Quico says: Well, we may not have a freedom of information act, or any kind of working oversight institutions...but, thank God, we do have YouTube.
For the non-Spanish speakers, the clip relays a recorded phone conversation between Carlos Romero Anselmi - CEO of the relentlessly propagandistic State TV network, Venezolana de Televisión - and Carlos Bardasano - CEO of private TV network Venevisión. Owned by Venezuela's richest man and erstwhile capo di tutti i oligarchi Gustavo Cisneros, Venevisión mysteriously "switched" its editorial line from hard-core anti-Chávez to increasingly pro-Chávez in 2004.
Since then, we've all assumed there is some kind of implicit understanding between Cisneros and Chavismo, but this clip demonstrates that their collusion goes way beyond "tacit."
In the clip, we hear Venevisión's Bardasano excitedly relaying to VTV's Romero Anselmi the excellent ratings the two networks received during their joint "special operation " (operativo) on election day last December. Romero Anselmi sounds thrilled, and tells Bardasano that "all of my guys are saying that the alliance with Venevisión was fundamental." A bit later, Romero Anselmi asks Bardasano if he got that nice new "red, very red" car he sent to his office. Bardasano confirms and thanks him for the gesture. He then brags about all the flack he's gotten over a glowing profile of Chávez that Venevisión ran on election night, and revels in how much it ticked off the opposition.
All of which adds a bit of context to Chávez's decision to shut down Venevisión's main competitor - RCTV. As well as silencing a key medium for dissent, getting rid of RCTV will bring Venevisión lots of new viewers - and, of course, the advertising revenues that come with them. Two for one, then!
Stomach churning stuff. I wonder if these guys will even bother to deny it...
April 21, 2007
April 20, 2007
Good reading...
Quico says: There are lots of blogs and websites that bring together news content about Venezuela, but today I want to point you to my favorite: Venezuela Real.
I don't actually know who edits it, but I love it: they have a great eye out for the best journalism in and about Venezuela, eye-opening stories that too often fall through the cracks. Unlike Noticiero Digital and most such sites, the focus is on news rather than comment - though they also include some particularly good opinion pieces.
Mostly what they do is pick out a story and post a few paragraphs and a link. The design is admirably minimalist - no graphics, no BS - which is great if you have a slow net connection. The point is that you get to read all the little gems stuck away in the inside pages of the papers that you would probably miss otherwise.
If you only have a few minutes a day to catch up on Venezuela news, and you can read Spanish, do yourself a favor and bookmark Venezuela Real.
(Also, don't miss Weil's all new, super-snazzy website...the guy is a genius.)
April 19, 2007
The government's red, very red measles problem
Katy says: The following is an excerpt from an article by my friend, health policy expert and USB professor Marino González. I thought it was worth translating - it provides a simple benchmark with which to judge Chavez's under-performing health policies. My apologies for not providing a link - it was published in Tal Cual and it's subscription only.
--------------------
From "The government's red, very red measles problem"
In his last address on the State of the Union to the National Assembly, President Chávez said, "today we can say that Venezuela has what it had always lacked: an integral public health system..." Previously, he had stated, "in Barrio Adentro I, we reached 56.9 million medical consultations..." To top it all off, he said, "we have expanded the hospital system, now we are moving to Barrio Adentro IV, Barrio Adentro continues to advance..."
...
There is a simple way to verify the above. If we had the best health care system we wouldn't have any cases of measles in Venezuela. However, we have the most reported cases in the entire Western hemisphere, according to reports from the Ministry of Health and the Weekly Measles Report published by the Panamerican Health Organization.
The incidence of measles is an excellent indicator of a health system's quality and penetration. Measles is a disease that can be completely erradicated: it is caused by a virus and can be avoided through immunization. The vaccine is affordable and has proven to be effective. Through adequate planning, it is possible to reach the entirety of the population at risk.
Latin America's Ministers of Health set the goal in 1994 to erradicate measles by the year 2000. Many countries in the region have been succesful in this area: the last case reported in Nicaragua was in 1994, in Honduras it was in 1997, in Guatemala in 1998. In Colombia, the last reported case happened in 2000, and in Peru in 2002.
In the red, very red years of the current administration, Venezuela has become an island of measles. In 2002 alone we had 2,392 cases. After no cases between 2003 and 2005, measles made a comeback in 2006 with 92 cases. This was the highest number in Latin America, higher than Brazil's 14 cases or Mexico's 23 cases. No other country in Latin America reported cases of measles.
We have had cases of measles all over the country: in Zulia, Carabobo, Guárico, Amazonas, the Metropolitan District, Miranda and Nueva Esparta. In 2007, there have already been 23 cases reported, four times as many cases as in the United States. No other country in Latin America has reported measles cases in 2007.
President Chávez's government has not passed the measles test. We have a health system that is impotent when faced with simple problems, some of which have been solved in poorer countries. If the National Assembly were truly worried about people's well-being, they would have already launched an investigation. Is the vaccine ineffective? Does it not pass quality controls? Why does the government say the vaccine's coverage is high, and yet we still have cases? Is something similar happening with other vaccines? What is happening with vaccinations in Barrio Adentro? Why is the government not informing about this? There's no doubt about it: the red, very red government's incompetence is behind the surge in measles.
April 17, 2007
You may be through with the myth, but the myth isn't through with you
Quico says: Today, it's part three of my exchange with Greg Wilpert, of Venezuelanalysis fame, about the April 2002 coup.
His original essay on the coup is here.
My open letter to him is here.
His reply is here.
Today, my reply to his reply...
Dear Greg,
Well, I'll start by noting the part of your letter I agree with. Obviously, the opposition is not free from the urge to mythologize the April Crisis. All the old canards about a "vacuum-of-power", about how it was "too dangerous to send out reporters on April 13th", are still floating around out there. They are no more credible and only slightly less fantastical than the stories about 13 million people demonstrating for Chávez's return. If I had the power to set the opposition line that Chávez has to set the government's, I can assure you they would've been buried long ago.
In the absence of a credible investigation, though, it was always likely to be so. Exactly five years ago today - just one week after the 11A massacre - Teodoro Petkoff could already see this dynamic taking hold:
Looking back, I think the central legacy of the April Crisis has been the way all the parallel mythologizing cemented the fracture of society. The failure to produce a shared understanding of what happened became a festering wound, just as Teodoro predicted. It underpinned all of the stupid confrontation that came afterwards and deepened the extremism on both sides. It confirmed the opposition's sense that Chávez had to go by any means available, as well as the government's sense that no holds are barred when it comes to protecting itself against "people like that."
And that's why my own write-up on the crisis stresses so heavily the fact that no credible investigation was carried out in the weeks and months after the coup. Because we could sit here and argue all day and all night about what Plan Avila was or what Otto Neutsaldt did or didn't say about what when. But the reality is that we'd be basically guessing, because the Truth Commission was never set up, the conflicting testimonies were never systematically confronted and the evidence was never rigorously weighed by a credible, independent body. That's why a single version of events never arose.
Definitely, yes, both sides have mythologized, but the moral equivalence between the government's mythologizing and the opposition's only takes you so far. Because only the government could've organized the kind of investigation that might have been able to prevent these parallel mythologies from becoming entrenched. Globovisión doesn't have subpoena powers; Primero Justicia can't put people under oath. Only the state has the power to do that; only the state has the responsibility to do that.
From the start, though, it was clear that chavismo was much more interested in imposing its own version of events than in creating a shared history. Neutsaldt's account was used not as the basis for an impartial investigation, but as fodder for propaganda videos repeated incessantly on State TV for openly partisan purposes. The official criminal inquest was pawned off to an openly partisan prosecutor who used it to extort money from the people he was investigating, and who ended up being murdered in circumstances the state also failed to investigate credibly and that, in a macabre twist, itself became grist to the mill of partisan mythologizing.
Under those circumstances, it's no wonder that the actual story got buried so deep under a mountain of obfuscation: when the state abdicates its obligation to flesh out the facts, the myth-makers have the field all to themselves. Who needs a truth commission when you have The Revolution Will Not be Televised?
For me, the question of why the April Crisis was never credibly investigated is as important, as revealing, as the crisis itself. I think there was no credible investigation because everyone in the ruling clique realized that uncovering facts that ran counter to the Official Version could be a career-ending offense. Worse still, the official version keeps shifting: there's no guarantee that today's ideologically correct account will not become tomorrow's heresy. Nobody (other than you) has been willing to take that risk.
Chávez wanted his own Bay of Pigs, Greg. He needed to win a defining battle for the soul of the people against the gringos to flesh out the epic arc of the revolution. And if the evidence out there fit that narrative arc rather awkwardly, too bad for the evidence: he sure as hell wasn't going to take the risk of setting up an investigation he couldn't control, and that might end up contradicting his version. As early as April 18th, 2002, that drive to seize symbolic control of the crisis had already trumped the petty concerns of people like you and me who care about what actually happened. Up against Chávez's steadfast commitment to subordinating reality to ideology, the "evidence" never stood a chance.
Had there been any official institution with the autonomy to hold this drive in check, something like a shared understanding might still have arisen. But there wasn't, because even back then chavismo treated "state," "government," "nation," and "Chávez" as synonyms. The ruling ideology flattens the distinctions between these concepts, making it impossible for those in positions of authority to imagine that something that's in Chávez's interests may not be in the National Interest.
So it's not surprising that those called on to investigate quickly fell into line: an ideology that can't tell the difference between the National Interest and factional interests and that interprets every call for impartiality as a subterfuge to empower the class enemy can't see the value in institutional independence, whether it's in order to investigate the April Crisis or for any other purpose.
When it comes down to it, it was Chávez's authoritarianism that made it impossible to generate a shared understanding of what happened in April 2002. And here, I mean more than just his run-of-the-mill political authoritarianism. I mean a deeper, more sinister drive to dictate the official understanding of the past, a kind of epistemological authoritarianism that dismisses "dissident historical facts" with the same virulence chavismo has always shown to dissident political figures.
From the start, Chávez intuited the need to assimilate the April Crisis into the revolution's storyline, to turn April 13th into a symbolic milestone along its historical path, just like February 27th, 1989 and February 4th, 1992. Dates suffused with such symbolic resonance they can be summoned with just a number-letter combination (27F > 4F > 13A ), the three were threaded together into a compelling narrative of national redemption, with Chávez himself cast in the indispensable role of redeemer. When that's the game you're playing, facts are just a nuisance.
In the end, Chávez won the power struggle his symbolic hijacking of the April Crisis helped configure. His myth won. This might be a "non-issue" for you, but the fact remains that it's his mythologized version - with its gaping omissions, delirious exaggerations and outright falsifications - that kids will learn in school. It's the one that will enter the popular consciousness.
And it's this power over our collective memory-making process that ultimately alarms me. By taking on enabling powers to re-write history, Chávez exerts ultimate control over our collective identity: the control over what we think we know about the past that Orwell understood so clearly as the key to sustaining power permanently.
You may not see that as your problem now but, in time, it will be. As Chávez's power continues to grow, he will silence more and more dissenters and he will imposes stricter and stricter loyalty tests on his followers. The scope and depth of his epistemological authoritarianism can only grow, Greg, because there's nothing in the structure of his ideology to limit its growth.
And while we're not there yet, the day will come when an account of the coup like the one you wrote will mark you out for suspicion. It might seem far fetched to you now, but we're approaching the era of indefinite re-election, so you have to adjust your time horizon: the future lasts a long time, you know?
If there was anything in Chávez's conception of power that could lead him to think, at some stage, "this much power is enough power, this much control is enough control" then you might have some room for comfort. But that's just the thing, Greg,...there isn't.
cheers,
ft
His original essay on the coup is here.
My open letter to him is here.
His reply is here.
Today, my reply to his reply...
Dear Greg,
Well, I'll start by noting the part of your letter I agree with. Obviously, the opposition is not free from the urge to mythologize the April Crisis. All the old canards about a "vacuum-of-power", about how it was "too dangerous to send out reporters on April 13th", are still floating around out there. They are no more credible and only slightly less fantastical than the stories about 13 million people demonstrating for Chávez's return. If I had the power to set the opposition line that Chávez has to set the government's, I can assure you they would've been buried long ago.
In the absence of a credible investigation, though, it was always likely to be so. Exactly five years ago today - just one week after the 11A massacre - Teodoro Petkoff could already see this dynamic taking hold:
What we had feared has started to happen. The sad events of April 11th have already been turned into projectiles tossed back and forth between the various political parties, who accuse each other of responsibility for the deaths. Instead of waiting for the result of an investigation from a Truth Commission, in Parliament each side went straight for "its" videos and "its" photos to sustain "its" truth. This road is totally barren and, from the start, demonstrates an unwillingness to get to the truth. Each side seems to want to keep the affair in a cloud of uncertainty, seeking to keep the events confusing enough to use as a political argument in future debates. This would be a calamity for the country.And a calamity it has been.
Looking back, I think the central legacy of the April Crisis has been the way all the parallel mythologizing cemented the fracture of society. The failure to produce a shared understanding of what happened became a festering wound, just as Teodoro predicted. It underpinned all of the stupid confrontation that came afterwards and deepened the extremism on both sides. It confirmed the opposition's sense that Chávez had to go by any means available, as well as the government's sense that no holds are barred when it comes to protecting itself against "people like that."
And that's why my own write-up on the crisis stresses so heavily the fact that no credible investigation was carried out in the weeks and months after the coup. Because we could sit here and argue all day and all night about what Plan Avila was or what Otto Neutsaldt did or didn't say about what when. But the reality is that we'd be basically guessing, because the Truth Commission was never set up, the conflicting testimonies were never systematically confronted and the evidence was never rigorously weighed by a credible, independent body. That's why a single version of events never arose.
Definitely, yes, both sides have mythologized, but the moral equivalence between the government's mythologizing and the opposition's only takes you so far. Because only the government could've organized the kind of investigation that might have been able to prevent these parallel mythologies from becoming entrenched. Globovisión doesn't have subpoena powers; Primero Justicia can't put people under oath. Only the state has the power to do that; only the state has the responsibility to do that.
From the start, though, it was clear that chavismo was much more interested in imposing its own version of events than in creating a shared history. Neutsaldt's account was used not as the basis for an impartial investigation, but as fodder for propaganda videos repeated incessantly on State TV for openly partisan purposes. The official criminal inquest was pawned off to an openly partisan prosecutor who used it to extort money from the people he was investigating, and who ended up being murdered in circumstances the state also failed to investigate credibly and that, in a macabre twist, itself became grist to the mill of partisan mythologizing.
Under those circumstances, it's no wonder that the actual story got buried so deep under a mountain of obfuscation: when the state abdicates its obligation to flesh out the facts, the myth-makers have the field all to themselves. Who needs a truth commission when you have The Revolution Will Not be Televised?
For me, the question of why the April Crisis was never credibly investigated is as important, as revealing, as the crisis itself. I think there was no credible investigation because everyone in the ruling clique realized that uncovering facts that ran counter to the Official Version could be a career-ending offense. Worse still, the official version keeps shifting: there's no guarantee that today's ideologically correct account will not become tomorrow's heresy. Nobody (other than you) has been willing to take that risk.
Chávez wanted his own Bay of Pigs, Greg. He needed to win a defining battle for the soul of the people against the gringos to flesh out the epic arc of the revolution. And if the evidence out there fit that narrative arc rather awkwardly, too bad for the evidence: he sure as hell wasn't going to take the risk of setting up an investigation he couldn't control, and that might end up contradicting his version. As early as April 18th, 2002, that drive to seize symbolic control of the crisis had already trumped the petty concerns of people like you and me who care about what actually happened. Up against Chávez's steadfast commitment to subordinating reality to ideology, the "evidence" never stood a chance.
Had there been any official institution with the autonomy to hold this drive in check, something like a shared understanding might still have arisen. But there wasn't, because even back then chavismo treated "state," "government," "nation," and "Chávez" as synonyms. The ruling ideology flattens the distinctions between these concepts, making it impossible for those in positions of authority to imagine that something that's in Chávez's interests may not be in the National Interest.
So it's not surprising that those called on to investigate quickly fell into line: an ideology that can't tell the difference between the National Interest and factional interests and that interprets every call for impartiality as a subterfuge to empower the class enemy can't see the value in institutional independence, whether it's in order to investigate the April Crisis or for any other purpose.
When it comes down to it, it was Chávez's authoritarianism that made it impossible to generate a shared understanding of what happened in April 2002. And here, I mean more than just his run-of-the-mill political authoritarianism. I mean a deeper, more sinister drive to dictate the official understanding of the past, a kind of epistemological authoritarianism that dismisses "dissident historical facts" with the same virulence chavismo has always shown to dissident political figures.
From the start, Chávez intuited the need to assimilate the April Crisis into the revolution's storyline, to turn April 13th into a symbolic milestone along its historical path, just like February 27th, 1989 and February 4th, 1992. Dates suffused with such symbolic resonance they can be summoned with just a number-letter combination (27F > 4F > 13A ), the three were threaded together into a compelling narrative of national redemption, with Chávez himself cast in the indispensable role of redeemer. When that's the game you're playing, facts are just a nuisance.
In the end, Chávez won the power struggle his symbolic hijacking of the April Crisis helped configure. His myth won. This might be a "non-issue" for you, but the fact remains that it's his mythologized version - with its gaping omissions, delirious exaggerations and outright falsifications - that kids will learn in school. It's the one that will enter the popular consciousness.
And it's this power over our collective memory-making process that ultimately alarms me. By taking on enabling powers to re-write history, Chávez exerts ultimate control over our collective identity: the control over what we think we know about the past that Orwell understood so clearly as the key to sustaining power permanently.
You may not see that as your problem now but, in time, it will be. As Chávez's power continues to grow, he will silence more and more dissenters and he will imposes stricter and stricter loyalty tests on his followers. The scope and depth of his epistemological authoritarianism can only grow, Greg, because there's nothing in the structure of his ideology to limit its growth.
And while we're not there yet, the day will come when an account of the coup like the one you wrote will mark you out for suspicion. It might seem far fetched to you now, but we're approaching the era of indefinite re-election, so you have to adjust your time horizon: the future lasts a long time, you know?
If there was anything in Chávez's conception of power that could lead him to think, at some stage, "this much power is enough power, this much control is enough control" then you might have some room for comfort. But that's just the thing, Greg,...there isn't.
cheers,
ft
April 16, 2007
Greg Wilpert says...
Dear Quico,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments on my coup article and for giving me the opportunity to reply to your letter.
First, indeed, it is a shame that there is no Chavista version of my account in Spanish, but I guess you could say the same about there not being an opposition version, unless you consider the La Fuente & Meza book to be an opposition version (which I basically do, but I thought you did not).
You say, "What a mess you're putting yourself into by telling the story this way, Greg!" As I have told you on several occasions before, I think you give Chavistas far less credit than they deserve. You seem to think that there is a monolithical Chavista thought-police out there that censors or banishes anyone who doesn't fall into the party line. You'd be surprised how much tolerance there is for dissent. Not from everyone, obviously, but the Chavista side is far more diverse than you seem to think. So, in a nutshell, I'm not worried at all about putting my side out there. As a matter of fact, I might even find a state institution that will be willing to translate it into Spanish.
Next, you say, "your problem is that the official version keeps changing." This too is a non-issue for me. My version only changes with new evidence that becomes available.
As for Chavez saying that those who died on April 11th died for him, you of course interpret this statement in the least favorable way. Which is, of course, your right and to be expected from an opposition commentator. Unsurprisingly, there are more favorable interpretations to that comment. That is, all Chavez was saying is that the battle on the streets was about him and that, therefore, all who died (opposition and Chavistas - he explicitly acknowledged both) died "for" him. The opposition supporters died for him in the extended sense that they were cannon fodder of the coup conspirators.
I don't know what Celia Flores said, but a few days ago, on the 13th, VTV showed the documentary "Claves de una massacre", which goes into excruciating detail just how far opposition marchers got on Avenida Baralt (about 350 m. from Puente Llaguno) (have you seen it? If not, you really should). The video has been highly praised by Chavistas, which clearly shows that Chavistas generally agree that they did reach Baralt, but just not close enough to be the targets of the Puente Llaguno shooters, as opposition mythology claims.
I find it pretty amazing that you seem to think that my glossing over Chavez's knowledge that the PDVSA board resigned is comparable to La Fuente & Meza's (and your) omission of the Otto Neutsaldt testimony. To me, there is just no comparison. True, I could have said something about Chavez knowing that about the board and not telling it (perhaps I will in an updated version), but I don't think it makes all that much of a difference for the overall development of the coup. In any case, it makes a hell of a lot less difference for our understanding of the coup than the Neustaldt testimony does, which you and La Fuente & Meza leave out.
As for Plan Colina and Chavez's so-called "admission" that he planned the coup and the PDVSA strike, this has become one of the cornerstones in opposition mythology of the Chavez era. It is awfully convenient for the opposition that Chavez takes full responsibility for these events. As many Chavistas say, it's probably one of the main reasons he's so popular in Venezuela - he's the only politician who will take responsibility for bad things that happen in Venezuela. So far practically no one in the opposition has taken responsibility for the coup (most are they are still denying that there even was one) or for the disastrous shutdown of the oil industry or for having lost the recall referendum (Rosales' taking responsibility for the loss of the presidential election was thus a milestone in opposition discourse).
However, you completely exaggerate and over-interpret Chavez's taking responsibility. Just because he admits (and perhaps exaggerates the extent of his foresight in the process) that he consciously contributed to these crises, does not mean that he bears more responsibility for these events than the opposition. I admit, though, a complete account should include this admission, but, as you can tell, I don't think it's as big a deal as you make it out to be (another addition for a future version). You are probably right that Chavez "let the coup roll" despite hi foreknowledge of it, precisely in order to flush his opponents out of the system. That strategy sounds quite smart, actually. Unfortunately, he clearly miscalculated. I don't think he knew that there were going to be people shooting from buildings into both demonstrations, which would cause the deaths of 19 people. Also, he clearly thought he could stop the full unfolding of the coup before it was too late, that is, before he was actually deposed. Part of the reason he underestimated the coup plotters here is because he did not know as much about the coup or the extent of the betrayal as he thought he did. I seriously doubt he imagined that Rosendo would be part of it. All indications were that he thought Rosendo would stick by his side and implement Plan Avila, which would have prevented him being held hostage the way he was. Chavez was visibly shaken afterwards by the extent of the betrayals against him.
I don't know why you seem to think that my conceding that Chavez contributed to the crisis is something too dangerous for me to do. After all, Chavez himself has "admitted" to having done so. The real question in my mind is, who had more responsibility - the coup plotters or the one who is trying to figure out how to outmaneuver the plotters?
At the time of the coup, I really thought Chavez could have done something to prevent the coup and that he should have done so back then (my articles from the time confirm this). However, what I have learned since then has convinced me that it is highly unlikely that the coup organizers would have shifted course. Besides, if preventing the coup had meant giving in to the opposition's demands, despite Chavez having a mandate to carry out radical changes in Venezuela, I now think that he should not have given in an inch. After all, by what right was this minority making demands? I guess you could say that the coup and the events that followed radicalized me just as much as they radicalized Chavez.
Finally, with regard to your gratefulness about my having presented an account of the coup based on evidence, all I can say here again is that you know Chavistas a lot less well than you think. Not only that, you also seem to think (or at least you imply) that your side is somehow immune to the problems of mythologizing the history of the Chavez presidency. Come on - has your horse gotten too high for you to get off? You used to be much more critical of the opposition than you have been ever since you re-started your blog.
Thanks again for providing me this opportunity to respond!
Best wishes,
Greg
Thanks for your thoughtful comments on my coup article and for giving me the opportunity to reply to your letter.
First, indeed, it is a shame that there is no Chavista version of my account in Spanish, but I guess you could say the same about there not being an opposition version, unless you consider the La Fuente & Meza book to be an opposition version (which I basically do, but I thought you did not).
You say, "What a mess you're putting yourself into by telling the story this way, Greg!" As I have told you on several occasions before, I think you give Chavistas far less credit than they deserve. You seem to think that there is a monolithical Chavista thought-police out there that censors or banishes anyone who doesn't fall into the party line. You'd be surprised how much tolerance there is for dissent. Not from everyone, obviously, but the Chavista side is far more diverse than you seem to think. So, in a nutshell, I'm not worried at all about putting my side out there. As a matter of fact, I might even find a state institution that will be willing to translate it into Spanish.
Next, you say, "your problem is that the official version keeps changing." This too is a non-issue for me. My version only changes with new evidence that becomes available.
As for Chavez saying that those who died on April 11th died for him, you of course interpret this statement in the least favorable way. Which is, of course, your right and to be expected from an opposition commentator. Unsurprisingly, there are more favorable interpretations to that comment. That is, all Chavez was saying is that the battle on the streets was about him and that, therefore, all who died (opposition and Chavistas - he explicitly acknowledged both) died "for" him. The opposition supporters died for him in the extended sense that they were cannon fodder of the coup conspirators.
I don't know what Celia Flores said, but a few days ago, on the 13th, VTV showed the documentary "Claves de una massacre", which goes into excruciating detail just how far opposition marchers got on Avenida Baralt (about 350 m. from Puente Llaguno) (have you seen it? If not, you really should). The video has been highly praised by Chavistas, which clearly shows that Chavistas generally agree that they did reach Baralt, but just not close enough to be the targets of the Puente Llaguno shooters, as opposition mythology claims.
I find it pretty amazing that you seem to think that my glossing over Chavez's knowledge that the PDVSA board resigned is comparable to La Fuente & Meza's (and your) omission of the Otto Neutsaldt testimony. To me, there is just no comparison. True, I could have said something about Chavez knowing that about the board and not telling it (perhaps I will in an updated version), but I don't think it makes all that much of a difference for the overall development of the coup. In any case, it makes a hell of a lot less difference for our understanding of the coup than the Neustaldt testimony does, which you and La Fuente & Meza leave out.
As for Plan Colina and Chavez's so-called "admission" that he planned the coup and the PDVSA strike, this has become one of the cornerstones in opposition mythology of the Chavez era. It is awfully convenient for the opposition that Chavez takes full responsibility for these events. As many Chavistas say, it's probably one of the main reasons he's so popular in Venezuela - he's the only politician who will take responsibility for bad things that happen in Venezuela. So far practically no one in the opposition has taken responsibility for the coup (most are they are still denying that there even was one) or for the disastrous shutdown of the oil industry or for having lost the recall referendum (Rosales' taking responsibility for the loss of the presidential election was thus a milestone in opposition discourse).
However, you completely exaggerate and over-interpret Chavez's taking responsibility. Just because he admits (and perhaps exaggerates the extent of his foresight in the process) that he consciously contributed to these crises, does not mean that he bears more responsibility for these events than the opposition. I admit, though, a complete account should include this admission, but, as you can tell, I don't think it's as big a deal as you make it out to be (another addition for a future version). You are probably right that Chavez "let the coup roll" despite hi foreknowledge of it, precisely in order to flush his opponents out of the system. That strategy sounds quite smart, actually. Unfortunately, he clearly miscalculated. I don't think he knew that there were going to be people shooting from buildings into both demonstrations, which would cause the deaths of 19 people. Also, he clearly thought he could stop the full unfolding of the coup before it was too late, that is, before he was actually deposed. Part of the reason he underestimated the coup plotters here is because he did not know as much about the coup or the extent of the betrayal as he thought he did. I seriously doubt he imagined that Rosendo would be part of it. All indications were that he thought Rosendo would stick by his side and implement Plan Avila, which would have prevented him being held hostage the way he was. Chavez was visibly shaken afterwards by the extent of the betrayals against him.
I don't know why you seem to think that my conceding that Chavez contributed to the crisis is something too dangerous for me to do. After all, Chavez himself has "admitted" to having done so. The real question in my mind is, who had more responsibility - the coup plotters or the one who is trying to figure out how to outmaneuver the plotters?
At the time of the coup, I really thought Chavez could have done something to prevent the coup and that he should have done so back then (my articles from the time confirm this). However, what I have learned since then has convinced me that it is highly unlikely that the coup organizers would have shifted course. Besides, if preventing the coup had meant giving in to the opposition's demands, despite Chavez having a mandate to carry out radical changes in Venezuela, I now think that he should not have given in an inch. After all, by what right was this minority making demands? I guess you could say that the coup and the events that followed radicalized me just as much as they radicalized Chavez.
Finally, with regard to your gratefulness about my having presented an account of the coup based on evidence, all I can say here again is that you know Chavistas a lot less well than you think. Not only that, you also seem to think (or at least you imply) that your side is somehow immune to the problems of mythologizing the history of the Chavez presidency. Come on - has your horse gotten too high for you to get off? You used to be much more critical of the opposition than you have been ever since you re-started your blog.
Thanks again for providing me this opportunity to respond!
Best wishes,
Greg
Wilpert in his labyrinth
An Open Letter to Greg Wilpert
Dear Greg,
I read your piece on the April Crisis with interest. While, obviously, I disagree with your overall interpretation, I'm really glad you wrote it. I found it really refreshing to read a serious effort from the chavista side to come to grips with the actual evidence that's out there. To this day, it amazes me that no similarly evidence-oriented account of the chavista version of events is available in Spanish. But, y'know, there are reasons for that.
As I read your piece, I couldn't help dwelling on those. What a mess you're putting yourself into by telling the story this way, Greg! Re-introducing facts that have been gradually scrubbed off the Official Version - the Plan Avila order, the hushed resignation of the new PDVSA board, the government's advance notice that the march would be re-routed, the scant, fragmentary and circumstantial evidence of US involvement - your account leaves you way out of step with the canonical chavista version of events. It's a re-telling that casts you in the role of "independent-minded supporter," and I know full well that's no bed of roses. You're an independent-minded supporter of a government that, these days, feels almost as threatened by independent-minded supporters as by outright opponents. Seriously, ask Diaz Rangel, or López Maya, or Miguel Salazar, or Ismael García or Jesús Cabrera.
Partly, your problem is that the official version keeps changing, departing more and more from the facts in the public domain, the facts that make up the basis of your post. You tell us that seven opposition members died on April 11th, along with five bystanders. But official mythology has moved on: Chávez now says that everyone who died that day died on his behalf, as martyrs to his cause. You may remember making your way through the opposition crowd on Avenida Baralt, up through no-man's-land, to Puente Llaguno, but Cilia Flores has already announced that the opposition march was never on Avenida Baralt in the first place. So should a principled revolutionary believe you, or the presidents of the republic and the National Assembly?
It doesn't much matter that you're right and they're lying - they have power, and all you have is a keyboard. You may be shielded for a while longer by the fact that you write in a foreign language, but sooner or later they'll figure out that you believe the evidence more than you believe the official story. And the revolution has no use for people like that, Greg.
What's funny, though, is that your retelling goes both too far and not far enough. You're way out ahead of the constantly morphing, increasingly sanitized, mythologized official version, for sure, but your allegiance to evidence has some limits as well. I had a nice chuckle when I got to that delicately balanced bit about how, "unbeknownst to the general public", PDVSA's new board resigned on April 10th. That was some fancy syntactic footwork, gingerly obviating the fact that it was Chávez they'd tendered their resignations to, so if the public didn't beknow it, it's because he didn't betell them!
Most of my quibbles are along those lines: you note the speck in La Fuente and Meza's journalistic eye but never notice the log in yours as you exempt Chávez from his very obvious responsibility for egging on the crisis. You write that Chávez's "style" helped deepen the conflict throughout early 2002, but you write it as though this had been some kind of unwitting byproduct. You omit mention of Plan Colina and the Grupo Colina he set up to execute it. Remember those? Chávez himself, speaking to the National Assembly in 2004, acknowledged (or is the right word 'bragged'?) that he had set them up precisely to precipitate a crisis, to sharpen the contradictions as a way to finally turn PDVSA from a state institution into an instrument of personal discretion.
Not that such an explicit acknowledgment was really needed. Back in 2002, anyone with a pair of open eyes and a TV set could tell that Chávez, as much as the opposition, was working to antagonize the other side as acutely as possible. Unless you think he's plain dumb, you realize he knew this would provoke a showdown. This, when you think about it, is not even really a controversial point.
Thing is, if there's something Chávez knows a thing or two about it's the dynamics of coup management in the Venezuelan military. He was socialized in the AD-era military, where standard operating procedure when the authorities caught wind of a plot was to "let it roll" - to monitor it as it developed in order to flush out as many unreliable elements as possible. Certainly, without provoking an extreme situation, Chávez couldn't have gauged if he could really rely on Rosendo, on Camacho Kairuz, or on Baduel. (No, no, yes - turned out to be the answers.) Already by April 7th, Rosendo's panicked pleas for him to find a negotiated solution, to sit down and talk, and to avoid placing armed civilians around Miraflores must have given him pause. There were, in the two weeks preceding the coup, any number of opportunities to stem it. Chávez passed them all up. Ever wonder why that is?
Of course, here I start to flirt with ideas too dangerous for even an "independent-minded supporter" to countenance. Some taboos are more taboo than others. The notion that Chávez is essentially blameless, que el tipo no rompe un plato, is not really one I can expect you to question. To acknowledge Chávez's obvious - indeed, self-confessed - interest in accentuating the crisis would set you down a slope that is just too slippery, both to your position within the movement and to the precarious internal balance you've had to build to justify your support for a leader you have, on occasion, acknowledged is inclined to authoritarianism.
But still, I'm honestly glad you wrote that piece. I may interpret things differently, but the point is that, surely, we could have a conversation about it. Because what you do is something nobody else on your side seems to do: you present reasoned interpretations based on factual claims backed by the available evidence. You don't just screech generic accusations; you don't just hurl insults at those who disagree with you.
And that makes all the difference. Because it means I can do what I've done here: reply by contrasting your interpretations with different interpretations that are also based on factual claims and backed by the available evidence. And if you choose, you can do the same back to me. So we can go back and forth, in an iterative process that could, little by little, lead to us constructing a shared understanding of what actually happened. Ta-daaaaa: communicative action!
Actually, when I think about it in those terms, your coup piece is the most subtly but profoundly counterrevolutionary thing I've read in months.
cheers,
ft
Tomorrow: Greg's response.
Dear Greg,
I read your piece on the April Crisis with interest. While, obviously, I disagree with your overall interpretation, I'm really glad you wrote it. I found it really refreshing to read a serious effort from the chavista side to come to grips with the actual evidence that's out there. To this day, it amazes me that no similarly evidence-oriented account of the chavista version of events is available in Spanish. But, y'know, there are reasons for that.
As I read your piece, I couldn't help dwelling on those. What a mess you're putting yourself into by telling the story this way, Greg! Re-introducing facts that have been gradually scrubbed off the Official Version - the Plan Avila order, the hushed resignation of the new PDVSA board, the government's advance notice that the march would be re-routed, the scant, fragmentary and circumstantial evidence of US involvement - your account leaves you way out of step with the canonical chavista version of events. It's a re-telling that casts you in the role of "independent-minded supporter," and I know full well that's no bed of roses. You're an independent-minded supporter of a government that, these days, feels almost as threatened by independent-minded supporters as by outright opponents. Seriously, ask Diaz Rangel, or López Maya, or Miguel Salazar, or Ismael García or Jesús Cabrera.
Partly, your problem is that the official version keeps changing, departing more and more from the facts in the public domain, the facts that make up the basis of your post. You tell us that seven opposition members died on April 11th, along with five bystanders. But official mythology has moved on: Chávez now says that everyone who died that day died on his behalf, as martyrs to his cause. You may remember making your way through the opposition crowd on Avenida Baralt, up through no-man's-land, to Puente Llaguno, but Cilia Flores has already announced that the opposition march was never on Avenida Baralt in the first place. So should a principled revolutionary believe you, or the presidents of the republic and the National Assembly?It doesn't much matter that you're right and they're lying - they have power, and all you have is a keyboard. You may be shielded for a while longer by the fact that you write in a foreign language, but sooner or later they'll figure out that you believe the evidence more than you believe the official story. And the revolution has no use for people like that, Greg.
What's funny, though, is that your retelling goes both too far and not far enough. You're way out ahead of the constantly morphing, increasingly sanitized, mythologized official version, for sure, but your allegiance to evidence has some limits as well. I had a nice chuckle when I got to that delicately balanced bit about how, "unbeknownst to the general public", PDVSA's new board resigned on April 10th. That was some fancy syntactic footwork, gingerly obviating the fact that it was Chávez they'd tendered their resignations to, so if the public didn't beknow it, it's because he didn't betell them!
Most of my quibbles are along those lines: you note the speck in La Fuente and Meza's journalistic eye but never notice the log in yours as you exempt Chávez from his very obvious responsibility for egging on the crisis. You write that Chávez's "style" helped deepen the conflict throughout early 2002, but you write it as though this had been some kind of unwitting byproduct. You omit mention of Plan Colina and the Grupo Colina he set up to execute it. Remember those? Chávez himself, speaking to the National Assembly in 2004, acknowledged (or is the right word 'bragged'?) that he had set them up precisely to precipitate a crisis, to sharpen the contradictions as a way to finally turn PDVSA from a state institution into an instrument of personal discretion.
Not that such an explicit acknowledgment was really needed. Back in 2002, anyone with a pair of open eyes and a TV set could tell that Chávez, as much as the opposition, was working to antagonize the other side as acutely as possible. Unless you think he's plain dumb, you realize he knew this would provoke a showdown. This, when you think about it, is not even really a controversial point.
Thing is, if there's something Chávez knows a thing or two about it's the dynamics of coup management in the Venezuelan military. He was socialized in the AD-era military, where standard operating procedure when the authorities caught wind of a plot was to "let it roll" - to monitor it as it developed in order to flush out as many unreliable elements as possible. Certainly, without provoking an extreme situation, Chávez couldn't have gauged if he could really rely on Rosendo, on Camacho Kairuz, or on Baduel. (No, no, yes - turned out to be the answers.) Already by April 7th, Rosendo's panicked pleas for him to find a negotiated solution, to sit down and talk, and to avoid placing armed civilians around Miraflores must have given him pause. There were, in the two weeks preceding the coup, any number of opportunities to stem it. Chávez passed them all up. Ever wonder why that is?
Of course, here I start to flirt with ideas too dangerous for even an "independent-minded supporter" to countenance. Some taboos are more taboo than others. The notion that Chávez is essentially blameless, que el tipo no rompe un plato, is not really one I can expect you to question. To acknowledge Chávez's obvious - indeed, self-confessed - interest in accentuating the crisis would set you down a slope that is just too slippery, both to your position within the movement and to the precarious internal balance you've had to build to justify your support for a leader you have, on occasion, acknowledged is inclined to authoritarianism.
But still, I'm honestly glad you wrote that piece. I may interpret things differently, but the point is that, surely, we could have a conversation about it. Because what you do is something nobody else on your side seems to do: you present reasoned interpretations based on factual claims backed by the available evidence. You don't just screech generic accusations; you don't just hurl insults at those who disagree with you.
And that makes all the difference. Because it means I can do what I've done here: reply by contrasting your interpretations with different interpretations that are also based on factual claims and backed by the available evidence. And if you choose, you can do the same back to me. So we can go back and forth, in an iterative process that could, little by little, lead to us constructing a shared understanding of what actually happened. Ta-daaaaa: communicative action!
Actually, when I think about it in those terms, your coup piece is the most subtly but profoundly counterrevolutionary thing I've read in months.
cheers,
ft
Tomorrow: Greg's response.
April 14, 2007
The socialism of 1984
"Uncritical loyalty to the USSR happens to be the current orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests of the USSR are involved they are willing to tolerate not only censorship but the deliberate falsification of history."
-George Orwell, Proposed Preface to ‘Animal Farm’
Quico says: I usually suppress the urge to comment on whatever eccentricities come out of Chávez's mouth. The aggravation is not usually worth the payoff. But now and then, the guy blurts out things so bizarre, so blithely truculent, so aggressively Orwellian, I have to make an exception.
Yesterday, Chávez gave us his latest re-interpretation of the April 2002 crisis. Those crazy few days were always likely to give rise to all sorts of official mythologizing. With each passing year, the chavista version gets more fanciful, more epic, more detached from the evidence in the public domain, to the point that, by now, parts of it are straightforward reversals of what we know happened.
I have in mind, specifically, Chávez's contention yesterday that "the 19 people who died on April 11th died for me, they are martyrs who gave their lives to allow me to keep on living."
Now, this is a lie. But, when you think about it, it's not a usual kind of lie. It is a Big Lie. By that, I mean that it's a lie that flags itself as a lie, that flaunts the liar's power to speak it without consequences. It's a lie that doesn't so much conceal the truth as reverse it. And not some obscure truth, but an extremely public, perfectly plain, fully established truth about the key moment in the key event of our contemporary history.
Because we know that there were deaths on both sides on April 11th, 2002 - and deaths on no side at all as well, since some victims were just bystanders. We know that Chavez continued to talk, on cadena nacional, for two hours as the shooting went on just outside Miraflores. We know a uniformed military officer kept passing notes to him, throughout his speech, containing ongoing casualty reports. We know he never paused to do anything to stop the massacre. We know he tried to silence the coverage of what was happening just outside his door.
Not content with his total control of the state, Chavez now wants enabling powers to rewrite the past as well. This ploy to appropriate the sacrifice of those who died trying to prevent him from becoming the autocrat he has since become constitutes a staggering falsification of history, a final slap in the face for the families of the victims, a grotesque insult to the memory of those who died trying to preserve the freedoms his government has steadfastly denied.
And yet, as time goes on, as the Official Story is repeated and embellished and enshrined in schoolbooks and official lore, can we really doubt that the next generation of schoolchildren will grow up believing, as a simple matter of fact, that Jorge Tortoza was a martyr of the revolution?
Repeat after me: "Eurasia is the enemy; Eurasia has always been the enemy..."
-George Orwell, Proposed Preface to ‘Animal Farm’
Quico says: I usually suppress the urge to comment on whatever eccentricities come out of Chávez's mouth. The aggravation is not usually worth the payoff. But now and then, the guy blurts out things so bizarre, so blithely truculent, so aggressively Orwellian, I have to make an exception.
Yesterday, Chávez gave us his latest re-interpretation of the April 2002 crisis. Those crazy few days were always likely to give rise to all sorts of official mythologizing. With each passing year, the chavista version gets more fanciful, more epic, more detached from the evidence in the public domain, to the point that, by now, parts of it are straightforward reversals of what we know happened.
I have in mind, specifically, Chávez's contention yesterday that "the 19 people who died on April 11th died for me, they are martyrs who gave their lives to allow me to keep on living."
Now, this is a lie. But, when you think about it, it's not a usual kind of lie. It is a Big Lie. By that, I mean that it's a lie that flags itself as a lie, that flaunts the liar's power to speak it without consequences. It's a lie that doesn't so much conceal the truth as reverse it. And not some obscure truth, but an extremely public, perfectly plain, fully established truth about the key moment in the key event of our contemporary history.
Because we know that there were deaths on both sides on April 11th, 2002 - and deaths on no side at all as well, since some victims were just bystanders. We know that Chavez continued to talk, on cadena nacional, for two hours as the shooting went on just outside Miraflores. We know a uniformed military officer kept passing notes to him, throughout his speech, containing ongoing casualty reports. We know he never paused to do anything to stop the massacre. We know he tried to silence the coverage of what was happening just outside his door.
Not content with his total control of the state, Chavez now wants enabling powers to rewrite the past as well. This ploy to appropriate the sacrifice of those who died trying to prevent him from becoming the autocrat he has since become constitutes a staggering falsification of history, a final slap in the face for the families of the victims, a grotesque insult to the memory of those who died trying to preserve the freedoms his government has steadfastly denied.
And yet, as time goes on, as the Official Story is repeated and embellished and enshrined in schoolbooks and official lore, can we really doubt that the next generation of schoolchildren will grow up believing, as a simple matter of fact, that Jorge Tortoza was a martyr of the revolution?Repeat after me: "Eurasia is the enemy; Eurasia has always been the enemy..."
April 13, 2007
Considering
Quico says: It's that time of year again, when we look back on the events of April 2002, and mourn the utter stupidity with which Pedro Carmona and the tiny clique surrounding him squandered the moral clarity of the popular movement that forced Chávez from power in the wee hours of April 12th.
It's painful to look back. Even more painful when we realize that all the things we feared might happen if Chávez was allowed to consolidate himself in power have indeed come to pass.
Just before Carmona and Co. threw it all away by issuing their impossibly ill-considered decree, though, we heard Daniel Romero outline the motivations that had moved so many of us, civilian and military, to demand the end of the insanity Chávez was moving us toward. Looking back, what strikes you is how current the list of ills is:
Today, as we see fully armed paratroopers on parade shouting "patria, socialismo o muerte," as we see the practice of forcing public sector workers to attend pro-Chávez rallies become routinized, as we see the Public Prosecutor's office turned ever more impudently into an instrument of political repression, as we witness Chavista Supreme Tribunal magistrates being purged off the court in order to make room for even more ideologically steadfast magistrates, all we can do is hang our heads in despair and come to the worst of all possible realizations: Daniel Romero was right.
It's painful to look back. Even more painful when we realize that all the things we feared might happen if Chávez was allowed to consolidate himself in power have indeed come to pass.
Just before Carmona and Co. threw it all away by issuing their impossibly ill-considered decree, though, we heard Daniel Romero outline the motivations that had moved so many of us, civilian and military, to demand the end of the insanity Chávez was moving us toward. Looking back, what strikes you is how current the list of ills is:
Considering that Chávez and his government have contravened democratic values, principles and safeguards, particularly pertaining to representative democracy, by acting as though the state belonged to only one political party, whose leadership he has exercised in violation of article 145 of the Constitution of 1999 which bans public servants from serving any political faction....Each of these items was true then, and has gotten much truer since. The debasement of our institutions had not, in 2002, advanced nearly so far as it has today, but the direction of travel was obvious. It didn't take some crack team of brainiacs to realize that, left to his own devices, Chávez would take the country down the increasingly authoritarian road he has since traveled.
Considering that Chávez and his government flagrantly violated the principle of the separation and independence of public powers enshrined in articles 136, 254, 273 and 294 of the Constitution, concentrating and usurping their powers, and necessitating the re-establishment of their separation and autonomy...
Considering that Chávez and his government, in violation of article 328 of the constitution, have sought to undermine the institutional and historic mission of the Armed Forces, its dignity and role in national development, by forcing it to carry out functions contrary to its nature and demanding loyalty to just one political faction and to a personal ideological project...
Considering that Chávez and his government have systematically undermined the human rights guaranteed in the constitution and in international treaties, to the point that never before have the Interamerican Human Rights organizations received so many complaints based on their violation, especially concerning the right to life, due process and freedom of expression...
Considering that Chávez and his government have enabled, from their high positions, incitement to commit crimes, by allowing all kinds of violations of private property, as well as obstructing the investigation and punishment of civilians and military men loyal to the regime who have committed acts of corruption...
Considering that Chávez and his government have irresponsibly promoted a climate of confrontation and social violence, contrary to national unity, democratic pluralism, and the respect of democratic principles and values...
Considering that Chávez and his government have instrumentalized the electoral authorities, in violation of article 294 of the constitution and of international treaties...
Considering that Chávez and his government have placed the civil service at the service of a political faction, in violation of article 141 of the constitution...
Today, as we see fully armed paratroopers on parade shouting "patria, socialismo o muerte," as we see the practice of forcing public sector workers to attend pro-Chávez rallies become routinized, as we see the Public Prosecutor's office turned ever more impudently into an instrument of political repression, as we witness Chavista Supreme Tribunal magistrates being purged off the court in order to make room for even more ideologically steadfast magistrates, all we can do is hang our heads in despair and come to the worst of all possible realizations: Daniel Romero was right.
April 11, 2007
The April massacre: the (un)told story revisited
Katy says: Our apologies for the silence the last few days: I have been travelling and Quico is tied up with personal issues.
This is as good a time as any to re-visit Quico's thorough post on the events of April, 2002. It's hard to believe five years have passed and we still don't know who planted snipers on top of the buildings surrounding Miraflores to shoot at innocent bystanders. But I correct myself, in Chavez's Venezuela impunity is not that hard to believe.
My hope is that all those whose lives were taken or changed for good that day can find peace and justice, be it in this world or in another.
This is as good a time as any to re-visit Quico's thorough post on the events of April, 2002. It's hard to believe five years have passed and we still don't know who planted snipers on top of the buildings surrounding Miraflores to shoot at innocent bystanders. But I correct myself, in Chavez's Venezuela impunity is not that hard to believe.
My hope is that all those whose lives were taken or changed for good that day can find peace and justice, be it in this world or in another.
April 6, 2007
Answers from Libreville
Katy says: This article, and the book that it refers to, are not to be missed. The author explores the current oil boom in Africa, and examines what newfound wealth is doing to some of its societies. The stories he tells feel all too familiar.
One passage was particularly illuminating. The author narrates what it is like to travel from Nigeria to Gabon. As you may know, Nigeria is a major oil producer, but its society is mired in poverty, social conflict and unrest. Gabon is a minor player in the oil industry, yet the standard of living is remarkably higher:
"Gone is the sight of legless cripples, crawling on their bare hands through lanes of traffic like teams of crazed, foreshortened gymnasts, competing for prizes of loose change. Gone, too, is the smoke billowing from mountains of trash that have gone uncollected so long that residents have set fire to them. And gone completely is the shouting and the jostling and the barely suppressed rage that seems to flow through Nigeria's streets like a howling flume of molten lava from morning to night. In its place is a distinctly languid holiday feel and an unmistakable air of genteel French provincialism left over from colonial times.
...
This outward splash of easy prosperity has much to do with Gabon's small population and sizeable oil reserves. In a country that is only a little smaller than Nigeria and pumps 265,000 barrels of oil a day, there are not 130 million people to share the oil wealth, but just over one million, making Gabon's per capita income of $6,500 one of the highest in Africa. (Compare it with Nigeria's $678.)"
People who have not studied Venezuela easily fall prey to the government's oversimplification of the reason for the revolution's apparent popularity, which goes something like this: before, a bunch of rich white folk - and foreign imperialists - were taking all the oil money for themselves, but now, Chávez is distributing oil wealth to the poor. While there may, perhaps, be an ounce of truth in that statement, the real story is that during the 80s and 90s, the price of oil plummeted while the population nearly doubled. The main reason Chavez is popular now is that the price of oil went back up again, and the government once again has the funds required to keep people satisfied. In that sense, Chávez is not doing anything that presidents between Gómez and CAP-I didn't try to do before. If, or rather when, the price of oil falls, his luck (and ours) will begin to run out.
The only solution to this trap is to move our economy away from oil dependency, something the Chávez government is not only not doing but, in fact, is actively fighting against. So while some of my countryfolk may now feel they are Gabonians, it won't be long before the natural cycle of oil prices Nigeria-izes them back to reality.
April 5, 2007
Piece de resistance
Quico says: So, get this. "Comando Nacional de la Resistencia" spokesman Antonio Ledezma (groan) has formally asked Prosecutor General Isaías Rodríguez (double groan) to drop any ongoing investigation relying on the testimony of well-known fantasist Giovanni/Geovany/Jovany Vásquez de Armas (quadruple groan with triple back flip.) You've got to hand it to a story that manages to put the utter dregs of Venezuelan and Colombian public life together in just one sentence!There's too much idiocy compressed into too little space here to quite go over it all. But indulge me as I rant briefly on the Comando Nacional de la Resistencia. These are the folks who, as you'll recall, "refuse to recognize the Chávez regime" and are therefore "resisting" it - just like Jean Moulin resisted Nazi occupation.
Ummmm, ok. Try to picture Moulin walking up to his neighborhood Nazi field commander to hand him a carefully argued legal brief asking for an injunction to block the next batch of deportations to the concentration camps. Ermmmm... doesn't quite work like that, resistance, does it?
And yet, not a week seems to go by without some CNR blowhard demanding an injunction from one of these courts they don't recognize. You can barely turn on Globo without seeing one of them, implicitly or explicitly, recognizing the authorities they say they are resisting. Worse, the penny never seems to drop for them that the second you file an injunction, you are in fact recognizing a court's authority to grant it.
Am I missing something, or are these guys catastrophically failing to grasp some not-at-all subtle differentiations here? Gandhi did not plead with the High Court in London to overturn British taxes on salt making...he walked to the sea and made salt. That's resistance! Hamas does not file finely argued briefs for the end of Israeli occupation...they blow up Israelis. That's resistance! CNR wraps itself in the rhetoric of resistence...and then goes plead with Isaías to pretty please do his job properly. That's pathetic!
Turning the opposition movement (well, their bit of it anyway, cuz, as they say, "not in my name!") into the same morass of superficiality and empty talk as the government they are un-resisting, they sap the movement of the moral seriousness it would take to either resist or oppose the government successfully.
Fools.
April 4, 2007
Prohibition makes a comeback
Katy says: In Venezuela, we have a popular saying: "pagan justos por pecadores", roughly "the just pay for the sins of the sinners." This was never more true than with the government’s bonehead decision to ban the sale of alcohol during the Holy Week holiday.In case you missed it somehow, the Chávez administration made the surprise announcement that sales of alcohol outside the hours of 10 am to 5 pm would be banned throughout the nation in the week leading up to Easter. The justification is the inescapable fact that, every year, hundreds of Venezuelans die in car accidents during the Holy Week holiday, many of them due to driving under the influence.
Now, if you’re a PSF comfortably sitting at home, you’re probably thinking "this Chávez guy is wonderful, he’s going head-on against drinking and driving." That's understandable, since Venezuela has a serious alcohol-addiction problem and it takes thousands of lives each year. But in this area, as in so many others, the government offers a gesture, not a policy, much less a solution.
They could train and equip cops to enforce DWI laws. They could take steps to make sure serial drunk drivers stay off the road. They could run a serious public education campaign through the state-controlled media to make drunk driving less socially acceptable. They could spend some of those oil billions on breathalizers, or drivers's education or popularizing the notion of a designated driver, or on compensating families who've lost loved ones to drunk drivers. If they cared, they could do something substantive about this very serious problem. But they don't.
Instead, they grandstand.
Never mind that banning alcohol sales in the evenings hurts folks such as restauranteurs or bar-owners, who usually make a big chunk of their living during Holy Week. Never mind that this measure impinges on their right to engage in lawful business activities. Never mind that it arbitrarily curtails their customers' right to consume a product that, as far as I know, is not only legal but well-liked by chavistas and opositores alike.
What's really maddening is realizing that it simply won't work, and the cure will probably be worse than the disease. If liquor stores can't sell legally after five, they will do so ilegally, probably through the back of the store at a higher price and probably without paying taxes. A decision like this is basically unenforceable, and you can bet the cops and National Guards in charge of making sure nobody sells booze will make a killing off racketeering. And there's nothing in the decision regarding alcohol consumption - if you want to get plastered, you simply have to buy your booze ahead of time.
Wikipedia lists the effects of Prohibition in the United States:
"A profitable, often violent, black market for alcohol flourished. Racketeering happened when powerful gangs corrupted law enforcement agencies. Stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle. The cost of enforcing prohibition was high, and the lack of tax revenues on alcohol (some $500 million annually nationwide) affected government coffers. When repeal of prohibition occurred in 1933, following passage of the Twenty-first Amendment, organized crime lost nearly all of its black market alcohol profits in most states (states still had the right to enforce their own laws concerning alcohol consumption), because of competition with low-priced alcohol sales at legal liquor stores."
It's a pattern we've seen repeated again and again in all kinds of policy areas. People are drinking and driving? Ban alcohol sales. The price of private health care is going up? Nationalize the clinics. Unemployment is a problem? Ban firings. Things are too expensive? Threaten people who raise prices. Bothered by social protests? Make it a crime to block the street.
Folks, this government is the bull, and we're stuck in the china shop with it.
I think what he thinks, but backwards
Quico says: Phil Gunson writes a delicious bit of Chávez debunkery in Tuesday's Miami Herald. Money grafs:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was on the ethanol bandwagon. Until, that is, President Bush jumped aboard. Now, it seems, ethanol is a threat to the poor.
Until just a few weeks ago, the leftist Chávez was pressing ahead with a five-year project to sow almost 700,000 acres with sugar cane to produce ethanol. With the technical support of Brazil and Cuba, 15 new sugar mills were planned to produce 30,000 barrels of ethanol a day. Even in early March, Havana and Caracas announced an agreement to build 11 ethanol plants in Venezuela, using Cuban expertise. The agreement also included the modernization of 10 plants in Cuba and the construction of a further eight, based on Brazilian production methods.
But after Bush visited Brazil and signed an ethanol deal with President Luíz Inacio Lula da Silva, both Chávez and his close ally, Fidel Castro, converted to the anti-ethanol camp.
''When you fill a vehicle's tank with ethanol, you are filling it with energy for which land and water enough to feed seven people have been used,'' Chávez said. Instead of food, he said, the land was used to fill ``rich people's cars.''
April 2, 2007
Don't term-limit the revolution
Katy says: One of the hot-button issues in Venezuela these days is the upcoming Constitutional reform that will propose lifting term limits on the Presidency and allowing indefinite re-election.Term-limits are a sign of practically all modern democracies. They're meant to limit incumbents' tendency to take advantage of their position in order to perpetuate themselves in power. They also force periodic political renewals that might not happen otherwise.
While no other Latin American country allows indefinite re-election, none of these countries can be considered a model democracy. On the other hand, countries such as France and Great Britain don't have term limits. Charles De Gaulle was President of France for ten years, and had he not died in 1970 he probably would have run and served out a few more terms. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister for 11 years before a petty scandal brought her down.
Yet these examples cannot serve as arguments for the abolition of term limits, since they are in essence parliamentary or semi-parliamentary systems in which the ability to actually govern depends on maintaining a parliamentary majority.
When I travel overseas, one of the most effective arguments in convincing people that Hugo Chávez is a dictator is precisely this question of indefinite re-election. People abroad definitely don't think that's kosher. I have bumped into more than one PSF whose sympathy for Chávez has been toned down by Chávez's repeated vow to die in office.
But while indefinite re-election will mark a turning point in the slow agony of Venezuelan democracy, perhaps it would not be such a bad thing. This administration has changed the way Venezuelans view politics, and perhaps the only way to leave it behind us is to let it implode for good, to let it run its course without the Constitution putting an artificial shelf-life on it.
Sometimes, to cheer myself up, I think of the day when Chavez himself, in power, is no longer popular nor wanted. When we finally see him leave power, it will be that much sweeter to see him do so as a result of a voter revolt rather than by force of nature or the Constitution preventing him from running again. So indefinite re-election may not be such a bad thing. At least it leaves the door open for Chávez's last election to be one where he loses badly.
Quico adds: Please forward some of the crack you were smoking when you wrote this.
The real reason indefinite re-election does not mark France or Britain as dictatorships is that those countries have functioning, stable, independent institutions. If Jacques Chirac could mobilize the French army to campaign for him, would he be stepping down this year? If Tony Blair could threaten to fire Home Office clerks and secretaries if they refuse to attend marches in his favor, would he be on his way out? C'mon, Katy!
Mutatis mutandi bis
Quico says: This new research, though still preliminary, is certainly eye-popping.
We investigate political profiling by presenting the results of the Prosecutor General's Office's investigation and/or indictment of 375 elected officials. The distribution of political affiliation of the sample is compared to the available normative data.Come to think of it, wouldn't it put things in perspective if someone replicated this research methodology you-know-where?
Data indicate that Fiscalía prosecutors across the nation investigate seven (7) times as many opposition officials as they investigate pro-government officials.Our paper explores the role of the fourth estate and others in detecting such profiling and concludes that what is really needed is transparency, the highlights of which are noted below. The current government appears to be the first to have engaged in political profiling.
- Political profiling makes opposition figures look like they are more corrupt than pro-government figures.
- Political profiling of local opposition elected officials attacks the opposition at the very grassroots essence of its personality. Each local case of reported or insinuated corruption by the central authorities eats at and saps the local opposition's energy to be the grassroots leader of the movement and drains his or her resources in defense against the comparatively unlimited resources of the central government.
- Political profiling discredits each candidate's persona as a viable leader of and spokesperson for the local opposition.
- Political profiling weakens the candidate's ability to raise monies for themselves when seeking re-election and negates their ability to raise money for other opposition candidates.
- By keeping political profiling at the local level -- in this way the story is most likely not to be viewed nationally -- it makes it harder for reporters to connect the dots between corruption investigations in say Acarigua, Maturín, La Vega and Maracaibo. Each local report of a corruption investigation appears as only an isolated incident rather than as a central example of a broader pattern created by the Prosecutor General's unethical practice of political profiling.
March 30, 2007
Caracas on the Potomac - or is it Washington on the Guaire?
(...a cesspool or a sewer?)
Quico says: This editorial in The New Republic brings me around to a theme you've seen here before: the eerie parallels between George W. Bush's and Hugo Chávez's style of governance. The wide ideological gulf between these two has clouded the clear parallels in the way they conceive power, ignore long-established norms, prize loyalty over competence, disdain specialist knowledge and undermine civil and political rights.
The major difference, as far as I can see, is one of context: the US has a far more stable, settled system of state institutions than we do. For Bush it's impossible to slash and burn his way through his constitutional architecture like Chávez has. Not, one suspects, that he wouldn't like to. In fact, reading TNR's editorial, you see the echoes in almost every paragraph:
Quico says: This editorial in The New Republic brings me around to a theme you've seen here before: the eerie parallels between George W. Bush's and Hugo Chávez's style of governance. The wide ideological gulf between these two has clouded the clear parallels in the way they conceive power, ignore long-established norms, prize loyalty over competence, disdain specialist knowledge and undermine civil and political rights.
The major difference, as far as I can see, is one of context: the US has a far more stable, settled system of state institutions than we do. For Bush it's impossible to slash and burn his way through his constitutional architecture like Chávez has. Not, one suspects, that he wouldn't like to. In fact, reading TNR's editorial, you see the echoes in almost every paragraph:
The Bush administration has exacted such damage because it has poisoned a fragile ecosystem. It turns out that, for generations, presidential power has been checked by an unwritten set of customs and norms as much as by laws and rules. Take the Justice Department. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. But, until now, presidents almost never fired prosecutors they appointed in the middle of their terms--perhaps only two of the 486 appointed in the last 25 years have been canned in this fashion.Cut "US attorney", paste "Constitutional Chamber magistrates" and you're not too far off track. Illegal, technically? No. Disastrous for the administration of justice? Definitely.This is in part because presidents from both parties have implicitly conceded that these attorneys have a higher loyalty to the law than to political patrons--an understanding never enshrined in the U.S. Code but deeply ingrained in the culture of Washington.
Then along came Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, and the reductio ad absurdum of unthinking Bush loyalism, Kyle Sampson. In their memos, they conflate the competence of prosecutors with fealty to the Republican Party. Thus, they judge David Iglesias to be underperforming for his failure to prosecute New Mexico Democrats on tenuous charges on the eve of the 2006 election, and they concoct post-hoc rationales for displeasure with Carol Lam, who indicted the corrupt GOP representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham and began scouring the dealings of his seemingly venal colleagues and their co-conspirators in the Defense Department. And, in a flash, by purging these attorneys, the Bushies have subverted a set of norms that had long ensured federal prosecutors would deploy the law without partisan favor.
True enough, but jeepers: these guys would get the vapors if they took a stroll around the Fiscalía!
The thing that really jumps out at me is that, while the mechanisms are similar - how many chavistas could you nail with that lovely turn of phrase, " the reductio ad absurdum of unthinking loyalism" - institutional degradation in Caracas just happens on an entirely different scale. What the Bushies have done to the Justice Department - after all, a government ministry - chavistas are doing to the Supreme Court!
It's not the only norm that this administration has shredded. There's arguably nothing in the law to suggest that presidential aides like Rove should be compelled to testify under oath in public about their roles in bureaucratic hijinks--although the Supreme Court could change that. Yet generations of presidents have largely deferred to Congress and subjected their underlings to the humiliating spectacle of raising their hands and then answering (or not) showboating congressmen.
Nor is there any specific statute mandating that presidents pay heed to government scientists, intelligence analysts, and other in-house wonks. But, before the Bush administration, presidents generally yielded to disinterested expertise. That's to say nothing of Bush's unprecedented mania for secrecy and rampant classification of documents or his exploitation of government agencies to disseminate pro-administration agitprop.
And again, in Caracas we see the same, only on an entirely crasser scale. Secrecy? We got Fonden - most of our budget is secret! Pro-administration agitprop? Oh brother, where to even start...
Congress has been the stage for the brashest stunts. Bush's allies have rewritten legislation from whole cloth in closed-door conference committees, reversing decades of democratic procedure and rendering vast swaths of the legislative process a charade. They have held votes open for hours, bucking time-honored codes of conduct in order to aggressively lobby (or, in one case, allegedly bribe) Republicans who intended to vote against the president. With the notable exception of the alleged bribe, the Republicans weren't breaking any laws. They were simply ignoring a long-standing bipartisan consensus that had developed over time to ensure transparency and fairness.
How many times did the chavista Assembly leaders change the rules of order to deny minority procedural guarantees before 2005? Seven? Eight?
One can't help feeling a sense of helplessness in the face of this partisan subversion of process. If a president breaks the law, then he stands to incur the retributive justice laid out in the Constitution--Sam Ervin's gavel landing hard. Breaking a norm, on the other hand, isn't a punishable offense--except with shame and name-calling. And denouncing a president as a "norm-breaker" is, let's face it, not the most devastating retort.
Worst of all, once a president destroys an old norm, it isn't very easy to restore it. The next presidents, even high-minded ones, will have difficulty denying themselves the political advantages accrued by Bush. The history of reform, not to mention the annals of cultural anthropology, is filled with cautionary tales about the near-impossibility of restoring old standards. For example, every time a candidate or political party discovers a new loophole in the campaign finance laws--soft money, 527s--every other candidate quickly embraces the very same reform-skirting device.
Heavy sigh. Mutatis mutandi, you could publish this in El Nacional. There you have it, folks: I am opposed to Chávez and to Bush, for the exact same reasons.If they set aside partisan interests, Bush's supporters would understand the toll of his presidency. Conservatives, at least those in the Burkean tradition, have eloquently extolled the wisdom embedded in norms and the futility of restoring them after they fall. Nixon's ghost is surely hearing Bush's footsteps.
March 29, 2007
Our alligator
Quico says: I apologize for the hiatus on CC. Truth is, I can find nothing to post about. I thought about writing a suitably alarmed post about Seniat's regal announcement that it will implement the Constitutional Chamber's decision on Income Tax, despite the National Assembly's call to ignore it. I wanted to pick apart the insanity of the situation we've reached, where it takes a public statement by a high official to announce things that wouldn't need announcing in a vaguely functioning democracy. But I can't really work up my juices. It's too grim.
Just before last year's election in Italy, Nanni Moretti released "Il Caimano" - a playful exposé of the mind-boggling shenanigans that brought Silvio Berlusconi to power. In classic Moretti fashion, it's really a film about a film about Berlusconi. Rebutting his real-world critics - who were sure to dismiss "Il Caimano" as an attempt to influence the election - Moretti's on-screen alter-ego smirks and tut-tuts:
Thing is, you already know all that...if you want to.
From the film: You cannot imagine how much I enjoy it. You Italians are so funny, so ridiculous: all you talk about is television and Berlusconi.
You are a nation trapped between horror and folklore.
Time and again, we think you have hit rock bottom, but no! You go on digging, digging and digging... and you go deeper and deeper still...you just keep digging!
Just before last year's election in Italy, Nanni Moretti released "Il Caimano" - a playful exposé of the mind-boggling shenanigans that brought Silvio Berlusconi to power. In classic Moretti fashion, it's really a film about a film about Berlusconi. Rebutting his real-world critics - who were sure to dismiss "Il Caimano" as an attempt to influence the election - Moretti's on-screen alter-ego smirks and tut-tuts:"How could I influence anything? Everyone knows everything about Berlusconi. You don't even have to read the script to know what's in it. There's nothing left to reveal. Absolutely everybody in Italy already knows; the ones who don't know are the ones who don't want to."I suppose that's how I've been feeling over the last few days. I could try to work up some residual indignation about the dadaist extremes that our institutional decay has reached. I could tell you, for the Nth time, that when officialdom approaches court decisions as suggestions to be adopted or rejected according to their discretion rather than as binding orders, the whole basis for the rule of law evaporates.
Thing is, you already know all that...if you want to.
From the film: You cannot imagine how much I enjoy it. You Italians are so funny, so ridiculous: all you talk about is television and Berlusconi.
You are a nation trapped between horror and folklore.
Time and again, we think you have hit rock bottom, but no! You go on digging, digging and digging... and you go deeper and deeper still...you just keep digging!
March 26, 2007
A preemptive purge?
Quico says: A consensus of sorts seems to be emerging to explain the sudden move against the Supreme Tribunal's Constitutional Chamber. It's based on three premises:
Is this just speculation? You betcha! Is there a more sensible explanation out there? I haven't seen one.
- The pretense that this whole fracas is about the Constitutional Chamber's decision to change an article of the Income Tax Law is just transparently bogus - too silly for words, really. The Court has made decisions far iffier than that without any kind of reaction from the Assembly. Whatever this is about, this is not about what they're saying it's about.
- From day one, Chávez's overriding goal has been to perpetuate his hold on power. At this point, the only state institution that could foil that plan is the Supreme Tribunal's Constitutional Chamber. Based on artices 342 and 347 of the constitution, it could rule that indefinite re-election would fundamentally alter our constitutional architecture, and only a Constituent Assembly has the power to do that.
- The government thinks Cabrera and his cohort may be willing to rule along those lines.
Is this just speculation? You betcha! Is there a more sensible explanation out there? I haven't seen one.
March 24, 2007
Laureano does Babel
Quico says:
Now, I know full well that translating a funny article is a fool's errand...all too often, humor just doesn't translate at all. But still, nobody conveys the undercurrent of farce that still permeates our public life like Laureano Márquez, and I found his Tal Cual editorial on the purge of Jesús Eduardo Cabrera and six other magistrates from the Supreme Tribunal too delicious to ignore. So here goes nothing:
Babel
by Laureano Márquez
How baffling can baffling get? Lets review the bidding: the National Assembly, after handing almost all its powers over to the President, gets pissed off because the Supreme Tribunal, which has been known to alter constitutional provisions with nary a peep from anyone, struck down one article in one law, and accuses it of "usurpation of powers," even though the decision in question doesn't have anything to do with indefinite reelection, which is the only thing the government cares about.
Meanwhile, someone somewhere is working on a constitutional reform that nobody is allowed to know anything about. Really it's an extreme situation, totally bizarre, as if someone accused the Human Rights Ombudsman of being impartial.
Congressman Ionesco takes the floor, calmly saying, "how curious, how strange, what a coincidence," and then adds that the group of 7 magistrates constitutes a "mafia." For someone in this government to accuse someone else in this government of being a mafioso, we have to be talking about something massive (watch your back!)
Because nobody is going to convince me that a bunch of deputies who haven't investigated cases of corruption that even the cats that bum around the capitol know about are suddenly soooo worried about the change of one article because it "harms the public purse." What about the rally in Argentina? Things are loopy here.
But like those gringo infomercials say, "there's moooore!" Dr. Carlos Escarrá, constitutional law expert, asks for a bunch of magistrates - coincidentally, from the Constitutional Chamber - to be jailed because they changed an article in a law, even though - to say it in juridical terms - paragraph six of article five of the Supreme Tribunal Framework Law says that one of the powers of the tribunal is "to declare null, in whole or in part, laws that are incompatible with the constitution." Ejusdem... ejusdem! (sorry, got something got caught in my throat there.)
Meanwhile, the president urges his supporters to break with him, and they respond that daddy is right to kick them out of the house, that they know they deserve a few whacks and, like the prodigal son, tell him: "we don't deserve to call ourselves your children...treat us like you treat the worst reactionary, but let us stay by your side."
Folks, you're not pulling the wool over my eyes on this one: all of this must be part of some sort of strategy. The words being tossed around here clearly mean something different from their usual meaning. Any dictionary is useless, any communication is impossible and each head is a world apart.
After all this has passed and only ruins of the state police headquarters remain, a hard rain will come and wash away the layers of pyroglyphs. But I will stop hear, because this stof seams toobe shyly contra gious. Good buy.
I’ve been finding it more and more difficult to write about Venezuela without sounding either alarmist or flippant, (or even worse, an odd combination of the two.) It’s a sign of the times here, that’s for sure. These days, what I find it hardest to convey to my friends abroad is the strong undercurrent of farce that permeates public life here.I wrote these words in the very first post I put up on Caracas Chronicles, all the way back in September 2002. Nearly five years on, they're just as topical.
Now, I know full well that translating a funny article is a fool's errand...all too often, humor just doesn't translate at all. But still, nobody conveys the undercurrent of farce that still permeates our public life like Laureano Márquez, and I found his Tal Cual editorial on the purge of Jesús Eduardo Cabrera and six other magistrates from the Supreme Tribunal too delicious to ignore. So here goes nothing:
Babel
by Laureano Márquez
How baffling can baffling get? Lets review the bidding: the National Assembly, after handing almost all its powers over to the President, gets pissed off because the Supreme Tribunal, which has been known to alter constitutional provisions with nary a peep from anyone, struck down one article in one law, and accuses it of "usurpation of powers," even though the decision in question doesn't have anything to do with indefinite reelection, which is the only thing the government cares about.Meanwhile, someone somewhere is working on a constitutional reform that nobody is allowed to know anything about. Really it's an extreme situation, totally bizarre, as if someone accused the Human Rights Ombudsman of being impartial.
Congressman Ionesco takes the floor, calmly saying, "how curious, how strange, what a coincidence," and then adds that the group of 7 magistrates constitutes a "mafia." For someone in this government to accuse someone else in this government of being a mafioso, we have to be talking about something massive (watch your back!)
Because nobody is going to convince me that a bunch of deputies who haven't investigated cases of corruption that even the cats that bum around the capitol know about are suddenly soooo worried about the change of one article because it "harms the public purse." What about the rally in Argentina? Things are loopy here.
But like those gringo infomercials say, "there's moooore!" Dr. Carlos Escarrá, constitutional law expert, asks for a bunch of magistrates - coincidentally, from the Constitutional Chamber - to be jailed because they changed an article in a law, even though - to say it in juridical terms - paragraph six of article five of the Supreme Tribunal Framework Law says that one of the powers of the tribunal is "to declare null, in whole or in part, laws that are incompatible with the constitution." Ejusdem... ejusdem! (sorry, got something got caught in my throat there.)
Meanwhile, the president urges his supporters to break with him, and they respond that daddy is right to kick them out of the house, that they know they deserve a few whacks and, like the prodigal son, tell him: "we don't deserve to call ourselves your children...treat us like you treat the worst reactionary, but let us stay by your side."
Folks, you're not pulling the wool over my eyes on this one: all of this must be part of some sort of strategy. The words being tossed around here clearly mean something different from their usual meaning. Any dictionary is useless, any communication is impossible and each head is a world apart.
After all this has passed and only ruins of the state police headquarters remain, a hard rain will come and wash away the layers of pyroglyphs. But I will stop hear, because this stof seams toobe shyly contra gious. Good buy.
March 23, 2007
Cabrerita en su salsa
Quico says: For the last several years, Supreme Tribunal Magistrate Jesús Eduardo Cabrera has been Venezuela's leading purveyor of tortured and bizarre (but always government friendly) legal interpretations. Whether it was delaying the 2004 referendum, backing the "Las Morochas" voting trick, or weakening proportional representation, Cabrerita has been the government's go-to guy on the tribunal.So imagine my surprise when the all-chavista National Assembly moved to get him and six other Constitutional Chamber magistrates removed from the Tribunal for, in effect, having the wrong legal opinions. The red slime machine is already in full swing: the party line is that these guys didn't just overstep their constitutional prerogatives, they did so because they're "a mafia."
Classy!
The final decision on the case rests with the three-member "Moral Republican Council" which, as you'd expect, is neither Moral nor Republican nor a Council, but rather a Miraflores sock puppet. The constitutional kabuki will be followed, but the outcome is foretold.
Turns out that, when it came down to it, Cabrera's long and storied history of licking the government's boots was not enough to stave off his political lynching. So it goes with the revolution: one presidential tantrum is all it takes to turn you from crony to outcast.
What's behind all of this? I have no idea. (Feel free to email me your pet theory.) I can tell you one thing, though: Cabrera and co. did something Chávez didn't like. The Assembly doesn't freelance moves like this; they would not go after these guys without approval from upstairs. The message this sends out is clear enough...the constitution won't protect you, your job title won't protect you, your past loyalty won't protect you, only complete, unquestioning, and constant loyalty will protect you.
March 21, 2007
Defining delivery down...
Quico says:
The sign reads:
And yes, the concrete shell you see is the building they "came through" on.
The sign reads:
The President and the Mayor CAME THROUGH
Construction of the new building for the Pérez de León Hospital and Mother and Child Unit.
Sucre Municipal Government.
The ins and outs of zero zapping
Quico says: A few of you have written in with questions about monetary reform. Here's my attempt to clear things up:
First off, the practice of striking zeros from a devalued currency is nothing new. France, Laos, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil have all done it. Just a couple of years ago, Turkey zapped 6 (count 'em, six!) zeros off of the lira, ending the era of the 20,000,000 lira banknote. Certainly, zero-zapping makes day-to-day transactions easier to deal with. There's nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes.
Thing is, Chávez is selling his bolívar fuerte scheme not just as a way to simplify calculations, but as an inflation fighting scheme. And this is where the wheels come off: there's just no logical connection between zero-zapping and the rate at which the new currency loses purchasing power.
Obviously, Chávez has no clue what it is that causes inflation. What's sad is that, outside the chavista anti-rationalist bubble, the underlying cause of inflation is well understood. Inflation is what happens when you have too much money chasing after too few goods. When the amount of money sloshing around an economy grows faster than the stock of goods available for purchase, prices have to go up.
The trick is to think in terms of the ratio of money in circulation to goods in the economy. If there are 100 ounces of gold circulating in an economy and the only thing for sale is 10 horses, you can guess that a horse will sell for 10 ounces of gold. If, suddenly, miners dig up 100 extra ounces of gold but there are still just 10 horses available for purchase, over time, the price of a horse will rise to 20.
It's not some big mystery: when new money gets injected into an economy faster than its output is growing, prices rise. Since 2005, liquidity in Venezuela has more than doubled, while GDP has grown by about a fifth. Which suggests that, if anything, inflation has been too low in the last two years...so you can expect more to come.
The point is that you can strike however many zeros you want off of the bolivar; that does exactly nothing to change the rate of liquidity growth. And if you want to control inflation, you'll have to come to grips with that.
Nothing Chávez has said suggests that he's willing to make the kinds of choices that it would take to slow down liquidity growth. And the main reason liquidity has been growing so fast in Venezuela is that the government spends too much money, and the central bank no longer has the power to say "no" when the government asks it to print up some more. So long as that's the case, prices will keep rising.
Which is a crying shame, because when coupled with sensible reforms, zero-zapping can be a useful ingredient in a broader stew of inflation-fighting measures. Psychologically, it can mark a clean break, a before-and-after marker, a symbol of a government's newfound commitment to sensible inflation-busting policies. But expecting zero-zapping to bring down inflation by itself is like expecting a frying pan to cook you dinner.
First off, the practice of striking zeros from a devalued currency is nothing new. France, Laos, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil have all done it. Just a couple of years ago, Turkey zapped 6 (count 'em, six!) zeros off of the lira, ending the era of the 20,000,000 lira banknote. Certainly, zero-zapping makes day-to-day transactions easier to deal with. There's nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes.Thing is, Chávez is selling his bolívar fuerte scheme not just as a way to simplify calculations, but as an inflation fighting scheme. And this is where the wheels come off: there's just no logical connection between zero-zapping and the rate at which the new currency loses purchasing power.
Obviously, Chávez has no clue what it is that causes inflation. What's sad is that, outside the chavista anti-rationalist bubble, the underlying cause of inflation is well understood. Inflation is what happens when you have too much money chasing after too few goods. When the amount of money sloshing around an economy grows faster than the stock of goods available for purchase, prices have to go up.
The trick is to think in terms of the ratio of money in circulation to goods in the economy. If there are 100 ounces of gold circulating in an economy and the only thing for sale is 10 horses, you can guess that a horse will sell for 10 ounces of gold. If, suddenly, miners dig up 100 extra ounces of gold but there are still just 10 horses available for purchase, over time, the price of a horse will rise to 20.
It's not some big mystery: when new money gets injected into an economy faster than its output is growing, prices rise. Since 2005, liquidity in Venezuela has more than doubled, while GDP has grown by about a fifth. Which suggests that, if anything, inflation has been too low in the last two years...so you can expect more to come.
The point is that you can strike however many zeros you want off of the bolivar; that does exactly nothing to change the rate of liquidity growth. And if you want to control inflation, you'll have to come to grips with that.
Nothing Chávez has said suggests that he's willing to make the kinds of choices that it would take to slow down liquidity growth. And the main reason liquidity has been growing so fast in Venezuela is that the government spends too much money, and the central bank no longer has the power to say "no" when the government asks it to print up some more. So long as that's the case, prices will keep rising.
Which is a crying shame, because when coupled with sensible reforms, zero-zapping can be a useful ingredient in a broader stew of inflation-fighting measures. Psychologically, it can mark a clean break, a before-and-after marker, a symbol of a government's newfound commitment to sensible inflation-busting policies. But expecting zero-zapping to bring down inflation by itself is like expecting a frying pan to cook you dinner.
March 19, 2007
Who stands up for Maria Campos?
Katy says: Maria Campos came to Venezuela from her native Colombia 33 years ago, looking for a better life. She had three Venezuelan children. One of them, Nay José, 22, was a carpenter. He lived with his mom in a slum appropriately called "Bolivarian Invasion."Nay José was walking to his girlfriend's house last Tuesday when, according to many eyewitnesses, he was approached by the police and gunned down. Maria told reporters she had to wait in the street with her son's body for more than 12 hours until an ambulance finally came to take him away. During that time, nobody from the police even bothered to show up.
That was probably for the best. Several eyewitnesses blamed a group of officers from Caracas' Metropolitan Police for the murder. Four years ago, the neighbors squatted on the plot of land where they now live in ramshackle houses because the authorities were turning a blind eye to such occupations. Now they regret their move; their settlement is illegal so, despite being almost destitute, they have to pay protection money to the cops to keep from getting evicted. Maria says she wants to move back to Colombia. She would feel safer there.
This is the other civil war, the one you won't hear about on the evening news because it doesn't involve U.S. Marines or exotic jihadists. Last year, it claimed 18,381 lives. From 1999 to 2006, it ended a staggering 90,027 lives.
Of course, your eyes glaze over when you read numbers like those. It's impossible to fathom what they really mean. 18,381 or 90,027 - those are just statistics. What happened to Nay José Campos, though, is a tragedy.
It's a reality strangely absent from our political conversation. Public debate in Venezuela can be high-brow, as when we talk about U.S. policy toward Latin America, or trivial - like when chavista political parties play hard-to-get about joining Chavez's single party. A lot of the time it's just repetitive: each new day we hear a fresh tale of the President handing out millions to his friends overseas.
That's the Venezuela you meet on the front page of the newspaper. The real thing, though, is hidden away in the back. The real Venezuela is the Venezuela of the Sucesos page - our grisly daily newspaper crime roundup.
These are the stories that matter the most, the ones that mark a before-and-after point in the lives of those they touch. Stories about bloodied bodies and lives destroyed, about families ripped to pieces and teenage love affairs that end in a morgue, all on a scale you usually associate with war time. There's no ideology in the Sucesos page - just the unbearable pain of meaningless violence, almost always inflicted on the very poor. These are the stories the government doesn't want to talk about, because they lay bare its failure to deliver the thing people care most about.
Chávez fans overseas marvel at the government's social programs, but these programs didn't really help Romer Romero. Romer was caught in traffic on board his Yamaha motorcycle, the one he used as a moto-taxi to make ends meet. He was gunned down by the two muggers who took his bike, after they had already taken off with it. The same day, four other moto-taxi drivers were murdered. Romer was 23.
If Romer lived in a country with a future, he wouldn't have had to go out into Caracas' dangerous streets to sell rides on his bike. The same could be said of Keni Brito, who was also gunned down by two muggers after taking the sparkling new bike he'd just bought ten days earlier. Keni left behind a six-year old daughter.
At least three moto-taxi drivers are murdered in Caracas each week, thanks to a bustling black market for motorcycle spare parts. If it cared to, the police would be able to tackle this problem: find the spare parts sellers, make your way up to their suppliers, and you've found your killers. But doing so would require political will, something this government simply does not have.
According to Unesco, Venezuela now leads the world in per-capita deaths due to firearms (34.3 per year per 100,000 population). During the Chávez era, the overall homicide figure has more than quadrupled, from 4,560 in 1998 to the 18,381 last year. As the State Department gingerly puts it, "virtually all murders go unsolved."
People are so desperate for resolution they've ended up taking justice into their own hands. Just last week, neighbors in the La Aduana sector of Puerto La Cruz lynched the murderer of a local woman and left his corpse on the street. The state police finally showed up, but only to collect the body. No questions were asked.
Sometimes, the cops make an effort, but their operations are so haphazard, it leaves neighbors feeling even more vulnerable. Take the case of the Giovannito gang. Last week, a commando from the Metropolitan Police ambushed the band deep inside La Vega, one of Caracas' most dangerous slums. While the leader of the band was killed in the shootout, the police's heavy-handed approach - they even used a helicopter - did not prevent nine of the gang members from fleeing and hiding in the nearby mountains. They were never caught, and now the neighbors are terrified as they await their return from the hills.
So while people such as the taxi drivers of San Félix - 28 of them were murdered in 2006 alone, and six have been killed so far in 2007 - protest the government's failure to deal with the threat they face, we debate whether or not Barbara Walters is on Chávez's payroll. While the return of the locha makes the front page, 25-year-old Carlos Martínez's death while going to buy candy for his kids is buried in the Sucesos page, along with the deaths of 27 other people in Caracas over the weekend.
Wide-eyed foreigners think this is a government that cares about poor people. Eating up the propaganda the government feeds them daily, they buy the line that chavismo is all about empowering the poor and honoring their human dignity.
But while you wonder whether there is anything the government can really do, or question whether it is even their fault, ponder the fate of 20-year-old Carlos Hilton. Carlos was gunned down in Petare Saturday night, right in front of an abandoned Metropolitan Police barrack. His murder, like tens of thousands of others, will most likely never be solved.
The creeping criminalization of protest
Quico says: It's a worrying and under-reported trend: protesting in public is increasingly liable to land you in jail in Venezuela. PROVEA, a homegrown human rights NGO, documented nine violently suppressed protests in February alone.We're not talking about political rallies here; it's protests over bread-and-butter issues by regular people that are increasingly dealt with with a volley of tear gas and a sprinkling of rubber pellets and arrests.
Some examples:
- On February 2nd, a protest by recently dislocated street hawkers in Charallave was suppressed with tear gas and rubber pellets: one was injured, eight were arrested.
- On the 14th, five amateur athletes were injured when police broke up a sit-in at Valencia's Villa Olímpica in protest at the lack of funding for coaches and sports equipment. Several of these guys are being prosecuted because the facility sits within a "military zone."
- On February 16th, two incidents: temporary PDVSA workers protesting over unpaid back wages in Píritu, Anzoátegui were tear gassed off the streets. In Guayana, nine miners were arrested for asking that the government come through on aid promises.
- On the 28th, it was members of some 30 Community Councils in Cumaná. They were roughed up for demanding a doctor for their neighborhood Barrio Adentro outpatient clinic.
As Alvarado notes, prosecuting people for this kind of thing is unconstitutional - not that that's slowing the government down. After all, who's gonna call them on it? The all-chavista Supreme Tribunal? The redder-than-red human rights ombudsman? Right...
That's the thing about autocracy: when one part of the state abuses its power, no other part of the state has the autonomy to check it. As a common citizen, you have no recourse. You're just screwed.
March 18, 2007
The Locha Angle
Quico says: Simón Romero hangs this whole long NYTimes story about monetary reform on the 12.5 cent bit. Seems to me he knows full well that this kind of tokenism is not going to bring down inflation on its own, but he's awfully polite about it.
March 16, 2007
Et tu, Barbara?
Quico says: So Barb Walters' drooling interview with Chávez pretty much blows a hole in my earlier, only-cranks-take- Chávez-seriously-in- the-US argument.Deep, deep sigh.
Frankly, I find it all confusing and upsetting. Gringo liberals have no trouble at all seeing George W. Bush's overheated demonization of "terrorists" for what it is: an ideological alibi designed to rally his supporters' unquestioning loyalty, a crass ploy that allows him to delegitimize his critics in his drive to dispense with procedural niceties like, y'know, habeas corpus and the right to a public trial.
This mechanism is perfectly clear to y'all when Bush does it. The paradox is that you draw a blank when Chávez makes the exact same move.
Please get it through your heads: Chávez's rabid condemnations of Bush are not about Bush at all. What Chávez is doing is building up a credible foreign straw man to help him delegitimize dissent and consolidate autocratic control over society. That's what's at stake here.
For Chávez, demonizing Bush is just the first step in a strategy to tar all domestic dissidents as unpatriotic, disloyal, basically treasonous. It's precisely the same thing Cheney does when he says his critics are "emboldening the enemy," or "undermining the troops," or whatever the latest phrasing on those GOP talking point is.
Chavista bushwhackery works in exactly the same way. More than anyone, US liberals should be wise to this bait-and-switch.
If anything, Chávez's brand of manipulation is even more cynical: however much Bush hypes up the terrorist threat for political purposes, in the wake of 9/11 it's clear that Islamic radicals really do pose a threat to the US. But the threat Chávez alleges is entirely bogus: there's simply no chance of a US invasion of Venezuela.
In fact, this delegitimation-by-association jujitsu does far more harm to civil liberties in Venezuela than in the US, because our state institutions are far more politicized than yours. Chávez already controls every putatively independent branch of the state. Without independent courts to check his power, without career prosecutors able to scrutinize his moves, without an autonomous ombudsman or comptroller, Chávez's leeway to deny our most basic civil rights is already much, much wider than Bush's.
The resulting climate of intimidation and enforced ideological conformity would send your average US liberal scurrying for Canada.
Just the other week, to take just one example, Chávez "warned" that the CIA is trying to infiltrate his newly created Community Councils. These are neighborhood committees that have been allocated billions of dollars, bodies Chávez hopes will eventually take over the functions now vested in directly elected mayors and state governors.
Now, try to think through what happens when Chávez says the CIA is trying to infiltrate them. Suddenly, anyone at the local council with a dissenting opinion becomes suspect of treason. Just by raising the prospect of CIA meddling in the Community Councils, Chavez manages to ensure complete ideological docility from them. It's a strategy chavistas have used again and again, to delegitimize everything from opposition presidential bids to bus drivers' strikes.
My point is that Chávez's whole anti-Bush shtick should be understood for what it is: a mechanism of social control. It's not about you, it's about us.
Addendum: A couple of readers write in to note that, as one put it,
Barbara Walters is like that with *everybody*. She could have Osama Bin Laden on her show and find something nice to say about him. Her show is where disgraced celebrities go for their first public reappearances since they know they'll get softballs and sympathetic glances all night. I wouldn't take her as the pulse of the mainstream media, hard-hitting-question-wise.
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