The Devil's Excrement

Human Rights Watch which last year exhibited quite a bit of sympathy for Chavez’ Government has by now realized that Chavez is no Allende and his policies are more akin to those of Chilean General Pinochet. The human rights organization had to deny the press release by Government news Agency Venpres saying that the organizations representative had said that Venezuela enjoys a full democarcy and freedom of expression. Mr. Vivancos was assumed to be sympathetic to Chavez given his Chilean past in which his family suffered the effects of the Pinochet Dictatorship. By now, HRW and Mr. Vivancos seemed to have realized what a big msitake they made last year.

I had never understood why the Chavistas had decided to introduce petiotions for recall referenda for opposition Governors and Mayors. It simply did not make sense, given their minute possibility of success, other than possibly overburden the CNE with work to introduce petitions for a recall of officials that would likely have resigned from office by the time the referenda took place. The reason was simple, regional elections have to take place in June and Venezuelan law requires candidates to resign from office if they want to campaign openly.

It also made little sense from many points of view to have the petition drives for these regional positions to take place a week ahead of that for the Presidential recall. Basically, if it was a success, this would drive fear in the opposition making teh presidential recall petition more succesful and if it was a failure it would give more determination to the opposition.

But a new mystery was unveiled yesterday, when the CNE decided unanimously to cancel the regional petition drives for the positions of Governors and Mayors. Some argue that this favors Chavez’ MVR because they were going to have a hard time gathering the required signatures. However, now they will gather them only for the positions of Deputies, the least likely to awaken passions among those seeking the recall. Thus they are certainly to ahve a very small attendance now, giving a very poor image of MVR’s popularity.Thus, in a single stroke, the petition drives promoted by Chavez’ MVR have been made even more difficult.

All these decisions appear, at first sight, to hurt Chavez’ MVR, but if we did not understand their original intention, we do not understand why they are cancelling it now…….

I was actually not gone so much, but when I got back my DSL system would not work and it took until today to fix it. I don’t want to give whole blurb on what happened while I was gone but I did want to make some comments:

-Our illustrious outlaw Hugo Chavez said in his nationwide address Sunday before last that those that sign in the petition drive to ask for his recall referendum “will not be forgotten” . This is one of the most shameful attempts by Chavez to pressure people into not participating in the signing of the petition, particularly public employees. This proves in an unequivocal manner than Chavez has no shame, scruples and is just a bully that is attempting to scare people by threatening their livelihood. Shame! Shame! Shame!

-Some Deputies from Chavez’ party showed a video reportedly of CIA agents discussing in June how to boycott the “Reafirmazo” that will take place in November. What makes the charges most laughable, is that in June the opposition had the required signatures to request the recall referendum which was turned down arguing technical reasons. Thus, the only way the “CIA” agents coudl have been planning that is if the current Head of the CNE, who had not been named at the time, was a CIA agent and knew in advance that the petition will be turned down. I get the feeling that the video was one of Maxwell Smart plotting against C.H.A.O.S.

Had a great vacation by the way!

I will be here for the next ten days, if you want to get in touch with me, please do not call, visit. I will update remotely if necessary and if the electricity does not go out at my home.

The Consejo Nacional Electoral fixed the dates for the gathering of the petitions today. Curiously, it fixed Nov. 21st to 24th. to get those to recall Governors and Deputies and Nov. 28th. to Dec. 1st. for the most important one, the Presidential recall. Another trick to delay one more week? I am not sure, but now Chavez has until late Novembert to do something to stop us or else the display will be oviouds stay tuned.

The effects of over regulating the petition drive for signatures for the recall referenda is being felt already. One month after the more than three million signatures were rejected by the Consejo Nacional Electoral on technicalities, we are still nowhere close to being able to gather them again. As told today by one of the members of the CNE, it will be at least another month before the petition drive can even take place. The reason is simply bureaucracy. If the gathering of the signatures had been the responsibility of the opposition, we would have done it two weeks ago. However, now we have the “design” of the forms to get the signatures, the forms “need” bar-coding, they “have” to be printed by the Government and they have to be “controlled” by the CNE. Thus add another month to the long drawn out process.

Of course these very important issues are being considered, while others are being put aside, like the fact that the voting has to be automated. I am sure that they will find a way to postpone the actual recall even longer if we ever get to that point (I doubt it). These people have no scruples and no belief in democracy; they have kidnapped the system without saying it explicitly. Look for more excuses to postpone the petition drive knows as the “Reafirmazo”, if we gather the signatures the signal to the world will be very clear, Chavez can not afford to lbe whipped in an election.

The irresponsability of the Chavez adminsitration is such that for the last two days, the Head of the investigative police and the Minister of Justice have been making accusations against opposition personalities without exhibiting a single iota of proof. In both cases they accuse the Head of Security of Altamira Square, where dissenting military have been for almsot a year, as well as two of the Generals from that group, of placing the bombs at La Carlota airport and Fuerte Tiuna two weeks ago. The Minisster even said that seven people had been detained. But curiously, the prosecutor in the case said afterwards that he had no knowledge of anyone in detention for the case, as required by law. Thus, the infamous Minister who told Venezuela in April 2002 that Chavez had resigned, appears to be saying he has detained people illegally. In his usual confusing ways, the Minister then said that those in jail were not directly realted to these cases, but older ones, as if it would make any difference……

Watching Hugo Chavez in his weekly TV program can be surreal. I usually can’t stand it so that I simply watch the recap later on TV of the most “significant” things he said. Sometimes as I watch, I am not sure whether I am seeing the real thing or a parody of our President. It is not easy to transmit the style to those that have never seen Hugo Chavez in action. A week ago it really seemed like a parody as Chavez spoke and sang Christmas songs laughing at the opposition. I thought hard about trying to convey what I had seen, but did not think it would get through. This Sunday I had the same feeling, this is impossible to explain, convey or communicate. But I will simply reproduce what Chavez said on October 12th., what US citizens call “Columbus Day” and we had called “Day of Races” until Hugo Chavez changed the name to “Day of indigenous resistance”. Here is my recap:

He said Columbus reaching the Americas, unleashed a genocide which lasted 150 years in the hands of conquistadors who were worse than Hitler. He called what happened the worst genocide in the history of mankind. He said the conquistadors, be it Spanish, Portuguese or British, killed one native every ten minutes for 150 years, exterminating 97 million people. He saluted Sitting Bull explaining the story of Custer and the screamed Long live Sitting Bull! (Toro Sentado in Spanish)

Now, this was all carefully prepared and staged (the numbers had to be given to him prior to the program) and there were massacres and abuses that nobody can question in the conquest of the Americas. But Chavez sounded like he was talking about the present. Venezuela was probably one of the countries with the smallest population and the most backward natives of the region, but he made it sound like ity all happened right here and he actually personally suffered from it and without it our native population would have developed a better country. But when he said Long live Sitting Bull!, it became so theatrical and infantile that is was simply absurd. Like so much in this country……..

While Hugo Chavez critized countries and international organizations for meddling in Venezuela’s affairs, this does not seem to stop US National Security Advisor Conodolezza Rice from speaking out today, according to El Universal:

US national security adviser Condolezza Rice backed OAS efforts to solve the political crisis in Venezuela and said that the U.S. is determined to see a “peaceful referendum” in Venezuela, news agency Dpa reported.

The adviser of President George W. Bush referred to the Venezuelan crisis in a speech delivered in teleconference at the 59th IAPA General Assembly, currently held in Chicago.

Rice said that Bush’ administration still has “differences” with Chávez’ government.

Well, hopefully when Condolezza speaks, soem people will listen…..

(Thanks Russel for the news)

Dave sent this link from this very clever page, whomever came up with the page was very clever and the person who composed this particular version, was also very clever and funny.