Donde ronca Carter no hay chavista con reumatismo

From a certain point of view, the opposition should be thrilled: needing to mobilize just 45% of the reparable signators (540,000 out of over 1.2 million) to convene a recall - their task is like shooting a fish in the proverbial barrel. Its supporters are nothing if not committed, and the 1.2 million signature universe must be heavily weighted to committed antichavista - people, at any rate, willing to go out and put their name on the line to support the RR last November.

With unofficial descifrado-obtained estimates suggesting 30% of the reparables turned up before noon on the first day, the oppo should be sitting pretty just now. Since CNE has banned premature results, Mendoza must be seen to be talking in code when he calls today's operation an "Operación Ñapa" - or "Operation Safety-Margin", in the very clunky English translation. Without violence, and with only scattered impediments to repairing, it shouldn't even be controversial that the opposition can mobilize 540,000 antichavistas in a situation like this - it should be a tiro al suelo...

So this should be a time of real opposition optimism. And in a way it is. My unscientific little poll here shows that at least my readers are feeling quietly hopeful. The 540,000 figure will not be a major problem.

As the comeflor inteligentsia has argued for months, we now have the chavistas just where we want them: backed into an impossible corner. To win, they have to cheat, and to cheat, they have to cheat big, cheat bold, cheat openly and blatantly under the noses of the international community and the media.

Yet much of the opposition remains ambivalent. The reason, to my mind, is the repeated government appeals for opposition leaders to declare right now that they will accept any decision the National Electoral Council reaches.

Once bitten, twice shy, the saying goes, and the opposition feels it's been bitten more than once by this CNE. With experience fresh of the council's dadaist freestyle interpretations of the constitution's article 72 and of its own regulations' articles 28, 29 and (especially) 31, the opposition is in no mood to be writing CNE blank checks at this point. Understandably so, I hasten to add...

The government senses the tactical advantage on this point and has decided to press it. In his WashPost opinion piece, Chavez made much of the oppo's reluctance to make the CNE pledge. With characteristic discipline, his underlings hammer away at it each time they get near a microphone.

The harder they press, though, the more the opposition becomes convinced that the fix must be in: the government wouldn't dream of pursuing such a high-risk strategy unless they were quite sure that CNE would eventually rule against the referendum.

As a result, the antichavistas, who have the most to gain from a fully transparent process, continus to squirm away from affirming faith in the only organization that can hand us victory.

This odd situation is typical of our hyperpolarized age, where seemingly unquestionable propositions like "we will abide by CNE reults" get aggressively politicized, problematized, stuffed through the revolutionary looking glass until they come out the other side entirely transmogrified. What should be a common sense position comes to look like an a priori endorsement of a planned fraud.

And yet, if the opposition does manage to top, say, the 700,000 repaired signature threshold - which seems entirely plausible - even a CNE as creative and resourceful as this one will have a very hard time falsifying the results. And, certainly, an impossible time doing so credibly.

Which brings us around to the other reason the government's line on the opposition's refusal to pledge to accept CNE-results rings hollow. The demand usually comes side-by-side with bold government attacks on the Carter Center/OAS Observation mission. Often, these attacks are couched in shrill language about mission heads Fernando Jaramillo (OAS) and Francisco Diez (CC) being paid opposition supporters.

In a sense, it's not surprising: twice now the Carter Center/OAS mission has publicly expressed its dissent with CNE decisions, explaining that CNE has applied criteria that fall foul of international standards. Chavistas interpret these criticisms as "proof" that the observers favor the opposition, never stopping to consider the much more straightforward possibility that the statments show that CNE decisions have not always been consistent with international standards. The telenovela surrounding Article 31 on the reparos is the obvious instance of this dynamic.

Chavez nos tiene locos, pero el maniqueismo tiene loco a los chavistas. When you only recognize two possibilities - you're a chavista or you're a coupster - it becomes impossible to accept any criticisms coming from foreign observers (or, indeed, anyone at all.) Disagreement with the chavista party line is taken as prima facie evidence of coupsterism. I find it worrying that this attitude now extends not just to Venezuelans, but also of Fernando Jaramillo and Francisco Diez.

Government supporters seem not to realize that with their ad hominem attacks on Diez and Jaramillo, they confirm to the observation mission what the opposition has been saying all along: that they are ideologically rigid, minded to equate disagreement with treason and fundamentally intolerant of opposing or diverging viewpoints. You're either with us or against us, is the underlying chavista sentiment. We are on the side of justice, truth, and history; which side are you on? Within such absolutist belief system, disagreement can only be interpreted as evidence of conspiracy, or terrorism, or coupsterism - pick your favorite term of abuse.

When you start from the assumption that your side is both righteous and infallible, you inevitably end up mired in such intolerant and autocratic thought.

Such discourse has no sense of its own boundries. It does not limit itself to keep from holding ridiculous or laughable opinions. It is, if nothing else, consistent. If Kerry is an antichavista, vote for Nader! If Francisco Diez says something that falls outside the chavista cannon, he's a conspirator. Simple.

There's just one glitch: the international observation mission, and particularly the Carter Center, and most particularly Jimmy Carter himself, have way too much credibility to simply dismiss. In fact, Carter may be the only human being alive who is almost universally respected by both chavistas and opositores.

For this reason, President Carter's visit to Caracas this weekend will be crucial to the unfolding of the crisis. CNE can be sure that the observation mission will not stand by silently in the face of fraud. And they must worry when they realize that when the observation mission's statement on the reparos process goes on TV, it will not be McCoy or Jaramillo or Diez they'll have to contend with, it'll be Cesar Gaviria sitting next to Jimmy Carter.

So what can we conclude from all of this?

• That the much maligned opposition's negotiators with CNE, Felipe Mujica and Alberto Quiroz Corradi, cut us a much better deal on the reparos than they're usually given credit for.
  
• That the even more universally derided long-term, pisa-pasito, softly-softly approach of the Carter Center and the OAS was far-sighted.
  
• That the government is now in a very uncomfortable position - hemmed in on all side the the sheer numbers of opposition signators, by the Carter Center/OAS mission, and by its own constitutional norms. If the reparos continue to go well, Chavez's options will be reduced to two: kick the gameboard or face the voters.
  

A final thought. Everybody loves to hate the CNE board members. This is understandable, given their penchant for applying the Incredible Metamorphosing Legal Standard. But anger is one thing, considered analysis another.

Up until this point, CNE has been friendly to the government, but it hasn't been a complete tool. Jorge Rodriguez is not German Mundarain, Carrasquero is not Willian Lara. So far, CNE has shown a clear reluctance to kick the playing board. As Kico Bautista once put it, Carrasquero's message to Chavez has always been "yes, I'm on your side, yes, I want to help, but no, I'm not going to stage an outright coup on your behalf."

Of course, right this second Carrasquero and his colleagues are almost certainly under a level of political pressure few of us are likely ever to face, and fewer of us still could really imagine. It's an extreme situation, that's for sure. What might come out of it remains a matter of total speculation.

Ecco Rubicon

We're on it, folks. It's a long crossing, it'll take five days to get to the other bank, at least. But this is it.

Another detail CNE forgot to disclose...

From Today's Miami Herald

Venezuela Has Stake In Ballots

The Venezuelan government has a 28 percent ownership of the company it will use to help deliver voting results in future elections.

BY RICHARD BRAND AND ALFONSO CHARDY

CARACAS -- A large and powerful investor in the software company that will design electronic ballots and record votes for Venezuela's new and much criticized election system is the Venezuelan government itself, The Herald has learned.

Venezuela's investment in Bizta Corp., the ballot software firm, gives the government 28 percent ownership of the company it will use to help deliver voting results in future elections, including the possible recall referendum against President Hugo Chávez, according to records obtained by The Herald.

The deal to scrap the country's 6-year-old machines -- for a $91 million system to be built by two fledgling companies that have never been used in an election before -- was already controversial among Chávez opponents who claimed it was a maneuver to manipulate votes amid growing political turmoil.

Chávez opponents told The Herald on Thursday they were stunned to learn the government has a proprietary stake in a company critical to the election process.

''The Venezuelan state? Are you kidding?,'' said Jesús Torrealba, an official in the Democratic Coordinator opposition group. ``It impugns the credibility of the process. That is shocking.''

Government officials insist the investment is an effort to help support private enterprise and its interest in a ballot software company is merely coincidental, one of a dozen such investments made to help struggling companies.

''The whole process led to a decision that was best for Venezuela,'' said Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela's ambassador in Washington.

But Venezuela is a nation bitterly polarized by Chávez's leftist populist rule. Nearly every move by the government is scrutinized by opponents who accuse Chávez of trying to impose an authoritarian regime.

GOVERNMENT FUNDS

Until a year ago, the Bizta Corp. was a struggling Venezuelan software company with barely a sales deal to its name, records show. Then, the Venezuelan government -- through a venture capital fund -- invested about $200,000 and bought 28 percent of it.

The government's investment in Bizta made Venezuela Bizta's largest single shareholder and, ultimately, its most important client.

The decision to replace the $120 million system built by Omaha-based Election Systems & Software was made Feb. 16 under unusual circumstances. Two of the five National Electoral Council members sympathetic to the opposition complained that they had been largely shut out of the process.

''The selection process was secret and it didn't allow us to get any information about the bidders and their products,'' board member Sobella Mejías said after the decision.

Other members knew about the government's investment, according to one member who asked not to be identified.

The new system is to be built by the Smartmatic Corp., which is incorporated in Florida, and programmed by Bizta, which also is registered in Florida and Venezuela.

Pro-Chávez government officials and company executives interviewed by The Herald say the Smartmatic-Bizta machines are among the most secure in the world, and that the government's investment in Bizta was unrelated to Bizta's bid for the voting machine contract.

''The companies that were chosen have the highest technical capacity,'' said Alvarez, the ambassador. ``In Venezuela there have been many fair elections and there will be many more fair elections.''

But the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which has observed every major Venezuelan electoral process since Chávez's election in 1998, said the disclosure of the government's role in Bizta reinforces the need for independent election audits.

''What we look at in any electoral process is whether each of the components is transparent and auditable. In this case, we would include these new machines,'' said Jennifer McCoy, who is leading the Carter Center's mission in Venezuela. She said she was unaware of the government's investment in Bizta.

Even without the political implications, the use of electronic voting machines has been widely debated since the United States' 2000 presidential election. Stanford University Professor David Dill, who has studied voting machines but is not specifically knowledgeable about the new Venezuelan system, said almost any programmed electronic machine is subject to possible manipulation.

'People just don't understand how easily these machines could fail to record votes accurately -- even by being `fixed,' '' he said.

PAPER TRAIL

Smartmatic does produce a paper trail of votes as well, but Venezuelan government critics claim it will be useless since an election recount would be supervised by the Electoral Council, perceived as pro-Chávez.

The National Electoral Council members have hailed Bizta's software-writing role as contributing to Venezuelan ''sovereignty'' over their voting system, which replaces American-designed machines. Chávez, an outspoken critic of U.S. policy, is viewed as leftist and anti-American.

According to Bizta's 2002 financial statement, the most recent one filed by the company in Venezuela, it was then a dormant firm that had no sales and was slowly losing money.

In June 2003, however, a venture capital company called Sociedad de Capital de Riesgo (SCR) invested about $200,000 in Bizta. The SCR is owned by the Venezuelan government's Industrial Credit Fund.

In January, a top official in Venezuela's science ministry, Omar Montilla, joined Bizta's board of directors to represent the government's three million shares, records show.

Montilla, who is one of five directors, canceled a meeting with The Herald and did not reply to repeated Herald queries.

One month after Montilla joined the board, the National Electoral Council awarded Bizta and partners Smartmatic and CANTV the $91 million contract to develop new voting machines. Bizta was hired to write the electronic code that configured the names and parties of candidates on the touch screens. Smartmatic would build and design the machines. CANTV, the publicly held phone company, would provide the phone lines for the system and election-day technical support.

The venture is largely the work of two little-known Venezuelan engineers: Antonio Mugica Rivero and Alfredo Anzola Jaumotte, childhood friends and recent engineering school graduates.

Mugica, 30, is the president of Smartmatic and a founder of Bizta. Anzola, 30, is the president of Bizta and the vice president of Smartmatic, corporate records from Venezuela show.

NO CONNECTIONS

Both executives say they have no political allegiances. Neither signed a petition drive seeking Chávez's recall.

Anzola initially told The Herald that one of the reasons the electoral council selected the group was that it had no connection to either the government or the opposition.

When told in a subsequent interview in Caracas that Bizta papers showed the government had an investment in his company through SCR, Anzola and Mugica said they viewed the investment as a loan.

''We really don't want to be involved in politics,'' said Wladimir Serrano, head of the governments venture capital fund. ``Our role is strictly financial and technical.''

Bizta ''remains a private company, with some government shares but without any say on our part on its day to day activities or its strategic programs and policies,'' Serrano said.

SUBSTANTIAL POWER

But Harvard Professor Ricardo Hausmann, a former Venezuelan official who also has worked as the chief economist of the Inter-American Development Bank, said any investor holding a 28 percent stake in a company would likely have substantial power to make decisions.

''For example, Verizon is the largest shareholder in CANTV, holding 28 percent, and it has control of the company's management,'' said Hausmann, who sits on the CANTV board. With Bizta, ``The government's influence will depend on the arrangement between the government and other shareholders.''

SCR's stock purchase in Bizta was part of a broader effort to help start-up companies that could bring Venezuela international prestige in a wide range of industries, Serrano said.

He provided a list of a dozen other companies in which SCR has invested.

Most of the 20,000 Smartmatic-Bizta machines will be delivered over the summer from the factory in Italy, officials say.

Reparos roundup

BBC: Chavez bristles amid fresh attack

Agence France Presse: Venezuela's political impasse nears an end

State Dept: US Urges Chavez to Support 'Fair' Process in Resolving Venezuela Recall Dispute

Reuters: Chavez Blasts U.S. for Venezuela Referendum Pressure

AP: As Venezuela heads into recall vote count, Chavez seeks ``dark-skinned utopia'' in Mexico

Weil

A considered fisking of VIO's rebuttal...

...of the WashPost's rebuttal of Chavez's rebuttal of their Editorial from a few weeks back - so a rebuttal of a rebuttal of a rebuttal of a rebuttal...zowee, bless the internet age!

VIO sez:

"The Post's editorial expresses concern about " intimidation by government goon squads" during the signature confirmation period this weekend. In fact, there has been no systematic intimidation of voters or petition signers since Hugo Chávez took office in 1999."

My considered reply:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! BWAHAHAHA-HAAAHAAHAA!!!

...oh man! Good one! Heee! How do you guys come up with stuff like this?!

Oh man, VIO...sheesh...how much of our tax money is funding the near-lobotomized idiocy these guys are peddling?! How much of our public money are we spending to stroke Chavez's ego with disinformation so aggressively detatched from reality that only if you know absolutely nothing about Venezuela or if you're clinically insane could you believe it!? 600,000 bucks, did they say?! To hire lobbyists who subscribe to the four-year-olds-at-the-playground school of denial?

Think about it, that's exactly what this is: a four year old at a playground gets caught hitting another kid. You confront him. What does he say? "I didn't do it." Lamely. Every time. Never fails.

It doesn't matter to him that you were sitting ten feet away, that you saw him sock the other little kid in the mouth, that you have all the evidence you need and more. "I didn't do it," that's what he's always gonna say.

OK, it's pathetic yes, but normally the 4-year-old in question isn't getting paid half a million dollars to come up with it!

Estimados VIOistas, please! Earn your six figure budgets! Dear Nathan, we know about the government's intimidation campaign because nearly all of us have a cousin, or a friend, or a son, or an old schoolmate who has been put under pressure by the government. Stories of signators trying to obtain a National ID card or a passport and being refused merely because they signed are a dime a dozen in Caracas these days. The intimidation is not subtle, it's open, and thousands of people have experienced it in person. So please don't insult us, or clutter up the historical record, with positions that are blatantly false and can easily be demonstrated to be patently false.

It may be hard for you, Nathan, sitting in a nice DC office, to picture yourself in the shoes of a Venezuelan public employee earning $200/month and needing to feed a family on that. It may be hard for you to quite fathom the terror of having that income threatened in a country with 20% unemployment and where, out of those working, more than half having only "informal employment" - odd jobs for cash. I suspect it will be very, very hard for you, Nathan, to empathize with the prospect of being dumped out of work in a job market like that with no unemployment insurance, no proper medical insurance, no welfare, no foodstamps, nothing to stave off complete penury, simply as a consequence of having expressed dissidence openly. And so you will not know, Nathan, what Roger Capella's words meant, how they impacted Venezuela's opposition-minded public employees.

And how could you? Such intimidation is simply not a part of your normal experience...but it sure is part of the day-to-day lives of God only knows how many Venezuelan public employees who chose to register their disgust with the autocratic regime that pays your salary.

The Washington Post minus the gloves

El Washington Post puede que coma flores, pero no mierda...

Mr. Chavez's Claim

Wednesday, May 26, 2004; Page A26

IN A COLUMN on the opposite page Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez makes the remarkable assertion that he hopes his opponents will succeed in triggering a recall referendum that could cut short his term in office. Remarkable, because polls consistently show that Mr. Chavez would lose the referendum -- less than 40 percent of the population supports his eccentric, quasi-authoritarian populism. Contrary to his claims, he has impoverished as well as polarized his country: Venezuela's per capita income has declined by a quarter in the six years he has been in office, and the poor are worse off than ever.

More to the point, the president's words conflict with his actions. He has spent the past year doing everything in his power to prevent a democratic vote on his tenure -- and has repeatedly vowed that no referendum will take place.

So why would Mr. Chavez claim otherwise? Because the latest propaganda strategy of this would-be "Bolivarian revolutionary" is to portray a complicated petition verification process scheduled for this weekend as an impartial procedure whose outcome should be accepted as a fair resolution of the country's political conflict. In fact, the procedure should not be taking place at all: It is the result of an attempt by Mr. Chavez's appointees to invalidate on bogus technicalities 1.6 million out of 3.4 million signatures the opposition collected to trigger the recall election. By all rights, the election should have occurred months ago, because the opposition gathered 1 million more signatures than required by the constitution and has now collected more than enough signatures for a recall vote on two occasions. Instead, after protracted wrangling, authorities have set aside two days in which hundreds of thousands of would-be voters must return to confirm their signatures. Unless at least 600,000 manage to do so despite numerous procedural obstacles and intimidation by government goon squads, Mr. Chavez and his cronies will declare the recall a failure.

Sadly, the odds are that Mr. Chavez will carry out this coup-by-technicality and thwart a democratic resolution to Venezuela's long-running political crisis. The president points out that some of his opponents previously supported a coup against him (Mr. Chavez doesn't mention that he also once led a military rebellion against a democratic government); but now that the opposition has committed itself to an electoral solution, Mr. Chavez refuses to allow it. About the only hope for a fair outcome is the presence of observers from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Carter Center who could call attention to acts of overt fraud and intimidation; Mr. Chavez tried to exclude them from the verification process but was obliged to give in late last week.

Mr. Chavez swallowed the observers for the same reason he penned his op-ed: He hopes not only to block the referendum but also to head off any subsequent decision by the OAS to invoke its democracy charter, which calls for sanctions against governments that interrupt the rule of law. Even if it decided to act, the OAS probably wouldn't be able to stop Mr. Chavez from destroying what remains of democracy in Venezuela. Already, the president's only real friend in the outside world is Cuba's Fidel Castro. But if he proceeds to deny his country a democratic vote, Mr. Chavez should, at least, be denied the pretense that his actions are legal, or acceptable to the region's democracies.

Hugo Chavez in translation

From the Washington Post...

Ready for a Recall Vote

By Hugo Chavez

Wednesday, May 26, 2004; Page A27

CARACAS, Venezuela -- For the first 24 hours of the coup d'etat that briefly overthrew my government on April 11, 2002, I expected to be executed at any moment.

The coup leaders told Venezuela and the world that I hadn't been overthrown but rather had resigned. I expected that my captors would soon shoot me in the head and call it a suicide.

Translation*: For the first 24 hours after the uprising that briefly overthrew my government on April 11, 2002, my paranoia reached unheard of heights.

General Lucas Rincon, my most trusted officer in the armed forces and my current Interior Minister, told Venezuela and the world that I hadn't been overthrown but rather had resigned. I expected that my captors would soon shoot me in the head and call it a suicide.

Instead, something extraordinary happened. The truth about the coup got out, and millions of Venezuelans took to the streets. Their protests emboldened the pro-democracy forces in the military to put down the brief dictatorship, led by Venezuelan business leader Pedro Carmona.

Instead, something extraordinary happened. The coup plotters blundered, refused my offer to fly to Cuba, and soon tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets, with some rioting. Their protest emboldened the pro-Chavez forces in the military who, together with the officers who first rebelled against me, ended the brief dictatorship, led by Venezuelan business leader Pedro Carmona.

The truth saved my life, and with it Venezuela's democracy. This near-death experience changed me. I wish I could say it changed my country.

Having swept under the rug all of the uncomfortable bits from that story, I find it comforting to use it to bolster my position. But it's true, the near-death experience changed me. I decided politics was a fight to the death, and that only the elimination of my opponents could ensure my stay in power.

The political divisions in Venezuela didn't start with my election in 1998. My country has been socially and economically divided throughout its history. Venezuela is one of the largest oil exporting countries in the world -- the fourth-largest supplier to the United States -- and yet the majority of Venezuelans remain mired in poverty.

The political divisions in Venezuela didn't start with my election in 1998. My country has been socially and economically divided throughout its history. Venezuela is one of the largest oil exporing countries in the world - the fourth largest supplier to the United States -- and yet while poverty shrank dramatically from 1930 to 1979, since then living standards have fallen by half, with the period of fastest impoverishment coinciding with my administration.

What has enraged my opponents, most of whom are from the upper classes, is not Venezuela's persistent misery and inequality but rather my efforts to dedicate a portion of our oil wealth to improving the lives of the poor. In the past six years we have doubled spending on health care and tripled the education budget. Infant mortality has fallen; life expectancy and literacy have increased.

I rationalize my authoritarian excess is by telling myself that what has enraged my opponents, (about a third of whom come from the middle and upper class, but whom I choose to mischaracterize in public as uniformly rich) is not Venezuela's persistent misery and inequality, but rather my efforts to dedicate a portion of our oil wealth to improving their lives. In the past four years we have vastly expanded the scale of existent of government services. Infant mortality has continued to fall; life expectancy has continued to increase.

Having failed to force me from office through the 2002 coup, my opponents shut down the government oil company last year. Now they are trying to collect enough signatures to force a recall referendum on my presidency. Venezuela's constitution -- redrafted and approved by a majority of voters in 1999 -- is the only constitution in the Western Hemisphere that allows for a president to be recalled.

Having failed to force me from office through the 2002 uprising, my opponents answered a calculated series of escalations on my part to shut down the government oil company last year. Now, with the leaders of that strike largely sidelined from the opposition leadership, a new group of more moderate leaders is trying to collect enough signatures to force a recall referendum on my presidency. Venezuela's constitution - redrafted and approved by a majority of voters in 1999 - is the only constitution in the Western Hemisphere that allows for a president to be recalled.

Venezuela's National Electoral Council -- a body as independent as the Federal Election Commission in the United States -- found that more than 375,000 recall petition signatures were faked and that an additional 800,000 had similar handwriting. Having been elected president twice by large majorities in less than six years, I find it more than a little ironic to be accused of behaving undemocratically by many of the same people who were involved in the illegal overthrow of my government.

Venezuela's National Electoral Council - a body appointed by my cronies in thhe Constitutional Hall of the Supreme Tribunal, which everybody and his cat in Venezuela knows I control but which, for more than obvious reasons, need to assert is independent -- found that more than 375,000 of the recall petition had technical problems, the nature of which they failed to specify, and that an additional 1.2 million had similar handwriting in the personal data, though not necessarily in the signatures. This, predictably, feeds into my persecution complex: I seem certain I can make political points by pointing out that the very people who rebelled in 2002 when I gave the army orders to clear the streets by force continue to accuse me of behaving undemocratically!

The National Electoral Council has invited representatives of the Organization of American States and the Carter Center to observe a signature verification process that will be conducted during the last four days of this month. That process will determine whether the opposition has gathered enough valid signatures to trigger a recall election, which would be held this August. To be frank, I hope that my opponents have gathered enough signatures to trigger a referendum, because I relish the opportunity to once again win the people's mandate.

The National Electoral Council has invited representatives of the Organization of American States and the Carter Center to observe a signature verification process that will be conducted during the last four days of this month. That process will determine whether the opposition has gathered enough valid signatures to trigger a recall election, which would be held this August. To be frank, I'm half petrified by the prospect of having to face the voters, wallowing as I am in the mid-30s in the polls. This is why my cronies have conducted a series of raids, arrests, and acts of judicial intimidation against the organizers of the signature petition drive.

But it is not up to me. To underscore my commitment to the rule of law, my supporters and I have publicly and repeatedly pledged to abide by the results of that transparent process, whatever they may be. My political opponents have not made a similar commitment; some have even said they will accept only a ruling in favor of a recall vote.

But it is not up to me. To continue the sick charade of feigning a commitment to the rule of law, my supporters and I have publicly and repeatedly pledged to abide by the results of the process run by my other supporters, whatever they may be. My political opponents have not made similar commitment, deferring instead to the judgement of international observers who have repeatedly stated that the CNE's procedures and legal standards run counter to basic standards of electoral fairness.

The Bush administration was alone in the world when it endorsed the overthrow of my government in 2002. It is my hope that this time the Bush administration will respect our republican democracy. We are counting on the international community -- and all Venezuelans -- to make a clear and firm commitment to respect and support the outcome of the signature verification process, no matter the result.

The Bush administration was one of the few in the world when it welcomed the announcement of my resignation as delivered by my most trusted lieutenant. It is my hope that the Bush administration will be a little more circumspect this time around and continue to voice agreement with the increasingly untenable notion that my government constitutes a republican democracy. I'm counting on the international community - and all Venezuelans - to make a clear and firm commitment to respect and support the outcome of the signature verification process as announced by my cronies at the CNE, whatever international observers might opine.

The writer is president of Venezuela.

The translator doesn't buy a word of it.

---

*to honestese

The Guardian 1 - Patton Boggs 0

The government can spend as much as it wants on lobbying fees, but as the autocratic fangs come out more and more clearly, the foreign press will be less and less manageable for them. Even that paladin of the English metropolitan left, The Guardian, refuses to parrot the heroic-Chavez line. A capable Sibylla Brodzinsky does one of the best jobs in recent memory in trying to tell a balanced story.

On Chávez's Economic Boom

from VenEconomy

The Central Bank has released its estimates of the economy's performance during first quarter 2004. As expected, the numbers are spectacular with the economy showing growth of 29.9% compared to the first quarter 2003 (oil, up 72.5%; non-oil activities, up 18.9%.)

But the numbers point to little more than a statistical anomaly. The fact is that the economy was severely depressed during last year's first quarter, due to the direct and indirect impacts of the national work stoppage (paro cívico nacional) - an exogenous shock that President Chavez has admitted he consciously sought to provoke. Last year, the economy shrank an incredible 27.9% in the first quarter (oil, down 47.0%; non-oil, down 19.2%.) Thus, it should come as no surprise that the economy was statistically "up" in this year's first quarter .

The first quarter of 2002 is a better basis for comparisons. The economy was running "normally" at that time. Yet, in the first quarter 2004 GDP was 6.3% below its Jan.-Mar. 2002 level (oil, down 8.5%; non-oil, 4.0%). The sectors doing best, as compared with two years ago, are Communications (up 10.4%), Government Services (up 9.5%) and Electricity & Water (up 6.3%). The largest declines were registered in Construction (down 52.7%), Commerce (down 11.1%) and Mining (down 9.4%).

Two Stories: Darius Rejali and Julia

Story 1: In college, I was fortunate enough to learn from Darius Rejali, a brilliant Iranian-American political scientist specializing in Torture. He taught a class called Comparative Revolutions, which I took and, if I remember, got an A for. Darius is a wonderful flamboyant character with a razor intelligence. One memory stands out from that class, though:

Darius brought in an English translation of the Chinese People's Republic constitution. He started reading its procedural clauses, and, remarkably, it sounded not unlike a Western constitution: there was a legislative branch, an executive, courts, civilian control of the state, social rights, the works.

Next, as an assignment, he asked us to use the then new-fangled thing called the "internet" to look up constitutions of other authoritarian states. Somebody did North Korea, someone else did Cuba, then Vietnam, Egypt, Burma etc. And, surprise surprise, every dictatorship out there we could find had a sterling democratic-seeming constititon. What it didn't have, Darius argued, was the cultural or social institutions to sustain real democracy, or the political will to build them.

Something to keep in mind as you consider the implosion of Venezuelan Institutions

Story 2:
There's something horribly stereotypical about telling stories about caraqueños' house staff to make political points, but this once I will make an exception. One of my sisters, a Sumate volunteers, tells me the story of the psychodrama in her kitchen on the evening of February 27th, the start of the week of anti-CNE rioting in Eastern Caracas.

My sister had hired a cook, Julia, to feed her sprawling family. Julia is a chavista, my sister a Colomina listener, but also enough of a comeflor to refuse to let politics interfere in their relationship. So, they agreed simply not to talk about politics. My sister watched Globovision and Julia watched VTV and they didn't communicate about it.

This uneasy situation changed on the evening of February 27th, when the news showed that CNE had called into question 876,000 signatures from the recall petition drive. Julia, who had barely a few years' formal education, heard the TV presenter say that many of the questioned signatures were "planillas planas", i.e. forms filled out on behalf of the signer, which the signer then signed.

The TV presenter went on to say that many such signatures were gathered at hospitals, from very old or sick people who could not write easily, or from people with limited literacy, who might make mistakes filling the form.

At this she broke down crying and told my sister that that was it, she couldn't support the government anymore. Julia, who can barely write herself, was deeply offended that the government was maneouvering to stop people like her from registering their views officially. "Wasn't this what Chavez promised?"

My sister, not wanting to be overbearing at a time like this, suggested simply that she take a piece of paper and a pen and try to write down how she was feeling just then, and why she had come to change her mind like that.

In heartbreakingly misshapen handwriting, with no punctuation and no spaces between words, Julia wrote of her bitterness at the desperate and deteriorating economics of being a barrio dweller, and at how impossibly competitive the job market for people like her was. "The situation is really not right in the barrios now," she wrote.

My sister tells me she talked about the three chavistas in CNE as kinds of devils for all the mischief their decision was causing. Certainly, she had never before held a job where she had to pack sandwich lunches for the señora to eat at the barricades.

I don't think Julia will be joining my sister in any marches, but I do think the story is significant, and touching. Chavistas have eyes to see, and ears to listen...

Ripley's Believe it or Not...

This weekend, a number of Círculos Bolivarianos - pro-Chavez civilian neighborhood groups - are slated to organize a number of seminars to "train" volunteers to witness the opposition's reparos process against Chavez. The training courses will take place in Petare - a sprawling Caracas slum - today and tomorrow.

And where does the money come from? From the U.S. taxpayer, that's where! Word around the campfire is the American money is footing the bill...

It's true, folks...

Mandela sez...

from Long Walk to Freedom

Mandela is describing life in prison on Robben Island in the early 1970s, under a new Prison Comander, Colonel Piet Badenhorst, the most brutal prison administrator he met in 27 years on that island:

We felt the effects of Badenhorst's regime before we ever saw him. A number of the newer regulations regarding study and free time were immediately rescinded. It was obvious that he intended to roll back every privilege we had won over the years. Our old warders were transferred off the island and replaced by Badenhorst's handpicked guards. They were younger, coarser men who enforced every niggling regulation, whose job was to harass and demoralize us. Within days of Badenhorst's appointment, our cells were raided and searched, books and papers were confiscated, meals were suspended without warning and men were jostled on the way to the quary.

Badenhorst attempted to turn back the clock to the way the island was in the early 1960s. The answer to every question was always no. Prisoners who requested to see their lawyers were given solitary confinement instead. Complaints were completely ignored. Visits were cancelled without explanation. The food deteriorated. Censorship increased.

After several years of this, Badenhorst is reassigned to a different post...

A few days before Badenhorst's departure, I was called to the main office. General Steyn [Badenhorst's superior] was visiting the island and wanted to know if we had any complaints. Badenhorst was there as I went through a list of demands. When I had finished, Badenhorst spoke to me directly. He told me that he would be leaving the island, and added, "I just want to wish you people good luck." I do not know if I looked dumbfounded, but I was amazed. He spoke these words like a human being, and showed a side of himself we had never seen before. I thanked him for his good wishes, and wished him luck in his endeavours.

I thought about this moment for a long time afterwards. Badenhorst had perhaps been the most callous and barbaric commanding officer we had had on Robben Island. But that day in the office, he had revealed that there was another side to his nature, a side that had been obscured but that still existed. It was a useful reminder that all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a core of decency, and that if their hearts are touched, they are capable of changing. Ultimately, Badenhorst was not evil; his inhumanity had been foisted upon him by an inhuman system. He behaved like a brute because he was rewarded for brutish behavior.

Eva Golinger, Foreign Money, Double Standards and Jail

Isn't transparency a wondrous thing? First, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we learned that the US National Endowment for Democracy - a 100% US government funded institution - has financed a number of anti-Chavez institutions in Venezuela.

Now, thanks to the US Department of Justice's Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), we learn that the Venezuelan-American pro-Chavez activist who first uncovered that fact herself receives foreign money - in fact, money from the very government she spends so much time defending in public fora.

Eva Golinger would like to be known as the Brooklyn-based lawyer who blew the lid on the US conspiracy to topple Chavez. It was Ms. Golinger who first exposed NED's funding of Sumate through her website: VenezuelaFOIA.info.

First, the facts: On November 7th and November 9th, 2003, the Venezuela Information Office in Washington cut Ms. Golinger two checks to help pay for a conference on Media Reform in Madison, WI. Now, the Venezuelan taxpayer money that ended up in Ms. Golinger's bank account is hardly going to make her rich - less than $10,000 in all, from the FARA records Orlando Ochoa of El Universal and Quinto D%ED%E1, managed to dig up. Ms. Golinger - who is also a member of the Venezuelanalysis.com editorial board - had not disclosed her financial ties with VIO.

The sums are small - nothing that will go very far in New York these days. Just far enough, it seems to me, to put Ms. Golinger into a conflict-of-interest at least as serious as the one she denounced regarding NED and Sumate.

What precisely the difference is between Sumate taking money from NED and Eva Golinger taking money from the VIO? In some ways, VIO money is even more politically tainted than NED money: the NED is a quasi-NGO, a bipartisan organization fully funded with public monies but not directly controlled by the US government. VIO, on the other hand, is an appendage of the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, fully funded and fully controlled by chavistas. NED is at least bipartisan in nature, while VIO is strictly a pro-Chavez regime outfit.

It's unlikely Ms. Golinger will deny the facts - the FARA documents are there, they're public, and they're publicly accessible. She could claim that the sums involved are relatively modest, certainly, but then Sumate could claim that $53,400 is not really very much money either given the nationwide scale of their activities. Surely, Ms. Golinger is not really suggesting NED funded most or all of Sumate's activities, and neither am I alleging VIO funded most of hers.

I wonder if Ms. Golinger will have the presence of mind to understand the parallels between her situation and Maria Corina Machado's, Sumate's chief spokesperson.

Presumably Ms. Golinger went after Sumate because she thought accepting even a small sum of money from a foreign agent makes a political organization suspect - but then, why doesn't that reasoning apply to the small sums she has received from the Venezuelan government?

At this point, if she's reading this, I imagine Ms. Golinger will be feeling quite annoyed, peeved, even unfairly treated! "But I've done soooo much work on VenezuelaFOIA and all those other activities because I believe in it, damn it! What could be more unfair than to dismiss all the honest work I've done, on my beliefs, on the basis of two measly little checks from way back in November?"

...which, of course, is exactly what my sister says after she comes back, tired but proud, from a day of volunteering for Sumate together with dozens of other unpaid volunteers only to see chavista spokesmen on State TV slam the organization as a US puppet.

So I'm afraid Ms. Golinger is storing her rabo'e'paja in a big glass house. There are too many rocks around for that, and too many matches.

Y'know, what angers me the most about Ms. Golinger's VIO funding pecadillo is her unwillingness to just come clean about it. In email to the escualido blogosphere (Alek Boyd, Daniel Duquenal and yours truly) sent on May 7th, she closed with:

"Finally, I will reiterate again, published personal attacks basedfalsitesties fall outside the realm of protected speech and basic respect. Please, get it through your heads: I don't get paid to write or speak about Venezuela and I do not answer to absolutely anyone. Stop the madness boys! A little serenity would do you all well."

Eva Golinger is a lawyer, of course, and writes like one (i.e.: carefully.) Her little denial is both strictly speaking correct and obviously misleading. Her profession of impartiality obviously looks rather different in light of her VIO billing history.

Shouldn't we expect a crusader for openness on foreign funding of political activists to disclose that she is herself a political activist who receives foreign funding?

The question is when, exactly, Ms. Golinger was planning to disclose her financial ties with VIO. If Orlando Ochoa - a lawyer with years of experience on this - hadn't dug up VIO's FARA files, would we ever have heard of it? What's your guess?...

One final thought: Ms. Golinger will, I imagine (and intend) be embarrassed by this entry. She does not - thank God - face a prison sentence for what she's done. That is as it should be. Because only a despotic government would threaten to put someone in prison for something as minor as what she's done

Yet, while Ms. Golinger kicks back comfortably in NYC reading this, Maria Corina Machado is in Caracas facing a criminal investigation and possible jail time on charges related to Ms. Golinger's allegations. And that, when you get right down to it, is the only difference between their situations...

---

Eva Golinger replies

Thanks, Francisco. Then feel free to publish my response, as it would only be just, since I don't own your website or have all the media on my side able to "inform the world of the truth", small world that it is anyway who reads your (and my) websites. I'll include to you the letter I wrote to El Universal in response to their article entitled "Influencias Alquiladas". And, I will clarify that the only reason I remotely feel I should respond to your "blog" is because I did send you and those others mentioned in your note a letter reiterating that I am not financed and receive no financing from the Venezuelan government for my political activities. Nor am I
directed by the Venezuelan government in absoultely any way.

Certainly you don't think that I am not aware of the FARA regulations? Well, if you must know, the work I did for the Venezuela Information Office actually had to do with ensuring they were following the FARA regulations, writing contracts and providing legal assistance in the creation of their legal entity. As a lawyer, that is precisely the type of work I am capable of doing and, when possible, should be compensated for. There really is not much more to the work I did for that office, and, as you must know, the
quanity compensated was not very high. I can assure that my earning capacity is much higher than that as a result of my very successful private practice in which I've helped hundreds of artists, superstars and others come to the U.S. and pursue their "dreams." Some of your friends may be amongst them.

In any case, your comparison to Súmate is ridiculous. The funds that Súmate receives from the National Endowment for Democracy, an entity of the US government, not only are directed and controlled by the US government, but also are used for an entirely political purpose. Surely providing counsel on compling with US laws and drafting employment contracts cannot be a form of
work compared to being paid to mount a massive propaganda and political campaign to recall an elected president from office prematurely. I am not being paid to overthrow and destablize the US government, as Súmate is being subsidized to do with the Venezuelan government. Mr. Toro - you must be able to figure out that one on your own. You are really stretching far, Mr. Toro,
and obviously grasping at air - something that you and your colleagues are well full of.

Again, I have absolutely nothing to hide in my work or my finances. Say or write what you wish, but you will find no evidence of any financing of political activities that I have carried out - nor have I done any legal work for the Venezuela Information Office since the initiation of my investigation into the financing of various Venezuelan organizations and individuals. Not that there would be anything wrong if I were - after all, being paid for your expert services as a professional is vastly different from receiving funding from a foreign government to build a political movement intended to result in a regime change.

One of your colleagues pointed out something critical to me regarding your "blogs" - he made clear that what you all write is just merely opinion, with no legal weight and no evidentiary burden. You can freely be reckless and irresponsible in your essays with no legal repercussion because you are bound by no editorial policy or legal rules that obligate you to base your writings in fact.

I happen to be more ethical and responsible than that, Mr. Toro. I base my accusations in hard evidence and fact. But then again, I am a lawyer bound to professional responsibility regulations and you and your colleagues are just blogging away in cyberspace with no one to answer to.

Cordially,

Eva Golinger

Where's Janette when you need her?

I can't even blog today. The situation is too depressing. I'm headed for Cardinale-level despair. My major is in jail on bizarrely trumped up charges. Sumate's leaders are up next. Chavez wants to arm his supporters to the teeth and there's no way to stop him. The very notion of a recall referendum is starting to look like a sick joke. Crazy (seeming) rumors are flooding into my inbox - too far-fetched to repeat, but still worrying. I try to picture Venezuela on the morning of August 20th, 2004, and every version I can come up with is a horror story. Sorry folks, wish I was more inspired.

And as though all of that wasn't bad enough, Janette - our resident radical optimist - is awol...

Strictly for nerds

Why have I been blogging so sparingly? Cuz I've been working on my research proposal, that's why...

Conversation with Juan Forero

Date: January 2003. (During the paro.) Citing from memory...

JF: I just don't see why the opposition can't wait until the mid-way point in the guy's term and go for the revocatorio. It's the one constitutional option y'all have, and the only one you can imaginably get international support for.

FT: But Juan, see, you're treating Chavez like a normal politician again. If we wait that long, there's no guarantee at all that the country will still have institutions anywhere near independent enough to actually hold a referendum.

JF: But see? Attitudes like that are precisely the sort of thing that convince tons of people abroad that the opposition is just paranoid, or at least so short-termist that it can't be trusted...I mean, hardly a week goes by when Chavez doesn't mention the revocatorio as the logical, legal, sane way for the opposition to go about this...how on earth is he going to then turn around and deny it?

FT: No somos suizos, Juan, and Chavez especially. Man, he's really, really not Swiss...the country can't hold out until the recall, or, the institutions can't...

JF: So then a coup is basically alright?

FT: I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that the opposition is not acting totally irrationally when it doubts the chances of a recall actually taking place...

JF: I dunno man, I don't see it...

Is this an ambiguous sentence?

CNE recall regulations, artitcle 31...

...el elector que alegue que no firmó la planilla, podrá acudir al Consejo Nacional Electoral a los fines de solicitar su exclusión inmediata del cómputo de las firmas..."

"...electors who allege that they did not sign the petition form may go to the National Electoral Council to petition their immediate exclusion from the signature tally..."

Is this a difficult statement? Do you find it confusing? Ambiguous? Open to interpretation? Grab the nearest 11 year old, read it to him. Did he understand? Was he confused? What part of "electors who allege they did not sign the petition" is hard to understand?

Please note that it was the current CNE itself that drafted and approved article 31. Now, lets look at what Carter Center/OAS actually had to say about it:
"We understand that the purpose of the reparo period, established by the CNE in the current regulations (Article 31 of the Reparo Regulation dated Sept. 25) is to guarantee the citizens' free expression of will. These regulations establish that individuals who have had their signature invalidated due to a material error by the CNE during the verification can now include their signature as valid, and those who allege that they did not sign can exclude and invalidate their signature. In both cases, the goal is to avoid new verifications, and the simple manifestation of the citizen is sufficient. Thus, according to the CNE regulations and all international standards, the act of petition signing-the same as the act of voting-is a singular expression of will that cannot be subsequently changed during the reparos."

"Both the OAS and The Carter Center are deeply concerned by reports of intimidation of signers. We reiterate that each individual signer should be able to freely exercise his/her right to reparo, without harassment or coercion, whether it is exercised directly, or indirectly through the deprivation of rights or benefits to which all should have equal access."

When the opposition made this point, we were ignored. When Carter Center/OAS make it, they're threatened with expulsion. CNE insists that the opposition agreed to a new set of reparo regulations that means anyone can withdraw their signatures without having to answer questions, meaning people who did intentionally sign will be able to "repent" and withdraw their signatures. Is that what article 31 says? Read it carefully, one more time. Is it alarming that Carter Center and the OAS are being threatened with expulsion for saying out loud what is plainly evident?

Happy Birthday, Andrés!

Cardinale turns 41 today!...I propose a comments debate about how to cheer him up...

(Incidentally, no more blogging from me until next week - too much schoolwork!)

Before leaving, though, I'll put up one last thing: the masterful Editorial from yesterday's TalCual:

Castro and Chavez

Yesterday during his televised speech, Chavez recalled El "Mocho" Hernandez, a general from our 19th century civil wars who, though he was an enemy of then president Cipriano Castro, nevertheless joined with him when German and Italian navy ships attacked Venezuelan ports, in 1903, with the pretext of collecting on overdue debts. Chavez said he wished he had an opposition like that, able to close ranks with the government when an external threat to our sovereignty arises.

In his peculiar way of interpreting our past, Chavez forgot a "little detail": when the foreign ships started to shell Maracaibo and Puerto Cabello, President Castro (Cipriano, of course), didn't rush out to accuse "Mocho" Hernandez of siding with the aggressors. Instead, he called for the whole nation to unite to face down that rank imperialist operation.

But what did Chavez do? Exactly the opposite. They had not even finished jailing the Colombian mercenaries and already he, (Infrastructure Minister) Diosdado Cabello, (congressmen) Barreto, Tarek and Lara and any number of other government opinion peddlers, as well as the state TV channel, rushed to blame the Coordinadora Democratica. Unlike Cipriano Castro, Chavez made the incident a new chapter in his confrontation with those who oppose him and, faced with such an obscene manipulation, it was not hard to conclude that the whole episode had been a frame-up to obstruct, or even stop the reparos process and the organization of a recall vote. If the government treated with such levity a matter so obviously grave, if Chavez thinks that confronting the Coordinadora is more important than the presence of the "insolent boot of the foreigner", why should the democratic opposition take on the matter ignoring the abusive attacks it has been subjected to?

It has been the government itself that's made a mockery of this matter. Not just because it didn't provide a single official, detailed account of the facts and the way the arrests were carried out, but because of its spokespeople explained the events in a way that inevitably called up the sturdy jokester spirit of this nation. When the ineffable Lucas Rincon considers that some cachitos are an important clue, whose presence from Chacao and Baruta bakeries make them suspicious, how could Venezuelan humor fail to christen the whole episode "Bay of Cachitos" [Bahia de los Cachitos - a play on the Bay of Pigs - "Bahia de los Cochinos"]? How can Chavez expect to be taken seriously when Rangel affirms, with his best poker face, that the fact that the Metropolitan Police was on the spot merely hints at some kind of stitch-up with the mercenaries? They left so many loose ends that, fully justifiably, skepticism took hold of the country. So much so that they made doubters even out of those of us who barely doubt that ultra right-wing sectors in Venezuela are capable of hatching such demented and stupid plots involving foreign mercenaries.

Meanwhile, a curious and significant detail: the investigations and raids continue, but not precisely on Coordinadora targets. Will the government apologize for the baseless attacks it launched against it?

One addendum: In 1903, when Venezuela was blockaded and shelled by European powers, it was the United States that stepped in to assert the Monroe Doctrine and kick the Europeans out. Similarly, in 1899, it was the US that pressured the Court of Arbitration in Paris to allow Venezuela to keep El Callao and the navigation rights to the Orinoco River during the arbitration dispute over El Esequibo - which contrary to popular belief was a draw between the UK and Venezuela, not a British drubbing (because we kept those two key strategic assets - El Callao with its gold, and control over the mouth of the Orinoco.)

This is what used to be called "Venezuelan Exceptionalism" - almost alone in Latin America, Venezuela has never been invaded by the US, never seen a US-led military operation on home soil, and when the US has intervened (1899, 1903, 1960-61) it has been to help Venezuelan governments deal with outside threats. I think this is an important reason why US-bashing is such a barren strategy in Venezuela. We're not Guatemala, or Haiti or Colombia - people are not viscerally anti-yankee simply because the gringos have never screwed us in the way they've screwed some of our neighbors.

The speck in your neighbor's eye...

Excerpts from yesterday's front-page editorial from TalCualDigital, translated by ft.

Faced with an event as grave as the arrest of these [alleged Colombian paramilitaries], how did the government react? Did it provide precise information about those who might be responsible for the presence of so many alleged paramilitaries? Or, supposing it didn't have such information, did it announce that it would disclose the information in the coming days, without rushing to speculate? No! From the start it raced to make far-fetched and generic accusations, without any sort of grounding, against the Coordinadora Democratica, going as far as to accuse Enrique Mendoza by name.

The cheap politicking surrounding what ought to have been a most serious allegation immediately set off the suspicion that it could all be a show, a set-up meant explicitly to damage the forces of democracy - all, coincidentally, just two weeks before the reparos.

So if anyone should stand accused of not taking this matter seriously, it's the government itself. It was the government that turned this very serious matter into a show, a parody. It was Chavez supporters who first made a mockery of this affair, starting with the president himself, who with characteristic recklessness repeated irresponsible allegations against political groups the government knows full well are not involved in subversive activities.

Democratic Venezuela condemns and rejects the use of foreign mercenaries to promote violence.

But what might have been the near unanimous condemnation against such loathsome behavior was pre-empted by the government with an attitude that could only stir legitimate doubts about the veracity of the fact.

In a country full of joke-tellers, one cannot present to the public a matter of such gravity side-by-side, for instance, with the picturesque guesswork of Lucas Rincon regarding the subversive threat represented by some cachitos.

Carter Center, OAS to Observe Recall Reparo Period in Venezuela

Carter Center/OAS Statement, May 12, 2004

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - The Organization of American States and The Carter Center will observe the two scheduled reparos (recall signatures corrections) processes in Venezuela, May 21-23 and May 28-30. This observation occurs at the invitation of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and in the context of the Accord of May 2003. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and O.A.S. Secretary General Cesar Gaviria will lead the observation mission and will arrive in the country on May 29th to be present for the conclusion of the reparos.

The OAS and The Carter Center plan on deploying a joint mission of more than 100 international observers. Observers will be deployed in and around Caracas and many other cities, providing a strong international presence around the country. The joint mission will conduct a "quick count" -- a statistical projection of the results based on observing the count of signatures each night in a statistically representative number of centers. This quick count will provide independent information to the joint mission and to the CNE in order to corroborate the official results.


By authorization of the National Electoral Board, the mission, starting this week, will observe the Quality Control process and the development of the Electoral Notebooks and will have access to computer programs, the transmission of data, and the result totals directly in CNE headquarters. Observers will be present at the closings of the voting stations and, in addition, will receive copies of the actas. Furthermore, in the coming weeks, the joint mission will send several teams of observers to evaluate the pre-reparos environment in various cities located in the interior of the country.

We understand that the purpose of the reparo period, established by the CNE in the current regulations (Article 31 of the Reparo Regulation dated Sept. 25) is to guarantee the citizens' free expression of will. These regulations establish that individuals who have had their signature invalidated due to a material error by the CNE during the verification can now include their signature as valid, and those who allege that they did not sign can exclude and invalidate their signature. In both cases, the goal is to avoid new verifications, and the simple manifestation of the citizen is sufficient. Thus, according to the CNE regulations and all international standards, the act of petition signing-the same as the act of voting-is a singular expression of will that cannot be subsequently changed during the reparos.

Both the OAS and The Carter Center are deeply concerned by reports of intimidation of signers. We reiterate that each individual signer should be able to freely exercise his/her right to reparo, without harassment or coercion, whether it is exercised directly, or indirectly through the deprivation of rights or benefits to which all should have equal access.

Finally, in light of the growing tensions, we urge all political forces, social actors, media, and the population in general to demonstrate to the world in the coming weeks the strength of the democratic spirit and the desire for peaceful coexistence among Venezuelans. We reiterate our promise to continue working together with the authorities and all political actors to strengthen democracy in Venezuela.

Poll results

From a GQR poll of over 1100 respondents in face-to-face interviews, carried out in the last five days of April.

Comments software went down...

...took down the whole site with it. Apologies. Mentadas de madre should go direct to Haloscan

Venezuela: Human rights under threat

from amnesty.org

All parties involved in the political conflict in Venezuela must show real commitment to respecting the rule of law if they are to break the violence cycle. In a new report launched today, Amnesty International highlights cases of excessive use of force, torture and ill-treatment committed by security forces in the context of demonstrations that took place between February and March 2004 and raises serious questions about the commitment of key institutions to prevent and punish such abuses impartially.

At least 14 people died in these demonstrations in circumstances that have yet to be clarified. As many as 200 were wounded. Several of those detained were severely ill-treated or tortured by members of the security forces.

"Many demonstrations were violent with the use of barricades, stones, Molotov cocktails and in some cases, firearms," said Amnesty International. "However, the response of the security forces frequently involved excessive use of force, contributing to spiralling violence rather than preventing or controlling it."

Subsequent investigations to establish the facts around these alleged abuses have been slow and inadequate. "There are serious questions about the commitment of key institutions to investigate and prevent human rights abuses impartially. Failure to ensure that these institutions carry out their duties effectively and impartially will weaken the fragile rule of law and fuel Venezuela's political crisis," added the human rights organization.

More...

Senator Nelson's Speech: Visionary or blunderer?

I have to study today, so I'll just throw up this speech delivered to the US Senate by Bill Nelson, the Democrat from Florida. A few comments:

1-Nelson is gunning for that VP slot on the Kerry ticket, it's really obvious.

2-From the way he talks about Kerry's statement on Venezuela, it gives me the strong impression Kerry's and Nelson's staffs work closely together - it's almost like Nelson is taking credit for the statement.

3-On the one hand, Nelson's line is unconsciously neoimperialist, self-righteously interventionist, and plays right into Chavez's strategy, since it provides him with that necessary "enemy" on the other side - it's the same mistake Ike and JFK made with Fidel all those years ago, saving him by antagonizing him. On the other hand, the Chavistas will slur the US as the source of all their problems whether or not the US hits back, so why not hit back?

4-Nelson has become a "policy entrepreneur" in Washington with regard to Venezuela. This is his issue now, and he won't let go. A vicepresident Nelson would give Venezuela a level of attention in Washington it's never had before. This is either great or an utter disaster depending on your point of view.

Senator Nelson: Statesman or Space Cadet?

Speech delivered by Sen. Bill Nelson on the Senate floor - April 24, 2004

Mr. NELSON of Florida. - Madam President, while we are getting all of our ducks in order with regard to the procedure and there is this momentary lull in the consideration of the instant legislation, I rise to discuss conditions facing the United States with regard to an important neighbor of ours in this hemisphere; that is, Venezuela.

Venezuela is a country in deep crisis. I worry, as has been the case with so many of our neighbors to the south, that it is not getting enough attention in relation to this crisis. We all should know the President of Venezuela, President Chavez, is right now the subject of a petition drive aimed at holding a referendum on a recall of his Presidency. That is provided for under section 72 of the Venezuelan Constitution. What is also well known is President Chavez and his allies have done everything in their power to make it impossible to hold a legitimate referendum.

A week ago I was in Venezuela. I spoke to numerous officials of the Chavez government, including the Foreign Minister, the Energy Minister, the Vice President of the National Assembly. I also spoke to leaders of the opposition who have been leading the drive to hold a recall referendum under the provisions of the Venezuela Constitution. This is a recall on whether the President will continue in office.

In addition, I met with numerous business leaders from American companies, many in the energy sector, to hear their views on what is likely to happen to Venezuela, what is going to happen to Venezuela-United States relations, and what our policy should be there.

Everyone I spoke with recommended the United States must strongly support a negotiation led by the OAS and the Carter Center aimed at resolving disputes related to holding the referendum. Typically, this would not be a dispute. They have many more signatures than is required for the referendum. However, an objection has been raised that signatures are not accurate as to the people. That is easy to check.

I met with one of the mediators at the Carter Center who described to me the proposals his team and the OAS team had made to try to bridge the gap between the Chavez government and the opposition. When I asked if anyone outside of the government, any of the opposition in the business leaders actually think the Chavez government, and specifically President Chavez, will allow the continuation of this referendum to go forward, I got the same answer from all quarters. It was, ``No.''

Because of the way President Chavez has governed, because of the way he has tried to silence opponents, it is widely believed he will never allow the recall referendum to go forward. I hope he will hear this chorus of concern being expressed now from the Senate that under section 72 of the Venezuelan Constitution he should allow the process of democracy to work.

Much more...

The lowest form of mobocracy...

The web poll...

The capture of the Colombian paramilitaries...


"Looks like a piece of theater put on by high school students"
Has a kernel of truth, but is being manipulated for political purposes
Is mostly true, and the opposition is clutching at straws
Is entirely real and fully justifies the raids and arrests
Is too murky to even comment about, so why speculate?

Current Results

Free Web Polls

Sanity on the Paramilitaries

Well, it's still hard to know what to make about this whole hubbub. A few things we can say for sure:

With astonishing speed, the chavista propaganda machine has moved to twist and distort the story. The uncomfortable fact that opposition-led police forces were first on the scene and called in the chavista authorities is simply never mentioned in Chavista accounts. Video evidence or no video evidence, this particular event has been scrubbed from official history. This in itself speaks volumes about the government's iron determination to politicize and twist absolutely everything.

Attempts to link the Colombians to the Coordinadora Democratic look especially manipulative and indefensible - a blunt ploy to justify arrests and raids against opposition leaders. In short, even if - as seems possible - parts of the Bloque Democrático had a conspiracy to use Colombians to spark a coup against Chavez, the government has squandered the upper hand through its typical mix of selective vision, exaggeration, and plain old lying.

I'll save the reader the tedium of having to go through another impassioned plea for a credible impartial investigation we all know will never take place.

Venezuela: Headed Toward Civil War?

By the International Crisis Group

About ICG

Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter and wealthiest member of the Community of Andean Nations (CAN), is in deep political crisis, with high risk that its democratic institutions could collapse, and some possibility of civil war.

During the first months of 2004, tension between the government of President Hugo Chavez and the political opposition, organized under the umbrella Democratic Coordinating Instance (Coordinadora Democratica, CD),[1] approached a breaking point. The Chavez administration's apparent determination to do everything in its power to block a recall referendum has angered growing sectors of society.

Between 27 February and 4 March, clashes between the national guard (GN) and opposition protesters left at least fourteen dead and close to 300 wounded. Torture, arbitrary detention and excessive use of force were reported.[2] There is a clear trend of increasing and unpunished human rights violations since President Chavez was inaugurated in 1999.[3] While the press has not been openly restricted, and several leading journals are vitriolic in their criticism, the government exerts multiple pressures on reporters, journalists and TV stations. Several opposition politicians who exercised their constitutional right to sign a petition for the president's recall have been arrested, and public employees reportedly were threatened with dismissal.[4]

Following the collection of recall signatures, the government-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) entered into direct confrontation with the electoral chamber of the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, TSJ), which had declared the signatures valid and ordered the CNE to schedule the referendum.

Much more...

Compare and Contrast

Interior Minister Lucas Rincón and alterego muppet Sam the Eagle.

Opposition leader Pompeyo Márquez and his long lost twin, Waldorf

Bolivarianismo as Ideology

Excerpt from Ideology and Terror by Hannah Arendt.

An ideology is quite literally what its name indicates: it is the logic of an idea. Its subject matter is history, to which the "idea" is applied; the result of this application is not a body of statements about something what exists, but the unfolding of a process in constant change. The ideology treats the course of events as though it followed the same "law" as the logical exposition of its "idea." Ideologies pretend to know the mysteries of the whole historical process-the secrets of the past, the intricacies of the present, the uncertainties of the future-because of the logic inherent in their respective ideas.

Ideologies are historical, concerned with becoming and perishing, with the rise and fall of cultures, even if they try to explain history by some "law of nature." The word "race" in racism does not signify any genuine curiosity about the human races as a field for scientific exploration, but is the "idea" by which the movement of history is explained as one consistent process.

The "idea" of an ideology is an instrument of explanation. To an ideology, history does not appear in light of an idea, but as something that can be calculated by it. What fits the "idea" into this new role is its own "logic," that is a movement which is the consequence of the "idea" itself and needs no outside factor to set it into motion. Racism is the belief that there is a motion inherent in the very idea of race, just as deism is the belief that a motion is inherent in the very notion of God.

The movement of history and the logical process of this notion are supposed to correspond to each other, so that whatever happens, happens according to the logic of one "idea." However, the only possible movement in the realm of logic is the process of deduction from a premise.

As soon as logic is applied to an idea, this idea is transformed into a premise. Ideological world explanations performed this operation long before it became so eminently fruitful for totalitarian reasoning. The purely negative coercion of logic became "productive" so that a whole line of thought could be initiated, and forced upon the mind, by drawing conclusions in the manner of mere argumentation. This argumentative process could be interrupted neither by a new idea (which would have been another premise with a different set of consequences) nor by a new experience. Ideologies always assume that one idea is sufficient to explain everything in the development from the premise, and that no experience can teach anything because everything is comprehended in this consistent process of logical deduction.

The danger in exchanging the necessary insecurity of critical thinking for the total explanation of an ideology is not even so much the risk of falling for some usually vulgar, always uncritical assumption as of exchanging the freedom inherent in man?s capacity to think for the strait jacket of logic with which man can force himself almost as violently as he is forced by some outside power.

The "idea" of chavismo is not so hard to discern. Ever since Bolivar's time, Venezuela has seen a struggle between the forces of progress, social justice, and equality - bolivarianism - and the privileged enemies of that cause - the reactionary godos. Contemporary history is witnessing the long-delayed comeupance of the godos, and the final, irreversible victory of the Bolivarianos. "Accelerating" the development of this central idea is the point of chavismo. "This argumentative process cannot be interrupted either by a new idea or by a new experience."

How do you really know what you think is true really is true?

The latest scandalet in Caracs, over the government's discovery of a group of alleged opposition paramilitaries brought from Colombia, is a fine example of the strange way Venezuelan political life now boils down to a debate over epistemology.

As soon as the government made its claims and showed its TV footage, the response was automatic, unthinking, pavlovian. Reactions are hardwired into the political rhetoric of each of the sides, so they were fully predictable. A journalist could've written them up without much listening to what each side said; we've been down this road so many times before. The government and its supporters accepted the allegations as unquestionably true while the opposition rejected them, equally mechanically, as self-evidently bogus. Meanwhile, the other third or so of the country presumably shakes its head in disgust.

In a democracy, it's natural and healthty for political interpretations and opinions to diverge. But for a democracy, it's unnatural and unhealthy for our understandings of the facts, of what actually happened, to start to diverge systematically as well. People who can't agree about what happened can hardly be expected to establish a meaningful political dialogue. And it's this divergence over the factual bases for political debate that is one of the most striking features of Venezuela in the Chavez era.

Why has Venezuela settled into this pattern? What are the forces that have pushed us into this epistemological blind alley, where the sides cannot even agree any longer on the factual bases of what it is they're arguing about? And how do you rebuild the possibility for some kind of civilized interchange between people who can't agree with you about the facts, about what happened, let alone over the much thornier and "inherently contested" issue of the political interpretation of those facts?

Part of the problem for someone in my position is that, while I think it's crucial to rebuild the shared-understandings about the world that can serve as the basis for a sane discussion, my Conspiracy Theorist Mind (CTM) can't quite buy it, because my CTM is quite convinced that negating the possibility of a cross-class dialogue and understanding is part of the government's strategy. This is not a big leap for anyone who's listened to Chavez's radical class-baiting rhetoric, I should say. So again and again I find myself caught in the contradiction between my third-sidist instinct and a government that has spent five years diligently undermining the possibility of third-sidist solutions.

Generating information like the Baruta Paramilitary hubbub and handing it off only to pro-Chavez media (RNV, Venpres, Channel 8) deepens the epistemological gulf. The government must realize at this point that its PR management strategy deepens both the unquestioning credulity of supporters and the furious, damn-the-facts-my-mind-is-made-up incredulity of opponents. And when the government pursues these kinds of strategies consistently, again and again, for over five years, it's easy to conclude that widening the epistemological gulf is, in fact, part of the government's overall plan.

Shielding events like this from proper sceptical journalists willing to ask proper sceptical questions turns it into just another ritual in the chavista liturgy, just another presidential assertion that must be believed on faith rather than investigated on evidence. It's another item in the drip, drip, drip of pressures that are driving Venezuelans to see each other in hyper-simplified terms, as cardboard cutouts or political strawmen rather than complete human beings. As the epistemological gulf widens, the preconditions for a violent outcome are put into place more and more fully. How do you stop this pattern at this point? I have no clue.

But I know that we will not have peace and stability until the entire country can agree on one version of what actually happened, until the epistemological gap is bridged. This is why countries that go through deeply traumatic historical periods need Truth and Reconciliation Commissions afterwards. It's where Venezuela will end up for sure.

Owning up...

...Antonio Ledezma - like Cristina - doesn't exist. He's on Globo now ranting about how CNE cheated him out of his signature. It's understandable that Cristina and Antonio feel angry about this, but the P.R. line many (including, mea culpa, me) have used on this issue is misleading.

The reason most of these signatures "disappeared" - and do not show up in the reparable category - is that there was some kind of mistake or problem with the actas, the official daily tallies kept at each of the signing centers. Since the signing centers were run by opposition operatives and only supervised by CNE, Jorge Rodriguez says that the mistakes in the actas cannot be attributed to "material errors" by CNE, since CNE was not in charge. Moreover, Felipe Mujica and Quiroz Corradi knew full well this was what they were agreeing to when they agreed with CNE's reparo procedures two weeks ago.

So the opposition is being somewhat disingenuous when it heavily implies these signatures just vanished - they didn't they; were ruled invalid according to rules set out way the hell back in September 2003. In fact, this may be one of the only rules of the game CNE hasn't changed in the middle of the game.

But you can only take the rehabilitation of CNE so far. It stands to reason that if you're going to rule out categorically signatures whose actas had defects, you implicitly accept the acta as the prime arbiter of the validity of the signature - acta mata firma. The will of the signator is a secondary matter. These are just warmed over AD tactics that have now been co-opted by chavismo.

What's worse, even the acta-centric interpretation is applied unevenly, and plainly unfairly. If signatures accounted for in flawed actas are presumed to be invalid, how can it be that hundreds of thousands of other signatures, accounted for in flawless actas signed by everybody and their cousin, are not presumed to be valid? Either CNE trusts its own actas or it doesn't.

But, predictably, the government insists on having it both ways. CNE seems to act under the guiding principle that the government is from Jalisco, si no gana, empata. Actas constitute prima facie evidence when it suits the Chavez project to paint the opposition as fraudulent, but they don't constitute prima facie evidence when accepting them as such could work against the government's interests.

Actas are both binding and not-binding at the same time. CNE joins the campaign to scrub the legacy of Aristotle from Venezuelan public life.

Just Imagine: Two dead after US troops set iraqi prisoners on fire

SUBHEADS: New reports from Abu Ghraib prison include reports of deaths, all-night beatings, rape, electric shocks, tear gas used in confined spaces, and prisoners forced to eat their own hair and feces.

President Bush calls officers responsible for Abu Ghraib prison "heros", plans to decorate them...

Imagine that? Unimaginable. Impossible. Far fetched. Yet this is precisely what happened in Venezuela, where the government first covered up allegations of serious abuse against opposition activists held in custody, and president Chavez then went out of his way to honor the "revolutionary courage" of those responsible, going as far as to give them medals for their role in the violence!

Que molleja, primo!

Accountability and silence

There's a funny dynamic at work in my comments forum - every few weeks some brave government supporter desides to chip in and post a comment, and then, well, all hell breaks loose. Though we've gotten better at treating chavista commenters with respect, we don't always manage to be entirely pleasant. Poco a poco...

The thing that strikes me is that the chavista posters are invariably, in no time at all, deluged with questions from the opposition posters. What happened to the more than $2 billion that disappeared from FIEM in 2001? Why did Chavez continue talking through the April 11th cadena instead of stopping to halt the violence? Who killed the protesters in the Autopista Regional del Centro in October 2002? In Charallave in Jan. 2003? Who killed Evangelina Carrizo and Juan Carlos Zambrano and Pedreañez? Where did García Carneiro get the money to buy a yatch? How can Chavez condemn what happened at Abu Ghraib Prison while ignoring the abuse at Fuerte Mara? How can a Supreme Tribunal decision be both final and not-final at the same time? Is article 31 of the Recall Referendum Regulations approved last August still in force? How can it be in force if the regulations published to operationalize it are in direct contradiction with what it says? If there was a megafraude with the planillas planas, how come there were more planillas planas in the government's recall request against the opposition assemblymembers than in the opposition's recall request against Chavez? If there was a megafraude, why would you go out of your way to violate article 31 and allow people who recognize that they did sign validly back in November to go back and take it back? The list, obviously could grow and grow and grow...

Now, some chavista posters make an attempt to answer, others - who can blame them - don't. But what I find significant about this little phenomenon is the nearly bottomless thirst antichavistas have for some kind of reasonable explanation from the government side. Any government supporter who pipes up gets the deluge of queries, for the simple reason that the government itself never answers any of these questions.

The mechanism that brought us to this point is itself a serious cause for concern. Government spokespeople long since stopped inviting non-chavista media outlets to their press conference, long since stopped going to opposition-controlled radio and tv shows, long since stopped answering questions from the opposition. Really the only time they face questions is when faced with a State Radio, State TV or State Press Agency type - and the questions they make are invariably pathetically easy. Chavista ministers and officials just don't put themselves in a position to hear tough questions, much less to have to answer them.

It's true that the opposition media bears some of the responsibility for this situation - its treatment of government spokespeople has often been disrespectful and at times openly slanderous. But the outcome is an incredibly destructive escalation of the two-entirely-separate-worlds dynamic between pro- and anti-Chavez sectors of society. The government simply does not feel obliged to answer questions from those who don't subscribe to the Chavez cult of personality. This liberates the government to behave in ways that are plainly indefensible since, after all, they know full well they'll never be called on to defend their behavior.

What's worrying about this dynamic is that it shows a government that thinks it can pick and choose between its citizens and decide who it will be accountable to and who it won't be accountable to. (Some citizens are obviously more equal than others.) Instead of establishing institutions that may force it to answer all questions from all comers (say, oh, a Freedom of Information Law, just to pick a policy idea at random) the government picks first and second class citizens - those who subscribe to the cult of personality and therefore obtain the privilege of asking questions, and those who don't and therefore lose that privilege.

Just to end this little riff, I'll mention one of those extravagant Chavista lies that show how destructive this whole answer-questions-only-from-sycophants policy can be. Sitting in for a sick Chavez in the next-to-last Alo, presidente, Education Minister Aristobulo Isturiz proudly announced to the country that his ministry had created some 60,000 school libraries over the last few years. Had an critical mind been allowed anywhere near a microphone at that time, that voice might have pointed out that there are only 20,000 public schools in Venezuela, total. Either Isturiz expects us to believe he's built an average of three new libraries per school, or when he says "library" he means "bookshelf." I'd like to know which one it is - but guess what! I don't suck Chavez's member in print! So I don't get to ask!