UNASUR for the People or as a tool for presidents and Venezuela's regime?

Current general secretary of UNASUR and former president of Colombia, Ernesto Samper, went to Venezuela and talked to the government. He, like other contact people of UNASUR, has made up his mind and is not going to act like a negotiator in order to bring peace and democracy in Venezuela. His ultimate mission is to keep the status quo. 

"There is division of powers in Venezuela". My foot

Basically, Samper said that

• there is division of powers
• UNASUR will help in the distribution of food in Venezuela
• Venezuelan parliamentary elections will take place in September

Henrique Capriles went to meet Samper but other leaders of the MUD were not invited. Afterwards Capriles announced on Twitter he told Samper there was no division of powers in Venezuela. Who found about that? Capriles' followers, who are mostly Venezuelans who already know there is no division of powers.

In reality

• There is no division of powers at all in Venezuela. The State is the ruling party, the judiciary is a tool of the ruling party, every single national institution is composed of people absolutely loyal to the interests of Chavismo. Even Morales, the previous Chavista president of the Supreme Court of Venezuela, declared to bawfled journalists back in 2009 that the division of powers weakens the State. Things haven't improved since then and the current president of said court was a former Chavista candidate for the state of Nueva Esparta and specializes in sending opposition mayors to jail.
• UNASUR will help in the distribution of food in Venezuela. Why? Has there been a war? Has there been a major earthquake like in Haiti? What is the difference between Venezuela and the rest of the Latin American countries that this needs to be done? 

How come is UNASUR so flagrantly partial?

To be continued...

Low and great expectations for health in Latin America

I produced the chart above based on the latest data from the WHO. It shows life expectancy in 1992 and 2012. Back in 1990 Cuba was still the prima dona of Latin America. As you can see now, Colombia has caught up and Chile has clearly beaten Cuba.

Countries like Peru and Bolivia are doing well. Mexico is improving more slowly and yet it has caught up with Venezuela. Peru has caught with Venezuela and, as you could see from Colombia: it really beat Venezuela in spite of not having the oil Venezuela has.

The only country in this series that is converging with Venezuela - at least until 2012 - was Argentina.

Venezuela has squandered a lot of money. Yes, life expectancy has improved, like elsewhere in the region, but it hasn't improved as it should.

Venezuela: no rule of law. Any doubt?

Things have gone much worse since 2005

The current Supreme Court President, Luisa Estella Morales, is a complete puppet of the Chávez government. Is there any doubt for anyone outside Venezuela?

She just declared - not for the first time, but now more clearly- that the Judicial Power is committed to the so-called Bolivarian socialism, together with some obvious things things she wanted to wrap that up with.

She is shamelessly violating at least two basic articles with that statement:

Article 2: Venezuela constitutes itself as a Democratic and Social State of Law and Justice, which holds as superior values of its legal order and actions those of life, liberty, justice, equality, solidarity, democracy, social responsibility and, in general, the preeminence of human rights, ethics and political pluralism

Article 6: The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and of the political organs comprising the same, is and shall always be democratic, participatory, elective, decentralized, alternative, responsible and pluralist, with revocable mandates..

Ms Morales has shown many other times a complete disregard for the law she is supposed to represent. She declared the division of powers weakens the State and few even blinked.

What has the opposition leaders done? Just stated very vague criticisms to Morales. They seem to be afraid to quote clearly what she is violating and to call her for what she is: an irresponsible person. They seem afraid to say there is no longer rule of law in Venezuela.

How come? Diosdado Cabello, one of the most notorious boligarcs, threatened opposition deputies to expel them from the National Assembly if they said what Chavismo has been doing is "inconstitutional".

Our deputies are mixing up things. It is one thing what they did in 2005, when they did not take part in the elections. It is a very different one to speak up even if the Chávez goverment openly breaks the law once more and tries to exclude them from the National Assembly. I still hope they will react in the coming days with something more solid than what they had stated in the last days.

And what will the Organisation of American States do about this? Unfortunately, nothing. As long as virtually every neighbouring country is having a nice trade surplus with Venezuela, there is nothing they will do. Ethics is a complete non-issue here.

When it comes to business abroad, even the most "progressive" Latin American head of state will be completely devoid  of ethics. Mujica went to Venezuela to support the virtual oath-taking of Chávez and came home with a big deal to export more milk. Latin American leaders left and right remain silent at best or praise Chavismo as a way to secure better deals...Venezuela's economy goes to pot in the meantime as there are only so many petrodollars

Venezuelans killing themselves on the road (updated)

This is really nothing new and yet nothing is being done about it: we, Venezuelans, have the highest death rate when it comes to road accidents in South America - by far: almost 56 men get killed on Venezuelan roads per 100 thousand inhabitants on a yearly basis (the rate for women is lower everywhere).

It is time for this to change. I got the data from WHO (2008). You will almost never see a simple map like this or a chart in the Venezuelan media, which is a pity. There is nothing like visualizing numbers.

So we don't only have now the highest murder rate of our sub-continent but also the highest death rate by stupid, mostly very aggresive driving. I think this shows a general attitude that has permeated society and has become worse with the years, the car and the petrol prices. It also reflects the fact tests for driving licenses are an absolute farce in the and of Grace. It shows there is almost no road control unless some cops need to round up their salary.

Venezuelans know about the latest music rythms from the USA or Sweden, Italy or Chile. They know how fashion is in Italy right now. They, on the other hand, very seldom try to compare how their country stands with regards to issues that have to do with life and death. 

Death on the road (dead males x 100 000 inhabitants)

 

Is it better to live in Colombia or Cuba than in Venezuela now?

According to The Economist probably yes. My guess: your parents may be able to buy less whisky or petrol with their salary if they live in Colombia or Cuba than in Venezuela, but you would be less likely to get shot dead.

And perhaps that's also why Hugo is flying to Cuba for treatment for the eleventh time in 17 months...or perhaps not? Or perhaps it's just for the secrecy Cuba offers?

Better be born in Colombia than Venezuela, PPP notwithstanding

Venezuela's infamous revolution and the sense of injustice

Some days ago Venezuela's strongman declared the country had seen a dramatic decrease in "the number of crimes". He talked about 20% reduction in Carabobo, for instance (here). There were no details about how that 20% was measured, how a "crime" is seen now or one year ago. That is absolute rubbish, though. Crime in real Venezuela goes on unabated. In fact, it just keeps getting worse and worse. Chávez didn't talk about the murder rate, of course. He knows murder is more difficult to re-define than a fluffy concept such as "crime", even if even murders are now counted in a more restrictive fashion.

An NGO published new stats about the clearance rate for murder in Venezuela. It stands at about 3%. Try to grasp what that means: from every 100 murders in Venezuela, 97 remain unresolved, the criminals remain at large. Look at the chart. In red you see the percentage of murders that have not been solved and in cyan you see what has been solved.

The clearance rate for Germany is around 96%...against 3 for "socialist Venezuela".

Latin America in general shows very high murder rates. Lots of people specially in the USA and Britain talk about the rampant crime in Mexico, the drug wars there. Indeed, Mexico is in a mess. Some useful idiots abroad mention the case of Mexico to explain Venezuela is not the only major country in America with a high murder rate. But if you put things under perspective, you will see Venezuela under Chávez is in a league of its own. Check out The Economist's interactive map of Mexico to get an idea and bear in mind:  Venezuela's murder rate is now around 70 murders per 100 000 inhabitants, twice as many as the second most dangerous country in South America, Colombia, and only slightly surpassed by tiny Honduras and Guatemala.

Juan Cristobal and other bloggers have been discussing for a long time whether Venezuela is still a democracy or not. Juan Cristobal is particularly depressed because of the surprise he seems to have got with last elections' results. It is as if he were telling us: "it is not so much a problem of democracy but of people's will and this is what most want". 

But the thing is this: democracy is by any means much more than elections. This is something even those Greeks opposed to Plato's model of democracy would agree with. Most Greeks understood 2400 years ago what most Venezuelans still do not get.

One of the key requirements to call a system democratic is the existence of the rule of law.

There is none in Venezuela.

Murder in Venezuela versus the rest of America

If we do the maths, unlike El Universal, which just quoted the absolute numbers from an OAS report, we can see how Venezuela under Chávez compares with the rest of America when it comes to violent crime.  So: we take the population of all our hemisphere, the total number of murdered people and compare that  to the most reliable information we have about our country. Admittedly, that is not easy as the Chávez government refuses to send detailed information about the mess it has put Venezuela in. 

Things are not rosy for the inhabitants of the Land of Grace. A Venezuelan citizen has almost 5 times more chances of getting murdered than the average citizen of the American Hemisphere, from Canada to Chile.

In some countries the murder rate is much lower - take Canada or Chile - and in others it is high but still  lower than in Venezuela - take almost all the rest, including Mexico and Colombia. Only a couple of small countries have murder rates worse than Venezuela's under Chávez. Those countries are Honduras, Guatemala and Jamaica.

Venezuela's murder rate has tripled since the Llanos caudillo is in power.

Santos' love for Venezuelan petrodollars

If you still wonder why Colombia's president Santos has become such a good mate with Venezuela's military caudillo, you just have to take a look at the following chart of Venezuelan-Colombian trade.

This is the Venezuelan view

One can get the data from, among other sources, Colombia's governmental sites..

The drop you see around 2008 came when former president Uribe had Reyes, a FARC honcho, killed. Chávez went bonkers and decided to "freeze" relations back then. Colombia's economy resented it and when Santos got elected, he decided to play it safe.

That's why it's not only Lula who is in love with the caudillo's petrodollars. Latin American fraternity and democracy? Sure.

Ps. It is a pity Venezuela's opposition is not using this kind of information time after time. The only one I know that is keeping track of numbers all the time is Primero de Justicia's Julio Borges. Unfortunately, he tends to show the numbers in a rather monotonous way - no visualisation, just recitation and the odd chart. Most Venezuelans have poor maths skills but they will always understand and above all remember everything better if you show them a simple chart and give them the right reference story. I hope Borges and the whole PJ team use this kind of data in a proper way to reach as many people as possible. They should do this not via Globovisión talks but by targeting the other 70%. How? One way is to start spreading leaflets in the buses of Maturín, Punto Fijo, Los Guayos, Acarigua, Caracas.

Venezuela: sinking in ignorance

Another report about the state of things in Venezuela: we keep sinking when it comes to international standards. The Global Competitiveness Index came out and it shows how Venezuela is now at position 124. Last year it was at position 122. There are 18 countries worse off than us, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa plus a few others like Yemen and Haiti. When it comes to education in general Venezuela doesn't seem to do it so badly, "only" position 84 or so...but then that position is based on data coming from the national government, without independent verification. Do you know why the Chávez regime refuses to take part in the PISA programme of the OECD? (as opposed to the government of the opposition in Miranda, until now led by Henrique Capriles)

Free Bolivarian Fall

Because it prefers to lie.

Let's go back to the report: "Venezuela (124th) continues to fall in the rankings, despite a slight improvement in its overall score". I am sure the Chávez government and its foreign sycophants will really try to see the positive: some score went up. They won't tell you the truth: Venezuela is being left behind.

We read that the tertiary enrolment rate is very high (8th) - something that does not surprise me at all, but it is because I have always known how much of a farce a lot of university faculties have become. Students at Venezuelan universities often do not have the level of a 12-year old pupil in a developed country. The Chávez government, instead of working on improving primary and secondary education firstly, forces universities to accept everyone, even if they are functional illiterate.

On page 366 you can see how Venezuela's GDP evolved since the early eighties until now compared to the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. In spite of the fact Venezuela's profited from the longest oil boom in history - thanks, China -, the rest of Latin America as a whole just caught up...and that is putting everyone else together - Haiti and El Salvador with Chile and Brazil. In reality lot of countries have overtaken Venezuela. But remember: Venezuela is the Latin American nation that spent the largest amount of money in importing weapons in 2010 according to Russian sources!

Hat off to reader Guido

Lula's love for Venezuelan petrodollars

A few days ago Lula, a social democrat, took party for Chávez in a way not even Angela  Merkel would have done for Sarkozy: he said Chávez' success was "nostra victoria". In a complete lack of respect for the sense of democracy and pluralism, he assumed whoever is a Latin American and a democrat would support the military Hugo Chávez. Thing is: even many socialists do not support Chávez.

But money seems to be more important for these so-called socialists à la Lula. Do you want to know why Brazil cares so much for Chávez remaining in power? Look at the chart above. This is the trade balance between Venezuela and Brazil in the last few years (more details, in the language of Camões, here).  Venezuela imports machines and other highly-elaborated products from Brazil plus maize, meat and other food products. Brazil imports iron, aluminium and some other raw materials. The thing is: it is not just that there is more trade, but that it is much easier for Brazil to export anything to Venezuela because Chávez has kept an overvalued currency at home, destroying Venezuelan competitiveness, has kept harassing Venezuelan producers because he is afraid they may get some clout and thus power and he prefers to use petrodollars to import everything even if that means destroying Venezuela's producers.

These people are telling us that we either export raw materials to the USA or to Brazil and import processed, higher value products from the USA or Brazil. The first thing is bad, the second is supposed to be good, just like that.

What if there is a third or a fourth possibility and that doesn't necessarily require adding yet more country names?

Latin American heads of state and power

It is a pity we never hear the discussion about parliamentarian versus presidential democracies when "experts" talk about re-elections in Latin America. Parliamentarian democracies are completely different from presidential democracies and these differences are essential if people want to understand why there have been term limits for presidential systems, specially for very strong presidential forms. The US allowed indefinite re-election until Roosevelt, but even then a US president had more limited powers than a president in other countries.

It is incredible so many sycophants of "left nationalist" presidents say that the possibility of indefinite re-elections in Germany, Spain or Britain are a reason to allow that in Venezuela, with a completely different - strongly presidential - system.

Here you have the chart of Latin American heads of state and, rounded down, their time in power.

Today Venezuela's military caudillo will register as a candidate for re-election once more. He has been in power since early 1999, more than any  other head of state in Latin America.

Human rights, Venezuela and the democratic opposition

The Venezuelan caudillo ordered his pawns to do the necessary paperwork to get Venezuela out of the OAS rights body. He thinks that by doing so his government will be less accountable for human right violations .

If you speak Spanish, you should listen to María Corina Machado, one of our opposition deputies.

Kudos to her.

Spanisch für Fortgeschrittene - Spanish for advanced learners

Mujeres de América Latina

Laura Chinchilla, presidente de Costa Rica

El País published an interesting article about the position of women in Latin America...read it, if you speak Cervantes' language.

Mujeres warao ofreciendo su cestrería

Latin America integration, Europe and the US

The vast majority of Latin Americans speak Spanish or Portuguese. We have basically the same religions and very common history and traditions. Still, we are very divided. Try to pass a border between any Latin American country and see how much waste time goes there. Try to see how much smuggling is part of life all across our borders.

One of the main reasons for this division has been caudillismo: national interests, specially those of the military castes and the local caudillos, have trumped it all. Then there are ideologies or pseudo-ideologies. Chávez claims, for instance, to be a promotor of Latin American integration, but if anything, he has been one of the main factors for division: he wants it his way, which is mostly based on resentment and his curious mixed of military obsessions and ideology, with a lot of show and zero policies for sustainable development. You don't become more independent just by changing your clients and destroying further your own industry. Cuba has also been another obstacle for unity: Latin American countries have remained divided in their approach towards the island. As the United States has taken a very blind and silly approach towards Cuba, many Latin American countries have taken a similarly stupid approach and decided to be silent about the Cuban dictatorship - out of a false sense of solidarity. In this sense, Latin American countries have reacted towards the Castro clan as African countries did towards Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Still, I wonder: would the US and the EU be interested in Latin America becoming a cohesive union, something even more cohesive than the EU?

Let's see:

1. would they be able to sell as many weapons to a Latin American Union as they do now to the different military forces throughout Latin America?
2. would they have the same clout regarding trade agreements, specially when it comes to subsidies and import tarifs?
3. would they have the same weight when pretending to be interested in a "War on Drugs" while paying for more and more cocaine?
4. would their security firms and defence machineries earn as much if the War on Drug is suddenly solved?

 One day, we will have to discuss how to promote real integration in Latin America.

 Tenemos que hacerlo. We will have to discuss things like: what is actually Latin America? Is there a common identity that should trump anything else for its own sake or is Latin Americanness a useful practicality? What common grounds do we have with the rest of the world and how can we help to produce a fairer international community?

Mapping Latin Americans' heads of states' heads

Obviously, you can have a university degree or two and still be completely incapable. You can be without one and be absolutely up for many jobs. Still, I find this map very telling: it is about what Latin American presidents studied after school. 

Bolivia's president came from a very poor background in South America's poorest country and only visited a basic school. Uruguay's and Nicaragua's presidents studied law but left prematurely as they went to fight with the guerrilla. The president of Paraguay studied to be a Catholic priest and also to become the literal "father" of a nation (two children are linked to him so far). The countries you see in the map in pink have heads of state who did law. Those in brown and red studied politics and literature respectively. The one in blue studied engineering. The ones in yellow have presidents who studied economics. Lastly, the ones in green have heads of state who have a purely military background. Raúl basically learnt to fight with his brother. Venezuela's president went to the usual Military Academy for those who do not want to study much and he then abandoned a "postgraduate study" in political science" at the USB. I simply cannot understand how he was allowed to start it or even finish secondary school if he can say something like this: "mankind is 20 centuries old".