Arena Space

Spinning the Official Story after Ramirezgate.

2006-11-05T18:04:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

When something of the magnitude of Ramirez’s speech takes place, the Chavista spin machine is usually quickly activated to clean the mess. This time they’ve got a tough job. The speech comes out just one month before the Presidential election and few weeks after the start of a new “Chavez-loves-you-and-wears blue-shirts” campaign.

For a few hours after the speech hit the media, people were wondering what would the government do with such a hot potato. Would Ramírez be asked to resign? Would the President and his party support him, or would they detach themselves from it like they did with Barreto’s speech? Would the Attorney General accuse the Minister? Would the CNE impose sanctions?

As I said, the job was not an easy one. You all watched and read what Ramírez said, how would you try to twist that or provide a new interpretation?

The spin machine was, as usual, activated by the Vice President, José Vicente Rangel who, like it or not, is the Machiavellian brain behind the Revolution. He was the first to equate the transmission of RR’s speech with April 11 and the oil strike of 2002, even if the speech had nothing to do with it (except the part where RR says that he already fired 19500 workers and if needed, he’ll do it again). I would really like to invite the readers to go ahead, click on the link and read what JVR had to say on the speech. One has to marvel at his capacity to try to twist the situation.

Once JVR had spoken, we knew of course that the Chavista Politburo had decided that Ramírez was safe.

The next step was Chavez himself.

This time, he said that PDVSA was in a state of Revolution and that all workers had to accept that, and that, otherwise, they should leave the Company. He asked Ramírez to repeat his speech 100 times if necessary and he made use of one of his favorite themes: a coup was being prepared. He then recalled the events of April 2002, said that he would ask the Attorney General to investigate and threatened the TV stations with removing their licences for having aired the 14 minute video.

After Chávez, it was the turn of poker-face Minister of disinformation William Lara who literally said that “from any angle”, “there is no element” that can be qualified as an electoral campaign. And then he added, as if that was the theme of RR’s speech “All those that work for PDVSA have the Constitutional obligation of following the oil policies drawn by the Government”….who said they didn’t? Is that a diversion spin or what?

Things had to be tough for the government because spinner in chief Rangel felt it was necessary to talk again. This time it was a come back to the nicer sweeter face of the Revolution, guaranteeing a dialogue with all sectors after December 3. He went on, however, with the fact that the government had intelligence information about some type of propaganda, similar to the one that “was used four years ago”. Again, the government was trying to recall the events of April 2002 and associate them with RR’s speech.

If Rangel spoke twice, Chávez had to do likewise. He talked again about a plan to sabotage the Presidential elections and recommended to “the Devil to tie up his mad men because he will regret it”. He reiterated his support to RR and asked him to study what to do if the oil industry was destabilized.

Today El Nacional reports that The Fiscalia (Attorney General office) considers there was no offense or crime in Ramirez’s speech. And, if you still were not convinced, the now ever present José Vicente Rangel reiterated that what RR said was a theme about “The security of the State” and that no crime was committed.

So, you did not hear what you heard. This was never about political discrimination. This was never about the use of a Public entity in the Presidential Campaign. This was never about political freedom for PDVSA workers. And please recall that RR was just talking about security matters.

Ah! And if you happen to protest, then you are a potential coupster that wants to destabilize the government. Finally, if you are a TV station that transmitted the video, then you risk that your licence is not renewed.

Hmm, I wonder why? Wasn't Ramírez just talking about a State Security issue?

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
The Devil’s Most Distinguished Ghost.

On the violence at the UCV and the beginning of a new Machiavellian plot.

2006-11-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

This happened a few days ago. Just read on so that you can judge the two sides of the same story…

On October 27, El Nacional (see here) reported that there were tear gas bombs and shots the previous day at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), which is the largest and most important University in the country. The events happened after the attack on a march organized by Rosales’ supporters to promote going to vote on December 3. According to Stalin Gonzalez, the president of the Federation of Students, men in motorcycles, wearing red T-shirts from the Alcaldía de Caracas, started throwing artifacts to the marchers. One of them was shooting, then got into the School of Social Work where there were about 40 people armed with guns.

Narvaez, the vice-Provost of the institution was protesting on TV the presence of the armed individuals and saying that the DISIP (police) had not come despite being called by the authorities. While Narvaez was on TV, a group stopped a truck close the University, showed a gun to the driver and told him to stay quiet because they were the government. When they arrived at the entry of the University they asked the driver out, got themselves out of the truck and throw a Molotov cocktail to the empty truck.

Juan Barreto, the major of Caracas, rejected the accusation of promoting violence. He said that the Metropolitan police and the DISIP always give protection to the “supposedly unity candidate” and that “we ask our people not to get into violence and we do not promote it. We have no fear because we know that Chavez will win the Presidency and that the opposition is acting irrationally when confronted with its failure”. And then, in his usual charming words he said that “the coupsters are giving their last kicks”.

I wondered which coupsters was he referring to….

So this curious ghost decided to check out the “official news”, published by the government (see here). To my surprise it took me a while to realize that VTV was referring to the same news.

The events have become a “warning about a plan to destabilize the Venezuelan Universities”. The article says that according to “University leaders”, there is a plan devised by University authorities and students to “heat up” the Universities. The plan is rooted on the opposition desperation for the lead of Hugo Chavez in the forthcoming elections.

Interesting, in the VTV article there is not recount of what was going on, no Molotov cocktail, no truck in fire, just the opinion of the “University leaders” of what the plan is and why.

Also interesting is the corollary of the whole incident expressed by Hector Rodríguez, one of the student leaders interviewed by VTV. He said that there is a pretension of University support for Rosales taking the UCV as a pattern without accounting for educational centers like Universidad Simón Rodríguez, Bolivariana and Unefa. The UCV, he said, is no longer the “alfa” and “omega” of the academic circles in Venezuela.

The article then explains that there is a plot to initiate violence at the Universities for December 3 since it is well known that Chavez will win with 50 to 60% of the vote.

At the end, the article reminds the reader that the President proposes a deepening of the socialist doctrine during his mandate whereas Rosales is prone to neoliberal concepts and a rapprochement to the United States.

Quite a peculiar way to recount a violent event.

__________________________________________

Update. On the 28^th El Nacional reported that a preliminary inquest identified the individuals that attacked the march as students of Sociology, armed groups from El 23 de Enero and students from the Universidad Bolivariana.

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena

Distinguished ghost blogger.

Sugary humor

2006-10-28T18:09:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

This was too funny not to report. A Chilean producer of artificial sugar made a commercial with an image of Bush kissing Chavez. There was an oil field in the background and the slogan: “We got the impossible, we reinvented sugar”. El Universal reports that the new appointed Venezuelan ambassador in Chile was not amused and made a formal complaint.

No complaints from the US Ambassador. The Americans seem to have a better sense of humour.

Reporting from cyberspace,

Jorge Arena

Invited Ghost.

Note: Since I cannot upload the picture in Miguel’s system, you can see it in Arena Space.

On Hugo Chávez’s campaign proposals, foie gras and a planet called Iris.

2006-09-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

Dear readers, after the harsh treatment I received in Miguel’s blog and my wife’s bugging complaints about my intensive ghost blogging I decided to retire for a while. But now that I have heard that Tom Hanks Daniel has been lost in the jungle of complicated European airports, I will help him once in a while, at least until he finds his way out of Paris Airport.

Daniel, if you read this, I hope that I will get a nice tin of foie gras in return, just go straight to the first floor, right beside the silk scarves store where they also sell the huge brie cheeses, you cannot miss it.

A tin of foie gras … 50 Euros, a devoted ghost blogger with a tomatoes section….priceless…

Yes, yes, they do accept Venezuelan Master Cards.

Back to the post…

The presidential campaign is now in full swing. Rosales has been visiting the barrios, being bashed in Quico’s blog, defended in the Suffolk vampire blog and, more importantly, being attacked twice by what looked like a bunch of Chavez’s followers.

Chávez, on the other hand, after visiting Beloroussia, Angola, Cuba, Siria, Iran, Cuba, The North Pole, Tibet and Cuba came back to La Havana…sorry, to Caracas, with some interesting ideas for his presidential campaign. I have been compiling his proposals to offer them to the readers. Here they are:

1.- He called for a Revocatory referendum to remove Manuel Rosales from the Zulia government office. This is quite an interesting and creative initiative, it is exactly the type of proposal everyone was waiting for, in particular the Zulia voters that were the only ones in Venezuela to elect over and over a non-Chavista governor.

2.- He called for a Revocatory referendum in 2010 with a question on revoking his mandate, and another question on allowing eternal reelection. Daniel had an interesting insight on the issue (see here) whereas Bruni got a link on what Chávez really said and explains the tricky details of the proposed “double jeopardy” (see here).

3.- He asked his followers to unify into a single party that will be the party of the people of Venezuela. He received the approval of his mentor Fidel who said that Chávez created an “indestructible” model. His devoted fan Mari Pili Hernández already has a name for the party: “Partido Socialista de Venezuela”.

5.- He suggested that on September 11, the WTC was bombed and that there was some kind of conspiracy behind the terrorist acts that should be looked into…I guess that the planes we were watching on TV that day were really an Oliver Stone film.

6.- He led a ferocious battle for a spot on the UN security council that thanks to the new game “Where in the world is Hugo Chávez?”, Venezuela has almost won.

7.- I cannot find anything else…yes, I know I am a lazy ghost but frankly, I have tried hard and I am running out of Chavez’s promises…

Unless…

Mr. President, did you realize that Pluto is no longer a planet? That the oligarchy of the previous solar system is gone forever? Have you heard that there is a small planet called “Iris”? Yes, Iris… Hugo? No, there are no Hugo planets…not yet…

…so now we got the next proposal for the Venezuelan Presidential Campaign!

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena

Your friendly ghost.

On the formal and informal observations of the REP by the Carter Center.

2006-07-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

Many of you have been asking what I have been up to. Life has not been good to this ghost. First, my favorite soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup. Then my tocayo (probably a distant cousin) was no longer the manager of the team and next, my tomato plants were not growing as expected.

The good news is that Miguel has been getting so many complaint messages about my disappearance that he has begged me to please do something about it because not even Gmail can contain so many emails.

So, in spite of the fact that I swore not to come back until I was allowed to open the tomato section of this blog , I decided to please my fans, get momentarily out of retirement, and accept Miguel’s invitation once again.

The day started in a cheerful way since I am always happy when I learn that old friends are coming back to visit. In fact, browsing the dayly news this morning, I came up with this news. You read it right: it says that the Canter Center was coming to Venezuela to observe the REP audit that is being carried out by the Universities invited by the CNE. I was so happy to hear that the CC was coming to town that I quickly went to the CNE site and I got confirmation of the news (see here).

The press release from the CNE indicated that the Canter Center invited themselves in a letter addressed to Tibisay Lucena, the “new” CNE President. And that Lucena had accepted the CC as an observer.

But that was this morning just before I left to do errands for my tomato plants. When I came back home this afternoon…surprise surprise! El Universal reported that the Carter Center is not coming as a formal observer. In a Press release, the CC said that they should have been formally invited by the CNE with enough time to send their personnel, which was not the case. It seems that their representative in Venezuela, Héctor Vanolli, is going to informally hang around the audit, but that cannot be considered a formal observation.

So my first observation is that I am happy to learn that one can observe things two ways: formally or informally. In the formal observation, one is formally invited to get a seat and observe. In the informal observation, one is informally invited to get a seat and informally observe what is going on.

What? You don’t see the difference?

Of course there is one difference (like in the ACE commercial). If the informal observer finds something wrong, it does not count, because it is informally wrong. Not so when you are formally invited to be a formal observer, in which case whatever you observe as wrong is then formally wrong.

Clear, isn’t it?

But now, the real question. What happened between this morning and this afternoon?

If you got any formal or informal ideas, you are welcome to post them in the formal comment section.

Formally reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena

Ghost Blogger Emeritus.

The opposition primaries.-Súmate makes a proposal!

2006-04-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

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.

Willian Lara and Súmate's "Aquelarre"

2006-04-17T22:51:00.000-07:00

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:

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.

No Alo Presidente today. Happy Easter to you all!

2006-04-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

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.

Switching blogs

2006-04-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

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.

The case of Jorge Aguirre.-Another bizarre case of killing by Police

2006-04-14T19:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Remembering April 11, 2002.

2006-04-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

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.

The Blanco-Bandes and the Faddoul kidnappings

2006-04-09T12:23:00.000-07:00

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

Mission spin follows Mission incompetence

2006-04-08T01:33:00.000-07:00

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.

Chavez reappears and so does a new conspiracy theory

2006-04-07T00:08:00.000-07:00

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

Where is Chavez?

2006-04-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

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"

Another death, protests, and too many Police stories

2006-04-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Shocking news

2006-04-05T00:29:00.000-07:00

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.

The national geographic on Chavez

2006-04-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

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

Do not miss Chavez's latest live performance

2006-03-31T09:35:00.000-08:00

Originally published here
Donkey, coward, genocide ("genocida"), drunk...those are some of the warm words that President Chavez got for President Bush on National TV.

You've got to watch it to believe it. Alfredo put the video on Tyromaniac. Here is the link.

Political Apartheid in Venezuela: what did Chavez know and when did he know it? (Part II)

2006-03-31T01:12:00.000-08:00

Originally published here
When, in a few years, or in a few decades, people think about the Chavista era, they would probably remember that this was the first regime that institutionalized intimidation and apartheid in Venezuela.

When the President is shown on TV reminding his viewers that if they sign for a Revocatory Referendum their names and ID numbers will be known, that is called intimidation. And later, when workers are fired or citizens are denied access to jobs, passports or ID’s because they signed, that is a state of political apartheid.

That had never happened before in Venezuela and it is probably the darkest political and social legacy of President Chavez and of any president of the so-called democratic era. I certainly hope that History remembers Chavez on that account.

Last year, upon hearing president Chavez ask his followers to bury the infamous “Tascon” fascist list, I wrote this ghost posting demanding that Chavez assumes his responsibility and that the country asks a single question:

“What did Chavez know and when did he know it?”

Almost a year has passed since that post, and nobody has asked let alone answered that question. There has been no investigation, nobody put on trial, no one, except some private newspapers to register the abuses that the state of political apartheid has created in Venezuela.

However, in my view, two positive things have happened: the List has no longer been referred as the “Tascon list” and the documentary called “The list” has been created.

Referring to the list as Tascon’s, was a way to minimize the importance of the political blacklisting. A way to overlook the fact that the political apartheid system was instaured well beyond the petty views of a member of the National Assembly with fascist tendencies. We, Venezuelans, are happy people that do not take ourselves or our governments too seriously, so talking about the list as a local colorful issue probably helped us escape the reality that this was a serious matter that could change forever our everyday lives.

So when the Tascon list becomes “la Lista” we, as Venezuelans, are giving a step forward towards questioning the state of our civil liberties and questioning a State that submits its citizens to a systematic apartheid. Remarkably, this consciousness has happened in less than a year, which was also a year of high oil prices that greatly improved the economy of the country.

Today, I watched the short version of La Lista that appeared in Tal Cual multimedia and that you can see here.

I am not going to repeat what Daniel and Miguel have already written about that film, all I am going to tell you is that you should watch it and see that the country is little by little increasing its civic and political awareness.

Ironically, despite the depressing subject, I was more optimistic after watching it. I said to myself that maybe sooner than expected Venezuelans will ask and even question the government with my original question.

What did Chavez know and when did he know it?

Jorge Arena
Distinguished ghost blogger
http://arenaspace.blogspot.com
http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com

An official note proving that there is no presumption of innocence in political trials in Venezuela.- The case of Capriles Radonsky.

2006-03-28T01:10:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

Scanning the official Ministry of Information pages of the government of Venezuela (the MINCI pages), I found the following news:

“The Ambassador of Cuba will ask that the major of Baruta be investigated”

Here is the link:
http://www.mci.gob.ve/noticiasnuev.asp?numn=9550

I was quite intrigued by the title and, as a curious ghost blogger that I am, started reading and digging some information about the case.

Henrique Capriles Radonsky is the very popular mayor of the town of Baruta, in the East part of Caracas where the Cuban Embassy is located.

During the events of April 2002, a group of angry and radical anti-Chavez people were protesting in front of the Cuban Embassy. After being called by the Cuban Ambassador, Capriles Radownsky went to the site and talked with him. According to Capriles, he assured the Ambassador that he was going to do whatever was possible to insure the security of the diplomatic personnel and he asked the protesters to leave the place, which they did.

After those events, the Public Ministry started an investigation on the case and the Fiscalia accused Capriles Radonsky. Capriles was actually put in jail for several months supposedly to prevent his leaving the country because the prosecution said that he was not present on three occasions after being called. According to Capriles, his lawyers were denied the access to the file where the prosecution declarations were stated.

It follows a long and complicated judicial tail.

At one point even the TSJ declared that Capriles had been sent to jail in an unjustified manner, but somehow the case was reopened.

The Capriles version of the events can be found here and here.

Capriles asked recently that he be judged in an impartial manner and he denounced that the Cuban Ambassador had meetings with representatives of the Judicial Power (see here).

After this long introduction, I can take you back to the note that called my attention and that appeared on March 23, 2006, on the very official MINCI pages.

The page shows the communiqué of the Cuban Embassy not only denying the allegations of Capriles (which would have been the normal thing to do for a diplomatic entity) but also ASKING THE GOVERNMENT OF VENEZUELA TO INVESTIGATE WHY HE IS MAKING THOSE ALLEGATIONS…I mean, the guy was put in jail, has been harassed for several years for this event, his case has been reopened ….In my humble ghost blogger opinion the guy has every legitimate right to be concerned about the fairness of his trial and scared at the possibility that the Cuban representatives be in contact with anyone in the Venezuelan judicial system that is going to judge him…

But although I am quite bothered by the answer of the Cuban Embassy, that is not what bothered me the most. What really put me in the alarm mode and triggered me to write this post was the following paragraph that clearly demonstrates the current state of justice, fairness and separation of powers in Venezuela. It was written by the officials in charge of the Venezuelan Ministry of Information pages (I copy it verbatim in Spanish)

“El alcalde, que en los días del golpe de estado de 2002 tuvo una participación en los actos de asedio a la embajada cubana, al no impedir que la turba violenta mantuviera incomunicada a la sede durante 3 días, acusa al embajador de conspirar en el país.

A continuación la nota completa emitida por la sede diplomática:”

The translation :

“The mayor, that during the days of the coup of 2002 had a participation in the acts of siege of the Cuban Embassy when he did not prevent that the violent crowd maintained the Embassy without communications during 3 days, accuses the Ambassador to conspire in the country.

In what follows we present the complete note issued by the diplomatic see”.

So what we essentially have here is the OFFICIAL pages of the Goverment of Venezuela SAYING that a citizen that will stand trial is already GUILTY. The note is written in the affirmative, there is no presumption of innocence whatsoever in this note.

…And this is the same government that claims that there is justice and independence of Powers in Venezuela.

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
Curious ghost blogger

News from Jorge

2006-03-26T22:29:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

While Miguel is away swimming somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean, your friendly ghost will be reporting on-and-off. I am quite busy these days trying to start my tomato plants. You see, bloggers grow orchids and ghost bloggers grow tomatoes. It is a fact of life and an Internet law. Actually, I have been thinking that while Miguel is away on his extended vacation among Polynesian sharks I should take advantage of his absence and open a new The Devil’s Section devoted to growing tomatoes…

So if you want me to keep ghosting as long as Chavez is in power ( I’ve got the most secure job anyone can dream of!) please prepare your messages of support for the new tomatoes Section and keep them handy. I’ll let you know if I need an outpour of spontaneous support when Miguel gets back.

As usual, there are many interesting news in the Chavista kingdom of Venezuela:

* a new Petrochemical company that we do not know how it differs from the previous one and that will develop Petrochemical technology in Venezuela (didn’t we already have one in place?);

* the Minister of Interior calls for a corruption investigation against an ex National Assembly member and now Supreme Court judge;

* an ex putchist; Chavez 1992 coup comrade and ex presidential candidate against Chavez is named Venezuela’s UN Ambassador.. .

but since I do not have much time to keep you posted on everything, I will start with the one that concerns me the most: the news that my tocayo, Jorge Rodriguez, is not running for the CNE.

This is sad news for this ghost blogger since Jorge Rodríguez is one of my favorite government characters, in particular because we share the same name. So I would like to propose to the 20 people that are electing the new CNE directive that the next President of the CNE is called Jorge as well.

What? Do you think that that is a totally arbitrary requirement? Why? If the new president is elected to follow strict Chavista rules we may as well impose that he has at least a charming first name. It should not be too difficult to find a good number of devoted Chavistas called Jorge. I would even think that it could be possible to find one called Jorge Miguel or Jorge Daniel but I do not want to push too much.

Of course, of course, I know I am being too pessimistic. Maybe the people that are electing the new CNE will find someone that is competent and truly independent. The problem is that out of the 20 members, 11 are members of the National Assembly, that is 100% Chavista. BTW Sumate has asked that those members have voice but would abstain from voting….In any case I will forgive them for not imposing the Jorge name if they truly elect an independent Council.

The interesting thing now is to know why Jorge Rodriguez is really stepping down. For weeks he was a sure bet for the new CNE and, all of a sudden, he says that he does not want to be a roadblock in the presidential elections. He does not want to be an excuse for the opposition to decide not to run in the forthcoming election.

You know what? I believe him. I think that Chavez is desperate to get any opposition candidate against him in December to avoid the international image that he is holding a plebiscite. So, in my humble ghost opinion, the order probably came from Chavez himself.

There have also been rumors about Jorge Rodríguez being a candidate to be the next Vice president.

Personally, I don’t believe those rumors. Chavez wants to preserve the idea that the CNE that has been running the last elections and the RR was fair and independent. If he nominates Rodríguez as a Vice president there is no way he can say that.

(Sorry Jorge, I know I just blew your possibilities for Vice president. When the MINCI guys read this they will be so convinced by my ingenious interpretation that, upon being informed, Chavez will change his mind on your nomination. But do not despair, keep reading, I’ve got a better idea for you).

This ghost blogger also learned that before leaving, Jorge Rodríguez put in place the list of all the Venezuelan voters by district in the web page of the CNE. However, in the VTV article cited above it is said that the personal data of the voters will not be made available in order NOT TO VIOLATE ARTICLE 60 OF THE CONSTUTUTION! So now, after the Tascón list and the Maisanta Program where the personal information of millions of Venezuelans voters was and is still used for blacklisting by the government, and is available from street vendors in Caracas, the same government says that it cannot reveal the voters’ personal data. Funny that now they discover there is an article 60 in the Constitution, which BTW is the same article 60 mentioned in this post….

Before finishing the post, I read that Chavez had some nice words for Jorge Rodriguez in today’s Alo Presidente, lamenting that he had to step down because of the bad publicity that he has been unjustly the object of and that was directed of course from the Empire…

So poor Jorge will have to step down with just a warm congratulation from the President, no goodies, unless we quickly forget about him and concentrate on the new CNE President. Maybe then, Chavez can give him more than his heartfelt congratulations for a job well done.

BTW, Jorge, here is the tip: I heard that the Paris embassy is now available.

You know, discussing and tasting the virtues of Moet Chandons, Foie Gras and Chateau Lafitte is much more interesting than dealing day in and day out with Maria Corina, the oligarchic media and stubborn bloggers and ghosts.

So go for it, tocayo, you deserve it!

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
Distinguished Ghost.

http://arenaspace.blogspot.com
http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com

Batalla de Santa Inés II.- Chavez's battle for 10 million votes

2006-02-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

For the celebration of his 7 years in office, Chavez asked his followers to start a campaign to get 10 million votes in the presidential elections of December 2006. BTW, CNE President Jorge Rodríguez was among those that attended the gathering. The story appeared in El Nacional (you can access the information here).

Since the remarkable level of abstention obtained in the National Assembly elections of December 2005, the 10 million votes have been a motif of Chavez’s speeches. The Venezuelan President knows that, given the disorganized opposition, he has a high probability of winning the presidential election. However, he is not happy with just winning. He wants to show to the world that he has the overwhelming support of the Venezuelan people, which he has not.

The 10 million figure is absolutely laughable if one reviews historic data, recent polls and the Referendum and National Assembly election results (unless there is some creative counting from the CNE). Nevertheless, Chavez likes battling and he already defined the reelection campaign as the battle for 10 million votes. He called the campaign “Batalla de Santa Inés II”.

The name gives shivers to those that are aware of the consequences of the first Batalla de Santa Inés and its relationship with the fascist discriminatory list.

A few days ago, Daniel discussed a film about the list in this post and Bruni, a devoted reader, mentioned her short story about her experience with the Batalla de Santa Inés program. I asked her to translate the story to include it in my post, which she graciously did. Her essay mixes her storytelling abilities with the harsh political reality created by the program. It explains the relationship between the Batalla de Santa Inés with the Maisanta campaign and the Tascón list and it shows why the whole thing is a clear violation of the Venezuelan Constitution. The original Spanish version is here. Hope you like it. I did!

Jorge Arena.
Favorite ghost editor.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Battle of Santa Inés. (*)

by Brunilde Sansò.

Article 60. Every person has the right to the protection of her honor, private life, intimacy, image, confidentiality and reputation.

The law will limit the use of informatics to guarantee the honor and the personal and family intimacy of its citizens and the full enjoyment of their rights.

Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

This story is dedicated to millions of Venezuelans of all origins and political tendencies that are enclosed in thousands of unknown computers and whose privacy has been forever violated.

After several years of protests and a sturdy opposition, a signature collection was carried out to call for a Referendum to revoke the mandate of President Hugo Chavez Frias. The Referendum took place on August 2004. The “No”camp, that supported the President, created a command called “Maisanta” in honor of a gomecist general that became an anti-Gomez guerrilla, called Pedro Perez Delgado, nicknamed “Maisanta”, that happened to be the great grandfather of President Chavez Frias.

It is said that the President has a supersticious predilection for his rebellious ancestor and that he thinks that Maisanta brings him luck [1]. Wether true or not, the Maisanta Command had the objective of doing whatever was necessary to avoid that President Chavez Frias be revoked. This political crusade was baptized by the government as the “Batalla de Santa Inés”. It is within that frame that a computer search program coupled with the personal data of all Venezuelan voters, also called “Batalla de Santa Inés”, was created. The name recalls the Santa Inés Battle won by the “llanero” Ezequiel Zamora. The two caudillos, Zamora and Maisanta are also related since Maisanta was the son of a Zamora’s colonel. Moreover, both are fetish figures for the President. Thus, it is not by chance that the two characters are associated with one of the most important battles that Chavez would have to fight.

In order to create the Batalla de Santa Inés program, the database containing the information of all Venezuelan voters must have been extracted from the database of the CNE (National Electoral Council), that is the entity in charge of Venezuelan elections. If such was indeed the case, then it would be a flagrant violation of the Venezuelan Constitution that guarantees the right to privacy and that explicitly limits the use of informatics (see article 60 above).

In the following months, the program was used to catalog Venezuelan citizens and, in some cases, to prevent them access to jobs and civil documents [3,4]. I was told that the program with the database could be bought freely in the streets of Caracas.

Wanting to verify by myself the length of the violation of the privacy of millions of Venezuelans and in order to understand the program functionality, I installed one copy in my computer and searched for my name, curious to know what information would appear. Later, I started playing with my Venezuelan ID number. Two, three, four, five numbers below, two, three, four, ten numbers ahead…

There they were: Renato, Salvatore, Silvana and Rosetta, those that had been lost in a hidden place of my memory and now, thanks to this powerful program, came back to my recollection of a nine year old girl that is getting her ID card for the first time.

It was a special day. We were transported by bus to the roofed yard of a large school or ID center. I think that it was located in Los Ruices or Los Dos Caminos. We were then seated on long banks, side by side, waiting for our turn. One of our school teachers, Miss Camacho, tried in vain to get us to be quiet. I wanted to seat next to Renato, but Rosetta was between us. That is why his ID number does not follow mine. Renato was in love with Rosetta and all the other girls from the Venezuelan-Italian school I attended were in love with Renato.

It was not the first time that Rosetta got between Renato and me. One or two years before, I should have entered the church with Renato the day of our First Communion. But, because of my or Rosetta’s dress, it did not happen that way.

I wore a white empire dress with a long bridal veil, and Renato was very handsome in a blue suit. He was holding a cream color candle, a silver rosary, a mother-of-pearl missal and white velvety gloves. Rosetta, on the other hand, was wearing an ugly cream color nun’s gown with a wood rosary attached to her waist. That was the gown proposed by the school that I had categorically refused to wear. Then, probably because of the gown, the same professor Bianchi that had always preferred me, decided to put this time Renato with Rosetta as the first couple and left me, with my magnificent bride dress made by my grandma and Salvatore, wearing his brother’s brown suit that was too tight for him, as the last couple to enter the church. That is why in my First Communion picture I am with Salvatore whereas Rosetta was with Renato.

But life is really something. Even though I learned later that Rosetta and Renato had been engaged, they did not end up being together. At least, that is what was indicated by the program. Renato now lives in Colinas de la Trinidad whereas Rosetta still lives in La Carlota. Rosetta must have married a Mr. Añez because the program changes, in the American way, the second family name by the husband’s family name. I also noticed that the program must have been made by people that do not know the letter “ñ” because Añez was written with the numeral symbol, A#ez.

After studying more deeply the program, I got to the conclusion that the union between Renato and Rosetta was not to be, it was impossible, at least politically speaking. They seemed to be real Capuletos and Montescos from Venezuela. In fact, the program classifies Renato as a “Patriot” and there is a red field that appears on the side of his name, the political tendency field. From what I learned “Patriots” are those that not only did not sign against the President but even signed to revoke the opposition National Assembly members. It seems that after the signature collection to revoke the Presidential mandate, there was a counter-offensive prepared by the goverment to revoke opposition deputies. Interesting, the petition did not seem to target particular deputies but to target them all at large, there are in fact “Patriots” in all the voting districts.

Thus, although Renato is a Patriot, Rosetta is not. She actually signed against the President because when I access her name, a blue light appears indicating just that.

I wonder when was that Renato and Rosetta started moving away from each other. The program does not explain it but it is very clear that they do not live together.

On the other hand, Salvatore, my First Communion companion ,ended up being a very particular type of Patriot because despite being classified as so, there is a warning sign that pops up when I access his name. It indicates that he also signed against the President. I guess that those that wrote the program must consider that Salvatore is not politically trustworthy, that must be the reason for the pop-up. I am not sure I agree with that statement: Salvatore used to not change his mind at all when we played as kids during class breaks. Quite the opposite, he was of a stellar stubbornness.

I started shuffling possibilities. Maybe Salvatore thought that the best way to finish with political instability was to sign to ask for referendums. Then, he must have signed for the first one, to revoke the President, but since he was favorable to the government, decided later to sign the second one as well. However, it is difficult for me to imagine my friend Salvatore using his civil right in such a strategic manner. Maybe he signed first but then he was forced to sign the second petition. The program created doubts in my mind, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Silvana used to live somehow close to my house. But, according to the program, she moved so close that if I lived now in Venezuela, we would be voting in the same center. When I clicked the center button, I could get the list of every person voting in my center. There was not only Silvana, but also several other known names. There was Maritza, the neighbour from the corner house. I was able to learn her real age, that she had always hidden from us. Then I tried to search for Alberto, her husband, but could not find him in the center. But since his family name was quite unusual, it was easily found using the general name searching feature. To my surprise, I learned that Alberto is much younger than Maritza and that he is a “Patriot” even though Maritza signed against the President. My Capuleto theory does not hold any longer. A Patriot and a revoker living together? What type of fights would they have? Or maybe, maybe it was made on purpose so that all the eggs were not put in the same basket. After all, as they used to say, the vote was secret but the signature was not…maybe, maybe, maybe.

Thus, if I had wanted it, I could have reviewed all my memories, all my friends, all my neighbours, all the members of my family. I could have learned their ID numbers, their age, their personal address, their voting center, and their political tendencies. I could have guessed their fears and presupposed their hesitations.

More than fourteen million fears and hesitations!

There are fourteen million people that are now everywhere and that will never be able to recover the tranquility of their anonymity. A collective and permanent violation!

Then, overwhelmed by feelings of astonishment, disgust, displeasure, revulsion, I deleted the program. I tried to get back to the old idea that Rosetta was with Renato and that Maritza was indeed the age she looks. But, it did not work. It was like unlearning how to read after having read.

Then I decided to fired up my computer again and started typing.

And I am still here fighting, in my way, my own Battle of Santa Inés.

In the story above, I have changed the names and sequence of the ID numbers of all my memories. I have also exagerated my curiosity in the search for personal details. I just wanted to demonstrate the potential for meddling in private lives that the program has created. Some of those having ID numbers close to mine happen to be old classmates, but they are not the characters of this story. However, the program is such that it could have been used to search for all my friends’ personal details, had I wanted to.

In fact, and unfortunately for those of us that are listed inside, all the described features of the program are absolutely real.

References:

[1] Marcano, C. and Barrera, A. “Chávez sin Uniforme.-Una Historia Personal”. Colección Actualidad. Random House Mondadori, 2004.
[2] Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Artícle 60. http://comunidad.vlex.com/pantin/constve.html
[3] Octavio, M. « Tascón Fascist List ». The Devil’s Excrement blog. http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/categories/tasconSFascistList
[4] Duquenal, D. “La Lista.-The Story of Venezuela McCarhtyism.”
Venezuela News and Views blog.
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2006/02/la-lista-story-of-venezuela.html.

(*) This short story originally appeared in Spanish in Cuentos Intrascendentes

Follow-up on Chavez’s anti-semitic remarks: A letter from Mario Vargas Llosa

2006-01-31T13:14:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

Amazing how busy the government has been after the publication of a letter signed by Venezuelan intellectuals and professors appeared in El Nacional! As this distinguished ghost blogger has reported, the government was not amused! They published an insulting letter in their official web page and, just by chance, decided to erase the name of Sofia Imber, one of the signatories, from the MACSSI (see here my “Sofia” post in The Devil's).

Today we learned that Mario Vargas Llosa sent a letter to President Hugo Chávez that appeared in El Nacional.

Here is the translation :

Mr D. Hugo Chávez
President
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Caracas, January 26, 2006

Mr President:

The International Foundation for Liberty has seen with consternation your recent anti-semitic manifestations. For this reason, we think that the recent letter signed by a group of Venezuelan intellectuals worried about such an abominable manifestation of racism was totally justified.

Among the signatories of the document was journalist Sofia Imber, and we have just learned that in retaliation for having added her voice to other democratic Venezuelans, the government has taken the decision to eliminate her name from the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas Sofia Imber, of which she was the founder and that she led to be one of the most important and respected cultural institutions of Latin America.

We protest with all our energy for that mean way to punish an honorable Venezuelan for expressing her opinion. Such an unjust action, that we ask you to revoke immediately, will increase the discredit of your government but will not diminish at all the prestige of Sofia Imber.

Sincerely,
Mario Vargas Llosa.

Reporting from cyberspace,
Jorge Arena
Distinguished ghost blogger
http://arenaspace.blogspot.com
http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com

Sofia

2006-01-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

Caracas has some hidden places that make it an interesting and cosmopolitan city. One of them is the “Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas Sofía Imber” (MACCSI) that has a remarkable collection of modern art that can be compared to that of larger and richer cities around the world.

The newcomer is pleasantly surprised to find such an incredible congregation of excellent pieces in an artistic oasis in the middle of Caracas. The Museum was an object of pride among Venezuelans and represented what Venezuelans were able to achieve when they left politics aside and followed only a criteria of excellence and knowledge.

When such an achievement happens in an unlikely society, it is very often because someone was behind it. That someone in this case is Sofia Imber, a well known journalist and art patron that put all her soul and positive stubbornness into creating and maintaining a first class International Museum.

Sofía Imber was the Museum director for many years, and during the tenure of many governments. Four years ago, however, she was kicked out of the Museum by the Chavista government. At that time, she learned she had been fired on TV.

Two days ago we learned that the MACCSI will lose its “SI”: the government has decided to remove the name of the founder, Sofía Imber, from the official name of the Museum.

Why? Why four years after removing Sofia Imber from her post does the government decide to remove her name? Wouldn’t have been more natural to remove it four years ago? Why now? What has Sofia been doing that insulted the government so much?

Well, Sofia has been signing a letter and, in Chavez’s Venezuela, signing your name has become a risky event.

Sofia, who also happens to be jewish, signed the letter repudiating Chavez’s recent anti-semitic remarks.

As this ghost blogger reported, the letter, signed by hundreds of well known personalities, professors and intellectuals, enraged the government so much that they did not lost any time in writing an offensive attack against all that had signed in the official MCI page. The government states, among other things, that the letter is a product of a Bush campaign, that the signatories are intellectually dishonest and that they are lying to delegitimize the government of Venezuela and “justify a military intervention in the country”.

The readers can judge by themselves if any of those statements are present in the letter that was published and that I include here:

So today in Tal Cual there is an interview with Sofia Imber where she says that she was not surprised of the government move, that she had been expecting that to happen. To the question of why now, she answered that it was because she just signed the protest letter against Chavez anti-semitic remarks.

I can see that Sofia and I had the same interpretation of the events and so has PAM-CHITO from Notitarde:

To finish this ghost blogging piece, I will leave you with today’s caricature of Pedro Leon Zapata, who is another Venezuelan institution and happens to be the last signatory of the letter:

It says:

“The Museum, for the time being (*), does not have a name, but we have an alternate route (**). To Tattoo a number in its arm! ”

Jorge Arena

Distinguished Ghost Blogger

http://www.arenaspace.blogspot.com

http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com

(*) Reference to the famous “Por ahora” used by lieutenant colonel Chavez when he appeared on TV after the failed coup of February 4, 1992.

(**) Reference to the lack of an alternative route for the viaduct that links Caracas with its port and airport and failed a few weeks ago due to neglect.

The tale of Chavez anti-semitic remarks

2006-01-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

After Alex Beech’s post and my first inquire right after Christmas, your favorite ghost blogger has been trying to get updated about what is going on concerning this convoluted issue.

It is time to report .

First, your second-favorite blogger, Miguel, was able to find the exact reference where the remarks appeared, so that people could grasp by themselves what was exactly said by President Chavez.

Next, your second-favorite blogger, again, dig a book by known anti-semite Chavez 's mentor Norberto Ceresole. Interesting, in the preface of the book, Ceresole made anti-Semitic remarks even tough it was a book about Chavez. And he also made remarks about those responsible for Bolivar's death. Just like Chavez in his speech.

On Jan 4, The Wiesenthal Center demanded public excuses to the President.

On January 14, Chavez read a letter signed by some directors of CAIV (Confederación de Asociaciones Israelitas de Venezuela) in which they declared that their government is not anti-semite.

On January 14, Paulina Gamus, a well known political leader and third vice-president of CAIV protested the letter signed by what she said was a minority of the directive. She also wrote an article about the state of anti-Semitism in some official media, it appeared in El Nacional (translated here).

Meanwhile, a group of Venezuelan artists, intellectual and professors signed a letter to repudiate Chavez’s remarks. The letter appeared in a page in El Nacional today (January 21^st)

and, guess what?

the MINCI (or MCI), Chavez’s Ministry of Information (or should I say Misinformation?) is already insulting them! They lost no time to answer with insults! They are quite efficient for that!

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
favorite ghost blogger
http://arenaspace.blogspot.com/
http://chavezfortheun.blogspot.com

A holiday mistery: the case of Chavez's phantom anti-semite remarks and a curious ghost blogger

2005-12-28T02:58:00.000-08:00

Originally published here

Scanning Venezuelan news and blogs, your favorite ghost blogger was alerted by this article about Chavista anti-semitism, written by Alex Beech

I learned that the President was reported saying the following:

“Christmas is Christ rebellious, revolutionary, socialist” and “the descendants of those that crucified Christ have taken ownership of the wealth of the world, and they have concentrated it in a small number of hands”.

The remarks appeared on December 25 in Noticiero Digital , quoted from the “minute to minute” section of El Nacional. Now, if the reader goes to the link where it appeared, the news have been replaced by today’s “minuto a minuto” news. I even checked Dec 26^th El Nacional editorial (page A6) that mentioned the Christmas message, but found nothing about anti-semitism.

Annoyed by the lack of a formal referral link and puzzled by the editorial, I started digging the official sources:

VTV, ABN ,MINCI ,RNV and Aporrea :

They all reported a Chavista-Christian message of love and peace, and even (see RNV, Aporrea) wrote verbatim the sentence about Christ being rebellious, revolutionary and socialist, but nothing about any descendants of those that crucified Christ.

I then checked El Universal:and, strangely, the news was cited directly from Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (ABN).

I even went to the Alo Presidente site, and there was nothing about the latest Chavez’s comments.

Finally thanks to Google, I was able to dig this link from a Chilean site.

Also thanks to Google, I got the magnificent « cache » from El Nacional that I am pasting at the end.

So, what happened? Was Chavez misquoted? Or is there a collusion of official information sites trying to clean the damaging remarks? What about the other Venezuelan private media? Why are they not reporting or just reporting the ABN version? Why El Nacional did not emphasize in their editorial the anti-semite message that was previously reported? Is this the effect of the muzzle law? Or is everybody on vacation?

Reporting from cyberspace,

Jorge Arena

Favorite ghost blogger.

http://www.arenaspace.blogspot.com

*Internacionales* *Presidente Chávez asegura **que** "aún tenemos mucha pobreza"*

El presidente Hugo Chávez reconoció la tarde de este 24 de diciembre *que* aunque su gobierno ha “logrado cosas, todavía tenemos mucha pobreza” y pidió a sus funcionarios “centrar su atención allí”.

Dijo *que* para combatir la miseria será lanzada formalmente el próximo 14 de enero la "Misión Negra Hipólita" y adelantó *que*, como parte del programa, en cada barrio se formarán comités de protección social.

“Tiene ocho líneas de acción: primero *los* niños en situación de calle, luego *los* adultos en situación de exclusión extrema, las adolescentes y adultas embarazadas en situación de pobreza, la prevención y atención al consumo de drogas, la atención al desarrollo de comunidades indígenas, la atención a la familia en situación de riesgo, la atención a personas con discapacidad y la promoción de la participación popular”, detalló.

Las afirmaciones las realizó al finalizar un recorrido *que* hizo en el Centro de Desarrollo Endógeno Integral Humano "Manantial de *los* Sueños", ubicado en el estado Miranda, donde se recuperan 160 personas de la indigencia.

En el lugar, y con motivo de la Navidad, señaló *que* "*Cristo* debe vivir en nosotros". "Hoy está más vivo *que* nunca (...) La Navidad es *Cristo* rebelde, revolucionario, socialista", refirió. Para Chávez “*los* *descendientes* de *los* *que* *crucificaron* a *Cristo* se adueñaron de las riquezas del mundo y las han concentrado en pocas manos”.

Se declaró “decidido” a cambiar la historia y aseveró *que* cada día lo acompañan "más cantidad de jefes de estado y líderes en esa lucha”. Estima *que* “la cosa más grande” *que* ha hecho su gobierno es “libertar a nuestra patria del dominio norteamericano y de la oligarquía criolla”.

*EC/el-nacional.com*

From stolen radioactivity to the incredibly slow CNE: two low-key news from the chavista kingdom of Venezuela.

2005-12-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

Originally published here
I grew up in Venezuela, so I am quite used to amazing news and a Macondonian way of life. However, since the arrival of President, soon to be King, Chavez, the amazing happenings are considered non-news, maybe because there are so many of them. This week, doing my job while Miguel is away, I came across these two pieces of news that left me speechless.

First, let us talk about radioactivity.

The Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias reports that the State of Lara police is desperately searching for stolen radioactive material. It seems that a truck that belongs to a radio inspection company was stolen in the State of Yaracuy by two individuals. There was radioactive material left inside. Now, this naïf ghost blogger asks the following questions: did the thieves know about the radioactive material or was it just bad luck for them? If they knew about it, why were they interested in it? Is it possible that radioactive material be transported without any signs of it? Why is just the regional police of the Lara State the one that is interested in this event? Why is there just one small article in the ABN about this? Why is the minister of the interior not talking about this?

A quick search on Google provides some alerts on the Internet, particularly on environmental sites. Reuters even reports a state of emergency called by the chief of the Defensa Civil in Venezuela. (see ) and another search in EUD gives just this small news item. Even after these results, I am still amazed at the little importance this very serious piece of news is been given both by the government and the media.

The second news that I want to comment on is the incredibly slow CNE. On December 22nd , El Nacional reported (page A4) that in a press conference Jorge Rodríguez said that there will not be a definite bulletin about the December 4 elections UNTIL after January 16!!! They have not verified the “actas” of some centers in 22 states!

So this humble ghost blogger asks the following: what is the use of tens (or is it hundreds?) of millions of dollars worth of electronic machines if the final results are available a month and a half after the election? Beats me!

Unless the CNE needs extra time for some creative vote counting....

International Experience

2005-10-29T21:21:00.000-07:00

Chavez 2006 Campaign. - An open letter from a repentant ghost blogger.

2005-10-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

Dear Mr. Chavez:

I have been opposing you for some years now. I confess that I have been a critical ghost blogger writing essays against you and your government. Until yesterday I truly believed that that was my mission, but that is no longer the case.

You may wonder what happened. Well, a few days ago, the BBC prepared a program to invite you to answer some questions that the public sent for you (see here ). I was one of those Internet geeks that sent tough questions that were never chosen and I was quite mad reading the praises from people around the world that think that know you better. Then I saw your BBC interview and it totally changed my perception of who Hugo Chavez really is. I have been wrong and the thousands of non-Venezuelans that wrote to the BBC praising you and your acts have been right.

You were wonderful, Mr. Chavez. The President of Venezuela in international prime time! You were the essence of the discreet, elegant man, all smiles, well prepared, knowing what you were going to say and what to answer. Telling the people of the world exactly what they wanted to hear, the way they wanted to hear it. A real diplomat. A gentleman. Nothing to do with the vulgar character that appears on Sundays on Alo President to trash his foes in front of the camera, abusing his power. But I now know, my dear president, that that character is only for local Venezuelan consumption. The real Chavez is the one I saw on the BBC.

Your answers were absolutely charming. You stand for justice and democracy. You do not pass any laws restricting the press or those that criticize you. You do not persecute those that dissent with you and, in particular, there is no blacklisting in Venezuela. Those are stories invented by your enemies.

Now I am in total agreement with your views, Mr. Chavez. That BBC interview made me see the light. You are a victim. You have been the one persecuted by that oligarchy opposition of yours. They are really working hard, helped of course by the CIA, to perpetuate a false image of Hugo Chavez.

Even on the Internet, those despicable and persistent bloggers dedicate their lives to portray you in a bad light. I confess that I was one of them, Mr. Chavez, I acknowledge my past faults. But I have seen the truth. I repent. From now on, I will cherish every word you say and, as a token of my appreciation and my admiration I am volunteering to run your 2006 campaign, Mr. Chavez.

Yes, you read it right, your 2006 Campaign…

No, not the 2006 campaign for the Presidency of Venezuela!

You wouldn’t want that, would you?

Why Venezuela? Mr. Chavez, Venezuela is already too small for you!

You are bound to bigger, larger horizons. You are destined to be the Liberator of Latin America, just like Bolivar, or even better, the unifier of the Americas, or even better, the world, or even better, the Liberator of Human kind. The great leader of the 21^st century!

So, Mr. Chavez. Since there is no such a job yet. You have to start with something that will give you more international visibility….

No, not the President of Venezuela again… Forget that job….that is a good job while oil prices are high, but if they go down the people of the world will not pay as much attention to you and you will get in trouble again in Venezuela. No, Mr. Chavez, you need a more permanent visible and secure position that will allow you to jump into higher and more important endeavors….

I have been thinking of running your campaign to be the Secretary General of the United Nations.

You see, Mr. Chavez, Kofi Annan will finish his term on December 31^st 2006. The timing is perfect for you (see here ).

I know, I know, the people of Venezuela will ask you to run again, to stay in power…but, Mr. Chavez, you have already made so many sacrifices for them. They will understand, they will gladly let you pass your turn as president so that the rest of the world enjoys your charms, your diligence and your intelligence.

Venezuelans are generous people and they will be so proud when they see you as the leader of the world.

Besides, once you are Secretary-General you will have more opportunities to directly fight against the US while spreading peace around you. I am sure that that panel in Norway will finally see the light themselves and will end up begging you to please accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

So please, Mr. President, allow me to be involved in this important step in the development of human kind.

I have already opened a site to initiate the campaign. And, if you agree, I promise that I will try to convince my fellow opposition bloggers to see the light as well and put all their energy into this new important challenge. So we will all be one, current dissident and chavista bloggers, Venezuelans and non-Venezuelans, finally reunited to work as one for the enterprise of our lives:

Hugo Chavez for the UN!

Yours truly,
Jorge Arena
Repentant Ghost Blogger.

The tale of Chavez and his nuclear reactor from Argentina.

2005-10-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

It seems that Hugo Chavez wants to buy a medium size nuclear reactor from Argentina. According to the article, the reactor is needed to be able to help liquefying the heavy oils of the Orinoco Belt. The news was confirmed by Vice president Jose Vicente Rangel here.

On the other hand, reading yesterday’s late news in El Universal, I learned that the president of PDVSA and minister of oil and energy, Rafael Ramirez, just denied that Venezuela would be interested in buying a reactor from Argentina. The news appeared today in Aporrea (see here) and on the ABN and was the first news this morning in the minci page. I was actually amazed that the face of the smiling minister had even replaced that of Chavez, which is quite unusual in the official news. But, if you link the minci now, you will see that the news about Ramirez’s declaration has disappeared from their site (that is why one always have to get a snapshot of any minci page! ).

The question is why? What is going on?

And who is right, Rangel or Ramirez?

Whoever is right, the decision of buying a nuclear reactor cannot be easily justified in Venezuela.

To put it mildly, it is quite strange that in order to produce extra power to liquefy some of the heavy oil of the Orinoco Belt, a country that produces so much gas and oil like Venezuela would need a nuclear plant. If, indeed, extra power is needed, why not build a non-nuclear thermal plant? Venezuelans have had several plants of that kind built, even in record time, during the oil boom of the 70’s, they have expertise in the management and operation of those plants and they have the raw material: oil and gas.

According to Cadafe, there are at least 16 operating plants of that type in the country.

On the other hand, if a nuclear reactor is bought, it would be a total novelty for Venezuela. There is, to my knowledge, only one experimental nuclear reactor at IVIC and, besides that, there has not been any other nuclear experience in Venezuela. Moreover, it seems that Chavez is not thinking of buying the reactor from a country with long experience in nuclear power either, like the US, Canada or France. He is having talks with Argentina!

According to the Argentineans themselves, the nuclear reactor they would sell to Venezuela would still be a “prototype”… So here are my questions, Mr. Chavez:

1.-what is the business sense of buying a nuclear reactor when an ordinary thermal plant or an electric substation from the hydroelectric transmission can be installed? (see below)
2.- Why buy a technology that has not a proven solid record of reliability?
3.- Why buy a technology that Venezuela has no previous experience in deploying?
4.- Where/when are you going to form the highly qualified professionals to deploy that technology?

But for the reader to be able to grasp the magnitude of question number 1, I must recall that Venezuela not only has plenty of oil, gas and coal but also a lot of water.

Here in lilac, from PDVSA map page (click the section “maps” on your right), is the region where the Orinoco Oil Belt (Faja bituminosa del Orinoco) is located.

Below, there is a map, extracted from the Edelca page, showing where Venezuela’s huge hydroelectric resources are being exploited.

And, from the map below, one can see the transmission infrastructure from hydroelectric plant Guri to the important regions of the country using 765 Kv and 400 Kv lines.

If one looks at this map carefully and compares it with the one of the Orinoco Oil Belt given in PDVSA site, one can easily see that the power needed is right there. The generation, the transmission and the oil sands are quite close together. Moreover, exploring the PDVSA map a little further, one can even find the number of already installed thermal and hydroelectric plants.

So here is another question to Chavez:

Why don’t you use Venezuela’s existing hydroelectric and thermal infrastructure Mr. Chavez? And, if, by any chance, the energy is not enough, why don’t you build a gas or an oil plant….after all, you do have oil and gas, don’t you?

I have an answer. Chavez needs confrontation, and by buying a nuclear reactor he knows that he will be provoking the US.

So having explained all the technical details and having questioned the president about it, we still have to answer the first question of this post.

Who was right? The minister of oil and energy or the Vice president?

My guess is both. The Vice-president, as a savvy politician that exploits Chavez’s natural instincts, may have come up with the idea of stirring the waters to create a new confrontation Chavez-USA. After all, congress elections will take place in a short time and there is nothing like a good confrontation with the US to boost Chavez’s popularity. The minister, on the other hand, must know that the nuclear deal would be quite difficult to justify from the technical and economic point of view.

Having said that, I still find it suspicious that the minister’s declarations were removed from the Minci page today…

You know, like in all autocratic regimes, we are now dealing not only with news, but also with the interpretation of no-news.

Welcome to Chavez’s era!

Jorge Arena.

Note added: A reader from Argentina wrote to me stating that even though he sympathizes with the points made in the article, he regrets my denigrating comments about Argentina. He says that Argentina has more than 50 years of nuclear experience and he provided the following links to follow-up on Argentinean nuclear research:

http://www.na-sa.com.ar/index2.htm

www.invap.com.ar/

www.cnea.gov.ar/

I must say that my comment about Chavez’s choice of Argentina was never intended to be denigrating, and I am very sorry that it was interpreted that way. My intention was to underline that the choice of Argentina as a unique candidate to sell the first nuclear plant to Venezuela seems to be clearly political. Even though Argentina is one of the two only countries with a nuclear program in Latin America, it is not the first one that comes to my mind when I think of countries with extensive experience in building and managing nuclear plants. Before writing the article, I checked this link that seemed to confirm my perception.

LA MANIPULACIÓN DEL ESTADO DE DERECHO COMO INSTRUMENTO DE CONSOLIDACIÓN DE UN PROYECTO POLÍTICO DE CONCENTRACIÓN DEL PODER EN VENEZUELA*.

2005-10-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Román J. Duque Corredor

Ex Magistrado de la Corte Suprema de Justicia (1983-1992)

Individuo de Número de la Academia de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales

Profesor de derecho constitucional en el Curso de Doctorado de la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello de Caracas, Venezuela.

Miembro de la Comisión Andina de Juristas.

1. “Manipulación del Estado de Derecho” es la calificación que según Human Rights Wacht define mejor la actual crisis política venezolana. Puesto que no se trata de un atentado contra el orden constitucional del país proveniente de un golpe de Estado sino de una amenaza que proviene del propio gobierno [1]. Podríamos agregar del propio Estado mediante el ejercicio de sus funciones.

En otras palabras, de un proyecto político personalista que a través de las funciones legislativas y jurisdiccionales persigue la destrucción de la noción de Estado democrático y la limitación de las libertades para permitir la concentración del poder.

Proyecto este, como se afirma en un reciente estudio, donde los diversos órganos del Estado, principalmente, del Poder Judicial han contribuido con la desaparición de la Constitución, la Democracia y el Estado de Derecho [2], mediante el quiebre del principio de la separación de poderes, como se dice en otra investigación jurídica[3]. Y ello no obstante que la Constitución vigente de 1.999 descansa sobre la noción del Estado democrático y social de Derecho y de Justicia. Y a pesar de que la misma Constitución para garantizar la independencia y autonomía de las funciones del Estado consagra ahora una peculiar penta división del poder. En efecto, el poder público venezolano en la actualidad se divide en el legislativo, el ejecutivo, el judicial, el ciudadano y el electoral[4].

La manipulación del Estado de Derecho comenzó en agosto y octubre de 1.999 al reconocer legitimidad la Corte Suprema de Justicia en Pleno al Estatuto de funcionamiento de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente del 8 de agosto de 1.999. Este Estatuto subordinaba todos los organismos del poder público a esta Asamblea y permitió el cese de las actividades de estos organismos e inclusive de la misma Corte, que quedó sujeta a la declaratoria de emergencia del Poder Judicial[5]. Contrariando de esta forma la Corte Suprema de Justicia sus propias decisiones anteriores que habían fijado como limites de dicha Asamblea, como poder constituyente delegado, as Bases Comiciales aprobadas en referéndum del 25 de abril de 1.999 y a la Constitución de 1.961, que establecían el respeto del funcionamiento de los poderes constituidos[6].

Este Estatuto fue calificado de “golpe de Estado” y al régimen de subordinación de los poderes legislativo y judicial, estadales y municipales a la Asamblea Nacional, de “gobierno de facto”y de “régimen de gobierno asambleario”[7]. Este Decreto determinó el inicio de intervención de todos los poderes del Estado, en particular del Poder Legislativo y del Poder Judicial, “con la anuencia del propio Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, el cual contribuyó a formalizar el golpe de Estado y aupar su propia destrucción”[8]. Fue el comienzo del proyecto político estatista y centralizado.

Igualmente, aún después de sancionada y de aprobada popularmente la nueva Constitución el 15 de diciembre de 1.999, y sin sometérsele a referéndum, la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente creó, al margen de esta Constitución, un régimen constitucional transitorio para los poderes públicos mediante el Decreto del 22 de diciembre del mismo año, argumentando un supuesto “vacío constitucional”.

Este régimen transitorio, que fue legitimado por el nuevo Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, permitió a la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, eliminar el sistema bicameral, cesar el mandato de los senadores y diputados, disolver las asambleas legislativas de los Estados y cesar a sus diputados; someter las Alcaldías y Concejos Municipales a su control; cesar en sus funciones al Contralor General de la República, al Fiscal General de la República, designar los titulares de los órganos del Poder Ciudadano y del Poder Electoral. Y la eliminación de la Corte Suprema de Justicia y su sustitución por el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia y de sus Salas, la designación de los nuevos Magistrados y la creación de la Comisión de Funcionamiento y Reestructuración del Poder Judicial.

Para esta manipulación del Derecho, primeramente, la Corte Suprema de Justicia desarrolló la tesis del carácter “supraconstitucional” de los actos dictados por la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, argumentando que sus funciones no se limitaban a la sanción de una nueva Constitución, sino también al interregno, por lo que sus estatutos de funcionamiento son los que definen el modo de coexistencia con los poderes constituidos y no las Bases Comiciales aprobadas popularmente el 25 de abril de 1999 y tampoco la aún vigente Constitución de 1.961[9].

Y, en segundo lugar, al no decidir la Sala Plena de la Corte Suprema de Justicia con prontitud una demanda en contra de este régimen transitorio de nuevos nombramientos, dejó, por el contrario, que, en su lugar, decidiera la Sala Constitucional del nuevo Tribunal Supremo de Justicia. Sala esta que, que a pesar de que estaba pronunciándose sobre la constitucionalidad de su propia creación, legitimó el régimen transitorio mediante la tesis de “los actos de rango y naturaleza constitucional y organizativa de la Asamblea Constituyente”, a pesar de no estar contemplados ni en la Constitución derogada ni en la nueva y que, además, contenía la designación de los propios Magistrados del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, que obligaba a éstos a inhibirse de conocer[10].

Participó, pues, el Poder Judicial, al cubrir con la denominación de “actos constituyentes”[11] lo que se ha considerado como “golpe de Estado continuado de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente”[12]. Dentro de esos actos constituyentes se encuentra el Estatuto Electoral del Poder Público que dictó la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente el 30 de enero de 2000[13], que fue convalidado por la Sala Constitucional que interpretó que dicha Asamblea podía dictar un régimen transitorio constitucional paralelo, sin aprobación del pueblo. Con esta interpretación, en materia tan delicada, y con las otras interpretaciones sobre los actos constituyentes, el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia violó la soberanía popular que se había expresado el 25 de abril de 1999, al aprobar las Bases Comiciales de la elección y convocatoria de la Asamblea Constituyente y el 15 de diciembre de 1.999, al aprobar la Constitución.

El criterio de la supraconstitucionalidad de la antigua de la Corte Suprema de Justicia permitió, según la doctrina, la usurpación de la soberanía del poder constituyente originario por la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente y una “conspiración política de ambos órganos –Corte y Asamblea- para sustituir la soberanía popular y una extralimitación del mandato concedido a ésta última, para redactar un proyecto de nueva Constitución, que debe ser aprobado por el auténtico y único Poder Constituyente, el pueblo a través del referendo constituyente” [14]. E, igualmente se podría decir lo mismo con la doctrina del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia sobre los actos constituyentes, que ha permitido que Venezuela cuente aún con dos Constituciones. La aprobada por el pueblo el 15 de diciembre de 1999 y los actos constituyentes dictados por la Asamblea Nacional durante la discusión de la Constitución y después de su aprobación popular.

La Corte Suprema de Justicia anterior, pues, preparó su propia liquidación, que ocurrió al suprimirse y removerse sus Magistrados y al crearse, en su lugar, el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, por Decreto sobre el Régimen de Transición de los Poderes Públicos del 22 de diciembre de 1.999 de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, que previó dentro de sus Salas una Sala Constitucional, que al igual que el resto de los Magistrados de las otras Salas ( Casación Penal, Casación Civil, Casación Social, Política Administrativa y Electoral), fueron designados por la misma Asamblea, a pesar de que la nueva Constitución había sido aprobada por el pueblo el 15 de diciembre de ese mismo año.

Este nuevo Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, y principalmente, su Sala Constitucional, en una serie de decisiones comenzó a darle piso jurídico al proyecto político estatista, centralista y militarista que se había iniciado con la elección, mediante un sistema electoral inadecuado de 125 constituyentes a la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, identificados con ese proyecto, contra 6 constituyentes que no se identificaban con dicho proyecto. Y, que ha continuado con la prácticamente desaparición de la separación de poderes, la promulgación una legislación penal que criminaliza la disidencia y la libertad de expresión y manifestación y con la utilización del Ministerio Público y el Poder Judicial en la persecución de periodistas y abogados defensores de los derechos humanos[15].

Este Proyecto Político estatista centralizado ha permitido una progresiva y sistemática destrucción de las instituciones fundamentales del Estado, con la manipulación del Derecho, de la Constitución, de la función legislativa y ejecutiva y con apoyo de una interpretación judicial de convalidación de actos inconstitucionales.

El cuadro más sintomático de esta destrucción sistémica de la institucionalidad, tiene su máxima representación en la propia actuación del Poder Judicial en la progresiva destrucción de su independencia y autonomía y en la perdida del sentido democrático del Estado de Derecho constitucional, al convalidar actuaciones de los otros poderes que contribuyen a esa destrucción.

Aparte que lo expresado anteriormente es dramáticamente significativo de ese deterioro y de la violación de los derechos humanos, como se ha destacado en recientes Informes de los organismos especializado[16], me permitiré destacar fundamentalmente la participación del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia en ese deterioro institucional, y algunas actuaciones de otros poderes públicos en la materialización de un proyecto político de concentración del poder mediante la formación una legalidad autocrática.

El principal factor de esa destrucción es la debilidad del Poder Judicial, puesto que no representa la garantía de la integridad de la Constitución y de protección de los derechos humanos, hasta el punto, por ejemplo, que la Comisión Andina de Juristas, vistas algunas decisiones de la Sala Constitucional del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia en materia de libertad de expresión y de delitos de opinión, califica de preocupante la actuación de la Sala Constitucional del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, “en tanto sus decisiones permanecen alejadas de los estándares internacionales en materia de derechos humanos”[17].

Baste señalar, como ya se dijo, que en virtud de las decisiones del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia sobre actos constituyentes, Venezuela cuenta con dos ordenes constitucionales: El de la Constitución de 1.999, aprobada por el pueblo, y el régimen transitorio dictado por la Asamblea Nacional con posterioridad a la sanción de la Constitución, sin aprobación popular, que por la singular interpretación del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, es indefinida, puesto que dura hasta tanto se dicte toda la legislación que ha de completar la Constitución. Transitoriedad que la Sala Constitucional califica de “vigencia indeterminada “[18]. Así dijo: “El régimen de transición del poder público se proyecta hacia el futuro, no sólo hasta la instalación de la Asamblea Nacional, sino aún más allá”[19]. Bajo este régimen transitorio indefinido, que pospuso la vigencia efectiva del Texto Constitucional, y con un Estatuto Electoral también transitorio, se eligieron todos lo titulares de los organismos del actual Estado venezolano.

Sobre el particular la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos señaló que el régimen transitorio debilita la plena vigencia de la Constitución y determinó la falta de aplicación de los mecanismos constitucionales para la designación de los Magistrados del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, del Defensor del Pueblo, del Fiscal General y del Contralor General de la República, y de los integrantes del Consejo Nacional Electoral y ello porque la Sala Constitucional consideró válido el régimen de transición. Todo lo cual ha demorado la expedición de las leyes específicas por la Asamblea Nacional y creado una gran inseguridad jurídica que dificulta la plena consolidación del Estado de Derecho[20].

El Tribunal Supremo de Justicia ha permitido en su Normativa sobre la Dirección, Gobierno y Administración del Poder Judicial del 2 de agosto de 2000, que el régimen disciplinario judicial siga a cargo de una Comisión de Funcionamiento y Reestructuración del Sistema Judicial, creada por la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente por el Decreto del 22 de diciembre de 1999 sobre el Régimen de Transición del Poder Publico; prolongando así el régimen de transición en esta delicada materia. Esta situación es mucho más grave cuando al promulgarse la controvertida Ley Orgánica del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia el 20 de mayo de 2005[21] , se mantiene aún ese régimen disciplinario transitorio, no obstante que la Constitución establece que la jurisdicción disciplinaria debe estar a cargo de tribunales disciplinarios previstos en la ley y que la legislación referida al sistema judicial debe dictarse dentro de los primeros seis (6) meses siguientes a la instalación de la Asamblea Nacional que sustituyó al antiguo Congreso de la República [22]. Es decir, durante seis (6) años siguientes a la Constitución de 1999 los jueces son juzgados por una Comisión no judicial, atentándose contra su estabilidad y a su derecho a un debido proceso.
Pero aun más, al lado de esta Comisión de Funcionamiento y Reestructuración del Poder Judicial, el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia creó la Comisión Judicial, que no sólo nombra los jueces, sin seguir los concursos públicos ante jurados de los circuitos judiciales, que ordena la Constitución para su ingreso[23], sino que también suspende los jueces, sin formula de juicio alguno, alegando que se trata de jueces temporales [24] . Por ejemplo, los jueces que liberaron a las personas detenidas por protestar por la brutal represión manifestaciones cívicas, para que fueran juzgadas en libertad, fueron removidos por la Comisión Judicial sin proceso alguno[25] . Los jueces venezolanos han estado sometidos a una total inestabilidad y han quedado sujetos a la amenaza de su remoción por presiones políticas de la cual el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia es coparticipe.
A este panorama de destrucción del Poder Judicial se unen las actuaciones de la Sala Constitucional que dejan maltrecho al Estado de Derecho en sus principios esenciales. Por ejemplo, esta Sala, como se dijo, resolvió sobre la inconstitucionalidad de su propia creación y del nombramiento de sus Magistrados[26], pero también sobre la inaplicabilidad a ellos de los requisitos constitucionales[27] para su ratificación, puesto que distinguió entre los que no se aplican a quienes ya están en funciones para su ratificación y los que se aplican a quienes van ser designados nuevos Magistrados[28] y ello no obstante que la Constitución como norma suprema es obligatoria para todas las personas e instituciones[29]. Pero además de crearse su propio régimen para su ratificación, los Magistrados de la Sala Constitucional legislaron sobre las condiciones para las nuevas designaciones, interpretando que el requisito de profesor titular que exige la Constitución, no quiere decir que se tenga que hacer una carrera académica sino que se ocupe un cargo de profesor. Y que el requisito de haber sido juez superior en la especialidad a la que corresponda la Sala a que se aspire, no es estricto porque hay materias, como la constitucional y social que abarcan varios ámbitos y no uno sólo[30].

Este cuadro de deterioro del Estado, soportado por las interpretaciones de la Sala Constitucional, que han permitido el desarrollo de un proyecto estatista centralizado, se ha visto agravado por lo que se ha dado en llamar “la intervención judicial del poder judicial” y la “intervención legislativa del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia”[31].

Respecto de lo primero ya adelantamos que el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia mantiene un régimen transitorio de ingreso y disciplinario que coloca en una situación de gran inestabilidad a los jueces que les impide ejercer con independencia sus funciones, y que los hace depender de las presiones políticas que se ejercen a través de la Comisión Judicial. No ha sido preocupación para la Sala Constitucional la omisión de la Asamblea Nacional de sancionar las leyes del sistema judicial en el plazo de los seis (6) meses siguientes a su instalación, para acabar con la transitoriedad, como se lo ordenó la Disposición Tercera Numeral 5I de la Constitución. Por el contrario, si lo ha sido la omisión en que ha ocurrido, por ejemplo, en no sancionar la Ley Orgánica del Poder Municipal, hasta el punto que de oficio declaró la inconstitucionalidad de esta omisión[32]. La inestabilidad judicial, por otro lado, se agrava por la intervención del poder legislativo, dominado por el gobierno, con la promulgación apresurada de Ley Orgánica del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, que incluso prolonga la transitoriedad del régimen judicial.

Un ejemplo patente, de esta intervención judicial del Poder Judicial, por motivos políticos, además de las remociones de los jueces penales antes mencionadas, es la remoción por esta Comisión de los cinco (5) jueces de un importante tribunal nacional, como lo es la Corte Contenciosa Administrativa y con su clausura durante diez meses, después que esta Corte dictó una medida cautelar solicitada en un recurso contencioso administrativo de nulidad que suspendió el acto administrativo que permitió la contratación de médicos cubanos para un programa de salud por violar los derechos a la igualdad ante la ley de médicos venezolanos establecidos en la Ley de Ejercicio de la Medicina [33],. Decisión esta que fue calificada por el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia de error inexcusable para justificar la remoción[34]. Intervención que se completó con la sentencia de la Sala Constitucional que arrebató la competencia a dicha Corte Contenciosa para que siguiera conociendo de esta demanda, con el argumento que por afectar a intereses colectivos la competente con exclusión de cualquier otro tribunal lo es la propia Sala Constitucional[35]. Asimismo, otro ejemplo patente de esta intervención judicial política del Poder Judicial lo es el denominado secuestro de la jurisdicción electoral por la Sala Constitucional[36]. O, “la guerra de las Salas del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia frente al referéndum revocatorio”[37] , para evitar que se ejecutara la decisión de la Sala Electoral que ordenó al Consejo Nacional Electoral contabilizara las firmas rechazadas para la convocatoria del referéndum revocatorio del mandato del Presidente de la República. La Sala Constitucional para arrebatar la jurisdicción de la Sala Electoral, como juez natural, incluso desconoció y contrarió su propia doctrina que establecía la competencia exclusiva de esta última Sala en los asuntos electorales[38].

La intervención legislativa del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, con la cual se completa el control del Poder Judicial por el Presidente y sus aliados, con la aprobación de la mayoría del dicho Tribunal, y que destruye, por tanto, aún más la separación de poderes y la independencia del Poder Judicial, lo constituye la sanción por mayoría simple por la Asamblea Nacional de la Ley Orgánica del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia. Con esta Ley se perseguía ampliar el número de miembros de este organismo de 20 a 32 magistrados, la designación de los nuevos magistrado y la creación de nuevos mecanismos para la anulación de sus nombramientos y su suspensión por mayoría simple y no por los dos tercios de los integrantes de la Asamblea Nacional que se requieren para su remoción. Y, modificar el quórum de instalación y deliberación de las Salas del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia.

Para la aprobación de esta Ley la Asamblea Nacional reformó varias veces sus reglamentos internos para acortar la deliberación parlamentaria y limitar las intervenciones de los diputados e integró diversas normas en larguísimos textos legales, para abreviar la discusión a pocos artículos de la Ley[39]. Demandada la inconstitucionalidad de las reformas al reglamento de debates, por violación de los derechos constitucionales parlamentarios, la Sala Constitucional consideró validas todas las reformas[40] y con ello facilitó la aprobación de la Ley Orgánica del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia que ciertamente permite una intervención del poder legislativo en este Tribunal y por ende del poder político.

Esta Ley ha sido calificada por Human Rights Wacht como de “toma política del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia”, porque le “permitirá al gobierno y a su coalición en la Asamblea Nacional copar y purgar el Tribunal Supremo de Justicia”[41]. Ya la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, con anterioridad, había advertido que el Proyecto de esta Ley contenía “implicaciones negativas para la independencia del Poder Judicial”[42]

La manipulación del Derecho, para instrumentar un sistema presidencialista y militarista, se evidencia por la facultad otorgada en la Constitución a la Asamblea Nacional de delegar su potestad normativa en el Presidente de la República[43], que según la Sala Constitucional, no tiene “ ningún tipo de límites de contenido”, incluso para dictar aquellas leyes orgánicas que para sancionarse requieren de los dos tercios de los diputados[44]. Lo que ha sido denunciado por la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos porque tácitamente encubre la posibilidad de creación de figuras penales a través de normas emanadas del poder ejecutivo y no del poder legislativo, en contradicción con la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos[45]. Asimismo, la consagración en la Constitución del privilegio del antejuicio de mérito para los altos oficiales de la Fuerza Armada previo al enjuiciamiento de delitos[46], es una demostración del trato discriminatorio para los civiles que vulnera las normas del debido proceso en relación con la garantía de un trato igualitario. Y, la consagración de un régimen aparte y separado de contraloría para dicha Fuerza[47] no garantiza la independencia de la función contralora y dificulta el control de las autoridades civiles sobre las autoridades militares[48]. En este orden de ideas, en materia de seguridad interna la Constitución atribuye actividades de policía a la Guardia Nacional[49], que es un componente de la Fuerza Armada, cuando estas actividades deben corresponder exclusivamente a los cuerpos policiales, puesto que no se trata de la defensa nacional, que si es asunto militar. Y, por otra parte, no cabe duda que la eliminación en la vigente Constitución del carácter no deliberante de la Fuerza Armada y de su sujeción al poder civil que constituía un principio tradicional de nuestra historia republicana, ha contribuido a que la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos afirme que en Venezuela existe un excesivo “estado deliberativo de las Fuerzas Armadas y una indebida influencia de éstas en el accionar político del país”[50].
Un aspecto relevante en este esquema de proyecto de concentración del poder tiene que ver con la impunidad, sobre todo en delitos contra derechos fundamentales cometidos por autoridades. La Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos ha señalado, que s ha podido “constatar que la mayoría de las violaciones del Estado venezolano se refieren a infracciones de las obligaciones del Estado venezolano de prevenir e investigar los delitos y castigar a los culpables, generando situaciones de impunidad”. Y, que según sus investigaciones se ha recibido información sobre el aumento significativo de la impunidad en Venezuela en los últimos años relacionada con hechos de violencia, según la cual un 90% de las investigaciones sobre violaciones a los derechos humanos no supera las etapas preliminares del proceso[51] . También en este aspecto, interpretaciones judiciales facilitan esa impunidad. Así, por ejemplo, la Sala Constitucional desconoce el carácter obligatorio de las decisiones de los órganos internacionales de derechos humanos, porque su ejecución queda condicionada a que la propia Sala determine que no contrarían la Constitución[52], que no sólo implica una violación a la normativa constitucional[53], sino también un desconocimiento de los compromisos asumidos por el Estado venezolano al ratificar la Convención Americana de Derechos Humanos [54]. E, igualmente la Sala Constitucional restringió el alcance del artículo 29 de la Constitución, que permite a los ciudadanos acudir a los tribunales ordinarios a solicitar la investigación y el juzgamiento de los delitos contra los derechos humanos cometidos por las autoridades, al reservar sólo al Ministerio Público tal iniciativa[55].
Basta citar como un ejemplo de la utilización de la función legislativa para burlar los controles de la constitucionalidad, la actitud de la Asamblea Nacional de reformar el Decreto con fuerza de Ley de Tierras y Desarrollo Agrario[56], para incorporar disposiciones, con apenas variaciones en sus textos, que habían sido anuladas anteriormente por la Sala Constitucional, por ser evidente su contrariedad con normas constitucionales que prohíben la confiscación y que garantizan el debido proceso y el derecho al juez natural para el caso de rescate de tierras[57]. Y como ejemplo de la utilización de la facultad reglamentaria ejecutiva para los mismos fines y para controlar el sector educativo, se pueden señalar las reglamentaciones organizativas del Ministerio de Educación Superior que desconocen la Constitución y la Ley de Universidades, que reconocen a éstas su autonomía[58], al modificar las competencias para la creación de planes, programas e institutos de investigación, del Consejo Nacional Universitario, que congrega a las universidades, para transferirles a un Viceministro[59].

Por último, no cabe duda que las sentencias de la Sala Constitucional sobre los limites al derecho a la información, de expresión y de pensamiento, en el sentido que estos derechos están sujetos a los valores y principios que inspiran el Estado[60], en franca contradicción con la normativa y la jurisprudencia internacional en materia de libertad de expresión[61], sirvieron de apoyo a la Asamblea Nacional para sancionar leyes como la de responsabilidad social en radio y televisión y la de reforma parcial del Código Penal que penaliza con mayor penas, la injuria, la difamación, los cacerolazos y las ofensas a los funcionarios públicos[62]. Reforma esta que incluso para el Fiscal General de la República constituye “un desmedido aumento de la represión”[63] y para los especialistas constituye “una penalización de la crítica”[64] y que para la Relatoría Especial para la Libertad de Expresión de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos constituye una ley de desacato que viola de la libertad de expresión y el derecho a la información[65] . A este aumento de la represión debe sumarse la sentencia de la Sala Constitucional, de fecha 11 de marzo de 2005[66]que, basándose en su interpretación de atribuirse una jerarquía superior al resto de las demás Salas del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia para revisar y anular sus sentencias, anuló la sentencia de sus Sala Plena de fecha 14 de agosto de 2002 que había considerado que un grupo de militares no había incurrido en el delito de rebelión en los sucesos del 11 de abril de 2001. Sentencia esta que no sólo viola la garantía constitucional del doble juzgamiento, sino que, además, supone una modificación a las competencias de las Salas establecidas en la propia Constitución, usurpando, de esta forma, el poder de revisión constituyente.
En materia sindical, la Constitución prevé que el Poder Electoral puede intervenir en las elecciones internas de los sindicatos[67], lo cual alertó a la Organización Internacional del Trabajo sobre el peligro que representa para la libertad sindical, y, en virtud de las frecuentes denuncias de intervenciones gubernamentales en la dinámica de las organizaciones sindicales para desconocer la dirigencia sindical electa por los trabajadores, dicha Organización advirtió al Estado venezolano sobre esta violación[68]. Esta advertencia fue incluso acogida por la Sala Electoral del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia que precisó que el Poder Electoral tiene funciones supletorias en las elecciones sindicales y que no puede intervenir sino cuando una controversia eleccionaria si la organización sindical no pueda resolverla en su seno [69].
Como resumen, cabe la conclusión a que llegó la Comisión de Derechos Humanos sobre la situación de la institucionalidad democrática en Venezuela: Se “ha observado preocupantes signos de fragilidad institucional entre los que se puede mencionar la falta de aplicación íntegra de la nueva Constitución, la percepción de la falta de independencia de los poderes del Estado, la creciente concentración del poder en el Ejecutivo Nacional, la impune actuación de ciertos grupos civiles armados y de los grupos parapoliciales, la tendencia a la confrontación y descalificación de la oposición política por parte del Gobierno, los constantes ataques contra periodistas y medios de comunicación, la tendencia hacía una militarización de la administración pública, mediante el rol cada vez más protagónico de las Fuerzas Armadas, la creciente radicalización de las posturas en un contexto de descontento social frente a las demandas sociales y las controversias con relación al ejercicio de los derechos sindicales”[70]. A esa fragilidad institucional, no cabe duda, que ha contribuido el activismo judicial del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia y la manipulación del Derecho por los poderes del Estado, en beneficio de un proyecto político estatista militarista y personalista.

Ciudad de México, 20 de abril de 2005.

* Relación presentada en la Mesa Redonda “Lecciones prácticas de la crisis política venezolana”, en el Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas de la Universidad Autónoma de México, celebrado conjuntamente con la Fundación Manuel García Pelayo, 20 y 21 de abril de 2005.

[1] “Manipulando el Estado de Derecho: Independencia del Poder Judicial amenazada en Venezuela”, Human Rights Wacht, junio de 2004, Vol. 16, No. 3 (B).

[2] Hernández Mendible, Víctor Rafael, “La contribución del Poder Judicial a la desaparición de la Constitución, la Democracia y el Estado de Derecho”, en “El nuevo Derecho Constitucional Venezolano”, Ponencias presentadas en VI Congreso Venezolano de Derecho Constitucional en homenaje al Dr. Humberto La Roche, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas, 2002, páginas 81 a 107.

[3] Brewer Carias, Allan, “La progresiva y Sistemática demolición de la Autonomía e Independencia del Poder Judicial en Venezuela (1999-2004)”, XXX Jornadas “J. M: Domínguez Escovar”, “Estado de Derecho, administración de justicia y derechos humanos”, Barquisimeto, enero 2005. páginas 33 a 174.

[4] Artículo 136 de la Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela ( Gaceta Oficial N° 5.453 Extraordinaria del 24.03.2000, que corrigió el texto publicado en la Gaceta Oficial N° 36860 del 30.12.1999)..

[5] Acuerdo de la Corte Suprema de Justicia en Pleno del 23 de agosto de 1999, que respaldó el Decreto de Reorganización del Poder Judicial de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente y Sentencia de la misma Corte en Pleno del 14 de octubre de 1.999 que consideró legítimo el Decreto de Regulación de las funciones del Poder Legislativo de la misma Asamblea del 25 de agosto de 1.999.

[6] Sentencias Nos. 17 y 18 del 19 de enero de 1.999; 271 del 18 de marzo de 1.999; 639 del 3 de junio de 1999 y 746 del 17 de julio de 1.999.

[7] Hernández Mendible, Víctor, Loc. Cit., página 94.

[8] Brewer Carias, Allan, Loc. Cit., página 40.

[9] Sentencia del 14 de octubre de 1.999.

[10] Sentencias Nos. 4 del 26.01.2000 y 6 del 27.01.2000.

[11] Así denominó la Sala Político Administrativa del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia al Decreto de la Junta Directiva de la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente de Medidas Cautelares Urgentes de Protección al Sistema Judicial ( Sentencia N° 1320 del 02.11.200).

[12] Brewer Carias, Allan, Loc., Cit., página 76.

[13] Gaceta Oficial N° 36.884 del 03.02.2000.

[14] Hernández Mendible, Víctor Rafael, Loc. Cit., página 106.

[15] El caso más reciente es el de la imputación de conspiración contra el Dr. Carlos Ayala, Presidente actualmente de la Comisión Andina de Juristas y Expresidente de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. Este hecho provocó una carta al Fiscal General de la República por parte de la Comisión Internacional de Juristas de fecha 13 de abril de 2005, que calificó el hecho de acoso y represalia y que denunció en este caso la violación de los Principios Básicos sobre la Función de los Abogados adoptados por la Asamblea General de la ONU en 1990 y de l a Declaración sobre el derecho y el deber de los individuos, los grupos y las instituciones de promover y proteger los derechos humanos y las libertades fundamentales universalmente reconocido, adoptados por Resolución 53/144 de la misma Asamblea (www.globovisión.com.ve/documentos/cartas.comunicados/2005.05.13/comision/index.14/04/05)

[16] Ver Informe de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos sobre la Situación de los Derechos Humanos en Venezuela ( 24 de octubre de 2003). XVI Informe Anual de PROVEA sobre la situación de los derechos humanos en Venezuela ( Octubre 2003/septiembre 2004).

[17] Comisión Andina de Juristas, “Los Desencuentros del Poder”, Informe Anual sobre la Región Andina, enero 2004, páginas 194 y 226.

[18] Sentencia N° 457 del 05.04. 2001.

[19] Sentencia N° 180 de 28 de marzo de 2000, que contradice Sentencia N° 179 de la misma fecha.

[20] Informe de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos sobre la Situación de los Derechos Humanos en Venezuela, 24 de octubre de 2003, Numeral 188.

[21] Gaceta Oficial N° 37942 del 20.05.2004.

[22] Artículo 267 y Disposición Transitoria Tercer, Numeral 5, de la Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela.

[23] Artículo 255

[24] Se estima que el 80% de los jueces son provisionales o temporales ( Ver el Informe ya citado “Manipulando el Estado de Derecho. Independencia del Poder Judicial Amenazada en Venezuela”, de Human Rights Wacht, junio 2004, Vol. 16, N° 3, página 11, que califica a esos jueces de “jueces desechables”.

[25] Ver el Informe citado, página 15.

[26] Sentencias N° 4 del 26 de enero de 200; N° 6 del 27 de enero de 2000; 180 del 28 de marzo de 2000 y Auto del 12 de diciembre de 200 ( Inadmisibilidad de la demanda de inconstitucionalidad de la Ley Especial para la Ratificación o Designación de los Funcionarios o Funcionarias del Poder Ciudadano y Magistrados y Magistradas del Tribunal Supremo de Justicia de 14 de diciembre de 2000). Y sentencia N° 1562 de 12 de diciembre de 2000.

[27] Artículo 263 de la Constitución

[28] Sentencia N° 1562 de 12 de diciembre de 2000.

[29] Artículo 7° ibidem

[30] Sentencia citada N° 1562 del 12 de diciembre de 2000. |

[31] Ambos términos han sido expuestos por el Profesor Allan Brewer Carias en su trabajo citado “La progresiva y sistemática demolición de la autonomía e independencia del Poder Judicial en Venezuela (1-999-2004)”.

[32] Sentencia N° 3118 del o6.10.2003.

[33] Medida esta que fue desacata por el Ministerio de Salud y el propio Presidente de la República declaró que el gobierno no acataría la decisión de amparo (Programa Radial “Aló Presidente”m N° 151, del 24.08.2004, violando la Ley Orgánica de Amaro sobre Derechos y Garantías Constitucionales que impone a todo funcionario la obligación de cumplir los mandamientos de amparo ( Artículo 19) y que incluso califica de delito el desacato de estos mandamientos ( Articulo 31).

[34] Sentencia de esta Corte de fecha 21 de agosto de 2003. En Brasil un juez federal el 12 de abril de 2005 ordenó al Gobierno de Tocantins, y éste acató la medida, despidiera 96 médicos cubanos que trabajaban en programas de salud familiar preventiva en respuesta a una demanda interpuesta por el Colegio de Médicos del Estado ( Diario “El Nacional”, Caracas, 16 de abril de 2005, página B12.

[35] Sentencia de 25 de septiembre de 2003

[36] Brewer Carias, Allan, trabajo citado, páginas 121 a 164.

[37] Ver “Brewer Carias, Allan; José Peña Solís; Rafael J. Chavero Gazdik; Román J. Duque Corredor y Ricardo Antela G., en “La Guerra de las Salas del TSJ frente al Referéndum Revocatorio”, Editorial Aequitas, C. A., Caracas, 2004.

[38] Ver Sentencia de la Sala Constitucional N° 27 del 29 de marzo de 2004 y Sentencia del Juzgado de Sustanciación de la misma Sala N° 92 del 2 de diciembre de 2003.

[39] Por ejemplo, los artículos 19 y 21 constan cada uno de treinta (30) párrafos.

[40] Sentencia N° 1718 de 20.08.2004.

[41] Informe citado, Vol. 16, N° 3 (B), página 1.

[42] Comisión de Derechos Humanos Informe sobre la Situación de los Derechos Humanos en Venezuela, 24 de octubre de 2003, Numeral 158.

[43] Artículo 203 de la Constitución.

[44] Sentencia N° 1719 de 19.09.2001.

[45] Informe sobre la Situación de los Derechos Humanos en Venezuela, 24 de octubre de 2003, Numeral 57.

[46] Artículo 266, numeral 3.

[47] Artículo 291, ibidem.

[48] Informe citado anteriormente numeral 56.

[49] Artículo 329 de la Constitución.

[50] Informe citado numeral 16.

[51] Informe citado Numeral 13.

[52] Sentencia N° 1942 de 15 de julio de 2003.

[53] Artículo 31 de la Constitución

[54] Informe de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos citado, numerales 209 a 214.

[55] Sobre un comentario sobre la distorsión interpretativa del este artículo, se puede ver mi trabajo “El derecho constitucional de acceso a la justicia para la investigación y juzgamiento de delitos contra los derechos humanos cometidos por autoridades del Estado”, en Estudios de Derecho, Derecho Publico y Procesal, Tomo III, Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas, 1004, páginas 115 a 162.

[56] Gaceta Oficial N° 37.323 del 13 de noviembre de 2001.

[57] Los artículos 89 y 90 del referido Decreto habían sido anulados por la Sala Constitucional mediante sentencia 20.11.2002.

[58] Artículo 109 de la Constitución y Artículo 9° de la Ley de Universidades ( Gaceta Oficial N° 1.429 Extraordinaria del 08.09.1970).

[59] Decreto N° 3464 sobre Organización y Funcionamiento de la Administración Pública Central (Gaceta N° 38.124 del 10.02.2005) y Decreto N° 3.444 mediante el cual se dicta la reforma Parcial del Reglamento Orgánico del Ministerio de Educación Superior ( N° Gaceta N° 5.788 Extraordinario del 27.02.2005)

[60] Sentencias 1013 del 12.06.2001 y 15 de julio de 2003.

[61] Informe especial de la Comisión Interamericana sobre el Derecho ala Libertad de Expresión y Pensamiento en Venezuela,

[62] Por ejemplo, incrementó el límite mínimo de la pena del delito de injuria 60 veces y el máximo 45,6 veces ( Fernández, Fernando, Diario “El Nacional”, Caracas, del 03. 04.2005, página A7.

[63] Diario “El Nacional”, Caracas, 31.03.2005, página A6.

[64] Fernández, Fernando, ibidem.

[65] Ver Derechos Humanos y Coyuntura, de PROVEA, Boletín Electrónico N° 153, del 28 de marzo al 7 de abril de 2005, Sección Documentos.

[66] Expediente AA50-5-2004-00327.

[67] Artículo 293, numeral 6.

[68] Ver Informe de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos citada, Numerales 28 a 30.

[69] Sentencia del 23-07.2002.

[70] Informe citado Numeral 9

The Zamorana pistol: an endogenous product development in Hugo Chavez revolution.

2005-10-06T01:21:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

Reading this article in Bogotá’s El Tiempo, written by Valentina Lares Martiz, I learned that the revolution is now promoting manufacturing weapons.

The first product will be a 9 mm pistol called “Ezequiel Zamora” in honor of the colorful leader of Venezuelan Federal war that is one of Chavez’s icons. Some of Chavez’s friends have even said that the president believes that he is Zamora’s reincarnation (see here). So the choice for the pistol’s name is quite suggestive.

For the first time there will be fire arms 100% made in Venezuela. Actually, according to the article, the president of Cavim, the industry in charge of producing the arms, says that this will allow the substitution of foreign made weapons.

I am quite proud. Killing machines 100% made in Venezuela, a good legacy of Chavez’s revolution.

When facing the criticism because instead of producing medicines or food, Venezuela is investing in native weapons, the president of Cavim stated that his company is 100% private, although it is associated with the Ministry of Defense.

But you have to pay close attention to the next sentence, which is absolutely sublime. I will copy it here so that all its sense is not lost in translation or that you would think that I am making that up.

"Venezuela no está en una carrera armamentista. Cavim tiene un objetivo social y lo que está haciendo es trabajar, producir armamento, municiones y explosivos",

It says that Venezuela is not in an armament competition. Cavim has a social objective (you read it right!) and what is doing is working, producing weapons, ammunitions and explosives.

Gee! Thanks for explaining! Producing weapons, ammunitions and explosives must really have a profound social objective. Now, this ghost blogger is clueless. I wonder which social objective that could be. Unless it is getting everyone killed to get rid of social problems?

But, if you were still nervous about this weapon business, keep reading, this should make you relax:

..quien aseguró que las armas tampoco están destinadas a atacar alguna nación: "Esa no es nuestra filosofía. Cavim se adapta a la nueva doctrina expresada por el Presidente sobre la defensa de la soberanía".

Cavim’s president assured that the weapons will not be used to attack any nation. “That is not our philosophy. Cavim adopts the new doctrine expressed by the President about the defense of sovereignty”.

What doctrine are we talking about? The one according to which Chavez wants to create an army of two million people? (see Alo Presidente, April 3, 2005, page 37)

After all, this is the government that considers as a “good news” to arm and train peasants (see my article here).

And to complete the picture, let us keep spreading the good news. The advantage of the Zamorana pistols is their low cost, they will be quite affordable. According to the article they will cost 372$, about half the price of an imported 9 mm Glock.

And if you, dear reader, are still not convinced of how wonderful this new Chavista enterprise is, here is the best part. The industrial plant will be able to produce 15000 weapons a year! Isn’t that great?

So, Venezuela, that has one of the highest crime rates of the world and an astounding number of deaths by fire arms, will now produce even more affordable weapons. Since we had not enough of them, with 15000 cheap extra weapons, we will now be able to reach a good level of development and social peace.

Why didn't we figure that out before?

Is this plain goverment stupidity or does it have the intentional objective of keeping arming the people to “defend” the revolution?

What can I say?I am speechless.

Jorge Arena.

...And now, what is wrong with your Constitution, Mr. Chavez?

2005-09-17T04:26:00.000-07:00

Originally published here
On September 14, 2005, Chavez presented the candidates of his party for the next National Assembly. The election will take place in December of this year. The National Assembly is currently slightly dominated by the Chavistas so that they can pass the laws as they wish (remember the "porque nos da la gana" of Iris Varela? (El Nacional, June 22, 2005, A2)). However, a much more important majority is necessary to reform the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution. According to article 343, 2/3 of the votes of the National Assembly are needed . That is why the December election for the members of the National Assembly is so critical.

In his speech, Chavez told his candidates that he wanted that, by January 5, 2006, right after the December elections, they start working on major Constitutional changes.

Why? And which changes are needed?

Moreover, how come the government official page (the MINCI) does not mention Chavez constitutional request to his candidates when reporting the same event?

Given that the December election is so critical, why not openly discuss the changes before the election? What is Chavez hiding? Over the years, Venezuela has had many Constitutions. Typically every "caudillo" aiming to stay in power, would modify the Constitution accordingly and pass it as his own to tailor-made his political needs while providing a veneer of legitimacy. Notably among them, was Juan Vicente Gomez, a tough dictator that stayed in power from 1908 until his death in 1935 . He ordered at least seven changes to the Constitution and was quite successful in his quest for absolute power.

The first Constitution of the Democratic era was passed in 1961. It defined presidential terms of 5 years. To reinforce the democratic rule and to make sure that the classical Venezuelan "caudillos" would not eternize themselves in power, the writers of the 1961 Constitution stated that a president could not run for re-election right away. At least ten years had to elapse from the end of a presidential term before that president would be allowed to run again. That rule, so necessary in a country that had lived through dozens of takeovers, was systematically respected by all the leaders of the democratic era.

Then came Chavez. First, on February 4, 1992, after years of conspiring, he tried to overturn by force the Constitutional mandate of Carlos Andres Perez.

Later, when he was elected president in 1998, he was swore in on what he called the "moribunda" (the dying Constitution). He immediately started a campaign to create a Constitutional Assembly to be able to pass a new Constitution tailor-made according to his wishes. The Constitutional Assembly, whose mandate was only to write the new Constitution, illegally took over all the legislative powers of the Congress, that had an opposition majority.

In the end, all Chavez's wishes were included in the Constitution proposed by the Constitutional Assembly that was to be approved by Referendum on December 15, 1999.

There was one particular wish that was very important for Chavez. Instead of the non-renewable 5 year term stated in the 1961 Constitution, the new president would have a 6 year term, renewable for one more term. This would give Chavez 12 years. But, the deal was even better! The Chavez controlled Constitutional Assembly illegally dissolved the elected Congress and did not respect the transitory period that had to take place before the new Supreme Court judges and government figures could be nominated.

Therefore, right after winning the 1999 Constitutional referendum and in the midst of the confusion and sadness created by the 1999 Vargas tragedy, Chavez was able to change the Court and all the government figures without any wait, giving him more power than any other President before him in modern Venezuela history.

A sweet deal.

I hope that the occasional reader now understands why Chavez was so keen to ask the poor people of Venezuela to get out and vote in the Referendum to ratify his Constitutional project on December 15, 1999 instead of declaring right away the State of Emergency. (please refer to my post).

You may also wonder why Chavez has been in power since 1998 if the new Constitution was passed in 1999 and, according to the last one, there was no immediate re-election. In fact, even though Chavez was elected under the old rule, a complacent Supreme Court allowed him to run for President in 2000 for a 6 year renewable period. Therefore, Venezuela has been under the rule of Chavez for seven years. This is more than any other president in modern Venezuela history….except, of course, Juan Vicente Gomez, the good old dictator that stayed in power more than 27 years thanks, among other things, to his changes in the Constitution.

Now, after 7 years of unprecedented concentration of powers and total control, Chavez has started again a campaign to change the Constitution. A Constitution that was tailor-made for him and that reflected every one of his wishes.

Why is he pushing now for a Constitutional reform? Why is his 1999 Constitution not good enough?

And more importantly, What are the changes that you want to make, Mr. Chavez?

Why haven't you told us yet?

We can guess. We can guess that Chavez, as a military man and a good ol' Venezuelan caudillo is thirsty for even more power and control.

So now Venezuelans have two clear paths in front of them. To let go, or to fight back.

This time there are no excuses. They have been clearly warned by Chavez himself.

Mistaken subliminal message from Radio Nacional de Venezuela?

2005-08-28T01:19:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

Radio Nacional de Venezuela used to be the most serious radio station in the country, with almost non-stop classical music, interrupted only by the news that usually were given in a very professional, unbiased manner.

Things seem to have changed if I have to judge from the RNV website that is now far from being unbiased. This is not surprising since the Chavistas have taken over all the government media and have transformed them into propaganda outlets.

Imagine for a single moment a PBS website totally devoted to spreading the news about the government of president George Bush. Multiply that by ten and you’ll start to get an idea of how serious is the Chavista penetration in Venezuela official news media. Moreover, there is not just Radio Nacional de Venezuela, but also Venezolana de Television, the MINCI, Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias. VIVE, not to mention the fact that each ministry and government entity seems to have its own news agency.

There are so many official news sites that scanning them all is not a short task. Fortunately for bloggers and journalists, they usually have a single line of thought so that it is easy to pick what is the official party line, so after reading one site one knows already what is presented in all the others.

There are, however, particular features that characterize some sites. The MINCI, used to have the now disappeared “Notas en positivo” that I liked to cite in my posts, and now RNV contains a very interesting opinion section. Typically, the editor of that section offers some hot topics to discuss. When one enters the topic, there is a written “unbiased” summary that introduces the issue, followed by a request for opinions. To post his opinion, the reader has to leave his name, email and telephone number (optional) before the post can be considered for publication.

I do not know if the opinions are truthful or if they have been handpicked by the editors, but I find them interesting because, one way or another, they may provide an idea of what Chavistas think about the particular issue being discussed.

I recently got interested in the discussion on the erroneous Recall Referendum results that appeared on the CNE book. The topic, called “el gráfico de la discordia” (the chart of disagreement) refers to the chart of page 118 indicating that the YES option won by 59.25% whereas the NO had just 40.75% of the vote.

The second paragraph of the introduction to that topic can be translated as follows:

“In the Recall Referendum, that was call by sectors of the opposition, according to the norms established in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, citizens participated in record numbers, when 10 million people voted in one of the most extensive journeys, which gave as a final result that 59.25% of the votes supported the NO option (that ratified the President) and 40.75% voted for the YES (promoted by the now dissolved rightwing coalition “Coordinadora Democrática”), values that were later ratified by the OAS and the Carter Center”.

So, you read it, Radio Nacional de Venezuela, the official Radio of the Government of Venezuela writes in its web page that the results of the Referendum were 59.25% (NO) versus 40.75% (YES).

Now, what is wrong with that statement? Well, actually the official results published by the CNE were not 59.25% vs 40.75% as claimed by RNV but rather 59.10% vs 40.64%. Those are the results published in the official page of the CNE.

Is that an innocent mistake? I think not.

I think this is a deliberate but subtle way to induce the reader to believe that the chart depicted on page 118 of the CNE book represents a simple inversion of a YES by a NO. That inversion would have been a silly but understandable mistake that can easily silence those that wonder if the results given by that chart could be the real results of the Revocatory Referendum.

Unfortunately for you, dear RNV editors, the chart on page 118 may or may not be mistaken, but we are 100% sure that if there was an error, it was not a simple inversion of a YES by a NO. So please stop the subliminal propaganda.

Funny how Chavistas seem to have a problem with numbers! There is always a mistake of some sort, in particular if they are electoral numbers!

Jorge Arena.

Two Tough contests

2005-08-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

Note of the author: because this is an article about a contest, I do not want to give away the names of the winners too early in the text. For this reason, most of the references that I traditionally include as hyperlinks are cited at the end.

The other day I was discussing with some Venezuelan friends about who they thought was the worst figure in the Chavista government. I am aware that the term “worst” is a bit subjective. It depends on which measure is used to assess “badness”. One could interpret it as the one figure that has been most damageable to the country, or the most incompetent, or the one that uses his/her power in the worst way. So there are many definitions to pick the “worst” figure but, regardless of the definition, the contest is indeed quite tough because the competition is very stiff.

The Chavista government is indeed rich in figures that are incompetent, arrogant and cynic, that have damaged the country permanently and that are unusually vulgar, even for the low standards of Venezuelan politicians.

Attorney general Isaias Rodriguez and Vice-president Jose Vicente Rangel were really popular among my friends, and I must admit that they are hard to beat. And who could be indifferent to the charms of Assembly members Tascon or Iris Varela (1) (R5)? But, after some thoughts, I picked two different candidates.

I picked them because of their arrogance, striking even among all the other Chavistas. They systematically forget what it means to be a mayor representative of a democratic institution. They perform their role as if the institutions they are in were their own, with total disregard for anybody that is not identified with their party and their views. But, among all, I picked them because they have two key positions that are the foundation of any democratic system and their lousy job as keepers of the democratic way will make an impact for generations to come.

My first runner up is Chavez’s major puppet in Congress. I am aware of being a bit harsh because everybody in the current government is Chavez’s puppet, but this is a very important puppet. My first runner up uses the thin government majority in congress shamelessly; he does not even understand what it means to respect the voice of the minority, even within his own party. When a law has to be passed because Chavez wants it badly, like the Civil code modification or the Central Bank law, he asks for a blind vote and does not even admit a discussion within his own caucus, let alone the representatives of the very important opposition (R1,R2,R5).

So, my first runner up is definitely Nicolas Maduro, the president of the National Assembly.

My winner is, in my opinion, the most intelligent Chavista in the current government. One may argue that that is not a very difficult achievement given the kind of government figures that are running the country. As we say in Venezuela, “en el pais de los ciegos, el tuerto (2) es rey” (in the country of the blind, the one eyed is king). But my winner is no “tuerto”, he has both eyes and he knows how to use them. No wonder Chavez has chosen for him what is probably the most important position in his government. One may not like him, but the guy can think.

He transformed a vibrant democracy where people believed in their system into the twilight zone we have now in which nobody has any trust in the voting process. A twilight zone in which people see the abstention as the only way to protest what is happening in Venezuela. He did it by the sheer use of his arrogance and probably, his professional knowledge (3). When the opposition raised doubts about the validity of the results of the Revocatory Referendum of August 2004, he systematically refused to provide the voters with the only proof that the system still worked: the manual counting of all the ballot boxes. When Sumate claims that articles 95 and 106 of the Ley Organica del Sufragio have not been respected, he just disregards Sumate claims and says that Sumate may have confused the law with a law in the United States. When Sumate indicates that the electronic notebooks compromise the secrecy of the vote, he disregards it again.

Why do I say he is the most intelligent Chavista of the bunch? Because his strategy is brilliant:

1.- Stand in your position and forget the impartiality that the keeper of the most sacred democratic process should have.

2.-Disregard complaints and public opinion to discourage opposition voters.

3.-When necessary, accuse the opponents of the same ailments of which you are being accused.

So, it is with great amazement that I recently read that he claimed that Venezuela’s current electronic voting system was the most secure of the world and attacked the “cheating” of previous governments that used manual counting (R3,R4). That is brilliant because Sumate is asking for manual counting to insure that Venezuelans trust their system again.

Sumate is his pain in the neck (R6,R7,R8, R9). So by attacking manual counting as a cheating system, he not only wants to pass as the champion of transparency but also attacks Sumate in its quest for clean elections.

So, my winner is definitely my “tocayo” (4) Jorge Rodriguez, president of the CNE.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the end of this discussion, I asked another question to my friends.

“And, what is the Chavista that you like the most?”

They looked at me as if I were an extraterrestrial. It was the classical question that could only had one answer. In fact, they unanimously said

“none!”

I insisted and they kept telling me that there was absolutely no one in the government they could agree with or think good about. I do not accept defeat too easily, so, in the end I changed the question:

“OK, maybe I should not be asking about the chavista that you like the most but rather about the one that you hate the least… ”

They thought very hard about it and one of them, the most virulent anti-Chavez of the group, jokingly came up with this very surprising answer:

“Chavez!”

Even as a joke, I jumped from my seat in disbelief. He added:

« Why not? Remember, Jorge, En el pais de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey »

They meant that the Chavistas are so bad, that, ironically, Chavez himself might be the best of the bunch.

I have been thinking about his answer for a while and found out that I profoundly disagree with my friend. This has been exactly the strategy Chavez has been having lately, his government is so bad that, for his followers, he is a saint that has to put up with those very inefficient ministers. And, for his enemies, his government is so bad that he stands out as the best chavista.

Sorry Hugo, but I am not fooled that easily. You are bad, really bad. I am even tempted to move down Jorge Rodriguez to second place but I want to remain loyal to my original understanding of the term “chavista figures” (that excludes Chavez).

Call me a purist. I told you noneles that this was a difficult contest.

And as for Jorge Rodriguez…

My dear tocayo, in my mind, you are second only to Chavez himself. And, by the way, all my condolences for the ugly tricks that the “mano peluda” (hairy hand) (5) was doing with your book. But you know, tocayo, that will teach you a very important lesson :

When you are the author of a book, YOU SHOULD READ IT FIRST!

Jorge Arena.

(1) Iris Varela is known for some amazing declarations like the infamous “porque nos da la gana” referring to the fact that even with a very thin majority in Congress, the Chavistas will pass any law, no matter how absurd or unconstitutional, “porque les da la gana” (because they feel like it).

(2) In colloquial Venezuelan Spanish a “Tuerto” is a person that lost one eye.

(3) Interestingly, Jorge Rodriguez is a psychiatrist.

(4) Also in colloquial Venezuelan Spanish, people with the same given name are called “tocayos”.

(5) In Venezuela people often refer to a “hairy hand” when unexplicable things happen at the political level.

Articles and references:

(R1)“Maduro sin metro”

(R2)“Otra vez el Codigo”

(R3)“Rodriguez: no hay sistema electoral tan seguro como el de Venezuela”

(R4)“Jorge Rodriguez: credibilidad del CNE aumenta 6%”

(R5)Tal Cual 22/6/05 page 3 “Porque nos da la gana”

(R6)« Estamos haciendo algo importante con Sumate : la estamos ignorando »

(R7)« Sumate introdujo ante el TSJ recurso contencioso electoral contra el CNE »

(R8)« El 7 de Agosto no habra elecciones limpias »

(R9)« CNE confia en decision favorable en Sala Electoral » El Nacional, July 22, 2005, A1.

(R10) “CNE : libro sobre RR tiene erroes, omisiones, mentiras y tergiversaciones”

Delenda Sumate!

2005-07-18T01:41:00.000-07:00

Originally published here

Rome had already won two devastating wars against Carthage and had reached a compromised peace that lasted many years when senator Marcus Cato started a pro-war campaign with one persisting idea:

“Delenda Carthago!”.

It meant, that, no matter what, Rome would never be safe unless the rival phoenician city of Carthage was totally destroyed. For years, with a stubbornness that was noted even after centuries of history, Cato repeated over and over that Carthage had to disappear. He actually finished every intervention about any topic with the famous sentence.

Publicity is always effective. In the end, Cato’s message was heard and Rome decided to go for what was called the third Punic war. Once Carthage had finished paying all the old tributes to Rome, the latest imposed new and tougher conditions to provoke a new conflictive situation. As expected, Carthage’s inhabitants were mad of rage when they knew the new absurd conditions imposed by Rome and the war restarted again.

It was a tough and dirty war, even for those times, Carthage inhabitants resisted as much as they could but the Romans kept the fight. They had just one objective in mind: thoroughly destroy Carthage.

After three bloody years of continuous fights, Rome reached its objective in such an effective way, that there was nobody left from Carthage to formally surrender. Some say that they even throw salt to the defeated city so that it would never be born again. For the first time in their history, the Romans had failed to incorporate the culture of the conquered city, as there was no culture, history or customs left. To this day, we do not know more about Carthage and its inhabitants because of the unusual Roman will to destroy it..

Ironically, Carthage’s destruction did not prevent the decline of Rome, but rather accelerated it. Some historians claim that this was because it gave the Romans a false sense of security. Others say that the destruction of Rome had already started from within, with the decline of the traditional Roman values that were being heavily influenced by the greek ways of life. Some even say that Cato used Carthage as a diversion, consciously knowing that the real menace to the Roman way of life came from Greece.

After reading this fascinating story, I thought of the similarities between the Sumate persecution by the Chavez government and the insistence of Cato to destroy Carthage.

Chavez was a military man and it is still today a military man. In his quest towards absolute power, he has been treating Venezuelan institutions as if they were “the enemy”. An enemy that had to be controlled and beaten.

He has been extremely successful.

His success is due in part to the clumsy and inefficient opposition, in part because nobody believed that he could go that far and still pretend that he was a democratic ruler. Finally and foremost, because Venezuela had weak institutions to start with.

No matter the reason of Chavez’s success, there was a new type of enemy in town that Chavez was not used to fight: Sumate.

The origin of Sumate is, to say the least, unusual. In a country where the civil society was not used to have its voice heard, suddenly there was a civil group that organized itself to literally prevent a civil war in Venezuela. They found the democratic exit to the terrible polarization crisis that was lived in Venezuela.

It was an exit that any democratic leader would have welcome: a recall Referendum, guaranteed in the 1999 Constitution; let the people decide.

But Chavez government was not happy at all about it and did all the possible tricks to avoid going to a Referendum. Sumate organized a signature collection, not once, but three times! (see Daniel’s excellent summary here). They were systematic and efficient and used Chavez’s own weapon: the 1999 Chavista Constitution to lead the fight.

A few months before the Referendum took place, Sumate persecution started. It was Chavez itself who, like Cato in the Senate, initiated it by talking in his Sunday TV program about the NED funding. But the Chavista government is, in matters of political persecution, much more effective than the Roman government. It did not take years to initiate the “Delenda Sumate” campaign. The very next day, the Sumate directive was charged by the government attorneys.

I do not think that the funding was illegal. The money was a small grant to organize courses to promote democratic awareness. However, if the money had indeed been illegal, then the government should have fined Sumate and asked them to reimburse it. End of it.

But, according to Chavez, Sumate delenda est! The government had to put all its weight and influence to discredit Sumate and to take its directive to court for …no less than treason!

They dusted a very old article of the very archaic Venezuelan penal code to state that Sumate was destroying “the Republican form” of the government. Thanks to a convoluted interpretation that nobody in his right mind would accept, receiving the small grant from the NED resulted in being charged for treason and risking up to 16 years in jail.

And, by the way, we are talking about Venezuelan prisons.

The attack was not directed towards the institution. It was personally aimed at the four highest members of Sumate: Maria Corina Machado, Alejandro Plaz, Ricardo Estevez and Luis Enrique Palacios. The four young engineers that had dared to create a new form of resistance in Venezuela. Chavez idea must have been to kill two birds with one stroke: eliminate the head of the enemy and intimidate anyone that would ever attempt to carry out the type of dissension that Sumate was leading.

Delenda Sumate!

Meanwhile, since the Referendum, the mighty Chavez government has been taking over whatever was left of the democratic institutions of the country. In particular, the judiciary system, that has never been a model of independence, has been revamped to have only judges blindly committed to Chavez. I hope that Sumate is cleared, but the hope is closer to wishful thinking.

So, there is a high probability that, in the end, Sumate will be destroyed, and that the Chavez goverment will have thrown salt to the Sumate office created by a small group of unlikely democratic heroes.

Maybe, like some historians suspected, Chavez, like Cato, is using Sumate as a diversion. Maybe he is really committed to attack this new type of enemy that resists his controlling expansion or maybe he just do not know how to govern without having an enemy in front of him. In any case, it is clear that Chavez has not learned the lessons from Rome.The Romans flourished while they incorporated the good features of the foreign cultures into their own. The anhilation of Carthage was the beginning of the end. Conversely, Chavez has not understood that he needs the culture of Sumate to be integrated to the democratic values of his government. He does not understand either that it is good for his government to have a democratic watchdog like Sumate in his backyard.

Chavez has not realized that his enemy is not Sumate. His enemy, like in Rome, comes from within: his own inefficiency and his own message of hatred and division that have transformed the country and led it to the brink of civil war.

He can ask his followers to “Delenda Sumate” as much as he wants and like the Romans, he might win the last Punic war.

But, in the end, like Rome, he will be defeated.

Sumate goes to trial

2005-07-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

[Originally published in The Devil's Excrement]

The judge reached a decision: SUMATE directive will go to trial (see also here), but they will not be in jail during the trial. According to Alejandro Plaz, the judge accepted all the evidence presented by the goverment and rejected almost all the evidence presented by SUMATE. In particular, some of the recommendations made by the Supreme Court in their November decision were not taken into account. Maria Corina Machado said that this is a form of intimidation to prevent SUMATE from keeping their campaign of education to have clean elections in Venezuela.

I agree with her. The goverment will do whatever it can to intimidate SUMATE, which is currently the only effective opposition movement in Venezuela.

SUMATE, BTW is just asking what in any democratic country is taken for granted. It can be enumerated in five points:

1.- A reliable electoral registry
2.- Overall audits
3.- Secret vote
4.- Manual counting
5.- Effective observers

So, if you are in Venezuela, show that you care about your five fingers.

Jorge Arena.

9:09:24 PM

Sumate preliminary hearing takes place

2005-07-06T04:46:00.000-07:00

[Originally published in The Devil's Excrement]

After being postponed five times since September, the preliminary hearing to decide whether there will be a trial or not against the Sumate directive took place today. The judge will decide tomorrow if the trial will take place and in which conditions.

Note that despite that the Supreme Court indicated that in the event of a trial, the accused should be free, the Fiscal in charge of the case is asking that the Sumate directive be put in jail during the trial....

Yeah, right, they are such DANGEROUS criminals that the society is in REAL danger having Maria Corina and Alejandro Plaz walking the streets of Caracas!

27 military masked police officers wandering around with machine guns are OK...but Maria Corina! that's a no-no, she is a real threat!

I'll keep you posted.
Jorge Arena.

4:46:36 PM

Some thoughts on Chavez’s “Magnicidios”

2005-07-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

[Originally published in The Devil's excrement]

When I was young, I was fascinated by the story of “Pedro y el Lobo” (Peter's Crying Wolf). I found it was a terrible story, and yet, with the passing of time, I have been able to learn from it and to wisely put in practice the lesson portrayed in the story. Unfortunately, the Venezuelan President does not seem to have learned that lesson at all. Since he got into power, Chavez has systematically stated that he is about to be killed, that there are people outside and inside Venezuela plotting to take his life. He has even introduced a very elegant term to indicate the event of his assassination. He has called it a “Magnicidio”.

My first thought is on the term itself and why it is used.

I must admit with a bit of shame that I did not quite know the meaning of the word “Magnicidio” until Chavez started using it. It was only then that I took the time to check the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy to get the precise meaning of the term. Here is what I found:

*magnicidio.*
	(Del lat. magnus, grande, y -cidio).
	1. m. Muerte violenta dada a persona muy importante por su cargo o poder.

According to this definition “magnicidio” means the “violent death given to a very important person due to his/her position or power”.

The term is vague, to say the least. How does one define “a very important person due to his position or power”? Secondly, I was puzzled that the term had not been widely used before in the Venezuelan Press to designate the assassination of someone important. I do not recall having read or heard that term for the original news of the assassinations of John (1963) and Robert (1968) Kennedy, Martin Luther King (1968) , Anwar El Sadat (1981), Indira Ghandi (1984), Olof Palme (1986), Rajiv Ghandi (1991), Yitzhak Rabin (1995) or Anna Lindh (2003), to mention just a few. I searched the archives of Venezuelan newspapers to know for sure if the killings of those political figures were just tagged as “assassinations” by the Venezuelan Press or if the word “magnicidio” was employed at the time.

Unfortunately, the on-line archives do not go that further back. I was only able to get the original on-line news of the Anna Lindh assassination. As you can see, there is no mentioning of the word “Magnicidio” referring to her assassination. Of course, Chavistas may argue that Anna Lindh was just the Swedish Foreign minister and had been only President of the European Union and candidate to succeed the Swedish Prime Minister…maybe she was not important enough, not compared to Chavez, of course…

So, if you have access to the original Venezuelan newspapers on the assassinations of any of the above mentioned leaders, please let me know. I would really like to know the exact term that was used when the news of those assassinations were printed.

My guess is that it was the Chavistas themselves that dusted and tagged the old term and that the Venezuelan Press followed, falling into their trap. According to the Chavistas, Chavez should not be considered like your everyday leader. They have carefully been crafting an image of Chavez that is closer to that of a Religious figure than a modern politician (see “The Eternal Chavez”, that refers to this article of William Izarra, who is one of the leading ideologists of the Chavista movement). Thus, it is not surprising that an assassination of Chavez should be more than a normal political assassination. Then, the tagged terminology of “Magnicidio”, carefully repeated over and over in Alo Presidente and the other official media outlets, has become a current term, specifically used to designate the assassination of a supreme leader: Chavez.

My second thought refers to the number of times an eventual Magnicidio have been in the news.

I was about to initiate a research on that point when I found this article by Elizabeth Fuentes. Luckily she had already carried out the facts digging work. According to her article, the chronology and accounting of the magnicidio story can be summarized as follows:

1998. - The magnicidio was denounced eight times

1999. - There were six instances of magnicidio callings

2000. - The possibility of a magnicidio was announced eight times again.

2001. - Five times was a magnicidio plot denounced.

2002. - Only one case is reported.

2003. - At least two cases were announced.

2004. - This year too, at least two cases of magnicidio were reported.

Ms. Fuentes stops her research in 2004, but there have been already several reports of Magnicidio in 2005. I did a quick search on El Universal archives a few days ago and, starting on January 1^st 2005, there had been 145 articles about a Chavez magnicidio! The latest, are the suspension of the June 24 Independence parade due to a supposed complot to kill the president (see also here) and the amazing declarations of Fiscal Isaias Rodriguez indicating that Danilo Anderson’s murder was nothing more than a “trial” for the magnicidio (see here and my comments here).

The question is why? Why does Chavez need to constantly get out the news about yet another plot for his assassination?

My feeling is, as usual, that this is a strategy to divert the attention of the Venezuelan people. The government uses the Magnicidio the same way it was believed that previous governments used some urban legends like the UFO arrivals and the extra-terrestrials announcing of the opening of the Avila Mountain. At that time, some people thought that those fantastic news were circulated on purpose to divert public opinion from political scandals or harsh economic conditions. In previous governments those urban legends were heard once in a while, whereas in the current government, the Chavez magnicidio stories are constantly brought up like breaking news by government officials.

Of course, regardless of the magic realism that Venezuelans are used to live, there has never been, in the history of Venezuela, such a circus-like political climate. Simply put it, Chavez is a terrible ruler, and he runs an extremely inefficient government, but he is a great entertainer and he has a lot of money. He has the two ingredients used by the Roman Emperors to remain popular:

“Panem et circenses”.

My last thought is on Chavez handling of the news.

Regardless of whether the Magnicidio attempts are real or not, Chavez handling of the news on that issue has been extremely irresponsible. A real leader, a true statesman puts the security of the state and of the people he is governing before anything else. A leader is someone that would prevent a panic situation, or a situation that can lead to bloodshed or civil war. Well, Chavez has done exactly the opposite. He has systematically warned people in a very public way that he might be killed soon. Moreover, he has incited the Venezuelan people to get out in the streets in the event of his death.

His behavior has been so irresponsible that a few weeks ago Chavez was not seen in public for a whole weekend, which is very unusual. The rumors started and there was already a group of angry Venezuelans outside the Presidential Palace asking to see the President (see here).

This, of course, is the same good old Chavez’s shameful and irresponsible strategy of putting Venezuelans against Venezuelans (see here). It seems that he is even determined that his legacy of hatred and division persists after he is gone.

I pray that nothing happens to him; I do not even want to imagine the terrible situation if it were otherwise.

Jorge Arena.

Students Killed in Venezuela.-Why this is not just a matter of Justice.

2005-07-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

[Originally published in The Devil's Excrement]

I do not just want justice for the death of the three engineering students. I do not just want the policemen that killed them in jail. I do not want just the immediate police chiefs removed from their job, as ordered yesterday by Justice and Interior Minister Chacon.

What I want is the resignation of the ministers responsible of the judiciary and military police that were in charge of that despicable “police operative”. I want a serious commitment of those that would take charge that this type of police operatives will not ever happen again in Venezuela.

So far, it seems that there were two groups: the DIM (Division de Inteligencia Militar) and the CICPC (Cuerpo de Investigaciones Cientificas Penales y Criminalisticas). They depend on the Ministry of Defense and the Justice and Interior Ministry.

Yesterday, I was quite bothered by the reaction of my fellow Venezuelans. Government officials claimed to be revolted and promised that those guilty of the crime will be punished. The students’classmates asked for justice. People that witnessed the killing talked about the “incompetence” of the police. Deputies of the National Assembly talked about initiating an investigation of the killings….

But nobody hinted that there was a higher responsibility in this matter. A government has to answer to its people for nurturing police units within the State that are actually organized to disregard human rights and to kill and injure people as they wish.

This is the unique responsibility of the Government. And within the government, that responsibility lays on the Ministers responsible of the Police units involved in the massacre.

Today, reading El Nacional, I had a blink of a hope. I thought that at least someone understands what it means to live in a democracy! Today there is just one sentence, that is usually written on the lower right corner of El Nacional Opinion page. Today it was a simple question:

“¿Seis jefes y ni un ministro?” (six chiefs and no Minister?).

Whoever wrote that question made my day. Because this is not a simple matter of incompetence, not a matter of punishment, not just a matter of justice.

This case goes beyond that.

This is a matter of fundamental human rights within what should be a modern democratic state.

Jorge Arena.

The tragic and the absurd

2005-06-30T23:13:00.000-07:00

[originally published in The Devil's excrement]

There are two news that I fail to understand. I am reading then again and again in El Universal, El Nacional and Tal Cual and I cannot believe this is happening.

First, there is the killing, three days ago, of three engineering students. The kids were coming from a Physics exam and were giving a lift to a friend. Some members of the DIM (Direction of Military Intelligence) were apparently doing a special operation to find the assassins of one of their members. One of the DIM policemen had his face covered and carried a very large gun. The kids, thinking that they were going to be robbed accelerated the car and the masked guy and the other members of the operation ( a total of 26 policemen) went after them ending up beating and killing three male students and injuring three girls. The kids were unarmed. What revolts me, besides the absurdity of the killing, is the matter of fact explanation given by the authorities. The excuse is that there was confusion and that the masked policeman should not have worn a mask. It was a mistake. A mistake!? A MISTAKE!? Even if the kids had been trained killers, what gives the police the right to shut first? Where are the human rights established in the Venezuelan Constitution? What type of democracy is one in which unarmed kids are savagely beaten and killed by members of the Military Police?

Vicepresident Jose Vicente Rangel, declared that he considered that the government performance in this matter has been excellent, because it has been very quick in taking the necessary measures to find and charge those responsible for the massacre. That, Jose Vicente, is the least you can do. Shame on you! How dare you brag about the efficiency of your government! You should be ashamed to be leading a government for which that type of “police operatives” is candidly accepted. And yes, I want to see in six months how efficient were you after all….

Which leads me to the second absurd news about an unsolved crime that took place more than six months ago: the killing of Danilo Anderson. At that time, the government also bragged about its efficiency. They were so sure of themselves that even killed a “suspect” Antonio Lopez Castillo, a few days after Anderson’s death and found all types of weapons in the house of his parents. At the time, Interior minister Jesse Chacon declared that they were pretty close to close the first phase of the case.

Yesterday, Fiscal Isaias Rodriguez declared that the Anderson killing was really a “trial” to kill Hugo Chavez. That was really intended was the famous “magnicidio” (once again!). According to Rodriguez the plan was “ to kill the President of the Republic, but first, they had to try with other important figures”. It seems that the list started with Danilo Anderson, then the President of the TSJ, followed by the Minister of Defense and finally Isaias Rodriguez himself, right before Chavez!

That is what I call an “intelligent plot”. Someone wants to kill the President and the way to go is to “practice” first with the killing of important political figures. First the means: Danilo Anderson was killed by a bomb installed under the seat of his car. That, of course, is the best way to program the killing of a paranoid president: just put the bomb under the seat of his limousine! Piece of cake. Second the “practice” killing list: important political figures are killed one after the other and what the President and the people around him would order? To LOOSEN Presidential Security, of course!

Come on Isaias! Do you really believe that Venezuelans are so dupe that they are going to buy that story?

Race differentiation in Venezuela.

2005-06-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted in The Devil's Excrement]

Despite the reported elimination of the “notas en positivo” section from the MINCI web site, there is always something interesting going on in the MINCI pages. I learned from this MINCI article that there is a group of Venezuelans identified by the new term “Afrodescendientes” (of African Descent) and that the government has designated May 10 as the day of the “Afrovenezonalidad”.

In this piece of news, there is also a report on the recent International Encounter of Afrodescendientes in Caracas to which Minister Andres Izarra, the Cuban minister of Cultural affairs, Abel Prieto, as well as the president of the National Assembly, Nicolas Maduro, participated. Maduro reported on the occasion that it is possible that the National Assembly would even pass an “anti-discrimination” law.

I was very surprised to learn that Nicolas Maduro, the president of the Venezuelan highest legislation entity, would propose such a new law. There is already a law in Venezuela that protects against any type of discrimination. It is called the Constitution.

Race discrimination, Nicolas, is specifically mentioned in the first paragraph of article 21.

Readers from around the world may wonder why I am making such a big deal about this new terminology introduced by the Chavistas. I know that in many countries, the population is often differentiated based on race, language, ancestors and/or origin, but in Venezuela, the situation is, or was, quite different.

Due to a history of repeated wars and immigration waves, Venezuelans ended up being a true racial melting pot. In a single family, one may find as many variations of skin colors as types of Espressos and Cappuccinos in a Starbuck’s Café. I have had the opportunity to travel and live in several countries and I have never seen such a permeable society as the one we have (we had?) in Venezuela. Venezuela used to be a country of real opportunities, regardless of race. And if one would have to choose one single unracist country in the whole world that would be Venezuela.

Then came Chavez.

His revolution feeds on hatred and division. So he cleverly started a policy of reminding people that they were somehow “different” from each other. I say it was clever because he reached two different goals with that policy: to put Venezuelans against Venezuelans and to gain the sympathy of the politically correct elites of this world.

Why does he want to put Venezuelans against Venezuelans? Because he is inefficient, he does not know how to run the country and the only way to keep his popularity up is to divide, to create an “enemy” and to be constantly seen as the savior from that enemy. And, of course, if that comes with increasing popularity abroad, the better.

I categorically refuse to use my mixed Venezuelan background for hatred or reverse racism. To do that, would be to undermine the suffering of those that have been real victims of racism in the world. But that is exactly what Chavez has been doing since he took power. He has systematically underlined and confused race with political factors to manipulate international opinion. He even takes advantage of his own mixed racial features to make believe that his enemies are racists and that his revolution is somehow related with race.

That is preposterous. I challenge anybody to have a look at the pictures of Chavista ministers and of opposition leaders and to be able to tell, just by their racial features, which is which.

So, it is with no surprise at all, that I find out that the Chavista government is supporting more race differentiation. It simply intensifies their campaign to divide Venezuelans and to look politically correct from abroad.

The funny thing is that the use of the term “afrodescendientes” has no sense at all in Venezuela since nearly everybody is an “afrodescendiente”. We may as well replace it by the good old term that we used before:

“Venezuelans”.

Who is afraid of Sumate?

2005-06-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

[Originally posted in Venezuela News and Views]

In a previous post, I wrote that one of the first milestones that took me out of my political lethargy was the persecution of the Sumate directive. It made no sense to me then and it makes no sense to me now that the government would spend precious time and resources persecuting Sumate for receiving a small foreign grant. It makes no sense either that they dusted an old Juan Vicente Gomez article of the Penal Code and kept it there so that the Sumate directive could be put in jail for 8 to 16 years if found guilty. And, finally, it makes no sense that they react in such a visceral manner every time Sumate makes the news and that top government officials, and even the President, get out of their way to publicly voice vicious verbal attacks against the Sumate directive.

The question is why? Why do they pay so much attention to Sumate? Why are they so afraid of Sumate?

The answer is that the people of Sumate are efficient and effective, and the government is not. They are quite different from the old opposition political entities that can be as incompetent as the government. Sumate delivers and the government knows it. Sumate is Chavez’s real threat.

Sumate is composed of a particular generation of people; a generation of prepared, intelligent, dynamic Venezuelans. They represent what did not go wrong in the old Venezuela. It was a class of highly educated people that were quite aware of the social problems created by the previous generations but who had optimism and a drive to make things change. And good change can come only with a very strict respect of rights and freedoms.

When Chavez stepped in, he had all the popularity, all the powers to make use of that wonderful resource that was left from the old Venezuela. The tragic reality is that he has not even realized it yet. In what is probably the worse mistake made by any ruler in the history of Venezuela, he disposed of that class of people as non-entities and has always rejected their skills and their knowledge. His revolution has been only capable of divisions and destruction; it has been incapable to build up from what were the good elements of the old Venezuela.

First, a subtle apartheid system, never before experienced in Venezuela, was slowly put in place. Those against the revolutionary process started to feel that their views made a difference in the workplace. Before long, Chavez divisive style of government induced a head on confrontation with the most important Venezuelan industry. 20000 people were fired from it: not ten, not a hundred, not a thousand. There were twenty thousand people that were not only fired, but also denied their basic labor rights, and who are still today blacklisted from working ever again in their field. From the human side, many lives were shattered while the government managed, overnight, to get rid of millions of man-years of education, training and Venezuelan know-how.

So, a large part of the population realized that the subtle apartheid was not so subtle anymore. That Chavez meant business, and that he would not stop at anything to retain power by any means. The division of the country and the risk of a civil war were not enough reasons for him to step down. Quite the opposite, he kept and still keeps, his divisive inflammatory discourse to put Venezuelans against Venezuelans.

But Venezuelans are fighters. One must not forget that South American independence from the mighty kingdom of Spain started and came from Venezuela. And this new generation of well prepared Venezuelans found their way to fight for their rights and freedoms; they used the law, their organizational skills and their signatures. Sumate was thus born to find a constitutional solution to the political crisis.

It was not easy. The government can claim in the web page of their US propaganda office VIO that the referendum was going to be a wonderful demonstration of democracy at work, but the reality is that they fought every step of the way, by all means, the holding of that referendum. Moreover, they have blacklisted all those that signed the referendum petition and created a de-facto state of Political Apartheid in Venezuela (see What did Chavez know and when did he know it?).

That, of course, does not appear in the cheerful VIO webpage.

But I digress.

So who is afraid of Sumate? Chavez is. Because he knows that they are a mightier enemy than the good old boys of AD or Copei. He knows that Sumate has the potential to expose to the world the undemocratic face of his revolution.