Venezuela: the parasite nation

Venezuela became a predominantly oil exporting country already in the thirties of the XX century. Unlike Norway, it was not an industrialized nation and its people had very low levels of education. Already back then, intellectual Arturo Úslar Pietri warned us about Venezuelans becoming just parasites of a petro-state. Few payed attention to him and those who did payed lip service to his words only. We became more and more dependent on petrol export and produced less and less things on our own.

The current government of Venezuela has brought our parasitism to new levels. Every month or so the Venezuelan government announces it has closed so many deals with another country. The semi-illiterate population does not realize what is behind those deals: it is all about selling oil to import more, it is always about Venezuela buying more.

Hugo Chávez threw a tantrum after the Colombian government denounced they had found Venezuelan-own Swedish weapons in possession of the terrorist organization FARC. The Venezuelan 1992-coupster decided to freeze relationships with Colombia and lo and behold, Argentina rushed in to offer replacing all those goods. This is very stupid and bad for Venezuela as Argentina is far away (remember South America is twice as big as Europe with European Russia included) and labor costs there are much higher than in Colombia.

Anyway, the most striking part of the whole deal for me is the fact that Venezuela and Argentina signed some 22 agreements and ALL THOSE AGREEMENTS are about Argentina exporting to Venezuela, nothing about Venezuela exporting to Argentina (here an article on that in Spanish).

The most worrying thing is that half the Venezuelan population does not have a clue about why this is bad. They think imports have to come, exporters are just some rich people and: who cares about those rich people? In reality the exporting sector in Venezuela - other than oil - is in tatters.

Chavez has no intention of helping Venezuelan exporters for a simple reason: the only way in which he can remain in power is if he maintains and strengthens the parasitic relationship between the Venezuelan people and the oil the state has always managed. If Venezuelan exporters had some clout, Chavez would lose some power.

We should all be aware: Argentina, Brazil and other countries are very happy with Venezuelans being the bunch of parasites they have become.


Ps. Today the national police dispersed a peaceful opposition march that had received permit to go to the National Assembly. So good for democracy in Venezuela

Ps2: If you are Venezuelan and haven't replied to the poll on the right, I would appreciate if you do so.

A very special fish

The pictures you see here are of a very special animal that inhabits large extensions of South Ameria: the Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, a.k.a. capibara or, in Venezuela, chigüire (pronounce cheeweerai).

Some of you may suspect something from the Latin name: it has to do a lot with water. Capibaras are the largest rodents on Earth and they are semi-aquatic: they are constantly swimming. The male pursuits the female and can mount it only when his lady stops swimming. So capibaras have evolved to become very good swimmers. Because they swim so well, they have, unlike more and more people these days, a very lean meat (not that I eat people, but one can imagine). Their meat tastes a bit like pork but better and healthier. You can get the meat in shops and supermarkets these days. We prepare the meat with different sauces...am I salivating already?

One of the curiosities about capibaras is that Venezuelans and some others eat them particularly in Lent. The tradition says that the first Catholic missionaries asked for a dispensation from the Vaticcan in order to eat capibaras during Lent as they are most of the time swimming and must therefore be considered "fish".

More on capibaras in Wikipedia.







Ps. If you are Venezuelan and haven't answered the poll on the right, I would be very grateful if you could take a look

Education in Venezuela

I am preparing a new post on education in Venezuela and I need your help if you are Venezuelan and studied primary and/or secondary school in Venezuela.
Please, answer the poll I put on the right.
Thanks.

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...

Sense and Sensibility or The European Union and Venezuelan corruption

Beginning in mid August Venezuela will lose the preferential access it has to the European Union based on the Generalised System of Preferences (SPG +). That was just now announced at the German Parliament (Bundestag) upon request from the Ecologist Party. The Venezuelan government, in spite of its promises, had not ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption. The European Union has thus decided to take back its decision from 9 December 2008 of adding Venezuela to the list of countries benefiting from the SPG +. Gabon, Nigeria and Pakistan also lost their preferential tariffs. The EU does not want to publish the decision about Venezuela in its official journal due to "reasons of political sensibility".

I wonder if the EU is afraid Chávez "freezes" commercial ties with it as he did with Colombia when Bogotá presented proofs Swedish weapons sold to Venezuela ended up in the hands of terrorist organisation FARC.

You can find the official sources (also with the words I put in red here) in the portal of the German Parliament (Bundestag) in German here (if you want to double check, try Google language tools)

Hat off Hans

Freedom of Expression Venezuela-styled

Yesterday Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega Díaz gave a speech to the National Assembly where she talks about the "Special Media Crime Bill" she is introducing. Journalists and others who, according to the socialist government of Chávez, "create unrest or dispair among the population" would face several years in prison. For the details, I ask you to read the blogs of Caracas Chronicles, Daniel Duquenal or The Devil's Excrement.

Among other things, Ortega is proposing prison terms for up to four years for those who would transmit news that would 'cause panic among the population' or 'create a false perception of facts' or 'create fear among the population' or 'promote hatred or hostility'. I completely agree hatred speeches should not be tolerated. Now, there is a huge difference between what the Chavista government and normal democracies à la Norway or Germany think are hatred speeches.

I wrote a post in Spanish about what we, Venezuelan citizens, can do now.

Here I just want to ask politicians and journalists from other countries who are involved with Venezuela to seriously do the following:

1. find out from different sources what is the proportion of Venezuela's population that the Chavez-critical media can reach (not just in Caracas, Maracaibo or Valencia)
2. find out what chances Venezuelans critical of Chávez have to debate in the state TV and radio stations
3. find out how many hours a week the Venezuelan media is forced to broadcast Chávez speeches
4. find out about attacks on Venezuelan journalists and last, but not least:
5. follow all the hatred speeches Chávez is giving about how he will anihilate the opposition, wipe out the people who think different than he does and who consider Venezuela should be a country where pluralism reigns. Here just a couple of examples:
   

• Chávez and students
• Chávez and elections I
  
• Chávez and elections II
• Chávez and the "shit victory of the opposition
  

I still am amazed at how the European Union and the Carter Centre based part of their reports on media in Venezuela on what they could watch from their cable TV in their nice Caracas hotels in 2004 and 2006. They apparently did not know Venezuela had a democracy before Chávez, even if it was very dysfunctional, and people were used to a bigger freedom of speech, unlike in Soviet and later Lukashenko Belarus or Pinochet Chile. Media in Venezuela, specially TV and radio, suck big time, whether it is pro-Chávez or not (Globovisión and RCTV, with little reach, are the only TV stations that currently are critical of the regime). This won't make things better.

One thing the Prosecutor's speech showed me is that she is absolutely sure Chavismo will rule for decades in Venezuela. Otherwise, she would be afraid about getting prosecuted later on for what is about to happen in our land of Grace.

Below you see the Freedom of Expression world map from the Freedom House.

Sweden-Venezuela-FARC IV

The Sweden-Venezuela-FARC issue has new details. Here some of them in a nutshell.
Sources El Nacional, El Tiempo

1988

Sweden sells a series of AT4s to Venezuela

1999

Hugo Chávez becomes for the first time president in Venezuela (elected in 1998, came to office on 4.2.1999)

2004

2 Swedish rocket launchers were found in FARC camp in the Yari Jungle (Caqueta Department, C1 in map). Their serial numbers are similar to the ones found in 2008.

2008

May: Message from FARC leader Camilo Tabaco is intercepted. Details about contacts with Venezuelan contacts that would provide weapons appear.

September: Colombian forces discover, among other things, Swedish rocket launchers in a FARC camp in the Meta area (C2 in the map)

10 October: Colombian forces discover over 58000 rounds for Kalashnikovs in the Meta area

2009

4 June: Colombian minister of Foreign Affairs gives to Venezuelan minister Maduro documents in which 2 FARC leaders mention their negotiations with three high Venezuelan officials on similar rocket launchers
24 June: Colombian magazine Semana reports on the rocket launchers.
26 June: the Colombian government asks neighbouring countries not to provide weapons to FARC and some further details come out on the weapons
28 June: Chávez freezes ties with Colombia.
End of July: the government of Hugo Chávez still has no answer for what is going on but saying it is all a media show and Colombia (and I reckon Sweden) is lying.




A silly question of mine: can we track back the Kalashnikov ammunition?