El embajador de tiempos soviéticos en Venezuela del siglo XXI

Vladímir Fiódorovich Zayemski es el embajador de Rusia en Venezuela desde hace tiempo. Tiene 66 años. Hace unos días un periodista del períodico de asuntos comerciales Kommersant lo entrevistó sobre el tema de Venezuela y el hombre regurgitó la típica propaganda putinista. Pueden ver la entrevista en ruso aquí.

Este era Brezhnev, no el embajador actual de Rusia en Venezuela, pero hay que tener en cuenta que el embajador ya trabajaba en el servicio diplomático soviético en esos tiempos

Entre otras cosas, dio la usual interpretación putinista-chavista de la Constitución de Venezuela y sobre las condiciones según las que Guaidó asumió la presidencia de nuestro país. 

Dijo, en buen estilo soviético, que muchos medios de comunicación no habían mencionado que aparte de los miles de opositores que marcharon el 23 de enero también hubo "marchas masivas en apoyo de Nicolás Maduro en Caracas y otros sitios". Todos los que vivimos o tenemos familiares y amigos en Venezuela sabemos que eso es una vil mentira.

Zayemski aseguró al periodista que las inversiones rusas no corren peligro (es algo que se menciona con frecuencia en la prensa rusa, no las violaciones a los derechos humanos en nuestro país). Dijo que se seguía en la cooperación "en el campo petrolero, de armamento, agropecuario". También dijo que en el país vivían actualmente unos 800 rusos. 

Uno tendría que preguntarse qué hacen tantos rusos allí.

La mayoría de la información que hay sobre él está en ruso. Si visitan su página de Wikipedia leerán, entre otras cosas lo siguiente:

• estudió en el Instituto Estatal de Relaciones Exteriores de Rusia en tiempos de Brezhnev
• fue empleado de la embajada de la Unión Soviética entre 1976 y 1979, en tiempos de CAP I y cuando aun mandaba Brezhnev en su país
• fue empleado del departamento para asuntos de América Latina del Ministerio de relaciones exteriores de la URSS
•  fue segundo secretario de la embajada soviética en México (81-86)
• fue primer secretario en el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores,
• estuvo luego en EUA para encargarse de asuntos latinoamericanos y de la OEA
• fue mano derecha del ministro de relaciones exteriores Ivanov del 94 al 96
• Del 96 al 98 encabezó el departamento de Asuntos Internacionales del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (sinceramente no sé qué hacen esos, parece un ministerio dentro de otro)
• Del 98 al 2002 estuvo en la representación rusa en Nueva York para Naciones Unidas
• Del 2002 al 2004 fue director del Departamento para América del Norte en el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Rusia
• Del 2004 al 2009 director del Departamento de Asuntos Internacionales en el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores
• y a partir de 2009 ha sido embajador de Putin en Venezuela, Haití y República Dominicana.

Hace años escribí ya sobre cómo los soviéticos entrenaban a los miembros del Partido Comunista venezolano, entre ellos de la familia chavista Faría, en métodos de terrorismo.

The EU in perspective

Blogger Juan Nagel wrote on his first impressions during a visit to Germany. The Deutsche Well invited him to an event there. He was puzzled to still find people - he thinks many- who have a positive image of Chavismo or have good memories of Chávez.

But: is that  really the case? To some extent yes, but only partially. You can read his take and also my comment there. 

There are many ways to measure real support of a certain movement. Here I present another one. It is imperfect but it is also useful. This is the EU vote for an motion expressing concerns about human rights during the protests that took place in Venezuela from February through March.

In principle the vote was for something neutral: concern about human rights. It was not really a condemnation of the regime. In reality the voting went mostly along the lines: "deputy sympathizes with Chavismo or not". Virtually all parties of the extreme left voted against the  motion, some of them abstained. Still, 85% of deputies voted for the motion, only 8.3% against. There are a couple of curious cases. The founder of an extreme-right racialist party was the only Belgian to vote against the motion. Le Pen abstained. This might be proof that extremes touch.

There were EU elections afterwards and things changed a bit. In Spain the extreme left gained terrain but it lost in other places. 

First you see the percentage of deputies for each EU country that voted in favour of Chavismo:
(I made an error in one row, Netherlands. Actually: no one voted against the motion there, the 5 should go to the "abstention" side, I will correct the charts this evening)

This fits with my impressions of many encounters I had with EU citizens in the last few years. I still remember the EU employee from Cyprus who kept saying on an informal meeting "Chávez, Chávez!" when he saw I was from Venezuela and he wanted to show how much he knew about Venezuela. And the guy had an Armenian-Syrian background and didn't even feel Cypriot. Most Germans these days look at me with sorry when they hear I where I am from. "What a mess there, isn't it?" is what they say. And they are right.

And here you see how the weight of the voting went (total deputies per country for that motion):

Deputies do not equate completely what citizens think but this is another way of gauging how things stand for Chavismo.

There are still people, particularly among the extreme left and those in South Eastern Europe who still haven't realised Chavismo is an utterly corrupt, unsustainable, increasingly repressive movement based on an oil-price boom. Still, things are changing.

Buying friendship in Latin America

Many have written about this before: Maduro is having a difficult time trying to pacify people, he doesn't have the charisma the caudillo Chávez had, he can't speak and so on.

The man recently met in Caracas with the representatives of Petrocaribe, to "strengthen alliances". Petrocaribe is basically an organisation whereby poor Caribbean countries receive cheap oil from the Venezuelan government for political support. You won't see Costa Rica in that club. What came from that meeting were more requests for more cheap oil, what certainly also took place was a series of meetings from Venezuelan Boligarcs to request absolute political support for the Venezuelan government.

Now, Maduro said he was going on a tour through Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay to "look for food". He said the shortages in Venezuela are part of sabotage from those wanting to stop the transition to socialism.

What is going to happen is this: Maduro will see the presidents of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina and he will personally assure them that the Venezuelan state will spend more money on food imports from those countries. That will rejoice a few in the South. He will expect in return a stronger political support and pressure from those countries against any politicians in South America who would dare support Venezuelans claiming for a real audit of the elections or who would in any way criticise the growing repression in Venezuela.

When Maduro accused the former president of Colombia, Alejandro Uribe, of conniving with the Venezuelan opposition to kill him, Colombia's current president and former Uribe protegé Santos remained rather quite. Only after much national pressure was Santos and his foreign minister compelled to say something about this. The reason for such passivity is clear: money. Colombia has a nice trade surplus with Venezuela and Santos does not want to take the country back to the time when Chávez drastically reduced imports from that country.Colombians remember that time just a couple of years ago and it was harsh for them.

Brazil left and right is happy with Venezuela's situation right now

Venezuela has currently a trade deficit with every South American country that counts. It can only keep its positive trade surplus thanks to the huge surplus it has with the United States of America. Even its favourable trade balance with China wouldn't be enough: Chávez got Venezuela into a lot of debt with that country to finance several elections, specially the one in 2012 and the Chinese are becoming more cautious.

Venezuela's currency - under a fixed exchange rate - has been highly overvalued for many years and yet the timid devaluation implemented by the government in February was meaningful enough for Colombians, Uruguayans and many others to get the jitters. And the reason is simple: Venezuela is just the easy pray no one wants to lose.

Maduro tried to revive the excitement old US naggers had with Chávez when he declared Obama was the chief of devils. Obama had very politely expressed his concerns for the state of democracy in Venezuela but that was enough for former AD-politician, former Causa-R politician and current government honcho Aristóbulo Istúriz to say - for the public opinion - that "Venezuela se respeta".

As I always say, oil prices are the Alpha and Omega of Venezuela's politics. And yet I don't want to jump the gun and see long-term patterns in oil prices. People keep doing that and they keep shooting themselves in the foot. Still, we can see prices seem to have stabilized around 100 dollars a barrel and that is not enough for the overtly corrupt Chavista government: Venezuela would need steadily rising prices just to avert a recession.

The Venezuelan opposition will be persecuted more fiercely now. But so far, it has been learning a bit - finally. If it can take the next step, there are chances in the middle term for a real change. To do that it needs to work on establishing a national network of information vectors around the country to tell people about the economic reality and basic democratic principles so foreign to petro-feudal Venezuela. It's about teaching people what an actual debate between parliamentarians or thinkers or just average people means in a democratic country. It's about teaching what sustainable development is - not just about planting trees but about economic and social sustainability. It's about what "decentralization" should be - not power to a local instead of a national caudillo but local decision making together with by direct accountability. The opposition also has to make clear Madurismo is destroying Venezuela's productive sector, that Venezuelan private producers are not inherently evil, as the government wants to make believe, and just need a transparent environment where the rule of law and fair play apply.

The opposition also needs to keep in touch with the outside world and let it be known that those that become friends with the current Venezuelan government and remain silent to human rights violations will soon pay with international scorn and later with economic losses.

More sources:
Colombian exports
1
2
Brazil
3

Ethics, the opposition and the world around us (updated)

Juan Cristobal rightly discusses the ethics of someone like João Santana, who managed Hugo Chávez's campaign. And yet: he didn't seem to discuss Francisco Toro's conversation with notorious David Frum. In fact, it seems like most English-speaking Venezuelan oppos who commented on the chat were thrilled by listening to Frum, even if the guy just went on and on with platitudes and everything we could know by simply reading US news. Why was it? Because Frum was with the big fish? The thrill of the famous, whatever this famous thing is?

When someone criticized - clumsily, indeed- one of the most notorious media guys of the Bush administration, Toro simply mocked him by suggesting the reader was anti-Semitic...the usual mantra for anyone criticizing the hawkish and highly unethical views of characters like Frum.

Admitedly: it was Francisco Toro who invited Frum, whereas Juan Cristobal wouldn't have done it, but: shouldn't he have expressed his rejection? Or would Toro have classified him also as anti-Semitic?

Apparently the most sophisticated it gets with regards to the Middle East?

It is very unfortunate that the world view of most of the Venezuelan "elite" is formed basically by reading the news of the rather monolingual English-speaking journalist pool. That is why, when it comes to the international arena, they can spot Chavez's apologists' plank in the eye without realising the one they have in their own (yes, we can't speak about specks when it comes to world views here). At the end of the day, I think Juan Cristobal should have critizied publicly Toro's position.

David Frum, Bush's speech writer: better than Santana?

Many discussions seem to be carried out either within the framework of Venezolana de Televisión and Walter Márquez or Caracas Chronicles' Toro and Frum's World. And that's a shame.

Don't read this less you start to think again!

Dieterich: Chávez won't be president again

You can read an interesting interview with old-hat, German socialist Heinz Dieterich published today in a Brazilian newspaper.

He thinks, as we have said already, new elections are coming.

I will later comment on this article, I have things to do right now.

Ps. meanwhile, Venezuela is importing 10 thousand tons of black beans from the Dominican Republic because that country cannot pay with anything else. This is as if Russia were exporting gas to Germany and getting wheat as payment....such a waste.

Carter Center and Chávez's latest tricks

I asked the Carter Centre to answer about the trick with the ballot, among other things. I haven't got an answer yet but I will keep you posted.

Carter, Carter, Carter, give up!

Ceaușescu and Carter

Shah and Carter

Chávez and Carter

La espada del caudillo Bolívar, el caudillo Chávez y el caudillo Assad

Esto fue en 2010.
Hasta los rusos se dan cuenta ahora de que las horas de Assad están contadas.
Me pregunto quién más querrá recibir la "Espada del Libertador".

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.

What do you think Chávez told Gaddafi?

I read in Lenta some people think- again - that Gaddafi is getting ready to leave Libya. The Libyan dictator would apparently be ready to transfer power to his minister of Justice - if there is a cease fire and "NATO forces leave Libya". Fat chance. Anyway: two Airbuses came from South Africa. Some of Gaddafis relatives and government honchos may consider going to Venezuela.

There is a Venezuelan representative (or shall I say a Chávez representative) talking to Gaddafi officials in the Tunesian island of Djerba.

Is this true or yet another rumour? Or do Gaddafi's relatives reckon Venezuela may still be a good place for shopping? Stay tuned.

Should I go? How long could I stay there?

So predictable: Hugo Chávez supports dictator al-Assad, again

It is really so predictable...military strongman Hugo Chávez said on Friday, after having talked to al-Assad, that the Syrian government is the victim of a fascist onslaught.

"I have talked for some minutes to the Syrian president, our brother Bashar. Syria is victim of fascist attack. MayGodHelpSyria"

That was what he said on his twitter account.

Here you can read the latest from Al Jazeera about how the troops following Chávez's brother are murdering civilians.

When will Chávez do an Al-Assad against Venezuelans?

Peaceful demostrations

Venetiola-Syria: asinus asinum fricat

Assad et Hugo Chávez in propaganda officialis gubernationis Venetiolae anno 2007

Iura humana in Syria

Useful idiots

Right now BBC has a three-episode programme about "Useful Idiots". The pictures you see here were randomly chosen by a software I have and have no relationship whatsoever with the post. Really.

Ps. I just wish BBC would change Willy Grant as reporter for Venezuela.

Oliver Stone and his fight against terrorists

I just listened to Oliver Stone talking on BBC. It seems that when people become famous in Hollywood they think they are more insightful about anything. The fact is that Stone is as professional as most rabid right winger he wants to distance himself from. In fact, Stone's objectivity - I don't talk about partiality - is as good as that of the most partisan media in the US. Right now even most members of the German extreme left party Die Linke have a more critical view of Chávez than Stone.

I think the BBC should also have engaged a journalist with a deep understanding of Venezuela, not someone asking very predictable questions.

When the journalist asks him about freedom of expression, Stone just goes into "oh, that is so oligarchic", probably with some eye-rolling. Oh, Oliver, you are so cliché.

Stone says most people (what's "most people"?) watch the private media. This is very telling. This shows the only thing he knows about Venezuela is derived from his guided tours with Chávez, from his time in the luxurious hotels watching Globovisión - the only regime-critical channel nowadays- and looking at the kiosks in Caracas. This "specialist" does not speak Spanish, hasn't got a clue about Venezuela's oil cycles, hasn't delved into enough information regarding countless corruption cases carried out by the Boliburguesía, starting with Chávez's clan. His sources are things like "The Revolution shall not be televised".

Stone does not know, for instance, that

• less than 30% of the population can watch -admitedly FOX-like- Globovisión (those in Caracas and those with cable-satellite dish)
• the combined circulation of regime critical newspapers is lower than 200000 per day and Venezuelans read very little
• Chávez constantly threatens the opposition as no head of state of a democracy country would do (we will annihilate them, we will take out the tanks, sweep them away, they are not human, they are subhuman, etc, etc, just watch the videos I constantly link to here)
• the personality cult has just gone absolutely bonkers and Chávez does not tolerate any even slight criticism of his persona among those who want to work with him (and he has total control of the national government and thus of the petrodollars)
  
• Chávez and his ministers completely refuse to hold open debates with opposition leaders
• Chávez has introduced laws that were rejected in the 2007 referendum (I am not talking about re-election)
• Chávez has taken away almost all the power from mayors and governors as soon as the opposition won several key municipalities and states
  
• Opposition groups are regularly prevented from walking in very tiny numbers, in the main square of Caracas or in any other square where Chavistas are mayors
  
• the police has repeatedly attacked using brutal force opposition groups that peacefully distribute flyers in areas that are considered "del pueblo" (i.e. poor areas or rural areas)
  

Stone, as a rich pseudo-socialist would be completely at lost if he were to debate with someone like Teodoro Petkoff or...hell, even with your humble blogger.

People like Stone are not interested in Venezuela at all. Venezuela is just a tool in their private fights. For people like Stone you are either with Chávez or you are with the terrorists. Does this sound a bell to you?


Caracas Chronicles on Oliver Stone
Caracas Corhnicles on Weissbrot (who helped with the documentary's script)

Moratinos: shame of Spain

Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs Moratinos, from the PSOE, declared, after signing juicy oil deals with the Venezuelan regime that "Spain trusts the Venezuela of the present and the future". He also said he thinks media in Venezuela is doing fine. Hello, was Moratinos really a social democrat? What is the matter with the current government of Spain? They critized so much the PPs links to right-winged regimes and now they do this?

Well, the Repsoil deal will bring just too much money for Spain so Moratinos decided, once more, to forget about human rights in Venezuela. Human rights are for people from Europe or North America only, apparently.

Bravo, Moratinos! You secured a lot of money for Spain...never mind democracy or social democracy in Venezuela...

Who would not want to hug Hugo Chávez?

The King of Spain and the Prime Minister have nothing against the occasional hug with Hugo Chávez. How could they? Venezuela's government buys so many weapons from Spain that they would have to have to be very stupid or have ethics to reject hugging Chávez.

As El Universal tells us today, Venezuela bought in 2007 some 1.399 billion dollars in weapons from Spain. That was 10.4% more than in 2006 and more than twice what Venezuela bought in 2005.

Hugo Chávez was thus able to buy his toys like bombs, torpedos, rockets and missiles. As Spain is about to get into recession very soon , why would a socialist or a king reject to hug such a bag of petrodollars?

Who supports Hugo Chavez and his regime in Europe?

This post is going to be updated on a continuous basis.
The total amount of people supporting Chávez is decreasing by the day, but there are still some. It is a similar situation to Mugabe, who previously had so much support in the West.


Heads of State

Well, there are not many of them in Europe. Firstly we have:

• Alexander Lukashenko, Belorussian head of state. You can find some information on what the European Union thinks of Alexander here. I read Scholl-Latour's book with a lot of interest, although I do not approve certain things he writes about. He has produced a good account of Lukashenko in his book "Russland im Zangengriff" (in German). There is one chapter there dedicated to Belarus and what I read there corresponds very much with what my Belorussian friends have told me about the whole issue.

And that is about it. We can say Vladimir Putin's Russia is making a lot of money by selling weapons to Chávez's military, but that is far from saying Vladi loves to get a picture next to Hugo.

Eurodeputies supporting Chavez

• Sahra Wagenknecht: German, member of the Linke, she is from the left part of the communists.

Some articles about her: Wikipedia (German) has general information (there is less information about her in other languages), Spiegel (German) Sahra the the lobster pictures

• Giusto Catania: Italian communist, GUE/NLG
  
• Georgious Toussas: Greek, GUE/NGL, a member of the Greek Communist party.
• Manuel Medina Ortega: Spanish, PSE Group
  

Others

• Ken Levingston, a.k.a. Red Ken, the former mayor of London. He was promoting a deal by which poor Venezuela is giving oil to help the poor of one of the richest cities in the world. They were supposed to deliver "know-how" on such matters as tourism and traffic to Venezuela but in reality the deal costs much more to Venezuela than to London. Here you can read how Mr Levingston praises Hugo Chávez and says everything the media says are "lies". I wonder if he would be ready for a live debate with opposition for Britons and Venezuelans to see. I want to see the results in Venezuela of London's part in the deal.
  

• Michel Collon, Belgian journalist, linked to Telesur, Hugo Chavez "response to CNN" and to Belgium's . I wonder if his work for Telesur is compensated in some way other than "thank you".

• Sfia Bouarfa, senator of the Belgian (French-speaking) Socialist Party. She was invited by the Venezuelan, very red National Electoral Council to "supervise" the quality of their work. She gave a very positive report on it to the Belgian government.

• Tierry Deronne, another Belgian journalist and vice-president of Vive TV, one of Chávez's TV channels. He is a friend of Sfia Bouarfa, according to Bouarfa's blog. This journalist says on his blog that still 70% of the TV in Venezuela is in the hands of the opposition. I wonder if he managed to watch TV from a TV without cable outside Caracas. Mind: in Venezuela, unlike in Belgium, most poor do not have cable TV and outside a couple of major cities it is hard to get any non-cable TV station that critical to Chavez.

Here you have a list of all the Eurodeputies who support the regime of Chávez, a list by themselves.