vdebate - Venezuela Debate

Groundswell

2009-07-05T20:15:00.001-07:00

VenEconomy
07/03/2009

Groundswell

The public’s attention generally focuses on the circumstantial, while analysis of the transcendental or structural is avoided or postponed.
One of those transcendental problems is the gradual destruction of human capital in Venezuela. In Newsweek Web this week, Mac Margolis analyzes the exodus of Venezuelans during the decade of the Chávez administration.
This analyst tells of the tens of thousands of Venezuelans who have gone to live abroad owing to the policies of a government that believes that the country is its own private property and has radically polarized the population, commenting that this mass of emigrants is made up particularly of artists, lawyers, doctors, managers, and engineers.
He maintains that this exodus has not only split up families, but that it will also affect the country’s future. He points out that, in Chávez’s Venezuela, talent is one of the main exports and warns that this goes against the tide of the repatriation policies being implemented by many developing countries today to recover their economies and consolidate their democracies.
This situation is somewhat reminiscent of Fidel Castro’s Cuba at the start of his communist revolution, when the best of the country’s middle class emigrated. That Cuban exodus was crucial for transforming Miami from a geriatric tourism area to the prosperous cultural and business center with considerable influence in the entire Latin American region that it is today. That mass emigration of professionals and prosperous, qualified manpower was a decisive factor that contributed to Cuba becoming one of the most backward countries in Latin America, on a par with Haiti.
Why has Venezuela, which until the 90s attracted immigrants, become a country of emigrants that is losing valuable human resources that are fundamental for building its future? The short answer is Hugo Chávez! A longer answer is provided by this analyst of Hugo Chávez’s policies.
One of the first brain drains occurred with the expulsion of more than 20,000 professionals from PDVSA. This wrecked the state-owned oil company, which has now become corrupt and efficient.
Another has been triggered by the high level of politicization of government agencies and state-owned companies, which has resulted in anyone who is against Chávez’s project being denied job opportunities and the chance to take part in the country’s development. Then there is the government’s anti-private enterprise policy, which has drastically reduced the productive apparatus and, consequently, the sources of jobs that do not depend on having a party card. Today, it is practically compulsory to run candidates to jobs in the growing number of state-owned companies through the filter of the Tascón List.
Other factors that have contributed to this mass exodus are the government’s harassment of free thought and free creativity that is scaring off intellectuals and researchers; the capital depletion of health centers that is making doctors and other health professionals go elsewhere; the threat to private property, which makes people fear that they will be left with nothing after years of hard work; and the appalling crime levels and impunity that have prompted families to leave the country for fear of their lives.
In short, this is a spurious government that steals from the nation’s youth the possibility of having a future in their own country and deprives Venezuela of the talent it needs in order to develop.

National Guard (GN) environmental squad discovers rare Harpy Eagle at Las Cristinas

2009-06-19T21:22:00.001-07:00

Finally, the Venezuelan National Guard decided to take some action protecting our wildlife. Illegal mining and bird trade has severely hurt our wildlife population.

National Guard (GN) environmental squad discovers rare Harpy Eagle at Las Cristinas

VHeadline Venezuela News reports: Adding possibly to problems encountered by Canadian gold mining Crystallex International (KRY), Venezuelan National Guard (GN) troops have discovered a rare species of South American Harpy Eagle -- said by experts to be the 2nd largest bird species in the world -- during a routine environmental inspection at the company's facilities at Las Cristinas in south-eastern Bolivar State.

According to local news reports, unspecified fauna protection procedures were implemented with immediate effect by Lt. Jose Beltran Gonzalez, commanding the 5th Detachment of the National Guard based in Las Claritas after the bird was discovered and seized from being held captive by local resident of Asian origin.

The Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) is a neotropical species first described in 1758 as Vultur harpyja and is the largest and most powerful raptor found in the Americas usually inhabiting tropical lowland rainforests. According to reference books the upper side of the Harpy Eagle is covered with slate black feathers, and the underside is white with a black band across the chest up to the neck; the head is pale grey, and is crowned with a double crest. It has talons up to 5 inches in length. Females typically weigh 14 to 20 lbs compared to males which usually weigh 8.5 lb to 12 lb. They can have a wingspan of approximately 6½ ft. Its main prey is tree-dwelling animals such as monkeys but it is also known to attack other birds such as macaws.

The Harpy Eagle is threatened primarily by habitat loss provoked by the expansion of logging and gold prospecting and was all but wiped out, being found only in the remote parts of the Amazon. It is considered an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA) says there are 45 known nesting locations which are monitored by volunteers and some birds have been fitted with small satellite tracking devices to chart their location and progress in the wild

Torrealba's son accompanies him to ballpark

2009-06-17T18:20:00.002-07:00

For those of you that aren't familiar with baseball, Yorvit Torrealba is a Venezuelan catcher for the Colorado Rockies. His son was kidnapped in Venezuela like many other people.

Torrealba's son accompanies him to ballpark
By PAT GRAHAM

DENVER (AP) — Colorado Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba brought his 11-year-old son to the ballpark Tuesday night, nearly two weeks after the boy was kidnapped in Venezuela while on his way to school.

Yorvit Eduardo followed his father all over the diamond before the game, stopping to greet Rockies players eager to shake his hand. He also threw the ball around and then sat in the dugout as his dad trotted into the outfield during batting practice.

It's been a harrowing ordeal for the family since Torrealba's son and brother-in-law were snatched by kidnappers earlier this month.

They were abducted while driving to the boy's school and the kidnappers demanded nearly $500,000 in ransom, but none was paid.

Torrealba left the team in Houston on June 2 to join his wife in Venezuela, listening as she negotiated with the kidnappers. He was told it was best if he did not do the talking.

A day later, they were left along a highway outside Caracas.

After spending time with his family in Miami, Torrealba returned to the team Sunday.

The Rockies aren't in any rush to get Torrealba back behind the plate, urging him to take his time.

"He's been through living hell, as you well know," manager Jim Tracy said. "When I saw him on Sunday, he looked exhausted. He looked like he'd been put through the wringer, that's how tired he looked. What you worry about is jumping in too quick and then run the risk of injury to the player because he's so fatigued."

Torrealba remains on the restricted list. Once he feels comfortable, the Rockies will send him on a minor league assignment to get his timing back.

"We want to make sure he's ready to go about it the way he was going about it before he had to leave and get his family," Tracy said. "We'll take it day to day."

Torrealba is hitting .230 this season with two homers and seven RBIs

Letter from Ivan Simonovis - Please help making possible for this letter to reach its destination

2009-06-15T20:11:00.003-07:00

This is the reality of what happen in Venezuela. Your help is invaluable, you just passed to one person, or ask me a question, we would be closer to the day that everyone understand the truth.

Thanks,

To the President of the European Union Parliament and
Members of the European Union Parliament.
Wiertzstraat 60B-1047. Bruxelles
My name is Iván Simonovis, 49-year-old and of profession Criminal Investigator. For 23 years uninterrupted I worked in the Police of Criminal investigation of Venezuela and, due to my skills, in the year 2000 I was appointed to take over the Secretary of Public Safety, of the Capital, during the fateful acts of April 11, 2002. My function was the coordination and supervision of the policies of public security of the city of Caracas, Venezuela.

I'm imprisoned in the “General Affairs Department of the Intelligence Services and Prevention of the Interior Ministry and Justice” (DISIP by its initials in Spanish), in Caracas, Venezuela, since November 22, 2004, condemned to 30 years of prison, this actually means death sentence, after 3 years of hearings (the longest judicial litigation of his kind in Venezuelan history), besides 4 years and 6 months of imprisonment without charges, I was sentenced of “complicity” in relation to the death of 2 of the 19 dead in Caracas April 11, 2002.

I am indeed a 4 square meters cell, in the basement of the headquarters of the political police in Caracas, without ventilation or natural light. I only have access to sunlight, 2 hours every 2 weeks. In total 48 hours, 1 days per year of natural light. The place where I am detained is not a jail, is the headquarters of the political police of Venezuela, and these facilities are not designed to have inmates for long periods. Consequently, and given these conditions, my health physical and mental has been deteriorating, and I have had the need for medical attention, in some cases even surgery. There is also a severe restriction of my right to receive visits from family, friends, representatives of NGOs and national or international journalists, violating in fact several articles of the American Convention on Human Rights signed in San José, Costa Rica.

I received a trial with no sense and completely unsubstantiated for the murdered of only 2 of 19 people that unfortunately died in April 11, which developed (the trial) over 225 audiences. This trial was filed in a court located 100 kilometers from Caracas, which is the place where I have been kept, therefore involved traveling over 39,000 kilometers handcuffed.

During the trial, there were hearings from 198 witnesses and 48 experts, there were evaluated more than 250 technical and scientific expertises, and it was analyzed more than 5,700 photographs and videos. None of this evidence proves my guilt as to the facts that I was charged.

In that same period, 67 people were identified, all followers to the President Hugo Chávez, shooting with long and short fire arms against unarmed opposition demonstrators. All these people were acquitted or pardoned by the President of the Republic by an amnesty law issued by the National Assembly after his (the president) request, in December 2007.

On April 3, 2009, I was sentenced to 30 years in prison without any mitigating; on the charge of "complicity correspectiva" without perpetrators, repeat a sentence of death.

This abominable ruling is not even comparable to the recent sentence handed down to former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his intellectual authority, as President, in murder with premeditation, aggravated kidnapping and serious injuries to people during the years 1991 and 1992 in Peru.

Gentlemen, my house has been attacked with Molotov bombs, my family, including my minor children, has been threatened in their physical integrity in public by armed radical groups, affects the national government. My wife, who also acts as my lawyer and like my children, has Spanish citizenship, had been subjected to public scorn, has been threatened in television and radio officers and has been attacked in their person and honor of women in a systematic manner by groups of people followers to the government, whom were mobilized to the outside of the seat of the court for uttering insults and threats during her entries and exits to the hearings.

We've all gone to the courts and exhausted all the resources that Venezuelan law provides, with the only hope of being treat with fairness and get some respect for our human rights, which have been unsuccessful.

This letter possibly cause negative consequences to my family and I, but before my growing state of defenselessness and before the systematic violation of my human rights, I respectfully contact you to request that, in attainment of the resolution recently approved by the above-mentioned European Parliament to the situation of political

persecutions in Venezuela, the European Parliament exhausts all the possible mechanisms so that a commission of that Parliament visit our country and for them to be able to verify how the justice is used for political persecution.

The case that I have mentioned is not a unique one. In Venezuela exists more than 40 political prisoners; victims of the punishment for political dissidence.

I will always be thankful of any aid that the Parliament could do in order to help with the protection of the human rights and to avoid that cases like mine continue occurring in Venezuela. My wife, also my lawyer, is at your absolute disposition to keep this conversation in person with who ever are indicated by the Parliament. She is also available to better explain the thousands of details, humiliations and aggressions that this note does not include. Also, to carry all the documents that supports each one of my words. She could also work helping to get any information necessary in order to obtain the aid of the European Parliament that I’m desperately requesting in.

Sincerely

Iván Simonovis

Political Prisoner

Dictaorships and double Standards

2009-06-14T22:03:00.001-07:00

Article Dictatorships and Double Standards--By Amb. Jaime Daremblum

Excellent article by the former Ambassador of Costa Rica to the US. Worth pondering...and particularly for some member countries of the OAS and the organization's current leadership. PMB

Dictatorships and Double Standards
Cuba doesn't belong in the OAS.
by Jaime Daremblum

In all my years as an observer of international affairs, I have seldom seen the Organization of American States (OAS) so energized by a single issue. If only that issue were the humanitarian tragedy of Haiti, or the defense of democracy in those member countries where it is under siege--such as Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. Instead, the OAS has been hell-bent on extending membership to Communist Cuba, which, until last week, had been suspended from the regional group since 1962.

In a consensus vote on June 3, OAS members endorsed Cuba's right to rejoin the organization. But Fidel Castro wants no part of that. He blasted the OAS as an "an accomplice in all the crimes committed against Cuba." Cuban National Assembly president Ricardo Alarcón announced that, regardless of the decision to end Cuba's formal suspension, the Communist regime had no desire to be an OAS member.
For its part, the United States supported the pro-Cuba resolution but insisted that it include a provision that Havana's reentry into the organization must account for OAS "practices, proposals and principles." In other words, Cuba's return will not be automatic; the process will entail a dialogue initiated by Havana and will require Cuba's compliance with various stipulations. "Membership in the OAS must come with responsibilities," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "and we owe it to each other to uphold our standards of democracy and governance that have brought so much progress to our hemisphere."
Most Latin American and Caribbean countries--led by Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega, the radical Sandinista leader--argue that Cuba's readmittance into the OAS should be unconditional. As an AP story put it, "The United States is largely isolated within the OAS in demanding conditions." It is troubling that so many Latin governments are eager to let a totalitarian regime join a club of democracies without asking that regime to make any commitments on human rights. The 1962 OAS resolution that expelled Cuba was quite clear: "The present Government of Cuba, which has officially identified itself as a Marxist-Leninist government, is incompatible with the principles and objectives of the inter-American system." Cuba remains a Communist government that crushes dissent and jails democracy activists. Its political system is no more compatible with OAS "principles and objectives" in 2009 than it was in 1962.
All 34 OAS members are now bound by the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which was adopted in 2001. Its language is equally clear: "Member states are responsible for organizing, conducting, and ensuring free and fair electoral processes." In addition: "Member states reaffirm their intention to strengthen the inter-American system for the protection of human rights for the consolidation of democracy in the Hemisphere."
Bringing a totalitarian dictatorship into the OAS would make a mockery of those words. Yet Havana's non-participation in the OAS has become a cause célèbre throughout the region. The push to let Cuba rejoin the OAS is part of a larger Latin American effort to end Cuba's isolation in the Western Hemisphere. Some Latin nations are even lobbying intensely for the United States to repeal its embargo against the Communist island. They would have more credibility in arguing this position if they showed greater concern over Cuba's severe human rights violations. Unfortunately, while Latin governments tend to get loud and boisterous when it comes to denouncing the U.S. embargo, they are generally quiet and meek in their criticism of Cuban repression.
For that matter, these same governments have also been remarkably quiet about Hugo Chávez's depredations in Venezuela and the antidemocratic maneuvers of his cronies in Nicaragua (Ortega) and Bolivia (Evo Morales). Chávez has been steadily consolidating an authoritarian regime without hearing much disapproval from his fellow OAS members. Indeed, by and large, Latin American and Caribbean nations have failed to stand up for Venezuelan democracy while Chávez has been demolishing it. (The Venezuelan strongman is now harassing his country's last remaining independent television station.)
The abandonment of Venezuela's anti-Chávez opposition has not been Latin America's finest hour. Some of the region's current leaders--including Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Chilean president Michelle Bachelet--were once pro-democracy dissidents fighting against dictatorial regimes. At the time, they received support from Venezuelan democrats. Today, as Venezuelan democracy crumbles under the boot of an autocrat, they are mostly silent.
The political transformation of Latin America was one of the great democratic success stories of the late 20th century. But now, with Haiti falling deeper into its tragedy, and democracy under attack in Venezuela and elsewhere, some regional officials have decided that embracing a Stalinist dictatorship is more important than aiding a poor nation and defending freedom. They should be ashamed.
Jaime Daremblum, who served as Costa Rica's ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2004, is director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Hudson Institute.

Human Rights Beyond Ideology and Mr. Morales false indegenous icon

2009-06-11T18:35:00.002-07:00

"Some voices at the Oslo meeting are seldom heard in the West. Victor Hugo Cardenas of Bolivia prides himself on his indigenous background but is an implacable opponent of leftist President Evo Morales, a protégé of Hugo Chavez. Mr. Cardenas, a former vice president of Bolivia, called Mr. Morales a "false indigenous icon" who was deploying "shock troops" to silence critics. Indeed, he said that some of Mr. Morales's thugs had recently attacked his house and beaten members of his family. "But you will hear little of this from our media, much of which is bought by the Venezuelan money of Hugo Chavez," he thundered. "

The wall street journal

Human Rights Beyond Ideology

By JOHN FUND
Oslo

Twenty years ago, as Soviet communism was collapsing and new democracies were springing up everywhere, there were bright hopes for the spread of human rights. But while this year marks the anniversary of the Berlin Wall falling, yesterday was also the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre in China, a reminder of just how unyielding authoritarian governments can be.

Tiananmen was very much on the minds of the 200 human-rights activists who gathered in this tidy capital city where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year. But the Oslo Freedom Forum, organized by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, was unlike any human-rights conference I've ever attended. As at other such gatherings, racism and gender discrimination were on the minds of plenty of participants. But there was no desire to blame such problems on the U.S. or other Western nations. The emphasis was on promoting basic rights in all nations at all times.

"It's pretty simple," says Thor Halvorssen, a human-rights activist and the conference's 33-year-old founder. "We all should want freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom from torture, freedom to travel, due process and freedom to keep what belongs to you." Unfortunately, he explains, "the human-rights establishment at the United Nations is limited to pretty words because so many member countries kill or imprison or torture their opponents."

Indeed, the U.N. Human Rights Conference held in Geneva last month was a disgrace, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denouncing Israel as a "racist regime" and saying that "Zionism" was dominating the media and financial systems of the West. The U.S. didn't send a delegation to Geneva, and a number of the European representatives walked out during Mr. Ahmadinejad's rant.

The Oslo Freedom Forum, by contrast, was a serious gathering of grown-ups. Even Oslo's leftist newspaper Klassekampen (Class Struggle) overcame its initial skepticism, declaring the forum "an impressive assembly of people."

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, former Czech president Vaclav Havel and Yelena Bonner, the widow of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, couldn't attend due to ill health, but all sent videotaped statements. Ms. Bonner challenged delegates to combat the "anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment growing throughout Europe" since she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize here on behalf of her husband in 1975. Vladimir Bukovsky, a scientist who was tortured by the KGB for years, warned that many of Russia's old oppressors were "safely in power again" in new guises.

The conference also brought together activists from far-flung corners of the world. Palden Gyatso, a diminutive Tibetan monk, told horrifying tales of being imprisoned for 33 years and being tortured by Chinese captors who wedged electric batons into his mouth and destroyed all of his teeth. After his talk, he was embraced by Harry Wu, a survivor of 19 years in China's network of labor camps, which still contain untold numbers of prisoners.

Although quiet and reserved, Abdel Nasser Ould Ethmane kept his audience riveted as he told of how he'd been raised in an elite Mauritanian family that kept slaves even after the practice was officially abolished in his land in 1981. While living in Paris as an adult, he became infuriated at the world's indifference to slavery and teamed up with a former slave from Mauritania to provide legal help to escapees and also conduct covert rescue operations of those still in bondage. Mr. Ethmane's talk was followed by presentations from two powerful speakers from Kurdistan and Uzbekistan, both women who had served time for democratic activism.

Some voices at the Oslo meeting are seldom heard in the West. Victor Hugo Cardenas of Bolivia prides himself on his indigenous background but is an implacable opponent of leftist President Evo Morales, a protégé of Hugo Chavez. Mr. Cardenas, a former vice president of Bolivia, called Mr. Morales a "false indigenous icon" who was deploying "shock troops" to silence critics. Indeed, he said that some of Mr. Morales's thugs had recently attacked his house and beaten members of his family. "But you will hear little of this from our media, much of which is bought by the Venezuelan money of Hugo Chavez," he thundered.

The Norwegian hosts seem keen on repeating the event next year. The forum certainly attracted the right enemies. During the conference, Norwegian papers reported that the Cuban Embassy had emailed a lengthy denunciation of the forum, accusing Mr. Halvorssen and former Cuban political prisoner Armando Valladares of being CIA agents. The embassy also wrote that Mr. Valladares was a "terrorist," and it accused the Human Rights Foundation's Bolivian representative of "providing the bulk of the funds for the terrorist gang" that had supposedly plotted to assassinate President Morales.

Mr. Halvorssen expressed both amusement and exasperation at the charges. "They accuse me of working for the CIA in countries I've never visited," he told me. "As for Ambassador Valladares, he was Amnesty International's first prisoner of conscience from Cuba. Amnesty doesn't usually protect CIA agents."

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W13

Is silence consent? The Obama administrations engagement policy is convenient for Hugo Chavez's lates crackdown

2009-05-30T21:19:00.003-07:00

“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people- but the silence over that by the good people.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Baptist Minister and Civil-Rights Leader. 1929-1968)

Is Silence Consent? The Obama administration's 'engagement' policy is convenient for Hugo Chávez's latest crackdown.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

WHILE THE United States and Venezuela's neighbors silently stand by, Hugo Chávez's campaign to destroy his remaining domestic opposition continues. On Thursday night state intelligence police raided the Caracas offices of Guillermo Zuloaga, the president of the country's last independent broadcast network, Globovision. They claimed to be looking for evidence of irregularities in the car dealership that Mr. Zuloaga also runs. In fact this was a thinly disguised escalation of an attack that Mr. Chávez launched this month against Globovision. The channel has been officially accused of "inciting panic," based on its accurate reporting of a mild May 4 earthquake in Caracas; under the regime's draconian media control law it could be shut down. Few doubt that that is Mr. Chávez's intent: Two years ago he revoked the license of the country's most popular television network after a similarly trumped-up campaign.

To recap: In February Mr. Chávez eliminated the limit on his tenure as president after a one-sided referendum campaign that included ugly attacks on Venezuela's Jewish community. Since then he has imprisoned or orchestrated investigations against most of the country's leading opposition figures, including three of the five opposition governors elected last year. The elected mayor of Maracaibo, who was the leading opposition candidate when Mr. Chávez last ran for president, was granted asylum in Peru last month after authorities sought his arrest on dubious tax charges. The National Assembly, controlled by Mr. Chávez, is considering legislation that would eliminate collective bargaining and replace independent trade unions with "worker's councils" controlled by the ruling party. Another new law would eliminate foreign financing for independent non-government groups.

This is hardly the first time that a Latin American caudillo has tried to eliminate peaceful opponents: Mr. Chávez is following a path well worn by the likes of Juan Perón and Alberto Fujimori -- not to mention his mentor, Fidel Castro. But this may be the first time that the United States has watched the systematic destruction of a Latin American democracy in silence. As Mr. Chávez has implemented the "third phase" of his self-styled revolution, the Obama administration has persisted with the policy of quiet engagement that the president promised before taking office.

"We need to find a space in which we can actually have a conversation, and we need to find ways to enhance our levels of confidence," Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon Jr. said two weeks ago, echoing earlier remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. We have no objection to dialogue with Mr. Chávez. But isn't it time to start talking about preserving independent television stations, opposition political leaders, trade unions and human rights groups -- before it is too late?

© 2009 The Washington Post Company

The Cuba Embargo

2009-05-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

The Cuban Embargo

The Cuban regime is buying hundreds of millions of dollars of agricultural products and medicines in the United States, but they have to pay for them up front (NO CREDIT).
There is no embargo from Spain, France, Canada, Mexico, China, or Russia just to mention a few countries. The Cuban dictators can buy anything they want, but they are not paying and their credit is no good. The problem with the Castro Brothers is MONEY. They want to buy, but not to pay. They want us, taxpayers, to subsidize their subversion and espionage all over the world.

Why do we complain about Francisco Franco being a military dictator in Spain for years?
Why do we judge Augusto Pinochet for his war crimes?
Why do we complain about Somoza in Nicaragua?
Why do we call Trujillo a criminal or assassin?
Why we don’t do the same with Comandante Fidel Castro or General Raul Castro?

Eleno O. Oviedo
Plantados until Freedom and Democracy in Cuba
Former Political Prisoner for 26 years in Cuba.
Abducted from a British Territory in 1963
Eleno@plantados.org

Hugo Chavez threatens to take opposition TV station off air

2009-05-22T06:42:00.003-07:00

What is happening in Venezuela is sad....... and there are few International institutions saying anything against the Venezuelan Government (Hugo Chavez) abuse, specially the OAS which was the reason that institution was founded.

Anyway, we the Venezuelans should be proud to have this TV station Globovision that has defended bravely our Venezuelans constitution rights.

vdebate reporter.

Federico Ravell - President of Globovision

President Hugo Chavez has threatened to take Venezuela's last major opposition-run television station off the air.

By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent

The latest move to undermine opponents of the Leftist leader was made amid a frenetic campaign to seize control of privately held businesses, with his government running short of funds due to the fall in world oil prices.
Nicolas Maduro, the president of the Mr Chavez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela, accused the 24-hour news channel Globovision of "media terrorism", describing the station and its director, Alberto Ravell, as "violators of the constitution and of the rights of Venezuelans" as well as being "anti-democratic, failed and fascist".
The allegations are denied by the station. Mr Ravell said that the government investigation was "laughable" and meant to intimidate the media.
The government has already refused to renew the licence of one opposition media network.
The attack on the independent media is just the latest sign that Mr Chavez's democratically elected government is turning ever more authoritarian as it seeks to sustain its generous social programmes and aggressive foreign policy.
On Friday Mr Chavez sent troops to seize the operations of foreign-owned oil service companies, tightening his grip on the industry as low crude prices pinch the Opec nation's finances.
"We have started to nationalise all these activities connected to oil exploitation," he said from on board a confiscated boat. "This is a revolutionary offensive."
Human rights groups and political think tanks are also under assault, with the national assembly, which is controlled by Chavez loyalists, due to pass legislation aimed at controlling their finances.
Under the new law, all funding will pass through a central account managed by the government.
The director of perhaps the most outspoken opposition organisation, Sumate, said that the measure was an attempt to shut down government critics.
"This is a mechanism to silence voices that have great credibility within and outside the country," said Maria Corina Machado.
Mr Chavez's leading political opponent, Manuel Rosales, who challenged him for the presidency in 2006, has meanwhile fled to Peru where he has been granted asylum, after being charged with corruption at home.

Chavez Seizes Assets of Oil Contractor

2009-05-14T21:44:00.004-07:00

Chávez Seizes Assets of Oil Contractor

By SIMON ROMERO
Published: May 8, 2009
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez asserted greater control over the country’s energy industry on Friday by seizing the assets of some foreign and domestic oil contractors while his government grapples with a sharp decline in oil revenue and mounting debts.

Carlos Sosa
Venezuelan soldiers at an event presided over by President Hugo Chávez on Friday celebrating the seizure of contractors’ assets. The seizures took place largely in Zulia State in the west.
The move points to a greater concentration of power by Mr. Chávez, who is busily exerting sway over important industries and political institutions during the economic crisis. In recent weeks, his government has also hounded top rivals, stripping the mayor of Caracas of financing for the city budget while forcing the mayor of Maracaibo to seek asylum in Peru after he was confronted with corruption charges.
The move by Mr. Chávez on Friday also raises concern about Venezuela’s ability to increase its declining oil production at a time of low oil prices. The national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, hired the contractors to help it produce oil by operating drilling rigs, using technology to extract oil from aging wells or moving personnel or equipment on boats.
Venezuela, which relies on oil for about 93 percent of its export earnings, has not paid some of the oil contactors since late last year, according to filings by companies like Williams Companies, based in Tulsa, Okla., which said last month that it did not expect to receive $241 million it was owed here. Petróleos de Venezuela had been seeking a reduction of about 40 percent in its overall debt to the companies, which is estimated by industry analysts to be about $10 billion.
Our “people will never again be anyone’s slave,” Mr. Chávez said Friday.
Industry representatives in the oil-producing state of Zulia said uniformed soldiers had begun occupying oil installations on Thursday, shortly before the National Assembly approved a measure allowing the takeovers. The move deepens Mr. Chávez’s control of the oil industry, following the imposition of higher royalties on foreign oil companies, raids on their offices by tax authorities and the nationalization of large oil-producing projects in recent years.
In other countries, national oil companies have been trying to negotiate better terms with contractors since prices plunged with the onset of the global financial crisis. But Mr. Chávez’s move marks an aggressive turn in such negotiations, highlighting the risks that many energy companies face in doing business in Venezuela.
Some foreign companies began shutting down their drilling rigs earlier this year when it became apparent they would not get paid by Petróleos de Venezuela. Helmerich & Payne, a drilling company based in Tulsa, has told investors that it stands to lose $116 million because of unpaid bills by Petróleos de Venezuela.
Particularly for large oil-services companies, like Schlumberger or Halliburton, opportunities still exist in Venezuela, where they have carved out a presence that has spanned decades. It was not immediately clear whether they could remain as minority partners with Petróleos de Venezuela or continue talks over debts they hoped to collect.
For the time being, Mr. Chávez’s government said it would expropriate at least 13 drilling rigs, 39 oil terminals and about 300 boats used in waters and land around Lake Maracaibo in western Venezuela. Still, industry leaders said the scope of the expropriations could easily be widened. Cathy Mann, a spokeswoman for Halliburton declined to comment on whether the company would be affected.
Despite the abrupt shifts in energy policy here, large oil companies like Chevron and Total of France have tried to maintain their business activities in the country, attracted by its sizable oil reserves. Unlike some other major oil countries, like Saudi Arabia or Mexico, Venezuela still allows foreign companies to be minority partners in nationalized oil fields.
In an attempt to increase production, Venezuela has recently been soliciting bids from private oil companies in the West, as well as from state-controlled Chinese and Russian companies, for new oil projects capable of producing up to 1.2 million barrels of oil a day. The bidding has been delayed this year, but it is scheduled to begin here in late July.
“For those thinking about bidding, the action against the contractors is another reminder of how unsettling the environment in Venezuela can be,” said RoseAnne Franco, lead analyst for Latin America at PFC Energy, a company in Washington.
While the new projects up for bid would be assembled in the Orinoco Belt, an area with an enormous hydrocarbon reserve in southern Venezuela, the seizure of the contractors’ assets on Friday took place largely in Zulia, in western Venezuela, where some of the country’s oldest oil wells are located.
Zulia is also a bastion of opposition to Mr. Chávez. Resentment has been festering against the president there since corruption charges were brought against Manuel Rosales, a leading opposition figure who ran against Mr. Chávez for president in 2006 and was elected mayor of Maracaibo last year. Mr. Rosales fled to Peru last month rather than submit to an order for his arrest to face corruption charges.
Mr. Chávez will expand his power in Zulia with the takeover of the contractors by his loyalists, but it is a move that could heighten tension in one of the most strategically important states.
“They want to come for all of Zulia,” said Néstor Borjas, a leader in Fedecámaras, a regional business association in western Venezuela.
“They come with their soldiers from the National Guard, and they take what they want,” he said, “and you, as the owner of your company, can do absolutely nothing.”
María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting from Caracas, and Jad Mouawad from New York.

Director of news channel: "We are a pain in Chávez's neck"

2009-05-14T20:42:00.001-07:00

Director of news channel: "We are a pain in Chávez's neck"
Alberto Federico Ravell

"I do think that Globovisión faces the risk to be closed. (President Hugo) Chávez has insisted that he is ready to do so (...) We know that we are a pain in Chávez's neck because we are the only channel with an open signal that tells truths. But we are not a political party. Our mission is to inform people."
Without mentioning his name, Hugo Chávez called the director of Globovisión "a crazy man with a cannon"
President Hugo Chávez's threats against the private TV news channel Globovisión "must be taken seriously" because "there is a risk that the government closes our TV channel," said Alberto Federico Ravell, the director of the TV network, who believes that his only sin is "to inform without flattering" the regime. "I do consider that Globovisión faces the risk to be closed. Chávez has insisted that he is willing to do so. I think that there is an ongoing legal proceeding and that the President is very upset with his staff because they did not react in time to settle the issue," Ravell said in an interview with AFP. Last Sunday, Chávez blamed local private radio and TV stations of "inciting hatred" and "manipulating" the news. He recalled that the government has the power to renew broadcasters' licenses to use public airwaves. Without mentioning his name, Chávez called the director of Globovisión "a crazy man with a cannon." "I am neither a mad man, nor a conspirator nor an assassin," Ravell said. "We know that we are a pain in Chávez's neck and in the government's neck because we are the only channel with an open signal that tells truths. But we are not a political party. Our mission is to inform people."

(File Photo: Alexis Alemán)
Interior Minister: Some media outlet purports to destabilize the country
Minister Tareck El Aissami regretted that government authorities are "slandered and exposed to ridicule through this particular media outlet"
"For some years, the media, particularly one of them," try to form perceptions "to encourage bloodshed and destabilize the country," said Minister of the Interior and Justice Tareck El Aissami. "It turned out to be a public health issue. It is misleading information, information which creates unrest, restlessness, uncertainty among our people.""That particular media agency plays now the role of spreading terror throughout the national territory," said El Aissami on leaving a forum against illicit drug abuse. He regretted that government authorities are "slandered and exposed to ridicule through this particular media outlet." In addition, he said, when they dare to denounce them and tell the truth about it "devils are unleashed against anybody or any leader who asks for truth and justice." "We know that its role is on the sidewalk of violence, on the side of those who do not have the reason, of those unreasonable people, dimmed by hatred and who intend to end with a liberating, humanist process which supports our president."

Deterioration in Venezuela

2009-05-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

Gustavo Coronel: Venezuela :hot spot in the Caribbean

The process of deterioration in Venezuela has accelerated significantly during the last six months. Venezuelans have shown great patience, often bordering on apathy, but conditions in the country are fast approaching significant turmoil and possible violence. This is happening before the eyes of our hemispheric political leaders.
Although significantly authoritarian from the beginning of his presidency, the performance of President Hugo Chavez during the last months has become one of a dictator: no checks and balances, decisions concentrated in his hands, dissenters persecuted, national assets utilized without accountability and his pretensions of turning Venezuela into another Cuba no longer disguised. He has become a political bulldozer, running over all dissent. Items:
• General Raul Baduel, one of his former Ministers of Defense and now a political dissenter, has been imprisoned on charges of corruption;
• Twelve Caracas police officers accused by the government of shooting against Caracas marchers in April 11, 2002, were given sentences of up to 30 years in prison when, in fact, the shooting was done by snipers under the orders of the Chavez regime, none of whom have ever been charged;
• Mr. Manuel Rosales, Mayor of the city of Maracaibo and one of the most prominent leaders of the opposition, is now in exile in Peru after served an order of arrest on charges of corruption;
• Prominent members of the opposition such as former Mayor of the Chacao District of Caracas, Leopoldo Lopez, have been prevented from running for public office, on vague accusations of corruption;
• Globovision, the last truly independent TV station left in the country after the confiscation of assets and the closing down of Radio Caracas TV, has been served with a notice of suspension. The reason? Informing the Venezuelan public about the earthquake that took place some days ago before the government “officially” aired the information.
• The Mayors and Governors of the opposition, who won their offices through elections, are being openly harassed and their work being made extremely difficult. Mr. Antonio Ledezma, the Mayor of Greater Caracas, was expelled from his headquarters, which were immediately occupied by a puppet “governor” directly named by Chavez. The money that should be sent to these states and mayoralties by the central government is being cut-off. This represents an open violation of the constitution and of the will of the people and has recently been the object of condemnation by the European Parliament.
• The Ateneo de Caracas, one of the oldest cultural centers of the country and a center of perceived opposition to Chavez, has been ordered by the government to evacuate peremptorily the premises they have occupied for long decades. As they have no other place to go this probably means their disappearance.
• The Caracas home of former president and novelist Romulo Gallegos, where the beloved novelist lived for many years, is now partly used as a government food market. A bust of Gallegos has been removed from the presidential palace and replaced with one of mediocre, early XX century dictator Cipriano Castro. Gallego's books have been burned by the thousands by the regime, in a barbaric action copied from Bradbury's “Fahrenheit 451”.
• Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned company, has stopped paying many of its contractors. The size of the debt to Tulsa's Williams Companies, Tulsa's Helmerich and Payne, Schlumberger, Halliburton and other companies already amounts to $8-12 billion. While these debts keep mounting, the Chavez regime has simply taken over the assets of some of these companies. Such a move will add about 8,000 new workers to the already adipose payroll of Petroleos de Venezuela, the state- owned Petroleum Company,while leaving about 22,000 others without jobs.
• The May 1st Caracas march against the government was met with tear gas and strong repression by the Chavez-controlled armed forces. In a cynical display Chavez went on TV to accuse the unarmed citizens of “an act of aggression against our armed forces”.
• A new law is now being passed by the Chavez-controlled National Assembly that will make it illegitimate for NGO's to receive foreign financing. Most of these not-for-profit organizations, especially those in the field of human rights, receive help from USA or Europe. The law is clearly targeted against this type of organizations, as Chavez feels that they are strong centers of political opposition.
• In his obsession to break away from all things made in America Chavez bought 53 Russian, Mi, helicopters but forgot that pilots have to be trained before they can fly them. During the last year four have crashed, causing 18 deaths.
The armed forces, an institution that should be the guarantor of democracy seems is under Chavez's political control due to the lavish monetary handouts and privileges received by the military elite. They now salute in Cuban style: “Fatherland, Socialism or Death”.
Chavez's message has become disdainful of legality. Drunk with power he currently leads an offensive against democracy in several of his socialist satellites, mostly Bolivia. He is threatening with leaving the Organization of American States, OAS, although this organization, led by weak-kneed Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza, has been criminally tolerant of his undemocratic transgressions.
In shaking his hand U.S. President Obama allowed Chavez to use this gesture to convince his followers that Obama is “his friend” and will let him do as he pleases. The democrats of Venezuela and all Latin America are frustrated by the apparent U.S. lack of will to live up to its democratic values.

Gustavo Coronel is a 28 years oil industry veteran, a member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), author of several books. At the present Coronel is Petroleumworld associate editor and advisor on the opinion and editorial content of the site.

Socialism vs Labour

2009-05-10T07:52:00.003-07:00

Sad that my pretty country is destroying by one man: "Hugo Chavez", and the venezuelan citizens against Chavez don't know what else to do......

vdebate reporter

SOCIALISM V LABOUR
May 7th 2009
Curbing opposition to chavismo
HIS government espouses "21st-century socialism" and claims to stand for the working class. Yet Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, has never been a fan of his country's trade unions. He portrays them as corrupt vestiges of a capitalist past and of the previous political order. Ever since he was first elected, in 1998, he has sought ways to bring them to heel.

Having first tried and failed to take over the main trade-union confederation, he encouraged a pro-government rival. Now he wants to bypass the unions altogether, by establishing in their place "workers' councils" that amount to branches of the ruling Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

A bill in the government-controlled National Assembly would eliminate collective bargaining and give powers in labour matters to the new councils. "The government's policy is the total elimination of the union movement," says Orlando Chirino, a former CHAVISTA who is one of the architects of the Labour Solidarity Movement, a new group which embraces unions from both sides of the country's political divide and which defends union autonomy.

The bill comes hand-in-hand with the slowdown in the economy and a government crackdown on opposition politicians. Its onslaught on the unions, and its refusal to negotiate collective contracts--or to respect them once signed--is meeting resistance. Labour disputes are increasing, from 46 in January, to 59 in February and 113 in March, according to figures compiled by Victorino Marquez, a labour specialist at the Catholic University in Caracas.

With budgets slashed following the fall in the oil price, the government can no longer buy industrial peace. It is starting to resort to force. A strike in the Caracas metro was averted by the threat of military intervention. Mr Chavez called the metro workers "corrupt" for insisting on the implementation of an agreement that had already been signed. According to press reports, dozens of trade unionists are being prosecuted. Their alleged crimes include "subversion" and holding demonstrations in "security zones" such as those around big factories.
Scores have been murdered, in disputes over contracts that mainly involve pro-government unions.

Only about 11% of the workforce belongs to a union. The bedrock of Mr Chavez's support has long lain with non-unionised workers in the vast informal economy. But unionised workers are concentrated in important parts of the economy, including the oil industry and the heavy-industrial centre of Ciudad Guayana in the south-east. Both are in ferment over wage demands. Disputes are also brewing among teachers, health workers and in the electricity industry.

The oil industry could be the biggest flashpoint. The government is refusing to negotiate wages and conditions until the oil workers' federation elects a new leadership in a ballot due later this month.

There are signs that the government wants to delay the vote. The budget of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state-owned oil company, has been slashed by more than half this year. Rafael Ramirez, the energy minister and head of PDVSA, said there would be no pay rise, even though inflation is close to 30%. He later backtracked.

Mr Chavez insists that only the rich will pay the price of the impending recession. But workers are already feeling its effects. The government seems to welcome the looming confrontation with the unions, as an opportunity to crush dissent and take Mr Chavez's "revolution" to the next level. Jorge Giordani, the planning minister, said recently that the inflation rate should not be the main factor in setting the minimum wage. He added that he knew of no example in the world where socialism had been established on the basis of abundance. "Socialism has emerged from scarcity," he declared.

On May Day the politically divided unions staged two separate marches, as they have for the past few years. The non-government march was broken up by police and national-guard troops using tear gas and water-cannon. "There is no socialism without the working class," Mr Chavez told a rival march of his supporters. By fomenting division and repressing dissent, Mr Chavez may succeed in crushing the labour movement. With it would go one of the few remaining institutions of democracy and pluralism in Venezuela. And Mr Giordani may get the chance to implement the socialism of scarcity in what was once the richest country in Latin America.
See this article with graphics and related items at

http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13611592

Venezuela - GDP - Risk

2009-05-03T12:35:00.003-07:00

Venezuela = Ethiopia= 117 Rank

Chavez has taken Venezuela to the floor. In Argentina is better to do Business than Venezuela….. and Venezuela Chavez have given a lot of money to Argentina. We have oil but Chavez hasn't done anything good with it. That is a good reason I don’t like Chavez.
Vdebate reporter

Rank
(Business) Country GDP Growth (%) GDP/Capita ($)
1 Denmark 0.3 $38,900
2 United States 1.4 $48,000
3 Canada 0.7 $40,200
4 Singapore 3.0 $52,900
5 New Zealand 0.6 $28,500
6 United Kingdom 1.1 $37,400
7 Sweden 0.9 $39,600

---
88 Argentina 6.6 $14,500
..
116 Syria 2.4 $4,900
117 Ethiopia 8.5 $800
117 Venezuela 5.7 $14,000 (with Oil)
119 Bosnia and Herzegovina 5.5 $6,600
120 Nicaragua 2.0 $3,000
121 Cameroon 4.0 $2,400
122 Gambia 4.5 $1,200
123 Tajikistan 4.5 $1,800
124 Bolivia 4.8 $4,700

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/6/bizcountries09-best-countries-for-business_Best-Countries-for-Business_Rank_5.html

2009-05-03T11:57:00.002-07:00

...... and the dramatic similarity between the situation in Venezuela and that of countries such as Myanmar, China, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Iran, and Rwanda, where the opposition was exterminated and the media silenced."

VenEconomy

04/28/2009

Annihilation and lethargy

In these times, with the revival of a blend of dictatorial projects and neo-communism, it is pertinent to recall the physiological experiment called “The Boiled Frog.” If you put a frog in a pan with boiling water, the impact of the heat makes it will jump out immediately to escape the danger zone. But if you put it in a pan with cold water and then put the pan on a heat source that warms the water gradually, the frog will tolerate the gradual increase in heat, until it realizes, too late, that he has neither the energy nor the will to jump out of the pan and save himself.
Like cooking a frog over a low heat, in these ten long years, the Hugo Chávez administration, slowly but surely, has been bringing Venezuelans to the boil as far as their human rights and fundamental freedoms are concerned.
Despite this, there is very little awareness in the population as a whole of how grave this loss of human and constitutional rights is, which will affect everyone one way or another. The degree of people’s lethargy is alarming and their lack of reaction is incomprehensible. Not only that, if this continues, it will, irrevocably, result in the consolidation of a neo-communist, dictatorial state in Venezuela.
Hence the importance of the dossier presented by the lawyer Gonzalo Himiob at the Geneva Human Rights Summit in representation of the NGOs Foro Penal Venezolano, Justicia Libre, and VIVE.
In his paper “New forms of intolerance: the Judicial System and Political Persecution in Venezuela,” Himiob sums up the most emblematic cases of politically motivated judicial persecution in Venezuela.
These cases include those of General Francisco Usón, the first “opinion prisoner,” who was imprisoned for three years and is currently on probation; and Captain Otto Gebauer, whose crime was to carry out orders and guard Chávez during his brief stay on La Orchila Island from April 11 to 13, 2002. He also made a special mention of the unjust and disproportionate sentence received by the Metropolitan Police captains Vivas, Forero, and Simonovis and the seven Metropolitan Police officers for their alleged involvement in the incidents of April 2002 inVenezuela.
Other cases documented by Himiob were those of the businessman Eligio Cedeño and the student Nixon Moreno, as well as the criminal investigations opened against former oil workers, members of the student movement, representatives of the media, and members of the political opposition (Leopoldo López, Manuel Rosales, Antonio Ledezma).
Himiob highlighted two facts that caused considerable surprise in this audience of international human rights experts: the level of ignorance of international observers with regard to the grave situation of people who are politically persecuted in Venezuela; and the dramatic similarity between the situation in Venezuela and that of countries such as Myanmar, China, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Iran, and Rwanda, where the opposition was exterminated and the media silenced.

Lack of Legal Justice in Venezuela

2009-05-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

VenEconomy

04/29/2009

Giving free rein to the lack of legal certainty

Not to mince words, legal certainty simply does not exist in Venezuela.
No law is respected, not even those dreamed up by the government itself; no treaty, agreement or contract is of any use; and the Constitution, now dead-letter, is not worth the paper it is written on.
The present crisis in Venezuela’s democratic institutions stems precisely from this absence of legal certainty and the annihilation of the rule of law. It is in this vacuum that the destruction of the country’s productive apparatus has been hatched; and this is the ground swell that has swept away the political, economic, social, and citizen rights of the Venezuelan people.
Thanks to this disrespect for the law, the practice of enacting tailor-made laws, and the discretional interpretation and enforcement, or not, of agreements and contracts, lawsuits amounting to billions of dollars have been filed with international courts by multinational corporations that, at one time, were contractors of the Venezuelan State.
This situation is also responsible for the lawsuits before international human rights courts for the violation of the human rights of hundreds of Venezuelans.
Spurious trials are mounted to criminalize the dissidence and coups d’état, frustrated assassinations, violations of national sovereignty, tax evasion, and crimes of all and every kind are dreamed up to put members of the opposition or people deemed to be politically incorrect or who are an embarrassment to the government either behind bars or force them into exile.
People’s electoral rights have been violated wholesale: from disregarding the secrecy of the vote (a universal right) to failing to maintain a reliable, auditable electoral roll or curtailing the right to vote, to violating election deadlines and dates, carrying out amendments to the Constitution that break constitutional rules and even suspending, illegally and without consultation, elections to renew the incumbents of elected offices, as in the case of the municipal councils.
On top of that we have the unconstitutional refusal to recognize the people’s wishes expressed at the polls. So it is that Chávez continues imposing a political system that has already been rejected or orders the enactment of a law that turns the Greater Caracas Mayoralty to an empty shell simply because a leader of the democratic alternative won the seat.
The workers, whose defense was, in times gone by, a banner brandished by the government, are also victims of this absence of the rule of law. The government, deliberately and resorting to every kind of ruse, refuses tonegotiate expired collective employment contracts, does not comply with those that are still current, and even reverses acquired workers’ benefits, something that is unconstitutional.
Land, companies, and properties are invaded under Zamoran decrees that arbitrarily ignore ownership right, even though the chain of legitimate ownership going back for generations has been proved.
So, thanks to this practice of consigning the Constitution to oblivion, ignoring or inventing laws, Venezuelans have been stripped of their rights and freedoms and, therefore, of democracy. And that is how the new-style communist dictatorship is being forged.

Courting Mr Chavez, The Obama administration seeks to please strongman by ignoring his crakdown on domestic opposition

2009-05-03T11:16:00.002-07:00

If you don't know Manual Rosales left Venezuela to Peru, because Chavez wants to put him in jail, without having a fair court case.

vdebate reporter

Courting Mr. Chávez
The Obama administration seeks to please a strongman by ignoring his crackdown on domestic opposition.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

ONE OF Venezuela's most important politicians was granted asylum in Peru this week. Manuel Rosales, a former state governor who challenged Hugo Chávez in the 2006 presidential election and won election as mayor of Maracaibo last fall, fled the country to avoid imprisonment. He was being prosecuted on dubious corruption charges; the investigation began only after Mr. Chávez shouted on television that "I'm going to put you in jail, Rosales!" Mr. Rosales is one of at least seven major Chávez opponents, including three of the five opposition state governors, who have been imprisoned or subjected to criminal or tax investigations during the past two months.

It is reasonable to ask how the Obama administration is reacting to this major new campaign against what remains of Venezuela's democracy, especially given the president's friendly handshake with Mr. Chávez at the Summit of the Americas two weeks ago. The answer: It isn't. The administration has maintained a deliberate silence about the persecution of the elected politicians, a dissident former defense minister and a leading journalist. Meanwhile, the State Department is lauding what it calls the "positive development" in U.S.-Venezuelan relations: Mr. Chávez's offer to exchange ambassadors. "We buy a lot of their oil," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week. "Let's see if we can begin to turn that relationship."

Ms. Clinton seems to believe that Mr. Chávez's escalating domestic repression shouldn't be an impediment to better relations with the United States -- an attitude in keeping with her already-stated views about such nations as China, Egypt and Turkey. She pointed out in her congressional testimony that Venezuela has been developing close relations with Iran, and that "it's a serious matter if any country in our hemisphere falls under the sway of Iran or someone else who is inimicable to our interests."

"Let's try to see whether there is any opportunity to move President Chávez away from the influences" of Iran and others, she proposed.

That's certainly a worthy goal -- and we have no objection to Mr. Obama's handshake with Mr. Chávez. The administration's strategy -- to open up a constructive dialogue with Venezuela and avoid being cast as Mr. Chávez's Yanqui foil -- is reasonable; it is also the same strategy as was tried, unsuccessfully, by the previous two administrations. What doesn't make sense is to deliberately ignore steps by Mr. Chávez to consolidate an autocracy. In so doing, the administration encourages Latin American governments that have shrunk from confronting the Venezuelan strongman to continue in their own silence. It sends pro-Chávez governments in countries such as Bolivia and Nicaragua the message that they can persecute their own domestic opponents with impunity. And it makes it more rather than less likely that Venezuela, with the help of Iran and Russia, will become a threat to the United States.

Peru's democratic government is to be congratulated for its decision to offer Mr. Rosales

Venezuelan official granted asylum in Peru

2009-04-27T20:37:00.003-07:00

LIMA, Peru (CNN) -- Manuel Rosales, the mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela, has been granted political asylum in Peru, Peru's foreign minister said Monday.

Manuel Rosales denies that he illegally enriched himself as governor of Zulia state.

Rosales, a leading political opponent who lost the 2006 presidential race to Hugo Chavez, faces corruption charges in Venezuela.

He was supposed to have turned himself in to authorities last week but failed to appear. His attorney said then that Rosales had fled to Peru and would seek asylum there.

Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Garcia Belaunde said that the asylum was granted on humanitarian grounds and that recent statements by Rosales against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were not taken into account, the state-run Andina news agency said.

Venezuelan officials say Rosales illegally enriched himself as governor of Zulia state from 2002 to 2004.

Rosales denies the allegation, saying Chavez is out to get him for political reasons and is persecuting him on trumped-up corruption charges.

"Since they haven't been able to take me off the political map by the electoral route, now they're using the power they have in all the movements of the public prosecutor," Rosales told CNN en Español last month.

One of Rosales' lawyers noted that Chavez said publicly in October 2008, before Rosales was charged, that he wanted the mayor in prison.

In last month's interview, Rosales called the charges that he had illegally accepted money "totally false," and said he not only declared all of his income, but paid taxes on it.

Katiuska Plaza, district attorney for Zulia state, said in a 26-count complaint last month that Rosales illegally enriched himself in 2002 and 2004.

Rosales called the district attorney's actions "a manipulation," and said the prosecutor "is acting on Chavez's orders."

Another prominent Chavez opponent was arrested this month on corruption charges.

Former Venezuelan Defense Minister Raul Baduel played a key role in turning back a coup attempt against Chavez in 2002 but broke with him in November 2007 over constitutional changes Chavez was proposing. Baduel has been a strong Chavez critic since then.

Baduel, who also was the president's military general-in-chief, was arrested at gunpoint in front of his wife April 2, the general's attorney said at the time. It was Baduel's second arrest on charges that he stole $14 million from the armed forces.

He has denied the allegation and said last year the charges were politically motivated.

And Antonio Ledezma, an opposition figure who is mayor of Caracas, is finding his powers reduced. Last week, the pro-Chavez National Assembly shifted many of his powers to the federal government.

Ledezma has accused Chavez of orchestrating protests against him.

Otto Reich: Obama’s Encounter With Chavez Damaged U.S. Foreign Policy

2009-04-21T21:36:00.002-07:00

I agree with Otto Reich

vdebate Reporter

Otto Reich: Obama’s Encounter With Chavez Damaged U.S. Foreign Policy
Monday, April 20, 2009 1:27

By: Jim Meyers
Article Font Size
Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich tells Newsmax that Hugo Chavez is calling President Barack Obama’s “hobnobbing” with the Venezuelan leader the “greatest triumph in Venezuelan diplomacy ever.”
Reich, who also served as a special envoy and diplomat under President Reagan and both Presidents Bush, said it was an embarrassing mistake for Obama to be photographed accepting an America-bashing book from the Venezuelan strongman.
Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella noted that photographs snapped at the weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago showed Obama hobknobbing with Chavez, shaking hands, and smiling with the Venezuelan, and asked for his take on that.

“I think it’s very unfortunate. I don’t think President Obama really understands, perhaps out of lack of experience in international affairs, the importance of symbolism,” said Reich, who was policy adviser on Latin America for John McCain’s presidential campaign.

“You don’t go around slapping the back of a foreign dictator, a would-be dictator in the case of Chavez, who has done everything in his power to undermine U.S. interests in the region and who calls himself an enemy of the United States.”

Martella asked whether people will “misinterpret” those photos.
Reich responded that the pictures certainly are being misinterpreted in Venezuela “despite what President Obama wishes. I think he probably realizes now that he made a mistake.
“But in Venezuela Hugo Chavez said last night this is the greatest triumph in Venezuelan diplomacy ever. Because what he is trying to do is to portray this as an endorsement of his policies, which is calls 21st century socialism but which is really just retread 20th-century fascism.”

Chavez is seeking to “portray this warm handshake, and a slap on the back which came later, as an endorsement of Chavez, which I’m sure President Obama did not intend,” Reich said.
“That is the way it is being portrayed not only in Venezuela but in the rest of the continent, all of Latin America.”

Martella referred to photos of Chavez giving Obama an anti-American book entitled “Open Veins of Latin America,” which Obama accepted and posed with for the cameras, and asked whether that was a mistake on Obama’s part.

“Absolutely it was a mistake,” Reich declared.

“It was also frankly a mistake by the staff. They should have prevented that.

“I worked for three presidents. I don’t think that would have happened with President Reagan or either one of the President Bushes. They should not have put President Obama in that embarrassing situation because this is very much an anti-U.S. book. Anti-Europe as well.
“It’s a book that’s about 30 years old, written by a far-left Latin American, a very unknown author. And now Chavez has put this book on top of, I’m told, the Amazon sales list.”
Reich, who was born in Cuba, was asked to comment on assertions from opponents of the trade embargo with Cuba that hurting the Cuban people is counter-productive.
“Hurting the Cuban people is counterproductive, and that’s why we should do everything we can to see a regime change in Cuba,” Reich said.
“The Cuban people have been hurt by 50 years of Marxist-Leninist dictatorship. It’s not the U.S. embargo that has hurt the Cuban people. Castro can trade with 175 countries in the world. It’s only the United States that doesn’t trade with him directly.
“In fact we are the single largest provider of food to Cuba. We provided $700 million in food to Cuba last year, more than anybody else — in fact more than the next several countries combined.
“So the United States is not hurting Cuba. What’s hurting Cuba is the Castro dictatorship — the last military dictatorship in this hemisphere.”
[Editor's Note: Watch former Ambassador Otto Reich discuss Venezuela, Cuba and Obama’s foreign policy - Go Here Now]
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Empower democracy, rein in tyrants

2009-04-21T21:27:00.001-07:00

Empower democracy, rein in tyrants
BY ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN

www.ros-lehtinen.house.gov
Sunday marked the conclusion of the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. This meeting could have offered a valuable opportunity to stand up to the region's despotic leaders who claim that their radical visions -- rather than the voice of the people -- should usher in a new age in our hemisphere. It could have offered an opportunity to move forward on further agreements toward the realization of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. But that was not to be.
With U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set to appear before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, it is critical that we press for the United States to advance a vigorous agenda that reflects America's long standing commitment to freedom and democracy as the bedrock of our policy in Latin America.
Democratic institutions in the hemisphere are under increasing assault from internal and external actors. Nicaragua's November municipal elections were widely recognized as illegitimate. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez has moved beyond attacks on property rights and freedom of press to an explicit and concerted campaign against his opposition. Bolivia and Ecuador have resumed their baseless accusations against the United States and continue to advance their authoritarian agendas.
Preying on the anti-American and anti-democratic sentiment promoted by the regimes of these countries, a realignment is taking place with rogue regimes such as Iran and Cuba. Using Chávez as his personal broker, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has joined forces with several of the above-mentioned countries to denounce U.S. democratic standards and threaten regional security objectives.
This planned assault on core democratic values and free market principles continued at the summit. Even responsible nations failed to counter the paltry moral equivalency arguments raised by repressive leaders and their enablers.
In fact, the summit discussions remind me of the farcical Durban 2 Conference taking place this week in Geneva. These forums have been hijacked by repressors, tyrants and regime leaders who deprecate democratic principles and ideals.
Several countries in the region used the summit to advocate, not for the rights of the Cuban people, but for the Cuban regime's undeserved return to the inter-American system. But the United States must not allow the picture of this hemisphere to be painted by those who despise liberty, nor by those who wish and work to do us harm. Rather, we must stand up for freedom and make support for our democratic allies the central tenet of our policy in the Western Hemisphere.
Security issues throughout the region are having a direct impact on the ability of responsible nations to advance democratic principles. From narcotrafficking to organized crime, Islamic radicals to the FARC in Colombia, and the influence of tyrannical regimes from Iran to Syria, the hemisphere is in critical need of a comprehensive model of partnership and responsibility that binds leaders to the obligations outlined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter and other such accords.
The United States must not falter in our expectation that countries we work with adhere to these values. Programs like the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compacts should be leveraged to ensure Americans are getting a return on our investments in the hemisphere.
In the aftermath of the summit, it will be up to Secretary Clinton to implement the U.S. agenda and up to the Congress to decide where taxpayer funds are most needed. With great economic challenges at home, we must ensure that our resources are focused on strengthening, supporting and empowering our democratic allies, rather than wasted on efforts that only benefit tyrants and oppressors.
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Obama, Hillary and Chavez

2009-04-19T12:49:00.006-07:00

Chavez told Obama= I want to be your friend.

But what about Venezuelans Humans Rights?

What about fair elections in Venezuela?

What about Chavez changing laws in Venezuela and his dictatorship?

Hillary and Chavez

People fueled by greed or lact of intellectual honesty

2009-04-18T00:47:00.002-07:00

From distant lands the evaluation of Latin American political leadership is too often made on the basis of grasping the shadows, rather than the substance. The flamboyancy of Hugo Chavez, his aggressive rhetoric, his prodigality with ideological friends, his hatred of the United States, all of this is the shadow.

The substance is that he has pilfered $750 billion in ten years, that the country has been deeply divided along racial and class lines, that all national institutions have been prostituted, that crime and corruption are rampant and that the population is not better off than ten years ago.

Faced with these objective truths Chavez’s fellow travelers, from Ramonet in France to Gott and Carson in the U.K., to Weisbrot, Birns, Sean Penn and Danny Glover in the U.S., to Heinz Dieterich where he might be, prefer to ignore them in order to applaud the shadow, the illusion of a man who is “doing good things for the poor”.

These fellow travelers would not be so despicable if they accepted openly that they let their emotions or their greed prevail over their integrity. But they all claim to be sincerely convinced that a man like Chavez represents a hope for Venezuelans and for humanity.

In doing this they refuse to accept that the man is undemocratic (hasn’t he won several elections? they claim, without seeing that the electoral events are deeply corrupted)), that he pretends to be president for life (why shouldn’t he?), that he only sees corruption among the leaders of the opposition but not among the members of his own family and friends (the biggest gang of thieves in Venezuelan modern history), that he uses national assets a if they were his own (abuse of power).

They do not hear when Chavez says: “I am the only one who can govern Venezuela”, or when he insults political dissidents or the very own political leaders of their countries in Tarzan-like language (“Bush: u ar a donky”).

All of these attitudes do not seem to matter to the fellow travelers, who can only see in him the man who insults the “empire” and gets away with it, the great hope of a vague “socialist” utopia that no one can define.

Aesop’s warning assumed that grasping at the shadow was an involuntary human action. He never suspected that there would be people that would do it consciously, fueled by greed or lack of intellectual honesty.

Help Rescue Venezuelan Political Prisoners, from Chavez Government.

2009-04-18T00:35:00.002-07:00

Summit of the Americas 2009:
Attention: Presidents

Help Rescue Venezuelan Political Prisoners, from Chavez Government.

The Chavez Government controls the criminal justice in Venezuela . It has brought false criminal charges against over 45 political targets, violating their rights by:

Character assassination.
Fabricating criminal charges/evidence.
Torturing /bribing witnesses.
Breaching privacy/confidentiality.
Appointing/controlling judges.
Groundless pre-trial incarceration and denial of bail.
Harassing attorneys

Notable cases:
Ivan Simonovis, Lazaro Forero and Henry Vivas: Police deputies on duty during the April 11, 2002, events that briefly removed Chavez from power. Convicted of homicide.
Francisco Uson: Retired General resigned as Secretary of Finance during April 11, 2002, events. Convicted of revealing military secrets.
Otto Gebauer: Air Force Captain ordered to transport Chavez to provisional detainment during April 11, 2002, events. Convicted of kidnapping the president.
Otoniel, Rolando and Juan Guevara: Police officers convicted of murdering a District Attorney based on paid false testimony.
Nixon Moreno : College student who led youth opposition movement. Accused of attempted sexual assault against a policewoman. Granted asylum by the Vatican .
Humberto Quintero: Lt. Colonel who captured and returned FARC leader to Colombian government. Convicted of treason.
Felipe Rodriguez: General who spoke out against Chavez and led others to follow. Convicted of military rebellion.
Jose “Maraco” Dacre: Citizen who assisted student movement. Accused of public insurgence.

FOREING GOVERNMENTS CAN HELP BY CONDITIONING DISCUSSIONS WITH THE CHAVEZ GOVERNMENT ON RESTORATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF LAW IN VENEZUELA .

The following NGOs have sponsored this message:
Foro Penal Venezolano
Fundación para el Debido Proceso - http://www.fundepro.com.ve/
Nueva Conciencia Nacional
Fundación Justicia Libre - http://www.fundacionjusticialibre.com/
Compromiso Ciudadano a.c.
Control Ciudadano para la Seguridad, la Defensa y la Fuerza Armada Nacional
http://www.controlciudadano.org/
Venezuela Awareness Foundation - http://www.venezuelaawareness.org/
Movimiento 2D - http://www.movimiento2d.org/

Victimas Venezolanas de Violencia de Estado (VIVE)

Electronic voting Fraud in Venezuela

2009-03-26T22:07:00.002-07:00

I am sure that Chavez has won many of the elections in Venezuela because electronic Fraud. The government don't let the system to be audit.
vdebate reporter

Sun Sentinel( Ft)

Electronic voting alarms CIA expert
Vote-rigging suspected in foreign elections
By Greg Gordon McClatchy Newspapers
March 25, 2009
WASHINGTON - The CIA, which has been monitoring foreign countries' use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines' vulnerability to tampering.Appearing last month before a U.S. Election Assistance Commission field hearing in Orlando, a CIA cybersecurity expert suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez fixed a 2004 election recount.

In a presentation that could provide disturbing lessons for the United States, where electronic voting is becoming widespread, Steve Stigall described attempts to use computers to undermine democratic elections in developing nations. Stigall told the Election Assistance Commission, a tiny agency that Congress created in 2002 to modernize U.S. voting, that computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results.

"You heard the old adage 'follow the money,'" Stigall said, according to a transcript of his hourlong presentation. "I follow the vote. And wherever the vote becomes an electron and touches a computer, that's an opportunity for a malicious actor potentially to ... make bad things happen."

Stigall said that voting equipment connected to the Internet could be hacked and that machines that weren't connected could be compromised wirelessly. Stigall said he wasn't speaking for the CIA and wouldn't address U.S. voting systems, but he said most Web-based ballot systems had proved to be insecure.Stigall said the CIA was worried that foreigners might try to hack U.S. election systems.

Turning to Venezuela, he said Chavez controlled all of the country's voting equipment before he won a 2004 nationwide recall vote.Macedonia was accused of "voter genocide" because the names of so many Albanians were eradicated from the computerized lists, Stigall said.In Ukraine, Stigall said, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko lost a 2004 presidential election runoff because supporters of his rival "introduced an unauthorized computer into the Ukraine election committee national headquarters.

Hugo Chávez's rival might be jailed in Venezuela

2009-03-20T13:52:00.003-07:00

An arrest warrant was requested for Maracaibo Mayor Manuel Rosales. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez had previously threatened to wipe his rival from the political map. Manuel Rosales, who stood against Chávez in the December 2006 presidential election, attributed the arrest warrant to 'an order from Chávez' and said he would fight it on all fronts.
REINALDO D'SANTIAGO / AP

CARACAS -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez took a big step closer Thursday to his stated goal of putting his former rival for the presidency, Manuel Rosales, behind bars.

A prosecutor in the western border state of Zulia said she would request an arrest warrant for Rosales, the former state governor, who in November was elected mayor of Maracaibo, the state capital. The charge is ``illicit enrichment.''

Rosales, who stood against Chávez in the December 2006 presidential election, winning just less than 40 percent of the vote, attributed the arrest warrant to ''an order from Chávez'' and said he would fight it on all fronts.

In December, Chávez announced that he was ''determined to put Manuel Rosales in jail.'' Before the November election, he had threatened to launch ''a military plan'' against Rosales if he won. He has also threatened to ``wipe [Rosales] from the political map.''

INFAMOUS DECREE

Rosales, 56, was governor of Zulia from 2000 to 2008. In April 2002, he signed the infamous decree issued by the de facto president, Pedro Carmona, dissolving all branches of government but the executive, after Chávez was briefly ousted in an ultimately frustrated coup. The Venezuelan leader has never forgiven him for what he considers an act of treachery.

The arrest order now goes to a judge for a hearing within the next three weeks. If convicted, Rosales could face between three and 10 years in jail.

The specific charge, first leveled in 2004, is that Rosales failed to account for $66,000 in income, which the mayor says came primarily from his private activities as a rancher and was declared to the tax authorities.

It is just one of a number of accusations against him that have been raised, or revived, since Chávez warned three months ago that he was determined to jail him. In December, legislators in the national assembly, which is dominated by Chávez supporters, determined that the mayor was ''politically responsible'' for irregularities in the state lottery.

Pro-Chávez legislator Mario Isea has accused Rosales of having $11 million invested in several companies in Miami, supposedly the product of illicit enrichment.

Although the courts and the prosecution service are nominally independent from the executive, in practice they have a record of doing the president's bidding.

Last year, the New York-based watchdog Human Rights Watch said Chávez had, ''effectively neutralized the judiciary as an independent branch of government'' -- a charge emphatically denied by the government, which accuses the organization of anti-Chávez bias.

RISKY GAMBLE

Political commentator Fausto Masó attributed the threat against Rosales to a desire on Chávez's part to ''inspire fear.'' But he added that the gamble was a risky one.

''Rosales isn't going to leave the country,'' Masó told The Miami Herald. ``And this could cause trouble in Zulia.''

Already, the opposition-run state, which has a history of resistance to central-government control, is up in arms over Chávez's decision this week to send troops to seize ports and airports across the country that for the past 20 years have been run by state authorities.

The move, which the opposition considers a blatant violation of the 1999 constitution, has provoked a strong reaction from opposition mayors and governors, who on Wednesday announced a united front in defense of the constitution and a plan for mass rallies.

''For the first time, we're seeing the [opposition] mayors and governors united,'' Masó said.

``And the tone of their speeches is much more aggressive now.''

LABOR ISSUES

Chávez has problems on other fronts, too, notably a growing number of labor disputes, affecting sectors of the economy as diverse as the industrial belt in the southeastern state of Bolívar to the hospitals and the Caracas metro.

Last week, 14 labor organizations from both sides of the political divide came together to form a Labor Union Solidarity Movement in response to verbal attacks on the unions by the president.

In the past, Chávez has shown a tendency to react to difficult circumstances by provoking conflict. It was this that almost proved his undoing in April 2002. But Masó points out that he sometimes retreats.

''Up to now, when he faces real difficulties, he backs down,'' Masó said.