Letter to the CNE

I am on the road and it is hard to blog from here, but I wanted to ask to the people of the Venezuelan Electoral Commission the same question Francisco, Juan, Daniel, Alek and Miguel asked. So, here it goes:

Querida Socorro,

Con curiosidad leímos tus declaraciones del día de hoy, en las que dices, con la precisión de un reloj suizo, que las circunscripciones electorales fueron diseñadas por un “método” basado en la “ley.”

¿Cuál es ese “método” Socorro?

Los únicos estados donde hubo modificaciones fueron Zulia, Distrito Capital, Miranda, Carabobo, Amazonas, Barinas, Lara y Táchira. Qué casualidad que siete de estos ocho estados favorecen a la oposición, y el otro (Barinas) es el estado natal del Presidente.

Cosas de la matemática, dirás. Pero dinos, ¿será posible que compartas con nosotros la mágica fórmula matemática – “el método”, como lo llamas tú - que dio ese maravilloso resultado?

No seas pichirre, vale. Si tienes un “método” exacto que obliga a unir Baruta con Chacao y Leoncio Martínez, ¿acaso no es un crímen tenerlo guardado bajo llave?

Debe ser fascinante ese “método” que los llevó a dividir el Municipio Sucre del Estado Miranda en tres partes – dos partes en las que tradicionalmente gana la oposición, y otra en la que gana el gobierno y que fue anexada a Guarenas.

Debe ser muy sabio ese “método” que unió las parroquias de El Paraíso y La Vega del Distrito Capital – en las que la oposición salió relativamente bien - con las parroquias de Antímano y Macarao, donde el chavismo nos da palo.

Ese método debe ser tan sofisticado que por eso nadie lo entiende. ¿Será por eso que tu colega Vicente Díaz dijo que no existían criterios técnicos para los cambios? ¿No crees que ese “método” - que ni siquiera el otro rector del CNE conoce - quiere ver la luz del día? ¿Acaso no merece tu “método” salir del closet?

Mira, Socorro, nosotros no somos sino unos simples ciudadanos blogueros. No tenemos a la mano la fuerza del aparato del Estado, ni comandamos el Plan República. No tenemos las armas tecnológicas, financieras, ni matemáticas que ustedes, los poderosos, sí tienen.

Lo único que sí tenemos – por ahora, ¿verdad? – es nuestra voz y el artículo 186 de la Constitución, que dice que la representación en la Asamblea deberá ser proporcional.

Y por eso te invitamos a discutir tu “método” con nosotros, donde quieras y cuando quieras. Trae tu fórmula, y nosotros traemos nuestros estudios que, modestia aparte, creemos son bastante serios. Trae tu “modelo” y nosotros traeremos las predicciones y pronósticos que hicimos y que lograron predecir el resultado de la elección.

Porque si es verdad que el “método” no favorece a nadie en particular, no deberías tener problema en debatirlo con nosotros. Si tu “método” es como lo pintas, te lo reconoceríamos sin dudar.

Es más, si nos convences, te hacemos tronco de publicidad. Como nuestro trabajo ha sido citado por The Guardian, The Economist, la BBC, Reuters, y otros medios internacionales, capaz y hasta te ayudamos a revertir esa “matriz de opinión” contraria al CNE que también hoy denunciaste.

Sería sólo un simple debate entre compatriotas. Democracia pura, pues.

Entonces Socorro, ¿te anotas?

Los autores de

www.caracaschronicles.com

www.devilsexcrement.com

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/

http://alekboyd.blogspot.com/

http://venezuela-europa.blogspot.com

Actualizado: Socorro dice que quienes no entendemos su “método” no tenemos principios. Alek Boyd tiene el video.

Voté en Europa por Venezuela. ¿Y tú?

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From Caracas I get these pictures

What have I heard?

• The military regime is using hundreds of brand-new jeeps it kept at the huge CORPOVEN oil facilities in Yagua, Carabobo, to transport Chavez supporters to the voting stations. If they are so new that only means they have stolen or let to rot the many thousands they bought for the previous elections.

• The CNE changed the position of candidates in several areas to the confusion of people.

• Soldiers went to the Simón Bolívar University and detained three students working to process complains about the elections. The soldiers took away the students' computers as well. The students were released after some hours. Someone out there paying attention?

• Soldiers killed a person in Guarenas, Miranda (soldiers said he was throwing stones at them and a friend of the victim says they had detained him while he was sent to fetch cigarettes for them and when he returned he found the dying man.

• Chávez bikers have been continuing campaign in front of everybody and the pro-Chávez Electoral Commission ignores everything as usual.

• Sevral voting machines are having problems all around Venezuela. People have to wait sometimes over one hour.

• Chiguire Bipolar was hacked.
• Chávez's thugs attacked several journalists in Anzoátegui (there are several other reports like this)

AUF DEUTSCH

Der Spiegel berichtet über Venezuela. Es ist im grossen und ganzen ein genauer Text, auch wenn einige Fehler einschlüpft sind. Es ist nicht die Armee, die die Venezolaner mit einem Trompetenaufruf zur Wahl auffordert, sondern die Chávez-Sturmtruppen und Chávez-Angestellte. Die Armee ist aber schon nichts mehr als eine Institution zum Dienst des Caudillo seiner Militärbonzen geworden.

Blogging from Venezuela's Gran Sabana

If you speak Spanish, I want to recommend you Las Crónicas de la Frontera, a blog about life in the Gran Sabana. Its blogger, a lady with the musical name of Morelia Morillo, is a journalist who worked for El Universal until she decided to follow her love in the Southern Guayana region. Her writing is excellent. The blog is about life of real people in a sometimes forgotten but mesmerizing corner of Venezuela.

And if you don't speak Spanish: what are you waiting for to start learning it? (eyes rolling)

3 days to election day

El Carabobeno reports about the military caudillo in Carabobo

Today is supposed to be the last day of the campaign. The military caudillo went to Valencia, Venezuela's third largest city, to promote his candidates for the general assembly. Completely against the rule of law, the regime is using in the most shameless way state resources to gain votes: the mayor of Valencia sent all his workers to clean the city (he doesn't do it otherwise), to "motivate people", to distribute propaganda.

Tomorrow, the national government will sell food at well below market prices in all municipalities of Carabobo. It will do the same in all the other key regions where it is not sure about obtaining enough seats.

The caudillo said the Sunday elections are just a prelude for his reelection in 2012 and for "recovering" the governments of San Diego and Naguanagua's municipalities as well as the Carabobo governorship in the regional elections of the same year.

The Electoral Council said it would not do ballot checks for the votes going to list candidates- the only ones that give a proportional representation-. It only wants to carry out "random" checks for the nominal lists, which are the product of gerrymander. If 54% of Carabobo's people vote for the alternative parties, they may end up getting only 2 of the 10 representatives for the state and the military regime would end up getting the other 8 representatives (thus 80%) with just 46% of the votes.

If the alternative forces manage to perform a miracle in Southern Valencia and Libertador and the CNE does not steal too many votes, we could get 6 seats.

What to expect?

This will happen:

• the military will cajole as usual the alternative forces everywhere and specially in the areas where they have less representatives.
• the military forces will prevent the counting of votes in many places in Valencia's South and in Tocuyito, in Guacara and Puerto Cabello as well as in similar areas all around Venezuela.
• the CNE will punish the alternative forces for any formality, no matter how ridiculous and no matter how shameless the military regime behaves.
• the CNE will try to refuse the presence of observers in the key centres at state and national level.
• the CNE will simply not pay attention to complains about military misconducts and about shameless use of state resources to favour Chávez candidates.
• Chávez hordes will attack opposition strongholds specially in key areas such as Valencia and San Diego once results are announced and they will try to do as much harm as possible as the regional polices will have to remain in their headquarters unarmed and the military forces will turn a blind eye to the Chávez Sturmtruppen.
• The CNE will be late at publishing results if it sees they are not favourable enough for the military regime.
• The CNE will try to forget about counting votes of Venezuelans abroad and Venezuelans abroad will have to denounce the military regime for results to appear.

In spite of all this, I ask Venezuelans in the country and abroad to go massively to vote, to document any abuse by the military regime, by the CNE and state authorities and to prepare themselves to defend the state of law.

Daniel Duquenal has carried out forecasts about possible results and he just published a general analysis of the nation's mood and his.

Below you see the puppet Asamblea we have now. Less than a dozen representatives form some form of opposition to the military regime.

Daniel predicts the alternative forces will get about 69 seats now - only 69 because of all the gerrymandering, cajoling and the rest. I think we can very well get more, but it will only be possible if we all make an extra effort to motivate people in the key areas and if we make clear to the regime we will document every single violation of the law and human rights.

In any case, the military regime will try to emasculate the National Assembly. The alternative forces should not see 26 September as anything but the first step towards taking Venezuela onto the path of democracy and sustainable development.

Until the start of 2012 we will have a puppet National Assembly

Let's bring pluralism and real debates

Mapping voters and opportunities

First: I know, the charts suck, but I did them on a rush. The important thing is to see the general pattern. You can see how people voted in several key municipios of Carabobo in 2009's referendum. On the Y axis you see number of votes. On the X axis you see a blurry series of all voting centres for that centre. What is interesting is to see the general level of the Sí, the NO and the abstention. The Sí went to Chavismo, the NO to the opposition.

San Diego is represented by the the first chart. San Diego is rather middle class with some slums. There are no nice villas, few rich, most people upgraded social houses. There are lots of university graduates. The have a good mayor, Enzio Scarano. Most Chavistas are contratistas for the national government or very poor squatters who came from Southern Valencia, from the Llanos or from even poorer American countries.

The second chart shows a Northern parish withing the huge Valencia municipality. Most people there are middle to upper middle class.

The next chart shows Miguel Pena, a huge parish that is most of Southern Valencia. It is one of the most dangerous places in America. Most people are poor.

The Naguanagua municipality is mostly anti-Chávez. It is rather middle class, but with quite some variance: a few posh areas and some slums. The mayor is the governor's cousin, part of the Salas-Feo clan. You see some areas where the regime is stronger. They are mostly the slums.

Next you see municipio Libertador (not to mix up with Libertador in Caracas), a very poor region with a horrible prison (Tocuyito) and one of the biggest landfills in Venezuela, an ecologic disaster only people in town feel.

The Electoral Council joined Libertador with Miguel Pena and a couple of minor regions in order to produce one of the most shameless examples of gerrymandering in Venezuela.

Los Guayos is a poor municipality that once was a poor but beautiful town and is now a dirty, dangerous place, chock-a-block with slums from people arriving from everywhere in Venezuela, from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.

Diego Ibarra is a municipality in the Northwest of Carabobo. It is one of the most pro-Chávez regions.

And the more Chavista region in Carabobo is the municipio Juan José Mora, which is a municipality with one of the highest amount of descendants from slaves is. Several of PDVSA's most important facilities (like El Palito Refinery and petrochemical plants) are there.



Think about this: abstention. Abstention is higher in regions the military regime wants to use to consolidate power. If the alternative forces cared, if they were intelligent, they would invest much more time there.

Leopoldo López has been there. El Pollo (Carabobo's governor) is starting to go there (finally). What about the others? When in the last years has "national leader" of Primero Justicia, Borges, been there? When has the UNT leader gone to Carabobo's poor regions?

We need to focus on proposing an alternative Venezuela to the people there. We need to put forward a project for sustainable development to them.

Die Opposition kommt nie wieder zurück, denn wir wollen es halt nicht

Chávez-Abgeordnete Desirée Santos Amaral erklärte es einfach so bei einer politischen Veranstaltung im Zentrum Caracas. Stellt Euch vor, ein Bundestagsaobgeordneter würde so was sagen.

"Darum rufe ich die Frauen und Männer dieses Volkes auf, zusammenzuhalten, damit "sie" nicht zurückkehren, denn mit ihnen würden die Traurigkeit und die Verfolgung (???), der Hunger und die Angst zurückkehren und auch wenn das das Letzte wäre, was uns bleibt: sie werden nie wieder zurückkehren, denn wir wollen es einfach nicht!"

Auf Englisch kann man das bei Miguel lesen.

Kein Detail: die alternativen Parteien dürfen nie solche Veranstaltungen im Zentrum Caracas organisieren, denn sie "sind nicht das Volk".

Wenn Du interessante Fotos der venezolanischen Wirklichkeit hast und sie anderen zeigen willst, kannst Du sie mir zuschicken. Schreib einfach was dazu. Politik, Verrücktes, Natur, Menschen: das alles geht. Tja, auch Menschen, die von Natur aus politisch verrückt sind, wie alle Venezolaner halt.

The red satrap and the boat people

Tissaphernes, satrap of Lidia and Caria

Lizeta Hernández, satrap of Delta Amacuro, next to Tucupita mayor, at an event to "give houses to the people" from state means, next to PSUV candidates

Orinoco's Delta

Delta Amacuro, a state almost as big as the Netherlands but with just 150000 inhabitants, is one of the poorest regions in Venezuela. 30% of its children are malnourished, according to United Nations. The Warao -boat people literally-, have managed to survive there thanks to the protection given by the labyrinth of the Orinoco Delta. These native Americans were forgotten for many decades and they remain largely forgotten now. Thousands upon thousands of criollos have recently arrived there looking for jobs in the oil sector, in smuggling and what not.

wa-rao

boat people

The Chávez regime has given to the Delta inhabitants some little crumbles from the largest oil boom Venezuela has had in many decades. That could make Chávez popular in the area for some time in a similar way as AD was popular in the early seventies. Some native Americans got some solar panels for a few of the isolated houses- something very publicized by the national government-, and both Waraos and the increasing masses of poor criollos got some food through the Mercal subsidized food network. Above all, Chávez knew how to use some PR: he asked once a Warao indian to speak live on Aló Presidente and his government has put forward a legislation to promote Indian languages, even if nothing has really changed.

Delta Amacuro remains in shambles. There are no real jobs but for the connected with the mayor or some close to oil company PDVSA. Native Americans keep going to the big cities to roam in the landfills and pick up rubbish for food.

The level of corruption, crime and pollution mainly through the oil exploitation have all increased as well. Corruption is particularly bad in the Delta, even if it has worsened everywhere in Venezuela. I will write further about this later. There is no sense of sustainable development. Fellow blogger Díaz, from the Delta, allowed me to show here some images from his blog.

Elections in the Delta

The Venezuelan law, as normal in most of the world, prohibits the State to use resources for party propaganda. And yet the military regime just does not pay attention to that. It violates the law all the time and everywhere, but it is particularly shameless in the Delta. These pictures were taken on a recent governmental march to promote the Chávez deputies for 26 September elections.

Here you see a picture of the governor of the state, a woman who has been investigated for corruption charges and who treats the Delta, as all the other governors, as her satrapy.

Here you see more of the column. Basically all state officials are ordered to parade and show Delta Amacuro people that they got thanks to them and not to a tiny fraction of the petrodollars.

Delta Amacuro is a very interesting state as the amount of deputies it elects is way above what it would get if we had real proportional representation: 4 representatives. That is 40% of the deputies Carabobo, a state with over 12 times the population, gets.

Most of Delta Amacuro has no roads. If you need to go around, you have to use a boat or a hydroplane. It is particularly difficult for the alternative forces, which do not have many resources, to campaign here.

Below you have some maps showing election behaviour in the Delta in 2008 and 2009. The first picture shows how people voted for the governor in 2008. The red dots represent 1000 or 500 voters for the Chávez candidate, the red satrap you see in some of the pictures above and in many more in Díaz's blog. The brown dots represent the votes for a local candidate representing native American and other groups. The yellowish ones represent votes for a candidate from a weird alliance of the Communist Party (usually allied to Chávez, but not here) with several other local parties. Last and least, the blue spots represent the votes for parties that are also represented in Caracas. Part of this has to do with the crumbles, part of this has to do with the fact almost all those parties in Caracas have forgotten the region. Absolutely no national politician but alternative Leopoldo López has gone to the area or talked about themes particularly to the region. There are some very good local candidates for the alternative forces there, but they get little or no help from the capital. Daniel Duquenal writes a bit about election chances in this region. He thinks the PSUV party will get 3 representatives and a fourth representative is too close to call. The very young and charismatic Veronica Brito from UNT has some chances.

On the next map you see dots representing 1000 votes (or +-500 smaller dot) for the YES (pro-Chávez) in the 2009 referendum and for the NO. There is something quite strange: in Antonio Díaz the Chávez position won with over 98% of the votes.

Now, here you see the level of abstention in the different municipalities. As you see, the Antonio Díaz municipality as a whole has a particularly low abstention level.

More strangely, there are about 12 centres in that municipality alone with an abstention of 0.0% and 2950 voters. There were more with an abstention of less than 0.2%. You have centres where all 200+ voters went and the centres with the lowest abstention tended to have more voters registered than the others.

The next charts show some interesting patterns. The first one shows votes for YES (pro-Chávez) NO and abstention in the municipalities Guacara, San Diego and Los Guayos, in the Northern state of Carabobo. Guacara and Los Guayos are rather pro-Chávez (or were back then) and San Diego is very against his regime. The second chart shows votes for YES, NO and abstention in Delta Amacuro state. I did not calculate variance for abstention across municipios or states but the pattern is very evident. Now, there were almost no witnesses from the opposition in most of those voting centres in Delta Amacuro. Of course, we cannot be sure about causation here. I could go for ages about other patterns, but I just wanted to give you a little picture.

Carabobo state, 4 different municipios

and YES, NO and abstention for 2009 referendum

Total of voters

voting centres

Delta Amacuro: 4 municipios and YES, NO and abstention. On the right you see how Antonio Díaz Municipio shows a particular pattern. It would be even more interesting if we could determine the many centres without witnesses for the alternative forces.

total voters

voting centres

The last two pictures are from Curiapo, seat of the Antonio Díaz municipality. After so many years with the largest oil boom in decades, the place has no system for sewage and no real jobs or decent schools. The increased population and the use of XXI century products has lead to high level of pollution. Most children have problems with their skin.

Curiapo toilets

native American in Curiapo

The red satrap and candidates parade in the state cars and every state bus, every bag with food for election time has the face of the red satrap or some reference to the president of the PSUV.

So, in spite of the misery and corruption, it is hard to campaign in the area.

Venezuela, nuclear weapons and the US: some questions

Do you see something with this timing?

On 16 September 2010 the Obama administration presents a report identifying what countries are cooperating what the US government calls the "war on drugs", something that has been a complete failure for decades now, as North consumers keep funding drug dealers. Venezuela is listed as one of the countries not cooperating, together with Colombia and Mexico, but the news agencies stress the Venezuela case.

On 16 September 2010 Venezuelan minister for Justice and Internal Affairs, El Aissami, announces the capture of INTERPOL-fugitive and drug dealer Beto Marín. There have been quite some captures of drug dealers in Venezuela this year and several of them have been deported to Mexico, the USA, the EU and Colombia. There had been some talk, specially supported by certain groups I mentioned in my previous post about an alleged Al-Qaeda-Venezuela connection through the cocaine trade. The cocaine comes from Colombia and it does not just go through Venezuela but through Mexico and not just through Africa to Europe but through many other channels.

On 16 September 2010 an article by Republican politician John R. Bolton appears about a possible Venezuelan involvement in weapons of mass destruction. You can read interesting stuff about Bolton's position(s) on WMD throughout the years. He was to a big extent responsible for derailing the biological conference in Geneva that wanted to enforce the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He did not want international inspectors to inspect suspected US weapons site. Bolton is a prominent figure of the Project for the New American Century. Mr Bolton is a commentator for Fox News and he is active for some think tanks like JINSA.

On 16 September 2010 Fox reports Venezuelan airline Conviasa declared it had just suspended flights between Iran-Syria and Venezuela. Fox says normal users could not buy tickets for that trip.

On 17 September 2010 the couple and former Alamo scientists Mascheroni is detained and indicted on charges that they passed weapons secrets to somone they believed to be helping the Venezuelan government but who turned out to be an FBI agent.

Now, the indictment does not come as a surprise. Very strangely this is not mentioned in the normal press. I had read about this Mascheroni case many months ago. The couple gave an interview at the end of 2009 after the FBI had raided their houses. Even the Mascheroni themselves said they had sold some nuclear-related information to someone they thought belonged to the Venezuelan government. The Argentine says he did not provide anything that was not available on the Internet and the prosecution says the couple provided secrets to an FBI agent thinking the agent was someone representing the Chávez government.

And on the same 17 September Conviasa declares it is suspending all national and international flights.

I have no idea. Do you see some patterns? Am I mixing up two different "issues" or not?

Cocaine, the USA, Venezuela and Europe

Francisco writes a post about the insinuations from former US ambassador Bolton that the Venezuelan government may be on the road to Latino nukes. I had seen the same kind of suggestions from US American sources for quite some time. As much as I dislike the corrupt military regime Venezuela has now, I have to say that in this case all this sounds like fabricating matrices de opinión, as zealous Chavista honcho Cilia Flores would say. Some groups have been particularly active in fueling this kind of discussion. Some US missionaries, for instance, formerly accused for many years of prospecting for uranium around La Esmeralda, started to throw the same accusations to Iranians in Venezuela. Are Iranians into that? I do not know and I think although we need to be cautious with Iran's activities in Venezuela, we need to be cautious with any accusations and who can benefit from them.

And now to drugs...

Some time ago I wrote about the Venezuelan plane that crashed in Mali loaded with cocaine. I asked some questions. I wrote again and again, based on what I read from Malian newspapers and some other sources. Because of those posts, a journalist working for a think tank based in Switzerland wrote to me with a form: please, answer in 4 to 5 sentences. Among other things, she asked whether I thought there was an Al Qaeda connection, as wrote Douglas Farah, a journalist son of missionaries who is apparently detecting Al Qaeda everywhere. I have to say I was shocked by how eagerly some draw conclusions on WMD and terrorists everywhere.

I had to say I frankly did not know, I could not get to those conclusions and what I could mostly see was that the Venezuelan military is deeply corrupt, more corrupt than ever, and that some people there may be involved in drug trafficking. This does not sell, but well, I am not a journalist. I wrote back stating I still don't see a case for accusing the Venezuelan government as such, as much as I dislike it, of having a policy to finance itself through drug trade or the like. There are other things that to my understanding are clearer, like the FARC/ELN connections (this from 5min and so much more).

Let's put it like this: I have the impression the Venezuelan regime is indeed very ineffective and there are military and police agents galore involved in the trade, but the Colombian government is not far off (yes, even considering the civil war going on there) and so is the Mexican one with its military and Mexico does not even have a civil war. Sure, cocaine trade through Venezuela has increased a lot in the last few years and this is very worrying, but Colombia is still the main land of production by far and Mexico is a mess because of the drugs, many of which are not coming from Venezuela. Who are the real actors in any of those governments? I do not know and I doubt very much many people know.

What I do think very strongly is that there are vested interests everywhere for the "war on drugs" to go on exactly as it has been going on for the last decades. Those vested interests include drug dealers, guerrillas, paramilitary, but also mid-ranking officers in the "security sector" in countries left and right, South and North.

Above all: the drug problem is hugely fueled by the dollars and the euros of North Americans and Europeans who don't see their consumption is in great part responsible for the many thousands of murders in Latin America every year.

Do we want a grown-up discussion about how to fight the drug problem? Or do we go on behaving in an irrational way and let ourselves be manipulated by different interest groups? I want one single journalist to ask an active head of state in the North the following: "could you tell us if you consider it would be political suicide for you to suggest the war on drugs has to be radically reconsidered?

Please, watch the following video and then the second part. It is about Mexico, but the rules and conditions affect everyone in America, from Canada to Chile...and also Europe, from Portugal to Russia.

Too much democracy and the women for Chávez

The military president of Venezuela declared yesterday evening on an event televised by the national TV that "he is already in pre-campaign mode for the 2012 elections". He said in Venezuela there was "too much democracy" and that previously there were elections every four years and now we have elections every year. Although the law prohibits the use of state resources for electoral purposes, the Llanero honcho went on ranting about the opposition and declared only a victory of the PSUV would "guarantee the success of socialist changes". He went on ranting against the "fatherland's traitors" for a while. The Electoral Council - CNE - largely made up of Chávez's puppets - doesn't do anything about this. Let's remember the previous head of the CNE became vice-president and is now the pro-Chávez mayor of a key municipality of Caracas.

The military president used the Teresa Carreño theatre for this event. I wonder who pays for the expenses there. He swore in over 3000 women-guardians of Chávez (guardianas de Chávez). At the same time, without even blinking, Chávez said he was against personality cults. He addressed them, humbly stating that "you, more than women-guardians of Chávez - something I accept - must, more importantly, become keen guardians of the socialist revolution, of the revolution and fatherland".

Ты венесуэлец в Европе? Bist Du ein Venezolaner in Europa? ¿Eres un venezolano en Europa?

Cachapas, cachapas über alles

Качапы превыше всего

Les cachapas au dessus de tout

Cachapas above all.

Si eres un venezolano en Europa, te agradecería que me envíes fotos de las votaciones en la embajada o consulado el próximo 26 de septiembre. Como sabes, los venezolanos en el extranjero pueden votar por el Parlatino. Votar, aunque sea solo el Parlatino, será una señal muy importante. Es vital que defendamos el voto y que obliguemos al CNE a que FINALMENTE publique los resultados en el exterior, cosa que no hace desde 2007, pese a que tenemos todas las actas desde entonces.

También puedes escribirme por cualquier otra noticia interesante sobre los rollos que ocurren entre Venezuela y Europa. desarrollo . sostenible . venezuela arroba gmail.com.

Si quieres enterarte de lo que hace el Parlatino, lo mejor es leer esto.

Venezolanische Regierung verkauft Ruhr Oel-Aktien

Ruhr Oel: bis jetzt zu 50% venezolanisch

Der Spiegel schreibt wie die Russen die venezolanischen Aktien der Ruhr Oel kaufen werden. Setty schreibt hier über den Druck der laufenden Verfahren auf Venezuelas Erdölgesellschaft PDVSA. Anscheinend sieht sich die venezolanische Regierung schon wieder gezwungen, weitere Hennen der goldenen Eier zu verkaufen. Im Süden nichts Neues.

Der venezolanische Staat will die Henne (oder hier die Gans) verkaufen

Don't ask how old she is

Just count the rings on her carapace. Venezuelans call it morrocoy and English speakers call it a red-footed tortoise.

This is one of the animals the Catholic church in America decided to call "fish" so that people could eat them during holy week (another being the Capibara). No, I haven't eaten morrocoy, they are just too cute for this urbanite. Besides: they are over-hunted.

Links that matter: Chavismo unplugged

Updated

Here you have an update of the Chávez mindmap. If you think I missed someone, let me know. If you check out Hugo's twitter account, @chavezcandanga, you will see Hugo only follows 3 politicians: Fidel Castro, Diosdado Cabello and El Aissami, whereas all Venezuelan red-shirted honchos follow Chávez. El Aissami seems to be the guy the "doer" within Chavismo: he has to get back to people when it comes to sending them medicine, checking out the construction of a bridge or finding out why a cooperative is in chaos. Diosdado seems to be still mobilizing more strings than some people think...very silently. And Fidel is Fidel, Hugo's ultimate mentor.

Thanks to Setty for the correction

Chávez and the Jacket

If you pay attention, you may have noticed Chávez hasn't taken off his yellow-blue-red jacket for weeks now. Why? Because he tries to identify himself as the President for Everybody. He wants to tell you that in spite of him being a Marxist, a Maoist, a Trotskist, he is NOT a communist. He needs to tell people HE is Venezuela.

If he feels happy after 26 September, he will wear a green soldier shirt the first time he goes public again and after that he will go back to red and red-military green.

Rechtstaat ade

Hugo Chávez hat schon wieder gezeigt, was er vom Rechtsstaat hält. Am Freitag 10.09.2010 erklärte er, es sei "unmöglich, mit Gouverneuren und Bürgermeistern der Opposition zusammenzuarbeiten. Deswegen gebe ich ihnen kein Pfennig". Er sagte: "hier im Miranda-Staat sowie in anderen Bundesländern, wo die Opposition regiert, wo es Bourgeois-Bürgermeister gibt...ist es unmöglich, mit denen zu arbeiten. An welchen Gouverneur oder Bürgermeister der Bourgeoisie werde ich ein Pfennig geben? Wozu? Es ist unmöglich mit ihnen zu arbeiten."

Chávez sagte ferner, er würde an andere Bürgermeister und Gouberneure die Ressourcen geben, die sie nötig haben. "An den Bürgermeister Jorge Rodríguez gebe ich die Ressourcen, die er braucht. An Jackeline Farías, Leiterin der Caracas-Region [eine von ihm 2009 erfundene Stelle, um den Caracas-Bürgermeister Ledezma überflüssig zu machen] habe ich jetzt mal 70 Millionen Dollar gegeben, damit sie alle Fahrstühle der 23-de-Enero-Wohnviertel repariert". Er handle so, als käme das Geld von seiner eigenen Tasche.

Die Gouverneure und Bürgermeister der Opposition haben seit 2008 immer wieder die Regierung dazu aufgefordert, die gesetztlich vorgeschriebenen Zahlungen an Regionalregierungen zu respektieren und zu gewährleisten. Die Nationalregierung verwaltet alle Erdöleinnahmen und fast alle Steuern und muss per Gesetz bestimmte Summen an die Regionen verteilen. Die Chávez-Regierung hat die Etats aber drastisch verkürzt und die Gelder an alle Regionalregierungen, die nicht von der Opposition kontrolliert sind, durch andere Mechanismen verteilt.

Chávez rief nun die Einwohner von Miranda und Caracas auf, "die Regierung Mirandas und die der Gemeinde Sucre zurückzuerobern."

"Den Bundesstaat Miranda werden wir früher denn später zurückgewinnen, denn wir haben eine revolutionäre, sozialistische Bundesstaatsregierung nötig. Jetzt haben wir dort die fünfte Kolonne".

"Im Jahre 2012, im Dezember, werden - wenn Gott es will - Präsidentenwahlen stattfinden...und ich werde Kandidat für den Zeitraum 2013-2019 sein".

Ferner erklärte der ehemalige Putschist und 1999 demokratisch gewählte Präsident, die Wahlen von 2012 seien "die Mutter aller Wahlen", denn es handle sich um Präsidenten- Bundesstaat- und Gemeindewahlen.

"No volverán" riefen seine Fans auf. Als ein PSUV-Mitglied über die Details der jetztigen Wahlen sprechen wollte, sagte Chávez, er respektiere die Gesetze des Wahlrats und würde darum "nicht über Wahlen sprechen", genau das, was er bis einigen Sekunden davor getan hatte. "Ich mache mir Sorgen, dass man behaupten könnte, wir verletzen die Gesetze, denn wir sind die ersten, die das Beispiel geben".

"Die Leute der Opposition sind verrückt geworden...sie sprechen schon wieder über Kommunismus von uns, um Angst einzujagen...und das ist gefährlich, denn sie sind zu allem fähig. Man muss auf der Hut sein".

Im Januar 2010 hatte Chávez bei der Asamblea Nacional gesagt, er sei ein Marxist. Im Jahre 2009 zitierte er in einer cadena nacional Karl Marx. Das war nicht das erste Mal. Er hat mal Gramsci, mal Trotsky, mal Lenin, mal Mao und immer wieder Marx zitiert. Im Jahre 2008 sagte er, er sei kein Kommunist, nur ein Sozialist. 1998 sagte er, er sei kein Sozialist. Dass man Sozialisten wie Sozialdemokraten und andere Gruppen von Kommunisten unterscheiden muss, ist mir klar. Dass man sich als Marxist und Maoist und vieles mehr bezeichnet und die marxistischen Thesen ausdrücklich als "das beste Model" bezeichnet und man dennoch kein Kommunist ist...das verstehe ich nicht. Ich glaube, selbst Chomsky als Expert der linken Theorien sitze da in der Klemme.

Die Angriffe gegen die gewählten Bürgermeister und Gouverneure der Opposition fingen schon beim Bekanntwerden der Ergebnisse während der Lokalwahlen 2008 an. Hier nur ein Beispiel der Angriffe in Miranda Mitte 2009. Ein Bürgermeister von Chávez und seine Leute zeichnen Hakenkreuze an den Wänden des Gouverneursgebäudes in Miranda. Die Grosseltern des Gouverneurs waren Juden, die aus Europe fliehen mussten.