress created the Economic Advisory Office of Congress, later converted into the Economic Advisory Office of the National Assembly. The Office was created as part of a Cooperation program with the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB). The idea was to create an autonomous office that would evaluate the impact of new legislation from an economic point of view to help out decision making by the Legislature. Given that IDB would be providing the funding, the Office would be able to pay international salaries to attract Economists with Ph.D.’s and Masters Degrees and would function independently of the Assembly.

The office began functioning under the direction of Economist Gustavo Garcia, a Professor from IESA, the most prestigious business and management school in Venezuela. When Hugo Chavez was elected Garcia began issuing reports that were too critical of the Government, thus, taking advantage of the new constitution and the change from a bicameral Congress to National assembly, the office was declared under reorganization, shutdown  and then reopened with Economist Tobias Nobrega, currently the Minister of Finance, designated as the temporary Head of the Office in charge of reactivating the office as well as opening the process to hire the most qualified Economists for this “new” stage in the life of the office.

In September 2000, self-described “left-wing” economist and then Chavez defender Francisco Rodriguez was named to Head the office in this new stage. Rodriguez had obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1998 where he had specialized in studying economic policies for the redistribution of wealth. At that time, Rodriguez was Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland.

In time, Rodriguez became an uncomfortable source of strong opinions for the leadership of the national Assembly and the Government. During the scandal of the FIEM, where US$ 1.9 billion went “missing” , former Minister of Finance Merentes “explained” in Congressional testimony how these funds were spent to pay for Christmas bonuses and salaries, “accepting” his responsibility for spending these funds without authorization. Except that Rodriguez came out the next day and showed how all of the funds to pay for these expenditures had been approved from other sources. The mystery of the missing funds was never resolved.

Since that scandal Rodriguez became a harsh critic of the way public funding was being mismanaged, issuing very critical reports about the violations of the rules of the FIEM (Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund), suggesting there was corruption in the direct sale of Government bonds to local broker CEDEL by the ministry of Finance, writing a report which said the general strike in December 2002 was much smaller than the Government was saying and finally writing a number of reports very critical of Chavez’ request for the Venezuelan Central bank to give the Government US$ 1 billion.

But what really incensed the current leadership of the National assembly were two recent reports by Rodriguez’ office accusing the leadership itself of irregularities. In one, Rodriguez accuses that the Government is ready to pay US$ 300 million of fraudulent Bandagro bonds. Rodriquez says that the person who supposedly had signed these bonds has sworn that the signature is not his and it was fraudulently forged. A foreign group has been asking the Government t pay it US$ 600 million in capital and interest from these bonds.

This week the President of the National Assembly suspended Rodriguez and the second Economist of the Office, informing all of the other economists that from now on they would be working for the National Assembly and that they no longer had stability as their position were now positions of “trust” and thus subject to removal by the leadership of the Assembly. When Rodriguez complained that these decisions were invalid, the issue was brought to the Assembly itself that today ratified the disappearance of the Office as it was functioning. The decision was made only with the votes of the pro-Chávez Deputies

Rodriguez says that this violates the agreement with the IDB and he will go to the Supreme Court to ask that the Office be reestablished as an independent entity.

In contrast, the proposal to censor Minister of Health Roger Capella for saying that anyone that signed the petition against Chávez was a terrorist, did not receive sufficient votes for approval. Such is justice and morality in the Vth. Republic.

Yesterday I received an e-mail where someone was coming to Venezuela to defend Hugo Chavez who has been defending the rights of people to housing, among many wonderful things it said about our President. I found the sentence amazingly ignorant, but today local newspaper El Universal carried this graph, based on official statistics that almost made me want to cry:

This is the total number of residential units built in Venezuela by both the public and the private sector. Last year, the number was less than nine thousand. I remember than in 1968 Rafael Caldera ran for President and one of his main campaign promises was that he would build 100,000 housing units per year. He never did, but the barrel of oil was less than $2 at the time and he actually came close. Construction has not only traditionally been one of the main drivers of the Venezuelan economy, but it also employs lots of people.

I find the People’s Ombudsman to be incredibly cynical. Today, in an interview on the radio he says:

“This is an institution that is being born and is at the service of the citizens, it can not be involved in the confrontation that people may have against Chávez or against me”

Well, I recall that as the military and the National Guard were repressing hundreds of “citizens” on February 27^th. , some of which were shot dead, others tortures and many repressed without mercy, the same People’s Ombudsman was standing in front of the theater where the G-15 meeting was taking place and defended the pro-Chavez activists who were there protected by the national guard and he argued: “The pro-Chavez supporters (who had no permit) can be here because they came to salute our foreign visitors, while the opposition march (which had a permit) wants to create violence”

So, what was he doing that day defending the pro-Chavez forces and getting involved in that confrontation? Finally, Mundarain magically reduces the number of dead to only nine, despite the names, the COFAVIC files and the cases handed over to the Attorney General’s office.

Who is worse Mundarain or Rangel? I am not so sure.