Arena Space

Originally published here

In an unprecedented show of democratic openness, Súmate is proposing to organize the primaries to find the candidate that will represent the opposition in the forthcoming Presidential elections.

Maria Corina Machado and Ricardo Estévez exposed the rules and the logistics envisioned by Súmate to choose the candidate.

I hope that the CNE and the “Aquelarre” of government officials read them so that they can understand what an OPEN, CLEAN, FAIR and DEMOCRATIC process really means.

The presentation in Power Point can be downloaded from Sumate main page.

Here is the main proposal for the election:

1.- All those registered in the REP as of March 2006 can vote in the Primaries

2.- The elected candidate will be the winner by simple majority

3.- The voting will be MANUAL and the scrutiny will be PUBLIC

4.- All the physical logs will be destroyed.

5.- The whole country will be covered with 3000 centers

Note that Súmate is proposing the destruction of the log material to avoid any type of blacklisting like what happened with the signers of the Revocatory Referendum.

Here is the schedule:

REGISTRATION OF CANDIDATES: MAY 8 TO MAY 15, 2006.

CAMPAIGN: MAY 21^st to JULY 14, 2006

PRIMARIES: JULY 16, 2006

REGISTRATION TO THE CNE: AUGUST 5 to AUGUST 28, 2006

Súmate is also asking for volunteers for the organization. If you are interested, here are the telephone number and the email:

(0212) 715.28.15

voluntarios at sumate.org

So now, we all know what was the “Aquelarre” Willian Lara was talking about! Súmate was preparing a demonstration of democracy in action, that the government officials are not even able to understand.

Reporting from cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
Democratic Venezuelan and Distinguished Ghost.

Originally published here

Everytime I see the MINCI home page without any picture of Chávez, I get nervous. I cannot help but wonder what the heavy government weights must be concocting when Yo El Supremo is not in their front page. The explanation might be very simple, the President might be resting for a few days, but, noneless, I always wonder what is going on, in particular when neither the Vice President nor Nicolas Maduro appear in their pages.

My ghost experience has taught me that nothing is irrelevant in the Chavista kingdom of Venezuela.

However, I was relieved to see that at least William Lara, the new Minister of Information was there today, in prime space. This time, the object of his speech was Súmate. He accused the organization of starting the “mediatic machine gun” against the committee that is selecting the new members of the CNE. The article specifically says:

“invitó a venezolanos y venezolanas que se oponen al proceso de cambio democrático liderado por el presidente Chávez que no hagan oídos a este aquelarre montado por Súmate, que probablemente tendrá eco mañana en otros portavoces de la política de Bush, y que se mantengan leales a sus convicciones y prácticas democráticas”.

“Invited Venezuelans that oppose the process of democratic change led by President Chávez not to pay attention to the coven that Súmate is putting into place and that will surely have an echo tomorrow in other spokepersons of Bush’s politics and be [the Venezuelans that oppose..] loyal to their convictions and democratic practices..”

So this Venezuelan and curious blogger was pretty curious about what this “aquelarre” was all about. I looked it up first in the Real Academia and found the following definition:

1. m. Junta o reunión nocturna de brujos y brujas, con la supuesta intervención del demonio ordinariamente en figura de macho cabrío, para la práctica de las artes de esta superstición.

So it seems that the aquelarre is a night meeting of witches with the Devil’s intervention….

So what triggered Minister Lara to use such a charming term against Súmate?

Well, the commission in charge of electing the new CNE is about to provide the definite list in a week or two and the rumors around the National Assembly say that three of the current officials will be re-elected: Oscar Battaglini, Tibisay Lucena and Oscar León. Súmate has objected their names because they say that those individuals did not provide an account of their management or the balance of their budget during the years as CNE officials.

Now, this ghost blogger disagrees for the first time this year with Súmate. They are absolutely, totally wrong to be objecting the term of these three officials based on some trifle like lack of transparency and of accountability! I take advantage of this ghost post to make a formal complaint against Súmate’s objections of those candidates.

In fact, this ghost blogger strongly objects the candidacy of those CNE officials as well, but not because of the mild reasons provided by Súmate, but because of their potential responsibility in handing to the government the personal data of millions of Venezuelans that led to the Tascón list, the Maisanta database and the Batalla de Santa Inés software that has created a political apartheid in Venezuela.

I want these guys to be investigated first. Did they approve the handling of the personal data to the Maisanta campaign? Did they know that the data was being used by Tascón in a public web page? Did they know that the Maisanta command had elaborated a database and a program to be used for political profiling and blacklisting of Venezuelan citizens? Did they protest when they knew of the use of the data? Did they order an internal investigation? Did they realize that the rights of millions of Venezuelans were being violated?

I want to get the answers to those questions first before these guys ever get to be nominated again for the CNE, Mr. Lara. So thank you very much for reminding me that I should be loyal to my democratic convictions. I agree with you, Súmate is wrong this time, but because they are being way too mild.

And, BTW, dear Minister, many thanks also for helping me improve my Spanish vocabulary. I now have a new precise word to ask you the following…

What type of Aquelarre are all the President’s man putting in place these days?

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
The Devil’s Distinguished Ghost.

Originally published here

I just read that VTV has announced that there will be no Alo Presidente this Sunday.

I guess that Chavez decided to finally give a break to the Venezuelan people and to the families of the Ministers and other Goverment officials that have to endure the six hour Alo Presidente marathons every Sunday.

So Happy Easter to you all!

And careful with the chocolates.

Jorge Arena
Cheerful Ghost Blogger.

Originally published here

One of the problems with being such a successful, charming and charismatic ghost blogger is that I get to be very much in demand these days.

So I am switching today to Daniel’s blog with a post about Jorge Aguirre’s case.

BTW, for those stubborn readers that still miss Miguel, I got news from him today. A message was sent in a bottle from an abandoned Polynesian island. The good news is that the sharks did not find him to their taste. The bad news is that he does not like very much the idea of a new Growing Tomatoes Section for the Devil’s. So we’ll have to insist when he comes back.

Jorge Arena
Sucessful Ghost and Star Tomato Grower.

Originally published here

Last week, I reported that El Mundo photographer Jorge Aguirre had been killed while going to cover the protests against the kidnapping and killing of the Faddoul brothers. Someone that looked like a policeman shot him from a motorcycle and Aguirre was able to take a picture of him. It seems that, from the picture, the CICPC was able to find out that the killer was a former Chacao Policeman.

Today, I saw the MINCI front page proudly stating that the alleged killer, Boris Blanco, used to work for PoliChacao. The mayor of Chacao has declared that, indeed, he was with his police forces but he was fired in 2005 due to misconduct.

Chacao is one of the municipalities that is held by a very popular opposition Mayor.

The strange thing is that there seems to be no motive so far for the crime. According to the article, the car touched his motorcycle and since it did not stop, he decided to fire a gun against the vehicle…

According to Isaias Rodriguez, the story told by the driver of the car was the following. He was driving the car, heading to the spot where people were protesting when Jorge (the photographer) realized that a motorcycle was following them. The biker asked the driver to stop and said that he was “the authority”. After a brief stop, the driver kept driving because he did not see any proper police identification. After a while, the driver realized from the rear mirror that he had lost the motorcycle and he stopped later on and went out of the car. He then heard three shots and realized that Jorge had been hit.

Even more bizarre is the fact that the motorcycle belonged to a Metropolitan Policeman
that says that he had lend his bike to Blanco because he wanted to sell it.

So here we have one active Police officer lending a motorcycle to one former police officer killing a reporter that was going to cover the protests against the killing of the Faddoul brothers, that supposedly were kidnapped in a Police checkpoint.

As I said before, there are too many Police stories in these stories.

Reporting from Cyberspace,
Jorge Arena
Distinguished Ghost Blogger.

Originally published here
http://www.11abril.com/

http://alfredo.octavio.net/2002/04/11.html

http://arenaspace.blogspot.com/2005/04/what-happened-on-april-11-2002.html

http://caracaschronicles.blogspot.com/2004/04/untold-story-of-venezuelas-2002-april.html

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2003_04_06_daniel-venezuela_archive.html

http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2005/04/11.html

Jorge Arena.

Originally published

After I published the last post where El Universal mentioned the video sent to the family of the Faddoul brothers, some of the readers were asking me about the three girls that were kidnapped in the Tuy Valley, the same area where the Faddouls were staying in captivity.

I did a little search and I found that the case had some similaritied to that of the Faddouls. The story can be found here.

There were three sisters, ages 16, 14 and 13 that were kidnapped closed to their homes in Ocumare del Tuy. They went out with their cousin to buy Chinese rice and stopped in a convenience store where the kidnappers took possession of the car. After a while, the kidnappers let the cousin out of the car and took the three girls.

The girls were advised not to try to escape because the whole region was full of “captors”.

The kidnappers explained to the girls that the kidnapping had been planned in Colombia with a roulette. They had chosen at random Venezuela, then Ocumare del Tuy and finally they had searched the richest people in the area. They knew exactly the dayly routine of the Blanco-Bandes family.

One day the girls were told that his dad had payed up the ransom money and that they were going to be liberated. They were left alone. The oldest stayed and told the other two to get into the bush so that if the captors came back, they would only take one of them. But this time their dad and the police were the ones who came and the story for them had a very happy ending.

According to this link, two of the kidnappers were detained when they were to Petare, in Caracas, to take the ransom money. They were the ones that told the police the precise location where the girls were kept. They belonged to the band of Alirio Contreras, a Colombian with a kidnapping ring in all the Miranda state.

Now, about the dates. The report form La Voz says that the girls were kidnapped on March the 3^rd and that they were liberated on the march 10.

Interestingly, a few days later, La Voz explains that days after the release of the three girls, the Police was searching the whole area to catch the head of the kidnapers band, Alirio José Contreras.

Alirio Contreras was finally arrested in Petare on March the 15, according to El Universal.

After reading this story, I found the relationship with the Faddoul case even more puzzling. When the Police was looking for Contreras, didn’t they ask for hints about the Faddoul? Don’t forget that the Faddoul were in the area all the days the girls were in captivity and afterwords when the Police supposedly searched for Contreras.

Don’t forget either that the Faddoul video was produced on March 9 and handed to the family on March 12.

So here are the new corrected event dates (according to what I could extract from the newspaper articles):

Feb 23, the Faddouls are kidnapped
March 3, the Blanco girls are kidnapped
March 9, the Faddoul video is produced
March 10, the Blanco girls are released
March 12, the Faddoul family received the video
March 10-15 the Tuy area is searched for Alirio Contreras
March 15 Alirio Contreras is arrested in Petare
April 4 The Faddouls are found dead
April 7 The case is almost solved.

Bad luck? Incompentence? Or convenient overlook by someone around the whereabouts of the Faddoul brothers?

Reporting from Cyberspace

Jorge Arena
Devoted Ghost Blogger.
http://arenaspace.blogspot.com
http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com

Originally published here
Just two days ago, I was writing about the absence of President Chavez in moments of national commotion. I was amazed at the absence of news about the killings in any of the official channels. I was surprised that none of the Chavista heavy weights were out except the Justice Minister and the Attorney General. The MINCI pages were for the first time in probably a year, unadorned by ANY photo of Chavez (usually he is in ALL the pictures) and the ABN, VTV and RNV were all very languid in their choice of topics.

The best that the Chavistas on call could come up with during the few days that people went to the street in signs of protest, was to shame the media for politicizing a sad event and mention here and there that Colombians may be in the plot.

Then, all of the sudden, the wind changed. The new Minister of information appears giving declarations about a new conspiracy theory. We are saved! If there is a new conspiracy theory in town, we are in good hands, we know that is business as usual. All of a sudden, President Chavez decides to finally call the mother of the victims, after two days of absolute silence, and tell her that the killers will soon be caught. The pained mother that the day before had called a TV station declaring that she despised the government because of the little attention they had put into the case, calls the program again and asks the media not to politicize her suffering.

It follows that the MINCI publishes in its first page the mother’s declaration so that EVERYBODY can conveniently read it in the most politicized site that there is on the Venezuelan Internet . The article appears on the first page just below a huge face of a very calm and serious President Chavez occupying half page and announcing, like a true statesman that they will not rest until all the guilty are found. On the right, another article with the Italian flag, that has not yet been changed by Berlusconi, where the Italian government thanks effusively the Venezuelan government for having been so efficient in the resolution of the Sindoni crime. Such a nice, very nice piece of foreign gratitude was published alongside other news that recall that Venezuela just signed an agreement with Italy to build a network of trains.

Meanwhile, three suspects, all Venezuelans (didn’t they tell us they had a Colombian accent?) are found. So quickly, in such an efficient and dynamic manner that we all are I in awe at how quickly the Venezuelan government is able to solve the case.

Then, I check VTV, Maduro is there again, in charge, just finishing a technical workshop on, how convenient, Crime and Violence. He was pretty busy because a few days ago he was still in Cuba with a parliamentarian Venezuelan delegation discussing parliamentary discussions with the parliamentarians of the Cuban parliament. At that time, I was amazed to learn that there was indeed a Cuban parliament, let alone that a delegation had to go to Cuba to learn anything from the parliament we did not know it existed.

I decide to see RNV. Here he is. A triumphant Isaias Rodríguez saying the names of the five suspects in the Faddoul case and announcing that they are also about to solve the case of the killed photographer.

This ghost blogger keeps reading and is amazed at how efficient this government really is. How fortunate we Venezuelan are of having elected this group of dynamic and competent people that can deal with the most difficult situations.

After finishing my official carrousel, I go to El Universal and find a tiny note among tthose that are not considered important news. It says that on March 12, the Faddoul family had received a CD showing that their sons were alive. The video shows an airport that looks like the one in the Tuy Valley, that is the area where the bodies were found. What is more amazing is that one day before the kidnapping, three girls had been kidnapped in the same region and were found alive six days afterwards. Moreover, it seems that the Faddoul kids were never moved from the area and yet the area was never searched. I figured the following dates:

The girls were kidnapped on February 22.

The kids were kidnapped on February 23.

The girl s were found on February 28

The video was sent on March 12

The kids were found dead on April 4.

The case is almost solved on April 7.

And this ghost blogger asks. Is it really possible that they were so efficient at the end and so incompetent when it was really needed?

If the kidnapping had lasted a few days, I would understand such an outcome: lack of time to find the people involved. But 40 days? In 40 days they either had the clue or they did not.

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
Disgusted Ghost Blogger.

---------------------------------------------
Note.- I based the dates of the girls' kidnapping using the information reported by El Universal article. Further investigation shows that the girls were kidnapped on March 3. Please refer to the following post for the details. Jorge Arena.

Originally published

So Chavez reappered tonight on the MINCI pages..just when I had almost finished a post showing that for the first time in many months he WAS NOT in the MINCI pages! Well that's the ghost blogger life. Some people get to swim among Polynesian sharks and others have to rewrite their posts!

Chavez said that his government will not rest until they find those guilty and mentioned that there are those that are taking advantage of the situation to destabilize his government.

Of course we still do not know what he was doing from the moment the kid's bodies were found until now. But we know that his government has been busy trying to find some ways to put the blame of the righteous rage that people were having due to the insecurity level of Venezuela's streets on the private media. As usual, Globovision was a favorite target.

If Globovision didn't exist, Chavez would surely invent it!

But the most cryptic and remarkable words of any government official did not came from Chavez, but from the Minister of information himself. Here is the link. Minister William Lara said that he will propose to the Directive of Social Responsibility to exhaustively examine the behavior of the media these days.

Lara then said that the government is considering the Conspiracy theory. He said that there are indications that point towards a plan, with transnational connections, against institutions and the People of Venezuela.

Another hypothesis that Lara said is being thought of [I am not making this up, it is in the MINCI article, I swear!] is to determine wether it is by pure chance that two of the largest foreign communities in Venezuela, the Italian and the Arab community, were the targets [of the Sindoni and Faddoul cases]. Lara said that they do not do "little politics" and that, therefore, he cannot make affirmations without proof but he makes assurances that when the government will have conclusive evidences, they will be communicated to the Nation.

He then talked about the favorite Chavista theme, the events of April 2002. And he finished saying that his government has a commitment with the Truth.

So, this curious ghost blogger is wondering about the Italian-Arab community Conspiracy theory. What did Lara exactly mean? That because they are the largest, they have more probabibility of being hit? In that case, the Spaniards and Portuguese should be careful. I have not checked the migration statistics, but I think that they are larger communities. Is there anything else that he would mean with his words?

Sad, remember when we all used to be just Venezuelans? Since the Chavistas came to power, all of a sudden we have rich and poors, blacks, white and zambos and now we even have Communities..

And this humble ghost blogger asks. Why don't they just accept that personal security in Venezuela is a huge mess and that they cannot control their own police? Why don't they realize that their failure in solving the poverty problems, modernize the justice system and reform the jails has to do with this?

Why don't they realize that they should be busy solving those problems instead of persecuting the very dangerous Maria Corina Machado?

Why don't they have the humility of accepting their responsibility?

I guess that is too much to ask.

Reporting from Cyberspace

Jorge Arena
Humble Ghost Blogger

Originally published here

In February 2005, during the second state of emergency due to floods in the State of Vargas, I was amazed at the absence of President Chavez. I wrote a post at the time which title is “A New Venezuelan Game: Where is Chavez?”. In that post, I recalled the absence of President Chavez during the tragedy of the first Vargas emergency.

This seems to be a pattern: every time the country needs the figure of a strong figure to show that they are in control, to help the collective moral of the Venezuelan people, Chavez disappears.

In this moments in which the whole Venezuela, Chavistas and non-Chavistas are in a state of shock because of the brutal murders and kidnappings of the Faddoul brothers, Miguel Rivas and now Jorge Aguirre, the commander in chief is nowhere to be seen.

This is the guy that uses 6 hours every Sunday of TV time to say anything that comes to his mind. This is the guy that every other day asks for a “cadena” to make silly announcements or to use the attention of the world to insult his political foes. This is the guy that wants to be president for life.

At first, I thought that I had probably overlooked a Chavez declaration about the case. I searched my usual governmental sources and could not find anything about Chavez.

Finally, I found this note in El Universal this morning. It says that the executive repudiated the assassination of the Faddoul brothers and of Miguel Rivas…it was the Minister of labor, Ricardo Dorado, that declared to the press! Did you guys know that Venezuela’s minister of labor was named Ricardo Dorado? I did not.

Where are the heavy weights of the government in this moments of profound sadness and collective crisis?

Where are the Rangels and the Maduros that are always so quick in declaring when it is time to insult political dissidents?

But first and foremost, where is the President ?

Where is Chavez?
Jorge Arena

Puzzled Ghost Blogger.

Update.-10h30 a.m. The mother of the three kids gave an interview this morning denying that she had attempted suicide. She is a devoted catholic. She had very harsh words for the goverment and in particular for President Chavez. She literally said "when he is overlooking and not giving importance to the torture and killing of four people, of which one was a handicapped kid, I, Gladys Diab declare, I despise him. I do not hate him. For me this and other cases of apathy of the law of God will be the begining of the end, that will route Venezuela towards the Divine light of peace and Justice"

When Jorge Aguirre took his camera this morning to cover for the spontaneous protests that were taken place in Caracas for the deaths of the Faddoul brothers, he probably never imagined that that afternoon his camera would contain the last picture of his life: the picture of his killer.

According to the journalists that were with him, Jorge Aguirre, a photographer for El Mundo, was shot by someone that was dressed like a policeman (see here) when he was in the car that was taking him and his peers to report one of the protests.

In fact, this morning, people took to the streets and closed some major arteries in Caracas to protest for the Faddoul assassination and for the state of insecurity that Venezuelans are living day in and day out (see here).

In the evening, several vigils were announced all over Venezuela.

Meanwhile, Isaias Rodríguez said that they had a lot of leads and that there is no connection whatsoever between the Sindoni case and the Faddoul case. He criticized the sectors that are protesting to politicize the case (see the MINCI news here). In other words, protest in solidarity but do not protest if you find that the personal security problem in Venezuela is huge and you blame the government for the state of affairs.

The chief of the technical police that was in charge of dealing with the kidnappers said that the investigation was not a failure but what happened was a “desperation” from the kidnappers…

Rodriguez also said that the government had been in touch with the kidnappers and from the accent they sounded Colombians. This was repeated later by Minister Chacon.This of course, is always convenient: blame the Colombians. I am not saying that the assassins are not Colombians, they might very well be, but I find it very particular that this would be the first tip that government officials would give on this investigation.

You see, Venezuelan people have traditionally blamed the Colombians for all their security problems. I do not know if that is true or not, but it is accepted as a fact by many Venezuelans. So this is an easy way for any government to get rid of its responsibility: find a likely scapegoat and put the blame on him. The poverty, the corruption, the state of the judicial and jail system, the drug dealing and the money laundering, the government ineptitude and the state of hate that Chavez has fostered over the years…nothing is the fault of the government. Just find the appropriate Colombian and people will forget about the fact that they are living in a state of siege led by an incompetent government.

In the meanwhile, other governmental entities have been busy promoting their solution to the problem: more and different Police forces. As I mentioned this morning, the mayor of Caracas, Juan Barreto, even published today an add in El Nacional to praise the neighboring police. Again, here is the add.

Barreto’s add says that with the People’s organization, personal security advances. It says that in Caracas, the fight against crime advances despite those that do not believe in the People’s organizations. It is said that with the Community Assemblies several security networks have been built: the Security tables, the Neighbouring Police, the Motorized Police, the Tourist Police and the Family Police to oversee the problems in Schools, Hospitals and inside the Families.

More than 3600 neighbours have been trained and armed to be part of these new neighbouring forces.

Today, Barreto, like Rodriguez, also asked not to use the pain and the death as a political flag (but wasn’t him the one that ordered the add in today’s El Nacional?). He also announced the Militarization of the current Metropolitan Police by creating the “Mayor State of Citizen’s Protection” composed of 11 military members that will be named by…the minister of the Defense and Chavez himself.

On the other hand, Barreto’s collegue, Freddy Bernal, asked that the law for the creation of a National Police be passed as soon as possible.

So this ghost blogger, after having read and analyzed all the facts, came to the conclusion that there are too many Policemen and too many Police forces in this story.

First the Sindoni case, next the Faddoul killing, then Jorge Aguirre’s killing…in all there seems to be policemen involved. It is like the Police forces have gone totally out of control or someone is really interested in having Police officers portrayed as kidnappers and killers.

And, of course the solution of the Chavista government is, as usual, instead of fixing what is already there, weaken what we have and build new entities where they can control everything. What they are putting in place is really scary: at your local level, a neighbouring police, a family police, a tourist police….and on top of everything, a National Police directly controlled by Chavez..and on the existing local Police forces, military men, also controlled by Chavez.

I do not know about you, but I am REALLY feeling that there are too many Police stories in this story

Jorge Arena

Worried and skeptical ghost blogger.

Originally published here

This is one of the saddest posts I have ever written

El Nacional reports that four bodies believed to be those of the Faddoul brothers were found in the town of Yare today. Two of the bodies had the T-shirt of the school attended by the brothers…in later news it has been confirmed that it is indeed the Faddoul brother’s bodies.

The three Venezuelan-Canadian kids, ages 12, 13 and 17, were kidnapped with their driver when they were taken to school on February 23. According to witnesses, the car with the kids was stopped and then escorted by several police officers in motorcycle. The 13 year old was said to have a physical disability. A ransom of 4.5 million dollars was asked for the release of the kids. The Government of Canada had contacted and pressured the Venezuelan government about the case, but said that had received minimal information.

This crime reminds me of last week abduction and immediate killing of Venezuelan-Italian businessman Filippo Sindoni, the successful owner of a pasta empire, a TV station and a newspaper. In this case, the car carrying Sindoni was also stopped by what looked like Police officers.

So Chacon just said that he hopes that this case is not given a political bias. But, what is going on, Minister Chacon? How can you explain those kidnappings? It looks like too many police officers involved in those cases…and what have you been doing about the personal safety of Venezuelans all these years? Why so many kidnappings and killings?

I would also like to get Vice President José Vicente Rangel’s version for those cases .

This is not a film to “falsify the truth" Mr. Vice President (1), these horrible kidnapping and killings are for real. This is the true state of affairs in Venezuela, where there is no personal safety and where the justice and police system seem to be in place just to persecute the government political opponents, but not to protect its citizens.

Jorge Arena

(1) Referring to JVR comments about the film "Secuestro Express".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update note.- Daniel also wrote about the story here and showed a n image that appeared TODAY in El Nacional. A propaganda by mayor Juan Barreto to justify the creation of a sort of armed neighbouring seceurity forces, which in my view further pursues the militarization of the civil society. Was it bad timing or Barreto was purposedly exploiting the death
of the Faddoul brothers to promote this new type of popular brigades? Note that the bodies were found before 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon. Here is the link to the infamous add.

Originally published here

Reading the comments session (thanks Deanna) I realized there was this article on President Chavez. Here is the link. Read it and tell the National Geographic what do you think.

The complete url below, just in case:
http://seabed.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/forum2.tmpl?issue_id=20060401&;forum_index=2