Posted Saturday, January 7, 2006

Bridge Shutdown -- Closes Caracas Road, Spurs Criticism

Shutdown of a deteriorating bridge (Viaducto N° 1) has closed the main road from the capital Caracas to the coast and the city’s airport, spurring criticism of President Hugo Chávez for failing to maintain the country’s infrastructure. “This is a disaster for me,” said Juan José Hidalgo, whose 25-minute commute to work at a cleaning company has become a three-hour ordeal over a potholed mountain road.

Hidalgo is among tens of thousands who relied on the bridge, part of a four-lane highway linking Caracas to the Caribbean coast, to get to work in the city.

With no exits in between, the bridge closure in effect shut the entire 17-kilometer (11-mile) highway. Signs of imminent collapse forced the government Thursday to shut the 50-year-old span.

The closure may also be a public relations disaster for Chávez as he kicks off his re-election campaign. Political opponents criticize Chávez for neglecting infrastructure spending as he uses the country’s oil riches to provide aid to Cuba, Bolivia and even low-income residents in some U.S. cities.

“Other countries are getting Venezuelan money while we’re having to shut this bridge,” Julio Borges, the presidential candidate of the First Justice party, said in a statement.

“Venezuelans are paying the consequences of the government’s irresponsibility.”  ²

   •        US$1,200 Million  anually to Fidel Castro;

   •        US$1,000 Million  in bonds at preferential market rates to Kirchner's Argentine government;

   •        US$700 Million  promise of subsidized oil to the Caribbean countries;

   •        US$700 Million  promise for an oil refinery to Paraguay;

   •        US$30 Million  “gift” to new leftist government of Evo Morales of Bolivia with no controls as to how it should be                                                 spent;

   •        US$40 Million  petroleum subsidy to the "poor" of Boston, New York, & Chicago;

   •        US$70 Million  for the purchase of a new plane;

   •        US$6,000 Million  in new arms purchases;

   •        US$300 Million  promise to Jamaica for the construction of a new road.

Engineers last year reported that the bridge was buckling. This week, one end of the span moved sideways about 25 centimeters, cracking the road surface.

Engineering Marvel

“Rains have been eroding the earth at the base,” Infrastructure Minister Ramón Carrizales said in an interview on Jan. 3. “We are trying to save the bridge until we can build another one.”

The highway was inaugurated in 1954, reducing the trip between the coast and capital to about 30 minutes from more than an hour. The four-lane highway, used by 50,000 vehicles a day, includes two tunnels and three bridges.

The 309-meter bridge, designed by French engineer Eugene Freyssinet, was an engineering marvel when it was completed.

Built of pre-stressed concrete in an arc, it was called the most challenging engineering feat in Latin America since the Panama Canal.

Carrizales said a new bridge would take at least a year to be constructed.

The government has spent about Bs.30 billion ($14 million) trying to save the existing structure.
Engineers tried to build new support pillars, while cutting free the old damaged ones, hoping to push the bridge back into place. The week’s rains weakened the new support pillars.

Highway concession
The bridge has a history of neglect. Venezuela a decade ago granted a 30-year concession to a Mexican-Spanish-Venezuelan group, Autopistas Concesionadas de Venezuela, to operate and maintain the highway, which was then a toll road.

The company tried to raise tolls 10-fold in 1996 to finance highway repairs and build a new bridge in a $214 million investment program. Protests led to the fare increase being revoked by the government of then-President Rafael Caldera, leading the company to stop investing.

Chávez subsequently canceled the concession in 2000, charging that the operator had failed to fulfill the contract.

“The government didn’t live up to its side of the agreement,” said Robert Bottome, an analyst with research company Veneconomy in Caracas. “And since 2000, the government has not done anything to improve the bridge or highway.”

Economic Repercussions

The shutdown threatens to disrupt the national economy, in addition to inconveniencing the 5 million residents of the Caracas region and every visitor who passes through the international airport.

“This closure will add to transportation costs on goods,” Bottome said. “Goods will have to be sent to other seaports. Airlines will likely have to direct their flights to other airports.”

The La Guaira port in Vargas state handles about 40 percent of Venezuela’s ocean-going freight, Bottome said. The country’s largest port, Puerto Cabello, is about two hours by road from Caracas and is already close to capacity after a surge in imports.“They don’t want to understand that Vargas depends on transportation, on the airport and on the seaport,” Emilio Polumbo, president of the transportation association in Vargas state, said in an interview on Unión Radio.

The old two-lane highway adds hours to the commute and passes through some of the capital’s worst slums where robberies are common.

Taxis more than tripled their fares to Bs.150,000 ($70) from Bs.40,000 to take passengers to the airport from the city center.

“The old highway is just too dangerous,” said Angel Acosta, a taxi driver. “Thieves are smart, and we’re like sitting ducks there if we’re behind a truck and forced to stop.”

˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜

More information about the deterioration & lack of maintenance on Viaducto N° 1 can be found at this excellent websitee:

http://www.geocities.com/spulidos/P_Ppal.html

 

Posted Sunday, November 6, 2005

TV2 Norway Is Not Fooled By The Demagoguery of Chavez

These are 3 interesting videos from channel TV2 of Norway, which is the most-watched station in Norway. Click on each image to see the video:

•  Video 1: Where is the petroleum money going? This video shows the corruption that exists under Chavez today and the fact that the money certainly isn't improving medical services for the poor as Chavez so righteously claims & despite the massive influx of Castro's doctors (23 OCT 2005) - 6.8 Mb;

•  Video 2: Despite Venezuela's oil wealth, unemployment, chaos, & misery have increased under Chavez (28 OCT 2005) - 8.6 Mb:

  •  Video 3: This video shows Chavez's extreme paranoia and how he uses his imagined "threat of assasination" to his advantage as a political tool with the uninformed masses (FEB 20, 2005) - 8.5 Mb:

Posted Thursday, November 3, 2005

Jesse Jackson and Danny Glover Promote Racial Conflict In Venezuela

Gustavo Coronel

October 8, 2005

As a happy adolescent in the small town of Los Teques (20 miles west of Caracas) two of my best friends were Federico Escobar and José Landaeta. Escobar was known as El Negro Federico, because he was ebony black. Landaeta was called El Chino Landaeta because he had strong Chinese features. They are long dead now but I still remember both with great love. All my life in Venezuela I have freely interacted with people of all shades of color without ever giving too much thought to the racial issue. After all, Venezuelans are almost all brown; very few are pitch black or snow white. My first conscious encounter with race came when I was traveling from New York to Tulsa in a Greyhound bus to enter university, in 1951. My traveling companion was a black soldier and we had been talking non-stop when, at a point in time, he stood up and moved to the back. I thought I had said something to offend him but the reason was different: we had crossed the border into Missouri and blacks could no longer ride in the forward section. Many years later, while living in Lafayette, Louisiana, I was asked to fill out a form for the school of my children, stating their racial composition. I wrote: "white 27%, black 18%, Indian 50%, other 5%." The day after, I was asked to go and talk to the Principal. She wanted to meet the person who had written such an unorthodox description.

Back in Venezuela, in the oil industry, I worked side by side with blacks, browns, whites and considered most of them friends and even family. Those I did not get along with had ideas or attitudes I did not share but not a color I did not accept. As a typical member of the Venezuelan middle-class and living in a country that for many decades, from the 1940's to the 1990's, was a wonderful example of social mobility and fluidity, race played no role in my life. Negrito, mi negra, were and are words of endearment in our Venezuelan social dictionary. We are used to attach descriptive nicknames to people without a pejorative meaning. El flaco means the thin one. El gordo means the fat one. El camello, the camel, refers to someone slightly stooped. El gato, the cat, is usually someone light on his feet or with yellow eyes. We never mean to say that those so called are brutes or animals.

In mentioning this, I just wanted to illustrate the atmosphere that prevailed in Venezuela for many decades . . . until Hugo Chávez took over in 1999. Then, things changed.

In a very long and sugary article by Nicolas Kozloff for CounterPunch ("Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race") Chávez is described as a "pardo . . . someone of mixed racial roots." The article adds: "Chávez's features are a dark-copper color and as thick as clay; he has protruding, sensuous lips. . . . His hair is black and kinky. . . . With a long, hatchet-shaped nose and a massive chin and jaw." When he arrived at the military academy Chávez had an Afro. He was poor and he married a poor woman. His education was not good, his economic situation not so bright. Chávez had limited possibilities to move up in the Venezuelan social scale, not because he looked the way he looked but because he did not have the required skills. People like him, of modest origins, but who attended the university and graduated as medical doctors, lawyers or geologists made it up the social end economic ladder in a much more fluid manner. As he could not do this, Chávez became resentful. He blamed the social system or his looks for his lack of success. This started him on the way to become a traitor to his oath as a soldier, on the way to use the guns given to him to defend the constitution and democracy to try to overthrow the democratic government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. He failed in his attempt, although he caused hundreds of innocent deaths, due to his military ineptness and his personal lack of courage. However, the desire of Venezuelans for political change brought him to power, through elections, six years later.

Once in power Chávez decided to get even. He started to promote social and racial hate, attacking the "Oligarchs" (the white and rich minorities) and incorporating racial components into his arsenal of hate words. In doing this Chávez has become the top racist in Venezuela. His presidency has become a war against the rich, the educated, and the ones who are high in the social ladder. To claim, as he does, that racism and social exclusion are only exercised against blacks and Indians is stupid. In fact, they are being exercised in Venezuela, today, against the light skinned and the upper and middle-classes.

In following this strategy of racial hate Chávez has found several willing partners in the U.S., people who are either looking for money from him or share the social resentment and psychological deformations that Chávez has brought to the Venezuelan political and social scene. Two of the most prominent Chávez allies, according to the article by Kozloff, are Jesse Jackson and Danny Glover?. What Kozloff fails to add are the motivations behind this alliance. I think that what mostly moves Jackson is money and what mostly moves Glover is resentment. Jackson has a long record of using racial conflict as a means to extort money from large U.S. corporations and now figures that the Venezuelan scene could be a new gold mine for him and his Rainbow/PUSH coalition. Glover is a bitter man who wears his blackness as a cross, in spite of his success as a Hollywood actor and his buoyant economic status.

This alliance of Chávez, Jackson, and Glover should not be underestimated. They seem to have agreed on a rather perverse and hypocritical plan, already in motion at this moment in time and promising to bring great confusion to U.S. society and more poverty to Venezuelan society. The plan has two main components: one, handing out to U.S. poor citizens and racial minorities, cheap oil, as a means to "prove" that Venezuela is generous and Chávez is good and, of course, that the U.S. is mean and Bush is a monster ("Venezuela promises cheap oil to poor Chicagoans," The Chicago Tribune, October 13, 2005 and "Rainbow/PUSH event draws actor Glover, Venezuelan ambassador," Chicago Defender, October 14, 2005). The other, to intensify the racial hate in Venezuela, to convert the revolution into an all-out fight between the colored and the whites. Let us consider these two components:

1. Venezuela giving cheap oil and free medical attention to poor U.S. citizens, members of the black and Indian communities, might sound like a wonderful idea to those who might benefit from this plan and to those who hate the U.S. and love any initiative that promises to antagonize their favorite enemy. But the actions by Chávez are not only self serving, a strategy to gain sympathy among the U.S. poor but also criminal since, whatever help is given by Venezuela to foreign citizens, has to be done at the expense of the tragedy of the 85% of poor Venezuelans who are worse off today under Chávez than before he arrived in power. You see, Venezuelans today are dying for lack of proper medical attention and medicines in State hospitals, they are not being educated to become self starting citizens, they are being subjected to a policy of handouts which has already converted them into a parasitic society. Venezuelan streets are full of garbage, crime is rampant, and corruption is at an all time high. Venezuelan society is in ruins. Is it logical to believe that Chávez would be bringing relief to the U.S. poor as an altruistic initiative? No one should be fooled into believing that this is an altruistic initiative. This is fraudulent political propaganda, one that will only benefit Chávez and whoever assumes the role of "distributing" the oil among the poor. We suspect that Jesse Jackson would play a big role in this "distribution," due to his strength in the Chicago area, although TransAfrica Forum, the organization where Glover is Chairman, also wants to participate.

2. Promoting racial strife and hate into Venezuela. Bill Fletcher, the president of TransAfrica Forum, said to Kozloff: "I feel that black issues need to be injected into [Venezuelan] politics." Fletcher has been in Venezuela only once, for a few days, invited by Chávez all expenses paid. During his brief visit to my country, Harvard educated Fletcher, hardly a New Orleans evacuee, did not lose anytime to compare Chávez with Martin Luther King (when, in fact, he is closer to the dark side of Malcolm X). I have to ask Bill Fletcher, who is a very civilized person: Why do you feel that racial issues have to be injected in a society that never had the type of racial tensions that you might have experienced in the U.S.? Why do you have to export to my country your bitterness, your hates, your frustrations, and your inferiority complexes? I have to warn Bill Fletcher and his colleagues that, by intervening in Venezuela with their imported racial hang ups, they might be doing the equivalent of what European travelers did, bringing small pox into the New World. With one difference: Fletcher and his friends will be doing it consciously.

I am seriously worried about the degree of criminal intervention that foreigners are practicing in my country: Cuban mercenaries, Nicaraguan rapists, Bolivian cocaleros, U.S. social and racial profiteers, European and Latin American ideologues and fanatics, fascist relics, communist fossils, Muslim extremists and radical Islamics, Colombian narco-terrorists. All the intellectual refuse of the globe seems to be descending on my country, invited by a grotesque, semi-illiterate dictator, with their travel expenses paid with the money that is not Chavez's but ours.

I say to Jackson, Glover and all the rest: hands-off my country. Have the decency to leave us Venezuelans sort out our own problems. Do not try to make a buck at the expense of our tragedies. Concentrate on the problems that you think you have at home.

Posted Sunday, October 9, 2005

The Oil Bubble

October 8, 2005

We keep hearing the word “bubble” to describe industries with rapid and unsustainable rising prices. Hence, the Internet bubble, the telecom bubble, stock market bubble, and now, some analysts believe, a housing bubble. Yet for some mysterious reason no one speaks of the oil bubble -- though prices have tripled in two years to as high as $70 a barrel.

Reviewing the history of oil-market boom and bust confirms that we are in the midst of a classic oil bubble and that prices will eventually fall, perhaps dramatically. Despite apocalyptic warnings, the world is not running out of oil and the pumps are not going to run dry in our lifetimes -- or ever. What's more, the mechanism that will surely prevent any long-term catastrophic shortages in energy is precisely the free-market incentive to make profits that many politicians in Washington seem to regard as an evil pursuit and wish to short circuit.

The best evidence for an oil bubble comes from the lessons of America's last six energy crises dating back to the late 19th century, when there was a great scare about the industrial age grinding to a halt because of impending shortages of coal. (Today coal is superabundant, with about 500 years of supply.) Each one of these crises has run almost an identical course.

First, the crisis begins with a spike in energy prices as a result of a short-term supply shock. Next, higher prices bring doomsday claims of energy shortages, which in turn prompts government to intervene ineffectually into the marketplace. In the end, the advent of new technologies and new energy discoveries -- all inspired by the profit motive -- brings the crisis to an abrupt end, enabling oil and electricity markets to resume their virtuous longterm downward price trend.

The limits-to-growth crowd has predicted the end of oil since the days when this black gold was first discovered as an energy source in the mid-19th century. In the 1860s the U.S. Geological Survey forecast that there was "little or no chance" that oil would be found in Texas or California. In 1914 the Interior Department forecast that there was only a 10-year supply of oil left; in 1939 it calculated there was only a 13-year supply left, and in 1951 Interior warned that by the mid-1960s the oil wells would certainly run dry. In the 1970s, Jimmy Carter somberly told the nation that "we could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."

We can ridicule these doom and gloom predictions today, but at the time they were taken seriously by scholars and politicians, just as the energy alarmists are gaining intellectual traction today. But as the late economist Julian Simon taught, by any meaningful measure oil (and all natural resources) has gotten steadily cheaper and far more bountiful in supply over time, despite periodic and even wild fluctuations in the market.

* * *
If gasoline cost today what it cost a family in 1900 (relative to income), we would be paying not $3 but $10 a gallon at the pump. Or consider that in 1860 oil sold for $4 a barrel, or the equivalent of about $400 a barrel in today's wage-adjusted prices. The first of a continuous series of innovations, in this case the invention of modern drilling techniques in 1869, cut the price by more than 90% -- to 35 cents a barrel.

Fifty years ago people would have laughed out loud at the idea of drilling for oil at the bottom of the ocean or getting fuel from sand, both of which were technologically infeasible. The first deep-sea oil rig went on line in 1965 and drilled 500 feet down. Now these rigs drill two miles into the ground -- and miraculously, the price of extracting oil from 10,000 feet deep in the sea bed today is approaching the cost of drilling 100 feet down from the richest fields in Texas or Saudi Arabia 40 years ago.

This spectacular pace of technological progress explains why over time the amount of recoverable reserves of oil has increased, not fallen. Between 1980 and 2002 the amount of known global oil reserves increased by 300 billion barrels, according to a survey by British Petroleum. Rather than the oil fields running dry, just the opposite has been happening. In 1970 Saudi Arabia had 88 billion barrels of known oil. Thirty-five years later, nearly 100 billion barrels have been extracted and yet the latest forecast is that there are still 264 billion barrels left -- although the Saudis have never allowed independent auditors to verify these numbers.

In this industry, alas, bad news tends to crowd out the good. When Shell announced earlier this year that its oil and gas reserves were down by 30%, there was a global outcry. But when Canada announced in 2004 that it has more recoverable oil from tar sands than there is oil in Saudi Arabia, the world yawned. There is estimated to be about as much oil recoverable from the shale rocks in Colorado and other western states as in all the oil fields of OPEC nations. Yes, the cost of getting that oil is still prohibitively expensive, but the combination of today's high fuel prices and improved extraction techniques means that the break-even point for exploiting it is getting ever closer.

The energy Malthusians counter that China, India and other nations will satisfy their growing appetite for oil by driving demand and prices ever higher. In the short term, yes. But over the longer term, as the Chinese become more prosperous through free markets, China will become vastly more fuel efficient and also help discover new sources of energy.

America produces twice as much output per unit of energy consumed as it did 50 years ago. Liberals who say we need government to intervene in the energy markets, to patch the alleged failings of the free market, fail to comprehend that the command-and-control economies of the last 50 years have been far and away the biggest wasters of energy (and the biggest polluters). South Korea produces about three times as much output per kilowatt of electricity as North Korea does.

This is no call for complacency or inaction in the face of very high energy prices; it's a call for realism. Higher prices for gas and fuel for home heating have cost the average U.S. family about $1,500 to $2,000 a year. (Thankfully the Bush tax cuts have given back about precisely that amount in lower tax payments to the IRS.) The tax on the American economy from higher oil prices has reached $300 million a day and has chopped nearly a percentage point off GDP growth.

* * *
Our point is that the constraints on our ability to find and extract new oil are not geologic or scientific. The real constraints on oil production are barriers created by government. Myron Ebell, an environmental analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, notes that roughly 90% of the oil on the planet rests under government-owned land and these resources are abysmally managed.

In the U.S., environmentalists have erected myriad barriers to drilling for new sources of oil. The American Petroleum Institute estimates that there are at least 100 billion barrels that are fairly easily recoverable in Alaska and offshore that oil companies are not permitted to exploit. Once, we could afford the luxury of not drilling there. Now, thanks to a witch's brew of unforeseen circumstances -- political turmoil in the oil producing countries, China's surge in demand, and hurricanes that have knocked out Gulf refineries -- it's an economic and national security imperative that we do.

Here's one simple idea to increase the domestic supply of oil: Have Uncle Sam share its oil-drilling royalties with the California government. If Californians realized they could go a long way to solving their deficit and overtaxation problems by raising billions of these petro-dollars, the aversion on the left coast toward offshore drilling might well begin to subside.

We will assess at another time the many dreadful ideas -- price controls and "windfall profit" taxes -- that Congress is considering to deal with the energy crisis. But for today it is sufficient to note that the free market will deliver oil, electricity and other forms of energy at declining prices in the future, if only the government will let the market's benign and productive forces work their magic.

Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Chávez's Bold Move: Politicizing The Armed Forces

Jul. 14, 2005

By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER

aoppenheimer@herald.com

The most lasting impact of Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez's self-proclaimed revolution may not be his incendiary speeches against U.S. “'imperialism” nor his daily praise for the Cuban dictatorship, but something that has drawn much less attention -- the politicization of Venezuela's armed forces.

On Tuesday, at the swearing-in ceremony of his new defense minister, Orlando Maniglia, Chávez proclaimed that Venezuela's armed forces are “anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist”, and thus opposed to U.S. policies in the region. “The Venezuelan armed forces are at the heart of the revolution -- alongside the people”, he added.

At another ceremony days earlier, in which he decorated 96 Cuban “internationalist” teachers, Chávez stated that “The Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions are already one and only”, and will defend one another against a potential U.S. invasion, the daily El Universal and the Reuters news agency reported Saturday.

U.S. officials deny any plans to attack Venezuela, and say the idea exists only in Chávez's mind. While Chávez's increasingly belligerent rhetoric is nothing new -- in fact, his revolutionary fervor seems to be directly proportional to the price of oil, which has risen from $9 per barrel when he took office in 1999 to $61 today -- he is taking dramatic steps to restructure the Venezuelan armed forces, which may haunt what is left of Venezuela's democracy for decades to come.

'“People don't take him seriously, but he has been doing everything he said he would do”, says Alberto Garrido, a Venezuelan writer specializing in military affairs. “Chávez has tried to give this process a folkloric connotation, but it isn't folkloric at all.”

TROUBLING SIGNS

Consider the most recent developments:

• On July 5, on Venezuela's Independence Day, Chávez announced creation of a “Territorial Guard”, a force that will be made up of armed civilians fighting clandestinely who will report directly to the president. Pro-Chávez legislator Néstor Leon Heredia was quoted by the Venezuelan press as saying that the new force is modeled after the Iraqi resistance.

• Last month, Chávez announced expansion of the military reserve, currently up to 100,000 civilians, to 500,000 civilians in the short run and eventually to 2 million people. The military reserve reports directly to Chávez. Armed forces commander Armando Laguna has said the Navy conducted its first military exercise with civilians June 15.

• Chávez has resumed wearing a military uniform after nearly three years. He had ended the practice at the request of his former high command, who had asked him to don civilian clothes after a 2002 aborted coup. Those generals have since been retired.

• Chávez has recently changed the armed forces' traditional camouflaged uniform to adopt a Chinese-style one-color garment. He has incorporated the red beret -- the trademark of a 1992 coup attempt he led -- in elite units.

• Simultaneously, Chávez has purchased 15 Russian Mi-17 attack helicopters, more than 100,000 Russian AK-103 rifles, 10 troop transport aircraft and eight navy patrol boats from Spain, and 24 Super Tucano light attack planes from Brazil. Venezuela is also reportedly negotiating the purchase of up to 50 Russian-made MiG-29 planes.

Garrido says Venezuela is embarked on a continental revolutionary project, shared with Cuba. “Under this new military doctrine, the traditional armed forces no longer have the monopoly of the right to wear weapons. Instead, that monopoly is shared by three different levels: the traditional armed forces, the civilian reserve and the armed citizens' Territorial Guard”, he said.

While Garrido thinks Chávez may have reasons to believe that a U.S. attack may be coming, most Venezuelan and U.S. critics of Chavez say his motives are totally different: creating a police state.

DEATH SQUAD

“The Territorial Guard is being created as a death squad, a terrorist and killing apparatus, covered up by the impunity it would get from its direct dependence from the head of state”, said Oswaldo Alvarez Paz, one of the few remaining opposition state governors.

My conclusion: If Chávez means to do half of what he says, his transformation of Venezuela's armed forces -- and distribution of weapons to civilians -- will haunt Venezuela for decades to come, no matter how long he stays in power or who succeeds him.

Posted Friday, May 20, 2005

Oil Wells Refuse to Obey Chavez Commands

May 20, 2005

“We have a little problem,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reportedly told Venezuelans on May 3, “and we are fixing it.”

The “problem” is the drop in output by the Venezuelan state-owned oil company known as PdVSA. The Chavez fixes, thus far, have entailed sending military troops to the oil-rich west of Venezuela to investigate "management errors" and allegations of sabotage, while in Caracas the government is threatening foreign oil companies with contract cancellations and tax hikes.

For most chavistas this may suggest that the whole stink about Venezuela's oil industry's underperformance is about to be resolved. Yet it is likely that the magnitude of the drop in petroleum output is a lot bigger than what Chavez has described. It is equally probable that a military invasion of PdVSA and property confiscations in the private sector won't fix it. Statist economic policies have a sorry productivity record and in this case that record is highly unlikely to be improved.

The big trouble is that Chavez has put Venezuela on a centrally planned economic path not much different from the failed experiments of the 20th century. Indeed, last year he declared that Venezuela was preparing for "the great leap," a seeming reference to Maoist China's 1950s agricultural policies that spread famine. Maybe his books about Chairman Mao never mentioned that disaster.

Closer to home, Chavez emulates Fidel Castro, who once commanded that a 10-million-ton sugar harvest spring from the soil. Fidel also promised to clone a prolific wonder-cow called "Ubre Blanca," so that Cuba would promptly rival Switzerland in cheese yields. Almost 50 years into the revolution, Cuba still isn't Switzerland and milk is a luxury. Venezuela is on the same trajectory.

Chavez has at least one thing right: Tight control of the country's political agenda requires tight control of the country's economy. In Venezuela , that means controlling PdVSA.

PdVSA was born in 1976. Until the Chavez government came to power in 1999, the company made some effort to be politically nonpartisan. Getting a job at PdVSA required business, engineering or technical know-how, not political connections.

That has changed. Not content with just the golden eggs, Chavez wanted the goose. As he began to consolidate his power, he began politicizing both the management and labor arms of the company. That prompted a 66-day strike by employees on Dec. 2, 2002, which brought production levels as low as 150,000 barrels per day (b/d). When the strike ended on Feb. 4, 2003, 18,000 workers were let go, taking the skills and knowledge necessary to run the company with them. PdVSA has never fully recovered.

Today Chavez claims that production is down by a mere 200,000 b/d for a daily output of 3.1 million barrels. Industry experts dispute this and this month critics grew more vocal.

On May 4, Alberto Ramos, an analyst for Goldman Sachs' Emerging Markets Economic Research, noted that since the strike local and international oil analysts have consistently put PdVSA production some 500,000 to 600,000 b/d below government claims. “Such level of production is also corroborated by production statistics published by OPEC and other international energy agencies.”

Venezuela's El Nacional (a daily newspaper) Web site issued a similar report on May 15 -- according to a translation by BBC Monitoring Americas: “An extensive survey of oil industry engineers, geologists, geophysicists and experts indicates that corrective measures have not been taken and the decline in Venezuelan oil production is nearing 1,000,000 b/d. This drop, coupled with a shortfall of associated natural gas, creates an alarming situation with the foreseeable consequence of diminishing crude oil extraction.”

In his report, Mr. Ramos also noted that “several oil analysts” attribute the company's inability to return to pre-strike levels of production to “corruption, mismanagement, inadequate investment levels, sloppy maintenance, and lack of qualified technical personnel.”

Maintenance, management and qualified personnel can be traced to the strike and the layoffs. It is also possible that disgruntled employees are not toiling as they did when they felt they were measured by their work, not their politics. Yet human capital is but one factor of production. Investment is also scarce and likely to grow scarcer as Chavez puts the squeeze on foreign oil companies.

Since being named president of PdVSA, Chavez ally Rafael Ramirez has been working to expand the company's control of the entire industry. On May 6, the research firm Oxford Analytica reported the government is arm-twisting to force the conversion of 32 foreign company contracts into joint ventures that will give the government 51% ownership. The newsletter also said that the government wants -- as prescribed by Chavez -- to raise income taxes on foreign oil companies to 50% from 34%. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Venezuelan tax authorities "held a second round of talks with seven foreign oil companies, including units of Chevron and Shell" on the matter. The government has also said it will no longer pay foreign oil firms in dollars.

Added to the drain on human and financial capital, are serious internal problems that this power grab is producing at PdVSA. Oxford Analytica writes that Mr. Ramirez fired 30 “Chavista managers” on corruption grounds soon after he took over his post -- although he did not present proof.

Oxford Analytica said that the move was “interpreted inside the Chavista movement as Ramirez settling old scores with high-ranking executives of the previous PDVSA administration.” This has provoked an increase in job insecurity among chavistas who thought their politics gave them security. Analytica says that, “crossed accusations of corruption based on leaked internal documents have increased among different Chavista factions.”

Mr. Ramos notes that “aggressive” policies toward the private sector and weak investment in PdVSA “raise serious risks of a further gradual decline in oil production,” making Venezuela all the more vulnerable to a drop in world oil prices. It's quite possible that Chavez will have no more luck commanding oil out of the ground than Fidel had getting cows to give more milk. The “great leap” is looking more and more like a great flop.

 

Posted Saturday, April 9, 2005

Arms Deals, Big and Small

April 6, 2005
STRATFOR

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the planned expansion of his Bolivarian military reserve force from its current level of 80,000 members to nearly 2.3 million armed volunteers. Reportedly, he also hosted a quiet visit by a delegation from North Korea the week of March 27 to April 2. As Chavez weighs the costs of arming and equipping his military reserves, he could be thinking about buying fewer MiGs in favor of adding a North Korean missile deterrent to Venezuela's national armed forces.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said April 3 on his nationally televised weekly program, "Hello President," that he plans to expand the military reserve he created less than a year ago from its current total of 80,000 members to as many as 2.3 million volunteers, or 10 percent of the Venezuelan population. Chavez said this reserve would be trained and equipped militarily. Separately, sources close to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said April 1 that a North Korean delegation visited Caracas quietly last week for meetings with senior Chavez government and military officials.

Chavez already is committed to buying more than $2 billion worth of infantry, naval and air force weapons, radar systems and transports from Brazil, China, Russia and Spain. Arming a military reserve force of 2.3 million members with assault rifles at a price of approximately $500 per rifle would cost the Chavez government approximately $1.15 billion -- about 20 percent of the reported $5 billion cost of purchasing 50 Russian MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters. As a result, Stratfor believes that Venezuela's government is rethinking plans to buy the 50 MiG-29s and is instead considering the possibility of purchasing missiles from North Korea to create a strategic deterrent against external aggression from Colombia and the United States. The Chavez government could use the savings achieved by purchasing cheaper North Korean missiles instead of MiG-29s to arm and equip its Bolivarian military reserve.

The MiG-29s theoretically would give the Chavez government air superiority over neighboring countries such as Colombia. However, in an armed confrontation with the United States -- which Venezuela's new national security doctrine portrays as the Chavez government's greatest enemy -- most of Venezuela's MiGs likely would be destroyed on the ground by U.S. cruise missiles, which would strike without warning. The handful of MiGs that might get into the sky likely would be shot down by U.S. fighters before the Venezuelan pilots could locate and engage U.S. targets.

The Chavez government knows this because it has studied U.S. strategies and tactics in the Iraq war with the help of its expanding military links with China, Cuba and Russia. Venezuelan military strategists know their radar, communications and air force assets would be the first targets of a U.S. military strike. In fact, Eliecer Otaiza, president of the National Land Institute and a key figure in the Chavez government's militia defense networks, said April 1 that the government knows the national armed forces (FAN) would be obliterated "in two days" if the U.S. military ever invaded Venezuela.

However, the purchase of a few dozen North Korean missiles with the capability to strike targets hundreds of miles away would give the Chavez government a strong strategic deterrent against attack by the U.S. or Colombian armies. Moreover, North Korean missiles would be easier to conceal and more difficult to destroy.

Pyongyang would not sell nuclear weapons to the Chavez government. However, Stratfor believes North Korea would happily sell Scud missiles to Caracas for profit, or to gain political leverage in its confrontation with the United States. Pyongyang might even consider selling a few Nodong-1s to the Chavez government, which would give the FAN the ability to launch missiles armed with large conventional explosives warheads at targets deep in Colombian territory, including Bogotá.

The North Korean government has both practical and strategic reasons for negotiating the sale of missiles and other weapons systems, such as minisubmarines and armored vehicles, to Venezuela. Besides the hard-currency earnings from selling arms to Caracas, Pyongyang could be seeking some political leverage in the stalled six-nation talks on dismantling its nuclear weapons program. If North Korea is just looking for a fast profit, it likely will try to keep the deals quiet for as long as it possibly can. However, if Pyongyang wants to pressure the Bush administration, it will intentionally leak any deal it reaches with Caracas.

If Venezuela's government decides to go for missiles instead of MiG-29s, Pyongyang has a menu of options that likely would meet Chavez's political and strategic requirements. The likeliest options include the Scud-B, which has a range of about 200 miles; and the Hwasong-6/Scud-C, with a range of about 300 miles. However, Pyongyang also produces the Nodong-1, with a range of about 800 miles, and the Nodong-B missile, with a range between about 1,700 miles and about 2,500 miles.

Pyongyang's price list for these systems is highly classified. However, in July 2000 during missile talks between the United States and North Korea, Pyongyang offered to suspend its export of missile technology in exchange for $1 billion a year to compensate for the loss of export revenues; the United States reportedly counter offered with indirect food and humanitarian aid.

The acquisition of North Korean missiles would significantly increase Venezuela's political leverage regionally. During his March trip to France, India, Qatar and Uruguay, Chavez said -- in one of many speeches accusing the U.S. government of aggression -- that his enemies would soon be claiming that Chavez is expanding ties with North Korea. In fact, political ties between Caracas and Pyongyang are already being strengthened, and the impetus for closer relations is coming mainly from the Chavez government, a source in the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry reports.

For a force of 2.3 million volunteer reservists, meanwhile, the small-arms and other infantry equipment requirements would be immense. Russian arms suppliers would be first in line to sell more weapons to Venezuela since they already have sold 100,000 AK-103 and AK-104 assault rifles and 40 helicopters to the government. However, the Chavez government also probably will purchase small-arms and infantry equipment from South Africa in coming months.

South Africa is an important strategic ally among the multipolar relationships that Chavez seeks to build. South Africa also has a large and diversified arms export industry that is hungry for new markets abroad, and a government that is desperate to grow the country's economy more robustly. With arms suppliers in Russia, Spain, Brazil and China rushing to close deals with Caracas, South Africa's arms exporters will jump into the action as soon as they get a chance.

The Chavez government's actions belie its claims that it is not entangled in a regional arms race. As originally envisioned, the military reserve under the president's direct command was to have totaled 100,000 volunteers deployed mainly in poor neighborhoods, or barrios. A force of that size clearly had two objectives. One was to serve as an instrument of internal repression if the government's oil wealth vanished and popular support turned to angry rejection. The other purpose was to defend the government if the FAN ever revolted against Chavez.

However, a greatly expanded military reserve of 2.3 million members is not a force for internal repression. Strategically, it could be conceived by the Chavez government as the foundation of a people's guerrilla war against invading conventional U.S. forces, but a force of even 600,000 armed reservists could be utilized for offensive purposes. This would seriously destabilize the balance of military power in South America, where the largest army until now has been Brazil's with a total force of 189,000 personnel. Moreover, it would flood Venezuela with hundreds of thousands of new infantry weapons, some of which likely would leak to militant groups in neighboring countries given the high level of corruption in the FAN.

The only things potentially standing in Chavez's way are money constraints and possible internal resistance to major arms buys within the Chavez government. Military and civilian leaders are locked in a power struggle over who will have the greatest political influence -- and thus the greatest access to the fiscal resources flooding into the Bolivarian revolution's treasury. External pressures, on the other hand -- like U.S. disapproval -- will not deter Chavez.

That said, the Chavez government's small-arms and conventional-weapons purchases probably will advance more rapidly in coming years than its acquisitions of more sophisticated weapons like Russian MiGs and North Korean missiles. Transactions involving small arms, armored vehicles, helicopters and similar items involve many contracts with many foreign suppliers. These contracts are subject to little public scrutiny. However, the purchase of larger and costlier weapons systems like advanced fighter aircraft and missiles invite more public scrutiny, bring greater international pressure, and take longer to negotiate because of the complex technological issues and large sums of money involved.

 

Posted Saturday, March 26, 2005

Emma Brossard: Selling off Venezuela´s Jewels

March 17, 2005

Recent articles on Hugo Chavez’s proposed sale of Citgo ignore the growth in its value since PDVSA acquired Louisiana’s second largest refinery. The Citgo of the 21st Century is a creation of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). When PDVSA bought half of Citgo Petroleum Corp. in September 1985, from the Thompson brothers of Southland Corp., they paid $290 million for half of the Lake Charles 300,000 b/d refinery. PDVSA agreed to provide 130,000 to 200,000 barrels per day (b/d) of crude and feedstock for the Lake Charles refinery for 20 years. Included in the sale were a percentage of two important pipelines, Colonial and Explorer; a lube plant; and over 30 terminals; and an established gasoline market of branded outlets (then 6,900, now 13,800 franchised).

By the time PDVSA announced in November 1989, that it would buy the other half of Citgo for $675 million, crude runs in the refinery were averaging 284,000 b/d, and because of many mothballed refineries after the U.S. decontrol of oil, it was now a buyer’s market for refineries. The Citgo refinery had been upgraded between 1982 and 1984 (by Cities Service and then Southland) at a cost of $500 million, making it one of the most advanced in the industry. And PDVSA continued to upgrade Citgo to process Venezuela’s heavy crudes into cleaner burning gasoline. Citgo announced in 1992, that it would spend $1.7 billion over the next five years to comply with the Clean Air Amendments for the new reformulated gasoline requirements passed by Congress in 1991.

Citgo continued to grow in size. Champlin Petroleum Company with its 160,000 b/d Corpus Christi refinery, including a petrochemical facility, and distribution system was added to Citgo, in September 1990. Citgo also acquired Seaview Petroleum Co., an asphalt refinery in Paulsboro, New Jersey, refining 84,000 b/d of Venezuela’s heavy crude; and a fourth refinery was added in Savannah, Georgia.

Until 2001, PDVSA sold its oil to Citgo at an arms length price, and for tax reasons, Citgo did not pay dividends to PDVSA. Thus, PDVSA reinvested most of Citgo’s profits in U.S.-based operations and acquired other U.S. refineries. Under a treaty in 1999, Citgo’s U.S. tax burden dropped from 30% to 5%, and in 2001 PDVSA received $213.75 million in dividends from Citgo, from its 2000 earnings. Chavez continues to receive annual Citgo dividends.

Hugo Chavez not only became President of Venezuela in February 1999, but also took over PDVSA, changing its president and board at a whim, and finally in January 2005 naming the Minister of Energy also President of “Petroleos de Chavez” The former PDVSA is effectively Chavez’s own company, and he can sell any part of it! Well, maybe not.

Chavez’s PDVSA, in December 2003, announced that they would sell its 50% stake in Ruhr Oel (four refineries in Germany) to Russia’s Alfa Group. In 1983, the Ruhr Oil joint venture with Veba Oel was the beginning of PDVSA’s “internationalization.” Twenty years later, Ruhr Oel was also the beginning of Chavez’s efforts to sell PDVSA’s overseas refineries. However, in June 2004, the sale to the Alfa Group was suddenly dropped. Why? There was no explanation. Chavez had planned to buy 50 Russian MiGs (with the sale of Ruhr Oel?); and Russia through the Ruhr purchase would have gained a 2,000 distribution system in Europe. Perhaps it was BP (British Petroleum) that had purchased Veba Oel, and therefore now owned the other half of Ruhr Oel, that quashed the PDVSA sale?

Chavez has a problem trying to sell Venezuela’s foreign refineries because most of them are run as joint ventures -- and their partners in these ventures, who initially sold half of their refinery to PDVSA, have a say in what company they will accept as a new partner. Since PDVSA owns all of the four Citgo refineries, and Citgo is their largest overseas affiliate, and is in the largest market, Citgo would be expected to fetch the largest amount of cash and procure a buyer.

However, if there is a sale of Citgo, only with the U.S. Government’s permission, it could be a fire sale. Chavez does not seek to realize Citgo’s $5 billion plus worth in today’s market. He wants to stop sending Venezuelan oil to the U.S. (to Citgo), and he wants to prevent the possibility of the U.S. freezing Citgo’s assets (after some foolhardy action on his part.) It appears that Hugo Chavez is considering the sale of Citgo to foreign buyers, i.e., the Russians (Lukoil), Brazilians (Petrobras), or Arabs, with the Chinese now excluded by the U.S. Homeland Security Department. Presently, there appear to be two U.S. independent refiners, Valero Energy (CEO Bill Greehey), and Premcor Inc. (formerly Clark USA) that are interested in one or two of Citgo’s refineries.

Chavez’s hatred of the United States and President Bush, and his need for funds for his corrupt regime, is the driving force behind his wish to sell Venezuela’s foreign crown jewel. Citgo is a corporation that was carefully constructed by Venezuelan oilmen under the Brigido Natera presidency, to conquer the United States downstream market where Venezuela has traditionally sold half of its oil production.

The real value of all the nine PDVSA refineries in the United States is represented by the opportunity of marketing Venezuela’s medium/heavy crude oils through PDV America (which includes refinery ownership of Citgo; Citgo-Lyondell (41%); Hovensa, St. Croix joint venture; Chalmette, Louisiana, 50% participation; Sweeney, Texas joint venture; and Lemont, Illinois now 100%). PDVSA also markets Venezuelan refined oil products through PDV America. In 1999, Hugo Chavez’s first year in power, PDV America amounted to nearly half of all PDVSA’s market, selling over 1.5 million b/d of product. However, with the decline of 500,000 b/d in Venezuelan crude production (now 2.5 million b/d or less); and around 100,000 b/d of oil exports to Cuba, and other exports to new markets, like China and Argentina, PDVSA has to purchase increasing amounts of oil on the open market, in order to supply their foreign refineries. The Chavez solution: sell the Crown Jewels!

Emma Brossard grew up and worked in the oil industry in Venezuela. Her first book, Petroleum Politics and Power was published in 1983; followed in 1993 by Petroleum Research and Venezuela's INTEVEP. For 18 years, Prof Brossard taught political philosophy, Latin American politics, and energy politics, in several Midwestern and Southern univerisities. She has a BA from the Univ. of Wisconsin, MA and Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University. An energy consultant for many years. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

Editor's Note: Petroleumworld encourages persons to reproduce, reprint, or broadcast Petroleumworld Editorial articles provided that any such reproduction identify the original source, http://www.petroleumworld.com and it is done within the fair use as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

Internet web links to http://www.petroleumworld.com are appreciated.
Petroleumworld News 03 17 05

Copyright © Emma Brossard 2005, All rights reserved

http://www.petroleumworld.com/Lag031705.htm

 

Posted Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Chavez Casts Himself as the Anti-Bush

By Kevin Sullivan

March 14, 2005

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez has recently accused President Bush of plotting to assassinate him, made suggestive comments about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visited Fidel Castro in Cuba, bashed the United States on the al-Jazeera television network and traveled to Libya to receive an award from Moammar Gaddafi.

Such bluster and anti-American showmanship are nothing new from the fiery former paratrooper. But concern in Washington has been rising as Chavez has worked feverishly in recent months to match his words with deeds.

Since threatening to cut off oil shipments to the United States, which buys 1.5 million barrels a day from Venezuela, Chavez has been traveling the globe looking for new markets and allies to unite against "the imperialist power." He recently signed energy deals with France, India and China, which is searching for new sources of oil to power its industrial expansion. Chavez also has made a series of arms purchases, including one for military helicopters from Russia.

And on Friday, Chavez hosted President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, a nation that has a secretive nuclear program and has been labeled by Bush as part of an "axis of evil."

"Iran has every right . . . to develop atomic energy and to continue its research in that area," Chavez said at a joint appearance with Khatami. "All over the world, there is a clamor for equality . . . and profound rejection of the imperialist desires of the U.S. government. Faced with the threat of the U.S. government against our brother people in Iran, count on us for all our support."

Gerver Torres, a former Venezuelan government minister who now runs a private development agency, said such statements illustrate one of Chavez's key goals. "His main motivation now is to do everything he possibly can to negatively affect the United States, Bush in particular," Torres said. "He is trying to bring together all the enemies of the United States. He believes the United States is the devil."

While U.S. analysts said they doubt Chavez could afford to severely cut shipments to the United States, which buys 60 percent of Venezuela's oil exports, they are still paying careful attention to his statements. Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) has asked the Government Accountability Office to study how a sharp decrease in Venezuelan oil imports might affect the U.S. economy.

Although Chavez has suggested he would "use oil" to fight American power, other Venezuelan officials have expressed a far more businesslike view of the relationship. In an interview, Andres Izarra, Chavez's information minister, said Venezuela had no plans to stop selling oil to the United States, which he called "our natural energy market."

The government says it produces 3.1 million barrels a day of oil, but independent analysts put the figure closer to 2.6 million. Izarra said the country aimed to boost its oil production to about 5 million barrels a day in the next five years, so there would be plenty of oil to serve both the United States and new customers, such as China and India.

Still, Chavez's comments and actions, including the purchase of a substantial amount of foreign arms, have drawn sharp criticism from U.S. officials. In her Senate confirmation hearings in January, Rice called Chavez a "negative force in the region."

Chavez's arms purchases from Russia, including 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, have also drawn protests from the State Department. He has bought military aircraft from Brazil and announced plans to buy radar equipment from China.

In a recent televised speech, Chavez described the arms purchases and a plan to increase army reserve troops as "an honorable answer to President Bush's intention of being the master of the world."

Chavez is the most vocal and visible symbol of a rising tide of anti-American sentiment in Latin America. Leaders in the region are increasingly disillusioned because a decade or more of the Washington prescription -- democracy and free-market economics -- has failed to alleviate poverty and economic inequality.

Six Latin American nations, most recently Uruguay, now have presidents whose views clash, in varying degrees, with Washington's. Another politician with sharp anti-Washington views, Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is the early favorite in next year's presidential election, which could bring the trend to the banks of the Rio Grande.

After soundly defeating his domestic opposition in a recall referendum last August, and flush with soaring profits from record-high global oil prices, Chavez has increasingly been making deals with countries in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, positioning himself as something of an anti-Bush.

In a recent interview on al-Jazeera, Chavez called for developing nations to unite against U.S. political and economic policies. "What can we do regarding the imperialist power of the United States? We have no choice but to unite," he said. Venezuela's energy alliances with nations such as Cuba, which receives cheap oil, are an example of how "we use oil in our war against neoliberalism," he said.

Or, as he put it on another occasion, "We have invaded the United States, but with our oil."

Izarra, in the interview, accused the United States of "systematic attacks and aggressions" against Chavez, repeating allegations that the United States was involved in a failed 2002 coup against Chavez and a crippling 2002-03 oil strike. Rice and other U.S. officials have repeatedly denied those allegations.

Chavez has saved some of his most biting sarcasm for Rice, whom he refers to as "Condolencia," which means "condolence." In speeches, he has called her "pathetic" and illiterate and made oblique sexual references to her. "I cannot marry Condolencia, because I am much too busy," he said in a recent speech. "I have been told that she dreams about me," he said on another occasion.

Chavez asserted on television last month that Castro had warned him that Bush was planning an assassination attempt. U.S. officials called this ridiculous. But Chavez said that if he were killed, the United States "can forget Venezuelan oil," threatening to cut off the fourth-largest source of U.S. oil imports. Chavez's government has begun exploring the sale of parts of Citgo, the Venezuela-owned retailer in the United States.

Many here say they believe Chavez dreams of the day he can cut off the United States and sell to countries he considers more friendly. Chavez visited Beijing in December and signed trade deals for oil and gas exploration, farm support and construction. He even reached agreement with Chinese leaders to launch a telecommunications satellite.

When Chavez visited India last week, the two countries signed an energy cooperation agreement and Chavez said Venezuela wanted to become a "secure, long-term" petroleum supplier to India. On his way home, Chavez stopped in Paris and reached agreement with President Jacques Chirac for more French investment in the Venezuelan oil industry.

Some of the gasoline that Venezuela ships to the United States comes from El Palito, a refinery about 200 miles west of Caracas. People who live next to the refinery in a little cluster of brightly colored beachfront homes said they did not believe Chavez would ever cut off exports to the United States. But in a country bitterly divided over Chavez's rule, they agreed on little else.

"He's destroying the country," said Carlos Rodriguez, a shopkeeper. "Oil prices are higher than ever, but there's more poverty and more crime. Then he flies off to other countries and offers them things he doesn't offer to us."

But a few yards away on the beach, Jaime Mendez, a fisherman, said: "We are all with Chavez because he helps the humble people. He doesn't want problems with the United States. He is just trying to do things, but they won't let him work."

Posted Tuesday, February 8, 2005

VENEZUELANS AID CANADIAN OIL SECTOR

Wednesday, February 2, 2005

By ANGEL GONZALEZ Dow Jones Newswires HOUSTON - When Pedro Pereira-Almao flew to Calgary, Alberta, to visit his daughter in December 2002, he didn't realize he had already begun his transition to a new life. A manager with Venezuelan National Petroleum Company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA, Mr. Pereira-Almao timed the holiday to coincide with an oilfield strike that was intended to force the resignation of President Hugo Chavez. But when the 50-year-old petrochemist returned to Venezuela that January, Mr. Chavez was still president - and Mr. Pereira-Almao was out of a job. One of 18,000 workers ousted in a PdVSA purge of Chavez critics, Mr. Pereira-Almao quickly landed in Calgary, where he has become part of a growing contingent of former colleagues who are adapting their expertise to Canada's oil sands. The miniexodus is helping to lift Canada's oil-field hopes, as the industry pumps in $32 billion to double heavy crude production by the end of the decade to two million barrels of oil per day. Leading Canadian oil producers have been actively recruiting from Venezuela's idle pool of talent. Calgary-based Suncor Energy Inc. recently hired 24 Venezuelans for its oil-sands upgrading facility near Fort McMurray, a Suncor spokeswoman said. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s new vice president of upgrading also was sacked by PdVSA after the strike. And the Academy of Learning, an Edmonton, Alberta, vocational college, is getting up a recruitment and training program in Caracas, Venezuela, over the next couple of months to instruct prospects in English language skills. In, Canada, "there's a great need for the upgrading expertise we developed in Venezuela in the 1990s, " said Mr. Pereira-Almao, who helped manage PdVSA's research division. Made to Order The Venezuelans are a good fit because of the similarity between the heavy-oil projects of the Orinoco Belt in southeastern Venezuela and the Canadian oil sands, which contain a comparable low-grade brand of crude. Unlike conventional crude, which is sent directly to refineries,heavy oil must first go to an upgrading plant, where the tar-like goop is processed into a lighter synthetic that is then refined into gasoline at a conventional petroleum refinery. Canadian oil-industry officials see the need for more than 8,600 new oil-sands jobs over the next decade, with as many as 2,000 needed this summer. The Venezuelans' experience makes them exceptional candidates, said Chris Culshaw, the Academy of Learning's director of international programs, who figures Canada's labor crunch would be much worse if Venezuela's political environment was less turbulent. "Venezuela has similar characteristics to Alberta in all respects except for the weather," Mr. Culshaw said. "So if the workers might tolerate working at minus 30 degrees, there's a fit."

Persona non Grata A chemist who trained in France and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., where he did postdoctoral work, Mr. Pereira-Almao joined PdVSA in 1990 as a researcher, rising to lead the company's petroleum upgrading research in 2001. Mr. Pereira-Almao's banishment from PdVSA is surprising in that he considers himself a child of Venezuelan democracy. His father was a night watchman and his mother a school-cafeteria supervisor. For a while the family lived in a shack in a western Caracas working class neighborhood, but later moved into an apartment when the last Venezuelan dictator, Marcos Perez Jimenez, was overthrown in 1958. "I was always critical of some what I thought were elitist attitudes in the company," Mr. Pereira-Almao said. But he never agreed with Chavez supporters within PdVSA, considering them professionally mediocre and intolerant. "I sympathized with some of those people's ideas, but I'd never be able to work with them," he said. When the strike came, Mr. Pereira-Almao was too busy presenting upgrading projects to PdVSA's foreign partners to join. But he was spotted on TV while at one of the opposition's public meetings. "The 'chavistas' told me that was the reason I was sacked," he said. Mr. Pereira-Almao wasn't entirely surprised. Expecting a confrontation, he had already expatriated his savings and contacted friends abroad. He left Caracas in March 2003; six months later, he got the grant to start the upgrading-research center at the University of Calgary, which received $1.2 million in grants from the Alberta Ingenuity Fund. Mr. Pereira-Almao has since brought in eight former PdVSA colleagues who are working to boost efficiency in the processing of oil sands, a capital-intensive process that now consumes huge amounts of natural gas. The group is working on developing catalysts to help separate bitumen from solid minerals while it sits in the subsoil. The Second Wave As more Venezuelans join Mr. Pereira-Almao in Calgary, there are increasing signs of a critical mass, said Venezuelans active in Canada's oil industry. Carlos Sosa, spokesman for the Venezuelan-Canadian Association of Calgary, reports a consistent flow of inquiries from Venezuelans about jobs there and at Fort McMurray, an isolated town 800 kilometers north of Calgary, where most of the oil sands production takes place.

"I tell them to come first without their families, as the winter is very harsh here," Mr. Sosa said. "And I tell everybody to improve their English at whatever the cost. That's key to landing a good job." The association has begun posting information about jobs, in addition to serving as a liaison for Canadian companies interested in recruiting abroad and for Venezuelan companies seeking contracts in Calgary. The group's membership has swelled to 400 from 60 at the start of 2003. Postgraduate students, who in previous eras would have gone back to a cushy job back home, are now considering staying in Canada. "Alberta is a paradise for engineers of all kinds," said Eli Viloria, one of eight Venezuelan Ph.D. students at the chemical engineering department of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. "Ideally, I'd like to help in the transfer of technology between Alberta and Venezuela. Use the fact that I'm Venezuelan and I know the language and the culture there, to look for some sort of synergy." While the long-term impact of Venezuela's outflow of skilled workers on that country's production can't be quantified, most independent experts consider the brain drain to be an impediment, at least in the short run. Venezuela produces about 2.6 million barrels a day, down from 3.4 million barrels a day just six years ago. Although PdVSA's leadership has outlined plans to double production by 2010, many energy insiders are skeptical that will happen. PdVSA workers "were the real asset of the Venezuelan oil industry," said former PdVSA chief Luis Giusti, who left the company in February 1999 when Mr. Chavez took office. The growing community of Venezuelan professionals in Calgary eases the transition for newcomers, said Mr. Viloria. They socialize, help each other and form political organizations to state their opposition to Mr. Chavez from far away. From his northern refuge, Mr. Pereira-Almao hopes that the brain exodus will somehow make its way back to Venezuela. But it will be difficult for him to return, especially since his three adult children also live abroad. He still logs on to Venezuelan newspapers on the Internet, but less and less. "It's what happens when a regime tries to, impose its point of view by force," said Mr. Pereira-Almao.

Posted Thursday, February 2, 2005

FOX NEWS Exposé on the Chavez Administration

It was refreshing to finally see American media pay some attention to the threat the Chavez administration poses to the Americas. FOX NEWS presented three news shorts on the Chavez administration, and they were by no means flattering. If you missed them, these videos can be seen here:

Tuesday, February 1, 1995

Wednesday, February 2, 1995

Thursday, February 3, 1995

 

Posted Friday, October 1, 2004

Jimmy Carter, Observed

By A. M. Mora y Leon, The American Thinker

September 30th, 2004 - Jimmy Carter has been acting like a grumpy old man this week, casting somewhat shocking aspersions on the fairness and legitimacy of the forthcoming Presidential election in Florida. Maybe his nasty streak has something to do with a quiet but very significant affront dealt him by the United States Department of State, an insult which has completely escaped the notice of the legacy media, but which is loudly reverberating in the clubby universe of high level diplomacy and elite NGOs.

The Man from Plains, who has so assiduously cultivated a good-guy image, has taken to disparaging the possibility of a fair democratic process in his own country, in a fit of pique.

Carter's been making a nice little side business out of observing foreign elections for years, through the vehicle of his nonprofit Carter Center. In the same op-ed article that he used to disparage in advance Florida's election, he touted his role in the Aug. 15 Venezuelan recall referendum as proof of his success. The only problem is that evidence is mounting of massive electoral fraud in Venezuela in the counting of votes, in the machines themselves, in the post-referendum statistical studies showing improbable results, in the voter rolls, and in the auditing. And that s just for starters.

Thus, the United States Department of State has suspended its plan to endorse former President James Earl Carter's final report on the Venezuelan election. Carter's report was to have been the basis for further diplomacy with a certifiably legitimate government there. Instead, State has only acknowledged the preliminary findings, leaving Carter's status as a recognized authoritative certifier of elections hanging out to dry.

This may not sound like much to you, but it effectively disconnects Jimmy Carter's claim to be a momentous election-certifier from its power source: the ability to get the United States Government to accept the word of its 39th President as dispositive. Carter has been quietly but publicly dissed, and he is dissing back. As they might put it in Carter's rural South, we ve got us a dissing match!

This morning, Carter posted a 14-page executive summary of his election certification of Venezuela on the Carter Center website. It is a piece of work.

In the short summary, Carter bureaucratically repeats his claim that he matched paper ballots from 150 or 200 voting stations to a few sheets of transmission data, as if that were the only way to commit fraud in a place like Venezuela. Carter continues to muddle the issue of whether there was a problem with the choice of audit boxes picked by the five-member election commission, that even he admitted was stacked for Chavez.

In an earlier report on his Aug. 26 second audit, he admitted disregarding auditing any boxes that had been obviously tampered with. That s certainly one way to simplify the process and get right to the business of approving the results.

Carter also ignores the problem of server communications with the electronic voting machines before transmitting final tallies, and dismisses post-referendum statistical studies by scientists from MIT and elsewhere, showing highly improbable coincidences. On that, Carter's simple rebuttal reads: these patterns were not found a basis to assert fraud.

Meanwhile, Carter skips over discrepancies in areas showing that the number of votes cast exceeded the number of registered voters. And his statement on the auditing process in particular is a beauty: Carter said everything was observed free and clear, except for what went on in the central totalization room, and concluded that, except for that minor matter, all was free and fair. It would be like an Olympic judge declaring a last-place finisher a winner - with the exception of what went on at the finish line. For good measure, Carter's executive summary blames Venezuela s free press for voter disillusion and recommends more government oversight on it, as well as more public funding for campaigns of this kind. No wonder the Bush Administration has decided to not touch it. The State Department had trusted Carter to give an honest, or let's say competent, assessment of that mess that has real potential to blow into a crisis for the U.S. Make no mistake about the depth of anger of the Venezuelan people and what they are likely to do. Venezuela s crucial role as a major oil-supplier role for the U.S. makes anything happening there to destabilize the country and its economy and matter of major immediate concern.

It s not really an election, so we haven't said anything more than that and we re not going to say any more, a State Department official admitted. Since then, the Bush Administration s position has hardened. Carter's claims of free and fair elections in Venezuela are being shunted aside as a failure. That has denied Chavez the recognition he had been expecting from Carter, which he had hoped would extend into the White House. Bush is much too savvy for that and Chavez's plan failed. U.S. officials have pointedly refused to congratulate Chavez on his victory, and haven t bothered to invite him to the White House or a key United Nations reception as Chavez had hoped, prompting him to cancel his U.S. trip earlier this month. And the result for Carter? No kudos are coming his way after his rush to declare the recall referendum free and fair. That s why he must toot his own horn now, if he wants credit, in attack editorials denigrating Bush s brother running Florida. His vindictive streak is by now well-known. He can only try to tear down others, now that no one is listening to his observations after the Venezuela fiasco. And Chavez has been denied the imprimatur of international legitimacy he desperately craves since the reality is, he isn t going to get it at home. Score another point for President Bush's good judgment on affairs abroad.

Posted Tuesday, September 21, 2004

The Worst Ex-President in History

Commentary on the News
Saturday, August 28, 2004
Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor

During his four years in the White House, he presided over the worst economic downturn since World War II, allowed a bunch of thugs to seize our embassy and our citizens, and supported Philippine dictator Fernando Marcos, Pakistani General Zia al Huq, Saudi King Faud and many other dictators. But Jimmy Carter was a much better president than he is an ex-president.

In fact, Jimmy Carter holds the hands-down record for being the worst ex-president the United States has ever known. His post-presidential meddling in foreign affairs has cost America dearly, both in terms of international credibility and international prestige.

He defied US law by visiting Cuba, even addressing the Cuban public and handing Castro a huge propaganda victory. He oversaw the elections in Haiti, against the expressed wishes of the Clinton administration. A coup followed.

Carter once described Yugoslav strongman Marshal Josef Tito as "a man who believes in human rights." Regarding North Korea's dearly departed Kim Il-Sung, Carter found him "vigorous, intelligent, surprisingly well-informed about the technical issues, and in charge of the decisions about this country," adding "I don't see that [North Koreans] are an outlaw nation."

He was similarly generous regarding Manuel Noriega, Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceaucescu and, of course, Yasser Arafat. He said of Ceausescu and himself, "Our goals are the same: to have a just system of economics and politics . . . We believe in enhancing human rights."

Virtually all of the humanitarian activities of the Carter Foundation abroad have been in direct opposition to US foreign policy. Carter called Bush's description of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil" was "overly simplistic and counterproductive."

Added the man who was once attacked by a rabbit, "I think it will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement."

His most recent adventure may be partly behind the predicted $3.00 per gallon analysts say we'll be paying for gas by year's end. Jimmy Carter went to Venezuela to 'monitor' that country's effort to recall President Hugo Chavez.

In 1992, a band of army officers led by Lt. Col. Hugo Chávez Frías attempted to overthrow President Carlos Andrés Pérez. Although court-martialed and jailed, Chávez emerged a hero.

In 1998, he was elected president on promises to clean out corruption and reduce poverty. Once in office, Chávez promoted a new consitution to consolidate his powers and began to constrain the business community, civil society, and rival politicians.

As a presidential candidate, Hugo Chávez campaigned against the "savage capitalism" of the United States. On August 10, 2000, he became the first foreign leader to visit Saddam Hussein since the Gulf War, and he allegedly aided Afghanistan's Taliban government following the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States.

At the same time, Chávez said that Cuba and Venezuela were "called upon to be a spearhead and summon other nations and governments" to fight free market capitalism.

Venezuela is also one of the countries upon which the United States is dependent for oil, and has been since the US first began relying on imported oil supplies back in 1948.

Besides supplying the United States with 1.5 million barrels of oil a day, Venezuela provides most of the petroleum consumed by U.S. allies in the Caribbean and Central America.

Regional leaders know that opposing Chávez in any significant fashion could result in less favorable sales terms or cuts in deliveries.

In September 2003, President Chávez accused the Dominican Republic of harboring Venezuelans--like former President Carlos Andrés Pérez--who allegedly might conspire against his government. Chavez then stopped oil deliveries, prompting a temporary energy crisis while Dominican officials scrambled for new suppliers.

>From the perspective of American economic interests, not to mention homeland security issues, Hugo Chavez is a very bad man to have in the neighborhood. And, thanks to Jimmy Carter, Chavez isn't going away anytime soon.

Venezuela's opposition party finally forced a recall election, with opinion polls showing that voters favored his recall by a margin of more than 2 to 1.

When there were questions about possible vote tampering by the Chavez side, the opposition called for election monitors. Chavez agreed to let Jimmy Carter oversee the election, and the Carter Center headed for Caracas.

Under Jimmy Carter's watchful eye, Hugo Chavez defeated the recall attempt by a wide margin -- reflecting almost a mirror-image of the opinion polls.

While two out of three Venzuelans polled before the election wanted Chavez out, when the ballots were counted, Chavez was declared the winner by an almost exact opposite margin. "About 58 percent said 'no' to a recall, while 42 percent said 'yes,'" wrote the Washington Post.

Carter ignored a press release from the polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland Assoc. that reported, "Exit Poll Results Show Major Defeat for Chavez." The release, dated 7:30 p.m. on election day, said, "With Venezuela's voting set to end at 8 p.m. EST according to election officials, final exit poll results from Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, an independent New York-based polling firm, show a major victory for the 'Yes' movement, defeating Chavez in the Venezuela presidential recall referendum."

One of the most effective ways to monitor the fairness of an election is to employ the use of exit polls. In a nutshell, here's how exit polls work. After somebody has finished voting, a pollster will ask them how they voted. In emerging democracies, about 90% of voters participate.

By contrast, in America, where exit polls are widely used to call elections before the votes are all counted, less than 40% of voters participate.

Statistically, exit polls should mirror the actual vote, within a relatively thin margin of error.

The margin of error between Carter's certified fair-and-square ballots and the independent exit poll results constituted a swing of almost forty points -- a statistical impossibility. Chavez counted on Carter leaning his way -- Carter's history of promoting anti-American dictators is no secret.

As Stephen Hayward noted in a column at Front Page, "among his complex motivations is his determination to override American foreign policy when it suits him."

Indeed, Carter's penchant for interfering in US foreign policy is so well known it won him a Nobel Prize. Jimmy Carter will go down in history as the first US ex-president ever to be awarded a Nobel Prize for the sole purpose of conveying an insult to his country from the Nobel committee.

Gunnar Berge, chairman of the five-member committee, told reporters that giving the Peace Prize to Carter "must also be seen as criticism of the line the current U.S. administration has taken on Iraq ... It's a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States."

("How can we REALLY show how much we hate the Americans? I know! Let's give a Nobel Prize to Jimmy Carter!")

Once Chavez had stolen the election and Jimmy Carter certified the results, certain American critics (pretty much anybody with a brain) started questioning whether or not Jimmy Carter had just sold American interests down the river -- again.

Carter hit back in a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece, writing;

"We are familiar with potential fraudulent techniques and how to obtain a close approximation to the actual results to assure accuracy."

Having established that Jimmy Carter is far too savvy to be conned by a mere thug like Chavez, Carter then dismissed the results of the exit polls, writing;

"During the voting day, opposition leaders claimed to have exit-poll data showing the government losing by 20 percentage points, and this erroneous information was distributed widely."

Well, that's that! The New York pollsters 'widely distributed erroneous information' -- Hugo Chavez won fair and square. Jimmy Carter says so.

Penn Schoen evidently must have cheated, although it is a reputable New York polling firm with a 20 year track record, including working for Bill Clinton in 1996, Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2001, Michael Bloomberg in 2001 and many other national political campaigns.

Why would it risk its hard-won professional reputation over an election in Venezuela? Carter doesn't explain.

Hugo Chavez is bad news from the perspective of US national security. He is bad news from the perspective of homeland security. He is bad news from the perspective of US dependence of foreign oil. And he is bad news for America's economic security.

Which makes Hugo Chavez good news from the perspective of the worst ex-president in US history.

Excerpted from the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest, Volume:35: Issue 26

Posted Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Analysis: Venezuela Eyes Russian MiGs
UPI International

Posted Sunday, September 12, 2004

China Filling U.S. Vacuum in Latin America
Phil Brennan

Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004

This image would make for an interesting "Under Construction" graphic for a website:

 

Posted Monday, June 14, 2004

Postcards From Venezuela
By Gustavo Coronel

Gustavo Coronel became President of MENEVEN ((Mene Grande/Gulf Oil Corporation) after the nationalization of 1976.

First Postcard

I am back in my country and I have to report that a portion of it, in the hands of Chávez, is rapidly shrinking. Not in physical size but in social and spiritual terms. Venezuela today is a country ruled by a relatively small group of very ignorant people possessing an authoritarian and violent nature. Let me give some examples: today 12 dissident political leaders in the State of Tachira, bordering with Colombia, will be one year in prison without trial, something specifically forbidden in Venezuelan laws. 15 political dissidents, including the mayor of Baruta, a residential suburb of Caracas and several high ranking military officers are in prison without being properly charged of any crime and without being allowed legitimate legal defense. The managers of Súmate, an NGO that has the objective of improving transparency in electoral events, which was given $53,000 by the National Endowment for Democracy, based in Washington, DC, have been indicted as conspirators against the Venezuelan government, in spite of the fact that nothing they have done has been hidden or illegal. Journalists like Ibeyise Pacheco and Patricia Poleo are being harassed by the not so secret police. The monies from the sale of oil in the international markets is being diverted directly to the government instead of being delivered to the Venezuelan Central Bank, as the law dictates. Over one billion dollars have already been given to the Chávez government by the Venezuelan oil company, without transparency or accountability, in open violation of all legal and ethical rules. The money is being handled by Nelson Merentes, the head of the Venezuelan "Development Bank," who is also one of the coordinators of the recently sworn in Chávez's electoral campaign team. Can any civilized person understand how the person in charge of managing the funds of the nation is also in charge of managing the funds of Chávez's political campaign? This is a classic example of conflict of interests. In addition, the monies from PDVSA, the national oil company, are being diverted to finance directly the costs of the 11,150 Cuban "patriots" present in the country, as recently and publicly admitted by Juana Contreras, a Director of the Ministry of Health (Descifrado, June 7h, 2004). Oscar Bataglinni, one of the Chávez followers in the Board of the National Electoral Council has let it be known that he will "oppose the presence of international observers in the referendum and the independent audit of the referendum process." This would be in open violation of all internationally accepted norms. To add insult to injury, the company providing the machinery for this event is a company in which the Chávez government has substantial share ownership and one that has never, I repeat, never has done work in any election since it was formed, rather mysteriously, a few months ago. Does this sound transparent? Should the Venezuelan opposition to the current government make an act of faith and hope that the setup, as described above, will transmit faithfully the will of the Venezuelan people? This would be very naïve of the opposition, in the light of the low moral qualities of the people currently in government. There cannot be trust in these adventurers. As I write this, Venevisión, a TV station opposed to the government is being raided by the secret and not so secret police, the 30th such raid conducted systematically on private television and newspaper organizations in an effort to plant incriminating evidence. During the recent signature collection event, Chávez shouted fraud, as is his habit, and his claim this time was that many Venezuelan citizens had used false, cloned identity cards. This was so ridiculous a claim that not one of his followers dared to pursue it.

The Chávez government is characterized by improvisation and waste. All factual data point to a dramatic deterioration of the Venezuelan society: a drop of 25 places in the United Nations Human Development Index (measures quality of life) from 1998 to 2003; a record increase of unemployment during the last five years, the highest in Latin America; the highest rate of inflation in Latin America; the highest drop in economic growth during 2003; a horrible situation of more than 200,000 abandoned Venezuelan children in the streets.

I arrived back in Venezuela three days ago. The airport is a national scandal: few things work, the parking lots are in ruins, no lights. The road up to Caracas is totally destroyed, no lights, no
maintenance, potholes, tunnels in ruins, nothing left from the proud highway that a more progressive dictator inaugurated 60 years ago. Caracas looks like a dirty, toothless, old beggar. For those old enough (like me) to know how beautiful Caracas was, this horrendous accumulation of filth, bad smells and misery that Chavez now calls his Caracas is an unacceptable insult. I have lived and have visited some horrible spots in this earth and always felt relieved to know that I could always go back to my beautiful Caracas. But now Caracas is more horrible a sight and a smell than the worst of those places I have ever visited. And I say, political language does not mean a thing if the people cannot live decently. The rhetoric about revolution does not mean a thing if people grow hungry and in squalor. Words are ineffectual against poverty unless good and transparent management of national wealth accompanies them.

What we have today in Venezuela is ruins and empty, fanatical words. People walk the streets with hunger and despair in their eyes while in Canada, in England, in France and in the US, in all existing Chávez government centers for paid propaganda, mercenaries get paid tangible amounts of money to disseminate their lies about a "revolution." The names of these mercenaries will be made public in time. They have sold their souls for a few coins but will not alter the course of events, which will result in the re-establishment of true democracy in Venezuela.

As a Venezuelan who loves all what Venezuela is lovable for, I say: Chávez, get out from our country! Stop sowing hate and resentment among our people!

Out, if you have any decency left.

© 2004 Gustavo Coronel

Second Postcard

I am back in Venezuela, after some four months of being abroad. In most ordinary circumstances, a four months absence should not make so much of a difference in the perception of the country by the returning traveler. However, we are not living in a country undergoing ordinary circumstances. Venezuela is experiencing a highly accelerated process of national destruction, under the reins of a group of fanatics, which promote values and attitudes totally contrary to those the majority of Venezuelans cherish. So rapid is this process of national destruction going on in the country that only four months are enough to perceive change.

In my previous post card I mentioned the dramatic deterioration of the Caracas International Airport and of the once extraordinary highway leading from the airport to downtown Caracas, now more properly belonging to a lower category third world country. I also mentioned the dismal statistics of International and Venezuelan agencies related to the economic and social situation of the country. They do not need to be repeated here. I also mentioned the filth and neglect which characterizes the once beautiful city of Caracas, now predominantly under the pathetic mismanagement of the Chávez municipal government. These horrors are for all to see, so that there is no burden of the proof. Just come here and take a look!

Now I want to report on the situation inland, away from Caracas, into the province. As my taxi drives out of the city I see, in the clear light of day, the broken statue of Maria Lionza. For fifty years this statue had been one of the icons of the city. It had been there for all of us to see. It was not a matter of Venezuelans believing or not in witchcraft but just a matter of us becoming used to see this beautiful, challenging figure of a powerful and naked woman riding a mythical cow and looking, defiantly, ahead. A few days ago this statue came crumbling down and now Maria Lionza is on her back, looking at the sky, offering us the sad sight of a once proud, now defeated woman. The tragedy of Maria Lionza is a typical problem of lack of maintenance, one that prevails over much of Chávez's country. In a spiritual sense, it represents the same problem afflicting thousands of Venezuelans who used to be proud and full of self-esteem and is now reduced to hopelessness due to the accelerated deterioration of the country. The collapse of the statue of Maria Lionza has been taken, by thousands of Venezuelans, as an omen, which signals the collapse of the current ruler.

We were forced to take an alternate route to Valencia, since landslides blocked the main road. Although the landslides should be expected since we are already in the rainy season, these road
blockages can last many hours since there is no equipment ready to work in the clearing process. As we climb on the road to Los Teques, the town where I spent my childhood and adolescence, I am appalled to see the change the landscape has suffered. Certainly this has not taken place in the last four months but it has mainly been the product of the years under the Chávez government. The hills surrounding Caracas are full of thousands of squatters, full of houses made of carton. What used to be a green forest, a marvelous country, is now a denudated mountainside, a collection of thousands of deplorable shacks. However, thousands of TV antennas accompany the shacks and cars by the hundreds are parked at the bottom of the hills, a crazy conflict in priorities. The shacks have no running water, no sewages. The people living there were mostly living in the province before, but they were lured by the populist promises of Chávez, to come and live into the outskirts of the capital city, where they now contribute to make up a huge belt of misery and unemployment.

The division between the municipality controlled by mayor Bernal, a Chávez follower and the mayor who belongs to the opposition is almost like a geological fault boundary. Whereas the Bernal territory is dominated by neglect and degradation of the urban landscape, the territory entrusted to the opposition mayor is well kept and "middle class" looking, even if the neighborhoods are not economically middle class. This goes to show that progress is not so much a matter of money as it is a matter of attitudes.

Going into the central states, Aragua and Carabobo, the rainy season has helped to give the landscape great beauty. This is Venezuela at her best. For a while, driving through these magical valleys make me forget the political tragedy we are facing. This is the Venezuela I have always known and cherished: it is the time of the mango, of the flaming red acacia, of the avocado. Nature overcomes political imperfections.

Once I get to my house in Sabana del Medio, however, I find that the underlying problems have worsened. Electricity supply is increasingly unreliable and more expensive. At this time I am paying the equivalent of $110 per month for electricity in an empty house, since I do not live there. The icebox and the freezer are connected and I have lights on the outside of the house that come on automatically at night. But this is about the same amount I pay in Tyson's Corner, where I live and use air conditioning or heating all the time. And, of course, $110 in Venezuela represents about five times more hard work to earn than in the US.

Arriving to my home, I have nothing in the house, so I go to the market. In four months, I perceive that the market supply has dwindled significantly: there are few vegetables, few grains, almost no meat, unless very expensive. Milk is scarce. Even more worrying than quantity is the problem of quality. A typical revolutionary lettuce is darkish; the leaves look like half dead. While much of the Venezuelan soil can produce, thousands of Venezuelans are crowding in the cities, selling condoms or vandalizing public telephones to force people to use makeshift mobile telephone stations in street corners, protected by the current political regime.

I visit my neighbors. They are very happy and bullish at the turn of the recent political events. They now feel strongly that the current regime is on its way out. They know that the key action they have to take is to participate fully in the coming referendum. Their math is simple: there are some 12.4 million voters. If 60% of voters vote and only 50% of those voters are for the revoking of the president, he is out. Abstaining this time around should not go over 35-40% and all polls indicate that some 60% of voters will be for the revoking of Chávez presidency. This suggests that the Chávez will be out, unless abstaining goes over 50% or unless there is a fraud.

Talking about fraud, my neighbors say, has any one ever heard of a fraud by the opposition? Fraud is traditionally attempted or executed by the government.

Another point of major interest mentioned by my neighbors had to do with the increasing corruption detected among Chávez followers. They gave me some information, which I will be glad to pass on to my readers in my third post card.

I can advance to my readers, however, that corruption under the Chávez's regime far surpasses all corruption previously known in modern Venezuelan history.

I will let you know in the next post card.

© 2004 Gustavo Coronel

Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Special for The Miami Herald
By Diego E. Arria
Visiting Scholar Institute of Latin American Studies
School of International and Public Affairs
Columbia University

May 18, 2004, 08:30

(Diego Arria was Caracas' (Distrito Federal) governor during the late sixties/early seventies.)

The best way to hasten democracy in Cuba is not by increasing ineffective economic sanctions. It's by helping Venezuela to regain its own democracy, which is being stolen bit by bit by Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's increasingly dictatorial president.

Today, Chavez provides his ally and mentor Fidel Castro with about 100,000 barrels per day of essentially free oil. It's difficult to see how Mr. Castro could deal with a sudden cut-off of that oil flow. The depth of the relationship between the old dictator and his Venezuelan admirer is the reason that both will go to any length to keep Mr. Chavez in power. That includes quashing the present attempt to get rid of Mr. Chavez by holding a recall referendum. The Sandinista experience in Nicaragua of holding - and losing -- elections is a lesson that hasn't been lost on the Caribbean duo. Both know that a free election in Venezuela could kill two birds with one stone.

Who could have imagined that the Castro regime would end up in control of Venezuela and its wealth without firing a single shot almost fifty years after the democratic government of Rómulo Betancourt defeated a Cuban backed insurgency by Venezuelan Communists?

For sure not Castro. Not even in his wildest dreams could he have expected such a turn of events. Now, in the final years of his life, Venezuela’s oil wealth is Castro’s for the taking. Twenty thousand Cuban military and intelligence officers are garrisoned in Venezuela, directing the so-called Bolivarian Revolution. Meanwhile, thousands of young Venezuelan are been indoctrinated in Cuba. Castro’s ambassador in Caracas is more influential than Chavez’s own ministers; and none other than Chavez ‘ brother is Venezuela’s ambassador to Cuba, while Chavez consults Mr. Castro daily. Thanks to Chavez Cuba, is no longer a solitary island in the Caribbean. Its revolution is now anchored in the continent.

Should not the United States and democratic Latin American countries be concerned with the emergence of the Castro –Chavez alliance? The wily, and time-tested Cuban political strategist, and his pupil are armed
today with the huge resources of Venezuelan oil. This new “special relationship” which replaces the old Soviet-Cuba one, has been forged when there is an enormous potential for unrest in Latin America. Indeed, Chavez has opened wide Venezuela’s doors to every type of subversion coming from Cuba or terrorist controlled areas of Colombia. With Chavez, the Caribbean has become a sinister Bermuda Triangle of
security where an unholy alliance of Cuba, Venezuela and that part of Colombia controlled by terrorists financed by oil and drugs, will represent a major threat to international peace and security. Think of
Afghanistan with oil, but in the Americas.

Maybe some day the Organization of American States (OAS) will address Venezuela’s subversion of peace and trampling of the principles of the Democratic Charter of the Americas. The Charter approved in September 2001 reaffirms members' commitment to democracy and charges the OAS with the obligation to assist, and in some cases to intervene where democracy is threatened. But I fear the OAS will take no action against the Chavez regime. For a long time now, many of Venezuela’s Latin American neighbors have been living in denial, watching indifferently as Venezuela sheds its democracy and turns into an authoritarian state. Meanwhile Chavez has successfully used Venezuela’s oil to buy the support of a large voting block within the organization.

More than ever, Venezuela’s oil has become its curse. Chavez grants to a few U.S. oil companies exceptionally advantageous terms to do business in Venezuela. They in turn, have reciprocated his largesse by lobbying strongly in Washington in Chavez favor. The result: the authoritarian Chavez enjoys enormous latitude regardless of his well-known hostility towards the U.S. and his alliance with Castro. Indeed, the U.S. has allowed Chavez to blissfully undermine the Colombian government’s attempt to defeat the drug-financed terrorists, which have held that country hostage for more than four decades. Venezuela, says the State Department, provides “safe heaven to narco terrorists groups and weapons and ammunitions-some from official Venezuelan stocks.” (Patterns of Global Terrorism-State Department Annual Report 2003)

Forty-one years ago, Blas Roca, the Cuban Communist party leader, eerily foretold the importance of Venezuela for the Cuban regime. “When the people of Venezuela are victorious, when they get their total
independence from imperialism, then all of America will be aflame, all of America will push forward, all of America will be liberated once and for all from the ominous yoke of American imperialism,” said Mr. Roca at a meeting of Latin American Communists Parties in Havana in January 24th, 1963.’ Their fight helps us today, and their victory will mean a tremendous boost for us. We no longer will be a solitary island of the
Caribbean facing the Yankee imperialists, for we will have land support on the continent.”

Diego E. Arria
New York May 15th, 2004

Posted Wednesday, May 19, 2004

The Michael Rowan Column - Venezuela: Where is the Opposition?
May 18, 2004, 08:30

By Michael Rowan in El Universal

Venezuela is starting to resemble Italy or Germany in the 1930s. As an elected leader with charismatic force and a radical worldview rose like a Phoenix to dominate the country, thoughts about how to put Venezuela back on a track of inclusion virtually disappeared.

Consumed or appalled by the power and glory of the new leader's insane hatreds, every conversation turned on questions about him: Could he last, how can he be stopped, can he be recalled, how can I get away from this madness? This is exactly as the tyrant wants it.

Chavez has a very simple political message that seems to appeal to the opposition. His view is that Venezuelans are good or bad, poor or rich, revolutionaries or oligarchs, patriots or traitors, loyalists or conspirators, people of God or people of Satan. The opposition basically accepts the proposition but reverses him on every count. Long lost in a trail of disappointing leaders who were not able to cope with national failure, Venezuelans have caved into this either/or paradigm, as did the people of Italy and Germany 70 years ago, without realizing the national consequences.

The only way to stop a despot from doing whatever he has in mind - if that's the right word - is to provide another vision before the despot starts a war. Hitler could not be stopped by an opponent who said, "I am not Hitler, vote for me," and the same can be said about Mussolini, Fujimori, Pinochet and the rest. What is needed - what has always been needed - is a vision of how to put Venezuela together on an inclusive track toward liberty and democracy.

In the Democratic Coordinator the overwhelming view is that 'We must do first things first, and that means getting rid of Chavez.' The strikes and protests, the violence and death, and the recall, were aimed at getting rid of Chavez. Of these, the only tactic that is truly democratic is the recall, and Chavez, after winning a handful of elections, is not likely to let that happen. Meanwhile, Chavez has poured money into the barrios to buy votes, very effectively, while the opposition has been silent about a democratic, inclusive vision for the nation, which has reduced its credibility greatly. Venezuelans are not stupid. They are not going to vote in the blind just to get rid of someone they don't like - they did that with CAP and it didn't work. They need to know what is going to happen next.

Here's what's next with Chavez. After he suppresses the opposition, he will work to influence or rule Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia - realizing Bolivar's dream. Panama he will get by working with China to take over the expansion of the canal, and by shipping oil thru it to China. In Brazil, Mexico and Central America, he will foment revolution by the poor and indigenous. Worldwide, he will become the supreme leader against one superpower, aided by China and the Group of 77. The OAS he will attempt to suborn with oil deals. The only obstacle left standing will be the U.S., which is indifferent to Latin America, and which won't wake up in time before he conquers the world's minds with his New Moral Economic Order, demolishing globalization in a stroke of genius. Those who don't believe this is possible have not read history. Those who don't believe Chavez will try it have not read Chavez. Virtually everything he has done in the last six years were known in 1997, and everything he plans to do between now and 2021, when he may leave office, are right there to see.

Here's what's next for the civil society. They need a declaration of grievances and redress voted democratically in meetings big and small all over the country - many Chavistas will agree with them. They need democratic primaries open to any voter or candidate, run by and for civil society with international support, which they can get if they go about it democratically. They need a run-off election to select one candidate endorsed by all or most of the others, centered around a government program that is inclusive, and is not the same old neo-liberal notion that is failing the poor everywhere else.

"Preposterous," some opposition politicians say, "He'll never let us do that." Exactly, is the response. He will not. But this time, civil society could be sitting side-by-side with the Organization of American States, the European Union, the United Nations, institutions that may just come of age to help while there's still time. Better, polls show that half the Chavistas appear ready to abandon Chavez for an inclusive, constructive, and civil solution that is no longer about winners and losers, but where everyone has a fair chance. In the choice between civilization and militarization, the poor of Venezuela today, like the victims of German inflation or Italian inferiority in the 1930's, can make the right choice, if they are given it.

 

Posted Sunday, May 16, 2004

Chávez Administers the Last Rites to the Rule of Law The Economist Viernes, 14 de mayo de 2004 A DASTARDLY opposition plot to use Colombian paramilitaries to overthrow the president? Or a government show, designed to discredit a shaky opposition and distract attention from its own manoeuvring to quash a recall referendum? Whatever the truth behind the arrest this week of 90-odd uniformed but unarmed men alleged to be right-wing terrorists at a ranch on the outskirts of Caracas, it spells more trouble for the opposition to Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez. Mr Chávez, a populist former army officer, stands on the brink of winning absolute power in his country. The opposition's attempt to invoke the constitution and subject the president to a recall referendum looks doomed. Worse still, a new law enables the president to seize control of the supreme court. And the “paramilitary” incident is the perfect excuse for a crackdown. “This is a country in which the last vestige of the rule of law has vanished,” said Rafael Marín, an opposition legislator, after an attempted raid this week on his house, ordered by a military judge. That is hyperbole—but only just. After a long filibuster by the opposition was defeated, the National Assembly on April 30th approved a law that adds 12 new justices to the 20-member supreme court. Hitherto, judicial appointments and dismissals have needed approval by a two-thirds majority in the Assembly, which Mr Chávez lacks. Under the new law, likely to take effect this month, only a simple majority is needed. So the president can now both pack and purge the court. Since the supreme court controls the rest of the judiciary, every judge in the land will have to apply the law the way the government wants—or risk losing his or her job. That is probably the final blow to the referendum. Six months ago, the opposition gathered over 3m signatures for this, well above the 2.4m required by the constitution. But the government-dominated electoral authority disqualified 1.2m of them—requiring those concerned individually to confirm their signature in a laborious exercise due later this month. Even if enough do, the matter is likely to go to the supreme court. Time is running out. If a referendum is held after August 19th (the mid-point of his term) and Mr Chávez loses, the upshot would not be an election but his vice-president taking over. The opposition fears that the new law heralds the curtailing of the political liberties that have hitherto prevailed in Mr Chávez's Venezuela. “Those who dare to dissent from the regime will be punished,” says Gerardo Blyde, a constitutional lawyer and opposition congressman. This week, a mayor from his party was jailed on what the opposition says are trumped-up charges. Venezuelans who signed the referendum petition are finding that they may be denied everything from passports to bank loans, government contracts or jobs, and dollars at the cheap official rate. Mr Chávez retains the support of at least a third of voters. He also controls the armed forces and the all-important oil industry. And with Venezuelan oil at over $30 a barrel, his government is awash with cash. Since Mr Chávez was first elected in 1998, income per head in Venezuela has fallen by 27% (partly because of a two-month general strike in 2002-03). But this year, the economy has started to recover. So the president looks as if he will easily survive until the end of his term in January 2007, and perhaps longer. The opposition, a mosaic of parties and civic groups, faces an unappetising future. It is held together only by a desire to get rid of Mr Chávez. Absent a referendum, its rickety coalition may fall apart. Moderates may reach an accommodation with the government that allows them to survive—and Mr Chávez to present a façade of democracy. Radical elements, including some former military officers, may try rebellion, armed or otherwise. But the “paramilitary” affair has given the government a pretext to pre-empt any such efforts with a wave of arrests. Like his mentor, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Mr Chávez thrives on enemies: he sees them not just at home, but in Colombia and the United States. His “microphone diplomacy” has the potential to strain Venezuela's relations with both countries. A few years ago, the United States might have been expected to make a much more vigorous attempt to stop democracy from being extinguished in a large South American country. But the Bush administration has shown no sign of wanting to do anything that might disrupt the flow of Venezuelan oil ahead of November's election in the United States. So it is likely to confine itself to rhetorical tut-tutting. Venezuela's relations with Colombia are more complicated. Security along the disputed border is a constant headache; both guerrillas and paramilitaries operate on the Colombian side, and have spilled over. President Álvaro Uribe's government in Bogotá has complained of lack of co-operation from Mr Chávez in dealing with the guerrillas. Venezuela's vice-president this week accused the head of Colombia's army, General Martin Carreño, of involvement with the Caracas “paramilitaries”. General Carreño denied this. Mr Uribe has held peace talks with the paramilitaries, but these are close to breaking down. It is not wholly implausible that Colombia's paramilitary leaders—and even its army—might make an alliance of convenience with hardline opponents of Mr Chávez. True or not, the president is making it plain that the only role for a democratic opposition in Venezuela is impotence. One day, he may reap the whirlwind he is now sowing.

---

Posted Monday, March 12, 2004

By Paul Crespo March 6, 2004 Paul Crespo is a former Marine Corps Officer and military attache at the US embassy in Caracas. An adjunct faculty member in the Political Science Department at the University of Miami, he is also a Senior Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, DC. This article first appeared in www.FrontPageMag.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is no doubt that Chávez - with Fidel Castro's help -- is creating a Cuban-style socialist state in Venezuela. Scholar Maxwell Cameron calls it the world's first "slow-motion constitutional coup." In the process, Chávez also is breathing new life into Fidel Castro's dying and decrepit dictatorship. But what's even more worrisome is the fact that the mercurial Chávez is turning the large, oil rich country into a base for international terrorism. Sadly, not many people recognize this threat. In my July 2003 American Legion Magazine article, The Other "Axis of Evil", I described the dangerous and growing alliance between Latin America's two major anti-American rogue states and international terror groups operating throughout the hemisphere. Focusing on the close and burgeoning partnership between Castro and Chávez, I explored the links both Castro and his new Caracas-based clone have with Latin American communist guerillas, drug dealers and Islamic terrorists. Referring to Castro as an anti-American godfather, "increasingly advising his new alter-ego in Venezuela..." I wrote that Chávez, "with Castro's direction and support - may be turning Venezuela into a new anti-American terrorism hub." Noting Castro's long history of subversion, espionage and terrorism -- including the October 2001 arrest in Washington, DC of Cuban spy Ana Belen Montes, the former senior Cuba analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) -- my article highlighted Castro's continuing threat to the US. Cuba remains on the US State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism. Chávez and Castro are intimately linked, meeting and talking regularly. Chávez has said Cuba and Venezuela are, in effect, "one team." The partnership is so close that Venezuela's intelligence and security service, known as DISIP, reportedly has come under control of the Cuban intelligence service, the DGI. Because of this, US intelligence agencies have ended their longstanding liaison relationships with their Venezuelan counterparts. Hundreds of Cuban advisors, coordinated by Cuba's military attaché in Caracas, are also in charge of the elite presidential guard who defend Chávez against potential coups or military unrest. Meanwhile, Chávez has purged and is reorganizing the Venezuelan military, making it personally loyal to him. Thousands of Cuban "teachers, doctors and sports trainers" also have flooded Venezuela. Their real job is to indoctrinate and train fanatically pro-Chávez paramilitary groups known as "Bolivarian Circles" that are part of a new 100,000-person People's Reserve militia recruited from Venezuela's poorest classes. These groups provide alternative armed cadres outside regular military channels loyal to Chávez. While most of the mainstream media have ignored this growing menace, one major news magazine, US News and World Report, followed my piece with an in-depth investigative report in October 2003, Terror Close to Home: In Venezuela, a volatile leader befriends Mideast, Colombia and Cuba, confirming my exposition and clearly detailing the danger of Chávez's links to Castro and terrorism. The weekly newsmagazine said that its two-month review, "including interviews with dozens of US and Latin American sources, confirms the terrorist activity," adding that "the oil-rich but politically unstable nation of Venezuela is emerging as a potential hub of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, providing assistance to Islamic radicals from the Middle East and other terrorists." Most prominent in Venezuela's list of friendly terror groups are the communist FARC guerillas (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces) who have terrorized Colombia for over 30 years and have killed thousands of people. Gen. Gary Speer, former acting chief of America's Southern Command, said during a Senate Armed Services committee hearing in March 2002 that "we are very concerned about President Chávez .. the FARC operates at will across the border into Venezuela." "There are arms shipments originating in Venezuela that get to the FARC and the ELN [National Liberation Army]," he added. "We have been unable to firmly establish a link to the Chávez government, but it certainly causes us suspicions. The company that Chávez keeps around the world, although under the guise of OPEC, certainly causes additional concerns as well" The US News piece details the exact location of FARC camps inside Venezuela where Venezuelan military advisors reportedly train FARC guerillas. Sadly, Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry stated in a February speech in Boston that the murderous FARC guerillas had "legitimate complaints" despite the fact that they have the support of less than three percent of Colombia's citizenry. Chávez's links to Middle East terrorists may be more indirect but US officials note that Venezuela is providing support--including identity documents--that could prove useful to radical Islamic groups. U.S. News noted that Chávez's government has issued thousands of "cedulas," the equivalent of national ID cards, to people from Cuba, Colombia, and Middle Eastern `countries of interest' like Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Lebanon that host foreign terrorist organizations. According to US News, some of these cedulas were subsequently used to obtain Venezuelan passports and even American visas, "which could allow the holder to elude immigration checks and enter the United States." Chávez also was the only western leader to travel to Iraq to visit Saddam Hussein prior to his ouster by the US. This article provoked an outcry from Chávez and his henchmen. The Venezuelan ambassador to the US, Alvarez Herrera, wrote an angry letter to the editor of US News deriding the article's accusations as "false" and "outrageous." The ambassador then tried to counter the magazine's first-hand evidence by stating unconvincingly that "the government of Venezuela has ratified the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism...and has signed multiple UN conventions on terrorism." Yet, the signature of this anti-democratic leftist demagogue on any international treaty hadly confirms his peaceful and lawful intent. An indignant Chávez also told foreign reporters "I challenge the staff of US News and World Report or its owners to come here and look for one single shred of evidence, to show the world one single shred of proof." Chávez added that, "It is a strategy, to launch an offensive by concocting anything -- an assassination, a coup, an invasion." As a diversion from his terror links, Chávez has begun claiming loudly, and without any substantiation, that the CIA is trying kill him. Much of the problem with our reaction to Chávez began with former US Ambassador to Venezuela, John Maisto who I briefly served as a military attaché at the US embassy in Caracas. His soft approach to the leftist demagogue was clearly flawed. Early on in Chávez's administration, the U.S. ambassador downplayed the Chávez threat, stating that it was Chávez's actions, not words that really mattered. Other Clinton administration officials echoed that sentiment and said that we should ignore Chávez's rhetoric. That approach became informally known as the "Maisto doctrine." Yet, Chávez's actions inexorably have matched his rhetoric. Despite his failure to appreciate the menace of a Chávez-Castro alliance, Maisto was inexplicably picked by the Bush administration to head - until recently -- the Western Hemisphere Affairs section at the National Security Council. He is still influencing Latin America policy as US Ambassador to the Organization of American States. Fortunately, other members of Bush's National Security team such as Presidential Envoy to Latin America, Otto Reich and Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Roger Noriega do seem to understand the threat posed by the Chávez-Castro terror nexus. Given the mischief Castro and Chávez are pursuing, Uncle Sam has his hands full dealing with the two dangers on either end of the Caribbean.

To continue with this non-biased and thought-provoking, well-written article that gives an excellent explanation of how Venezuela got into the predicament it now finds itself in, click here.

An excellent, interesting video message from Orlando Urdaneta which describes, with some detail, the disaster and futility of the Chávez presidency. It's an important message that shouldn't be missed.

The above link is in English, but you can also view it in Spanish, French, or Italian by clicking on the appropriate link below:

SPANISH

FRENCH

ITALIAN

'At 4:45 on the morning of September 25, 90 well-armed military men burst into Los Semerucos, a PdVSA workers' camp in the [Venezuelan] state of Falcón attacking some 300 residents with tear-gas bombs and rubber bullets, with the objective of evicting them from their homes." So says Gente del Petróleo, a nongovernmental organization that represents former workers of the state-owned oil company (PdVSA), who Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez fired earlier this year because they went on strike. The workers were protesting what they say is the politicization by Mr. Chávez of a company long known for its merit-based promotions and management. The group claims that since the strike, the unemployed oil workers have become targets of a government-sponsored campaign of violence and harassment designed to teach other would-be critics a lesson. "The brutal action," Gente del Petróleo writes in an open letter of testimony, "in which men, women and children were savagely beaten and humiliated and in which 26 locals were arrested, marked the beginning of a more repressive phase of the political persecution that 20,000 Venezuelan families have been subjected to during all of this year, for their dissent from the government regime." This is classic Chávez politics. In the Bolivarian Revolution, opponents are fair game in every sense. Indeed, enemies must be terrorized and destroyed, not only to remove a particular resistance but also to signal society that dissent is a dead end. The oil workers, who were middle-class and heavily dependent on the company, are just the right group to make an example of. For five years Mr. Chávez has preached hate, fomented odious class conflict and instructed his civilian supporters in the ways of Cuba's 11 acts of		repudiation" against counterrevolutionaries. The assaults on the oil workers were entirely predictable What is more surprising is the response from Washington, or more accurately, the lack thereof. In recent years, certain members of Congress have been seemingly overcome with preoccupation and sympathy for Latin American workers. Just this spring Michigan Democrat Sandy Levin traveled to Guatemala to insist that International Labor Organization standards be incorporated in trade agreements. Yet according to the labor syndicate that the fired Venezuelan workers have formed, Unapetrol, the U.S. Congress has not provided a lick of support for their cause. Mr. Levin explained to me yesterday that "no one in Congress or the administration has viewed this as a separate issue of labor rights but rather as part of a political struggle. To the extent that Chávez has violated core ILO standards it should be as much of a concern as it would be anywhere else." A more cynical view might conclude that notwithstanding the rhetoric from the likes of Mr. Levin, Washington's real concern when it comes to Latin labor is ensuring that the cost of output from the developing world is sufficiently high to protect its labor constituency in the U.S. Whether Congress recognizes it or not, the treatment of the fired PdVSA employees is nothing short of criminal. The crimes go well beyond the fact that the workers have been fired in a manner thoroughly inconsistent with Venezuelan law. One may argue that the government had a right to remove them because the strike paralyzed One may argue that the government had a right to remove them because the strike paralyzed PdVSA. Yet no private sector company can remove striking employees in this way, and certainly not without paying a hefty severance.		A Venezuelan court has ruled against PdVSA in the matter and the company has appealed to the Supreme Court. In the meantime it has ignored the lower court ruling. There are also the housing evictions, nearly impossible under Venezuelan law and never with such terrifying force. Moreover, the court order that supposedly allowed the action was issued eight hours after troops moved in. Still, for Mr. Chávez, taking		It also says that the case has been hampered by the fact that the government has not allowed the ILO into the country. Still, Unapetrol is hoping for an ILO ruling in its favor in November. On Tuesday, a Venezuelan NGO - Force for Integration - will use the case of the Los Semerucos evictions as part of its proof in oral arguments to a Spanish court that Mr. Chávez, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel, Attorney General Isaias Medina and some 22 members of Mr. Chávez's tactical committee for the national revolution are committing crimes against humanity and acts of terrorism. The director of Force for Integration told me that the case includes evidence and testimony that proves Venezuelan assistance to Colombian guerrillas and Cuban ties to the Chávez regime. But equally importantly the case will show the regime's atrocities against its own people. Indeed, the most alarming thing about this government is the legitimacy it claims as a democratically elected power on the one hand and the systematic suppression and eradication of the opposition on the other. Exhibit A to prove the government's bad faith is the organized vengeance - military, paramilitary and financial - unleashed against Mr. Chávez's opponents in the oil company.
				The Chávez regime's brutal treatment of oil workers is nothing short of criminal.
				the workers' jobs and homes away was not enough. He has also confiscated their savings and pensions. To finish the job of destroying them he has decreed to all contractors and suppliers of PdVSA that, under penalty of contract termination, they may not hire the former oil workers. On Sept. 26, the Interr-American Regional Association of Workers, part of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, condemned the government's "attacks perpetrated against the workers and their defenseless families including women and very young children. " It demanded that Venezuela "cease the inhuman harassment, persecution and repression against the PdVSA workers and their families and permit them access to their savings, which All have been illegally confiscated by the company and the government." The AFL/CIO is a member of the Inter/American group but hasn't intervened directly. Unapetrol has also appealed to the International Labor Organization for support. Unapetrol says "that process has been slow and bureaucratic, owing to the ILO's methods of analysis, which require a response from the government. "