February 2009 Archives

The following is an exclusive English translation of an opinion article by José Luis Cordeiro published in El Universal earlier this week.

THE "BEST" 10 YEARS OF CHÁVEZ

José Luis Cordeiro
El Universal

Hugo Chávez has been in power for over a decade. No Venezuelan president since the dictators of yesteryear, moving past Juan Vicente Gómez and Marcos Pérez Jiménez in the 20th century, had continuously wielded authority for so long. This in and of itself is bad, and worse still, the need of democratic succession has now been rooted out.

The Big Brother

Without showing any sign of discomposure, Chávez used all the resources of the State to perpetuate himself in power.

José Toro Hardy
El Universal
February 24, 2009

To understand what goes on in Venezuela, nothing is more enlightening than reading the novel "1984," also known as "The big brother," written by George Orwell in the 40s. Orwell, whose real name was Eric Arthur Blair, said that throughout the history of mankind, autocrats have always tried to rewrite history.

A referendum to refashion the Constitution took place in Venezuela on November 2, 2007. The articles earmarked for modification were several but the only one that seemed to matter to the President was that proposing the indefinite re-election of the Head of State.

Below are a couple of translated paragraphs from a column by David Uzcátegui published in El Universal:

We attended an extemporaneous electoral event and were dragged there by the hair.  This proposal had already been presented to voters and it had been rejected.  It was unconstitutional to present it again.

But is was presented and it won because, among other reason, it appeals to the ambition of the politicians who have found a parcel of power aside of the current president.  Before, mayors and governors of the ruling party didn't lift a finger because they didn't see any benefit.  For this second opportunity, he seduced them with a juicy deliverable of the benefits to be had - nothing less than the Venezuelan state apparatus itself - and they took the bait.

This week is Carnival in Venezuela, bringing the flow of news to a near complete stop - except for one 18-year-old who was fatally shot twice after throwing a water balloon during the festivities.

Despite Hugo Chavez's victory in the amendment vote to abolish term limits, Congressman Juan José Molina of the opposition party Podemos (with seven seats in the National Assembly), has only strengthened his tone of criticism:  "We are seven deputies, representing millions of Venezuelans. ... From 2007 we have occupied this space -- not to get rid of Chávez, not to throw him out or see him die. Ours is a defense of democracy. And so we criticize."  Archaeologists are keen to explore and research a neglected island off the coast of Venezuela known as Cubagua, which holds some of the earliest traces of the Spanish colonial presence. "Will other areas of Venezuela resemble Cubagua when the oil industry disappears?"

Alberto Müller Rojas, the Vice President of the ruling PSUV party, is generally regarded as a chavista hardliner - which is why it is unusual that he has recently called for better dialogue with the United States, and has claimed that the President has "premanently open bridges" to negotiate with the opposition parties.  Müller Rojas added that anyone with political aspirations in his party should be prepared to wait for at least 15 years.  The columnist Marianella Salazar lambasts the government for preferring to negotiate with "the empire" of the United States before even speaking to opposition parties.

The following is a translation of an opinion article published by author Enrique Krauze in Mexico's Reforma, among other sources.

Bound in Perpetuity

By Enrique Krauze, Reforma, Feb. 23, 2009

"This soldier of the people is already a candidate for the presidency in 2012," said Hugo Chávez before an ecstatic crowd, adding that he would be a candidate for "as long as God is willing." God doesn't express many opinions about these things, but it is likely that Chávez, whose energy is superhuman, is considering abandoning power in 2041, at 87 years old. Perhaps then will be the moment to open passage for new generations.

''This reelectionist fever is bad news for the region,'' Zovatto said. ``Latin America's fragile democracies won't get stronger with charismatic leaders, but with stronger institutions and a solid civic culture.''

My opinion: I agree. Latin American countries would do better copying the U.S. example, where former presidents spend a comfortable life on the lecture circuit, or the Mexican model, where reelection is prohibited, and where presidents go into self-imposed or forced exile abroad after their six-year terms.

One of them, Luis Echeverria, was appointed to a job that was officially described as ambassador to Australia ''and the Fiji islands,'' in case he didn't get the point that they wanted him as far away as possible.

Short of that, they should remember the famous words by South America's independence hero Simón Bolivar -- ironically, the man cited by Chávez as his ideological mentor -- who said in a Feb. 15, 1819, speech that, ``Nothing is so dangerous as allowing the same citizen to stay in power for too long: The people become used to obeying him, and he becomes used to giving them orders, which are the seeds of usurpation and tyranny.''

GONZALEZ:  It is difficult to predict. However, Latin American investors operate under the confluence of three very dangerous elements. These are: i) Perceived need for confidentiality, ii) Just enough business and financial knowledge to be extremely dangerous to themselves and unable to understand the relationship between risk and reward, and iii) in the case of countries like Venezuela, exchange controls.  These three elements cause a perfect storm for those representing unknown financial institutions or those who offer unreasonably high returns. Using a variation of Gordon Gekko's famous expression...."Greed is Good", but it can also be very expensive.

How have the Stanford and Madoff schemes affected Latin American investor confidence in U.S. financial institutions?

GONZALEZ: Not at all. If anything, Madoff and Stanford make a better case for traditional banks than they have been able to make for themselves over the last 20 years. If Madoff and Stanford had been a traditional US financial institution, those losses would have been covered by FDIC insurance.

Fiery rhetoric from Chavez has not helped calm the violence and instability in his country, and he has resorted to dubious tactics to muster support. Evidence shows that Chavez has used economic incentives to punish political opponents in the past and he often refers to a published list of those who voted for him and those who did not, by name.

Both Chavez and Morales are polarising figures who have divided their countries along ethnic and social lines. Their message might be a good one: empower the "have-nots" and create a more inclusive and participatory political economy. But their way of going about such goals draws on ideological responses where pragmatic solutions are required. They tend to undermine democratic principles and are applying economic approaches that have devastated resource-dependent countries like theirs time and again.

This is not a model for SA or any African country. This story of corrosive power and patriarchal politics has played out too many times before on this continent.

One should not assume that every student movement currently mobilized against the chavista agenda is automatically associated with an opposition party.  Many of the students that we interviewed in our recent YouTube series were adamantly insistent on the fact that they supported any opposition party, and were at times hostile to the perception that various parties were taking advantage of the enthusiasm and buzz they had created around their cause for greater social inclusion.  Here David Smolansky, one of the most well known leaders from UCAB, comments on what more the student movement needs to see from opposition parties to bridge this gap.

Student leader requests "clearer proposals" from opposition parties

David Smolansky considers that Chávez's opponents "have a chance" to win a majority of seats in the National Assembly elections

According to the student opposition leader and representative at the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB) the political bloc that differs from the Venezuelan government must present in 2010 "clearer and direct proposals" to the people. They must also design a stronger and structured platform. (...) In doing so, the opposition would have a golden opportunity to win a majority of seats in the National Assembly. It all depends on its organization," said Smolansky in an interview with Notitarde, a Venezuelan newspaper.

From the Corpus Christi Caller Times editorial page:

Venezuela is in sorry shape. Its chief source of government revenue, the national oil company, is producing less oil and that oil is worth much less than a year ago. Inflation is running at 30 percent. Basic food stuffs, such as rice and beans, is often missing from store shelves, largely because of the price controls imposed by the country's president, the bellicose Hugo Chavez. The crime rate is rising, murders are up as are kidnappings. (...)

But the victory was hardly the result of a free and independent democracy. Chavez all but expropriated the government machine for the election campaign. Government-run television stations saturated broadcasts with pro-Chavez campaign messages and government workers were folded into the campaign to remove the term limits. The entire work force of Petroleos de Venezuela, the national oil company, were mobilized in the campaign orchestrated by Chavez.

The Venezuelan voters have given Chavez a significant victory, but what they have won for themselves is an ever more doubtful future. Not much is left of democracy in Venezuela and the disenchantment with Chavez is only likely to grow as life gets harder. Chavez has proved himself adept at responding to changing political situations, but any boost for his own political fortunes is likely to come at the expense of ordinary Venezuelans.

On Wednesday, a day after the Securities and Exchange Commission accused Mr. Stanford of orchestrating an $8 billion international fraud, Venezuelans joined hundreds of investors and depositors lined up at Stanford's offices in Latin America and the Caribbean to salvage what they could.

And while the anxiety is palpable in Antigua -- where some clients arrived by private jet, only to find that assets in the bank were frozen, according to The Associated Press -- the greatest flurry of activity appears to be unfolding in the rest of Latin America, where the impact of Stanford International's presence is expected to ripple through several economies.

Edgar Hernández Behrens, Venezuela's banking regulator, sought to calm investors, declaring that the bank was essentially healthy. He said that Stanford's small retail banking operation was sound, even as clients expressed alarm about investments with the firm locally and offshore.

From the Washington Post on Roberto Viciano Pastor:

Once a product of armed rebellion, the revolution in Latin America today is taking place on paper in the form of new constitutions, a mostly peaceful process influenced by the work of European legal scholars who have played a behind-the-scenes role in drafting the populist documents.

Venezuela's referendum Sunday on whether to amend a constitution less than a decade old to allow President Hugo Chávez to run for office indefinitely is just the latest example. Two other South American countries have embarked in the past decade on rewriting their societies' fundamental rules, creating enormous new charters that vastly expand the social and economic rights granted to citizens, particularly the poor.

THE DAY AFTER

After illegally and unscrupulously spending billions of the public coffers on his campaign; after the most grossly opportunistic run for the presidency in national history; after the most brazen blackmail of workers of the public sector and State companies, as well as of the beneficiaries of the missions; after violating the Constitution and the laws anyway he felt like, with a pandering CNE - the national election board - giving in to the abuses of opportunism, Chacumbele got his amendment victory.

"Those who voted 'yes' today voted for socialism, for revolution," Chavez said. He called the victory -- which allows all public officials to run for re-election indefinitely -- a mandate to speed his transformation of Venezuela into a socialist state.

"Today we opened wide the gates of the future," he said. "In 2012 there will be presidential elections, and unless God decides otherwise, unless the people decide otherwise, this soldier is already a candidate."

With 94 percent of the vote counted, 54 percent had voted for the constitutional amendment, National Electoral Council chief Tibisay Lucena said. Forty-six percent had voted against it, a trend she called irreversible. She said turnout was 67 percent. (...)

"Our future [as Cubans] is inseparable from (...) the approval of the constitutional amendment," Castro said, adding that "there is no alternative but victory."

"The fate of the people of Our America," the former Cuban head of state assured, "will depend greatly upon this victory and will be an event which will influence the rest of the planet."

On the eve of the Cuban revolution, as told in Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Michael Corleone visited Havana at the invitation of family friend Hymen Roth to explore a possible investment opportunity whose success depended entirely on the ability of the Batista regime to maintain its hold on power. One day in Havana, Michael sits in a taxi stuck in traffic while watching a pair of policemen interrogate and then execute a member of the opposition movement, all in broad daylight. He decides then and there that he will forgo the investment opportunity Mr. Roth is brokering. An opposition movement that does not flinch at paying the ultimate price in defense of its beliefs, he reasons, is bound to represent a risk to anyone associated with the ruling regime.

Polls suggest Mr. Chávez's bid to change the constitution is running ahead. Still, he is becoming more desperate as the collapse in oil prices has sent the economy into a tailspin, curtailing his ability to finance social programs that have sustained his popularity with the poor.

He and his supporters are increasingly resorting to intimidation. Mobs have occupied the municipal government headquarters in Caracas, which is run by the opposition, and lobbed tear gas canisters at the home of a TV executive who has been critical of the government and others. The leader of one hard-core group is threatening "war" if Mr. Chávez loses, according to news reports.

Voters should not yield. Mr. Chávez needs to be reminded that Venezuelans believe in their democracy and cherish their right to say no.

During our last visit to Venezuela, we had the opportunity to meet with a remarkable young man named Diego Scharifker, who like so many others in Venezuela found himself pulled into politics not by choice but by circumstance, when a chavista radio host singled him out by name on air in the style of a 1960s cultural revolution (there truly aren't many other governments in the world that attack their youth by name).  The current confrontation between President Hugo Chávez and the student movement has become the principal theme of this constitutional amendment election taking place tomorrow, and in fact Simon Romero of the New York Times recently made reference to the singling out of Scharifker in an article.  After meeting Diego the first time, we shot a short video with rather poor sound.  When I was in Caracas this week, we met up with him again to talk about the role of the student movement in the enmienda election, and discuss the personal challenges of assuming political conscience in the current Venezuelan political environment.  Stay tuned this weekend for many more interviews with the student movement of Venezuela.

Obama should merely ignore Chávez and let Venezuelans take care of him. Much is made of how Chávez is a troublemaker who has enlisted Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras and Cuba in an anti-American leftist alliance. Who cares? None of these small countries is a threat or wants to be. There is no Soviet Union to use them as a platform, and Chinese dabbling in the hemisphere is purely commercial.

History is also a guide. Two Venezuelan dictators in the past century made similar constitutional changes to be reelected, and both were overthrown a year later -- the last one in 1958, beginning the democratic cycle that led to Chávez. In 10 years as president, however, Chávez has been a poster boy for "illiberal democracy," using majority votes, mostly from the poor and uneducated, to gut the country's Congress and courts, shut down independent media, and nationalize many industries.

Chávez lost a similar referendum 14 months ago. For this coming vote, he has resorted to 1930s fascist tactics of fomenting insecurity -- and then rising in the polls. His supporters have thrown tear-gas bombs at the homes of opponents (and even at the Vatican mission), attacked demonstrators, and singled out opposition student leaders as Jewish, creating a climate in which a synagogue was desecrated two weeks ago. Now Chávez campaigns as the alternative to this chaos.

Venezuela's Globovision television reported that Herrero was escorted to the Maiquetia airport on Friday by what appeared to be members of the national guard.

"Following his comments, in a sequestering operation, they took him by force from the hotel without even allowing him to take his personal belongings and his passport," opposition member Luis Ignacio Planas told Globovision. (...)

Herrero used harsh words against Chavez's handling of the referendum in a news conference that aired Thursday on Globovision, implying the Venezuelan president was trying to manipulate the polling schedule to his benefit. Herrero called for Venezuelans to "vote freely."

"Don't ever let fear obstruct your vote, as a dictator has premeditated," Herrero said.

What is Hugo Chávez's secret to success? After celebrating a full decade in power by naming a holiday after himself in the style of the late Turkmenbashi, the mystery behind his enduring grip on power and the failure of his opponents to defeat him only deepens.

The answer, in part, has something to do with a consistent reluctance on behalf of the opposition to concede that Chávez has consolidated his disproportionate power through the very same democratic instruments created to prevent such abuses. Considered from abroad, especially in Europe, his instrumentalization of democratic process, over and over again, to hollow out all independent institutions is almost like a magic trick. Instead of representing a problematic case of autocracy deserving of diplomatic pressure, Chávez is revered in some circles in the West as a model democrat and the vanguard of Leftist idealism.

CHAVEZ AND THE SYNAGOGUE

By Teodoro Petkoff

Let us suppose, Hugo Chavez, that the desecrators of the Mariperez synagogue were really from the metropolitan police, the ex PTJ (technical-judicial police), and Policaracas (Caracas police), whose detention was announced by the government; and let us suppose, as well, that the motive of that operation was really robbery. In that case, there remains a small question to which the President must respond: why did these criminals give a political and antisemitic slant to their action? Why the offensive graffiti against the Jews? The Great Explainer says that it was for the purpose of throwing the hounds off the scent. Okay, but why did they do so using antisemitic phrases? For a very simple reason, Hugo Chavez.

Venezuela will continue to provide refuge to the FARC guerilla group and will serve as a bridge for Iran to begin building relationships with Latin America, says an American intelligence expert, who has also issued warnings about the challenges posted by Mexico, Cuba, and Bolivia in his annual report presented before the U.S. Senate.  The former Polish President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and founder of the Solidarity movement has announced that his trip to Venezuela has been canceled following statements by President Hugo Chávez that he was a persona non grata (the threat was followed by a denial from other government sources saying that Walesa would be allowed to enter the country).

A new report shows that 40% of the oil income of Venezuela ends up being directed toward very opaque funds.  Since 2005, state-owned energy firm PDVSA has been obligated to turn over its dollar income from the sale of oil to the Banco Central, but in reality only a percentage of these earnings is directed there to cover imports and stability of international currency reserves, whlie the rest (some $85.4 billion) gets deposited in mysterious funds with little public accounting such as Fonden, Fondespa, and special treasury accounts.

"If we vote, we win." The only way to win is to get out the vote next February 15.

The constitutional amendment proposed by the National Assembly, dominated by the ruling party for unlimited reelection of our President is unconstitutional.  This proposal was already rejected by the popular vote, during the Dec. 2, 2007 elections over the Constitutional Reforms, which were proposed by the President to perpetuate his rule.

This electoral campaign is the most unequal battle we have ever had in Venezuela:  David, the citizen, confronting Goliath, the State.  The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela wants to crush and stomp upon the citzenry, and they've come bearing all of the state's resources, the courts and institutions, to win this electoral contest.

Across the board, U.S. ties with Latin America and the Caribbean run broad and deep. From 1996 to 2006, total U.S. merchandise trade with Latin America grew by 139 percent, compared to 96 percent for Asia and 95 percent for the European Union. In 2006, the United States exported $223 billion worth of goods to Latin American consumers (compared with $55 billion to China). Fifty-one percent of U.S. energy imports orig­inate from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil.

Just as the oil price puffed up Mr Chávez over the past few years, now it is diminishing him. His ambition to sponsor a continental movement of radical leftists is being crimped as the money runs short. Even if he wins the referendum, he will face growing discontent at home as the economy moves into recession and inflation rises. His way of governing is plebiscitarian: almost every year in the past decade Venezuelans have been asked to vote in ballots that the president has turned into a referendum on himself, and whose outcome he has then taken as a blank cheque. Without the oil windfall, a majority of Venezuelans are likely to withdraw their consent. If and when that happens, the risk will be that Mr Chávez resorts to bullying to stay in power. Left-of-centre governments elsewhere in Latin America, which have been overenthusiastic in embracing him, must try to ensure that doesn't happen.

The following is an exclusive English translation from Spain's leading daily newspaper, El País.

The case of the banker Eligio Cedeño reveals the growing similarities between Chávez's Venezuela and Putin's Russia

El País - W. Oppenheimer, London, Feb. 2, 2009

Eligio Cedeño, 44 years old, is a self-made man who first began to earn money as a financial intermediary in Caracas and ended up building a small banking empire in chavista Venezuela. But now he has spent two years in jail awaiting a judgment for a strange foreign exchange issue that his lawyers say is a baseless accusation.

Why? Because the banker began to flirt with the opposition to President Hugo Chávez and "could become a dangerous political rival: a young, handsome, wealthy, and popular man," says Robert Amsterdam, one of his lawyers. "Chávez and his people believe that Cedeño made his money thanks to their regime and that he would have to be on their side," he added.

Amsterdam became famous for a very similar case: the trial against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch who refused to bow his head before then President Vladimir Putin and was sentenced to nine years in a prison which is cast away in Siberia. Now he has joined the lawyers Emilio Berrizbeitia and Gonzalo Himiob for the defense of Cedeño.

In light of last week's attack on a synagogue in Caracas, Venezuela, we are linking to the following testimony given by David J. Myers, a political science professor from Pennsylvania State, before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on July 16, 2008.  (source)

The position of Venezuela's Jewish community is a special human rights concern. The Community's population continues to decline as a result of severe political and economic instability in the country. This has led to some hostility being directed at Venezuelan Jews, of which there are probably no more than 15,000 remaining out of a total population of close to 26 million. More than half of the Jewish population of Venezuela lives in Caracas. The other large community is in the oil center of Maracaibo. At its peak, in the late 1980's, Venezuela's Jewish community numbered 30.000.

In fact, none of Chávez's health and human development indicators are beyond that which is normal in the midst of the sort of oil boom which Venezuela recently enjoyed. And the average share of the budget devoted to health, education and housing under Chávez (25%) is identical to that in the last eight years before his election, and even lower than under Carlos Andrés Pérez, the "neoliberal" president against whom Chávez attempted a coup in 1992.

I grew up in Venezuela's neoliberal era as a member of the maligned "oligarchy". It is true that, until Chávez, this group had been mostly unconcerned by social inequality. But now, after a decade of violent divisions, all Venezuelans understand that no one can afford the consequences of injustice and poverty. Chávez, however, has not been the answer.

There are other measures Obama could take to endear himself to countries such as Brazil--for instance, getting rid of the ludicrous 54 percent tariff on imports of ethanol from that country. And there are tactical approaches to be adopted in certain trouble spots--such as letting Hugo Chavez hang with his own rope. But, ultimately, undoing the U.S. economic mess, beginning to look at the mobility of people--and not just goods and services--as part of trade relations, and starting a conversation about alternative ways to confront drugs would be by far the best contributions Obama could make to a region of the world to which he has yet to travel.

The Rabbi Hier, highlighted an article published on the official state website Apporea.org, titled "How to support the Palestine against the artificial Israeli state?" in which a plan of action was offered against the Jewish community of Venezuela.  Amont the examples were included: boycott their companies and businesses, confiscate the properties of any Jews who support Israel to donate them to Palestinians, promote hacking attacks against web pages which are "pro-Zionist," such as the governmental or institutional sites which have good relations with Israel, and holding an international conference about the creation of "the Nazi state of Israel as a 'Euro-Gringo genocidal colony.'"