Venezuela's chessboard

Blogger Quico wrote again an interesting post about one of Venezuela's key events of the late XX century, something that is still influencing a lot of people: the Caracazo, a wave of massive riots and looting that shook the whole nation on 27 February 1989, a wave of violence that lead to the killing of many people, mostly by security forces. The Chavista government says there were between 300 and 5000 dead. This is rather curious: we know more about the amount of casualties in the Battle of Marathon over 2400 years ago than about those in the Caracazo, even if the latter event took place in a very central area of Venezuela. There were lots of journalists there and most Venezuelans do have families. Still, people say there were between 300 and 5000 dead. What were the forces at play there? And what really happened?

As Quico said, the measures announced by the government of Pérez were about to be implemented, but they hadn't been put into effect yet. Now, Quico writes:

The whole story-line of 27-F as revolt-against-neoliberalism is ahistorical and silly. Unless you credit the population with preternatural powers of foresight and posit that they were somehow rioting pre-emptively, in protest against what they calculated would be the futureproblems consequences of policies announced but not-yet enacted, you have to agree that the 27-F riots were the result of mass discontent caused by the that CAP's reform package was seeking to solve, not by the solutions CAP had proposed for dealing with them.

I think there was more to it. I already mentioned some of my points in his blog, but here I try to present them more clearly.

1) Venezuela's population had voted for Carlos Andrés Pérez in 1988 thinking he would give them the same kind of prosperity Venezuela had during the oil boom of the seventies, when he was president for the first time.
2) Instead of that, Carlos Andrés Pérez announced austerity measures. The government was brok: oil prices, the A and O of Venezuela, were low, the government had mismanaged resources for decades and people in Venezuela had no idea about what they have to produce to get the items they were getting. Still, the government did not have any idea about how to communicate things and on top of that, the measures still allowed some very rich groups to profit. Take that and the growing misery in Venezuela and it was clear that things could explode rather easily.

Now, the explosion was in my opinion far less spontaneous than many think. Why?

The Extreme Left had been in retreat for many years already, but it kept promoting its ideas. They had fertile ground and some means.

FERTILE GROUND

The parties in power from 1958 onwards, AD and COPEI, kept plundering the country and were more often than not carrying out policies that were pernitious for the sustainable development (never mind it is way worse nowadays). Living standards had kept rising until the beginning of the eighties, but things could not keep improving: there were more people for less petrodollars. It did not help that particularly the areas outside the main hubs (Caracas-Maracaibo-Valencia or CMV-hub) education and job opportunities were miserable, more so than in the hubs. It did not help that most Venezuelans still thought and think Venezuela is rich because of its oil, although it cannot produce anything more. It did not help the police forces often used repressive methods to counterattack the leftist movements, methods that had very fatal consequences for others not involved ("collateral damage"). Most Venezuelans did not notice the repression against the extreme left, but a lot of leftists did and they, for the most part, kept their agenda. They would try to infiltrate where they could.

The vast majority of the people who looted in 1989 did not have any lefty ideals. They were moved because of desperation, but also because there was something to loot, because others were doing it (see comments by Moraimaq, a former slum dweller).

INFILTRATING, SUBVERTION

The extreme left got support from Cuba and above all the Soviet Unions for many years. Some of the Venezuelan students and teachers who went to the Soviet Union in the seventies and eighties actually got training by the KGB in such things as "propaganda work" and "subvertion". I wrote about this in Spanish here (I translated a document from the KGB that was made public by dissident Bukowsky). In that post you can read about a course given to Lenin José Moreno Faría, nephew of the head of the Pcv back in 1980. Moreno was a university teacher in Venezuela. I am sure there were many more and not just belonging to the Pcv.

By 1988-1989 the Soviet Union was already too busy with itself, but these were quite some people in Venezuela with the training and ideological basis to carry out subvertive activities.

INFILTRATING THE MILITARY

Douglas Bravo (see mindmap below) and others had a plan to infiltrate the military and that is how they got Chávez. The potion goes like this: put some "Bolivarian" pseudo-history with some half-truths (not difficult when so few Venezuelans have any knowledge of history), add some stories about the very real social injustice in Venezuela, US and European interventions, add the desire of many Venezuelans to become a second Bolívar, use some resentment and lack of opportunities for real work and you have a wee revolutionary. That is how they got Henri Falcón as well. Chávez and Falcón may have not passed page 1 of Das Kapital and their ideas are rather fuzzy, but they got "in the mood" and a general ideology.

INFILTRATING SLUMS AND TOWNS

The extreme left also had a series of networks for infiltrating slums and universities throughout the seventies to nineties. They were not only in CMV, but also in most secondary cities, from Charallave to El Tigre, from Cumaná to Maturín and San Cristobal.

Those networks included:

• social aid in slums
• "libraries" (mostly propaganda): this cannot be underestimated in a country where there are so few public libraries and these are mostly in a couple of centres
• sports
  
• ideology courses (reading some Marx, Lenin or just introduction to Marxism, etc

They were working in a very similar fashion as some evangelical fundamentalists do: brainwashing, social support in a community that lacks strong institutionalized social networks, etc.

INFILTRATING UNIVERSITIES

I was a student at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Although I had little respect for communism, as a student I could see a lot of their activities time after time just by going to the university: if there was a pacific protest, some "eternal students" involved in communist groups would get in and start throwing rocks and Molotovs and burning down lorries and cars. Most normal students would opt to run away, but the damage was done and the cops would start attacking everybody. I probably saw more commies because the only place you could get books in Russian was at a "casa de la amistad", a place of lefty propaganda, and at the Soviet embassy. You did not need to be a commie to get the Russian books and newspapers, but you ended up with at least one or two propaganda leaflets. If you are easy to brainwash, you are done.

In 1988 there was a particularly big march of university teachers and students from all Venezuela in the capital. People were demanding the payment of debts and an increase in salaries. Many thousands of Venezuelans marched peacefully from the Ucv towards the city centre. I was there.

It was a completely peaceful march. In any case, when we were close to the Helicoide, we saw how dozens "encapuchados" (masked guys) came in from the slums. We could not prevent them from joining in. Once we were in the centre, they started to throw Molotovs and stones to all shops and the police attacked ALL OF US.






Helicoide and slums around









As one reader at Quico's post wrote and as was evident from a text I copied there which was written by a communist, the extreme left was concocting something. It may have gone out of hand, but it was more or less what they intended. The Caracazo was not so spontaneous. The extreme left seized the moment. The efforts were not unified and they were not constant, but there were a series of radical Venezuelan groups with very concrete agendas.

The Soviet Union soon collapsed and it probably did not have anything to do with the 1989 events, but its demise did not change many things in Venezuela.

Even if you could read more a lot about communism's collapse in Venezuelan local newspapers , often more than in many well-known US or European newspapers, the vast majority of the poor noticed very little about things outside. Not only were they unable to travel, but their source of information was rather limited. I still remember how I saw a young man getting into a bus in a poor area of Valencia in 1990. He started "preaching" in the same way as someone from some religious group does...but he was preaching about the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was crumbling apart but I was probably the only person in that bus who knew about that. Most were construction workers, cleaners or street vendors who hardly read anything and Venezuelan TV is just bad.

The Chavez propaganda machine often tells the population about how the "opposition" (it is just one big blob to them) gets support from the US State Department, Israel and European right-winged parties. The Chavista propagandists mention real and unreal supports from the Soros Foundation, from the USAID (if you read German, read conservative journalist Scholl-Latour Russland im Zangengriff) and others.

Some of these things are real and some of this very much not, but in any case "the opposition" as a whole has not been more involved into those kinds of things as chavistas themselves.

In any case: what Venezuelans of good will need to do is to become aware of how different groups (left and right, national and foreign) are trying to move Venezuelans of all types as pawns in a chessboard. Venezuelans need to promote open and civilized debates to minimize the effect of hidden agendas. It will be very hard: open debates on facts and programmes are very dangerous for extremists of all kind. Still, debates are one of the things we need to introduce.

As Liliana Ortega, president of human rights organisation Cofavic, said, there is not a single person that has been punished for the events that happened 21 years. Instead, the government keeps using those events to rewrite history. It does not want people to know who moved what pieces of the board.

PS1: Here a little mind map about some key elements of the extreme left. Notice something: again and again the key agents are from where most Venezuelans are, from outside the 3 largest hubs of population, from outside the areas where the opposition leaders still focus














PS2. If you read Russian or you want to use the rather poor but free Google machine translation tool, go to this. I will later translate it decently. It is a detailed account of a Soviet journalist in Venezuela's slums in 1983 describing the social work and brainwashing of communist groups in Venezuela's slums in a fashion very similar to fundamentalist religious groups of any kind in the world.

PS3: Last but not least, my message to chavistas:

Venezuela's colours: Cattleya

My mother had lots of them in our garden. Humming birds love them. I am talking about orchids. Blogger Miguel is a specialist and you can see some remarkable pictures of them in his blog.

Here you have a couple of the species that grow naturally in Venezuela. These belong to the Cattleya genus.

Cattleya mossiae

Cattleya lawrenceana

Cattleya lueddemannia

Cattleya maxima

Cattleya percevaliana

Kot, Menschenwürde und Lateinamerika

Der seit 1999 amtierende Präsident Venezuelas hat gestern wieder das getan, was er am liebsten tut: er hat Menschen beleidigt, um sich selbst zu schützen. Der ehemalige Kommandant und Putschist von 1992 sagte, der Bericht der Interamerikanischen Kommission für Menschenrechte sei "Kot, lauter Kot" und alle Beamten der Kommission seien "Mafiosi". Die skatologische Fixierung des sich selbst bezeichnenden "Führers der Revolution" und Volk schlechthin ist nicht neu: die Ergebnisse des Referendums von 2007, die nicht nur durch ein Referendum von 2009, sondern vor allem durch eine Reihe "Sondergesetze" völlig ignoriert wurden, seien ein Scheiß- Scheiß, Scheiß-Sieg der Opposition gewesen. Davor und danach gab es viele Äusserungen in diesem Stil.

Währenddessen erklärte die "Bürgerbeauftragte Venezuelas", Gabriela Ramírez, der Bericht sei nicht unparteiisch. Sie sagte, es gäbe "eine Anzahl von Zitaten der Opposition im Bericht" und die Kommission verallgemeinere "vereinzelte Fälle, um zum Schluss zu kommen, dass der venezolanische Staat Menschenrechte verletzen würde."

Diese Frau soll die Bürgerbeauftragte in Venezuela sein







Frau Ramírez behauptet also, dass die Kommission nicht unparteiisch ist. Dies kommt aus dem Mund eines aktiven Mitglieds der UVE, einer Partei, die, vielmehr als Schwester-, eine Klonparteie der MVR und nun Teil der PSUV ist. Diese Frau wurde von der Asamblea Nacional - eine fast völlig regierungstreue Organisation trotz zahlreicher Protesten als "Verteidigerin des Volkes" ernannt. Bis jetzt hat sie immer wieder den Eindruck erweckt, keine Bürger- sondern eifrige Regierungsbeauftragte zu sein.

Der Journalist von The Guardian in Venezuela, Rory Carroll, hatte Schwierigkeiten diese Aussagen des Präsidenten als Nachrichten zu thematisieren. Wie Francisco Toro in seinem englischsprachigen Blog Caracas Chronicles berichtet, handelt es sich erneut um "non news". Herr Toro trifft den Kern der Sache: das Traurigste ist, wie der venezolanische Präsident sich weigert, ein offenes Debat zu akzeptieren, überhaupt zu erklären, ob er die sehr konkrete Aussagen zu Menschenrechten und Recht in Venezuela dementiert. Er weigert sich, zu sagen, ob er falsch bzw gerechtfertigt findet, dass 137 Richter ohne jegliche Erklärung seit 2007 abgesetzt oder bestrafft würden, weil sie Leute in Freiheit gelassen haben, die an politischen Protesten beteiligt waren. Dies ist für mich nicht verwunderlich: der Kommandant ist durch das ganze System in Venezuela geschützt: als venezolanischer Präsident muss er keine Antwort geben, er kann sich in seinen ewigen Monologen schützen. Es ist ein präsidentiales System der schlechtesten Art. Die caudillo-Mentalität war zwar immer da, sie hat aber ein neues Ausmaß genommen, seitdem die Militärs an der Macht sind.

Wir können nicht viel von solchen Líderes wie Lula da Silva, Prima Dona der lateinamerikanischen Politik, erwarten. Kurz nachdem der Bürgerrechtler Orlanda Zapata in Kuba in Haft starb, erklärte der Brasilianer zwar kurz sein Bedauern, er ließ sich aber weiter ganz gemütlich von der Castro-Familie hofieren. Das heisst für ihn "Lateinamerikaner sein": solange es unter Latinos bleibt, ist alles chévere.

Mehr über Herrn Zapata hier

Challenging caudillos, changing Venezuela

Chávez hasn't got the courage to do what this lady is doing: debate

One of the main reasons why Venezuela has the disastrous politicians it has is the absolute lack of any mechanism for normal, civilized debate. It has always been a strong presidential system where the president does not have to answer to any specifics, just theoretically give some "report", report that always becomes a monologue.

We must challenge Hugo Chávez but also any other polician aspiring to play a major role in Venezuela to debate in real time, in front of the cameras, in front of challengers, not followers.

My Scandinavian, German or US American friends who don't know much about Venezuela will say: well, why don't you do it? They will silently think: "why do these guys ponder on such an obvious thing? Geez!".

Venezuelans and Scandinavians, Germans or US Americans who know Venezuela well realise that that is not so evident in the Land of Grace. There is no tradition. We went from being one of Spain's forgotten provinces to being a land of caudillos. Most Venezuelans know about the US primaries and the US presidential debates, but then those are one-time things. There is no parliamentary system around and frankly speaking, Spain's is not the best model. Venezuelans also know very little about the debates that do take place in places like Chile.
















Most Venezuelans, although they would like real debates, don't demand them. Why? Because they think they would never happen.

This is a shame and needs to change. Rosales, who is not my take for a politician, demanded a debate with Chávez in the 2006 presidential elections. Chávez said he would not debate with someone who speaks worse than a 6-year old pupil.

Rosales may speak worse than a pupil, but Chávez should have been forced to debate with the candidate of the opposition, whether that person was a Rosales or a Pericles. The thing is Chávez has never had to debate with anyone after he became elected president in December 1998. He never ever debated, actually. Before he became president he went through a couple of interviews, but they were not that hard as he was just a candidate promising Heaven. He later had a couple of silly interviews as president where some journalists afraid to be "difficult", people like BBC journalist Lustig, asked such questions as "do you hate US Americans?". I would love to see Hugo being interviewed by German Marietta Slomka from the ZDF (you can watch her below grilling in German one of many politicians, she does so "gnadenlos", with no mercy):


Vargas Llosa once challenged Chávez to a debate, but Chávez was afraid and recanted after declaring he would accept. The Venezuelan coupster lost face in spite of all his excuses. He said Vargas Llosa was "not of his league", as if a president were something special, a kind of New royalty. It is not surprising, "revolutionaries" never engage in open debates once they get to power as they are as reactionary as the King of France.

Only old-guard Antonio Ledezma, very timidly, said on the aftermath of the Vargas event that he also wanted to challenge Chávez...and he did not have the discipline to insist. He did it so only after Vargas did, and he gave up right away. Are we, Venezuelans, so lacking in persistence to bring things through as Karl Marx said?

"Like most of his countrymen, he was averse to any prolonged exertion"

So far, the most persistent person to challenge a Venezuelan politician to debate has been Vargas, a Peruvian.

The only times Chávez had to answer "normal", not particularly difficult questions, were during two Alo Presidente shows: firstly with a young journalist from Brazil, who had not been "filtered through" and then when Rory Carroll, from The Guardian, also got a chance to ask a normal question. Chávez flipped out on both occassions. There also was an unrequested question from a journalist of Fox News, but the Venezuelan autocrat did not even bother to hide his refusal because it was "Fox News".

Chávez is a military. He is not used to debate. Actually, few other politicians in Venezuela, even if they are not military, can do anything in real debates. Why? Because they are used to the caudillo mentality. Even if they are not military, they think like one. We have seen that when some oppo leaders have been asked hard questions by US or European media outlets. We need to change that. Uribe told Chávez to "be a man and talk openly". I would not use Uribe's prejudiced tone. I would say "be courageous and debate openly" like the lady on the first picture at the German Bundestag.

In Venezuela as far as I remember we had only one TV programme where politicians were grilled, "La silla caliente", with journalist Oscar Yanez. It was journalist against politician. We have never had a real debate between a head of state and other politicians. At most we have had some monologues between parliamentarians at the National Assembly, if chavistas allow the others to take the floor.

We, Venezuelans, have to challenge politicians to debate openly. We have to demand from them to have the courage to answer in real time and not hide behind a programme like Aló Presidente or Plataforma de la Unión. Only if we persist until they do it will they start evolving into something beyond and above the XIX century Venezuela.




And here you get Sarkozy getting grilled on France 3.

BUSH DOG!

The bush dog or in Venezuela perro de agua (water dog) is a strange little fellow. It lives from Central America all the way to Southern South America...but it is rare everywhere. I have heard people talking about it but I have never seen one myself. I read one was spotted in the San Esteban National Park, a national park in Northern Carabobo I know well as I used to roam around a lot there. I hope bush dogs can survive in that area. The San Esteban National Park is a wonderful place, but it is heavily under pressure from expanding urban settlements, people's ignorance towards the environment and lack of government control. Carabobo is one of the most densely populated regions of Venezuela and people keep settling in there.

To let you understand the importance of these animals: they are very rare, they are threatened and they are not a variation of the Old World dogs but the only living species of the genus Speothos. That is a genus of the caninae subfamily, which is part of the Canidae family . Wolves, foxes and jackals are closer to our normal dogs in the evolutionary tree than the bush dog.





A bush dog in prison

The time bomb and the minefields in Venezuela

Venezuela can get to the level of low-flame civil war or enter into a period of very open repression in six months to one year at most.

I don't think I say this lightly. Here you can listen Chávez stating that they will rule for 900 years. The government does not understand such a thing as "pluralism" or "open debate". As you can read from governmental sources, they do not even consider there could be something like a power change. They may say "it is because the opposition is no opposition, it does not live up to the challenge". Everybody knows it is not just that. Chávez and his high-ranking supporters would simply never accept losing power. They are either

• too involved in crimes of all types AND/OR
• too imbued in an absolutist ideology that does not accept anything but total contro, power alternation is not an option for them, who claim to be "the People"
  

As the economy deteriorates and the disatisfaction grows, the government can only threaten, increase control of the electoral system, of resources, move more potential enemies to leave the country as in Belarus or Cuba.

The government has distributed many thousands of Kalashnikovs and other weapons among its militias for some years now. In January of this year the National Assembly approved the new law about "Bolivarian" militias. The military has been training those militias with more or less rigour for some years already. Now they don't just have a new name, they are going to be scale d up.






If you click on the picture you will go to VTV, the governmental national TV site. There you can read about the "Bolivarian" militia, you can watch the president and a young woman in El Pao, in Northern Cojedes.

This woman is one out of 2000 persons (180 of them women), mostly from rural, poor areas who were spending three days in paramilitary training. This lady is an average Venezuelan. Most Venezuelans don't live in "the countryside", but they do live in cities that are anything but urban when it comes to available services and opportunities.

She is poor and her education is minimal. She has probably never left the country and has no ways of comparing things but what she gets through some filter. She has hardly any memories of life before 1998 and if she has, I am sure the pieces relating to previous governments are not good. Venezuelan governments had grown more and more ineffective with the years and rural areas had become more and more forgotten.

The national government is telling these people they are preparing themselves for any US invasion or attack by any US-supported movement. It is brainwashing them in a way that can only be compared to that of evangelical fundamentalists.


















It does not help us at all that the most vocal opposition in Venezuela are people like this:























That is Ms Machado. She did a good job for Súmate. Still: it is not just a fatal picture with the wrong person. You just have to listen to her while trying to imagine how much time she has spent listening to people in El Pao, in El Tigre, in Maturín, in Pedernales, in big Miguel Pena or Libertador. She is running just to become a deputy for the most prosperous electoral district in Venezuela. Well, somebody has to do it and yet: a lot of people are putting most of their hopes, efforts and attention on stuff like that.

It does not help another of the most vocal leaders the opposition has right now is a guy like Ravell, with his FOX-News kind of journalism, who often goes to the US on vacation and to see his family there. Let me be clear: 1) FOX News journalism sucks and it isn't much better than VTV journalism and 2) although there is nothing wrong with going to the US or Europe on vacation, the vast majority of the people in Venezuela want to see leaders who are more grounded in Venezuela. They want to see people who have spent more of their free time talking to the average Venezuelans, not to the average inhabitant of a posh area of the capital.

It does not help that the few opposition leaders who are not from the capital's Eastern side are hardly heard anywhere.

The government has a couple of advantages:

1) the general level of education is very low and brainwashing is particularly easy, easier than in many other countries in South America (check out my posts on education)
2) most opposition leaders are indeed out of focus, they don't work outside their main 2-3 urban centres and beyond the TV cameras, they have no project or they don't know how to dissemiante their projects
3) the petrodollars will keep flowing
4) governments such as the Spanish government will keep supporting the Venezuelan regime as long as it gets juicy business deals (sure, and "promoting a climate of dialogue and understanding")
5) the far-right will find its way to promote extreme, undemocratic solutions, just like the far-left, to the detriment of most people, they will also be the ones helping the current leaders of the opposition

Social inequality was very high in Venezuela and things aren't getting any better. Now, though, the government in power knows how to do very effective brainwashing. Tensions will increase. The opposition is lead by people out of touch with the Venezuelans outside the Eastern Caracas cocoon. Groups challenging for an open, fair debate will be either rejected or ignored. Stupid people will try to promote violence and fear.

There are lots of weapons out there. There is some form of ideology - contradictory, rather superficial and all, but much more consistent than what the opposition groups offer -. There is resentment. There is ignorance.

We have a ticking bomb. We have minefields. We need courageous deminers.

Im Herzen Venezuelas: Guárico 2

Den Anfang liest man hier


Venezuela ist ein Land von Caudillos. Das war schon so während der spanischen Herrschaft, als conquistadores und deren Nachfahren die Kontrolle im Lande für sich allein beanspruchten und das war mehr so nach der Unabhängigkeit des Landes. Wie ich in einem vorigen Post geschrieben habe, ist die militaristische Neigung in Venezuela sowie der Personenkult besonders stark ausgeprägt. Páez war nicht nur General im Unabhängigkeitskampf, sondern auch dreimal Präsident. Er besaß unglaublich große Ländereien überall in Venezuela, er war als "caudillo de América" bekannt. Er war nur der prominenteste in Venezuela und vielleicht in Lateinamerika. In Venezuela gab es viele andere, wie Monagas, Guzmán und später Gómez.





Gemeinden, mit Namen von Militärmenschen






Auf jeden Fall haben diese Caudillos wenig für das Land getan. Bildung für arme Kinder war kein Thema. Bildung im allgemeinen war immer katastrophal im ganzen Venezuela, aber viel mehr so südlich von der Küste und weg von den Anden. Der geniale Erfinder und Tüftler, den Alexander von Humboldt im Jahr 1800 in Calabozo kennenlernte, war umso bemerkenswerter, als er in einem so entfernten Ort wohnte und forschte.

Guzmán fuhr in der zweiten Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts ein Gesetz für die kostenlose Bildung und die Schulpflicht ein, was aber wenig in der Wirklichkeit änderte. Erst mit den ersten Regierungen von AD gab es massive Anstrengungen, kostenlose Bildung und soziale Fortschritte bis zu den verlassenen Regionen Venezuelas zu bringen. Die Effektivität ließ aber mit der Zeit viel zu wünschen übrig. Das Land war extrem zentralisiert, Gouverneure und Bürgermeister wurden von der Zentralregierung bestimmt und waren letztendlich neue, extrem korrupte Minicaudillos. Das war auch so für Guárico.

Erst im Jahr 1989 konnten Venezolaner zum ersten Mal ihre Gouverneure und Bürgermeister selbst wählen. Die Leute von Guárico wählten für 1989-92 einen AD-Politiker. Für 92-95 war ein Copei-Politiker Gouverneur. Zwischen 1995 und 1998 war ein AD-Politiker wieder Gouverneur des Bundesstaates.

Eduardo Manuitt war der Sohn eines kleinen Bauers. Auf jeden Fall hat er seine Grundschule und bachillerato (ein Jahr weniger als Gymnasium) in Guárico gemacht. Er ging nach Valencia, um dort zu studieren, wo er aber vor allem politisch bei linken Gruppierungen tätig war. Er war Mitgründer der Causa R. Beim Tod seines Vaters kehrte er nach Guárico zurück und beschäftigte sich mit dem Hof der Familie und sowie mit politischer Arbeit für Bauerngewerschaften. Man muß hier betonen: es handelte sich um arme Bauer, nicht um die hacendados. Manuitt brach, wie Aristóbulo Isturiz und andere, mit causa Radical ab und schloß sich der MVR an.

Im Jahr 1998 wurde Manuitt mit den Stimmen der Chávez-Bewegung MVR und mit denen der Sozialististen MAS zu Gouverneur gewählt. Im Jahr 2004 wurde er wieder gewählt. Hier könnt Ihr ein Interview von 2006 auf Spanisch lesen. 2008 durfte Manuitt nicht wieder kandidieren, denn damals galt immer noch eine Amtszeitbegrenzung. Manuitt wollte, ganz im Sinne eines Caudillos, seine Tochter als neue Kandidaten des Chavismos zu machen, die anderen Führer der Bewegung waren aber dagegen: William Lara war ihr Kandidat. Weil Manuitt sich trotztdem für die Kandidatur seiner Tochter einsetzte, wurde er von der Partei ausgeschlossen.

Es gab drei Kandidaten: William Lara für die Regierungspartei, Manuitts Tochter für die Dissidenten von PPT und ein bekannter Volksmusiker der Region, der von allen Oppositionsparteien unterstützt wurde, Reynaldo Armas.

Die Ergebnisse der Gouverneurwahlen von 2008 ergaben eine deutliche Mehrheit für William Lara. Hier sieht man wie viele Stimmen jeder Kandidat in welcher Gemeinde bekam:
















Jeder große Punkt entspricht 1000 Stimmen. Rote Punkte zeigen die Stimmen für William Lara. Rosa steht für Manuitts Tochter. Jeder gelbe Punkt entspricht 1000 Stimmen für Reynaldo Armas. Die Ergebnisse: 52.54% für William Lara, 33.20 für Lenny Manuitt und 13.42% für Reynaldo Armas. Man muss etwas in Venezuela nie vergessen: viele Leute hangen von Arbeitstellen bei der National- oder Regionalregierung ab. Sie werden deswegen die entsprechenden Parteien wählen.

William Lara war auch in Guárico geboren, angeblich stammte er auch aus einer armen Familie. Er hat Comunicación social an der UCV studiert. Comunicación Social ist die Fakultät, um Linksradikal zu werden. Ich weiß es: ich habe an der UCV studiert und dort konnte ich beobachten, wie so viele Studenten, die LKWs oder Autos bei jeder Proteste verbrennen wollten und sehr radikal waren da oder bei der Escuela de Historia eingeschrieben waren. Lara absolvierte später ein Master der politischen Wissenschaften an der Universidad Simón Bolívar. Hugo Chávez hat auch diesen Master angefangen aber nie beendet. Die Universidad Simón Bolívar ist eine der besten Universitäten Venezuelas, das aber eher in den Natur- und Ingenieurwissenschaften. Es ist für diesen Blogger ein Rätsel, was für Standards sie für die Studie der politischen Wissenschaften hat. Die Standards sind nicht so hoch: Chávez selbst denkt, dass die Menschheit erst vor 20-25 Jahrhunderten entstand.

Auf jeden Fall war William Lara 1997 einer der Mitgründer der MVR. Er wurde Abgeordneter und später Informationsminister. Kurz nachdem er Gouverneur wurde, gab er die Empfehlung, seinen Bundesstaat mit dem Bundesstaat Miranda zu vereinen, was einfach Wahsinn ist (hier die seine ersten Bemerkungen und hier seine Relativierung).

Etwas später kamen die Enthüllungen über Manuitts Reichtümer. Diese Bilder sollen ein Teil der Manuitt-Hacienda im Süden Guáricos zeigen:



















Manuitt ist nun auf der Flucht. Er behauptet, er hätte nichts gestohlen und alles sei nur Teil der politischen Verfolgung. So wie bei Rosales habe ich meine Zweifeln. Ich frage mich, ob man solche Haciendas auch dann entdecken wird, wenn William Lara nicht mehr Gouverneur von Guárico ist.

Ein Phänomen, das noch zu untersuchen ist, sind die Morde vieler Bauer zum Teil in den Händen der Polizei in Guárico. Das hat es immer gegeben, zu Zeiten Manuitts war es aber sehr schlimm.

William Lara hat sich als besonders radikaler Politiker erwiesen. Im folgenden Video will er das Wort "Scheisse" unbedingt aussprechen. Dazu benutzt er als Vorwand ein sehr bekanntes Buch von Gabriel García Márquez, Der Oberst hat niemand, der ihm schreibt. Lara betont, Márquez habe den Nobelpreis gewonnen, als ob das die Benutzung dieses Wortes in diesem Kontext rechtfertigen würde.



Die Opposition ist nicht ganz ohne Erfolge in Guárico. In den 2008-Gemeindewahlen hat sie 2 der 15 Gemeinden für sich gewonnen. Diese Gemeinden kann man hier unten in blau sehen. Es sind die Gemeinde Roscio, wo die Stadt San Juan de los Morros ist und die Gemeinde Ribas, wo die kleine Stadt (bzw Dorf) Tucupido ist. In beiden Gemeinden hat keine einzelne Partei der Opposition die Mehrheit, es waren mehr als 10 Parteien, die zusammen arbeiten mussten.


















Die Opposition muss ihre Strategie deutlich ändern. Auch wenn die Oppositionsführer nur in der Hauptstadt und zwei anderen Metropolen sein wollen, müssen sie erkennen, dass man nur dann zu einer Wende kommen kann, wenn man auch in den anderen Regionen eine größere Unterstützung, wenn man die Herzen Venezuelas erobern hat. Auch wenn Venezuela ein sehr urbanes Land ist, stammen viele ihrer Einwohner aus dem Land. Darüber hinaus denken viele Leute in Venezuela, dass "Stadt" nur die Hauptstadt und zwei andere Städte bedeutet. Mehr als ein Drittel der Bevölkerung leben aber in Städten, die mehr als 100000 aber weniger als 1000000 Einwohner haben. Einige Maßnahmen sind notwendig:

- viele Parteien müssen sich vereinen oder verschwinden; dafür müssen alle Parteien, die in der Zukunft eine wichtige Rolle spielen wollen, echte Vorwahlen und Transparenz einführen, sowie bestimmte Prinzipien und einen Plan für das Land schriftlich festlegen. Es kann nicht sein, dass wir 20 "liberale", 20 "sozialdemokratische", 20 konservative und noch 40 andersartige Parteien haben. Parteien als Platform für caudillos haben keine Zukunft mehr.
- man muss gut gebildete und ehrliche Führer in allen Gemeinden fördern, Leute, die sich für die Interesse aller einsetzen und nicht die einer Gruppe nur. Dafür muss man in diesen Regionen ständig anwesend sein, Projekte vorstellen, über Ideen für die nachhaltige Entwicklung der Regionen und des Landes sprechen und über die Notwendigkeit, Transparenz und Ehrlichkeit in der Region walten zu lassen.
- man muss die Studenten, die aus diesen Regionen kommen, als Multiplikatoren benutzen, so dass sie Pluralismus und Entwicklung für das ganze Land fördern und fordern - bei ihren Besuchen, in den Ferien, bei ihren Familien.
- man muss die Aufmerksamkeit der wichtigsten Medien auf diese Regionen und auf ihre Bedeutung für die Zukunft der Nation lenken