Presidential Cacophony and the Woes of a Nation

There are two weeks to the presidential inauguration. Do you think the military caudillo will pop up in Caracas for 10 January?

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
23	24 Maduro says he talked to Chávez	25 1) Villegas says  Chávez presents slight improvement 2) Maduro says Chávez is walking and doing excercices	26 1) Maduro repeats his message and says Chávez follows normal physiotherapy procedure 2) Cabello says constitution doesn't say where and when Chávez could take oath in front of Supreme Court if he can't make it to National Assembly	27	28	29
30	31	1	2	3	4	5 Congress inauguration New president of congress needs to be selected
6	7	8	9	10 Presidential Inauguration	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31	1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28

Lack of ethics goes beyond "ideologies". El País has an interesting article about how Spain's government has profited from selling weapons to the Venezuelan regime, specially anti-riot equipment. Minister Morenés is not only minister of Defence of the current conservative Partido Popular of Spain, he has also been a big fish within the Spanish weapons industry.

The only general hospital of my birth city, Valencia, is collapsing, but we are the best customer for the Spanish ailing weapons sector. Most of the money does not come from the national budget but from FONDEN, the Fund for Sustainable Development, which the Chávez government uses as personal account.

Take that, Ms Wagenknecht. I suppose you must be very proud of supporting a man like Chávez.

Exit polls

OK, I am sorry, but we are not allowed to say anything about exit polls yet.

Things went fine in Europe, let's say it so. I got feedback from different European countries and Venezuelans went to vote massively. I am not sure yet but it seems Venezuelans went to vote in record numbers in most places with a Venezuelan embassy. 

Now let's relax. Take a porto, some olives and listen to your favourite music.

Are you in Venezuela or Europe? Bist Du in Venezuela oder Europa?

Send me your pictures of the elections in Venezuela or at your Venezuelan embassy with some context information and I will put them up here!

Schick mir Deine Bilder der Wahlen in Venezuela oder in Deiner venezolanischen Botschaft mit Kontextinformationen und ich werde sie hier zeigen!

¡Envíame tus fotos de las elecciones en Venezuela o en tu embajada venezolana junto con información de contexto y las pondré aquí!

The Venezuelan dictatorship and the European Union

Former guerrilla against democratic government and current head of the National Assembly, Fernando Soto Rojas, is preparing the "rules" according to which the alternative parties may ask questions to the ministers. And as for the president of Venezuela: he is beyond that. The commandant-president is like the Queen of England, but with power: he only has to give his report and not be questioned. Chávez did that last month and spoke for 7 hours.

Soto, like the great majority of Chávez honchos, comes from the conservative Llanos and has guerrilla training from Cuba. He has a strong caudillo mentality and has no idea what real debate is.

He said "I am taking a look at the regulations for the French, Swiss and US parliaments...so that you see that in few countries is there as much freedom as in Venezuela. For a minority deputy of the left to talk at the European Parliament a year has to pass of the 600 deputies (sic)". He said he will "distribute copies of the rules for people to judge in Venezuela".

The chuzpah.

Soto, on the right, was using violence to fight a dysfunctional -as the Mexican or Colombian states now- but democratic government where presidents could not be re-elected and people could speak out. He was trained in Cuba.

First of all: he does not talk about the time parliamentarians have anywhere but in the European Parliament, which is not a national parliament. He does not mention the regulations of the Swiss or French or US congresses he does not like, much less of most other congresses or assemblies in democratic countries where debates are more open and frequent.

Secondly: the "minority deputies" Soto mentions, the extreme left , do not represent 52% of the population as the Mesa de la Unidad and PPT do in Venezuela.

In reality those 35 extreme left deputies will have much more time to express their ideas than the deputies representing 52% of Venezuela's voters.

Secondly: in no democratic country is there a law regulating that deputies have to vote only as their party says. Last year the pro-military deputies of the PSUV introduced such a law, penalizing anyone who would go against his party. That law is completely anti-constitutional. Venezuela's 1999 constitution states that deputies are only subject to their conscience and it is almost verbatim what the German Grundgesetz says. The new law of 2010 is just trying to prevent any future dissension among PSUV deputies as has happened in the past.

Thirdly: Soto does not mention the fact that in the democratic world the only heads of government who have no time limit are those of parliamentary systems where they have to answer live to the opposition time after time after time. A strong presidency in a democratic country always has term limits.

Soto just picks up the tids and bits of regulations that he wants to show, specially to a population that has no clue about how regulations are outside their country. He does not say anything about the head of state in those countries, that in the US or in France the head of state cannot be elected indefinitely, that in Switzerland the presidency rotates every year and that unlike the EU parliament - which is not a state - deputies do have plenty of time not only to question ministers but to grill the head of state.

Soto already cancelled last week's parliamentary sessions because according to him there was nothing to talk about. It seems the representatives of 52% of the voters do not count.

The Chávez Supreme Court recently declared that those who accuse Chávez of bad faith can be prosecuted.

Expect more of this farce until Chávez is gone. Still, we need to challenge Chávez honchos to debate on fair terms. The Chávez military government won't accept it, but the population needs to know how naked the military regime is.

Does Bibi want Israel to remain "the only democracy in the Middle East"?

How many hands are politicians prepared to shake?







Omar Suleiman, the Security Man of Egypt

I read Haaretz and find something that corresponds very much with what I see coming from Israeli sources: the government apparently wants the US and the European Union to go on betting on Mubarak "less the Islamic fundamentalists come to power". And they create fear by stressing the fact the Muslim Brotherhood supports El-Baradeid.

And I read in Spiegel (also with reference to Haaretz) that prime minister Westerwelle is afraid of a fundamentalist wave.

Yes, indeed, fundamentalism is a danger, but then: for how long are Western countries going to let dictators be the solution? Do they think Islamic fundamentalism will become less dangerous or be kept under control like that? Does anyone remember how the West supported the removal of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran? And then the dictatorship that followed with the Shah? And what happened then when the Islamic fundamentalists took power? What is still very much happening? And does anyone remember what happened after Qassim in Iraq was overthrown with Western influence?

And why did the US government not speak of road to democracy before these events took place? Did it not know of the repression Mubarak's regime was carrying out for years now? Is there a transition still possible under Mubarak now?

So many questions...

As usual, I recommend reading Robert Fisk's account

Are there better ways to confront obscurantism and fundamentalism? Is the Muslim Brotherhood evolving differently in different countries? If so: why?











El Baradei
Can he and the Egyptian people get a chance?

"I like women to keep the protocol because I respect them"

Venezuela's military president ended his autumn tour in Portugal. There, he met with José Socrates, the only head of state of Western Europe who will still meet the Venezuelan caudillo outside international everybody-must-go meetings. The Venezuelan ordered 2 transport boats, a ferry, the construction of 12500 houses Venezuelans are apparently incapable of building themselves and 1.5 million laptops for a children's project. You can read the official version here (Spanish) and a half official one here. The government of the Azores Islands had initially ordered one of the boats but it then rejected the ship when it saw its speed was slower than agreed. Unlike the Azores administration, though, the Venezuelan strongman just said "I want two!". No kidding: he said just that, exactly as the Venezuelan caricature tourists portrayed on a Venezuelan TV comedy in the late seventies and early eighties during Venezuela's last oil boom.

The laptops have been announced as a tool to become independent from "the Empire". In reality the Iberians are basically reselling the technology...a new tale of broken glass for gold.

Portuguese newspaper O Journal de Noticias has a couple of interesting articles about the visit, articles that give a glimpse into the caudillo's set of mind. If you read Portuguese, you can take a look here. There is more interesting data here.

The comment about preferring women to do the protocol because he respects them actually shows his usual preference for just a special kind of women: those he can control. And in this framework of mind he again ignored the protocol: He drove in Portugal without license because he is president, he walked where he pleased and the Venezuelan journalists -state media employees- came firstly. He was three hours late, but that is nothing unusual with him. He reckons that is the norm for every head of state. Don't forget: jefe es jefe.

The caudillo was happy to see so many people waving Portuguese and Venezuelan flags at the Portuguese company. Apparently they were almost all company employees.

I just hope for the sake of Venezuela that the flats Portugal is supposed to build in the Land of Grace are cheaper than the flats we have or haven't got from Belarus and that they are better than the buildings for which Mr Socrates was responsible many years ago before his permit as civil "engineer" was revoked.

And now the caudillo will announce big things for Venezuela. I wonder if the alternative forces will reveal exactly what they are. The Venezuelan people will have to pay over 1.1 billion euros for this.

Die Wahlen in Venezuela: die Farce

Der Nationale Wahlrat (CNE auf Spanisch) ist völlig unter Kontrolle der Nationalregierung und darum unter Kontrolle von Chávez. Es gibt ein einziges Mitglied, das nicht mit der Militärregierung ist: Vicente Díaz. Er wird völlig ignoriert. Das ist gestern schon wieder geschehen. Tibisay Lucena, die Vorsitzende des Wahlrates, erklärte, internationale Beobachter dürfen ihre Berichte nur an die Regierung geben und diese Berichte seien streng vertraulich. Darüber hinaus weigert sich der CNE, eine Untersuchung über die Werbungen der Regierung, die die Opposition auf primitiver Art und Weise beleidigen, einzuleiten. Damit hat Lucena die Forderungen von Díaz zum zigsten Mal abgelehnt.

Die Radio- und fernsehsender des Staates strahlen ausschliesslich die Meinung der Chavistas aus. Die anderen Sender sind gezwungen, jede Woche stundenlang die Reden der Regierung zu zeigen. Es gibt nur einen einzigen Sender, Globovisión, der regierungskritisch ist. Er kann nur von etwa 30% der Bevölkerung gesehen werden: die, die in Caracas leben oder Internet bzw Kabelzugang haben. Die CNE erlaubt nicht, dass die Opposition mehr als ein paar Minuten Werbung pro Tag ausstrahlt. Die Staatssender sind aber immer damit beschäftigt, die sogenannte "Revolution" zu promoten, Chávez und seine Militärs zu loben und die Opposition ganz vulgär zu beschimpfen. Wehe, wenn die Opposition etwas ähnliches machen würde.

Das ist die grösste Demokratie der Sarah Wagenknecht, des Heinz Dieterichs, das ist die Demokratie, die manche Figuren der spanischen PSOE loben.

Was wird die EU nun tun?


Über die unverschämte und im Gegensatz zu anderswo theoretisch völlig verfassungswidrige Gerrymandering habe ich schon hier berichtet. Francisco Toro schreibt auch darüber. Siehe dies und dies.

European Parliament condemns the Venezuelan regime

As Spanish newspaper El País informs us today, the European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg, approved again a resolution with regards to Venezuela's government. As usual, there were discussions between most parties and Hugo's apologists.

Hugo's apologists will say again something like "there was a coup at the European Parliament", "there was no quorum", "they put something in the drink, so less people followed us". Never mind there is always an agenda and people know when those discussions are taking place.

Below you can see the draft as taken from here (11). The final resolution is likely to be different, as usual, but I think it will not change much.

European Parliament resolution of 11 February 2010 on Venezuela

The European Parliament,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on the situation in Venezuela and, in particular, those of 7 May 2009, 23 October 2008 and 24 May 2007,

– having regard to Rule 122(5) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas the concept of freedom and independence of the media constitutes an essential component of the fundamental right to freedom of expression enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

B. whereas media freedom is of primary importance for democracy and respect for fundamental freedoms, given its essential role in guaranteeing the free expression of opinions and ideas, with due respect for the rights of minorities, including political oppositions, and in contributing to people's effective participation in democratic processes, enabling the holding of free and fair elections,

C. whereas the right of the public to receive information from pluralistic sources is fundamental to any democratic society and to citizens' participation in the political and social life of a country,

D. whereas the obligation imposed by the Law on Social Responsibility in Radio and Television on all media to broadcast in full all speeches made by the Head of State does not comply with such principles of pluralism,

E. whereas Articles 57 and 58 of Venezuela's Constitution guarantee freedom of expression, communication and information,

F. whereas the media must abide by the provisions of the law; whereas closing a media outlet should be the last resort and a measure that should only be implemented after all the guarantees of due process have been given, including the right to present a defence and appeal in independent courts of justice,

G. whereas in May 2007 Radio Caracas Televisión’s open signal was suspended by President Hugo Chávez and the channel was obliged to become international in order to be able to transmit a signal through cable television,

H. whereas the first protests by the student movement began as a result of the channel being taken off the air,

I. whereas on 1 August 2009 the government of Hugo Chávez ordered the closure of 34 radio stations through a refusal to renew their licences,

J. whereas in January 2010 President Chávez ordered RCTV International (RCTVI) and five other cable and satellite TV channels (TV Chile, Ritmo Son, Momentum, America TV and American Network) off the air after they failed to broadcast the official presidential speech on the occasion of the 52nd anniversary of the overthrow of Perez Jimenez; whereas two of them – America TV and RCTVI – are still banned,

K. whereas this new shut-down triggered a further wave of student protests, which were harshly suppressed by the police in many of the country’s states and cities, and these events resulted in the deaths of two young students in the city of Mérida and dozens of injuries,

L. whereas these measures are designed to obtain control over and gag the media, if not to curtail the democratic rights to freedom of expression and information,

M. whereas the OAS, through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, has warned that this new move to take channels off the air has enormous repercussions in terms of the right to freedom of expression,

N. whereas President Chávez recently stated that the use of social networking sites such as Twitter, of the Internet and of text messaging via mobile phones to criticise or oppose his regime 'is terrorism',

O. whereas the reform of the law on science and technology currently being debated by the National Assembly of Venezuela aims to regulate 'information networks' in a manner that could lead to internet censorship,

P. whereas Venezuela has signed the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights,

Q. whereas Venezuela is the country with the largest energy reserves in Latin America and whereas measures such as arbitrary confiscation and expropriation, some of which affect EU interests, undermine the basic social and economic rights of citizens,

R. whereas some leaders close to President Chávez, such as Ramón Carrizález, Vice-President and Minister of Defence, Mrs Yubiri Ortega, Minister of the Environment, and Mr Eugenio Vázquez Orellana, Chairman of the Central Bank, have recently submitted their resignations,

S. whereas, according to Transparency International's 2009 report, Venezuela is one of the most corrupt countries in the world,

T. whereas the latent climate of insecurity and the levels of crime and violence, which have turned Venezuela and its capital Caracas, into one of the most dangerous places in the world, are causing concern among the people of Venezuela,

U. whereas the many insults, threats and attacks directed against national and international leaders by President Chávez have given rise to unease and a huge number of unnecessary tensions, which in some cases have even led to an order for the mobilisation of troops with a view to a possible war with Colombia,

1. Is appalled at the death of the two young students, Yonisio Carrillo and Marcos Rosales, during the protests in Mérida, and calls on the authorities to carry out an investigation into the reasons why these young men were killed and calls for those guilty to be dealt with by the justice system;

2. Regrets the government's decision no longer to allow these channels to broadcast in Venezuela and calls for their reinstatement;

3. Calls on the Venezuelan authorities to review this decision and the obligation to broadcast fully all speeches made by the Head of State;

4. Reminds the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of its obligation to respect freedom of expression and opinion and freedom of the press, as it is bound to do under its own Constitution and under the different international and regional conventions and charters to which Venezuela is a signatory;

5. Calls on the Government of Venezuela, in the name of the principle of the impartiality of the State, to ensure equal treatment under the law for all media, including the Internet, whether privately or publicly owned and irrespective of all political or ideological considerations;

6. Believes that the Venezuelan media should guarantee pluralistic coverage of Venezuelan political and social life;

7. Believes that the 'National Telecommunications Commission' should show itself to be independent of the political and economic authorities and ensure equitable pluralism;

8. Calls on the Venezuelan Government to be committed to the values of the rule of law and to promote, protect and respect the right to freedom of expression, including on the Internet, and freedom of assembly;

9. Points out that, under the Organisation of American States’ Inter-American Democratic Charter, in a democracy, in addition to clear and necessary legitimacy of origin, grounded in and obtained at the polls, legitimacy of exercise must also be complied with, and this must be founded on respect for pluralism, the established rules, the constitution in force, the laws and the rule of law as a guarantee of a fully functioning democracy, and this must of necessity include respect for peaceful and democratic political opposition, especially where that opposition has been elected in the polls and enjoys a popular mandate;

10. Is deeply worried by the drift towards authoritarianism shown by the government of President Hugo Chávez, whose actions are directed towards weakening the democratic opposition and restricting the rights and freedoms of citizens;

11. Calls upon the Venezuelan Government, with a view to the parliamentary elections on 26 September, to respect the rules of democracy and the principles of freedom of expression, assembly, association and election;

12. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Government and National Assembly of Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly and the Secretary-General of the Organisation of American States.

De l'éthique? Non, merci

Well, we had it before: Total from France was keen to invest in Burma when nobody else was doing it anymore because...well, because if they did not, the Chinese would have increased their clout there and nothing would have changed. So, nothing changes but Total keeps its cake in Burma. Now we have they are doing the same in Venezuela: cow-towing to the Chavista regime and not saying anything about Venezuela's human rights. We know those human rights in Venezuela are not at the level of Burma, but they are going down the drain very very fast.

What are the deals about? "Energy, education and trasportation", they said. If it goes as usual, we know what it is about: oil, oil, oil and some petrodollars on the other side, as well as some silence at the moment there is some discussion about Venezuela in the European Parliament.

Eurodeputy thrown out of Venezuela

On Friday the president of the National Electoral Council, Tibisay Lucena, decided to expel Spanish eurodeputy Luis Herrero. He had been invited by the opposition to be an observer together with three other eurodeputies and had been waiting in Caracas for the Venezuelan government to give him the necessary credentials. He decided to talk to the only opposition TV channel that has some reach, Globovisión. That channel can reach around 30% of the Venezuelan population, those who have cable or satellite dish or live in Caracas (otherwise people can only watch non-critical or extremely pro-Chavez TV). He talked too much, in my opinion. The National Electoral Council had declared it was going to extend the voting until 6pm, among other things. He said that was strange and he asked whether there was something behind that. Indeed, that is an issue in Venezuela. Tomorrow the sun will set at 6:06pm and then it will be pitched-dark. Venezuelans try all they can to go home before that time as it becomes too dangerous (Mexico ain't nothing compared to Venezuela and most areas were we have less observers are in the most dangerous slums).

Even if Herrero was clumsy in stating as a non-Venezuelan what we all know, the Venezuelan government did not respect any procedures: they just sent their "intelligence" force to grab him and took him to the first airplane, without allowing him even to take his passport or personal belongings with him.

Do you know what European politicians the Venezuelan government likes to invite?
People like former Belgian senator Jacinta de Roeck, who was an "observer" for the CNE in 2006. Among other things, she wrote in her own site the following (go to Infomappen and then Venezuela):

"Separate talks with the people in the street show that clearly. You have three types of Venezuelans:

* those who are 100% against him (usually the wealthiest). They have no good word to say about Chavez, the bosom friend of the great bogeyman Fidel Castro and - perhaps even worse - the friend of the poor people;
* those who are 100% for him (usually the poorest part of the population). Their position is often made intuitively, without criticism. They wear his picture on their shirts, they are cheerful when they call his name. For them, Chavez is an idol, he is the man whowill improve their lives. And he does it already, they see that;
* And then there is the group of critical viewers: Chavez is the only alternative that can currently take Venezuela out of the social clift, but they have a lot of (very constructive) criticism, and they fear a Venezuela Cuba-style.

In the original, in Dutch:

"En dat deze president wind doet opwaaien is zeker. Losse gesprekken met de man in de straat tonen dat duidelijk aan. Je hebt drie soorten Venezolanen :

• zij die 100% tegen zijn (doorgaans de meest gegoeden). Ze hebben geen goed woord over voor Chavez, de boezemvriend van de grote boeman Fidel Castro en - misschien nog erger - de vriend van de arme volksmens;
• zij die 100% voor zijn (meestal het armste deel van de bevolking). Ook hun standpunt is vaak intuïtief gevormd, zonder kritische kanttekening. Ze dragen zijn foto op hun shirt, ze glunderen als ze zijn naam noemen. Voor hen is Chavez een idool, het is de man die het leven voor hen beter zal maken. En dat doet hij nu al, ze merken het;
• en dan is er de groep kritische beschouwers: Chavez is het enige alternatief dat op dit ogenblik Venezuela uit het sociale slop kan halen, maar ze hebben wel erg veel (opbouwende) kritiek, en ook vrezen zij een Venezuela à la Cuba."

I am not in any of these three groups and I know most opposition are not in any of those three groups either. I believe Ms De Roeck has been very insulting. It is like saying every Fleming is a racist unless he votes for her. Actually, there are more people in Flanders who vote for an extreme right party (Vlaams Belang) than there are rich people in Venezuela who dislike the poor. Opposition can be upper-middle class, middle class or poor in Venezuela. Definitely the vast majority are not opposed to improving the lives of the poor.

But I reckon a person like Ms De Roeck is the kind of politician the CNE wants to have in Venezuela. I am curious about the political parties of the observers the regime invited this time. It would be the most leftiest from the social democrats or rather people from the communist parties of Europe (not that Chavismo is about socialism or communism) and not all of them.

The European Union cannot see Venezuelan prisoners

El Nacional and El Universal reported today the European deputies who wanted to visit the political prisoners Iván Simonovis, Henry Vivas y Lázaro Forero in Venezuela were stopped before they could see them.

The European deputies got a treatment of what Venezuelan journalists and opposition leaders are getting for some time now: their passports were photocopied and the Venezuelan (Chavez's) agents took photographs of them.

The European deputides who are visiting Venezuela are Philip Dimitrov, former prime minister of Bulgaria, Jan Ruml, (site in Czech) former minister of Inner Affairs of the Czech Republic and member of the Velvet Revolution and Eduard Kukan, former minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia. They got a taste of the Robolution and could be remembered of many things they remember from before the Iron Curtain fell.

When are the Social democrats in Europe going to act together with the "right" and the centre and just anyone of good will and speak openly about what is happening in Venezuela?

News on Venezuela

The European Union approved a resolution condemning the Venezuelan government for the inhabilitaciones, the trick it used to prevent mostly opposition candidates from taking part in the 23 November elections.

Here you can se the resolution. Only one person opposed the resolution, one from the extreme left. The social democrats abstained. It is a real shame they did not have the courage to go for it. Why is it that the right and the left always need double amount of violations of human rights to act against a regime that claims to be "on their side"? OK, I am being too naif. Still, the European socialists should start acting a little bit faster. It was fine that the French Socialists condemn last year the Chavez plan to reform the constitution, it was fine mostly socialists decided, as I reported earlier, to sign a resolution in the Council of Europe to condemn the situation of human rights in Venezuela right now, but: was it so much for them now to also get involved in this resolution? They will be sorry very soon.

Meanwhile, Hugo Chávez declared opposition leader Rosales is a gangster who wants to kill him. Chávez has denounced plots against him every month or so, but now the cries about the wolf are accelerating. Why? As Quico wrote in Caracas Chronicles, it is the paranoia of power.

It is a pity European deputies have not heard Chávez's last words on the elections: he won't send the money due by law to those regions where the opposition wins. Amazing, isn't it?

Someone should put subtitles for such videos as this.

The European Extreme Left planning how to support Lukashenko's friend

As the German Marxist-oriented newspaper Junge Welt* reports, the European extreme left plans to hold a conference this autumn to coordinate how the different extreme-left parties will continue supporting Hugo Chávez's regime.

What parties are we talking about here? It is basically those that are to the left of the democratic left. They are the ones who call social democrats (off the record) "traitors", "sissies" and so on. Some of them claim for the general public to be "the real social democrats".

Among the parties supporting this conference you can find the German Linke, the heirs of the SED. Apart from the extreme left proper there may be a couple of politicians from the left branches of the social democrats, but there are less and less of this type as European social democrats have become wearier of associating themselves with such governments as Chavez'.

The extreme left parties will discuss in this conference mostly how they will support the Chávez regime for the coming regional elections in Venezuela this November. They will decide how to carry out lobbying work, coordinate their work to block any condemnation of Chavismo at EU level.

I am not very worried about their work. Still, I wanted to report it here. I am now more concerned about the way real social democrats are still too quiet about the violation of human rights by Chavismo. There are exceptions: the French socialists have proved they can see through the appearances. They have already condemned Chavez's referendum proposal, among other things. But we need the Spanish PSOE, Labour, the SPD and any others who call themselves social democrats to have courage and denounce Chavismo's hatred for pluralism and the many vices that the Venezuelan electoral system and judiciary present. Is the PSOE so quiet, for instance, because it is afraid of losing so many juicy weapons deals for a Spain going towards recession?

If the social democrats in Europe do not speak out fast, they will be the biggest losers: Chávez is giving a horrible reputation to socialism in Venezuela and once the economic kettle explodes, the bad reputation will be also felt by those governments in Latin Amerian countries currently profiting from Chávez's financial support and Venezuela's petrodollar bleeding.

* According to Spiegel and others, several of the journalists working for Die Junge Welt have a Stasi past. If you want to know more about what the Stasi was about, I would recommend you to see the excellent German film Das Leben der Anderen. The picture I put on top was the Stasi's emblem.

Ken Livingstone with Mugabe's Venezuelan friend

(I know the second man hugging Chávez is Iran's President Ahmed Ahmadinejad, I just wanted to put a picture of another of Chavez's friends in the world, someone different from Mugabe or Ghadaffi or Syria's president or Castro)


This 29 August we could read in The Guardian a letter written by Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of one of the richest cities in the world.

You can read the letter here.

Here I simply address several of his statements:

"The idea that this country is a dictatorship is ridiculous – probably some of those assiduously promoting it have difficulty in keeping a straight face."
Mr Livingstone basically asserts that because he could see from his hotel TV set the critical Globovisión on cable and he could check we have some newspapers that are critical of Chavez.
The little things he does not know:

• Most people in Venezuela DO NOT HAVE cable TV and cannot watch Globovisión.

• Caracas plus Maracaibo plus Valencia are not all of Venezuela. M

ost regions outside the main urban centres are not reached by Globovisión or RCTV cable.

• Less than 25% of Venezuelans have Internet access.

• El Universal and El Nacional are newspapers that have always been bought by a minority in a country where those who read, read so very little.

Mr Livingstone does not tell you that a lot of high officials in the Chávez regime openly threatened people who signed the petition for the referendum for Chávez. Those officials said whoever signed against Chavez would be sacked. He does not say how Chávez announced the finger prints of those who signed against him would pass to history.

Mr Livingstone does not say Chávez has declared many times that if the opposition wins, there would be war.

Mr Livingstone claims Chávez showed how good a democrat he can be by admitting his obvious defeat last December. The former mayor does not mention Chávez said the opposition's victory was a "shitty shitty shitty victory" and that he would not change anything in his proposal and he would push for it later, even if it was rejected by most people (he has already passed several laws via special powers that were part of the points rejected in the referendum).

Mr Livingstone does not explain why the Venezuelan National Electoral Council has not declared what happened with 10% of the votes in last December's referendum, that the National Electoral Council should have published the final results many months ago and that it has not done so even if the numbers they provided in the first report simply DO NOT ADD UP.

Mr Livingstone does not explain why Chávez does not allow critical journalists or channels close to him.

Mr Livingstone does not explain the real meaning of Socialism, Fatherland or Death.

Mr Livingstone does not explain the pathetic Personality Cult we have in Venezuela, where the state spends millions in thousands and thousands of billboards glorifying Chávez as a successor of Bolívar, as the new great hero.

Mr Livingstone shamelessly says illiteracy has been eliminated to "UNESCO levels". That is not right at all. UNESCO never confirmed Chavez's assertions. As you can read in The Economist, this is a big, big fib. Venezuela's literacy rate in 1998 was around 93% and growing. After some years, Chávez claimed it had been reduced to 0%, something not even Germany has managed to do and definitely not the UK. As that was not credible, Chavez and his cronies mentioned other numbers..."well, we have brought literacy to something in the ninety%". Hello? What is difference from 93% in 1997? And then they have had to concede hundreds of thousands of the people who registered for the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela cannot read or write. Mr Livingstone does not say either that now Venezuela has pulled out of open evaluation tests of education levels, as those promoted by UNESCO. He does not say Venezuela is one of the few countries in Latin America that do not take part in the PISA programme.

Mr Livingstone talks about the old rich, but he does not talk about the Boliburgueses, about the Kaufmans and the Antonini Wilsons, about the ministers who claim this is a true socialist government while wearing the most expensive clothes.

Mr Livingstone claims Chávez has introduced a "new free healthcare system", when he does not know the state of public hospitals (already free before Chávez).

Mr Livingstone mentions crime very briefly, but he does not mention the murder rate in Venezuela has increased over 300% since 1998, more than in any other country in Latin America, including Mexico. He does not mention either the 8 ministers of Justice Venezuela has had since 1999 have lied month after month about the murder rates, that they have claimed the murder rate is down because they compare one isolated weekend to another or one region during a couple of days suitable for their pseudo-statistical analysis. He does not want to say Venezuela's government stopped sending the number of murders in 2003 to United Nation's Office on Drugs and Crime when it became too clear crime was out of control in Venezuela.

Mr Livingstone does not explain exactly what has been achieved with the money poor Venezuela invested in one of the richest cities in the world.

Mr Livingstone tries to make Britons believe most of the opposition are evil rich people who dislike the poor. That is like saying most Britons who do not like Mr Livingstone are neo-Nazis and as proof he chooses some fringe neo-Nazi group.
What kind of tactic is that? If some Venezuelan were to tell Britons everybody who is not with Mr Livingstone/Cameron/Blair/you-name-him or her is a Nazi or that he is just some kind of selfish monster, I think Britons would be very angry and feel that Venezuelan does not know what respect and honesty are.

Shame on you, Mr Livingstone.

Venezuela, drugs, you and us

or what does Guinea-Bissau have to do with Venezuela?

Let's see...This is the Orinoco Delta, in Venezuela, a place of difficult access, but for some boats and planes.


And this is Guinea-Bissau:

Anti-narcotics in Guinea-Bissau caught three Venezuelans in an executive jet who were transporting cocaine to West Africa. A few weeks ago the United Kingdom announce Venezuelan citizens will probably lose their visa-free entry if Venezuela did not improve substantially in "security issues".

Last year The Economist reported about the increasing murder rates in the Caribbean. Although the murder rate in most Latin America has remained rather constant and in some countries like Colombia it has decreased meaningfully, some nations have seen a drastic raise in violent crime. Those countries are mostly in the Caribbean and they are "led" by Venezuela. Venezuela has surpassed Colombia in the murder rate per 100000. As I have reported previously in this and in my Spanish blog, all 8 minister of Justice Chávez has had since 1999 have lied through their teeth: they have said crime is about to decrease, they have tried to show crime has decreased by comparing two isolated weeks, two months at most, by ignoring crime does not behave as a linear function, by simply refusing to talk to journalists, to get into an open debate with opposition politicians or even Amnesty International, by redefining to the impossible what a murder is.

In reality Venezuela's murder rate may be much worse than that of El Salvador, the current official holder of the sad first place of "countries with a high murder rate". Several countries in the Caribbean are also having big problems: Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, even usually quiet Guyana. The problem goes around drugs and specially cocaine.

As The Economist reported back then, the drug dealers are trying to look for new routes. Colombia is still the main producer. Venezuela was for a long time a transport route, but its importance has increased more and more. Apparently, as the British, but also the Spaniards have started to realise, a lot of the drug is being transported through Venezuela to West Africa for its shipment to Europe. The drug dealers are apparently getting a lot of help from some important people in Venezuela. Many agents working in drug control say the Venezuelan military are helping the drug dealers: they protect the cargo, they help in the logistics, they let them use certain places like the Delta as a transfer point where drug is loaded into planes or boats doing the big jump across the Ocean.


Some weeks ago, Chávez, in one of his U-turns after the Reyes laptops were discovered, declared he was interested in cooperating with the US Americans in the fight against drug trafficking. He said this after he had broken all contacts with the DEA.


What is happening now?

• Is Chávez just realising his people are too linked to the drug trafficking?

• Did he know it and he is just realising the others know it now?

• Is his talk about cooperation just a way of gaining time and he will continue to give free reign to his people?

• What will future governments in Venezuela do with the drug problem? For a long time Venezuelans thought we were just a transit land, consumption was located in the North, but in reality consumption in Venezuela has skyrocketed and a lot of people there are getting addicted. How are we going to approach this problem?

• Will future governments take just the opposite approach Chavismo had so far and instead of saying "it is all your problem" say just "we have to solve it all"?

So, basically: how are we going to get out of this problem once Chávez is no longer in power?
I believe we will need a very consistent policy, one coordinated with the US, the EU, the rest of the countries around Venezuela, one where transparency becomes key, where Venezuelan forces cooperate fully with those of the other countries, where the other countries also assume their responsibility of reducing drug consumption in their own towns, where we develop real programmes to combat drug addiction in Venezuela's slums, where Venezuela offers better ways of earning money than becoming a criminal. But all these things I have mentioned are not a plan, they are just wishes. We really need a detailed plan. When are our politicians going to start thinking about the details of it?

Hugo Chávez and the EU immigration law

I have to confess I have only read bits and pieces of the EU law on illegal immigration control and what I have seen I do not like (I will go into that in the next weeks).

Still, what president Hugo Chávez said now about not sending oil to European countries and threatening them with cutting off their investments in Venezuela if they were to implement that law is sheer stupidity.

Firstly: we all know Europe draws very little of its oil from Venezuela, namely around 0.9% of its needs.

Secondly: Venezuela needs those European investments more than the EU needs to invest in Venezuela.

Everybody in Europe knows Chávez threats are just empty. With that Chávez has only managed to deflate any serious discussion about any part of the law. The public opinion in Europe now just focuses in the fact that Chávez threats are pointless.

As we can see in Spiegel, De Morgen and other newspapers, everybody is just talking about the fact that Chávez just threatens without any consequence.

If Chávez really cared about human migrations, he could have started opening up a serious dialog about causes and effects of migrations, about basic human rights, about reciprocity at different levels. Instead, he just used what he knows best: threats everybody knows he cannot carry out.

Venezuela and Europe: general reference

European Union and Venezuela

The European Union's general reference about the Venezuelan-European relations can be seen here.


European Venezuelans

Venezuela is well known as an ethnically very mixed country. Unless other countries, specially in the Old World, the mix is present at almost every family, within most Venezuelans. Most of us, including this blogger, are descendants of African slaves, Native Americans and Europeans. There are many who also have other roots: China, Syria, Lebanon and so on.

Venezuela's population is around 27 million people.
How many Venezuelans living in Venezuela have an European passport?

The following table shows some figures of people who have European citizenship
and live in Venezuela. The total amount should be much higher (there are more European-Venezuelans living in Europe)

THIS LIST IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Italians	1000000 ref. 0
Spaniards	150000 ref.2 (many more live now in Spain) voters. There are many more according to the new legislation, as the grandchildren of Spaniards will be able to acquire the Spanish nationality
Portuguese	400000 ref.1
Germans	over 8000 with German pass, some 10000 more "Auslandsdeutsch" ref. 3
Poles	4000 ref.4
Swiss	2000 ref.5
French	6000 ref. 6
Greeks	over 1150 ref. 7
Dutch	over 1000 (according to email from Dutch embassy)
Belgians	over 700 (according to Belgian embassy)

The EU & Venezuela: Politics

The European Union sent a very large observation team for the elections on 2nd of December 2006.

Their report can be seen here.

They based it mostly on what they could observe from their hotel rooms by using one of these things:

Tom de Castella wrote a very interesting article for London Times on this and you can read it here.

No wonder the EU report was mostly about how biased TV channels are. No wonder why the extreme left keeps basing their image of democracy in Venezuela by what they could watch on cable TV Globovisión and RCTV (this latter could be watched back then via your aerial, now only via Internet or cable, something most poor and people in the countryside lack). No surprise that other political groups do not know how to respond accordingly.

We Venezuelans got the confirmation we have to rely more on ourselves and try to keep as many Venezuelan observers in the largest amount of voting centres in spite of all the threats.


Addendum I:
We won last December in spite of all odds. Over 2 months after the 2007 referendum we still do not have the complete results. NGO Súmate has denounced lots of inconsistencies on the numbers provided by the National Electoral Council or CNE and the CNE has not answered. There is a lot of work still to be done.

Addendum II:
You can read a discussion of the EU on the non-renewal of their license for normal non-cable TV) here.

The EU discusses about Venezuela

Today the EU discussed about Venezuela. It won't be the last time this year.

The Venezuelan ambassador in Brussels already declared the Chavez regime would see it as an interference by the EU if it were to approve a resolution about Venezuela (of course, unless the resolution says how wonderful Hugo Chávez is).

Italian Giusto Catania and Spanish Willy Meyer, euro-deputies from the extreme left, already declared their support for the regime and mentioned anything the EU would declare would be intervention... the usual stuff we hear from the extreme left about human rights in Belarus, Burma and so on.

Just a couple of hours to go for the real discussion...

These eurocrats work until late. At 23:45 they started to discuss about Venezuela. There were a handful of them plus the interpreters. 5 deputies talked very negatively about the current government and said they should start asking for forgiveness to the Venezuelan people for the way the EU has cooperated with Chávez. Marios Matsakis talked about the growing inequality, about Chavez portraying himself as saviour of the country, about the fact that when Fidel is dying the world is seeing a new Fidel appearing.

Jose Millan Mons was very negative towards the Chavez regime, he mentioned RCTV, Baduel, the insecurity, the fact that Chavez is insulting everyone and destabilizing the region, that he is a danger.

Alojz Peterle said Venezuela is getting away from the values of democracy and human rights
and that Chavez is a threat for the relationships between Europe and Venezuela and within Latin America and that Chavez is just promoting more power for one person, himself.

Jose Ribeiro Castro talked about the disasters of the socialism of Lenin and others in the XX
century and he asked himself if we would see another disaster now with the Socialism of the XXI Century, he talked about the violence against the students, the attacks against journalists, the closing of RCTV. He talked about the lack of social justice and the fact that when politicians start to talk about "popular power", they were usually actually dealing away with it.
He referred to the increase of violence in general, to the Colombian/Venezuelan conflict.

Marios Matsakis mentioned that in spite of the oil revenues, poverty as prevailing and social justice was worse, that when Fidel was dying in Cuba, the EU was witnessing a new Fidel being born in Venezuela, that the EU should ask itself if it should not ask for forgiveness to the Venezuelan people for having helped the Chavez regime through all those commissions and committees and he finally said the EU should say how sorry it was for Venezuela.

Luis Yáñez-Barnuevo García (moderate Socialist, PSOE) said the EU should not use words to provoke, that Chavez was reelected three times without any doubt (from his part, I suppose) and that Venezuela is not a dictatorship. He said dialog was necessary and big reforms could not be passed by a simple majority but by something like 70%. He mentioned that he is worried when he sees the increasing concentration of power, the deterioration of human rights and a phenomenon Europeans do not know: the so-called cadenas where people are forced to watch Chavez or his people talking not for minutes but for hours and where most of the population could not read (thus, I assume, "have to watch TV"). He said the EU should promote the dialog.

Now Chavez's people:

Alain Lipietz, left from the Green (there are "red" and "blue" versions of Green)
said when he was in 3 to 4 star hotels during his visits to Venezuela, the upper middle class
was talking there that there was no democracy, but he had "no right to see the public TV", that the generals who took part in the coup of 2002 were still free and Chavez had not put them in prison, that Venezuela was the country that solved things in the most pacific way. He said he was no fan of the new reforms proposed by Chafvez but that it was the Venezuelan people who have to do the choice and that if the EU had to say sorry, it should only be for not condemning the coup of 2002.

I wonder if that guy remembers the bloody coups of February and November of 2002.


There was also (not in this order) one of the most useful helpers of Chavez: Spanish Willy Meyer Pleiter. He said the right in EU should stop messing up with Venezuela, that the EU should not
act before the events, that elections have been clean so far and that the EU should not intervene.

I will add more to this tomorrow.