The Devil's Excrement

While the Government continues to deny the allegations of the recent article in US News and World Reports linking Chavez’ Government to terrorism, the author of that article, Linda Robinson, has been on the offensive defending her sources and the quality of her information. In both an interview with local radio station Union Radio and a debate in Colombia’s Radio Caracol, Robinson has been saying that her sources come both from the US Government and the Venezuelan Government. Both the Vice-President and the Minister of Foreign Relations made statements on the issue, dismissing the accusations. In the debate in Radio Caracol, Robinson together with a Colombian official forced MVR Deputy Tarek William Saab to shut up. Saab tried to defend Chavez actions on terrorism, but the Colombian official was clearly well informed. All of the cases cited by Saab to defend the Government, were ones in which a public outcry or a foreign Government forced the administration to act. Robinson is emphasizing the fact that she was skeptical when she began because there have been many false accusations, but that she spent months gathering the evidence that backs the article.

Since it is by subscription only, I thought I would translate today’s editorial in Tal Cual (page 2) by Teodoro Petkoff in reference to the way the oil workers are being treated at the oil fields. As usual, Petkoff’s common sense explains the perversity of the Government’s actions in very simple fashion:

How much greatness…how much misery!

OK, let us admit that once the labor relationship has been suspended, the ex-PDVSA workers have to abandon their houses which belong to the company (Although they still owe us an explanation about the brutality of the eviction)

Let us even assume as valid the reason for the firings: unjustified absence from work for three or more days.

Let us admit then that the company is adhering itself strictly to the law. Then why, isn’t the same legalistic prudishness extended to the other side of the coin of the obligations of the company, which is that they have to pay the severance benefits of the fired workers? The law is very clear

Severance pay benefits in Venezuela are not only irrevocably of the workers, but its payment is compulsory for the company, no matter what the cause that ceased the labor relationship, including unjustified firings for a grave cause. Thus, then, I fire you, I evict you out  of your home, I kick your kids out of school, I forbid private oil companies from hiring you, but as if this was not enough, I confiscate your severance pay. What greatness of the soul, Lord of the Armies!

Since it is by subscription only, I thought I would translate today’s editorial in Tal Cual (page 2) by Teodoro Petkoff in reference to the way the oil workers are being treated at the oil fields. As usual, Petkoff’s common sense explains the perversity of the Government’s actions in very simple fashion:

How much greatness…how much misery!

OK, let us admit that once the labor relationship has been suspended, the ex-PDVSA workers have to abandon their houses which belong to the company (Although they still owe us an explanation about the brutality of the eviction)

Let us even assume as valid the reason for the firings: unjustified absence from work for three or more days.

Let us admit then that the company is adhering itself strictly to the law. Then why, isn’t the same legalistic prudishness extended to the other side of the coin of the obligations of the company, which is that they have to pay the severance benefits of the fired workers? The law is very clear

Severance pay benefits in Venezuela are not only irrevocably of the workers, but its payment is compulsory for the company, no matter what the cause that ceased the labor relationship, including unjustified firings for a grave cause. Thus, then, I fire you, I evict you out  of your home, I kick your kids out of school, I forbid private oil companies from hiring you, but as if this was not enough, I confiscate your severance pay. What greatness of the soul, Lord of the Armies!

Yesterday I reprinted an article from Dow Jones on how PDVSA had yet to present its financials to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Today’s Tal Cual had a complete description of what the Government had said on the issue:

June 27th.: Ali Rodriguez (President of PDVSA) says they are waiting for the close of January and February and have asked for an extension from the SEC. (My comment: This is ignorance, you don’t need those months to prepare 2003 financials)

June 29th.: The President of PDVSA says that even though they could ask for a second extension, they expect to have the financials ready in fifteen days. (My comment, more ignorance, it would take at least three months after PDVSA completed its financials for any firm to audit them fully)

June 30th. : PDVSA Finance hands in its financials under the form 6K (not 20F as it should have been) and registers as requesting an extension.

July 1st.: Minister of Energy and Mines Ramirez says PDVSA had handed in its reports to the SEC, in truth, it had only been its subsidiary PDVSA Finance (My comment: Ignorance or trying to fool all the people all the time, this is the same guy who says weekly that PDVSA is producing over three million barrels of oil a day, while OPEC reports 2.5 million)

July 14th.: Ramirez announces that the financial statements have been completed and will be audited in fifteen days (My comment: This guy is extremely ignorant)

July 15th.: Extension ends PDVSA does not file.

July 23d. : The Vice-Minister of Energy and Mines announces that at the latest they will hand in the audited financials to the SEC by August 30th., but they can do it until September. 30th.

September 30th.: PDVSA does not hand in the financials, sources within the company tell Dow Jones it will be done by Oct. 30th., my sources say no way.

My guess is that the autumn equinox interfered with the auditors too.

The Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), which regulates elections, admitted all of the requests to gather petitions for the recall referenda presented by the Govrnment party MVR as well as the opposition and gave each side five days to supply the dates and location of where the signatures will be gathered for all of them. Even if the MVR’s requests were flawed, I am glad they were admitted. This step has no legal basis whatsover in my humble opinion.

President Hugo Chavez denied today the accusations in an article in US News & World reports (see below) that his Government had terrorist links. According  to Chavez (version is Spanish here) he wants normal relatiosn with the US, blaming extreme right-wing US groups for it. He drew a parallel between this and whta happened to Chilean President Salvador Allende in the 70’s. He did not explain why his Government did not sign the proclamation agaisnt terrorism in Paraguay in August……