Ideas for Venezuela: what about transparency? The Access to Information Act

Take a look at this BBC article on the Access to Information Act. That legislation will enshrine in the Brazilian constitution the right of citizens to request information from public officials on their administration and to receive prompt response. The article also contains some references to new movements that promote transparency elsewhere, particularly in the EU.

As Edward Eastwick, an English visitor to dilapidated Venezuela during the aftermath of the Federal War wrote, the main problem in my country is not the lack of law but the absolute disregard of it. Back then a Venezuelan told him the reasons and the possible solutions to overcome that mess: education and more education. And yet we keep talking about education today and things haven't changed. Education became a senseless mantra. Education improved somewhat in the XX century, but it became diluted. Old habits never died: education for most people became more rote learning than ever, non-actionable data to be wasted after a few years. And people just got used to think Venezuela is what it is: corruption and dependency on oil is here to stay.

How can we overcome this? Is it possible at all or will Venezuela become more and more the failed state living off oil until the next energy age?

The Chávez government, we have seen this already, is absolutely reluctant to allow Venezuela to take part in transparency mechanisms such as the PISA programme on education measurement. The military caudillo in power is resolute to avoid any public debate - when Peruvian writer challenged him to a debate, Chávez said he, Chávez, "was just a soldier", later to say he would only participate in a debate if his "intellectuals" - sycophants like Britto García, and others also take part in it - i.e. he would stand behind them.

What can the democratic movement do?

Venezuela's resources for the military regime and its honchos

• We need to keep challenging the caudillo time after time to have an open, fair series of debates between him and the elected candidate from February's elections - no parallel monologues.
• We need to distribute information across the secondary cities of Venezuela about how other countries implement transparency measures and what they are doing right now to improve transparency and accountability.
• We have to distribute information about how the government is misusing the unprecedented petrodollar stream (not even the seventies come close to it). This last part is a hard task. You cannot just go on a TV channel that can only be watched by 30% of the population and start throwing numbers at people. You need to go to them and explain things in a very visual way.

Those are some of the things we need to do next year.

And I wish you a successful 2012 to you all!

Venezuelan genes continued

A couple of months ago a new paper on population genetics on Venezuela appeared: "A Melting Pot of Multicontinental mtDNA Lineages in Admixed Venezuelans", by Gómez Caraballo et alia. The work has very fascinating insights into our genetic structure. Still, I have some questions about the general method.

You get these mitochondria from your mum alone

Scientists used data from Caracas and Pueblo Llano mainly to determine how the native American component was reflected in both groups. The assumption was that new flows of immigrants to Caracas had displaced the Amerindian element there whereas this element would be much stronger in the countryside. Pueblo Llano is a very isolated village in the lowlands of the otherwise very mountainous Mérida state. 

I have reported in a couple of previous posts how we Venezuelans are mostly European from the "extreme" paternal side (father's father's father's...) and "mostly" native American from the "maternal" side (mother's mother's mother's), with African American on both sides as well (but less so in general). This study didn't show otherwise, but it focused on the native American part. This is all relative: you can have an African American mtDNA and your mother can look very European and you can have an European Y haplogroup and your dad looks more African or native American (the last one being much less the case in Venezuela, as male Indians were basically out-bred).

Of the 199 samples from Pueblo Llano 177 persons had native American, 8 African American (4%) and 14 European (6%) haplogroups. The native American component in Pueblo Llano is stronger than in Caracas. This is not surprising. The African American component in Pueblo Llano was much smaller than in Caracas, where 20% had African haplotypes. This is not surprising either, we from history: there were more African slaves close to and in Caracas than in the Llanos or Andean regions.

There are more interesting things: they discovered new haplotypes of the native American A and B mtDNA haplogroups. They also confirmed the A2 clade is predominant in the Pueblo Llano area, just as in Caracas...but unlike in two studies carried out on the Yanomamö. The Yanomamö Indians have a completely different language from Caribs, who still inhabit some tiny regions in South Eastern and Eastern Venezuela and who occupied central and most of Northern central Venezuela when the Europeans arrived in 1498 and Arawaks, who still live in some areas in the Amazonas state as well as in Northwestern Zulia and who also occupied some other areas around current Coro. Their language is also quite different from that of the now extinct Timoto-Cuicas, who inhabited most of the Merida area but who rapidly merged with the Spanish settlers.

There is one item I don't find very academic. They write "native American mtDNA component is by far the most prevalent in present day urban Venezuelans (80%), whereas it is much more frequent in Pueblo Llano ( 90%) than in Caracas ( 65%)." The native American component as reflected by mtDNA is indeed clearly prevalent, but "urban Venezuela" cannot be deduced by simply by calculating the mean from the largest city in Venezuela by far and an extremely isolated area that is much smaller than the average Venezuelan town in the interior. Most Venezuelans (about 70% of the total population) live in cities with more than 100 000 inhabitants but less than one million. The population dynamics from the Eastern side of Mérida and the Western side and central valleys are also completely different from the dynamics in Bejuma or Margarita (even considering Margarita inhabitants with all grandparents born in the island). So: I think a more systematic approach needs to be taken in the future to determine "average populations".

Still, this study discovered a couple of new branches in the A and B maternal haplogroups. There is some material that adds to existing databases and that will help us in the future to establish possible migration routes for pre-Colombian South America. 

It would be great, among other things, to find the closest matches to the Yanomamö within the Americas and to carry out genetic studies on the Carib groups Pemon and Yekwana to see how distant they are, both by mtDNA and Y chromosome sequences. It could be also very interesting to examine further other groups, like the Arutani Sape, if it is not too late.

Chavicide timeline

In an effort to put a little bit of perspective to Venezuela's magic history, I decided to update the record of presumed attempts of assassination against the current president, Hugo Chávez. This is not an easy task. Mr Chávez has been in power since February 1999 and newspapers in Venezuela are not very systematic, to put it mildy, about keeping track of things. Still, I was able to find the major landmarks by trivial Internet search.

The red ovals show when the government in Venezuela or the one in Cuba announced about a major attempt against the life of Hugo Chávez. So far, no one has been jailed and I don't recall having seen any proof, but who am I to judge against the wind? 

I wrote in Spanish a reference to news articles about each of those announcements here.

The green lines show 1) when the bones of idolized Simón Bolívar were exhumed (July 2010) to find out if US president Andrew Jackson or his accomplices killed Bolívar all the way back in 1830 and 2) when results were announced (July 2011). These results were inconclusive - to say the least -, something Chávez did not like.

The last major announcement of a presumed assassination attempt against Chávez ("magnicidios") was last December and we had a couple of months of relative silence. Then the big drama came when Chávez announced he had cancer, then how he was fighting it and how he had completely recovered. Yesterday, though, the president hinted that cancer may have to do with a US plot against him and some of his president-friends who also have cancer.

Cancer in South America (updated)

Chávez announced in the middle of this year that he had cancer (sort of announced it). The former head of state of Brazil, Lula, announced in October that he had throat cancer. The president of Paraguay went to hospital the same month because he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Now we hear the president of Argentina has thyroid cancer.

What is it? Coincidence?

Now I get the news, with delay, that Chávez hinted the United States of America is behind it all. 

Now we know what we are going to hear in the next 10 months.

The price of life in Venezuela

The ONG Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia informs us there were about 19336 murders in Venezuela in 2011. That means a murder rate of about 66 murders per 100 000 inhabitants. It is about 38 in Colombia and 2 in Chile now. In 1998 Venezuelans were shocked at the murder rate they had: 19 x 100 000. Now half of them got completely used to it: they resent it, but they see is as Scots see the weather. Whereas East German professor Zeuske relativizes the increase in the murder rate (more on that in another post), right now Venezuela's got the highest murder rate in South America by far and that was not the case before Chávez. There was an increase in violence already after 1983, but that rate was still similar to the rate during the Gómez times, over 80 years ago (from about 10 to 19), and much lower than in other Latin American countries back then.

When Chávez announced he had cancer, he changed his slogan from "Fatherland, socialism or death" to "To live living" (sic). He kept tweeting "We will live, we will live" and similar things and his followers started to repeat his words like parrots. What they didn't notice: it's about his life.

What's the matter? What is quite special in Venezuela, as Kronick reports, is that the murder rate is not affecting Chávez in the polls: the poor, who are the most affected by violent crime, do not relate that crime with Chávez. I will go over the different hypothesis people have given to this phenomenon in a new post, next year. One of the key issues: risk perception.

Venezuela bleeding and the military caste buying more weapons

I stumbled upon a new article in the Russian press about the weapons industry in this year. A Russian magazine in that sector, ЦАМТО, produced some interesting statistics on the business of killing tools.

It lists the nations that spent the most in weapon imports in 2011. The top ten arms importers were the following:

1. India
2. United Arab Emirates
3. Australia
4. Saudi Arabia
5. South Korea
6. Iraq
7. USA (which is also the main exporter)
8. Venezuela
9. Turkey and
10. Pakistan

Top weapons' importers

Above you can see a chart showing the amounts in million dollars. Venezuela, for instance, is sending $2,33 billion abroad in weapons. As the Russian news agency RIA says, Venezuela actually got into more than 4 billion dollars debt with Russia this year for weapons, so I assume part of the money will be technically spent next year.

Some Chávez apologists try to justify this all saying military expenses get a bigger share of the national budget in the US than in Venezuela. I am not sure about that anymore. Most of the imports for this year are in the form of a debt to Russia that will probably be paid, as before, by means of the FONDEN, the Venezuelan Fund for Development or Chávez's Personal Piggy Bank, redirected through different obscure mechanisms. The budget for defence in Venezuela is thus just a part of what the government spends for the military caste and its amigos. 49,9% of shares in Moznabank, a bank to be used in buying weapons, was paid with money from FONDEN, as the Central Bank of the Russian Federation stated.

Next year Venezuela's "explicit" defence budget is going to epresent 6.5% of the national budget, much more than this year. Some high ranking Chávez officials are very happy...and so is former KGB and Putin's pal Igor Sechin, who has seen to it a lot of the defence deals between Venezuela and Russia become a reality.

The money for weapons is sent completely to other countries and does not generate investment in other technologies (not like the DARPA programme in the USA or similar programmes in Europe or China, Israel or Brazil).

Venezuela should be spending that money in biologists and physicians, in farmers and police agents, in electronic engineers and in setting up research centres, in building real houses and real roads. It is instead spending it in the military structures that claim to be "revolutionary" and are just there to guarantee that Chávez clan remains in power.

People anywhere have the right to criticise the US government for all its spending in defence -and I am one of those who do that, but we, Venezuelans, should be more than mad at our government, which is getting the country further away from sustainable development. 

Igor Sechin, former KGB and now key man in the weapons business with Venezuela

Big Brother or Fat Brother, same thing

Our military caudillo, Hugo Chávez, sent a message of Merry Christmas to all Venezuelans with a mobile phone, whether they wanted or not, whether they had a service with the state phone company or not.

On the right you can see the message:

"Each December, during this time, we victoriously celebrate our unstoppable march to the Good And Beautiful Fatherland...

full of happiness and justice and social equality.

Merry Christmas, comrades. Hugo Chávez".

Just creepy. There is no rule of law, there is no separation of powers. There is Hugo. As for happiness, take a look here. As for justice, go here,  here and here. As for social equality, take a look at the same links as for justice and this and this.

Hat off to Ernex for the snapshot.

Venezuela in 1830-1835 (updated)

If you want to take a look at what Venezuela was almost 200 years ago, at least in the eyes of an Englishman, you can google and download for free "Reminiscences of South America, from two and a half years' residence in Venezuela" by John Hawkshaw.

It's fun to read specially chapter X and XII. Pages 168-172, 218-219, 222-223 are particularly interesting.

This was Caracas back then

Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes 2012! Merry Christmas and a great 2012! ¡Feliz Navidad y lo mejor para el 2012!

Orinoco goose or Ganso de Monte

Die venezolanische Regierung, Václav Havel und Kim Jong Il

Ratet mal, wen die Chavez-Bonzen verehren!

Gestern starb der tschechische Schriftsteller und Politiker Václav Havel. Er hatte öffentlich die Regierung des Militärs Chávez u.a. wegen der Festnahme des Oppositionspolitikers Oswaldo Álvarez Paz kritisiert. Die Chávez-Regierung hat nichts gesagt. Die Regierungspropagandamaschine hat den Tod zwar erwähnt, nichts aber von seiner Rolle als Dissident unter dem Sozialismus erzählt. 

Heute starb Kim Jong-il, der nordkoreanische Diktator. Die Chávez-Regierung hat prompt einen Brief veröffentlicht, wo der venezolanische Caudillo sein Bedauern über den Tod des nordkoreanischen Führers ausdrückte. Chávez hatte vor einigen Jahren den Wunsch ausgedrückt, Nordkorea besuchen zu wollen, ob einfach nur, weil er halt auch zu diesem exotischen Ziel reisen oder halt die Gringos provozieren  wollten, wissen wir nicht. Einige seiner Minister hatten schon vorher ihre Verehrung für die nordkoreanische Regierung geäussert. Der Minister für Planung, Jorge Giordani, schrieb zum Beispiel im Jahr 1997, dass sich Nordkorea durch den Sozialismus zu einer starken Volkswirtschaft entwickelt hatte. Das war kurz vor einer der grössten Hungerkatastrophen des Landes.

Nein, Venezuela ist noch keine Diktatur, genauso wenig wie Russland. In beiden Ländern kann man überall sagen, man sei in einer Diktatur. Wir wissen, dass man das in einer Diktatur gar nicht sagen darf. In Venezuela darf man immer noch sagen, Chávez sei autoritär. Venezuela ist also keine Diktatur. Es ist nur ein von einem lächelnden Autokrat geleiteter Zirkus, ohne Rechtsstaat.

A great writer and statesman died

Famous Czech writer Vaclav Havel died today.

I had friends in Czechoslovakia during communist times and I got to know from very close how they were kept under opression, under fear. Their government told them how the world was supposed to look like.

I kept hoping for them to be free one day. And then I followed with excitement when Czechs and Slovaks started to protest, to demand democracy, pluralism and transparency. I got letters from my friends so full of joice. It was impossible not to be moved with them.

Mr Havel had fought for human rights in his country from early on. He was one of the signataries of the Charter 77. He, a prominent writer, was forced to work at a brewery, he was put in prison on numerous occasions. He kept his spirit high, his faith unbroken. It was only natural that he would lead the way and thus, he became the first president of his country in freedom. And he managed the transission in an excellent manner.

After the Czech and Slovak Republics became free, he decided not to rest. He went on promoting pluralism and democracy all over the world. And he also supported Venezuelan democratic parties in their efforts and denounced Chávez's pseudo-democracy.

Mr Havel will be missed. Děkuju, pane Havel!

I need thee! plus The 24 hour ant

OK, the year is ending and I would be very thankful to get some feedback from you.

What would you like to read more about in this blog? Please, take a minute to click on the topics that interest you the most or, if you don't see what you were looking for, send me a message at desarrollo.sostenible.venezuela at g mail dot com.

Thanks!

And here you have the Paraponera clavata or Hormiga 24 (24 hour ant, after the time you'll have to endure pair if it bites you)

More education for Venezuela

Here you can see the mean results for performance in reading according to the PISA test. Even it is well under the OECD average, the state of Miranda shows a better performace than Colombia and Brazil and Argentina, countries that have been taking part in this programme for some time. 

I am sure Miranda has one of the highest levels within Venezuela. Kudos to the education team of the Miranda government. It could probably do better if the Chávez government were not sabotaging as it does.

The truth about education in Venezuela (updated 2)

The results of the famous OECD PISA test on scholastic performance have just been published for pupils of Miranda, Venezuela (more here). For the last couple of years I have been trying, together with other Venezuelans, to promote the implementation of the PISA programme for our country. We asked the national government on several occassions to let Venezuela take part. It refused. It ignored us. It prefers to declare to the world that UNESCO certified Venezuela as free of illiteracy, even if such a statement is based on a self-assessment study conducted by the Chávez government and provided to UNESCO without independent control.  The current government hates transparency and open, real debate (it prefers parallel monologues).

Venezuelan pupils finally took the same tests that German ones take

The government of Miranda, led by opposition politician Henrique Capriles, accepted the challenge and got the pupils from Miranda-controlled schools tested by the OECD. The Chávez government tried to sabotage this by blocking the financing  (Miranda needed to pay for some fees in dollars and the central government controls the use of foreign money like in old Soviet times, unless it's money for tourism or the like).

What are the results? They are very much in line with what I expected. Perhaps they are a little bit better than my expectations, actually. Miranda pupils score well below the OECD average, but rather close to pupils of other Latin American nations like Colombia or Mexico. Venezuelan pupils do worse in maths than other Latin American pupils, which is something I very much expected, as I have written earlier. With these results you can understand to some extent what kind of problems we are facing...and start thinking about specific solutions. 

Still:  Miranda is not Venezuela. Although Miranda is a very varied region, with highly skilled people next to people with little formal education, rich and poor to very poor neighbourhoods, it is still close to the capital and thus closer to a strong flow of ideas. Miranda is also governed by civilians from the opposition and not by a military government.

This is a good start in order to bring about transparency to education in Venezuela. I will be posting a lot about this in the next weeks.

PS. I NOW got some more feedback about the problem with the standards: apparently the Chavez government did not suply the required information that PISA also needed to make a better comparison. Shame on Chavismo.

Did Ambrosius Ehinger have sex between September and December of 1530?

Ambrosius Ehinger was a German conquistador in XVI century Venezuela. In Venezuela and in the Spanish history Ehinger was mostly known as Alfinger. That's a very rare name in Germany.  He arrived to the Land of Grace as first governor of the Welser concession in 1529. He led German and Spanish troops across Northern and Western Venezuela and Eastern Colombia on several quests for El Dorado from then until 1533, when some Chitarero Indians killed him. He had been plundering, exploring, plundering, exploring, making friends and foes through terra incognita to Europeans, across some incredibly harsh regions.

From history we know Europeans started settling Western Venezuela in Coro, with Ampies and the Welser, but they soon left that arid place and moved to more fertile areas along the El Tocuyo River up to Carora and from El Tocuyo to Nueva Valencia and ultimately towards Caracas.

I analyzed the electoral records we have from Venezuela. This is weird. Below you see the distribution of voters per state with the very strange name Alfinger. Each dot represents a voter with that surname.

It would be interesting to check out their Y haplotype.

Surnames were becoming customary in the Spanish world earlier than in other regions. Still, Venezuela back then was not a place where Europeans tended to marry and register long-term relationships with native Americans. And yet it seems as if some people started to use that very distinct surname in one of the regions where that Conquistador was active. Did they just take over that name as remembrance of a myth? Or were they indeed the descendants of that Southern German Conquistador?

Take a look at the following IDs, for instance:

CI 19974901
CI 19974902

Chávez-Anhänger und der Universitätsbrand

Chávez-Anhänger können, soviel sie wollen, die öffentlichen Universitäten nicht unter ihrer Kontrolle bringen. Die Studenten wollen sie nicht. Und so verlor der Chavismus - schon wieder- die neusten Wahlen für den Studentenrat der Universidad Central de Venezuela. Der Kandidat der Regierung, Kevin Ávila, hat nur 500 Stimmen bekommen, während die anderen drei Kandidaten etwa 7700 Stimmen erzielt haben.

Wie haben die Chávez-Anhänger dann reagiert? Sie sind auf ihren Motorädern in die Universität eingedrungen, sie haben die Studenten angegriffen, die Stimmanlagen zerstört und den Eingang der Aula Magna in Brand gesteckt.

Ihr könnt damit rechnen, dass die Chávez-Anhänger weiterhin diese Einstellung haben werden.

Mehr Infos auf Englisch hier

Angela Merkel sagt, sie wird den Sieger der Bundestagswahlen von 2012 anerkennen

Stellt Euch vor, die Merkel würde plötzlich eine Pressekonferenz halten und dort ausländischen Journalisten mitteilen, sie wird den Sieger der Kanzlerwahl im nächsten Jahr anerkennen, wer auch immer das sein mag. Stellt Euch vor, sie fügt folgendes hinzu: Fragt mal die SPD, fragt mal die Grünen, ob sie in der Lage sind, das zu sagen, was ich Euch jetzt gesagt habe". Würdet Ihr da kein mulmiges Gefühl haben?

Heute hat der venezolanische Caudillo Hugo Chávez genau das gesagt. Müssen wir Venezolaner "danke" sagen? Hat's er nötig?

Seltsame Demokratie haben wir.

Venezuelan classic for winter or summer times, for any time

Billo's

Venezuela, 1920

In the map* below you can see per each state of Venezuela the amount of citizens per pupil for the year 1920.

So: in Zulia, to the West, 1 out of 23 inhabitants was a pupil. Considering the age distribution of Venezuela back then, it means just a tiny minority of children was going to school. In the Llanos the situation was much worse, though. In Barinas, for instance, only 1 out of 105 persons was at that moment going to school. In the Delta (to the East), it was only 1 out of 113. The average child had almost 5 more chances to be attending school if he was living in or around Caracas, Valencia or Maracaibo than in the Llanos or many other places. And still most were not going to school. Only my maternal grandmother, living close to Valencia, went to school - for two full years. My other grandmother was illiterate and my grandfather had a similar education as my maternal grandmother - who was single parent.

The situation improved a lot after 1940, specially quantitatively. My parents, like most others, profited from that. Still, the difference between the average level in Caracas and a few other places and the "countryside" was and still is enormous. And what many people don't understand: that "countryside" is now full of middle-size cities. It's no longer just rural but home to millions...and it keeps being extremely backward.

*I derived this data from this fascinating German book compared with Venezuela's census for 1920.

Venezuela, just second worst

Today Transparency International produced its yearly report...and Venezuela takes a specially place in the American continent  one more time. And uet: we are just second worst. Haiti beat us to it.

You can check it out here.

Thanks to our "revolutionary" Bolivarianos.

Venezuela is more corrupt than 171 other countries now.

Scarlet star

The Guzmania lingulata is a plant you can find in tropical Central and South America, including Venezuela. Guzmania is a genus called after Anastasio Guzmán, a Spanish scientist of the XVIII and start of the XIX century.

Ist Chávez bescheuert und durchgeknallt?

Unsere kleine Umfrage ergab folgendes: 

88% von Euch denkt, dass der Militärcaudillo Chávez tatsächlich  grosse psychiatrische Probleme hat 

8% denkt das nicht

4% hat keine Ahnung. 

Natürlich war diese Umfrage nicht gerade wissenschaftlich, man hat aber schon einen Eindruck über das, was Deutschsprachigen über den geistigen Zustand unseres Präsidenten denken.

Ob er so krank ist oder nicht, hat er immer noch eine sehr kräftige Waffe: Erdölgelder ohne Kontrolle. Wie der Blogger Miguel und andere herausgefunden haben, hat die venezolanische Regierung Verträge mit China abgeschlossen, wonach Erdöl an die Asiaten verkauft werden, um Darlehen so schnell wie möglich zu bekommen. Ein grosser Teil des Geldes wird dann ohne jede Aufsichtskontrolle von Chávez selbst benutzt. Das Geld wird nämlich zu einem Fond geschickt wird, der nur von der Zentralregierung verwaltet wird. Das Gesetz sagt, dass  die Nationalversammlung die Verwendung der Erdöleinkommen bewilligen muss, was hier nicht passiert. Ein Teil dieser Ressourcen geht an das Programm "Misión del Buen Vivir", Mission des Guten Lebens, das Venezolaner billige chinesische Geräte verkauft. Es handelt sich um Milliarden Dollar.

Die venezolanische Regierung wollte eigentlich ein Darlehen von über 100 Milliarden Dollar von den Chinesen, wie man nun aus einigen Dokumenten entnehmen kann. Die Ausländer haben darüber nur gelacht. Man fragt sich, wie schlecht die gegenwärtige venezolanische Regierung sein kann, um während eines solchen Erdölbooms - der längste in unserer Geschichte - so viele Darlehen nötig zu haben.

Wahlen sind Wahlen und die Militärs können sich gar nicht leisten, viele Stimmen zu verlieren. Es geht einfach nicht.

Pérez who? The average Venezuelan

Doing some automatic processing on Venezuela's electoral records can be fun. When we talk about the Venezuelan Joe Doe in Venezuela we often refer to "Pedro Pérez". In reality, Pérez is not the most common surname. Every region tends to show a different "most common surname" (founder effect someone?), in spite of the relatively high mobility we have seen for centuries and immigration rates Venezuela experienced particularly before the current caudillo came to power.

You will see in the first chart the voters' distribution per surname and birth year in the Eastern state of Sucre. The second chart has the distribution for the Western state of Zulia. Rodríguez and González are the most frequent surnames in Sucre. In Zulia the most frequent surnames are González (by far) and far away, Fernández. In any case: the abundance of González in Zulia is quite overwhelming. Pérez is not even in the top 10 there.

Founder effect in Zulia?

Hat ein Deutscher dies geklaut oder wirklich "mit Zustimmung" bekommen?

Die Pemon-Indianer sagen, dass ein Deutscher einen heiligen Stein aus ihrer Region ohne Erlaubnis entfernt hat. Der Deutscher, ein gewisser Wolfgang Kraker Schwarzenfeld, sagt, er hätte den Stein mit Erlaubnis der Pemones 1999 bekommen. Zur Zeit befindet sich dieser Stein in im Berlin-Tiergarten. Die venezolanischen Behörden verlangen schon seit 2003 die Rückgabe dieses Steins. Es wäre gut, wenn die deutsche Botschaft in Venezuela ihre Meinung dazu geben könnte. Es wäre noch besser, wenn wir alle Informationen über diesen Fall öffentlich diskutieren könnten.

Priorities of the Bolivarian "revolution"

Minister for Foreign Affairs Nicolas Maduro declared the current Venezuelan government supports Carlos, the Jackal, in everything it can.

Chavez had more than once said the Jackal is a revolutionary fighter.

Venezuela's most notorious terrorists sits here

I wish this government would support other Venezuelans abroad in the same way even if they are not terrorists. I would actually prefer the Venezuelan government to support Venezuelans in Venezuela, the country in South America with the highest murder rate by far...higher than that of war-torn Colombia.

The murder rate in Venezuelan prisons has increased by 33% since last year - so far, as the total numbers are up to September-. 487 prisoners have been killed in the jails of the V Republic from January to that month.

Michael Zeuske, die Chávez-Regierung und Geschichte Venezuelas

Ich lese gerade Michael Zeuskes Von Bolívar zu Chávez. Ich werde später gründlich über die Ungenauigkeiten dieses Buches gründlich schreiben. Hier will ich nur mal versuchen, einen Überblick über die Vorgeschichte dieses Buches zu kreieren.

Prof. Dr. Zeuske ist Dozent von Geschichte an der Universität Köln. Ich habe schon einen Post über ihn geschrieben, um seine Aussage zu relativieren, wonach Chávez kein Caudillo, sondern bloss "ein Linksnationalist" sei. 

Zeuskes Vater, Max Zeuske, war auch Historiker...in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Er schrieb u.a. solche Werke wie "Interpretaciones y ensayos marxistas acerca de Simón Bolívar." Max Zeuske war auch auf Kuba tätig und zwar vom Anfang an der "Revolution". In der DDR konnte man über Marxismus fast in den Kochrezepten lesen, aber nicht jeder musste darüber schreiben. Zeuske junior hat auch in der DDR studiert. Welche Stellung er der DDR gegenüber eigentlich hat, weiss ich nicht.  Man kann aber schon seine Stellung zur politischen Lage in Venezuela in seinen Texten erfahren.

Selbst die Marxisten wollten Bolívar für sich benutzen - nicht nur trotz Marx

Die Regierung Venezuelas hat seit vielen Jahrzehnten ab und zu den Bolivarkult auch im Ausland promoviert. Die Aktionen beschränkten sich aber meistens auf die Übergabe einiger Statuen hier und da. 

Seitdem die Militärs mit Chávez zurück an der Macht sind, ist das anders: der Caudillo fühlt mehr denn je, dass er den Personankult um Bolívar fördern muss, um sich als Bolívar 2.0 zu porträtieren...nicht, dass der Bolívar 1.0 wirklichkeitsnah wäre, wie Prof. Rehrmann meisterhaft für deutsche Leser erklären konnte. Die Chávez-Regierung hat schon im Jahr 1999 einen Lehrstuhl Simón Bolívar an der Universität Bonn "unterstützt". Wie diese Unterstützung aussah, weiss ich nicht. Chávez war selbst dabei, als der Lehrstuhl eröffnet wurde (ich bezweifle, dass er aber Deutschland jemals wieder besuchen wird). 

Im Jahr 2007 hat die venezolanische Botschaft in Deutschland erklärt, dass sie wieder den Lehrstuhl Simón Bolívar unterstützen wollte. Michael Zeuske ist anscheinend dabei.

Ich übersetze:

"Die venezolanische Vertretung in Berlin arbeitet seit Juni, seit dem Besuch des Prof. Zeuske bei der Botschafterin Blancanieve Portocarrero, an diesem interessanten Projekt. Diesmal erwähnt der deutsche Dozent mit der Vertretungsleiterin, dass es in der Vergangenheit schon einen bolivarischen Lehrstuhl an der Universität Köln gab und dass ein grosses Interesse besteht, aufgrund der gegenwärtigen Entwicklungen in der lateinamerikanischen Republik einen solchen Lehrstuhl wieder zu eröffnen.

Man hat sich auch über die Struktur, den Inhalt und die methodologischen Strategien für diesen Lehrstuhl geeignigt und über die Möglichkeit, dies auch an anderen deutschen Universitäten zu tun."

Zeuske hat seit 2006 folgende Bücher veröffentlicht:

Kleine Geschichte Venezuelas

Von Bolívar zu Chávez

und nun

Simón Bolívar, Befreier Südamerikas

Seine Sicht zu Bolívar ist ganz anders als die des Historikers Rehrmanns...und das ist nicht verwunderlich.

Prof. Zeuske ist darüber hinaus Gutachter beim DAAD. Ich frage mich, ob der DAAD vor allem den letzten Kapitel des Von Bolívar zu Chávez oder viele der Aussagen des Professors zu Chávez gelesen hat.

Gerne würde ich wissen, wie dieser Lehrstuhl eigentlich aussieht und wer sagt, was man da sagen darf oder nicht...an einer deutschen Universität.

Rechtsstaat und Meinungsfreiheit in Venezuela des Pseudosozialismus

Hier könnt Ihr (am Ende des Videos) sehen, wie einer der Präkandidaten für die alternativen Kräfte in Venezuela, María Corina Machado, von Chávez-Anhängern angegriffen wird. Man hört die Schüsse und sieht, wie die Leute Deckung suchen müssen. Chávez-Motoradfahrer beschiessen danach den Bus der Politikerin.

Das war im 23 de Enero-Viertel, das selbsternannte Revolutionären -eigentlich stinknormalle Verbrecher- "zona liberada" nennen. Seit 2010 hat der Militärcaudillo in der ärmeren Hälfte der Hauptstadt, im Westen, keine Mehrheit der Stimmen mehr. Nur Parroquias wie dieses Viertel sind immer noch vorwiegend pro-Chávez, darum die Reaktionen: wenn die Militärs 23 de Enero verlieren würden, wäre das der Hammer für die Pseudorevolution.

The Venezuela debate - die Venezuela-Debatte

As I mentioned, this Monday there will be a debate among the pre-candidates of the Alternative Forces. If you want, you can try to suggest a question on education, security or employment to the twitter account @Debate14N....or you can write it here or send it to me at desarrollo.sostenible.venezuela  at gmail, I will send them in Spanish. Venezuelans have really no experience on debate, so this is going to be fun.

Wie ich schon erwähnt habe, findet eine Debatte unter den Präkandidaten der Alternativen Kräfte an diesem Montag statt. Wenn Du willst, kannst Du Deine Fragen über Bildung, Sicherheit oder Beschäftigung an das Twitterkonto @Debate14N schicken, oder hier oder an mich unter desarrollo.sostenible.venezuela  at gmail schreiben. Ich werde die Fragen auf Spanisch weiterschicken. Venezolaner haben wirklich keine Erfahrung, was offenene Debatten angeht. Das wird lustig sein.

Carlos the Jackal is no terrorist, Chávez honcho says

Carlos Escarrá, Venezuela's current Solicitor General and well-known Chávez honcho, has just declared terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, is not a terrorist but a person who fought for his ideals and for people's rights, specially that of Palestinians. Well, I assure you: Palestine can do without such "fighters". In reality Ramírez got quite a lot of money for working as a professional assasin.

Escarrá says

This is Venezuela' Solicitor General, for Goodness sake!

this man "fought for his ideals"

Simón Bolívar, schon wieder...aber wie!

Am Wochenende habe ich Norbert Rehrmanns Biographie über Simón Bolívar gelesen. Endlich konnte ich ein wirklich vernünftiges Buch auf Deutsch über das Leben, Werk und Einfluss des venezolanischen Caudillos lesen. Leider ist Prof. Rehrmann frühzeitig gestorben. Ich hätte gern ihm einen Danke-schön-Brief schreiben wollen.

Bolívar liess Manuel Piar umbringen, um sich als Armeeführer zu  behaupten

Das Buch ist einfach sehr gut geschrieben, ohne Klisches, ohne Mannerismen. Rehrmann stellt sich die richtigen Fragen, er stellt nicht nur seine Position vor, sondern präsentiert die der anderen, die ganz anders denken. Seine Analyse ist scharf und weit entfernt von Dogmen. Er erklärt uns, wie Marx und Madariaga, aber auch alle bekannten Mitgestalter des Bolívarkults zu ihren jeweiligen Positionen zu dieser Figur gekommen sind.

Er beschreibt kurz und bündig, wie sich das Bolívarkult entwickelte und noch entwickelt...wie sich die Figur des venezolanischen Militärs in der Heimat, in Lateinamerika, aber auch in Deutschland seit Humboldts Zeiten über die Hitlerzeit bis jetzt entwickelt hat.

Ein Leser bei Amazon.de kritisierte Rehrmanns Position zur Hagiographie Bolívars, weil dieser angeblich die Rolle der USA "ausblendet" und nicht in Betracht zieht, dass die USA auch lateinamerikanische Caudillos als Gäste bei sich gehabt hat. Dieser Leser hat anscheinend Venezuelas Entwicklung gar nicht verstanden und rechtfertigt alles, was in Lateinamerika geschieht - auch das Chávez-Regime- mit der von uns wohlbekannten Einmischung der USA-Amerikaner in Lateinamerika. Er versteht nicht, dass das eben als Ausrede vieler "Linksnationalisten" (um die Worten des Chávez-Sympathisanten und DDR-Professors Zeuske zu benutzen) verwendet wird.

Wenn Ihr Venezuelas Geschichte besser kennenlernen wollt, müsst Ihr das Buch lesen. 

We will start having debate in Venezuela...won't we?

El Universal reports all opposition candidates have confirmed they will take part in the first debate for the primaries on 14 November. This is not just another debate...debates have been so few in Venezuela as snow storms in Mali.

Two questions arise:

- Will candidates really debate or will it be more like "I like you, man", "well, I like YOU more"? 

- Will this debate put some pressure on the military autocrat to take part in debates once the candidate for the alternative forces is chosen? So far the caudillo has rejected any debate. He thrives on parallel monologues.

Stay tuned.

Will we see action? 

Mind the fruit

The Hura crepitans - in Spanish jabillo - is one of those trees I associate so much with my childhood. It grows in tropical America from Southern Mexico to Peru and it is very common in Venezuela.

Look at the thick trunk, covered with little spines:

You don't want to be close to it when one of its fruits falls down.

One now growing in Honolulu:

Die Einheit...von wegen

Zur Zeit liefen sich die Parteien der "Einheit" eine regelrechte Schlammschlacht. Sie wollten im Februar Vorwahlen durchführen, um einen einzigen Kandidat gegen den Caudillo und einen einzigen Kandidat für die Stelle des Gouverneurs in jedem Bundesstaat auszuwählen, nun tauchen aber Konflikte.

Die alte Partei Acción Democrática unterstützt Pablo Pérez, Kandidat der Partei Un Tiempo Nuevo, einer Partei, die von Abtrünningen von AD gebildet wurde. Eigentlich ist sogar der Name Un Nuevo Tiempo (UTN) eine alte Bezeichnung für Acción Democrática, auch wenn sich fast niemand daran erinnert. AD und UNT - alter Populismus- wollen im Bundesstaat Zulia, wo Pérez jetziger Gouverneur ist, keine Vorwahlen für den Kandidat zum Gouverneurswahlen, während sie das doch für den Bundesstaat Miranda wollen, wo der Kandidat für die Präsidentschaftswahlen seitens Primero Justicia, Henrique Capriles, Gouverneur ist.

Und nun kritisiert Ocariz, Bürgermeister von Primero Justicia in Sucre, Caracas, diese Stellung...und die Sozialistische Einheitspartei Venezuelas - die Partei des Caudillos - freut sich.

Unten könnt Ihr die nennenswerten Vorkandidaten der "Einheit" sehen: Pablo Pérez, Leopoldo López, Henrique Capriles und María Corina Machado. Die drei ersten werden von Regionalregierungen unterstützt. Pérez ist zZ Gouverneur Zulias. Capriles ist Gouverneur Mirandas. López hat die Unterstützung des Lokalkaudillos Carabobos, Salas, vom Clan Salas-Feo. Die Salas-Feo würden lieber López als Kandidat haben, solange sie weiter den Bundesstaat Carabobo verwalten können. Machado steht ziemlich allein mit ihrem "Volkskapitalismus". 

Wenn wir schon jetzt so eine Schlacht haben, wird Chávez nur verlieren, wenn er doch wirklich Krebs hat und dieser ihn umbringt.

The US/Israeli foreign policy

Israel's conservatives must be proud of her

Nuland is spokesperson for the US Department of State. She said the US won't give money to Unesco as Unesco has accepted Palestine as full member. Her background is Jewish, which may be interpreted as a religious property, an ethnic property or anything in between. Is that completely unrelated? Let's imagine it is.

I wonder when the US is going to have spokespersons for the US Department of State who would be able to say the same thing and be of Muslim Arab background. Wouldn't she? Why?

Would the US had a Muslim Arab doing the work Ari Fleischer did? You bet.

The US is further blaming itself when it comes to the Palestine-Israel conflict. It only does what Israel wants. It sometimes pretends to do otherwise...for a couple of days.

It claims it will only accept Palestine as a nation when Israel and Palestine come to a settlement. Why did it accept Israel as a nation when the Arabs were against the UN 1947 decision? What's the difference between the terrorist organisation Hamas and the terrorist organisation Irgun, a group that was very much active until Israel got all the territories it got in 1948? Irgun commanders were people like Menachem Begin, afterwards considered heroes of Israel.

Shame on the US, shame on Germany, shame on Canada and a few other countries...just a few. Bravo for France,  Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa...and 161 other countries.

The mock doctors in Venezuela under Chávez

The president of the Academy of Medicine in Venezuela, Aoun Soulie, felt compelled to tell us for the nth time about a very worrying development: the education given to the so-called physicians of "Integral Medicine for Communities" is a farce.

This month 8300 people will get their title as "médicos integrales comunitarios" after having spent 6 years following an outdated study model based on Cuba's experience, which is based more on a myth than anything else. They spent all those years to become health experts and yet they have no training whatsoever in laboratory work, in tropical medicine (remember Cuba's not Venezuela), in radiology, biochemistry, parasitology, pharmacology, histology or anatomy (hard to believe but I got the same report from many good sources). They follow their courses by videoconference and have no training in the emergency rooms of public hospitals as was a must before Chávez came to power. Unlike physicians pre-Chávez, they have never been to operating theatres. Until now the law stated a surgeon had to first do one year of rural work and one in city hospitals. That's gone now: from the video-conferencing to the OR. When I arrived in Europe and had to visit a couple of physicians I immediately felt Venezuelan physicians were at least as good if not better than many German or British doctors. That will never be the case with these "Bolivarian" physicians produced by the Cuban-Venezuelan regime.

Only 225 of their 7215 teachers have actually a degree in medicine. That is weird, to say the least. Soulie also repeated what I have heard from two of the few real physicians who are working at the Bolivarian universities: teachers are told they cannot allow students to fail, all have to pass.

The health of the poor is more at risk than ever with these thousands and thousands of workers without proper training and no solid education dealing with emergencies of all kinds. Venezuela's so-called "revolution" is proving once more than it is nothing more than a pretense, a fairy tell for the gullible at home and abroad. Venezuela as a whole is also getting a new time bomb: how are we going to tell these mock doctors they were cheated by the Chávez-Cuban government for six full years and they would need to take some form of retraining to become real doctors once Chávez is gone?

Shame on Venezuelans: women getting killed

Spain has been very openly discussing about violence against women for many years now. There have been many lots of discussions, marches and new laws. There have been films focused on this terrible topic and newspapers treat this subject on a permanent basis. There is a sense of urgency and there is reason for that: 51 women have been murdered in Spain by partners or relatives this year. Spain has 48 million inhabitants.

And what about Venezuela? Well: At least 501 women have been murdered by their partners or close relatives in Venezuela in the first nine months of this year. Venezuela has 16 million less people than Spain.

In Venezuela women are 15 times more likely than in Spain to get murdered by the people closest to them. If machismo and particularly violence against women is a serious problem in Spain, it is a national tragedy  and a complete shame for Venezuela.

Even poorer countries in Spanish America, like the Dominican Republic, seem to be taking the issue more seriously than Venezuela. My country? It spends its time obsessed with Beauty Contests.

Venezuela has the highest murder rate of South America, by far. Still, this is part of a bigger problem: violence in general, widespread psychotic behaviour, repression. Late psychiatrist and writer Francisco Herrera Luque often discussed about certain psychotic traits in Venezuelans as part of their historical and genetic heritage: a nation particularly born from rape and myth. His hypothesis was highly controversial and yet I ask myself: isn't my country particularly sick? What's going on? Why do people keep such a terrible silence regarding this problem? Why don't politicians have the balls to speak up and speak out about this issue?

I am so sorry.




In the Dominican Republic they discuss about it

More weapons, banks, Russians, Venezuelans and FARC

I wrote something about Viktor Bout, weapons, FARC and Venezuela in my Spanish blog.

"Invest in Venezuela's banks if you want to shoot from the hips"

Chávez und der Arzt

Spiegel hat einen Artikel über den Arzt geschrieben, der über Chávez' Gesundheit so ausgiebig geplaudert hat. Leider gibt es kaum Informationen, die man nicht aus den venezolanischen Zeitungen hätte herausnehmen können.

Nun kommen die venezolanischen Ärzte, die Chávez kaum zu sehen bekommen (denn er lässt sich lieber von kubanischen Ärzten behandeln), und behaupten, die Gesundheit des Präsidenten sei "unverbesserlich".

Sie sagen, Navarrete sei nie Vertrauensarzt des Chávez und wäre kein Arzt des Chávez-Clans gewesen. Navarrete hätte einem der Ärzte zufolge nur 20 Minuten lang mit Chávez gesprochen, ohne Tests. Sie bestreiten auch, dass Chávez psychiatrische Behandlung gehabt hätte. Ein anderer Arzt des Teams, Rafael Vargas, sagte, dass Navarrete über die psychologische Lage des Chávez nicht hätte sprechen sollen, denn er ist dazu nicht geeignet. Was soll dies aber heissen? Dass Vargas erkennt, Chávez hätte psychologische Probleme, die aber nicht öffentlicht diskutiert werden sollten? Ein anderer Arzt sagte, Chávez wäre extrem vernünftig, "sogar überdurschnittlich".

Ist dies alles Seifenoper, um die Popularität des Caudillos zu erhöhen? Das werden wir bald erfahren.

Chávez, Gaddafis Kumpel

Und wie erwartet sagte der venezolanische Caudillo nun, Gaddafi sei wie ein Martyrer gestorben. Chávez wisse nichts über Menschenrechtsverletzungen des Gaddafiregimes.

Der ehemalige Putschist und jetzige Präsident Venezuelas erklärte auch, er sei vom Krebs völlig geheilt. Ob er wirklich so krank war sei dahingestellt. Seit 1999 behauptete die Regierung zumindest 3 mal im Jahr, man wolle ihn töten. Seit Ende 2010 kursierten immer mehr Witze über die angeblichen Mordanschläge, von denen es keine Beweise gab und Chávez empörte sich darüber.

Na ja...

Vom Aussterben bedrohte Wildesel

Chávez's best friend in Africa is dead

Gaddafi, one of Africa's many dictators, has been killed. Unlike Daniel, I think it would have been better to have him go to trial. Chávez was more likely to keep talking in defence of the African dictator thereby provoking even more rejection. Now Chávez will mention Gaddafi a couple of times, but that will be it, just like he did when he mourned FARC terrorist Reyes. Daniel Duquenal says trial in Den Haag hasn't brought peace to the countries of those dictators, probably referring to such cases as Serbia's and Liberia's. But then: war in both Serbia and Liberia was over way before those criminals were captured. Gaddafi was a mass murderer, but I think having him on trial and then behind bars would have been a better warning for others. Dictators behind bars are the exception. But that is all a guess. I am happy the war in Libya is finally getting to an end and I wish  the country gets onto the path of stability and sustainable development.

It is quite revealing that at this hour, hours after Gaddafi's death, the Chávez state media hasn't said much about it. There is only one piece stating it is unclear whether Gaddafi has died. In Venezuelan newspapers you have already a lot of information on it all. Why is the Chávez state media so slow? Because they are waiting for the Venezuelan caudillo to say something.

Finally, I have to say this: I wish Western leaders were from now on a little bit more consistent...but I reckon that's too much to ask...oil and weapon deals trump human rights.