tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66983075463339622332024-03-05T12:00:56.839-06:00StJacques Online: A Freedom BlogPresents a combination of original bloggings, reviews of others in the blogosphere, news articles, original translations, and other information relevant to the threats to freedom and democracy in the world today, with a special emphasis on current events in Latin America.StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-15916639530989223412010-03-18T22:33:00.009-05:002010-03-19T05:09:17.361-05:00Solidarity with Cuban Political Prisoners ... NOW! <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJO1TiL6-4652vy3Cmua6xhlz98NEhMnhhz-_cc3s6okgtXDz0nkDWxq1dRZ_cut5JIQJrisZtUiAlW9CycElw7Pb53gAtj3G4OjLNTmfJWCwe1U3G1OsXzUwq_FRo6v1aBn2Rw1xcOo/s1600-r/Solidarity_Now.jpg" width="400" height="464" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr></table><br />This is one of the easiest calls I will ever have to make as a Freedom Blogger.<br /><br />Val Prieto at <a href="http://babalublog.com/2010/03/put-your-freedom-to-work/" target="_blank">Babalú</a> has challenged every blogger who wishes to demonstrate that he or she truly cares about human freedom and the just rights which should be accorded to all human beings to post this image on their sites to make a statement expressing their support for these rights and to call for solidarity with Cuba's political prisoners. So what am I to do?<br /><br />As I said it is a no-brainer.<br /><br />I also want to post a video that Val has included in his post which drives home the reality of the current struggle for human rights in Cuba as waged by the Cubans themselves. It is powerful, especially in the aftermath of the recent death of <a href="http://marcmasferrer.typepad.com/uncommon_sense/2010/02/orlando-zapata-tamayo-dies-ozt-cuba.html" target="_blank">Orlando Zapata Tamayo</a>, who we should all honor as one of the truest heroes of freedom ever to breath air on planet earth. Orlando <strike>died from a hunger strike</strike> was killed by the Castro regime for his insistence upon an uncompromising stance on human freedom as defined by, well, freedom itself. This gets most closely to true freedom of expression. You will also see former Cuban political prisoner Guillermo Fariñas, who is well into his own hunger strike as he follows Orlando Zapata Tamayo, interviewed in the video clip below, which is narrated in English and contains subtitles where appropriate.<br /><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center"><tr><td><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2POhPDMBQno&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2POhPDMBQno&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></td></tr></table><br /><br />I will post an update to this blog entry tomorrow, when I return with a summary of some recent activity in the blogosphere on the issue of Cuba's political prisoners, which will contain some useful links to help those of you who may not have been paying close attention to catch up quickly.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-55816416811125170482010-03-17T20:37:00.002-05:002010-03-17T20:45:23.125-05:00The Psychology of Fear in Chavez's Venezuela <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTFbbFG9VoL6K_jQ99Md-8-_m-3hGSzjnnz489QitGoYRgj3qPUF8X59LLqKbRKIg2s_PHLHGhuIs7kuvZCtmC3VM7sutuoEv_orxjZQh7_dtuYVu5jaQfcwgwWpzHSghB8KPyuQtFaY/s1600-r/LuisUzcategui.gif" width="400" height="285" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Venezuelan Psychologist Dr. Luis José Uzcátegui</td></tr></table><br />On numerous occasions over the past few years I have either written into my original blog entries or, perhaps more frequently, included within comments I enter on other blogging sites, my observations on the personal psychological implications of Hugo Chavez's behavior or the larger social psychological context within which he has operated. Practicing armchair psychoanalysis is a sometimes risky endeavor in which most of us engage at one time or another and I have done it so many times when addressing Chavez's aberrant conduct that I actually worry about my own objectivity. The man is a true head case if ever there was one but; well, there I go again, leaning on my armchair.<br /><br />Today I am going to address my lack of psychological training and do what the situation obviously requires; bring a qualified professional to do the job for me. And I am very pleased to say that I have definitely found the man for the task at hand.<br /><br />Dr. Luis Jose Uzcategui is a Venezuelan Psychiatrist and Anthropologist with a <a href="http://jlasesoria.com/grupoap/lju.htm" target="_blank">distinguished personal biography</a>. He has studied at the Universities of Pittsburgh and Washington here in the United States, did his early work in Clinical Psychiatry, and went on to specialize in Emotional Models in Venezuela. He has published numerous professional articles, as well as two books, one of which is a psychological study of Hugo Chavez entitled, by way of translation, <i>Chavez. Wizard of Emotions. Psychosocial Analysis of a Political Phenomenon</i>. Among many other professional credits on his résumé, Dr. Uzcategui is a member of the World Psychiatric Association and Director of Venezuela's Francisco Herrera Luque Foundation.<br /><br />What follows this brief introduction is a translation of an article published originally in Venezuela's <i>Revista Zeta</i> magazine, but which you can now find on the web in its original Spanish on the site of <a href="http://citizennewsagency.com/2010/02/15/un-pais-invadido-de-inestabilidad-mental/" target="_blank">CitizenNewsAgency.com</a>. It contains an interview conducted by Venezuelan journalist Aida Gutierrez with Dr. Uzcategui on the occasion of a recent discourse he gave on the subject of fear in Venezuela.<br /><br />By way of abstracting Dr. Uzcategui's presentation, he offers a comprehensive model that encompasses the social, historical, political, and even physical aspects of emotional fear as it used in Venezuela today, with special reference to Hugo Chavez's individual manipulation of Venezuelan society both through his own understanding of how to use fear to his political advantage as well as those aspects of his personal psychological profile which define the reasons for his behavior. Dr. Uzcategui uses a term of professional art to qualify Venezuela today as a "Fearocracy," (my translation of the Spanish <i>Miedocracia</i>) which defines the all encompassing nature of the use and abuse of fear in Venezuela today. It is exactly the type of systematic thinking presented by someone with the professional training and experience we need.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-family:Georgia,Sans Serif"><tr><td align="center" width="575" style="font-weight:bold">TRANSLATION:<br/>"<a href="http://citizennewsagency.com/2010/02/15/un-pais-invadido-de-inestabilidad-mental/" target="_blank">A Country Overwhelmed by Mental Instability</a>"<br/>By Aida Gutierrez<br/>Interview with Luis José Uzcategui<br/><i>Revista Zeta</i> (Venezuela)<br/>February 12, 2010, No. 1743<br/></td></tr><tr><td width="575" style="font-weight:normal;padding:5px;border-style:none">February 15, 2010<br />Published by Citizen News Agency<br />FEATURE ARTICLE<br />Aida Gutierrez <br />02/15/2010 – Venezuela<br /><br /><i>Psychiatrist Jose Luis Uzcategui, a specialist in emotional psychology, concludes that in today's circumstances no one in Venezuela may be mentally stable. He actually defines the current government as a form of "Fearocracy."</i><br /><br />"This is a country where no one can be mentally stable. This is a country that is totally overwhelmed by catastrophic dimensions of fear. This is a society that is experiencing the worst epidemic of fear that it has known in its contemporary history," thus assured Luis Jose Uzcategui, a psychiatrist specializing in emotional and anthropological psychology.<br /><br />Uzcategui is a member of the World Psychiatric Association and Director of the Francisco Herrera Luque Foundation, where he spoke to a conference on the subject of "Fearocracy." At this opportunity Zeta exclusively interviews the scholar and expert on fear in Venezuela.<br /><br />"This country is the most significant form of Fearocracy there is in the world today. Venezuela is a 100% Fearocracy."<br /><br />According to Dr. Uzcategui, in a Fearocracy one individual uses fear to assault society. <br /><br />"Fear,” he explains, "is the first emotion of developed man; it is an instinctive expression, necessary for his survival. Well-utilized fear is wonderfully useful because it allows us to be more careful and more cautious."<br /><br />"When fear evolved it became mental constructs such as respect, consideration, esteem, appreciation, justice, the application of laws, which is what we do not have here, that is the positive side of fear."<br /><br />"The Venezuelan reality is very chaotic; they have implemented a system here in which, inclusive of our institutions, we are conditioned to fear generated by a single power: the executive. Do what he says or he will use fear ruthlessly to dismiss you quickly."<br /><br />"Institutions are overcome through fear, it takes over society, the economy, organizations; it overtakes absolutely everything that is molded as a social organization, even religions are overtaken."<br /><br />The psychological specialist recognizes other reasons why a Fearocracy has settled in place in Venezuela. "This is a society that had created many forms of dependency from the cultural point of view, thanks to oil. We became thinking beings totally linked to a unitarian model of production and, in turn, to a unitarian model of ideas."<br /><br />"We find that type of behavior of the individual we consider 'So Awesome!' who is basically dependent, foolish, dull, who does not know why he is that way; he is also that dependent type of ‘shameless’ rogue, who only takes advantage of circumstances; he is the dependent type who questions everything, irritable, it is among those showing these characteristics that we find the majority of the ni-nis."<br /><br />"Also,” he goes on, "there is another dependent type, very dangerous, who is almost mentally retarded, who does not know why he exists and how he exists and who lives adrift of opportunity."<br /><br />According to the psychiatrist, the consequences of Fearocracy are obvious. "I told you that this was a country where there is anxiety, depression, sadness, never before has mental health been beaten to the ground like this. What we have here is an emotional survival; we must see that this is a country that has lived 11 years under media torture, that is living a shipwreck.<br /><br />"<i>Doctor, Venezuelans also fear crime and it looks as though the government is not bothered by it as it does nothing to prevent it.</i>"<br /><br />“Remember that in a Fearocracy like the Venezuelan model, the existence of a complete social disequilibrium is in the regime's interest.”<br /><br />“If you are defining this as a totalitarian system, I understand that in such regimes there is no crime, as in Cuba for example.”<br /><br />“Cuba is on the model of the 50s. Ramiro Valdes, who just arrived, is called the ‘Pool of Blood.’ We in Venezuela have another type of totalitarianism, which is the ‘Pool of Lies.’ There in Cuba it was a valid name, because there was such barbarism, physical death. Here we are given to another cruel barbarism, which is the destruction of Venezuelan mental health. Over there they liquidate people physically, here they liquidate them emotionally.”<br /><br />Doctor Uzcategui made reference to other models of Fearocracy such as the Pinochet dictatorship and that of Perez Jimenez.<br /><br />“These are models of Fearocracy,” he explains, “in which the agent of fear is well circumscribed by a single condition: so long as you do not go beyond a certain limit, you can live in a country with some dimensions of stability, for example: the economy and public safety that were known under these right-wing governments, as we call them.”<br /><br />“But in the form we have, it is so much chaos that it is prudent for this model to have agents existing as fomenters of Fearocracy everywhere. And what is more pertinent than knowing we can die, when death is the most symbolic means of gene expression that humanity has had in its history, we fear nothing more than death.”<br /><br />“<i>Do we have a government that is afraid?</i>”<br /><br />"In order to be a generator of fear, whether it be as a group, a collective, a community, there is an indispensable precondition, it is necessary for the individual to feel very afraid."<br /><br />"I cannot produce fear in others if I am not afraid, if I am even tempered, if I am courageous and safe. Only those who fear most can produce fear," he maintains.<br /><br />“Hitler played a shamanist game, he believed in many imaginative and illusory dimensions, and there came a moment when it fell apart, but it had the potential to support many of his atrocities. In our reality, the government's great horror is that it will be thrown out of the show, out of sight.” <br /><br />“He needs the show because he has a psychological structure that is histrionic, which needs to call attention to itself, to be in the spectacle, to be the central attraction. At the moment when he is not occupying that position he feels very bad, he suffers, he has great pains, he is depressed.”<br /><br />“And the way to be in the show is taking control of the communications media, so that no one imposes limits upon you, so that institutions do not control you and the public is submissive. And therefore, the only way to impose the spectacle that is the show is through fear.”<br /><br />“<i>Is the arrival of Ramiro Valdes to instill more fear?</i>”<br /><br />“Here there are two things evident in the presence of this individual, to give support for the great fear which the president has because he feels that he needs a very "powerful" agent to generate great fear. And the other dimension is that he is looking to create a cruel situation that does not permit the coming elections in September to proceed.”<br /><br /><b>The students use creative fear</b><br /><br />“But how nice it is,” Uzcategui says, “to see what is happening today in Venezuela, the students who have not fallen into the trap carrying the banner. And they have been abused, they have been killed but nevertheless--what are these boys doing?--they are questioning and responding--thinking.” <br /><br />“Spurred on by creative fear, generating strategies, fomenting resolute anger, while on the government's side there is an anarchy of thought.” <br /><br />“The students are capable, in that most difficult dimension which man has in adversity, of producing intelligent responses. That is the great lesson for all the country, for all the leaders, for all society, this is the horizon, this is the way.”<br /><br />"What arises in the heart of every Venezuelan when he sees these boys?," Doctor Uzcategui asks. "’God wants nothing to happen to them’ this is a productive fear.“ Doctor Uzcategui warns that with Ramiro Valdes here what is coming is worse, catastrophic fear is on the rise but, intelligent fear is also rising.<br /><br />“Students have always been the emerging part of society. And what we are seeing here is the tip of the iceberg, which tells us ‘all is not lost.’"<br /><br />“This is a president who thinks upside down and anyone who is under this influence cannot produce anything that stimulates the logical faculties, all he can do is buy people. Reason is a very elaborate sequence of thought, when it is turned upside down it produces phenomena such as we have in Venezuela.”<br /><br />“<i>In what manner can fear sicken an individual?</i>”<br /><br />“The damage is tremendous, from the psychological point of view, all the disorders of anxiety and panic. Free floating anxiety which is walking about irritably nervous, apprehensive, not knowing what is going to happen. We have thousands of people committed with this disorder. Also fears which foment sadness, depression, the sensation of failure, pessimism; that is the depressive dimension.”<br /><br />“Afterwards,” he continues, “there are those fears that stimulate psychosomatic illness in all its expressions; cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems.”<br /><br />“Fear is also an agent of conflict in social relations, in relations between couples, within families. The terror of economic chaos. Fear has become the principal pathogenic agent that Venezuela could possibly have at this moment, worse than Aids.” <br /><br />“In contrast with other epidemics in which the number of cases can be known, with fear it is impossible to have control when monitoring them, there is no epidemiological instrument that can say much about morbidity or mortality.” <br /><br />“Fear kills!,” the psychiatrist warns, “How many people have died because their immunological systems were altered, of cancer, of degenerative diseases as a consequence of undergoing the kind of media torture such as we have!”<br /><br />“The most unassuming man feels ashamed when facing mockery. This is a totally shamed and congested society. Many sexual dysfunctions are also consequences of fear. Who can have sex comfortably when knowing they are in a precarious circumstance from the social point of view, under the circumstances we are living?”<br /><br />“<i>What can one do to catalyze this fear?</i>”<br /><br />“We can say resolutely or therapeutically that we know that dimensions of creative fear and resolute anger exist. These emotions are not wasted. To put it best, if I am afraid, how can I form a more intelligent response? Starting to utilize the tools of intelligence to give creative value to fear, introspection, reflection, beginning within ourselves and afterwards locating the fear of outsiders, locating the fear and the agents who generate fear.”<br /><br />“There is also the need to stimulate anger, there are people who do not feel anger and if they must do it, they do feel it. Anger can be the best instrument for producing intelligent thinking. Just watch the students and copy them.”<br /><br />“In a healthy society fear is intelligently transformed into social norms, into institutions, into social organizations, and into respect. We must create a society with the ability to maintain its balance on the basis of which fear becomes a productive fact,” Uzcategui recommends.<br /><br /><b>The pillars of Venezuelan Fearocracy</b><br /><br />“The first pillar,” Dr. Uzcategui points out, “is a person who utilizes the most negative type of fear and in our country that is the ruler. He becomes an individual who claims to have rights over society, its past, its present and its future.”<br /><br />“When there is someone in society who controls my temporal space it is atrocious. Qualifying or disqualifying my past as being good or bad; but not only that, also without giving me freedom in my present, putting me in scenes that are not mine to play, this is catastrophic.”<br /><br />“Another pillar of creating fear of the current ruler is under a very morbid form of show, I say morbid,” he clarifies, “because it is very sick, using the communications media to send a very distorted message. For example; he makes fun of murder, he makes fun of crime, he jokes that there is no water, he jokes that there is no electricity, he jokes about social instability, he jokes that people are afraid. Under this style of mockery, cynicism, joking, rough demeanment, humiliation, he stamps on those who are thinking at all levels.”<br /><br />“The third pillar of creating fear is through the purchase of the conscience, through the crumb, the blackmail of the human condition.”<br /><br />“So,” he specifies, “these three aspects of fear have terrified the country, they specifically form a presentation of a messianic ruler, who can do what he pleases with the fates of men, a form of communicating terror and totally morbid fear.”<br /><br />The psychiatrist relates that the other way of communicating fear is very obvious; it is rudeness, aggression, insult, demeanment, threatening with weapons, and also the clothing that is worn.<br /><br />“It should be clarified,” Uzcategui said, “that in Venezuela the ruler does the most to feed fear. He approaches in sick and morbid illusion, which is a total distortion of the opportunities that all society deserves. You are going to have such and such if you follow me, you can achieve this if you follow me. It is a most dangerous strategy, because he has not done anything in particular.”</td></tr></table><br />---------------------------------------<br /><br />I would also like to extend a message of personal thanks to Aida Gutierrez, who also conducted the interview with Victor Poleo I translated for <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/venezuelan-electrical-power-crisis-part.html" target="_blank">an earlier blog entry</a> on Venezuela's electrical crisis. Aida was kind enough to contact me following that post and she introduced me to this article as well, for which I am grateful.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-43704249583728786772010-03-11T02:05:00.006-06:002010-03-18T16:16:41.864-05:00Zapatero al rescate! Preserving the Castro-Chavez-Evo Axis <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw0cfIvrRU0w5ryy8RoQdOTHxunZ_jhdo8phPbLGIRlp__B51WfyvwQjjOiCw8U_ffT9ElMVxhQuxwVOT80F7tXm-sSOLCnw0ZIrVb9hrLT6BAPzXzyxOGuIdsBAtqq9JRVi0KRU8lxYR-/s1600-r/Zapatero.jpg" width="380" height="418" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero</td></tr></table><br /><br /><i>Zapatero Comes to the Rescue of Chavez and Castro</i><br /><br />On Saturday Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero came to the rescue of Hugo Chavez, not only saving the Venezuelan president from being called to answer for his regime's collaboration with the Basque terrorist ETA and the Colombian FARC, but also pulling the rug out from underneath his country's own <i>Audiencia Nacional</i> (National Court), which <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704754604575095291011683812.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_World" target="_blank">issued an indictment</a> for six ETA and seven FARC members earlier this week. What did he do? Well, in the ultimate act of spin control, he qualified the recent indictment as a mere "<a href="http://www.europapress.es/nacional/noticia-rajoy-reprocha-zapatero-papel-diplomacia-espanola-venezuela-20100307152945.html" target="_blank">hypothesis</a>" of Venezuela's relationship with the ETA and the FARC and, after changing the demand for an "explanation" to a simple request for "information," the Spanish government joined with that of Chavez to issue <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Espana/Venezuela/reafirman/lucha/ETA/elpepuesp/20100306elpepunac_2/Tes" target="_blank">a joint statement</a> "reaffirming their fight against the ETA," effectively setting the matter aside for Chavez. It is an absolutely perfidious development which, had we paid closer attention, should have been expected all along, as there were definitely signs of Zapatero's moral degradation and insensitivity to democratic and human rights long before this ultimate act of policy pursued on behalf of tyranny, not to mention the abject betrayal of his country's own legal system.<br /><br />In addition to his rallying to the aid of Chavez, there is also the matter of Zapatero's current role within the activism of the European Left, who have <a href="http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=353525&CategoryId=14510" target="_blank">successfully protected the Castro regime</a> against European Union sanction for overt human rights violations, which the recent death of Cuban dissident and political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo has brought to the forefront of discussion. Zapatero is now playing an absolutely sinister role in European and world politics, that of Defender of the Socialist Faithful, regardless of the tragic consequences for democratic and human rights abroad, as well as the undermining of both the legal institutions of his own country and the safety of the Spanish people from ETA terrorism.<br /><br /><i>Zapatero's Political Profile: A Deceitful Ideologue Bent on Cultural Warfare</i><br /><br />Regardless of one's opinion of Zapatero, and I will make clear that I hold him in very low esteem, his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Luis_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Zapatero" target="_blank">personal history is a cloudy one</a> which, when told, always excites reaction from either his supporters or opponents, as the case may be, who insist that their alternative is the proper version. But I think it would be accurate to say that throughout his political career, he has appeared much more ideologically oriented as an activist among Spanish and European Socialists than when presenting himself politically to the Spanish people. He has even been accused by the opposing <i>Partido Popular</i> (Spanish People's Party or PP) of stealing some of their ideas, such as the Anti-Terrorist Freedom Pact of December, 2000, which was largely aimed at isolating Basque terrorists. By supporting it as one of the earliest initiatives of his tenure as leader of Spain's Socialist Party (PSOE), Zapatero cast himself before the Spanish public as a moderate; a man who wished to develop a less confrontational and threatening profile for Spanish Socialists. He even referred to his personal style as <i>Oposición Tranquila</i> (Calm Opposition), which gave him a public image that placed him within what most would consider the political mainstream.<br /><br />Zapatero's opponents in the PP never viewed him as a mainstream politician, but as the issues around which they contested his policy initiatives during his tenure as Prime Minister demonstrate, their focus was clearly directed more to confrontations on cultural values than upon economic, fiscal, and foreign policy issues; which did not serve the PP well because Zapatero's fiscal and economic policies have been a disaster for Spain. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703444804575070911675934080.html" target="_blank">Currently the country faces</a> double digit unemployment, a budget deficit of 11.4% of GDP, and has been ordered by the EU to implement an austerity plan that must bring its deficit down to 3% of GDP by 2013. Zapatero remarkably claims that these targets will be met even though social spending, research and development funding, sustainable economy funds, and development aid all will remain unaffected by impending budget cuts.<br /><br />When one considers that Spain is only one notch above Greece in the EU's mandated austerity program, it becomes difficult to understand how Zapatero and the PSOE have remained in power these past six years. The answer is that the PP and other opposition groups in Spain spent their collective effort at resisting Zapatero and the PSOE on cultural issues. During Zapatero's Prime Ministry the left successfully passed initiatives recognizing same sex marriage, expanded adoption rights for gay couples, legal recognition of transsexual identity, and expanded access to abortion services; all of which angered the traditional Catholic right within Spain and provoked no small amount of outrage within their political activism. And at the same time, Spain has emerged as the center for the cultural left within Europe, which only aggravated Zapatero's opponents further. But a coherent and cohesive critique of his fiscal and economic policies has never emerged within Spanish politics, much to the discredit of the PP.<br /><br />Finally; it must be mentioned that Zapatero also negotiated--<a href="http://www.marthacolmenares.com/2008/01/17/este-video-demuestra-lo-peligroso-que-es-zapatero/" target="_blank">you can forget any political spin which suggests otherwise</a>--with the Basque ETA terrorist organization, which early into his administration appeared to some to suggest the promise of peace. In March, 2006 the ETA supposedly declared a ceasefire that was rendered meaningless the following year with a bomb attack at Madrid's main airport. Zapatero's ETA policy is boldly two-faced. He consistently presents a public front of pursuing a hard line against the Basque terrorists, while <a href="http://www.marthacolmenares.com/category/anti-zp-2/eta/page/2/" target="_blank">again and again news surfaces of direct contacts</a> with the organization maintained between his government, the PSOE, and other supporters. It has been one of the most dangerous policy initiatives of his administration, because it does have the potential to unite the Spanish people against him. Yet somehow Zapatero has always managed to defuse the critique of his ETA associations by appearing credible in his public pronouncements of getting tough with the organization, however much at odds with his policies this stance has been in fact. <br /><br />In short, Zapatero is a successful politician who understands how to say publicly what people want to hear while pursuing policy initiatives that produce the opposite of what he promises. He nonetheless succeeds politically by uniting his supporters around an agenda that is ideologically oriented towards advancing cultural conflict within Spain on values issues, which also gives him credibility and additional support from within the international left, while simultaneously rendering his opposition ineffective as they exhaust themselves in cultural warfare, always failing to hold him accountable for his mismanagement of the country's economy and government. Saying one thing, doing another, and avoiding the consequences through his manipulation of his opponents and his obeisance to the ideological whims of his supporters, that is the Zapatero style. You know--a liar. <br /><br /><i>Zapatero and the Latin American Left</i><br /><br />As Prime Minister Zapatero has a record of supporting Latin American leftist regimes. His attitudes towards their repeated violations of human rights and democratic freedoms do not match well with those of most of the developed world in either the western hemisphere or within the European Union. But again, he has managed to mute criticism of his policies by effectively paying lip service to ideals which he either does not espouse or defines in terms quite differently than others.<br /><br />Since first entering office in 2004 Zapatero has worked consistently to foster a leadership role for Spain among the Spanish and Portugese speaking nations of "Ibero-America." Remaining true to his Socialist political affiliation, he has especially sought to make himself into a bridge assisting the integration of Castroite Cuba and other marginalized left-leaning governments, such as Venezuela and Bolivia, into the international community. The principal foreign policy framework he has utilized to manage these associations has been the <a href="http://www.segib.com/" target="_blank">Ibero-American Summit</a>. Traditionally this has been a largely cultural and economic gathering of Latin American nations with Spain and Portugal that never amounted to much. But it has given Zapatero an organizational mechanism for economic outreach to the left in Latin America through its proposals for debt forgiveness and restructuring via the Ibero-American Inter-Development Bank, always a friend to economically-challenged leftist regimes. In their own turn, they have returned the favors in kind through the negotiation of commercial arrangements with Spanish business enterprise.<br /><br />Rehabilitating the <i>image</i> of Castroite Cuba--as opposed to effecting real change within the country--was one of the first goals of Zapatero's Latin American policy. He was unsuccessful in his <a href="http://www.euronews.net/2005/10/14/castro-again-absent-from-ibero-american-summit/" target="_blank">attempt to arrange Fidel Castro's attendance</a> at the 2005 Ibero-American Summit, perhaps because the gathering spent a great deal of its effort on promoting the right of free migration, which is not a topic that would appeal to Fidel. But in 2008 Zapatero was successful in lobbying the European Union to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/20/cuba.eu" target="_blank">repeal the 2003 sanctions</a> it imposed on Cuba following one of Castro's many crackdowns on dissidents. And he followed up that success just this week when, using his influence as temporary President of the EU parliament, he prevented the imposition of new sanctions as a response to the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo in a Cuban jail, limiting the action to a <a href="http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/2010/03/eu-parliament-condemns-cuba.html" target="_blank">near useless declaration of indignation</a>.<br /><br />So what are we to think of Zapatero's support for Castro and his Cuban regime? Well, it certainly is not economically motivated. Though exact figures are not easily available, Spain agreed to <a href="http://havanajournal.com/business/entry/spain-rewards-cuba-with-debt-forgiveness-and-visit-by-prime-minister-zapate/" target="_blank">forgive a good portion of Cuba's multi-hundred million dollar debt</a> in 2008 and Cuba has not been a productive trading partner with Spain, or anyone else for that matter<br /><br /><i>The Relationship with Venezuela: Selling the Spanish Soul</i><br /><br />Though it is difficult to qualify and rank Zapatero's recent outrages, his rescue of Hugo Chavez from the indictment of the Spanish National Court would appear to be the most serious, given his obligations as Prime Minister to uphold Spanish law and support the country's institutions, not to mention Spain's stature within the international community, which can only have been damaged by the conflicting signals now being sent abroad. The most important immediate consequence of the new "cooperative" (this sticks in my throat) approach to dealing with the ETA and the FARC that has been jointly announced in Caracas and Madrid is that there will be no arrests, nor any prosecution of the individuals named in Judge Velasco's <i>auto</i>. There are obviously domestic political consequences within Spanish politics, but these may not be so negative as one might at first assume, since Zapatero has proven himself quite deft at angering the PP and then letting them become their own worst enemies as they splinter into fragments and fail to coalesce around a unified opposition stance. All we are really left to ask ourselves is whether Zapatero's primary motivation for saving Chavez was ideological and political, as is clearly the case with Cuba, or economic, which is a new factor to consider with respect to Spain's relationship with Venezuela. <br /><br />The economic ties Zapatero has helped forge with Venezuela are particularly important to Spain and especially so over the past couple of years. Spanish investment in Venezuela has been huge, counting such enterprises as <a href="http://www.guia.com.ve/noti/40332/corralito-financiero-atrapa-a-telefonica-en-venezuela-retenida-repatriacion-de-1000-millones-de-euros" target="_blank">Telefónica Venezuela</a> (over $2 Billion U.S.), Spanish oil developer Repsol YPF's stake in <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Venezuela/Oil.html" target="_blank">developing the Orinoco oil fields in Carabobo</a>, which give the company proven reserves of 75 billion barrels of heavy crude, the Banco Bibao Vizcaya Argentario of Madrid's <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-91916103.html" target="_blank">55% share in Venezuela's Banco Provincial</a>, and Spanish energy conglomerates Iberdrola and Elecnor's $2 Billion (U.S.) <a href="http://www.iberdrola.es/webibd/corporativa/iberdrola?IDPAG=ENMODULOPRENSA&URLPAG=/gc/prod/en/comunicacion/notasprensa/090729_NP_02_IING_CCVenezuela.html" target="_blank">contract to build combined cycle electrical power plants</a> in Venezuela's Sucre state. There have also been weapons sales to Venezuela and more preceding these recent arrangements.<br /><br />It can be argued that economics trumps politics and ideology, but in this instance the point is moot. From Zapatero's perspective there is no conflict, all the aforementioned factors influence his actions in the same direction; saving Chavez and protecting Spanish investments and jobs all go hand in hand.<br /><br />One might suggest that there is a moral conflict for Zapatero, in that undermining his country's system of justice and even placing the Spanish people at greater risk from Basque terrorism would mitigate against his pro-Chavez policy in this instance, but I would counter that this moral conflict does not exist. <br /><br />Moral conflicts are only for virtuous men. That excludes José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br />-----------------------------------------------<br /><br />Update: March 18, 2010, 4:10 p.m. I have removed a quote and a paragraph from my original entry regarding a "letter" published in the Spanish newspaper <i>El Mundo</i> on April 10, 2007, supposedly sent from Zapatero to Fidel Castro. While I cannot present any information which says that the letter is not genuine, nor has any been presented to me, and even though the author of the article in which it was published, Luis Maria Anson, has never stated that it was anything but genuine, I am taking the advice of <a href="http://teaandpolitics.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Tea and Politics</a> blogger Claudia Al, that I should not treat the letter as an historical document. Whether the letter is genuine or not, I am certain that Claudia would not act to deceive me, much less protect Zapatero. <i>StJ</i><br/> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-61280491833465777582010-03-06T21:42:00.013-06:002010-03-08T12:16:22.243-06:00Blog Link: A Projection on the Guri Dam Level at The Devil's Excrement <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center" style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13pt;padding-bottom:3px">January, 2009</td><td align="center" style="font-weight:bold;font-size:13pt;padding-bottom:3px">December, 2009</td></tr><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7KAcyIKy-AZhJH0P8lClxUEi4Rh641JXriXcNw7qDWfuG2IvIN5Z5yjW7HmmdaRG-86uQkdBJr4ZdDN1yy48BmMu0z4Xj69FF_zj5fXrABgGUSZ67EIm8jYLSXHZBOH-X8wp4qaoMJrd/s400/Guri1.bmp" width="250" height="245" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIqHa-9WB6GFZbtN6qPVkSwVnedI2NglvnkU7UmsuLwZiPdYmwdSdYY7SV4yLjWHremPbPEqpW5CKAdeyyfEQ4H4Xjduz4dht0BkCUvVRHLAeorLNXJOOjzoVQXElVXXklghyO5qSmMXRJ/s400/Guri2.bmp" width="250" height="245" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" align="center" style="padding-top:3px">Comparison of Water Levels at Guri I Dam between January and December, 2009<br/>Red Arrow on December Image Indicates January's Water Level </td></tr></table><br /><br />Miguel Octavio at <a href="http://devilsexcrement.com/" target="_blank">The Devil's Excrement</a> has an excellent post up today in which he brings an articulate use of quantitative analysis based upon the historical data of Guri's water levels matched against current trends in an attempt to determine whether the level of water in the Guri Dam reservoir, and it is Guri I he is examining here, will drop below the critical 240 meters level. Miguel's conclusion is that the level will not be reached and that Guri will not have to be shut down.<br /><br />Having a personal background in quantitative analysis as I do, I find Miguel's presentation to be fascinating. I recall other occasions over the past few years when he has applied some very sound number crunching to other issues, especially pertaining to economic analysis, and I have a high degree of faith in both his skill and honesty. I encourage everyone to read his "<a href="http://devilsexcrement.com/2010/03/06/an-attempt-to-answer-whether-the-critical-level-of-the-guri-dam-will-be-reached/#comments" target="_blank">An attempt to answer the question of whether the critical level of the Guri dam will be reached</a>" post, which he published today; Saturday, March 6.<br /><br />By way of reference to my own coverage of the electrical power crisis in Venezuela, I will post the two links to my previous blog entries below:<br /><br /><a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/coming-electrical-power-disaster-in.html" target="_blank">The Coming Electrical Power Disaster in Venezuela</a><br /><br /><a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/venezuelan-electrical-power-crisis-part.html" target="_blank">Venezuelan Electrical Power Crisis, Part II: The Costs of Deprofessionalization and Corruption Under Chavez</a><br /><br />And for the benefit of my readers, I am pleased to announce that my "Coming Electrical Power Disaster" blog entry was published at the <a href="http://www.petroleumworld.com/lag10021901.htm" target="_blank">Petroleum World</a> website, which has generated some interesting commentary via my e-mail. At least someone is reading.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br />------------------------------------------------------------<br />Update, March 8, 12:07 P.M. - After a very lively and interesting discussion, Miguel has published a followup post to his original, "<a href="http://devilsexcrement.com/2010/03/08/some-clarifications-on-the-post-of-when-the-guri-dam-will-reach-the-critical-level/" target="_blank">Some clarifications on the post of when the Guri dam will reach the critical level</a>." Miguel has slightly revised his earlier projection and is admittedly "a little less optimistic" than he was at first. This second post may be more important than the first for its attention to new information he has received. <i>StJ</i><br/><br /> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-54457416681141690122010-03-05T18:35:00.005-06:002010-03-12T02:23:34.883-06:00The "Spanish Indictment" and More: Hugo Chavez's Ties to Basque Terrorists, the FARC, Narcotics Smuggling, etc. <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcNqtbAv0noGUnpnuPSJi47v18rgKQ4ZY7nKqxP8uFrc-GSy1Pt-Vv0to5Xe9nQ1bAZKKxcOxXTBJlRns70z6ZoYZqz2OQ43r0PetBo3TGp-JAhVVfvb_WhNtklrGfzjLpSzyLQeHiu3Rz/s400/EloyVelasco.jpg" width="262" height="394" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Spanish Judge Eloy Velasco, <i>left</i></td></tr></table><br />I want to begin by posting an acknowledgement to Venezuelan blogger <a href="http://pmbcomments.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Pedro Burelli</a>, who has brought together seven "exhibits" that are all currently in the news regarding Hugo Chavez and his numerous connections to international terrorist and narcotics smuggling operations in a post published Tuesday in both English and Spanish, <a href="http://pmbcomments.blogspot.com/2010/03/mar-0110-exposing-hugo-chavez.html" target="_blank">Exposing Hugo Chavez</a>. Pedro's compilation of these issues presents a remarkably compelling accumulation of seven related controversial news items now at hand, three of which were developed in an <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704754604575095291011683812.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_World" target="_blank">indictment issued</a> by Spanish National Court (<i>Audiencia Nacional</i>) Judge Eloy Velasco of six ETA (Basque Terrorist) and seven Colombian FARC members for a variety of offenses, including the planning of two separate attempts to assassinate two Colombian presidents, a third plot to assassinate Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar, weapons and bomb-making support for terrorist attacks, and large scale drug smuggling operations. The indictment also specifically cited Hugo Chavez's government for facilitating much of this nefarious activity and the Spanish government has requested an explanation from Venezuela. And even beyond all this there is also a developing international effort in which the U.S. government is now involved to bring Venezuela into the limelight for human rights violations following the recent release of the OAS's joint Inter-American Committee on Human Rights (IACHR) <a href="http://www.cidh.oas.org/pdf%20files/VENEZUELA%202009%20ENG.pdf" target="_blank">Report on Democracy and Human Rights in Venezuela</a>.<br /><br />There is a lot to cover here, but since so much of it derives from the Spanish court's actions, I want to provide some additional commentary on the legal proceeding from the American perspective, because I think the court case brings together several matters which deserve rather close examination.<br /><br /><i>Background to the Indictment: The Veracity of the Documents from the Reyes Laptops</i><br /><br />It has now been two years since the Colombian Army's raid on the FARC encampment just across the Ecuadoran border which netted one of the great intelligence finds of recent years, the laptops of FARC leader Raul Reyes, whose <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/articulo-computadores-de-raul-reyes-no-fueron-manipulados-interpol" target="_blank">authenticity was verified by an Interpol investigation</a>. The Interpol examination of the contents of the laptops that immediately followed was, in and of itself, the topic of some rather muddled, and at times inane, attacks from leftist apologists and propagandists who sought to discount their validity as evidence, perhaps guessing correctly that the international ties to Hugo Chavez and the terror and narcotics trafficking of the FARC would not serve the Bolivarian leader very well. Indeed! Just ask the Spanish National Court what they think of Hugo.<br /><br />But let us set aside the noise surrounding the Reyes laptops for the moment, the fact of the matter is that the National Court of Spain has reviewed Interpol's work and understands that the facticity of the Reyes documents has been proved, and that there is now substantial reason to move on and address the meaning of their content within legal proceedings. This leaves those of us in the western hemisphere to hang our heads in shame as we realize that it took a Spanish court to bring the terrifying implications of Hugo Chavez's misconduct into the light of day. And for anyone who was as angry as me that OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza refused to investigate the documentary content of those laptops; well, just read <a href="http://estaticos.elmundo.es/documentos/2010/03/01/auto_farc_eta.pdf" target="_blank">Eloy Velasco's decision</a> and you will understand. If only George Bush had a pair, we would have pressed an issue that truly would have made the War on Terror something more than a largely cultural conflict played out in the Middle and Near East. Sigh!<br /><br /><i>Velasco's Case: An Opportunity to Demonstrate the Fair Use of the Rome Treaty?</i><br /><br />From the American perspective, there is one additional thing to grasp about the Spanish National Court's actions; they have met the test of "<a href="http://definitions.uslegal.com/l/locus-standi/" target="_blank">Legal Standing</a>" (<i>Locus Standi</i>) as defined within American jurisprudence that is, in the view of most American critics, absent from the Rome Treaty's provisions for taking a case to the international criminal court, and which forms the basis for the greater part of U.S. objections to its ratification. No matter what may come of the legal proceeding Judge Velasco's court has proferred, its foundation in law is rooted in the fact that, not only are many of the ETA suspects Spanish citizens, but several of the crimes mentioned in the indictment occurred on Spanish soil. Others, while planned or plotted in South America, were nonetheless intended for execution in Spain. <a href="http://www.libertaddigital.com/nacional/procesan-a-seis-miembros-de-eta-y-siete-de-las-farc-por-atentar-contra-uribe-1276386006/" target="_blank">These crimes include</a> the unrealized plot of 2003 to assassinate then Colombian President Andres Pastrana and Colombia's Ambassador to Spain Noemi Sanin on Spanish territory, a 2004 plot to assassinate then Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar with surface to air missiles, and more. In both of the aforementioned plots the ETA had the cooperation of FARC leaders Raul Reyes and Ivan Marquez; the latter has resided openly in Venezuela for several years and has enjoyed the company of Hugo Chavez himself publicly.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl51NjGXzVm8tddrXBlku29S2vrTbJVjKOQiW3cNDUj_GAeDoDM9Ou9BsRtgg22uFyU3k0ut5GfXIkBF06B3zZmrddFvMP0veWp7sqoXpmW6NgvWRE0maM1Ib1uzPnfvsKaqKwnOfDXNIp/s400/ivanchavez.jpg" width="408" height="274" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Ivan Marquez of the FARC with Hugo Chavez</td></tr></table><br />If supporters of the Rome Treaty who are critical of the U.S. for its failure to ratify it wanted a test case to demonstrate the utility of the pact while also adhering to the American standard of legal standing, this would be it. But unfortunately, in my opinion, those supporters are not likely to rally to this particular judicial proceeding because they are much more interested in its polemical use in matters such as the Guantanamo Bay prisoners controversy. The Velasco case presents a unique opportunity to establish the basis for amending the Rome Treaty to accommodate American reservations, using the example of sound jurisprudential practice as instructive of a proper use of international criminal proceedings, but which will likely go unsupported. And that is a pure shame, because I believe that if the governments of Europe, who are common signatories to the Rome Treaty, were to support the Spanish Indictment diplomatically, the basis for a common understanding between the U.S. and the international community could be developed to amend the pact and bring in the Americans. But I personally doubt that the governments of Europe and Latin America have the stomach for meaningful action here or elsewhere.<br /><br /><i>The Spanish Indictment</i><br /><br />There are three relevant items that stem from the Spanish court's decision, as Pedro Burelli listed them, and which are worth repeating here:<br /><br /><li style="list-style:disc;"><i>Colombia's Request for an Explanation from Chavez Regarding Separate Assassination Plots Against Two Colombian Presidents</i></li><br /><br />Taken from the <a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/mundo/latinoamerica/pastrana-pide-explicaciones-a-venezuela-por-el-caso-farc-eta-uribe-apunta-prudencia_7325074-1" target="_blank">Bogota newspaper <i>El Tiempo</i></a>, in which former President Andres Pastrana declares that Chavez owes the explanation, while sitting President Alvaro Uribe counsels "prudence," though the Spanish Ambassador to Colombia has been called in for a "followup" to the affair.<br /><br /><li style="list-style:disc;"><i>Cooperation of Venezuelan Government in Facilitating ETA and FARC Collaboration is Evident</i></li><br /><br />From the Spanish newspaper <a href="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Gobierno/venezolano/colaboro/ETA/FARC/juez/Velasco/elpepunac/20100302elpepinac_7/Tes" target="_blank"><i>El Pais</i></a>, we have Judge Velasco's own words in the decision, there was "<u>Venezuelan governmental cooperation</u> in the illicit collaboration between the ETA and the FARC." (Underline emphasis mine).<br /><br /><li style="list-style:disc;"><i>Statement of the Government of Spain Requesting an Explanation from Venezuela</i></li><br /><br />Confirmation of the official request came from Spanish Prime Minister Jorge Luis Zapatero in Germany, as <a href="http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/03/01/espana/1267462312.html" target="_blank">reported in Spain's <i>El Mundo</i> newspaper</a>. "We are awaiting clarification from Venezuela and, according to that explanation, so will the government of Spain act." <br /><br />The above three items, which include the expressed statements of two national governments in matters of foreign affairs and the conclusion of the Spanish National Court, all directly implicate Hugo Chavez's government as both a facilitator and sponsor of terrorist conspiracies against two other nations.<br /><br />But returning to Pedro Burelli's post, there has been other news from the U.S. government over the past nine months which supports the Spanish Indictment, some of which is now worth reviewing.<br /><br /><i>Relevant U.S. Government Complaints About Chavez's Misconduct: July, 2009 - March, 2010</i><br /><br />American government complaints center upon narcotics, support for terrorism, and human rights abuses.<br /><br /><li style="list-style:disc;"><i>U.S. Department of State Links Venezuelan Security Forces to Support of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs)</i></li><br /><br />The State Department's <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/137411.pdf" target="_blank">International Narcotics Strategy Control, Vol I</a> publication of March 1 states that "There is strong evidence that some elements of Venezuela’s security forces directly assist these FTOs (foreign terrorist organizations)." (p. 16).<br /><br /><li style="list-style:disc;"><i>U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) Report of July, 2009 on Venezuelan Provision of Safe Haven and Support for Armed Colombian Groups Engaged in Narcotics Smuggling Raised Again</i></li><br /><br />The <a href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09806.pdf" target="_blank">GAO Report to the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations</a> states that "Venezuela has extended a lifeline to Colombian illegal armed groups by providing significant support and safe haven along the border. As a result, these groups, which traffic in illicit drugs, remain viable threats to Colombian security. A high level of corruption within the Venezuelan government, military, and other law enforcement and security forces contributes to the permissive environment, according to U.S. officials." (p. 2) These conclusions from last year are given new weight by the Spanish Indictment.<br /><br /><li style="list-style:disc;"><i>Senators Richard Lugar and Christopher Dodd Request the OAS to Take Up the IACHR Report on Democracy and Human Rights Violations in Venezuela in Open Session; March 1, 2010</i></li><br /><br />In a <a href="http://dodd.senate.gov/?q=node/5490" target="_blank">joint bi-partisan statement</a> Senators Lugar and Dodd asked the U.S. Mission at the OAS to have the report openly discussed at its Permanent Council stating they (Lugar and Dodd) were "deeply disturbed by some of the [IACHR] report’s observations" especially with respect to its findings on the erosion of an independent judiciary, which has led to "the use of the State’s punitive power in Venezuela to criminalize human rights defenders, judicialize peaceful social protest, and persecute political dissidents through the criminal system."<br /><br />To wrap up the remainder of Pedro Burelli's post, he also mentions the IACHR report itself, cited in paragraph one above, and the <a href="http://www.incb.org/incb/en/annual-report-2009.html" target="_blank">Annual Report of the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board for 2009</a>, which notes that cocaine seized in Africa has in many cases been smuggled through Brazil and Venezuela.<br /><br />As to what will come of all this, my guess is not very much in the short term, because Chavez can still count upon the international support of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador to protect him. Over the past several years this has also included Jose Miguel Insulza, but his stock appears to be falling currently in light of his pursuit of re-election to the OAS Secretary General's job and, thankfully in my opinion, it now appears that he probably will not succeed in this regard, owing primarily to the opposition of the U.S., for numerous reasons which are now evident. But the international calculus in the region is clearly against Chavez, who is becoming a true pariah more and more with each day. That is a process which is likely to continue unabated, since Hugo does not appear likely to reform his conduct anytime soon.<br /><br />Of perhaps greater import is how this is all playing within Venezuela itself. All the indicators are that its people are turning against Chavez, including many of his former supporters. This news must certainly hasten that trend. The big test for this year will be the parliamentary elections and, if the Venezuelan people show enough activism in opposition to Chavez's hand-picked candidates, Venezuela's internal political climate may begin to experience a sea change that reverses the deterioration of democratic freedoms and human rights abuses of the last eleven years. <br /><br />But the world must continue to pay attention. Chavez must be kept in the spotlight.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br />P.S. -- Good work Pedro!<br/><br /> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-32295922565510870952010-03-03T15:30:00.014-06:002010-03-04T21:44:09.280-06:00The New Oligarchy in Nicaragua: The Sandinista Elite <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8P-T-himR3zM8ISv4KppwKcpQL3v2QNYrD_gOpChmjQB8uBUPBubssvonBEtAkxGC32_UM6HMKj_hRvAHsV9YulsUZENb_SGRkGuP2ddtJQplrKpObvVwig6YFvgw8TTD0b6Es1fBcJp/s400/RobertoRivas.jpg" width="355" height="336" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Roberto Rivas Reyes<br/>President of the Supreme Electoral Council of Nicaragua</td></tr></table><br />We know the tale of the Nicaraguan leftists as they describe themselves in their own words; revolutionaries, working-class heroes, anti-Somozistas, friends of the poor, and idealists leading their country to a more socially just future.<br /><br />Please forgive my break with decorum as I must now resort to that frank American colloquial euphemism I regard as the only appropriate commentary on the collective self-image of the Sandinistas--Bullshit!<br /><br />So what is going on here? Well, the Nicaraguan government is now in the midst of a very <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2010/02/11/politica/15890" target="_blank">terse diplomatic back-and-forth with Costa Rica</a> because the latter has seized a Porsche belonging to the family of FSLN leader Roberto Rivas Reyes, President of Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council, whose brother Harold is Nicaragua's Ambassador to Costa Rica. The controversy stems from a violation of user and, what is especially important under Costa Rican law, import tax privileges accorded to the personal vehicles of accredited diplomats, who are permitted to avoid paying excessive licensing fees normally required for private individuals who bring high-priced automobiles into the country to use while they reside there. The catch is that Costa Rica offers the exemption to diplomats provided that the car is maintained exclusively for their own use, which leads us to the problem. Apparently the Porsche 911 in question was for the personal use of Maurice and Laureano Ortega, sons of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who are students at a university in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose and who also, evidently, have been driving back and forth to Nicaragua using the official diplomatic vehicle.<br /><br />News of the car's seizure first broke <a href="http://wvw.nacion.com/ln_ee/2010/febrero/12/pais2262241.html" target="_blank">from Costa Rica</a> and was picked up by Nicaragua's <i>La Prensa</i> newspaper about two weeks ago. How surprising is it? I submit, not much. Those who have followed my blog might recall how I posted Nicaraguan journalist <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/successful-outcome-to-protest-march-in.html" target="_blank">Luciano Cuadra's complaint</a> last November about disciplined schoolchildren waiting in line at stoplights who find themselves forced "to get up on the sidewalk when the <i>Comandante</i> passes by quickly in his Mercedes Benz." And evidently the frills of power also extend to Ortega's two sons as well. But hey! Maurice and Laureano are college students. They need to get the <i>chicas</i>! And they required some help to gather the <i>accoutrements</i> of jet-set status about them. Enter Roberto Rivas, who has such means at his disposal as would make a Las Vegas pimp jealous.<br /><br />Somehow--we can only imagine--Roberto and Harold Rivas seem to have acquired rather extensive personal wealth as evidenced by property they have in Costa Rica. In addition to the Porsche 911 in question, the Rivas family has also brought a Mercedes Benz S 500 and a BMW M3 into the country as accredited diplomatic vehicles, the latter of which was registered to Guillermo Matus, third secretary of the Nicaraguan delegation in San Jose. In late November of last year the Costa Rican newspaper <a href="http://wvw.nacion.com/ln_ee/2009/noviembre/26/pais2171490.html" target="_blank"><i>La Nación</i> reported</a> the misuse of these two vehicles, which may have started this investigation by Costa Rica's <i>Ministerio de Hacienda</i>, i.e. Finance Ministry, since Roberto Rivas, who is not a diplomat attached to the Nicaraguan embassy, was reported driving the Mercedes and that his wife had an accident the previous July in the same vehicle. Moreover; their son Roberto Miguel Rivas, who is also a student in San Jose, was photographed using the BMW. And where were Roberto Rivas and his family residing while in San Jose, Costa Rica? Well, in their luxurious private residence in the prestigious Villareal district of the capital city where, <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2010/02/13/nacionales/16131" target="_blank">according to <i>La Prensa</i></a>, homes go for between $980,000 to $3 million (U.S.).<br /><br />There has been some back-and-forth on this controversy which, in the larger scheme of things, may not appear too significant, though the irresponsibility of the excesses of the Rivas and Ortega families and their inattention to Nicaraguan interests cannot be denied. During December the affair seemed confined largely to a public scandal played out in the news media, but evidently it had an effect, given that the Costa Rican government eventually seized the Porsche. Daniel Ortega's response was low-level intimidation, he ordered official police <a href="http://wvw.nacion.com/ln_ee/2010/febrero/12/pais2262201.html" target="_blank">protection withdrawn from the Costa Rican embassy</a>, which was reciprocated in kind in San Jose when Costa Rica also drew back its police guard from the Nicaraguan diplomatic compound. Nicaragua then issued an order <a href="http://wvw.nacion.com/ln_ee/2010/febrero/12/pais2262234.html" target="_blank">forbidding Costa Rican diplomatic vehicles from leaving</a> the country. Sandinista old-guard <i>Comandante</i> Tomas Borge, who you may remember as one of the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/arenas.html" target="_blank">facilitators of the Medellin Cartel</a> in the 1980's, <a href="http://wvw.nacion.com/ln_ee/2010/febrero/15/pais2269798.html" target="_blank">blasted Costa Rica and its President Oscar Arias</a> from Lima, Peru, where he serves as Ambassador from Nicaragua. The Costa Ricans obviously took offense and Nicaragua's Foreign Minister Samuel <a href="http://wvw.nacion.com/ln_ee/2010/febrero/16/pais2270950.html" target="_blank">Santos sought to distance his government from Borge's remarks</a>, after which the controversy seems to have settled down for the moment.<br /><br />But what does all this say about the FSLN leadership? That there exists a pervasive personal corruption among them is too easy a conclusion to draw, there is more. It is the arrogance that follows the corruption that is particularly disgusting and which marks the Sandinistas as something comparable to the old-style Central American oligarchic elites. Forget the rhetoric, the Sandinistas represent nothing more than a new oligarchy for Nicaragua, a modern elite made rich from public thievery and criminal associations. We can only hope that their tenure is short-lived and that Nicaragua and its people are once again given a chance for a prosperous and democratic future.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br /><br />Recommended Link (in Spanish): <a href="http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/2010/02/los-hijos-de-daniel-ortega-y-el.html" target="_blank">Los hijos de Daniél Ortega y el "diplomático" Roberto Rivas: La corrupción sandinista</a> by Gustavo Coronel at his <a href="http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><i>Las Armas de Coronel</i></a> blog.<br/><br /> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-1274443220924023732010-02-24T13:01:00.016-06:002010-03-08T13:26:53.128-06:00Venezuelan Electrical Power Crisis, Part II: The Costs of Deprofessionalization and Corruption Under Chavez <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMBLwgsiP74VW0VMm3q3nW4Ah4jj-B-WFfQc55UYvsQXjoJdiMre4AFf_een8D15WdndvoQ5Z2xyaP8yYXLf6dwJgaogonU8vc6pqtLUWKQzTk15xzOBHBNw7N81-yvDeRInurYQHGDs/s1600-r/turbines.bmp" width="480" height="365" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Hydroelectric Turbines in a Venezuelan Dam Complex</td></tr></table><br />I am going to do a followup to my previous entry on <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/coming-electrical-power-disaster-in.html" target="_blank">The Coming Electrical Power Disaster in Venezuela</a>, this time by way of posting a translation of an article originally published in Venezuela's <i>Revista Zeta</i> magazine in late January, but which you can now see in its original Spanish on the <a href="http://www.soberania.org/Articulos/articulo_5509.htm" target="_blank">Victor Poleo portal at Soberania.org</a>. The article presents an interview with Poleo, who has now become regarded as the most knowledgeable critic of Chavez's energy policies writ large, but especially with respect to the electrical power shortage that is now doing such serious damage to the country and which has also become a major political issue.<br /><br />I would suggest that everyone pay attention to two very important points Poleo makes in the interview, how the deprofessionalization of Venezuela's electric sector has led to gross mismanagement of the various EDELCA dam complexes in the country, whose water levels have been depleted unnecessarily according to Poleo; and the problems with the accounting for about 70% of the $35 billion dollars that has been appropriated for the electric sector between the years 1999 - 2009. Since deprofessionalization itself is evidence of the corruption of the Chavez regime, which has removed competent professionals from key jobs within government-run operations throughout the electric sector in order to award employment to political favorites, the price Venezuelans are paying for it can barely be estimated when grouped together with tens of billions of dollars worth of unaccounted appropriations. It is a striking and near-unbelievable story which pretty much speaks for itself.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-family:Georgia,Sans Serif"><tr><td align="center" width="575" style="font-weight:bold">TRANSLATION:<br/><a href="http://www.soberania.org/Articulos/articulo_5509.htm" target="_blank">"It Is Not Guri’s Fault"</a><br/>By Aida Gutierrez<br/>Interview with Victor Poleo Uzcátegui<br/><i>Revista Zeta</i> (Venezuela)<br/>January 28, 2010, No. 1740-22<br/><br/></td></tr><tr><td width="575" style="font-weight:normal;padding:5px;border-style:none"><i>According to the ex-Electricity Director of the Ministry of Energy, Victor Poleo Uzcátegui, a preliminary estimate indicates that $50 billion was put into the Electrical Sector between the years 1999-2009, but scarcely 30% was spent on power generation and transmission projects. The delays in maintenance and expansion are dramatic.</i><br /><br />"The country does not depend on Guri alone and what is happening is that a vile story is being spread from the presidency which attributes the current crisis to the Caroní hydroelectric complex," engineer and ex-Electricity Director Victor Poleo Uzcátegui stated in an exclusive interview with Zeta.<br /><br />Poleo finds himself very busy and much in demand these days, as the foreign press turns to him to know and understand what is happening with electricity in Venezuela, paradoxically, now called "energy power."<br /><br />As a preface to the interview the expert began to talk of the Lower Caroní, a system of cascading water hydroelectric dams:</td></tr><tr><td align="center"><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="500" style="font-family:Arial,Tahoma;font-weight:bold"><tr><td colspan="4" align="center" style="border-style:solid;border-width:1pt;border-color:#000000;background-color:#0000FF;color:#FFFFFF;font-size:12pt;">Lower Caroni Dam Complexes</td></tr><tr><td align="center" style="background-color:#00BFFF;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000">Dam Complex</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#00BFFF;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000">Startup Date</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#00BFFF;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;;border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000">Daily Output</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#00BFFF;font-size:10pt;color:#000000;;border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000">Delays?</td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="padding-left:8px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none">Macagua I</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">1961</td><td align="right" style="padding-right:14px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">370 MW</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none"> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="padding-left:8px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none">Guri I</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">1968</td><td align="right" style="padding-right:14px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">3,000 MW</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none"> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="padding-left:8px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none">Guri II</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">1986</td><td align="right" style="padding-right:14px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">6,100 MW</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none"> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="padding-left:8px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none">Macagua II</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">1995</td><td align="right" style="padding-right:14px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">2,300 MW</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none"> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="padding-left:8px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none">Macagua III</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">1995</td><td align="right" style="padding-right:14px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">360 MW</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none"> </td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="padding-left:8px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none">Caruachi</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">2004</td><td align="right" style="padding-right:14px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-style:none">2,300 MW</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none">(Delay of 2 years)</td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="padding-left:8px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000">Tocoma</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000">2014</td><td align="right" style="padding-right:14px;background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000">2,300 MW</td><td align="center" style="background-color:#FFFFFF;color:#000000;border-left-style:none;border-top-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000">(Delay of 7 years)</td></tr></table></td></tr><tr><td><br />--Guri is a regulated reservoir, the water passed through turbines in Guri is afterwards passed along to the lower dams in the following order: Tocoma, Caruachi, and Macagua.<br /><br /></td></tr><tr><td><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoBvp0uc2CPrVJ8XYISBETuQhg8Tn0p8SZl646S6JPZ7KgcGZYf7KgGw057s3Q5ZRGTRsPSkLRXkM0GqkMQh1UrqiNIyUKZ_6g5BzmcI4aK_Zf0hOOgIaYbWh9cDB4W4Fr34Xcmixir5o/s1600-r/damsprofile.bmp" width="490" height="370" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="font-size:8pt"><b>Lower Caroni 1992:</b> EDELCA Projects of the Lower Caroní in 1992 - Note the startup operation dates entered for Caruachi and Tocoma, 2002 and 2007 respectively. Compare these with table above, which shows delays under Chavez.</td></tr></table><br /></td></tr><tr><td>--The Lower Caroni system by itself--he explains--does not satisfy national demand for electric power, he specified, but interacts with an accompaniment of thermoelectric centers, which use natural gas, diesel, and fuel oil as combustible fuels. Coal and orimulsion oil are also thermoelectric combustible fuels.<br /><br />--The water of the Guri reservoir is from unsteady-state influx, i.e. the contributions to the Caroní Basin fluctuate historically between 6,500 and 3,500 cubic meters per second, according to records from 1950 to the present.<br /><br />He pointed out that thermal power generation is from fixed-state influx, i.e. plant machinery such as at Planta Centro or Tacoa or Arrecifes can be activated in a short time.<br /><br />"The art of mixing water power generation with thermal power generation is the art of optimizing the usage time of the Guri reservoir. On the one hand, one does not want to reduce the amount of water stored in Guri to too low a level because there will be barrels of combustible fuels lost to make up the shortfall. On the other hand, one does not unnecessarily "burn" barrels of thermoelectric combustibles” (if there is water in the reservoir) Poleo made clear.<br /><br />--There then exists--he continues--an optimum mix of the hydro-thermal electric power system. To master and administrate such a formidable and complex task mathematical models are used, a kind of laboratory in which they simulate reservoir water levels over time compared against national electric power demand and then they "dispatch" the generation of hydro or thermal electric power in real time but placed within a future horizon.<br /><br />--This task rests within the hands of the National Management Center (CNG), formerly OPSIS, which uses two types of "dispatch." One in real time (hours, days) which is operational dispatch. Another is in medium and long term planning, over 5 to 10 years. <br /><br />--In Venezuela--the expert continued--mathematical models exist for load dispatch. One of them is PLHITER (Spanish acronym for Hydro-Thermal Planning), developed by a team of Venezuelan engineers and mathematicians, in use since the mid-80's by EDELCA, CADAFE, and CNG (formerly OPSIS). <br /><br />He obligingly clarified that PLHITER is therefore an instrument of planning.<br /><br /><b>Those responsible for the electric power crisis</b><br /><br />Poleo considers that "the deprofessionalization of the Electrical Sector since 2003 has become an infringement upon the planning of the Venezuelan electrical sector, also a consequence of the "anti-planning" of the nation, a task which rests in the Ministry of Planning, but a task they have taken up irresponsibly, like the President of the Republic in his Sunday outbursts.<br /><br />--The electrical sector--he stresses--doubles its investment every 15 years, as a function of demographic growth and industrial activity. Medium and long term plans existed in 2000, but the projects were not implemented thanks to embezzlement, waste and corruption. <br /><br /><b>Electrical sector funding and spending</b><br /><br />--It is our ongoing estimate that during the period 1999-2009 money appropriated to the Electrical Sector can be placed on the order of at least $50 billion (U.S.), according to the following:</td></tr><tr><td align="center"><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="500" style="font-family:Arial,Tahoma;font-weight:bold;"><tr><td align="center" colspan="3" style="border-style:solid;border-width:1pt;border-color:#000000;background-color:#0000FF;color:#FFFFFF;font-size:12pt">Electrical Power Sector Budgetary Inputs: 1999 - 2009</td></tr><tr><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none;padding-top:10px;padding-left:16px">1</td><td style="border-style:none;padding-top:10px;padding-left:30px">Ordinary fiscal budget</td><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none;padding-top:10px;padding-left:20px">$7 billion</td></tr><tr><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none;padding-left:16px">2</td><td style="border-style:none;padding-left:30px">Additional Appropriations</td><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none;padding-left:20px">$700 million</td></tr><tr><br /><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:none;padding-left:16px">3</td><td style="border-style:none;padding-left:30px">Electrical Power Invoices</td><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:none;padding-left:20px">$27 billion</td></tr><tr><br /><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:solid;border-left-width:1pt;border-left-color:#000000;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000;padding-left:16px;padding-bottom:10px">4</td><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:none;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000;padding-left:30px;padding-bottom:10px">Additional spending (preliminary)</td><td style="border-top-style:none;border-left-style:none;border-right-style:solid;border-right-width:1pt;border-right-color:#000000;border-bottom-style:solid;border-bottom-width:1pt;border-bottom-color:#000000;padding-left:20px;padding-bottom:10px">$15 billion</td></tr></table><br /></td></tr><tr><td><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Xw8v15-OQ5Iddg2y3awvfE4SgwaAPd9cwHA0HNOgQnaXIXuMq_kqNk42AdB53i-xo_2LiGPxJ_aDBS9PZKK48dTJc6W_d2OGq0X0KTVhzfInIgKOhafKxid98gCN-gqMgjfYrv8-KEo/s1600-r/elecsecbarchart2.bmp" width="494" height="380" style="border-style:none" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center"></td></tr></table><br /></td></tr><tr><td>--To judge by the thermoelectric power station's current shortages and based upon a sampling of CADAFE projects, it is our conjecture that scarcely 30% of the power generation and transmission projects were carried out.</td></tr><tr><td><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal;padding-top:8px"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ajMTNsmw57Bt2J9fGkB5nA0dz-DmlSVYGGOcS4dr9JiG_nfWFhz9fQCOqxFqBAfuv8Jp-QMos2wCRZnZPLSDJevmeXfnKKcbtrHJZhTPipKExdTC4WeceCKdiRiggQrC32YxTwlrImI/s1600-r/flowchart.jpg" width="494" height="380" style="border-style:none" /></td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="font-size:8pt"><b>Note:</b> The <a href="http://el-nacional.com/www/site/p_contenido.php?q=nodo/118869/Econom%C3%ADa/Denuncian-demora-en-reparaciones-de-Planta-Centro" target="_blank">Planta Centro Thermoelectric Plant</a> is now completely out of service and inoperational and the <a href="http://www.noticierodigital.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=610040" target="_blank">Uribante Caparo Dam Hydroelectric Complex</a> was no longer producing electrical power as of January, 2010, which means that the $681 million appropriated for the two projects represents both massive waste and gross mismanagement under Chavez's administration.</td></tr></table><br /></td></tr><tr><td>--Hence the current electrical crisis, already predicted as of 2000, a consequence of not making the investments in thermoelectric power centers--the specialist assured us. <br /><br />"Those responsible for the crisis: Jorge Giordani in the Planning Office, Rafael Ramirez in PDVSA-Energy and, responsible for selecting them, Hugo Chavez," Poleo stated.<br /><br />Giordani, in particular, broke the golden rule of strategic planning when he blocked our future options by rejecting hydroelectric power development in the Upper Caroní as far in to the future as 2030.<br/><br /></td></tr><tr><td><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoo9fCEzolIwHBzV1o04d7sTVNMBilwpe4vDvf_ZRmGpQ-XnTS2ipss52jgsvDAcvrxv069ue2cHTlirqKc_pdY7qhJ69A891CxXrXivdeVQUqWwFITRbOaaXPX9e7ibr5pRfXeoHuSvs/s1600-r/caroni_alto_1992b.jpg" width="490" height="376" style="border-style:none" /></td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="font-size:8pt"><b>Lower and Upper Caroní 1992:</b> Giordani blocked our future options by rejecting hydroelectric power development in the Upper Caroní as far in to the future as 2030.</td></tr></table><br /></td></tr><tr><td><b>"The electrical power crisis is a political crisis"</b><br /><br />--What is the relationship between Guri's water level and electric power savings?<br /><br />--On January 10, 2010, the elevation of the water level at the Guri reservoir was measured at 260.58 meters above sea level, or 56% of the usable volume of power-producing water. Today, January 23, 2010, the elevation of the Guri reservoir is measured at 258.20 meters, or 49% of the usable volume of power-producing water at Guri.<br /><br />--The electrical power "savings" over these two weeks signifies a diminution of 7% of the usable volume, so the trend is predictable. <br /><br />--Without having the hydro-thermal electric power system, the room to maneuver in the thermoelectric power plants that was announced a thousand times since 2000 and never implemented means that the Guri reservoir will be exhausted in the short term.<br /><br />--Then from there we will be obliged to ration to look after the value of the water in Guri, which will not be "savings" in the strict sense, only a sub-optimal administration of the Guri reservoir in the presence of thermoelectric deficiencies. <br /><br />--The government says that the electrical power crisis is generated by the low level of the Guri reservoir. What is your opinion with respect to this statement?<br /><br />--It sounds reasonable, it is a self-defining truth, a tautology, but the one responsible for the electrical power crisis is the anti-planning and deprofessionalized electrical power sector, amen to criminalizing the unauthorized use of electrical power appropriations.<br /><br />--Does the rationing of electrical power contribute to resolving the problem?<br /><br />--It does not "resolve" the current crisis, it only prolongs it, diluting the agony until 2012, in the hope of bringing the thermoelectric power centers online, which are still insufficient in their capacity and scheduled dates to do the job.<br /><br />--"They should" do as indicated, i.e. maintenance and replacement, for which we require engineering and trade, affairs with which these by the book military men are unacquainted.<br /><br />--What is happening with the savings in electricity?<br /><br />--They are cubic meters of water saved for a better time.<br /><br />--Does the entire country depend on Guri? Is the situation of this reservoir really that dramatic?<br /><br />The country depends upon a vulgar political class that is intellectually impoverished, irresponsible, and criminal. The country does not depend on Guri--Poleo made clear--and a vile story is being spread around as a message from the presidency that attributes the current crisis to the Caroní hydroelectric complex, "all the eggs are in the same basket," in as much as the Venezuela of the second half of the 20th century rested deservedly upon abundant, clean, cheap, and renewable energy.<br /><br />--If we did not have the Caroní, today we would be burning the equivalent energy of 570 thousand barrels in gas, diesel and fuel oil. It is a volume we have been left to export. The Caroní adds rent to the petroleum rent.<br /><br />--CORPOELEC warns that if the water level at Guri continues to fall, in 120 days the production of electricity in the country could collapse. Is this right?<br /><br />--A problem poorly identified is a problem poorly resolved. There is disinformation from CORPOELEC and, predictably, the warnings from the EDELCA professionals hold true. <br /><br />--CORPOELEC blundered when it announced pointless rationing in Caracas, a "savings" of 200 MW facing a daily shortfall of 2,000 MW, a deficit that does not include another 2,000 MW which, in theory, they would have to assign using a backup plan that eventually will revolve around rationing power for the use of excess machinery.<br /><br />--What is your prediction for the electrical power situation in the country? What should we expect and what should be done? <br /><br />--The electrical power crisis is a political crisis, it does harm to the welfare of society and national economic activity. Shutting down the industries of Guayana City disables its construction materials industry (beams, metal rods, shuttering mesh, fence wire, etc.); the metalworking manufacturing industry (aluminum door and window frames, packaging products, etc.) and in the oil and gas industry (tubing and pipes). A nation without economic activity, a dead Guayana City.<br /><br />--The solution to the electrical power crisis is political, nothing other than a political change. Urge Chavez to resign and bring about a wise transition into the hands of a sane society that rejects the past and the present, Poleo Uzcátegui recommends.</td></tr></table><br />----------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />The crisis is nearly unfathomable from our perspective. There are <i>tens of billions</i> of dollars (U.S.) that have been appropriated and which are now missing, the plant complexes are not producing the electrical power the country needs--some of their most important are either out of operation or stagnant, the Venezuelan economy has been thrown into negative GDP as a result of the energy shortfall, and Chavez's answer is to bring in Cuban advisors whose only expertise is in internet regulation and worse.<br /><br />This is Venezuela under Hugo Chavez. Forget the propaganda you read from Venezuelanalysis.com and elsewhere. Let them tell you the lights are on in Caracas twenty-four hours a day or that the industries Guayana City are not shut down, or ... well, never mind.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-48426135930686324672010-02-18T00:30:00.015-06:002010-02-18T20:55:22.221-06:00The Coming Electrical Power Disaster in Venezuela <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXKUEndsx-3TpVRqWIpoqtKaEtoq_np5K2lDJhYCFnoO-qf29h9Scp3YspLfNA-2CbirSvTMQcnpxsgou1DjDjrIJYwQdYHYkk1HX_2eTGusMrREHbsoK6GenerYhuQkbe5hUtG5tmzks8/s1600-r/guri2.JPG" width="420" height="275" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Guri Dam, Top Provider in the EDELCA Hydroelectric Power Complex</td></tr></table><br />As I posted a couple of weeks ago, there is now evidence from a recent public opinion poll that Venezuelans are <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/so-how-is-chavez-doing-recent.html" target="_blank">turning against Hugo Chavez in huge numbers</a>. Yeah, as if <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/01/chavez-removes-mask-it-will-be.html" target="_blank">all that street protest action</a> was not enough to convince anyone. There are numerous reasons explaining why, but I would like to suggest that the most important come down to issues that are simple and present in the everyday lives of Venzuelans. <br /><br />Venezuela is currently suffering from a number of economic and social ills. There have been food shortages and rationing of vital commodities, such as water. Economic growth has declined, the Bolivar has been devalued in a manner so confusing as to create widespread uncertainty, and if you add runaway inflation into the mix the attendant social consequences become easy to grasp. Then there is the ever-present threat of violent crime. But there is one particular problem of everyday life in Venezuela that may be more of a threat to <i>El Primer Bolivariano</i> than all the others, and it certainly will be a major issue in the parliamentary elections this year.<br /><br />In Venezuela, the lights keep going out.<br /><br /><i>Origins of the Electrical Power Shortage: Inattention to Rising Demand</i><br /><br />Though there have been periodic problems with electrical power output and distribution over the past several years, things began to take a turn markedly for the worse <a href="http://english.eluniversal.com/2009/12/28/en_eco_art_venezuela-strengthen_28A3235531.shtml" target="_blank">by at least last September</a>, when regular blackouts became a phenomenon that only added to other domestic ills facing the Venezuelan people. The Chavez government has since moved with some fervor to restrict consumption of electricity, imposing rolling blackouts as well as announcing a series of what have been at times punitive and almost always confusing public edicts designed to compel Venzuelans to cut their consumption. And while there are many factors which must be taken into account when explaining the current crisis, the most basic aspect of it is that the supply of electrical power in Venezuela is highly concentrated in the output of a few hydroelectric power installations, most prominently the Guri Dam complexes in the east of the country, which have been unable to keep up with an increase in demand, both for reasons of inadequate rainfall to replenish the reservoir's water levels as well as the inattention given to national energy production on the part of Chavez's regime.<br /><br />Venezuela's use of electrical power has grown steadily throughout this decade, but its biggest increases mirrored the peak years of expansion of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The critical years of growth in Venezuelan GDP were from 2004 - 2007, when a very rapid expansion fueled by rising oil prices created a more pronounced rise in electrical power use.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal;padding-right:20px"><tr><td align="center" style="font-weight:bold;font-family:arial,tahoma"> Venezuelan GDP: 2003 - 2009</td></tr><tr><td align="center" style="padding-top:0px"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2AiIg9bs6DvsglWFRbgwCHc5gJx3fKjdEQgMuELHpfj6HWRGREnNn3Q6ZeekVasWCvl_pgsd29w8BCuxflPNwY9bKQq2MqWG0NIV7xZXCSYYV_k4ArnDmDX2e7PfB0xQQ_H7rJkOl5Bo/s1600-r/VenGDP.bmp" width="500" height="315" style="border-style:none;padding-top:0px" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center" style="padding-top:0">Source: <a href="http://www.indexmundi.com/venezuela/gdp_real_growth_rate.html" target="_blank">indexmundi.com</a></td></tr></table><br />Figures for Venezuelan electrical power consumption rose most rapidly during the same four years of its explosion in GDP, growing from an average national daily use of 10,951 megawatts (MW) in 2004 to 12,882 MW in 2007, which represents an increase of 17.63% over the entire period, a significant change in aggregate Venezuelan electrical power demand. The steady rate of growth is also important to note, since it informs us in part of the Chavez regime's forewarning of the present crisis. If you take the 2004 increase over the previous year and average out the annual yearly percentage increase in electrical power use through 2007 it comes out to average growth rate of 6.05% per year. With an annual rate of increase that accelerated electrical power consumption in the country at a steady pace, the need to fill growing demand cannot have been unforeseen. In fact, the first warning of a potentially serious shortfall created by rising demand <a href="http://www.guia.com.ve/noti/51145/edelca-advirtio-la-crisis" target="_blank">came from EDELCA</a>, the government-owned Caroni Electrification District (in eastern Venezuela where the major hydroelectric complexes are located), in 2002; an alarm that was supported in later analyses over the next two years. Chavez and his government were forewarned, but apparently paid little attention, even though dramatic economic growth provided them with the resources needed to address the danger. <br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center" style="padding-top:2px"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJC5lb-wUp_oTrXAPcyEXILDUnz6lD-1cQg3s6xjoB0Nq8hYA-9ZWcc0bMRL3Amdav2q-Zx0dnYedEEDvReyYNgPZJM8vGm9rwf-34HLPQsHM_RcbSt5JhThXy5DlVd61YtoqxE3CZ1Gg/s1600-r/elecpwr2.bmp" width="500" height="375" style="border-style:none;" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Average Daily Demand for Electrical Power: 2002-2012<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.soberania.org/Informes/Informe_Edelca_Corpoelec_25-12-2009.pdf" target="_blank">Soberania.org</a></td></tr></table><br /><i>Venezuela's Vulnerability: Concentration in Supply of Electrical Power</i><br /><br />One of the most easily understood aspects of Venezuela's electrical power supply problem is that it is highly-concentrated in just a few hydroelectric power complexes managed by EDELCA for CORPOELEC, the national electric power company, which has an almost monopolistic control over the generation of power in the country. While there are some smaller producing units involved in EDELCA's organizational structure, the overwhelming majority of their electric power production comes from four main complexes; Guri I and II, Macagua, and Caruachi. The first three of these dams represent a very <a href="http://www.electriahorro.com/HTML/Pages/Secondary/EA_VzlaHistoriaFS.html?EA_VzlaHistoria.html~mainFrame" target="_blank">long-term construction project</a> for Venezuela, beginning with a plan developed by 1949. As of 1986 the Macagua and Guri complexes had an installed capacity of 10,000 MW, which though underutilized, was still significant. The <a href="http://www.edelca.com.ve/generacion/caruachi.htm" target="_blank">Caruachi complex was the final addition</a>, beginning commercial operation in 2003, but not coming fully online until 2006.<br /><br />With respect to the structure of Venezuela's electrical sector, the consequence of the Chavez regime's failure to heed the warnings from EDELCA and other experts who predicted an eventual shortfall in the electrical power supply is that it remained highly concentrated in the EDELCA hydroelectric generating complexes of the Guri, Macagua, and Caruachi Dams. As of last year, some 70% of all electrical power generated in Venezuela originated there, which of course means that the supply would be available only so long as rainfall was sufficient to maintain high water levels in the reservoirs. But Venezuela had a history of periodic dips in rainfall, as the EDELCA engineers and others had warned, which left the entire country vulnerable to a near catastrophic economic meltdown in the event of the recurring weather phenomenon commonly known as <i>El Niño</i>, which had historically reduced water levels in the several reservoirs before and could potentially do so again.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhizGlMZ9vpqFFmXNRNfJTRm-Oy3veFaPUV5SZfvksNh73PM_SZCL1-0GhP_RZIKbhVO0Qsgd2bjSm2g4fL5hj4aSiFFfqe9lvSEkaCkDAiSkQPg3chi0jRVltFvuits29L0fkC33yOA-A/s1600-r/elecpwr.bmp" width="500" height="375" style="border-style:none;" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Average Daily Demand for Venezuelan Electrical Power in 2009<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.soberania.org/Informes/Informe_Edelca_Corpoelec_25-12-2009.pdf" target="_blank">Soberania.org</a></td></tr></table><br />Recently, Chavez propagandists and apologists have attempted to explain the current electrical power mess as it relates to the diminished rainfall resulting from the <i>El Niño</i> phenomenon as an unforeseen climatological event. Unfortunately, Venzuela's own <a href="http://www.inameh.gob.ve/web/?pag=nino" target="_blank">National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology says differently</a>, making clear they knew that at least three <i>El Niño</i> events over the last two decades had produced drought conditions in the country, especially the last one in 1997-1998:<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-style:italic"><tr><td align="left">. . . The effects of El Niño events have been perceived in the national territory, especially during the years 1992, 1996 and 1997-98. This last event was characterized by deficits in rainfall, drought and positive temperature anomalies in the greater part of the country. The Caroni River Basin, the main source of hydroelectric power generation of Venezuela, exhibited water flows below the historical average. . . .</td></tr><tr><td align="right">National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology of Venezuela</td></tr></table><br />In spite of an electrical power generating capacity that grew during the Chavez presidency, with the completion of the Caruachi Dam project begun before his term in office, Venezuelan experts who understood the problem of concentrated supply in the Caroni River Basin and its dependence upon uncertain rainfall levels had warned the regime of impending disaster. But to what effect?<br /><br /><i>Triunfalismo: The Chavez Program for Expanding Electrical Power Infrastructure</i><br /><br />There has been a lot of triumphant publicity from Hugo Chavez and his government trumpeting their investments in Venezuela's electrical power infrastructure over the past decade, which their <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=site%3Awww.venezuelanalysis.com+electricity+infrastructure&aq=f&aqi=&oq=&emsg=NCSR&ei=0M18S430L4m1tgf1_uyUCg" target="_blank">propagandists continually tout</a> as evidence of the regime's successes in delivering for the Venezuelan people, but it has been mostly just pure press manipulation. The real story of actual progress made on the ground in the implementation of plans and programs announced by the regime says something quite different. Finding credible information which quantifies the reality of Venezuela's electrical power problems is difficult, but the best source one can turn to for what comes closest to accuracy is <a href="http://www.soberania.org/victor_poleo_portada.htm" target="_blank">Victor Poleo</a>, a former Vice Minister for Energy during the first two years of the Chavez presidency, but who has now emerged as one of the regime's most significant, and more importantly most knowledgeable, critics on the subject of energy policy.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0A2FKFkW6XPUQj8eoInknYecb8OltlU5m7bhWK7gkperzjcvQiPH6lAMzg3NUBRjhN6bRULMicCbJ0__UgezO7fE-_FxB3ezwQ57dL5Khs83w1oQZ5mzSDz0FwyVIuxlQouVypiyt77i7/s400/victor_poleo.jpg" width="380" height="380" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Victor Poleo, Venezuela's Vice Minister for Energy from 1999 - 2001</td></tr></table><br />Poleo has described the overall impact of Chavez's energy policy as one <a href="http://www.soberania.org/Articulos/articulo_5515.htm" target="_blank">filled with "tragic errors"</a>, which are especially troubling for the differences between the amounts of state funds appropriated for electrical infrastructure development and those actually spent. According to Poleo, now at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, who has access to better information than practically anyone outside the government itself, the Chavez regime has, across the eleven years of its administration, put some $35 billion (U.S.) at the disposal of the electric sector for which projects totaling some $7 billion have actually been approved and, of that latter amount, only 30%, perhaps $2.1 billion by inference, has in fact been spent. And the accounting is troubling:<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-style:italic"><tr><td align="left">. . . The efficiency of what was actually spent versus what was appropriated can barely be located between 25% spent on transmission and 50% on generation. . . . There was therefore no disinvestment in the strict sense of the term, that is to say, shortages of money delivered to the electric sector. The flaw is that there was misappropriation of these funds by the political, militarized, and civilian class, who are tasked with conducting the affairs of the electric sector. . . .</td></tr><tr><td align="right">Victor Poleo</td></tr></table><br />Across numerous articles on his portal at Soberania.org, Poleo has delivered a comprehensive and authoritative critique of the Chavez government's complete mishandling of the administration of the electric sector that drives home some of the biggest of the regime's many failures, but in this case, one that has had a noticeable impact upon many Venezuelans. And where is it all going? According to a <a href="http://informe21.com/crisis-energetica-venezuela/reportaje-nuevo-herald-expertos-preven-colapso-electrico-venezuela" target="_blank">report Poleo has prepared with a panel of related experts</a>, which has recently been made public, a complete collapse of the electric sector is predicted for this year. And it is not political posturing either. Even EDELCA's own experts pointed out in December that the <a href="http://www.soberania.org/Articulos/articulo_5453.htm" target="_blank">collapse was possible by April</a> if national demand was not reduced by 1,600 MW daily.<br /><br />Victor Poleo has done perhaps as much as anyone to put the lie to the triumphalist public relations campaign the Chavez regime and their propagandists, such as Venezuelanalysis.com, have waged from the beginning with respect to the realities of the electric sector in Venezuela. There has been a lot of noise, but very little of substance to the regime's energy policy. And noise is not a good policy choice, nor good politics, when the material well-being of the citizenry is at stake.<br /><br />We will have much to watch over the ensuing months as the electric power problem in Venezuela unfolds before us and, more importantly, before the Venezuelan people who are apparently aligning themselves behind the opposition in ways we have not seen previously. The continuing problems of a failing electric power supply can only be expected to accelerate this trend. <br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /><br />-------------------------------------------<br />Acknowledgement: I would like to post a special message of thanks to <a href="http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Gustavo Coronel</a>, who helped me in my search for credible source information I have used in this investigation. <i>StJ</i><br/><br />Recommended Link: <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2010/02/electricity-mess-of-chavez-for-dummies.html" target="_blank">The Electricity Mess of Chavez for Dummies</a> by Daniel Duquenal at <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Venezuela News and Views</a>.<br /><br /><u>Update, Thursday, 6:27 p.m.</u>: Second recommended link - <a href="http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/2010/02/el-por-ahora-se-convierte-en-y-ahora.html" target="_blank">El "por ahora" se convierte en "¿y ahora?"</a> ("For Now" becomes "What Now?") by <a href="http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Alek Boyd</a>. Though the entry is in Spanish, it contains a short video clip filmed during a blackout of a common citizen who has supported Chavez in the past who is now rethinking his earlier views and recognizes that backing Chavez was a mistake. Alek has included sub-titles captioning the video in English. I mentioned at the beginning that matters which affect the lives of ordinary Venezuelans are becoming the source of newfound opposition to Chavez. Take a look and see for yourself. <i>StJ</i>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-22385214937708969472010-02-14T18:07:00.016-06:002010-02-14T22:34:24.766-06:00Martha Colmenares on the Futility of the Vote in Venezuela <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Lc1bWSCzidgnU17pXfhhBS6aMrC3s3ixNco9cLraGOeaz628GhE08uklGFmRriktXK73RJ-xqlJqmarAiBG_3z5hdthrtIeUhp_6VO9AoaSnnecKqNhREgqXsve59IwsD1njgDZXE6uT/s400/referendo.bmp" width="330" height="275" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr></table><br /><br />I am going to post a translation of <a href="http://www.diariodeamerica.com/front_nota_detalle.php?id_noticia=4994" target="_blank">an article written by Martha Colmenares</a> for <i>Diario de América</i> last year following Venezuela's second national referendum on extending the term limit for the office of President, which Hugo Chavez called by executive decree, after losing an earlier vote by a significant margin. The "official results"--i.e. "the lie"--of the vote were reported as a Chavez victory, supposedly giving him a one million vote margin along with the option of continuing his presidential mandate indefinitely, which is where things now stand. Obviously I do not believe the vote was as announced, but that is another story altogether, part of which will be told in this blog entry.<br /><br />Before I get to the translation I want to offer an apology to Martha for my incorrect use of the term <i>Ni-Nis</i>, roughly translated as "<i>neither-nors</i>," as one that applies to all electoral abstentionists, which I used in <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/note-to-ni-nis-even-if-you-lose-you.html" target="_blank">my post of yesterday</a>, as well as in comments I made within a forum discussion on her web site. Martha has corrected me, pointing out that the term really applies most of all to the apathetic within Venezuelan political life who will not vote for either Chavez or his opposition. Martha would be much better described as a willful abstentionist who seeks other means to bring about change in Venezuela. Though I adopted the usage of the term from others, that is no excuse. Martha is one of the most dedicated bloggers anywhere when it comes to the issues affecting human freedom and democracy and she deserves to be treated with genuine deference for all she has done.<br /><br />As a gesture of my sincere respect, and indeed admiration, for Martha and her work I have decided to translate an article which states her own view of the futility of Venezuelan politics in very clear terms. I think everyone will be able to see that there is a solid foundation of evidence to prove that the electoral system under Chavez has been corrupted totally, I know I am convinced, and whatever one's outlook may be on the path to hopeful change, dealing with the electoral hurdle is a most significant problem.<br /><br />Martha's answer to the obvious question of how Chavez can be confronted successfully and Venezuela reformed for the better is <i>Mass Civil Disobedience</i>. I certainly do not argue with the proposal, though I do not see it as antithetical to electoral political activism. And I especially should mention that when the moment comes for Chavez to go, I do not expect it will be as the consequence of an election result all by itself. No; Chavez will have to be forced out in one way or another, I just believe that the electoral process must be part of the mix of the witches brew that will have to be concocted to make him leave.<br /><br />I will let Martha tell her story in a way English-language readers can understand. And with everything I know about her I want to take this moment to say that I know the story she tells is the truth. You can believe Martha Colmenares.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-family:Georgia,Sans Serif"><tr><td align="center" width="575" style="font-weight:bold"><b>TRANSLATION:</b><br/><a href="http://www.diariodeamerica.com/front_nota_detalle.php?id_noticia=4994">Chavez's Rigged Election Was Announced</a><br/>February 17, 2009<br/><br/></td></tr><tr><td align="left" style="border-style:solid;border-width:1pt;border-color:#191970;padding-top:4px;padding-left:6px;padding-right:4px;padding-bottom:6px"><i>Illegally, the official vote counts do not reflect real votes, and the regime does not even have to reveal the official results.</i><br /><br />By Martha Colmenares<br /><br />Introduction: Chavez's grand strategy is to continue balancing the appearance of democracy with the reality of totalitarianism. <br /><br />The main thing is that in a country where there is no law, whether one votes or not does not matter. The reason why it does not matter is very clear: The regime says what the results of the voting are and its word is final, as happened in the referendum last December 2, 2007, so that one has every reason to believe that the amendment's rejection was overwhelming, nevertheless, the regime also stated that the decision was almost a tie, and there left the matter to rest, and there was no legal recourse to know the official results, which certainly have little to do with the actual results. <br /><br />This says that, without legal restraints, the official vote counts do not reflect actual votes, and the regime does not even have to reveal the official results. It might be a first reason for understanding that whether one votes or not does not matter.<br /><br />The second reason is that you can win every amendment referendum in the world, and reform still proceeds as if Chavez had won instead. There can be no forgetting that the dictator Gómez governed Venezuela, literally, from his home for decades without being president of the republic. <br /><br />Chavez can put any candidate on the ballot as he pleases, including the terrorist "The Jackal", and still have himself elected President, so that he remains the boss, and everyone knows that he is the one giving orders. And if any corrective action is needed, then <i>once again</i> he can amend the constitution to create the office of "Head of Government", or "Head of State," "Meritorious Hero," "Lord Protector", "Ayatollah", etc., in a way in which Chavez continues being the one who gives orders.<br /><br />To illustrate this nothing more is needed than to see what happened with the constitutional reform that was rejected scarcely one year ago: the regime submitted it anew, and again, there was no legal recourse to stop it. <br /><br />The third reason is the farce that we are seeing today, that we voted on the same thing that was rejected one year ago. If this is the way things really were, we would have a presidential recall referendum every year as well, but as it turns out, since there is no law, the regime may submit the same referendum as many times as it wants to win it, but when it is opposed, then it is spared and it denies the right of people to decide, as happened when we rejected the consultative referendum, the recall petition signatures, re-signatures, all the damned signatures.<br /><br />The fourth reason is that there was no reason to pay attention to the call of those who showed up to vote NO on that occasion, because those people are the same ones who time and again were called upon for a vote against the regime and then left it to steal the election.<br /><br />Chavez's grand strategy is to continue balancing the appearance of democracy with the reality of totalitarianism. That is, one must recognize that Chavez has been very competent in maintaining the balance by allowing a little bit of criticism within the mass media to maintain the appearance of freedom of expression as he goes about censoring that criticism, keeping it at a "simmer"; while today, he has already shut down Radio Caracas's public signal, bought those of Venevisión, and by terrorizing journalists, newspapers, radio and television stations, he has created a climate of self-censorship that is steadily becoming more effective in silencing criticism altogether. <br /><br />When a naive person from afar asks: "But if Chavez is another gorilla, where are the thousands of disappeared or incarcerated journalists?", and there is no response, then that naive person becomes bored and no longer believes that there is a tyranny.<br /><br />The same thing is done with elections. Another balancing act, on the one hand creating the appearance of democracy, while on the other, through the use of official advantadge (i.e., using all the nation's resources to promote his candidates), through the biased application of laws, vote fraud, and by reholding elections he loses (which by the way, as he did last year, Chavez at times accepts a defeat here, as in government office X, or there, as in referendum Y), gaining the appearance of having his agenda approved by democratic elections. <br /><br />The farce is sufficiently well done so that both the dumb as well as the vivacious (those who get the most from Chavez) gain from the world they created, with each new election bringing another turn of the nut of totalitarianism.<br /><br />It bothers me that most of those who call themselves opponents of the Chavez regime resign themselves to playing his balancing game, to me it is very clear that in this manner they do not achieve anything more than giving him the legitimacy he needs to put an end to the awakening of the world community who would be the only ones who could put the brakes on him, giving shelter to the defenders of democracy in Venezuela and denying him international support for his regime. <br /><br />The reason why there are politicians in Venezuela still calling people out to vote is easy to explain: To legitimize the regime in elections means that the regime has to concede just a small share of its power to them, and that is what politicians calling people out to vote are seeking.<br /><br />As we have seen, it matters little whether or not people elect an opponent of Chavez, because if they elect a Chavista, the one they choose steals what is dear to people, and if they choose an anti-Chavista, then the Chavez regime takes away resources and designated authority (as is happening with the recently elected governors and mayors) only to give those resources and powers to their own followers so that they in turn become the ones who do the stealing. Therefore I say that the people are screwed every which way.<br /><br />Indeed, it seems appropriate to clarify that although Chavez has been competent in maintaining the critical balance, he has stumbled more than once, including in April 2002, which, we remember, was because Chávez needed to purge the oil industry of qualified personnel to fill it with his most loyal supporters, and then, he created that huge provocation by humiliating and insulting its managers so as to force his opposition to reveal itself in protests; the problem is that the provocation was so great that the protest literally spun out of control and he lost the presidency when he ordered the killing of some of the two million protesters demanding his resignation and was disobeyed.<br /><br />Which brings me to the last part of this introductory reflection, the manner of defending democracy in Venezuela is not voting, because in that way what can be achieved at the ballot box (if anything!) is lost a little at a time indirectly legitimizing the Chavez regime which does exactly the opposite of what was won at the polls; but rather by DISOBEYING. The regime must be disobeyed in every way possible; but before doing so, we must organize ourselves so that everyone acts at the same time.<br /><br /><b>What happened this past February 15th, 2009 in the process of voting on the term limit amendment?</b><br /><br />In a shameless use of official advantadge, motorized gangs intimidated the citizenry starting at dawn, up to the point where Chavista bands injured people with baseball bats and chains. It happened the day before and the leadership of the CNE turned a blind eye. Of course that went unpunished. So be it, the proclamation of victory went out on the state channel with that of Chavez's own PSUV party, when it was prohibited, as ordered by the man himself, so that they would close any media outlet that issued anticipated results.<br /><br />How could they know the results as early as 4 pm? Clearly, that is why they lengthened the process two more hours, when voting hurriedly was not justified. At 4 p.m. the "No" votes exceeded the "Yes" by more than 10.5% and they then nailed it down, using WI-Fi communications between 4 and 6 p.m.; the Chavistas were supposedly celebrating their victory already at 4 p.m.<br /><br />A pro-Chavez governor voted twice, tore up ballots, committed electoral crimes and nothing was done, on the other hand the student leadership was raided by state security forces according to some five witness affidavits. <br /><br />Chavez used the daily television channels to insult us, everything that gave him pleasure, he told us he was going to grind us up dozens of times. What does this mean? That Chavez was bragging about his rigged election.<br /><br />Rigging the electoral registry, the disaster of the voting machines and, is there anything here that Chavez does not own? The Supreme Court, National Assembly, electoral office, militias, army, public ministry, money, oil, everything, everything. No one wins against all this.<br /><br />In case this is not shameful enough, what about the statements of the "opposition leadership" which legitimized or are legitimizing an electoral office that is controlled by Chavez? They even went so far as to cheerfully recognize the results of five million for the opposition to six for the Chavistas.<br /><br />In conclusion, I am ashamed of this "opposition leadership" (which does not represent me) that tries to ignore what can only be called ongoing electoral fraud, and in its place goes on speaking such nonsense as "if they lost it was because of electoral abstention" and speaking poorly of the abstentionists and telling I do not know how many more fairy tales ...</td></tr></table><br /><br />This is a perspective worth knowing.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-8446598449939105462010-02-13T00:44:00.016-06:002010-02-14T22:27:33.711-06:00Note to the Ni-Nis: "Even If You Lose, You Still Win!" <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMe9MblsQ765q7nUpiEHsVYsIUGtjNzBhsNVkJFADl7hCHDeAf_BcRq4FkUSNshB79HT-NLbO7YyTDz76wiEncdVPpT89WvvVnSN-cMFiUuubMvYZ49OXKrkv5TKAH1RD0n_mxJyU7kZbm/s400/ninis.bmp" width="350" height="350" style="border-style:none" /></td></tr></table><br />I have been trying to concentrate on preparing a post on the issue of electrical power in Venezuela, which is rather complex when all things are considered, but I have found myself distracted by my desire to participate in a fascinating <a href="http://www.marthacolmenares.com/2010/02/11/para-j-c-sosa-azpurua-el-castrochavismo-jamas-permitira-ceder-el-control-de-la-asamblea/" target="_blank">discussion at Martha Colmenares's blog</a> on the subject of electoral abstentionism which I just could not draw myself away from to attend to my own blogging. I recently posted a <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/01/political-folly-of-electoral.html" target="_blank">translation of an editorial</a> by Venezuelan author Ibsen Martinez which addressed the matter with what I consider to be a sophisticated, articulate, and pragmatic understanding of politics within a representative democracy. But I am fascinated by the persistent view of many, both within Venezuela and without, who believe that some other option to the vote is the only hope of bringing about a truly democratic result and that therefore they should boycott the electoral process altogether.<br /><br />To those who may be unfamiliar with the political process in Chavez's Venezuela, the idea of making it more democratic by abstaining from it may appear to be a course of action without any foundation in reality. This is not so. There is absolutely no doubt that Chavez has benefited from electoral fraud conducted on an almost unimaginable scale. The allegations of this first surfaced in the aftermath of the recall referendum of 2004 in Venezuela, which supposedly were dispelled in a review the Carter Center conducted which discounted them. But there were serious problems with the Carter Center's examination of the allegations, as a subsequent <a href="http://www.vcrisis.com/print.php?content=letters/200409061610" target="_blank">study prepared by two quantitative analysts</a> from Harvard and MIT demonstrated. And there is much more, as a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.vcrisis.com+electoral+fraud&aq=f&aqi=&oq=" target="_blank">series of articles one can still view at VCrisis.com</a> make clear, especially with respect to the <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.vcrisis.com+electoral+register&aq=f&aqi=&oq=" target="_blank">unbelievably fraudulent electoral register</a>. And none of this even begins to touch upon the very alarming issue of two-way modem communication between Smartmatic voting machines and polling places. There is so much more to electoral fraud in Venezuela under Chavez, but the point here is that the abstentionists have both logic and evidence on their side as they justify their withdrawal from the process, given that the proof of fraud is overwhelming and they have no legal means to address it, since the National Electoral Council (CNE) is totally under Chavez's control.<br /><br />But however reasonable the argument of abstentionists that the electoral process in Venezuela is corrupted may be, the consequences of their willful withdrawal from it cannot be discounted either, because it gave Chavez full and total control of Venezuela's National Assembly. As Ibsen Martinez argued "the result of such nonsense [i.e. militant abstentionism] has been what Chavez has counted upon for four years with an assembly joyously at the service of all his designs." And I agree wholeheartedly with Martinez. Turning over the entire ship of state to Chavez has been one of the most calamitous political miscalculations anywhere and the abstentionists must be held to account for it.<br /><br />Thus do we return to that forum discussion that has distracted me for these past two days. Though I am fully in agreement with the analysis so many have offered that a true, democratic result cannot be expected from the Venezuelan electoral system so long as the National Electoral Council serves as nothing more than a rubber stamp for Chavez, the electoral register is fraudulently inflated, two-way communication between electronic voting machines persists without oversight of its code, and the international community will not insist upon a legitimate vote; I am more convinced than ever that abstentionism at this moment will have unbelievably tragic consequences. At this critical time in Venezuela's recent political history the opposition to Chavez has gained a momentum it has never had before; so much so that the only proper strategy for the Venezuelan resistance to pursue is one of confronting the regime on all fronts, which is precisely what I argued within the forum discussion, where I post under the username "Jacobo."<br /><br />But the best point made within that entire exchange was one offered by a poster named Nico Alijuna who pleaded for a strengthening of the ever-growing opposition, which is an undeniable political phenomenon at present, with the simple observation that "if you lose, you still win." I consider this to be the final word on the folly of abstentionism and I urge those who continue to abstain, the so-called <i>Ni-Nis</i>, to learn from their past mistakes and rethink their actions. The Venezuelan opposition needs their participation.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br/><br />-------------------------------------------------------<br />Update, February 14, 10:25 p.m.<br /><br />I have posted <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2010/02/martha-colmenares-on-futility-of-vote.html">another entry today</a> in which I correct myself for what I now understand to be a not-altogether acceptable use of the term <i>Ni-Ni</i>, which perhaps should not be applied to all electoral abstentionists, as some are more willful in their rejection of the utility of the vote and remain quite politically active nonetheless. <i>StJ</i><br/><br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-82278202802261220102010-02-06T19:32:00.020-06:002010-02-08T07:13:25.919-06:00Caracas Mayor: "There is a Cuban Invasion Here" <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifCjtAsyzvDse5Vuh1fSeINgIUf6VcsCGmB5TVfBLA6m8vhysgXD0IRtzMrfw5yUY9li2J0C9-9UjchERRyTKl3qfPzF1jaE6-mdnVvEEZ-tduT9IHiYNMunKK6N06dJFRt8hHiSJAsJPl/s1600-r/ledezma.jpg" width="360" height="425" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Metropolitan Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma</td></tr></table><br />I am going to post a translation of an article up yesterday (Saturday) at the Caracas newspaper site <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/" target="_blank"><i>El Universal</i></a> that contains a public statement of a prominent Venezuelan public figure that can only be viewed as representing a direct challenge to the Hugo Chavez regime. In the article Antonio Ledezma, the mayor of "Metropolitan Caracas"--a somewhat confusing term after the implementation of the <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/2009/04/07/pol_ava_ledezma:-ley-del-dis_07A2285983.shtml" target="_blank">Capital District Law of 2009</a>, in which Chavez stripped him of a significant portion of his authority--charges that Venezuelan sovereignty has been significantly compromised by what Ledezma calls a "Cuban invasion." What I find particularly important about the statement is that the Mayor calls upon the Venezuelan Armed Forces to explain why the country is "being invaded by a foreign government." These kinds of appeals cannot be going down easy among Chavez's supporters, who understand that the population is in earnest.<br /><br />Before I get to the translation itself, there are two matters I wish to address in brief. First; I would like to give a little background on Antonio Ledezma, who I think is a man Venezuelans, especially those in the capital city, will pay attention to when he speaks. And second; I want to give a short overview of the issues raised in the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/05/venezuela.cuban.adviser/" target="_blank">mission of Cuban General Ramiro Valdes</a>, perhaps the number three man in Cuba after Fidel and Raul Castro, who has arrived in Venezuela ostensibly to help "fix" the country's electrical power generation problems, but who instead has created widespread fears of an impending campaign of political repression of a much more dangerous sort than we have seen from Hugo Chavez to date.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Ledezma" target="_blank">Antonio José Ledezma Díaz</a>, 54 years old, has served in Venezuelan public life for almost two decades. From 1992-1993 he was the Governor of what was then the Federal District of Caracas, an entity that was later abolished. He later served as Mayor of the <i>Libertador</i> Municipality, which forms part of Greater Caracas, from 1996-2000. He became one of the first Venezuelan politicians to challenge Hugo Chavez successfully in the Caracas area, generally considered a bastion of <i>Chavismo</i>, in 2008 when he defeated Chavez's hand-picked candidate Aristobulo Isturiz in the Caracas Mayor's race, only to see the National Assembly reduce his power in the already-mentioned Capital District Law of last April. He is a member of the splinter political party <i>Alianza Bravo Pueblo</i> (Fearless People's Alliance), though he was formerly affiated with <i>Acción Democrática</i>, one of the historical social democratic parties that is now trying to overcome its greatly-diminished power of recent years; in no small part a consequence of their abstentionist political stance in recent elections.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPv3SWf24NRzrlylp6xG47Ilw6mBoKL6hlYMRdG2lQK47cml1czJmxonSeUvhfjRBOU30J01pBm94VYXEClqUIhBzGntmcUKAdWujABFEmLvHlOJAb4eKl39RROQJ1O2T2OGCxVsEJRkw7/s1600-r/ramirovaldez.jpg" width="475" height="360" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Cuban General Ramiro Valdes<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/" target="_blank">AFP/Getty Images</a></td></tr></table><br />In the <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/2010/02/06/pol_ava_ledezma:-aqui-hay-un_06A3400573.shtml" target="_blank">interview with <i>El Universal</i></a> I am introducing in this entry, Ledezma raises serious concerns over the expanding presence of thousands of Cuban advisors and military personnel, and which directly references General <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramiro_Vald%C3%A9s" target="_blank">Ramiro Valdes</a>, formerly Cuba's interior minister and Government Vice President, who recently has been in charge of Cuban internet "regulation." Those who have followed events in Cuba closely will know that this obviously entails much of the Castro regime's recent <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/brutal-arrest-and-detention-of-cuban.html" target="_blank">repressive acts against Cuban bloggers</a>. And Valdes's personal history as Interior Minister in Cuba does not inspire confidence among Venezuelans, or anyone else observing honestly for that matter, that the essence of his task relates to repairing Venezuela's very serious electrical power generation problems, which are the <a href="http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=5070" target="_blank">source of significant dissatisfaction</a> with Chavez's rule among Venezuelans. As you will be able to see, Ledezma is absolutely unconvinced that the Valdes mission has anything to do with electrical power generation.<br /><br />One other point to mention about the article. You will notice that the persistent problem of public safety, i.e. "insecurity," again crops up in the interview with Mayor Ledezma, who is obviously seeking to reverse the effects of the Capital District Law of 2009 with respect to the maintenance of public order. This is a major issue with many in Caracas.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-family:Georgia,Sans Serif"><tr><td align="center" width="575" style="font-weight:bold"><b>TRANSLATION:</b><br/>"<a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/2010/02/06/pol_ava_ledezma:-aqui-hay-un_06A3400573.shtml" target="_blank">Ledezma: There is a Cuban Invasion Here</a>"</td></tr><tr><td width="575" style="font-weight:normal;padding:5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1pt;border-color:#000000">03:22 PM Caracas. - The Mayor, Antonio Ledezma, lashed out at the presence in the country of Cuban Minister Ramiro Valdes, and stated that the Armed Forces should explain why Venezuela is being invaded by a foreign government.<br /><br />"There is a Cuban invasion here. The president has stated that we have thousands and thousands of Cubans here. What response is there to this? We are thought of as unpatriotic when we make a statement of what is beyond Venezuela," Ledezma said.<br /><br />He added "Do they believe that they will scare us with this Cuban? Do they believe they are going to silence society?<br /><br />The Mayor considered it "a confession of incapacity, of ineptitude" that we are looking for help in other countries to resolve the electrical crisis, when there are dozens of technicians in Venezuela.<br /><br />"Tell this Mr. Valdes that we all know that he is an expert on police terrorism. He will be coming to electrocute Venezuelans because what lessons of efficiency in matters of electrification can this man, who has a criminal record and experience only in matters of persecution and harassment in the Cuban G2, give to us."<br /><br />Ledezma also defended the students. "I believe that the students are behaving as they are because they also use a light bulb to see, they know they need water, they are also family members."<br /><br /><b>The National Guard is not resolving the problem of security</b><br /><br />The Mayor, Antonio Ledezma, considers that President Hugo Chavez's announcement of sending the National Guard into the streets to combat insecurity in the country does not constitute a real solution to the problem.<br /><br />"No one can frown upon the effort but the result of announcing this 6 times more or less, is that every time they go on announcing that the National Guard is heading out into the streets the issue of insecurity gains strength, the guard only shows up at bus stops and afterwards goodbye to the electrical power that's now switched off," the Mayor maintained. <br /><br />He said that the National Police have not worked out, and they have not done so because "it was a mistake to put a partisan political label on the police, nowhere in the world are the police socialist, or social christian." <br /><br />He suggested the government would be better off taking another look at the decentralization schemes for fighting insecurity that he proposed "instead of harassing the regional police."<br /><br />He asked once again that the Metropolitan Police be returned to the city's control in order to "teach them how to manage a security plan" because in his view putting that police force in the hands of the national government has not meant any better pay nor better equipment for them and less security for the citizenry.<br /><br />He insisted upon adopting the security plan that he developed with a group of experts headed by Fermin Marmol Leon. "The security plan prepared by a team of specialists has not been dropped."<br /><br />In Ledezma's judgement it is impossible for the government to continue hiding in the closet with respect to the subject of security. "There are war parties out every weekend, the President never speaks of insecurity and there are 150 thousand deaths in the 11 years of his tenure.<br/> <br/></td></tr></table><br /><br /><i>In the Blogosphere</i><br /><br />As one might guess, the Venezuelan bloggers have been all over the Valdes mission and they go even farther than does Ledezma in voicing their anxieties about Valdes's past and what it portends for Venzuela. Among the English-language Venezuelan blogs I would especially recommend Miguel's excellent piece at the <i>Devil's Excrement</i>, "<a href="http://devilsexcrement.com/2010/02/03/hugo-how-insensitive-can-you-be-ramiro-valdes-is-a-murderer/" target="_blank">Hugo: How insensitive can you be? Ramiro Valdes is a murderer</a>." That's spot on the mark, by the way Miguel. Juan Cristobal has an initial entry piece up at <i>Caracas Chronicles</i>, "<a href="http://www.caracaschronicles.com/node/2305" target="_blank">Enter Ramirito</a>," which presents an introduction to Valdes and speculates that his real mission is to assist Hugo Chavez in controlling internet and telecommunications use. Daniel Duquenal at <i>Venezuela News and Views</i> has two interesting posts to read. He pegs Valdes clearly as "<a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2010/02/murderer-ramiro-valdes-comes-for-18.html" target="_blank">one of the major assassins of an already assassin rich Fidel Castro entourage</a>," as well as a second post which reports that <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2010/02/ramiro-valdes-as-seen-on-el-chiguire.html" target="_blank">Valdes has been strongly rejected</a> in the country and that those within <i>Chavismo</i> would do well to correct their mistake.<br /><br />Among the Spanish-language blogs I would like to point to three at this moment. Gustavo Coronel posted an <a href="http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/2010/02/antonio-ledezma-exige-la-expulsion-de.html" target="_blank">excellent entry yesterday</a> on the very topic I am covering here which uses historical allusion to compare Mayor Antonio Ledezma to Alonso Andreas de Ledesma, an honored and respected figure of Venezuelan history who defended Caracas from the attack of the pirate Amyas Preston in 1596 and who is widely regarded as the model for the character <i>Don Quixote</i> in the novel by Miguel de Cervantes of the same name. It's an absolutely wonderful piece. As always, Martha Colmenares is right on top of the issue in multiple posts on her site. In <a href="http://www.marthacolmenares.com/2010/02/04/designacion-del-militar-cubano-ramiro-valdes-por-crisis-electrica-en-venezuela-genera-reacciones/" target="_blank">her first entry</a>, she addresses the negative reactions to the arrival of Valdes, and then follows it with a <a href="http://www.marthacolmenares.com/2010/02/06/ramiro-valdes-menendez-la-oscuridad-por-pedro-corzo/" target="_blank">closer look at Ramiro Valdes</a> as delivered by author Pedro Corzo Eves, which is most disquieting as it paints Valdes in very dark terms. Finally, Lazaro Gonzalez at <i>Cuba Independiente</i> has a couple of interesting posts worth mentioning. In "<a href="http://cubaindependiente.blogspot.com/2010/02/que-hace-ramiro-valdes-en-venezuela.html" target="_blank">Que hace Ramiro Valdes en Venezuela?</a>" (<i>What is Ramiro Valdes doing in Venezuela?</i>), Laz relates the Valdes mission to Chavez's need to address a deteriorating political situation among his own former supporters, especially in the wake of numerous and recent resignations. And in a second, and I think very interesting, post "<a href="http://cubaindependiente.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-am-sorry-ramiro-you-are-out.html" target="_blank">I am sorry Ramiro you are out</a>" Laz suggests that Valdes's appointment is a sign that he is being moved out of the way in the succession to Fidel.<br /><br />The Valdes mission will remain a topic to keep in view.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br/><br /><br /><a href="" target="_blank"></a>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-77395376598035631042010-02-06T11:31:00.009-06:002010-02-06T12:46:31.572-06:00A Venezuelan's Prayer <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLG9YCRzqsnw-p13_Q65vZZfxAmcqoakxg1XDEeWHZLTmYyr1evqgRRL886ONvVRmW_E1pDiDCc0qn_Y6WSQxDonN1RTO6Yt9hS7ocoZkOO6p9Z3v-Vx0znzEHOxLvtjM3Dxph5jtrCKT2/s1600-r/prayer.jpg" width="375" height="505" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center"></td></tr></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" style="font-style:italic;padding-left:0px;padding-top:3px"><tr><td><b><u>Translation</u>:</b></td></tr><tr><td>Guardian Angel</td></tr><tr><td>Sweet companion</td></tr><tr><td>Take Hugo Chavez Frias far away</td></tr><tr><td>And do not bring him back, neither by night nor by day</td></tr><tr><td>So that Venezuela may have peace, water, and energy</td></tr></table><br /><br />Special thanks to Luciano Cuadra at <a href="http://blogs.vivenicaragua.com/naciongueguence/2010/02/04/oracion-a-la-venezolana.html" target="_blank">Nación Güegüence</a>.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-44403376521555917372010-02-06T01:58:00.002-06:002010-02-06T02:23:39.688-06:00Blog Link: "If Venezuelans Do Not Act Now ..."<a href="http://marcmasferrer.typepad.com/uncommon_sense/2010/02/cubazuela.html">Cubazuela</a><br /><br />Marc Masferrer has an interesting little post that is nice and to the point up at his <a href="http://marcmasferrer.typepad.com/" target="_blank">Uncommon Sense</a> blog, long one of my favorites, as I have mentioned it in several previous entries here.<br /><br />Marc has been one of the most knowledgeable bloggers anywhere on the very serious problem of Cuba's political prisoners and, in light of his valuable experience, I think his perspective is worth noting, given that he sees the culmination of Hugo Chavez's use of Cuban "advisors" in very clear terms:<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="font-style:italic"><tr><td>. . . The evil that is emerging in Caracas is just a variant of that that has ravaged Cuba for 51 years, constantly nurtured by a monarchical regime afraid of its own people. . . .</td></tr><tr><td align="right">Marc Masferrer</td></tr></table><br />Yes Marc; the cowardice cannot be hidden any longer.<br /><br />Check out his blog everyone.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-8747737915671291152010-02-04T15:55:00.003-06:002010-02-04T16:11:04.340-06:00Article Link: "2010 Will be a Reckoning for Hugo Chavez" <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="font-style:italic"><tr><td>. . . Despite the stiff competition of years past, though, 2010 is already taking shape as a year of reckoning for the country, the man, and the ideology. The coming months will write a defining chapter in the history of Venezuela, Chávez and Chavismo. . . .</td></tr><tr><td align="right">Frida Ghitis, World Politics Review</td></tr></table><br />Since my own posts betray an obvious distaste for Hugo Chavez and his Bolivarian madness, I think it might be worthwhile to view an examination of the current political crisis confronting <i>Chavismo</i> from a more disinterested perspective.<br /><br />I encourage everyone to take a moment and read the article at <a href="http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/" target="_blank">World Politics Review</a> by Frida Ghitis, "<a href="http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=5070" target="_blank">2010 Will be a Reckoning for Hugo Chavez</a>."<br /><br />The author gives an accurate overview of the current problems facing everyday Venezuelans and how they are causing them to turn away from Chavez. She makes very clear that the parliamentary elections for this year will be a turning point in the Chavez presidency, a point with which I concur completely.<br /><br />And I also loved the following, from the same article:<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="font-style:italic"><tr><td>. . . As Venezuelans debate who is to blame for their problems, the rest of the continent is quickly reaching its own conclusions. Chavismo, the ideology that for a time appeared poised to sweep across Latin America, is steadily losing adherents. . . .</td></tr></table><br />Great read!<br /><br />StJacques<br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-16783846284197825592010-02-02T14:46:00.004-06:002010-02-02T16:51:43.897-06:00The Need for Dispassionate Synthesis When Studying Cuban History <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrIwXB8DL3hdgR48xJRmiDLvIHD_OxHVaGvInXVecynpMbmY4w2SJaA9YisRh-BggmmJwCAidh2jbiLBMUwhMRq8zb8mGVx5bS1i_wG6XNS2EIw3MrdhHkV4Xn_6P1sfgSZHnjznrFl3X0/s400/ManuelMarquez-Sterling.jpg" width="338" height="400" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Cuban Author Manuel Marquez-Sterling</td></tr></table><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0"><tr><td style="font-style:italic">Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.</td></tr><tr><td>John Adams, "Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials," December 1770</td></tr></table><br />I want to send out a special shout today to congratulate George Moneo at <a href="http://babalublog.com/" target="_blank">Babalú</a> for a post he put up which addresses one of the central problems confronting all of us who live outside of Cuba with respect to grasping the larger problem of Cuban history--the facts before us are very much in question to this day.<br /><br />Anyone who has <i>honestly</i> examined the record of Fidel Castro's rise to power and the progress of his revolution as told in modern historical scholarship will tell you that the body of work which covers the topic suffers from a lack of what historians refer to as a balanced use of <i>primary sources</i>, which is a test of evidence presented, in various ways, <i>in the first person</i>. In other words, historical evidence is most believable and reliable when it comes directly from the source, rather than relying upon opinions given from the outside.<br /><br /><a href="http://babalublog.com/2010/02/a-cuban-national-treasure/" target="_blank">Moneo's blog entry</a> presents a brief overview of a recent program he attended at the University of Miami's Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies in which Cuban author and historian Manuel Marquez-Sterling, son of Carlos Marquez-Sterling, a Cuban politician of the late 50's and early Castro era (when politics ended); gave a presentation on a book he published entitled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615318568?ie=UTF8&tag=classicaltrad-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0615318568" target="_blank"><i>Cuba, 1952-1959: The True Story of Castro's Rise to Power</i></a>. Marquez-Sterling's principal objective is to present a more complete chronology of events explaining how Castro came to power, with a particular emphasis upon attacking numerous myths generally assumed to be part of the story as it is now widely held within modern historical scholarship. Some of these myths, such as those associated with U.S. support for Batista and the "evolution" of Castro's ideological development as a Communist, are practically accepted without question among those who study the Cuban Revolution, which makes the problem of understanding Cuba and Castroite rule most difficult. Many important facts are simply not known and, as so many within the Cuban-American community will tell you, are frequently denied or excluded from conversation when they are introduced.<br /><br />While I am not a Cuban-American, and therefore cannot feel that special pain I know they must endure when they attempt to tell their story, I also have faced the problem of contesting the conventional wisdom on Cuba during my own time in college, when I studied History at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. I can especially recall graduate seminars in U.S. Foreign Relations, U.S.-Latin American Relations, and Latin American History in which I attempted to present factual information that undermined the interpretations of leftist historians--I studied under out-and-out Marxists--only to see it attacked repeatedly in what I clearly recognized then, and now, by fallacious argumentation. If my source was taken from the testimony of Cuban dissidents or <i>émigrés</i> who fled the island after Castro, I faced either an abusive or circumstantial <i>Ad Hominem</i> argument, which either attacked or discounted the testimony of eyewitnesses and those who lived the tragedy in the first person for reason of their political attitudes or personal background. When I presented U.S. government documents, especially from the Department of State, they were either dismissed or discounted for representing a minority viewpoint, thus committing either the fallacy of <i>Ignoratio Elenchi</i> (Irrelevant Conclusion or Thesis), or if the attack was prefaced with "everyone knows" the fallacy of the <i>Argumentum Ad Populum</i> (appeal to the people). And I repeatedly found myself in confrontation when I contested the interpretations offered by pro-Castro historians for my refusal to bow down before the demi-gods of the discipline, the purest form of the <i>Argumentum Ad Verecundiam</i>, or the "argument from authority." Logic and evidence have little or no import when faced with the passion of leftist historians who betray the methodology of their discipline when they corrupt it to promote their own political agendas.<br /><br />Passion is a good source of motivation to encourage the study and writing of history, but it is a very poor impetus for the assessment of historical evidence. Passion and logic will always be at odds with each other and, as John Adams understood only too well, it will never alter the state of facts and evidence, which will ever remain stubborn and resistant to the propagandizing intent of historians who abuse their readers and do harm to their discipline when they ignore and attack the facts of history.<br /><br />There will come a day, and I suspect it is not as far off as many might think, when the Cuban people will throw off the yoke of <i>Castrista</i> oppression and the truth will come flooding out in a torrent. When it does, there will be a period of reexamination among historians, many of whom will simply run and hide from their personal embarrassment, as was the case with the fall of the Soviet Union. A dispassionate synthesis of Cuban history, so desperately needed but denied us as of now, will then integrate all the evidence needed to tell what happened in the light of truth. The story of Castro's rise to power will be part of that revisionist process and we will likely see the work of scholars such as Manuel Marquez-Sterling reintroduced into the public consciousness as the institutions who manage public information find themselves forced to account for their past errors. And the story of what took place within Cuba under Castro will be retold as well. In the same manner in which historians of the Soviet era of Russian History who once scoffed at the story <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Antonov-Ovseyenko" target="_blank">Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko</a> told of the Stalinist terror suddenly found themselves compelled to write the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repression/dp/0674076087" target="_blank"><i>Black Book of Communism</i></a>, we will expect to see the <u><i>Black Book of Castroite Repression</i></u> in Cuba. It will happen because, as Saladin told us over seven centuries ago, <i>Blood Never Sleeps</i>.<br /><br />And we know that the spilled blood of Cuban patriots remains awake because we have the good guys to count upon to keep the truth alive. Guys like George Moneo and his fellow bloggers at Babalú and elsewhere on the web, who will never let this story go untold.<br /><br />Kudos George!<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-43865083786679742262010-02-02T11:30:00.005-06:002010-02-04T01:47:45.010-06:00So How is Chavez Doing? A Recent Hinterlaces Poll <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOFY_GsByiphWB7GfcVFj4WqDOBBLMZJdw168hQ6WHZcZrGiFY6BX06A2VZWzAiU3xtUK6z4VuVi5tmbTY7Tc0mrtyZ_QeXNKWpPUXEY_RwkMQsy5Lk6zpBI1IEU97lhyVZlB37d-obDTE/s1600-r/strikeout.jpg" width="490" height="325" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Translation: <i>Regime, You're Out</i>! (as a baseball umpire would say)</td></tr></table><br />I'm going to extend a tip of the hat to <a href="http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Gustavo Coronel</a> here, who just posted the <a href="http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/2010/02/lates-poll-on-hugo-chavezs-revolution.html" target="_blank">results of a very interesting public opinion poll</a> conducted by Hinterlaces gauging Venezuelan public opinion towards Hugo Chavez, which I think makes a nice supplement to my entry of yesterday on the problem of abstentionism as it relates to the upcoming parliamentary elections in Venezuela later this year. You can give this a quick look and take hope.<br /><br />The basic results: 77% of Venezuelans blame Hugo Chavez and his team for the bad situation in which the country now finds itself; 62% do not trust Hugo Chavez; and perhaps most importantly, <i>60% of Venezuelans say they will vote for opposition candidates in the upcoming parliamentary elections</i>.<br /><br />It looks like <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2009/11/2010-national-assembly-vote-in.html" target="_blank">Daniel Duquenal's argument</a> that "the election is for the opposition to lose" holds water when compared against the hard numbers of this recent poll.<br /><br />¡<i>Buen Hecho Gustavo</i>!<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-48772316325206732202010-02-01T18:07:00.000-06:002010-02-01T18:07:41.034-06:00The Political Folly of Electoral Abstentionism in Chavez's Venezuela <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2W6_DZ5VYdvdQ-tyYawVG8rvDxCzgrdGRkAf8S_r1lo6YeQ24fnCkVOv_V5fJkL286sp76NSrsv6Nubhzlgk3J1iL6I6emPPLuSc0MzJJhOA2iRjkfY_jVfe1EUjhj_mq9kzS8nmYUhGD/s400/IbsenMartinez.jpg" width="290" height="350" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Venezuelan Playwright, Author, and Journalist Ibsen Martinez</td></tr></table><br /><br />I would like to take a first look within this blog at the upcoming 2010 parliamentary elections in Venezuela, which likely will take place in September of this year, though scheduling remains in the hands of the regime. Before I get into the subject of this first post, in which I will introduce the perspective of a highly-qualified Venezuelan observer on an important trend to track within the process; namely, that of "abstentionism," I want to draw everyone's attention to some very fine background work that already has been prepared for an easy review by anyone wishing to acquaint themselves with the situation.<br /><br />Venezuelan blogger <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Daniel Duquenal</a> has done an <i>excellent</i> job of putting together a <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/search/label/2010%20elections" target="_blank">series of posts</a>, all but one in English as I view them today, which introduce and explain the elections in significant detail and from a variety of perspectives. Readers will be able to learn the ins and outs of Venezuelan electoral law in both theory and practice--yes, they differ markedly and in the real world <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2009/10/2010-votes-legal-cheating-in-pro-chavez.html" target="_blank">often work to the advantage of the regime</a>--as well as learning both the recent and long-term historical context within which the elections will take place. Daniel is concerned with combatting problems of voter apathy, electoral fraud, and more and he is hoping, read "pleading," that the Venezuelan opposition will present a unified front to the regime, something that is particularly important given the new electoral law which denies minority parties representation unless they <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2009/10/2010-venezuelan-votes-list-voting.html" target="_blank">receive at least 25% of the vote</a>. And there are still other problems to confront as well; especially <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2009/11/2010-votes-gerrymandering-in-venezuela.html" target="_blank">gerrymandering of districts</a>. You can see a basic overview of Daniel's work on the 2010 elections in Venezuela <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2009/11/2010-national-assembly-vote-in.html" target="_blank">here</a>. I recommend it highly.<br /><br />As a first topic for review of the upcoming vote in Venezuela I would like to introduce the phenomenon of <i>Electoral Abstentionism</i> here, which has played a more prominent part in the politics of Chavez's rule over the past decade than many would appreciate. Chavez has, quite simply, not only benefited from the willful apathy of many in the Venezuelan electorate who oppose the direction of his administration, he has in fact counted upon it as a given advantage enabling him to rule almost by decree. But this recent trend in Venezuelan politics appears to be changing, as the article I am presenting today will show.<br /><br />Ibsen Martinez is an award-winning newspaper columnist, journalist, and playwright from Caracas. He has been with the staff at the Caracas newspaper <a href="http://el-nacional.com/www/site/p_contenido.php" target="_blank"><i>El Nacional</i></a>, once considered close to Chavez but which has clearly stood in opposition to him since at least 2000, for over fourteen years. He also has been published internationally in papers such as Miami's <a href="http://www.elnuevoherald.com/" target="_blank"><i>El Nuevo Herald</i></a>, and both <a href="http://www.letraslibres.com/" target="_blank"><i>Letras Libres</i></a> and <a href="http://www.elpais.com/" target="_blank"><i>El Pais</i></a> in Madrid. <br /><br />The following editorial was <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/impreso/politica/articuloimpreso184970-los-tres-strikes?page=0,0" target="_blank" target="_blank">published yesterday</a> in the Bogota, Colombia newspaper <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/"><i>El Espectador</i></a>. Martinez takes a good look in this particular essay at the phenomenon of abstentionism in recent Venezuelan political life and gives his reasons why he believes it will no longer be a boon to Chavez this year or in the future. Since almost all knowledgeable observers of Venezuelan politics under Chavez seem to view abstentionists--the so-called <i>ni-nis</i>--as an important part of the political milieu of Venezuela, Martinez's perspective may be worth keeping in mind.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-family:Georgia,Sans Serif"><tr><td align="center" width="575" style="font-weight:bold">TRANSLATION<br/>"The Three Strikes"<br/>By Ibsen Martinez</td></tr><tr><td width="575" style="font-weight:normal;padding:5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1pt;border-color:#000000"><b>The Best Poll is the Election</b><br /><br />After a Chavista decade, for Venezuelans of any political banner it is simply exhausting to contemplate the prospect of a new electoral struggle. Nevertheless, today there is hardly anyone in the entire country who wants to avert the annoyance of another contentious campaign with more fervor than Hugo Chavez himself.<br /><br />The reason why is that everything indicates that the parliamentary elections in September of this year may mean that his desire for reelection in the 2012 presidential election will appear to be indefinitely put on hold.<br /><br />Even though some foreign media-especially European-still uphold the idea of Chavez's electoral invincibility, the fact is that, strictly speaking, since December 2006 Chavez has not received an electoral landslide of the kind to which he had become accustomed since 1998, when he won the presidency of Venezuela for the first time. Indeed, Chavez won by a landslide in the referendum convened in 1999 to validate the Constitution arising from the Constituent Assembly that year and, later, in the same convincing fashion, in the controversial recall referendum of 2004 called by the opposition.<br /><br />This reporter judges that the accusation of electronic vote fraud which the political opposition could not validate then--neither before their fellow Venezuelans nor to the international community--was not the effective cause of that triumph.<br /><br />Rather, in that "victory" the conventional vices of Latin American populist opportunism were acted out within an electoral trance. Most particularly, the extortion of the vote of the state bureaucracy in a country where the Petro-State employs 70% of the economically active population worked. There was, moreover, a grotesque element that conditionally determined the outcome in favor of Chavez, the "Tascon list," so named after the surname of the Chavista deputy who made it famous. It was, simply, a list of millions of citizens who, in 2003, signed the petition for a recall referendum.<br /><br />Violating the secrecy of the vote, the Venezuelan electoral college, herein named the National Electoral Council, unconstitutionally ceded to the pro-government deputy Luis Tascon the list of all opposition voters. The list already had been maliciously challenged by the college for alleged errors of form, forcing the opposition to collect signatures again.<br /><br />This list, which still circulates freely today in compact discs obtainable from street vendors, has served over these years, neither more nor less, as a detailed register of political opponents and a means of terror. It is consulted by the government before awarding contracts, making appointments in public administration, granting passports and so on. As a result, from those years onward, a virtual political apartheid has prevailed in Venezuela that has not passed without having electoral consequences. The most important and certainly the most tragic for the opposition, was the expensive toll that militant abstentionism reached on the eve of the parliamentary elections of 2005.<br /><br /><b>Yesterday's Abstentionists Retarget their Aim</b><br /><br />In that year the political leadership of the opposition, collegially composed of what remained of the old bipartisanship and by numerous groups of so-called civil society, instead of turning out its constituency, chose to get behind the general feeling of frustration and despair of the mass of voters opposed to Chavez.<br /><br />The latter, still imbued with the so-called "anti-politics" that made possible Chavez's coming to power, was convinced that the electoral college was capable of twisting any outcome in favor of the Bolivarian leader.<br /><br />People asked contemptuously: "Why vote?," and the political class could neither say nor do anything worthwhile faced with the question. The parties, consciously persuaded for the worse in knowing themselves despised from the beginning by the average voter, decided to throw away all reason and flatter the common opponent.<br /><br />The strange idea of boycotting the parliamentary elections then emerged, with the specious argument that a militant abstentionism would "delegitimize" the regime and hasten its fall.<br /><br />The result of such nonsense has been what Chavez has counted upon for four years with an assembly joyously at the service of all his designs. In contrast, the radical abstentionism of the opposition has now lost all its belligerence. Those who were the leading spokesmen of abstentionism in 2005, today are working the hardest to reverse the effects of this monumental miscalculation.<br /><br />Thus there is now a consensus, not only among the opposing political leadership, grouped together in a body called the "Democratic Committee," but among the masses adverse to Chavez, who are committed, if not to win, to at least regain a presence in the Assembly as a way of making the already serious and undeniable political crisis that lives inside Chavismo more profound. A crisis which may well hinder the aspirations of Chavez to seek re-election in 2012.<br /><br /><b>Since 2007, Chavez's Votes Have Not Grown, Only Fallen</b><br /><br />Consider: In December 2006, Chavez won the presidential elections with seven million three hundred thousand votes, 62.8% of the ballots cast. Just one year later, in December 2007, the referendum with which Chavez sought approval for a series of reforms to the "world's most perfect constitution," lost by a narrow margin, with an abstention rate which exceeded 37%. Most significant was that, in just 12 months, Chavez "lost" almost three million votes. Two million seven hundred and seventy-nine thousand, to be exact.<br /><br />"They like the guy," was the unanimous opinion of the analysts, "but not the socialism he proposes." Since that date, the opposition has come in with greater numbers in all confrontations, despite the enticement to mischief of the electoral college. The years in which Chavez's electoral dominance expressed itself monotonously in a ratio of from 60 to 40 in favor of the Supreme Leader have ended, and now all the polls speak of a clear opposition majority in voter intent. This predominance clearly nourishes disenchantment in Chavez's own electoral universe: the poor.<br /><br />Thus it is that today, with the 100% devaluation of the Bolivar, the rationing of water and electrical energy as the product of waste, union agitation in the iron and steel sector, rampant crime, a silent war between factions of the "Boli-Bourgeoisie" that expresses itself in the bankruptcies of many banks and, last but not least, the rupture of trade relations with Colombia all worsen the rejection of Chavez by over 80% of Venezuelans of voting age, voices usually very laconic and even-tempered all foreshadowing that the lists of the opposition will be able to wrest control of the Assembly from Chavez in September.<br /><br />For the first time the "Chavez aircraft carrier" does not look capable of carrying the parliamentary candidacies of his always unknown candidates on his shoulders.<br /><br />According to the rules of baseball, the Venezuelan national pastime, a batter has only three chances to try to hit the ball out of the diamond. Each time he fails, the umpire calls a strike. When three strikes are called, we say the batter has been put "out" and must leave the game.<br /><br />In the breaks between one inning and another in the contests, the tens of thousands of attendees at the final games of the Venezuelan baseball championship chanted every night at the ballpark in Caracas, as the umpire would shout "out" to a batter: "One, two, three: Chavez, you're out!"<br /><br />The three strikes are devaluation, rationing, and insecurity. Three non-ideological reasons to leave the Bolivar reborn without parliamentary representation.<br/> </td></tr></table><br /><br />Things are changing for Chavez in Venezuela. The signs are everywhere.<br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-24888700392836082722010-02-01T14:25:00.003-06:002010-02-01T14:36:13.379-06:00Alek Boyd on the Changing Story of April 11, 2002 and the BBC's Role in Hiding and Altering the Truth About It<a href="http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/2010/02/chavez-ta-ponchao-wheres-bbc-editing.html">Chavez ta ponchao: Where's BBC professionalism when most need it?</a><br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihNt567HPyC2iVBjXfMVv_Z6FZJbWtddvo1b2-tr5gJbilm1szWqP_EqwIFl9ctIHkLwRuI5brCwaXNGyMr71HFzeajBN0svTGKF_dIRJe4070kK4VPmhjTYxpaYMCLx2esr5P3oX5KYAu/s400/alek-boyd.jpg" width="268" height="400" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Alek Boyd</td></tr></table><br />Venezuela will now become the front and center focus of this blog for some time to come, as I see events heating up there in a way that is creating a new dynamic. Yes; I will still keep an eye on what is going down in Cuba and elsewhere, but what is happening in Venezuela right now is just too important to ignore. I will be posting a second entry here in a few hours to begin a discussion of the political context of the upcoming parliamentary elections later this year using a translation I am preparing of an <a href="http://www.elespectador.com/impreso/politica/articuloimpreso184970-los-tres-strikes?page=0,0" target="_blank">editorial published in the Colombian newspaper <i>El Espectador</i></a> yesterday by Venezuelan author and journalist Ibsen Martinez that will examine changing attitudes towards electoral abstentionism in Venezuelan politics as they relate to the upcoming elections.<br /><br />But before I post my original entry I want to direct everyone to an important issue Alek Boyd, who I <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2008/05/blog-link-chavez-of-terrorism.html" target="_blank">introduced in this blog in May, 2008</a>, has raised within his most recent post, translated in part, <a href="http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/2010/02/chavez-ta-ponchao-wheres-bbc-editing.html" target="_blank">Chavez You're Out: Where's BBC professionalism when most need it?</a>.<br /><br />Right now the Chavez regime is attempting to legitimize its closure of RCTV by rewriting history and it is most unfortunate that the Mainstream Media in the more developed world, Great Britain and Europe in this instance, seem to be cooperating. At the center of this controversy is the "rewriting" of the historical record of the <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-happened-on-april-11-2002.html" target="_blank">events of April 11, 2002</a> in Venezuela, when Chavez was almost forced to resign from office (he actually did but then reneged), as part of a treason and sedition charge being fabricated against RCTV's Miguel A. Rodriguez.<br /><br />It is bad enough to see Chavez do it. But how can more "responsible" (this term sticks in my throat right now) media organizations like the BBC cooperate?<br /><br />This is a very important issue. We cannot let the MSM go free when they engage in this kind of deception. <br /><br />StJacques<br/><br /> StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-70333727525508182552010-01-30T21:56:00.004-06:002010-01-30T22:03:01.263-06:00Chavez Removes the Mask: It Will Be Dictatorship or Freedom <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBWLXGqEAZmXUb8KMfJpjsRW-hWPsQ7ddUVcz0m9Z_MJQy-m2PJVppvEjSYPzo5Ca2VA9LV6g1-wakF8FtVGgK0wQk10gWCkc8q7sGTDFMjkCUVA11HCKjCYxZkw033ownlxEKdSBERdoK/s1600-r/garrampino.JPG" width="490" height="325" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">"Democracy" Under Chavez: A National Guardsman Holds a New, or<br/>Perhaps Very Old, Type of Weapon Known as the <i>Garrampiño</i> to Intimidate Protesters</td></tr></table><br /><i>A Political Meltdown in Venezuela?</i><br /><br />Things are heating up in Venezuela in ways we have not seen before. After revoking the broadcast license for independent television station RCTV in 2007, which removed it from the public airwaves in 2008, Hugo Chavez has now <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100125-710421.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines" target="_blank">forced Venezuelan cable television services to cease providing the RCTV channel</a> to their subscribers, along with numerous other stations he regards as threatening to his regime. This comes on the heels of his closure of some 150 radio stations who did not offer what he deems to be the proper level of support for his policies. Protests have sprouted up all over the country, though the strongest have been very large student-led demonstrations in Caracas and also in the western state of Merida, as police and national guard units have violently responded to what appears to verge on a mass uprising. There have been at least two deaths thus far, but the situation threatens to take a turn for the worse, particularly in Merida, where a new phenomenon has emerged within the Venezuelan resistance. <br /><br />In the protests in Merida, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2520473020100126?type=marketsNews" target="_blank">the opposition has shot back</a>. <br /><br />The demonstrations in Merida took an ugly turn Monday when protesters responded to an appearance by the pro-Chavez Tupumaro militia who joined National Guardsmen struggling to resist protesters and restrict their movements when shots felled a 16 year old Chavez supporter named Yorsinio José Carrillo Torres. Other shots ensued, with at least one volley coming from the protesters themselves, who wounded several guardsmen, one of whom was taken to intensive care. An <a href="http://www.eluniversal.com/2010/01/26/pol_art_dos-estudiantes-fall_1738596.shtml" target="_blank">anti-Chavista student was murdered</a> later in the week, which <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2010/01/update-another-student-dead-and-more.html" target="_blank">Daniel Duquenal reports</a> was likely the work of the Tupumaro acting in retaliation.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhar6QMw93u7HLzAr0V_ZB9VrcwtL_DpGxx4m6wGgzVr47qlgIPG8QerHGkppK2_xzDBBS0FW3na03c0NjfbJkFQkwiSbM_M05cCTrAEhNAhyI9l04uRV88U8diOcrHcam-mt7C6-SjmGdV/s400/funeral.jpg" width="400" height="288" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Pro-Chavez Tupumaro Militia Members in Merida Carry the Coffin of<br/>16 year old Yorsinio José Carrillo Torres, Killed Last Monday<br/>Source: <a href="http://impresodigital.el-nacional.com/ediciones/zoom.asp?dia=28&mes=01&anio=2010&wImg=1074&hImg=1001&imagen=20100128_CIUD2_1_1_G1&leyenda=" target="_blank"><i>El Nacional</i></a></td></tr></table><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_nGDJdsjNKjssww1MgI5sfqe4YMfrc3EW0eQ69t-CyzvrFqGQE34QWVkQXiwhWd7mzBccOrT_VuIZcu-xIJ3giJcifL702dxJT1sIwapFpmdoPNOcI6opkowKwpywnH6Cep73d8DsXOjU/s400/herido.jpg" width="400" height="281" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">A National Guardsman Wounded in Merida is Taken to Intensive Care<br/>Source: <a href="http://impresodigital.el-nacional.com/ediciones/zoom.asp?dia=28&mes=01&anio=2010&wImg=1074&hImg=1001&imagen=20100128_CIUD2_1_1_G1&leyenda=" target="_blank"><i>El Nacional</i></a></td></tr></table><br />The <a href="http://www.marthacolmenares.com/2010/01/28/foto-de-guardia-nacional-con-arma-que-desgarra-portada-en-represion-de-las-protestas/" target="_blank">protests have spread across the entire country</a> to include the states of Merida, Lara, Zulia, and more. And the results are revealing cracks among Chavez's former supporters. There have been <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60Q69820100127" target="_blank">resignations from his cabinet</a>, forcing him to name a new Vice President and Defense Minister. With mounting protests in the state of Lara, Chavez has threatened to nationalize its police force, but its governor and former ally <a href="http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/141903/henry-falcon-se-pronuncio-sobre-la-posible-intervencion-de-la-policia-de-lara/" target="_blank">Henry Falcon has rejected the takeover</a> stating that the police in the state have "for months understood the necessity of their internal transformation so as to create an ethical and responsible compromise with the people of Lara." The implications of Falcon's use of the adjectives "ethical" and "responsible" provide some indication of the internal debate which must now be taking place among Chavez's supporters; a most telling sign of the pace and direction of political change in the country.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhix83Ad6l5sEuGK4zESHJDsmqOzabyrbYgOvrw3lbONJb_jFNHqEMDg6amcR06EBcgmsiCOhgtJA9II5oafBAazVWwFeKBOc4hOak110RcvTrBRmXDXUpDMXQh8NCsF480KJpOlXRN6RJB/s400/henri-falcon21.jpg" width="400" height="310" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Henry Falcon, Governor of the State of Lara and Historically<br/>a Chavez Ally, Speaks to the Press on Friday, Rejecting<br/>Chavez's Threat to Nationalize the Lara State Police<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/141903/henry-falcon-se-pronuncio-sobre-la-posible-intervencion-de-la-policia-de-lara/" target="_blank"><i>Noticias24.com</i></a></td></tr></table><br /><i>Student Protests in Caracas: The Center of the Storm</i><br /><br />The driving force behind the protests now underway all over Venezuela is clearly the activism of university students in Caracas, who have shown up every day this week to demonstrate and at times, especially last Monday, in the tens of thousands. They are presenting a unified resistance to the closure of RCTV and their dogged, stubborn insistence upon change is igniting and emboldening anti-Chavista elements across the country.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFCOx8Crq-kI9HaErMN0lO5m1C9ZzECmh_XZsaYC0nnRcXMFuDoFGZmsq9M1dEukWxg5v2k6GAMIxVWwuYN3ZjzgfHojRGiWf4Rsk1Zx78sIHog0nX-bSgLdO3ZtY1uBDxYLPmgSI127fS/s1600-r/caracasstudents2.jpg" width="490" height="345" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Numbers Matter: Caracas Students Amassed for a<br/>Demonstration Against Closure of RCTV Earlier This Week<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/141807/imagenes-de-las-protestas-estudiantiles-de-hoy-en-caracas/" target="_blank"><i>Noticias24.com</i></a></td></tr></table><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu3E2dy9QH0PPUAWGqohNVfaz2U0qE7OOOMmkZDK4sB23GR7uvNHkkvJAWOUPLONrLp-j3awkNh1oGWHOg8putMPqUjmnKthbmIfFXd5BgdqndSK5N9_1__yzLUDRTFEFD-y_g2x0SC3kE/s1600-r/caracasstudents1.jpg" width="490" height="330" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Students Arriving for Demonstration<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/141807/imagenes-de-las-protestas-estudiantiles-de-hoy-en-caracas/" target="_blank"><i>Noticias24.com</i></a></td></tr></table><br />The student demonstrations last Monday were peaceful in nature until they attempted to approach the Venezuelan communications agency offices of Conatel, when the <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/0126/Venezuelan-students-protest-Chavez-s-TV-censorship" target="_blank">police retaliated with tear gas and beatings</a> to disperse them, a response that led to some of the students throwing rocks and returning the tear gas canisters in a substantial display of bravery in the face of intimidation from the regime. <br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTgINPxZUtHKOGkE4LpOJQ6cIDoEOtlPM52-CGnYLAHzYVaaPtrWiQNhYLysIcFnL-4bC1yC_QVpMh6EL3b-p7NnbvM8YT76qddSeYx0B_9pr6UQ_tyZMDWd-uJkbjG7ja_hT2-6zxxxoA/s1600-r/teargasresponse.jpg" width="490" height="325" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">A Venezuelan Student Wearing a Gas Mask Throws<br/>a Tear Gas Canister Back at Caracas Police Last Monday<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/141807/imagenes-de-las-protestas-estudiantiles-de-hoy-en-caracas/" target="_blank"><i>Noticias24.com</i></a></td></tr></table><br />The Chavez government's retaliation against the students has begun, and it is taking various forms. Andres Bello Catholic University is <a href="http://www.talcualdigital.com/Avances/Viewer.aspx?id=31099&secid=4" target="_blank">practically under a state of siege</a> at this time, and students are being arrested, detained, beaten, and otherwise harassed as they come and go from the university grounds. Chavez refers to this move as a "revolutionary action," though the rest of us might view it as simple terror. And the intimidation of student protesters has gone all the way to torture, a <a href="http://babalublog.com/2010/01/there-is-no-brutal-repression-going-on-here-please-move-along/" target="_blank">charge the Chavez regime has unsuccessfully denied</a>.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQjgqkL_TQVHhnV75stk-_j9vUEHhpoaAfGdOnwgwQMKtECf-V4YL1MtkQn12bahbmNoWfPCXo9fWjRrPZ2qKravXAw0eToSrC6CShdkMlxJF_euRy__Y5B9F7MtNXZZOQYs852v4uq7Mv/s400/venezuelantorture1.jpg" width="280" height="255" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqWLpyY6Sa7TkQeYUWjE8gpZGvSATj2e71Yu9L6dMmP2UvJPHlmsCJJNakNCNbxBr80yS2x-FkHkc8_whyK0JkWy4_IbsjLcnz3if6fCJZTDIAv7ctIEuJfMSR85whGf_qGbQYq1n61Vve/s400/venezuelantorture2.jpg" width="200" height="255" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center" colspan="2">Evidence of Chavez Regime Torture: Students Injured at Hands of Venezuelan Police<br/>My thanks to everyone at <a href="http://babalublog.com/">Babalú</a></td></tr></table><br /><i>Analysis: Something Old, Something New</i><br /><br />As has always been the case, it is very difficult to gauge the current political climate throughout Venezuela in terms of the impact of the closure of RCTV, the student demonstrations and larger protests around the country, and the at times brutal response of the Chavez regime. But there is now clearly something new in the mix; the opposition is becoming emboldened and for a number of reasons. RCTV has been one of the most popular television channels in the country for years, and this has as much to do with soap operas and other entertainment, i.e. "non-news," programming as anything else. Its closure cannot be viewed with satisfaction in the country by very many Venezuelans beyond the most disciplined <i>Chavistas</i>, an observation that is strengthened when the RCTV closure is grouped together with the other recent actions taken against hundreds of broadcast outlets in radio and television combined. And all of this is added on to the very real and serious complaints Venezuelans have with the regime for its gross mismanagement of practically all facets of the economy and public life. The students know they have an audience that is willing to listen.<br /><br />But the most striking thing in my opinion is that the students themselves seem to be showing a newfound courage that leaves them optimistic about their prospects for success, and that is a little more difficult to explain. But take a look at the following photo of students within last Monday's demonstration:<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWPS9tdzoMdRrmWUSK7UL2Oe7TMjfNUDNra1-XWYSYz9gkZPMR_jSrqVbloEFTqvBT36SLbYGUvtUM1RhXLw2ndWKnFzbRu6i4caiWBT_-N9LcDOIEikpE6On7K3dO8mUGZIkkW0OnyY9J/s1600-r/smilingprotesters.jpg" width="490" height="325" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Students Protesting in Caracas Last Monday<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/141807/imagenes-de-las-protestas-estudiantiles-de-hoy-en-caracas/" target="_blank"><i>Noticias24.com</i></a></td></tr></table><br />It is a purely subjective observation on my part, but I make it forcefully. There is something in those smiles and bright eyes that tells me <i>they know something we don't</i>. As best as I can explain it, they have seen the regime unmask itself before the Venezuelan people. Chavez recently acknowledged that he is a Marxist and what we are therefore seeing, in my opinion, are the steps necessary to put aside the trappings of Democracy and to impose dictatorship in its place. The divisions among Chavez's former supporters, the geographical breadth of the protests, and the intensity and courage of Venezuelan student activism tell me that he will fail and the students know it.<br /><br />Chavez is on his way out.<br /><br /><i>Around the Blogosphere</i><br /><br />The intensity of the recent protests in Venezuela has exploded within the blogosphere and it would be impossible to track it all. But I want to take this opportunity to identify the blogs I believe will offer the most informed insight and who I believe represent some of the finest work done on Venezuela that is now out there on the web.<br /><br /><a href="http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Alek Boyd</a> has really led the way, being one of the first to truly nail Chavez for what he is and who I acknowledge was a great influence upon my own decision to blog Latin American leftism. Check out his most <a href="http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/2010/01/wsj-weights-in-chavez-meltdown.html" target="_blank">recent commentary on the Wall Street Journal</a> "weighing in" on the meltdown of the Chavez regime. I am ever an admirer of <a href="http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Gustavo Coronel</a>, who blogs in both Spanish and English. Gustavo sees the significance of Chavez's clash with the students very clearly, give "<a href="http://lasarmasdecoronel.blogspot.com/2010/01/dictatorship-vs-students-death-of.html" target="_blank">dictatorship - vs - students: the death of the Chavez nightmare</a>" a look, along with everything else. From within Venezuela, Daniel Duquenal's <a href="http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Venezuela News and Views</a> blog is one of the very best and often has some of the finest insights delivered quickly and succinctly. The "<a href="http://www.caracaschronicles.com/node/2299" target="_blank">Let's Do the Math on the Gerrymander</a>" article in the <a href="http://www.caracaschronicles.com/" target="_blank">Caracas Chronciles</a> blog is only the most recent entry, keep an eye on the site for some excellent and serious analysis. Miguel at <a href="http://devilsexcrement.com/" target="_blank">The Devil's Excrement</a> has been posting some very fine content. I especially recommend <a href="http://devilsexcrement.com/2010/01/29/oh-my-chavezs-or-is-it-estebans-skin-is-getting-really-thin/" target="_blank">his take on a recent and very influential editorial</a> by Teodoro Petkoff of <i>Tal Cual</i> that seems to have touched Chavez to the quick, as he is now threatening retaliation against the newspaper.<br /><br />Perhaps the first of the "Freedom Bloggers" on the web were the anti-Castro Cubans and/or Cuban-Americans--I wouldn't want to misname them--and they are not missing the significance of what is going down in Venezuela. The <a href="http://babalublog.com/">Babalú Blog</a> is among the best at getting out the news in a hurry and you might find them among the first at reporting. Ziva Sahl's <a href="http://blogforcuba.typepad.com/" target="_blank">Blog for Cuba</a> has been tracking what is going on, frequently in Spanish but at times in English, and very much worth a good look.<br /><br />Finally, for those looking for exclusively Spanish content, I always recommend <a href="http://www.marthacolmenares.com/">Martha Colmenares</a>, who has been posting articles from Venezuelan news sources at a rapid pace recently and who does perhaps the finest job anywhere of "covering the bases"--I don't think Venezuelans would object to a baseball analogy--when it comes to presenting a comprehensive coverage of what is transpiring in the country she loves so dearly.<br /><br />I will have much more to say on Venezuela in the coming days and months ahead. These are fascinating times.<br /><br />StJacques<br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-90976779893744547012010-01-27T17:39:00.005-06:002010-02-03T18:29:04.148-06:00Kool-Aid al Chavista: The U.S. Earthquake Weapon Attack on Haiti <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIDmeP1IHsGEUk_lh5dEC8oLoc6uWKiZf-GUeoxztzHAW9dAjDpyq1gocxTqUvLJW5ZCQl6MxG456MnK4RVZyNMt0lxAPk8VdekskNQbn-FEEPsDppRf_ENoeMp0qcoomUI4s_3yFidLNR/s400/ratonchavez.jpg" width="336" height="344" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">♫ <i>M - I - C - K - E - Y</i> ... ♪♪</td></tr></table><br />Sometimes it's so good it's unbelievable. And it <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/The_USCausedThe_Haiti_Earthquake_Meme/1939098.html?page=1#relatedInfoContainer" target="_blank"><b><i>is</i></b> unbelievable</a>, in case some of you out there are cruising the web trying to argue the nonsensical.<br /><br />Anyway, here's the latest from the Chavez regime; <a href="http://beltwayblips.dailyradar.com/video/chavez-us-weapon-test-caused-haiti-earthquake/" target="_blank">the United States caused the Haitian earthquake</a>. And while it may not come <a href="http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/2010/02/did-chavez-say-haiti-earthquake-was.html" target="_blank">directly from Hugo's mouth</a>, his ministry of information and more are circulating the story. (<i>See update note below.</i>) <a href="http://babalublog.com/2010/01/super-size-that-order-for-us-please/" target="_blank">The Cubans are now in on the act</a>, and they are also backing up this ridiculous allegation.<br /><br />While there is an overabundance of misinformation and disinformation out there on the supposed tie-in between the High Altitude Auroral Frequency Research Program (HAARP) and the Haitian earthquake, as well as its purported relevance to recent earthquakes in Sichuan, China; Eureka, California; and more. The plain fact of the matter is that the physics, especially geophysics in this instance, are just not there to back it up. A lot more could be added, but it simply wastes time. To even begin to go down that road, I would have to include the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0RzX3uqAls" target="_blank">reports of UFO sightings over Port au Prince</a> the night before the earthquake. Yes; it's just that outlandish because, of course, <i>they</i> would be aware of the development of this quantum leap forward in human war-making capabilities, and would be seen monitoring its use. <i>Oh My God</i>!<br /><br />What follows is a translation into English of an <a href="http://www.vive.gob.ve/inf_art.php?id_not=15464&id_s=3" target="_blank">article posted at the ViVe television network site</a>, a Chavez propaganda organ within the Venezuelan Ministry of Information, which presents this outrageous story as fodder for the conspiracy theorists of the world to lap up as mother's milk.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-family:Georgia,Sans Serif"><tr><td align="center" width="575" style="font-weight:bold">TRANSLATION<br/>"Experimental Earthquake" of the United States Devastated Haiti<br/><br/></td></tr><tr><td width="575" style="font-weight:normal;padding:5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1pt;border-color:#000000">The [Russian] Northern Fleet has been monitoring American naval movements and activities in the Caribbean since 2008 when the Americans announced their intention of reestablishing the Fourth Fleet that had been dissolved in 1950, to which Russia responded a year later with a Russian fleet headed by the nuclear cruiser "Peter the Great," beginning their first exercises in that region since the end of the Cold War.<br /><br />Since the end of the decade of the 1970's, the United States has "enormously advanced" the state of its earthquake weapons and, according to these reports, now employs devices that use Pulse, Plasma, and Tesla Electromagnetic Sonic technology together with "shockwave bombs."<br /><br />Moreover, the report compares the American navy's testing of two of these "earthquake weapons"; last week, when a test in the Pacific caused a magnitude 6.5 earthquake, hitting the area around the city of Eureka, in California, without causing deaths, with its test in the Caribbean which has already caused the deaths of at least 140,000 innocent people. <br /><br />As the report indicates, it is "probable" that the American navy would have had "total knowledge" of the catastrophic damage that its earthquake test potentially could have on Haiti and that it would have pre-positioned its appointed commander of the Southern Command, General P.K. Keen, on the island to supervise relief efforts if needed. <br /><br />As for the final outcome of the tests of these weapons on the part of the United States, the report warns, it is the U.S. plan for the destruction of Iran through a series of earthquakes designed to bring down the current Islamic regime.<br /><br />According to the aforementioned report, the system tested by the United States (Project HAARP) would in addition permit it to create climatological anomalies causing floods, droughts, and hurricanes.<br /><br />By agreement with another coinciding report, they have data which establishes that the earthquake in Sichuan, China, 12 May 2008 with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale, also was created by HAARP radiofrequency.<br /><br />Since a correlation exists between seismic activity and the ionosphere, through control of the radiofrequency induced by hippocampus, within the framework of HAARP, we conclude that:<br /><br />1. Earthquakes in which the depth is linearly identical along the same fault, were produced by linear projection of induced frequencies.<br /><br />2. The configuration of satellites permits the generation of concentrated projections of frequencies at determined points (Hippocampus).<br /><br />3. They have developed a diagram regarding the linear sequence of the reported earthquakes which coincidentally were all produced at the same depth.<br /><br />Venezuela 8 January 2010. Depth 10 kms.<br />Honduras 11 January 2010. Depth 10 kms.<br />Haiti 12 January 2010. Depth 10 kms.<br /><br />The rest of the aftershocks had depths of around 10 kms.<br /><br />Following the earthquake, the Pentagon stated that the hospital ship USNS Comfort, which was then docked at Baltimore, began to recall its crew to leave for Haiti, even though several days would pass before the arrival of the ship. Naval Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the United States Army was at work preparing the emergency response to the disaster. <br /><br />[Lieutenant General Douglas M.] Fraser, of the Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), said that United States Coast Guard cutters and Navy ships in the region also were sent to offer aid though they have limited relief supplies and helicopters. The super carrier USS Carl Vinson will be sent from the naval base at Norfolk, Virginia, with a full complement of planes and helicopters, it arrived in Haiti in the early afternoon of January 14, said Fraser. Additional groups of helicopters would join the Vinson, he stated. <br /><br />The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was already operating in Haiti before the quake.<br /><br />President Obama was informed of the earthquake at 5:52 in the afternoon the 12th of January and he asked his staff to ensure that employees of the embassy were safe and that they begin preparations to provide the necessary humanitarian aid.<br /><br />According to the russian report, the Department of State, USAID, and the Southern Command of the United States began their work of "humanitarian invasion" sending 10,000 soldiers and contractors, to control, in place of the UN, Haitian territory after the devastating "experimental earthquake."<br/><br/><br /></td></tr></table><br /><br />Hugo's losing it completely down there. Or maybe I should write, "Hugo's finally showing us" that he lost it a long time ago.<br /><br />StJacques<br /> <br/><br /> <br/><br />----------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Update, Wednesday, Feb. 3, 6:26 PM<br /><br />I have edited my original copy for accuracy on the question of whether Hugo Chavez himself has spoken the charge in a documented source. Alek Boyd has clarified that, while there is support for the story from no fewer than four sources within the Chavez regime and apporea.org, a Chavez political organization, Chavez has not been recorded as making the charge in person. <i>StJ</i>.StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-57282898752239350292009-12-16T22:14:00.001-06:002009-12-16T22:16:31.478-06:00The Silence of the Loons: The Obama Administration's Quiet About Face on Honduras <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihZx6-Hwt1ZWTetKbZJ0me4Yz1IBN37FwDG9600e_z1ALj74UHzdLgfW7UMGLQfL-S7EIuyQyKdH8YPaaewWhl2f2i87tnf3f2RJtlZ5buhJhnxrQlhAP8YEWN3INK7cLOjisyWnx5qqkQ/s400/hillary_clinton.jpg" width="158" height="160" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQWEI_Q9AJydYL7NwqoUAslmOuAcXKbQYhd9e3WbSd1KSvh8steehPtFajUoYQfNghvFZD4aDAFRMKWMNXKc4sSJ_eyw5H6k5Rbt0ny2BaXalbt6sK2zNqVW6SPGEomNKkONGm6vin_E0/s400/Zelaya-and-Chavez1.jpg" width="190" height="160" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgllGVXyBxCcY3WPoQezssQXx8Q9IMO0Vg4lYvKgfltgwlPlgC6FL5R7DrZXBXerjUlwGs3_-Gdn6HOhWNezvsxWNlMeaOv26KIPKOtMpa7wlhKZHaeircHJwWVKhYoA973SFbh1aWBPxC8/s400/obama.jpg" width="158" height="160" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Hillary Clinton</td><td align="center">Manuel Zelaya and Hugo Chavez</td><td align="center">Barack Obama</td></tr></table><br /><br /><i>A Relatively Quiet Honduras</i><br /><br />We have not heard much recently about events in Honduras, where the constitutional crisis provoked by the ouster of former President Manuel Zelaya last June dominated news on U.S.-Latin American relations for months. The recent negotiation of an agreement to resolve the conflict and continue with the presidential elections scheduled for last November 29 apparently brought an end to the worst fears that the country might slip into political chaos. The <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-alice-leaving-wonderland-taking-step.html" target="_blank">Obama administration has dropped its earlier hard-line stance</a> against the interim government and has very quietly recognized the results of the elections, which <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/29/AR2009112900989.html?hpid=moreheadlines" target="_blank">gave the presidency to National Party candidate Porfirio Lobo</a> in a contest thankfully free of violence and in which voter participation met the requisite international norms.<br /><br />The international community's previously unified stance in opposition to Zelaya's removal, which typified the political climate of the past five months, is now unraveling in the wake of the Honduran presidential elections. In addition to the <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/12/133349.htm#honduras" target="_blank">U.S. acknowledgement of Lobo's victory</a>, at least <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1359189.html" target="_blank">four other countries in the hemisphere</a> have recognized the legitimacy of the vote; including Colombia, Panama, Peru, and neighboring Costa Rica. Naturally, a contradictory view is held in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Argentina; all of whom have announced their rejection of the election's results, though President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil has at least held out the possibility that his country would be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/12/01/world/international-uk-honduras-iberoamerica.html?_r=1" target="_blank">open to some gesture which restores Zelaya</a> in time to preside over the inaugural ceremonies, which are scheduled for January 27, when Lobo will assume the powers of his office under Honduran law.<br /><br />The central problem the Hondurans now confront is deciding what to do with Zelaya, who remains holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, working his cell phone until the late evening hours trying to rally international support for his return and, in the opinion of the interim government and most Hondurans, trying to destabilize the impending presidential transition. The November accord negotiated to bring an end to the standoff Zelaya created when he sneaked back into the country last September required the Honduran Congress to vote on his reinstatement, which they did on December 2, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/world/americas/03honduras.html" target="_blank">rejecting him by a resounding vote of 111-14</a>. Following this embarrassing defeat for the ex-President, which on his part suggests a serious lack of understanding of the wishes of the Honduran people, Mexico offered to take him out of the country and even sent a plane to pick him up. But the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-honduras11-2009dec11,0,6690516.story" target="_blank">interim government refused to let Zelaya leave</a> unless he agreed to travel only as a private citizen seeking asylum and not as a claimant to the presidency, an offer Zelaya rejected. <br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoCMsTheuCMJy-PHkUoZlq9sZdJBqnb19C1-hKWS2yUtQiK60-ohBcHOQMjD_tKumN-DOngf5lL9ZT4RxYRa6RzJmzYCgykyxCCLxM7wN5deOUkvYYtrPeTOKZ5-38dZSSdfCd6cDg2ivh/s400/hondurancongress.jpg" width="400" height="238" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Honduran Congress Votes Overwhelmingly Against Reinstating Zelaya as President<br/>Source: <i>European Pressphoto Agency</i></td></tr></table><br /><br /><i>Zelaya's Future: Embassy Prisoner, Destabilizing Force, or Exile?</i><br /><br />The interim government's refusal to permit Zelaya to depart the country under any status other than that of a private citizen leaves the former president's own future in doubt. Brazil says he can remain at their embassy in Tegucigalpa and that no limit will be set on his stay. But this almost disinterested public stance on the part of the Brazilians is belied by the fact that they are also <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1415599420091215" target="_blank">pressing the U.S. to secure Zelaya's safe passage out of the country</a>, a position the State Department has supported consistently as part of the settlement of the crisis. President-elect <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/world/americas/15honduras.html" target="_blank">Lobo has offered to meet with Zelaya</a> "anywhere" to negotiate an end to the matter, though there is no mention of the possibility of any impending action the incoming President might take once in office.<br /><br />Honduran leaders continue to insist that so long as Zelaya refuses to recognize the results of the election, that he will continue to represent a genuine threat to their country's stability. These fears are not entirely unfounded. Just this past week Fidel Castro sent a letter to Hugo Chavez to be read before the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (Spanish acronym: ALBA) conference being held in Havana which <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/12/14/cuba.us/" target="_blank">accused the U.S. of continuing its historic tradition of "aggression"</a> in Latin America and pointedly cited Honduras as the major focus of this renewed "offensive." Given that Chavez's fiery temperament does not lend itself to passive inaction, it should not be ruled out that he will be prepared to finance a campaign to destabilize the Central American country in retaliation for its rejection of his twenty-first century socialist agenda. President Micheletti has in fact warned of the possibility that <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=anA2xCdBA62Y" target="_blank">Zelaya might try to attack Honduras from exile</a>, which has been the interim government's primary motivation for refusing permission for the ousted leader to leave the country without a renunciation of his claims to power.<br /><br /><i>Why the Silence from Washington?</i><br /><br />One almost has to dig a little to find any news out of Washington with respect to the Obama Administration's policy towards Honduras. Some of what they have released has been positive for its effect in dispelling misinformation. Immediately following the November 29 vote, the State Department acknowledged that <a href="http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/nov/132504.htm" target="_blank">turnout apparently had exceeded that of the previous presidential election</a>, which conflicted with the propaganda emanating from the small minority who continue to support Zelaya within Honduras, doing much to dismiss it in the process. But the recurring refrain from Foggy Bottom has been constant on three points; Zelaya should be reinstated before the inauguration of the new President, a national unity government should be put in place to handle the transition to a new administration, and a "Truth Commission" should be formed to make clear to Hondurans, as well as the rest of the world, exactly what happened with respect to the ouster of Zelaya.<br /><br />With the exception of the demand that Zelaya be returned to the presidency, it appears that the Hondurans are at least attempting to fulfill all other conditions Washington has set. The national unity government seemed to be in place until the Honduran Congress rejected Zelaya's reinstatement, and with less than six weeks remaining before Porfirio Lobo's inauguration, attention has shifted to the formation of his cabinet. The Truth Commission is still promised, but it will take Lobo's support to make it possible and he has pledged to move forward with the proposal. But one wonders just how much "truth" Washington will be able to take here. After all, it was the State Department which <a href="http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/14/undermining-honduras/" target="_blank">buried its own legal analysis</a> of the events leading to Zelaya's overthrow, leaving <a href="http://media.sfexaminer.com/documents/2009-002965HNRPT.pdf" target="_blank">the Congressional Research Service's study</a> as the only publicly-released overview from within the U.S. government, and the CRS found that, with the exception of Zelaya's forced exile, practically everything that had been done in Honduras was in accordance with the country's constitution and laws.<br /><br />Honduras is quite simply one topic the Obama Administration would prefer not to discuss. <i>Wall Street Journal</i> editorialist Mary Anastasia O'Grady revealed recently that she has learned of <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB40001424052748703939404574566150432623012.html" target="_blank">new evidence</a> supporting the allegation that Zelaya intended to use the supposed "non-binding" referendum on constitutional reform to remain in power, after Honduran officials informed her of a planned celebration for the evening of the vote which several leftist Latin American presidents would attend, as well as Zelaya's refusal to authorize the transfer of state funds to enable the November elections to proceed. Yes; a Truth Commission may be a good idea indeed, but how much embarrassment will the Obama Administration face as a consequence if its policy of supporting Zelaya's return is shown to be flawed for upholding an attempted overthrow of Honduran constitutional democracy?<br /><br />It may be that a larger problem the Obama Administration faces is that the 2008 presidential campaign is over and they are now learning that the sloganeering and public posturing that appealed to the left wing of their political base does not work in the real world. During the campaign, then-Senator Obama frequently mentioned--and genuinely overstated--the problems Colombia had with labor violence, pinning the "right wing bastards" label on the country and its government, a tactic that had broad appeal among the American left, especially when coupled with political rallies and campaign offices where Ché t-shirts and posters abounded. But now that the work of governing has begun, the administration has moved to expand the U.S. military presence in Colombia, an act directly at odds with Obama's earlier opposition to Plan Colombia while on the campaign trail. Pro-Chavez Obama supporters are not an unknown quantity--they are rather numerous in fact--and it cannot be easy for the new President to explain the Chavez threat to them, whose nature is now grasped at least in part within the administration, regardless of the rhetoric, which the expansion of Plan Colombia makes clear. This same analysis can be applied to Honduras.<br /><br />Thus can we arrive at an explanation for the silence in Washington with respect to the Honduran crisis. Coming so soon after a major national election, Obama cannot expect forgetful minds to overlook the atmosphere of the recent campaign. Containing or deterring Chavez's threats to Colombia and Honduras have become necessary goals within his Latin American policy. And when compared against his campaign rhetoric and the posture of the American left that supports him, the distinctions have become recognizably broad.<br /><br />One wonders if there are those in the new administration in Washington who are asking themselves just how looney the American left truly is for its failure to grasp the reality of <i>Chavismo</i> in action. Such questions do not return easy answers.<br /><br />So perhaps the best thing for the Obama Administration to do is to stay silent and leave the loons to their delusions. Even if they did vote for you. And especially if you want them to think you're still one of them.<br /><br />StJacques<br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-40802132640597200902009-11-21T15:30:00.012-06:002009-12-18T18:16:49.013-06:00Successful Outcome to Protest March in Managua: Sandinistas Back Down <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2aVuhP5SK1hgjsfQiP9Mr06Ub44peIz-1NhWR2yQjsStaEiqJwsRr2LG6vbI-2nRGWGziMwNC-2iLHxxeEKr8M-Q6umyzpygJjwc5T8iVRSe3YSh98Vbbx6Br1UhgfPBuDoxmfHLiODW5/s1600-r/managuamarch.jpg" width="500" height="335" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Tens of Thousands March in Opposition to FSLN in Managua Today<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2009/11/21/nacionales/8454" target="_blank"><i>La Prensa</i></a></td></tr></table><br /><br />In spite of a threatened confrontation with supporters of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (Spanish acronym: FSLN), which <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/violence-and-protests-in-nicaragua-pro.html" target="_blank">many feared could have turned violent</a>, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans from varying political parties and alliances put away their internal divisions and marched in Managua today, voicing their common opposition to President Daniel Ortega and the policies of his regime. The protesters made two complaints more prominently than all others; their allegations of recent electoral fraud in municipal elections around the country a little over a year ago and the recent decision of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court declaring that the prohibition against presidential reelection was invalid.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDT5oufKrMZniWo99nrS_VkpFXN7tlTFSzHutpb8GANTChErhTCjVgOtwQpuLjmGQP4KBPWMYPHDu8hfTOLS1S-aoVckFtZl5Os6Vu6zgMyYj0BI1ux_R287VczrEG48gbO_UBV73bhoHP/s1600-r/orteguistaviolence.jpg" width="500" height="335" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Sandinista militants fire homemade mortars at protesters leaving the demonstration<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2009/11/21/nacionales/8461" target="_blank"><i>La Prensa</i></a></td></tr></table><br /><br />The violent retaliation from Sandinista militants many feared would be wrought on the demonstrators during their march did not come to pass and the promised mass counter-demonstration of the FSLN also never materialized, though a few hundred did gather in Managua. It was only after the march ended that Sandinista supporters harassed departing groups using homemade mortars and rocks. But there were <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2009/11/21/nacionales/8461" target="_blank">instances of FSLN violence</a> apart from the demonstration and especially outside Managua. The worst in the vicinity of the capital city centered upon a Sandinista attack in nearby Empalme de Izapa, where four trucks of FSLN militants ambushed Luis Diaz, a leader of the opposition Liberal Party. Diaz and others accompanying him were beaten, the tires on their vehicles were slashed, and their engines disabled. Other instances of similar attacks occurred elsewhere in the country.<br /><br />Though the marchers displayed noticeable unity across party lines in opposition to Ortega and the FSLN, it is difficult to tell whether their mobilization represents the development of unified multi-partisan political action. Their shared rejection of the results of the municipal elections last year and the recent Supreme Court decision to permit Ortega to run again in 2011 united them, but there was little expression of proposals for concrete action to be taken by the opposition in unison. But former President Arnoldo Aleman used the occasion to <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2009/11/21/nacionales/8440" target="_blank">call upon Ortega to begin realistic dialogue</a> with the opposition and a former presidential candidate and ex-Sandinista Edmundo Jarquin declared that <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2009/11/21/nacionales/8442" target="_blank">the illusion of FSLN support had been dissipated</a>.<br /><br />I am going to include a translation of <a href="http://blogs.vivenicaragua.com/naciongueguence/2009/11/21/porque-marchamos.html" target="_blank">a blog entry from <i>La Prensa</i> journalist Luciano Cuadra</a>, who I quoted yesterday, on the meaning of today's march. And a special note, he will refer to <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2009/11/21/nacionales/8398" target="_blank">Leonor Martinez</a>, an opposition activist who had her left arm broken last October 22 when she was attacked outside her Managua home by three Sandinista militants. She has identified the man who organized the attacks publicly, but the national police have thus far done nothing, which is making her case something of a <i>cause célèbre</i> among the Nicaraguan opposition. <br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-family:Georgia,Sans Serif"><tr><td align="center" width="575" style="font-weight:bold">TRANSLATION: Why Are We Marching?<br/>By Luciano Cuadra</td></tr><tr><td width="575" style="font-weight:normal;padding:5px;border-style:solid;border-width:1pt;border-color:#000000">At this time we are initiating one more event by means of which, the people ask for peace, but they also call for justice. There will be thousands and thousands of citizens who with their steps, sweaty bodies and challenging looks, will tell the tyrant that this farce is about to come to an end.<br /><br />Nicaraguans are marching in support of those whose voices tyranny has sought to silence as if they were a broken muffler. The people are in the streets in support of Leonor Martinez, the activist who was attacked in a cowardly fashion by those who feared the edge that her words carried when telling the truth.<br /><br />For the journalists who have been abused by the <i>Orteguista</i> gangs, simply for reporting. For fulfilling their work, for being faithful to their society.<br /><br />They are also going for the bus driver, for the taxi driver. For the market tenant who shows up in his work stall at such early hours, to ensure the payment of the tuition for his kids, but so they will learn to write, not to shoot homemade mortars. For the shoeshiners and shoemakers. They are marching today for the children who present themselves every day with military discipline at stoplights, and then get up on the sidewalk when the <i>Comandante</i> passes by quickly in his Mercedes Benz. For them and the young girls for sale who go along their way. We are also marching for them. Because we no longer want to see them there, "working." <br /><br />We also express ourselves in solidarity today with Reinaldo Escobar, the husband of the Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez; who was attacked yesterday by a Cuban crowd, because he wanted to debate ideas with the <i>Castrista</i> agent who attacked Yoani some days before. How great is the fear of cowards when someone threatens them with the drawing of words and beating them with those words in an intellectual duel to the death. Incredible! They fear that their brain will die. I do not understand.<br /><br />This struggle for the rule of truth is not limited to Nicaraguans. It is universal. It is a battle of people against a new version of the obtuse <i>nomenklatura</i> of the 60's, 70's and 80's, when those mummies tried to take hold of the people's wills and dreams. Now--the freshly made-up cadaver returns with new impetus once again but with the same intent to force people to submit.<br /><br />We will go on marching. Making inroads...fighting!<br/> <br/></td></tr></table><br /><br />The situation in Nicaragua may be worth watching a little more closely over the coming months.<br /><br />StJacques<br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-31122667479914562182009-11-21T02:19:00.001-06:002009-11-21T02:21:52.137-06:00Intimidation of Cuban bloggers continues: Update from Penúltimos Días<a href="http://www.penultimosdias.com/2009/11/20/26124/">Nueva golpiza y mitin de repudio contra blogueros (updated)</a><br /><br /> <br/><br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6NnoBccG1u6yqOH_5_BVQtnl_83DiFzG0eTasVjT3lnp-HRdj4SJQFiWV9EZRLgIuhR0O_NxlDVPM1ray21ynMX1BAsmdkpy5JPx807aU-5tELOA8HPbtpA2q4W-XH1Q9tsviU0z__JY/s400/reinaldoescobar.png" width="184" height="157" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Reinaldo Escobar</td></tr></table><br /><br />I have a short note to post here by way of an update on the <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/brutal-arrest-and-detention-of-cuban.html" target="_blank">earlier news I posted</a> regarding the violent intimidation of Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez and others in Havana on Friday, November 6.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.penultimosdias.com/2009/11/20/26124/" target="_blank"><i>Penúltimos Días</i></a> has posted an update on a new incident in which Yoani's husband Reinaldo Escobar, who has his own blog at <a href="" target="_blank"><i>Desde aquí</i></a>, was beaten in full view of members of the foreign press by a pro-Castro crowd in Havana on Friday.<br /><br />Reinaldo is alright and you can see a series of four photos of the attacking crowd subjecting him to abuse at his own blog at the link posted above.<br /><br />I am going to add those photos images in right here, in which I include a small red arrow pointing to Reinaldo so that he is clearly visible. Please notice the presence of the foreign press and the fact that <i>Castristas</i> are completely unintimidated by their presence.<br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuZZ9qlxfA8peWLL3JkyGoKqDtqGpE5uzfK1jo8Jn5F8Etvx83IGr2tS231kvKMl7cq7DpHhmdKfF5rmfDWBk01HeUfoTYZY-CqtcNSl4rC7_phSS330W3g5lqXa8mZmg_j_ZYV3T7WBY/s400/reinaldoabuse1.jpg" width="266" height="176" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Reinaldo enters the demonstration area</td></tr></table><br /><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wgRL_6CBoo4aTQA67-FCko117kwyvF8ydwaHdpZ2-LsQAPC9IuYSdpvdds6ZV7cnzf65JwyXKeNhsavdjX_G_m7tmRUoErMVsYGCFU0oLg2pJ0h7r010UGCJej0zBu074-OV03Nr_fw/s400/reinaldoabuse2.jpg" width="266" height="176" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">And the subsequent violent abuse</td></tr></table><br /><br />And Reinaldo's reaction? Well, he entitled his post "<i>Para empezar a perdonar</i>" which we would translate as "To Begin to Forgive."<br /><br />Reinaldo Escobar is a man worth knowing about. What more needs to be said?<br /><br />StJacques<br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-10568986438121757442009-11-20T17:23:00.015-06:002009-11-21T01:03:15.687-06:00Violence and Protests in Nicaragua: Pro and Anti-Government Forces at Odds <br/><br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDm69dDuvLhY8yBo5pEKRyb059VovpVc5TNlVrfYbSlSF4vpTfQ1KnmhvoXW1g7owM8ZyLlUb8UhReFiG1Nh1t5M1WIh6gthbiXyfBoG4ARDOg45Z6Io9GxT9-Lp7-q2AlxKQL-xGSj_I/s400/sandinistashockforces.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406337927400470898" width="400" height="269" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">FSLN militants evacuating a Managua site in advance of tomorrow's demonstrations<br/>Source: <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2009/11/20/nacionales/8348" target="_blank"><i>La Prensa</i></a></td></tr></table><br /><br />It appears that Nicarguan President Daniel Ortega's recent actions to remove presidential term limits and take his country down the path of <i>Chavismo</i> are meeting with ever-stiffening resistance from his countrymen, who are now organizing in a manner that portends for confrontation in the near future. That could happen as soon as tomorrow, when <a href="http://www.ticotimes.net/dailyarchive/2009_11/1120094.cfm" target="_blank">simultaneous mass demonstrations are scheduled</a> to take place in the capital city of Managua that could bring over a hundred thousand protestors and pro-government supporters into the streets and <a href="http://www.janes.com/news/security/jiwk/jiwk091119_1_n.shtml" target="_blank">at each other's throats</a> if the pro-Ortega National Police do not keep the two separated from each other. While recent reports of the use of violence on both sides have appeared, it is clearly the attitude of the opponents of the Ortega regime that the <a href="http://www.ticotimes.net/dailyarchive/2009_11/1118091.cfm" target="_blank">Sandinistas are launching a terror campaign</a> and the hitherto divided opposition appears to be uniting--<i>finally</i>--along lines not seen in Nicaragua since the 1980's, including a <a href="http://www.nicatimes.net/nicaarchive/2009_11/1120091.htm" target="_blank">"re-uniting" of the former <i>Contra</i> rebels</a> who eventually forced the Sandinistas to schedule elections that led to their removal from power.<br /><br />Lying underneath the present situation is a recent history of Sandinista misrule under Ortega's minority government. An untimely legislative maneuver in the national congress that occurred just before the start of the Nicaraguan presidential campaign in 2006 prevented a runoff election from being held and, as a consequence, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6117704.stm" target="_blank">Ortega won the presidency</a> in November that year with less than 40% of the national vote. Most opinion polls showed that he could never have beaten his potential challenger in a head-to-head matchup, but from there it has been all downhill. Ortega has used his presidential powers to full effect to pursue an agenda almost exclusively focused upon cementing the political control of his Sandinista Front for National Liberation (Spanish acronym: FSLN) over the national government and has cast aside almost all other considerations of efficient and capable governance, which has led to a significant debilitation of Nicaragua's economy. And according to the opposition, much of the political maneuvering Ortega has pursued, which includes a <a href="http://www.stabroeknews.com/2009/world/10/21/nicaragua-court-opens-way-for-ortega-re-election/" target="_blank">recent decision by the country's Supreme Court</a> supporting the removal of presidential term limits, has been made possible by the infusion of enormous cash resources provided by--<i>guess who?</i>--Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.<br /><br />In the opinion of many Nicaraguans, a renewal of the violence that marked the FSLN-Contra clash of the 1980's appears imminent. Not least among those concerned is the Catholic Church, a very strong institution in an overwhelmingly-Catholic country. On Tuesday the Bishops Episcopal Conference <a href="http://www.laprensa.com.ni/2009/11/18/nacionales/8176" target="_blank">issued a public statement</a> directed to the national government which almost openly supports the opposition's accusation that Ortega and the FSLN were trampling on constitutional law and basic political freedoms. They directed their warning "to the executive branch and the political forces to reject and condemn all types of violence, above all that which has as its object to terrify and suppress the freedom of expression and mobility of our people." The lines of opposition to the government are being drawn forcefully and within an atmosphere that condemns their intentions.<br /><br />To continue the point of expressing the fears Nicaraguans have that the present situation is deteriorating dangerously, the following is a <a href="http://blogs.vivenicaragua.com/naciongueguence/2009/11/10/pidiendo-paz.html" target="_blank">translation of a brief comment</a> made in the personal blog of <i>La Prensa</i> journalist Luciano Cuadra, who compares the current threat with that of the violent period of the 1980's:<br /><br /><i>. . . Now, almost thirty years later, it looms over our country again, the threat of renewed internal conflict. This time it is not foisted by the United States and the former Soviet Union, but it is rather fueled by the iron-willed policy of the Secretary General of the FSLN party</i>. [Ortega] <i>All this is happening within sight and patience of an opposition more preoccupied with assuring shares in power than in presenting a solid block which might contain and halt the reelectionist aspirations of Ortega and his uncompromising circle. . . .</i><br /><br />The frank condemnatory tone of a <i>La Prensa</i> journalist should not surprise anyone. The paper, which is known for its opposition to the FSLN, has even <a href="http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=347712&CategoryId=23558" target="_blank">reported recent sabotage of its printing presses</a>, a problem they were able to overcome on their own. But they also made clear that they do not consider it a coincidence that the damage comes "at a time when the government (of Daniel Ortega) is pursuing more aggressive discourse against the independent communications media." Additional <a href="http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/?q=en/node/5864" target="_blank">threats and harassment from the Ortega regime have also been reported</a> elsewhere during the past few weeks.<br /><br />For a change, U.S. policy with respect to the unraveling of Nicaraguan democracy seems to hold up rather well under scrutiny. Following the decision of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court to overturn the constitutional ban on presidential term limits last month, U.S. Ambassador Robert J. <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlMflu3k1DC7QaYN9fBz--Ev7C5AD9BME92O0" target="_blank">Callahan issued a frank criticism</a> of the ruling, which brought immediate calls from Sandinista leaders for his expulsion from the country. Callahan was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/americas/31briefs-Nicaragua.html" target="_blank">chased from a university</a> by pro-Sandinista students who hurled homemade fireworks at him and he left Nicaragua soon afterwards.<br /><br /><i>Analysis</i><br /><br />It is a familiar pattern that began in Venezuela in 1999 and has been repeated in Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, and now Nicaragua. A president elected under a democratic process comes to power and immediately initiates a policy of undermining the strength and enforceability of constitutional restraints upon his authority while in office and limits upon his tenure. This process <a href="http://stjacquesonline.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-alice-leaving-wonderland-taking-step.html" target="_blank">may have hit a high-water mark recently in Honduras</a>, where Manuel Zelaya was removed from office for attempting to hold what he described as a "non-binding" national referendum on changing the country's constitutional restrictions on term limits. The Chavez-style model of destroying constitutional law is now very well understood in Latin America and there seems to be an emerging appreciation of the need for immediate and forceful action to protect national political institutions among the political center and right in Central America in particular.<br /><br />But now the scene of conflict is in Nicaragua, where the burden of history looms large. The national divisions which emerged in the violent struggle between the Sandinistas and their opposition during the 1980's have not entirely dissipated after two decades of democratic rule. Add into the mix the influx of cash from petroleum-rich Venezuela and the vulnerability of a poor nation to outside manipulation of its internal political processes becomes evident. This situation could deteriorate significantly, given that the FSLN may expect that they will receive international political support from the Organization of American States, whose record of supporting the preservation of constitutional law and political freedoms elsewhere in Latin America of late has been frankly abysmal.<br /><br />Apparently the Obama Administration is learning that the rhetorical support for Chavez-style "Socialism for the 21st Century" given by the hard left here in the United States has missed the mark. Ambassador Callahan's open criticism of a very suspicious alteration of constitutional prohibitions on presidential term limits may help to set the tone for international cooperation to preserve Nicaraguan democracy. That concerted action will be a necessity, but if it is to be a part of the solution, it must be made known now, before the situation unravels within Nicaragua. Clearly the OAS and the remainder of the international community in Latin America cannot be counted upon to ameliorate the deterioration of the situation, as recent events in Honduras have proven conclusively.<br /><br />In the meantime, we will have to watch and simply pray that saner heads prevail.<br /><br />StJacques<br /> <br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6698307546333962233.post-505843840780155402009-11-07T15:18:00.009-06:002009-11-07T15:57:26.490-06:00That Special Place in Hell <br /><table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="8" style="font-size:11pt;font-weight:normal"><tr><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_MtEXV10Wg_u2sJVu_iLgrHtuoDeOrABlwR2Fh_CBvxbUwG_BgfqAJW1W3eLEWOBu4cdk0eFOIUPD48g2Is5um3qUwy_GGLSzcdKtFivks8vrGRW18gAAwS0TapHQGTlD-iHYXAk_1orx/s400/fidelcastro.JPG" width="200" height="260" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td><td align="center"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzt0JfRtvW6b1agw31pdha1GQ4-byGtRtXQZCNBSfYCGf0l64u4diK8JJd7ptWQccjmOXnHwN7Li4YoxKuLHeWLi7LlTtFgiWcTGceGSPhUbcp_zy0_EhGzQy8W3QIcwrz6-LaKS2zZj4-/s400/sean-penn.jpg" width="200" height="260" style="border-style:solid;border-width:2px;border-color:#191970" /></td></tr><tr><td align="center">Fidel Castro</td><td align="center">Sean Penn</td></tr></table><br /><br />I just read a post put up at the <a href="http://babalublog.com/2009/11/reign-of-terror-in-cuba/" target="_blank">Babalu Blog</a> by Ziva Sahl which is occasioned by the news of the open and undeniably brutal repression of freedom of expression surfacing out of Cuba yesterday and today with respect to the regime's crackdown on bloggers. Ziva recounts in very brief form the numerous crimes of the Castro regime, both past and present, and then proceeds to point out that some of the most prominent in Hollywood continued to be enamored of these thugs.<br /><br />Here is a quote:<br /><br /><i>. . . Equally shocking is the fact that these mass-murdering thugs remain the darlings of the left. Just this past week Hollywood’s roving reporter Sean Penn made pilgrimage to Cuba in search of spike for his kool-aid. Surely, there must be a special place in hell for them all.</i><br /><br />My sentiments exactly Ziva.<br /><br />The childish and very dangerous attitudes put forth by those within the artistic community who see something worthy of admiration in Castroite Cuba are beyond reproach. They are quite simply, and without any qualification, opponents of human rights and proponents of slavery.<br /><br />Let us continue to strive for the realization of genuine human rights for all and an end to slavery.<br /><br />And may we remain confident that Satan will have that very special room ready for those who laud slavery, like Sean Penn and his Hollywood compatriots.<br /><br />StJacques<br /><br/><br /> <br /><br/>StJacqueshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09175612215903507624noreply@blogger.com2