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.

Arreaza justifies shooting traitors

Last week we saw how Maduro sacked Chávez's long-standing minister Giordani and how Giordani, the Monk, responded immediately by publishing a long letter trying to justify himself. Several bloggers have discussed this extensively. Another civilian leftist and former minister of general education, of university education and science during Chávez's time, Héctor Navarro, defended Giordani and got expelled from the Politburo. Then a former governor fallen in disgrace, Rafael Isea, criticized the way Giordani and Navarro have been treated.

And now we have three Boligarchs - Elías Jaua, Diosdado Cabello and Freddy Bernal - calling Giordani and others traitors.

Now Chávez's son-in-law, Arreaza, wanted to outdo the others. He said traitors should be executed. Of course, he used a very cheap trick: he went to Guayana, met the very corrupt governor (a former coup monger) and there he talked on national TV to remind Venezuelans how the caudillo Simón Bolívar had executed a competitor of his, the independence hero Piar, "for treason".

"The governor showed us today the wall where general Piar was executed by order of Simón Bolívar. It was a necessary measure because we (sic) couldn't allow treason in a moment when unity was essential to build the republic. Here there won't be traitors, president. Your people closes rank with you"

Чистка Единой социалистической партии Венесуэлы

Well, we saw how Maduro sacked 74-year old Giordani, the North-Korea admirer and CADIVI-creator. Giordani saw that coming, so he got a letter published on Aporrea, the semi-independent Chavista-base site. And the Boligarchs were not amused.

Miguel wrote a good post about Giordani's letter. Giordani is an old communist responsible for a lot of the very unsustainable, corruption-promoting policies of Maduro. Giordani just tried to justify his past - for the record and to bug those who sacked him after he held so much power-. Now that the government is running out of money in spite of the continuing oil boom, Maduro needs pragmatists. Maduro probably thought Giordani would go quietly and later accept some embassy, but Giordani decided to nag in public.

Former education minister Héctor Navarro, another civilian and very much a lefty, came up now and supported Giordani. And he has been expelled from the Politburo.

The funny thing: the one person in charge of coordinating "party discipline" within the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela is Rodríguez Chacín, a military honcho friend of Chávez who was actually active during the hated IV Republic and was in the team of military that carried out the Massacre of El Amparo (Rodríguez was himself not present during the massacre but that was only because he had had an accident with the helicopter he was traveling in and was in a hospital when his comrades were shooting innocent fishermen). Rodríguez Chacín is also a big landowner who bought thousands of hectares of land around 2003, 4 years after Chavismo got into power.

In any case, in these days purges are not what they used to be. They are mild, they are more selective. They are just about removing people from power and/or money.

Tod in Caracas und Erdölgeschäfte

Der venezolanischen Zeitung Notitarde zufolge war Cristophorus Wilhelm Klieuters, der Deutsche, der in Caracas kurz nach seiner Ankunft letzte Woche ermordet wurde, ein häufiger Besucher Venezuelas. Er war ein Geschäftsmann und hatte vor, mit mehreren Bonzen der staatlichen Erdölgesellschaft PDVSA zu sprechen. Klieuters hatte eine Firma, die mit Bohrinseln zu tun hatte, wie die Bild-Zeitung berichtet.

Kurioserweise heuerte er die Dienste einer privaten Sicherheitsfirma an, die einem aktiven General der berüchtigten venezolanischen Nationalgarde -Guardia Nacional- gehört. Wie kann um Gottes willen ein aktiver General so eine Firma treiben und das in einer sogenannten Revolution?

Hier könnt Ihr Dieterich auf Spanisch hören. Der Kerl, der sich als Ökonom bezeichnet, hat nichts verstanden. Er beschuldigt Maduro vieler Fehler, als ob Chávez damit nicht angefangen hätte. Er sagt, Maduro hätte nun inkompetente Minister, als ob die Minister des Caudillos Chávez andere Menschen gewesen wären.

Die Wirtschaft Venezuelas - Juni 2014 (I)

Der 74-jährige Jorge Giordani, Finanzminister des Hugo Chávez Frías, wurde am 17 Juni von Nicolás Maduro entlassen. Giordani hatte 14 Jahre lang die katastrophale Wirtschaftspolitik des Landes geführt. Giordani war ein alter Kommunist, der absolut nichts von Wirtschaft wusste. Er hatte Ingenieurwissenschaft vor langer Zeit studiert. Seine Eltern waren Kommunisten, die gegen Franco gekämpft haben sollen. Giordani war in der Dominikanischen Republik geboren. Dort soll er gegen den Diktator Trujillo eine kurze Zeit gekämpft haben. Paradoxerweise hat er dann dem Land, das die Diktatur des Trujillo so lange denunzierte so viel Schäden zugefügt. Er wurde zu einem Mentor des Chávez. Er wurde zu seinem Lehrer und dann zu seinem Finanzminister. In Venezuela konnte er nur aufgrund immer steigender internationaler Erdölpreise eine Rentenpolitik führen, die gegen jegliche nachhaltige Entwicklung, für die Wiederwahl des Caudillos dienlich war. Nun merkten die Boligarchen aber, dass diese Politik einfach so nicht mehr zu führen ist.

Am Tag nach seiner Entlassung veröffentlichte Giordani einen sehr langen Bericht in der Chavista-Seite Aporrea. Den Bericht hatte er offensichtlich schon lange in der Schublade gehabt. Der Mann weist jede Schuld von sich ab. Er sagt, Maduro improvisiert, die Regierung hat zu viel ausgegeben, und und und...er ist aber für nichts schuldig. Natürlich gibt es jetzt jede Menge Gerüchte und aufgeregtes Gemurmel unter den Chavistas.

Nun ist der Präsident der staatlichen Erdölgesellschaft, der Oligarch Rafael Rodríguez, der Mann, der die Wirtschaft steuern wird. Theoretisch wird der frühere Bildungsminister Ricardo Menéndez der neue Finanzminister sein...Rodríguez wird aber derjenige sein, der führen wird. Rodríguez ist auch kein Ökonom. Er ist aber viel pragmatischer als Giordani. Eine Abwertung steht bevor. Giordani war vehement dagegen. Giordani wollte eigentlich ganz absichtlich zuerst die private Wirtschaft völlig zerstören, um ein neues Model zu errichten...eine Idee, die nicht mal die Sowjets hatten.

Ich werden in den folgenden Tagen mehr auf Deutsch über die venezolanische Wirtschaftslage berichten...über die Pläne des Rodríguez und viel mehr.

The Monk's Memoirs

Rafael Trujillo, Dominican Republic's dictator until 1961, shaped the mind of Giordani, who then influenced Venezuela for so long

Jorge Giordani, a communist born in the Dominican Republic who became one of the closest allies of Hugo Chávez, was finally sacked yesterday. He wrote a long letter in Aporrea. There he tries to tell the story of his life, the struggles he had, his relationship with Chávez and how his downfall went during Maduro's term.

Several things become more clear than ever:

1) the guy was a real believer, a fanatic

2) the guy confirms a bit of the struggles going on within the regime

3) the guy was strongly moved by his childhood traumas with the cruel dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

It is kind of scary to think Venezuela wasted billions of dollars and corruption, always present, blossomed to ever higher levels precisely because of the power such a real fanatic - not a cold profiteer like Diosdado Cabello - could have for so many years. The ignorance Giordani had about economic and historical issues was just staggering and yet he was the key person to design Chávez's wrecked economic policies, policies that were completely unsustainable and that only fostered more corruption.

It is ironic that Giordani would be so traumatized by his childhood - the dictatorship of Trujillo and the stance his parents had - that he would end up destroying so much of Venezuela, a country that so openly opposed Trujillo.

Stay tuned. Different boligarchs will try to defend themselves after this. Corruption will go on, although the regime might become more pragmatic, which could make some adjustments for its own survival - at least for a bit-.

Ps. if you want to learn a bit about dictator Trujillo, you can read Vargas Llosa's masterpiece, The Feast of the Goat.

A new round in Venezuela's ministerial chairs: the Monk is gone (updated!)

Maduro does just as his "intellectual father" did: change ministers with incredible frequency. As Rory Carroll wrote in his book on Chávez, "the comandante went over 180 ministers in over a decade". 

Below you have an overview of the ministries as of  yesterday evening, 17 June 2014. Those with a diamond sign have military honchos as ministers. Other ministers might be like the minister of Tourism, Izarra, who is the son of a military and former coup monger, friend of Chávez, or former guerrillas who fought against democratic governments or related to a guerrilla aristocracy, like the minister of Energy, Boligarch Rafael Rodríguez.

Maduro has changed ministers once for those ministries in yellow. He has changed ministers twice for those ministries in blue. This is all since he produced his first cabinet in April 2013. That means those ministries in blue have seen three different ministers in fourteen months.

A very important event: Maduro demoted Jorge Giordani, aka The Monk, who...got no apparent position as an ambassador or at some institute so far. He also transformed the ministry of Planning into a vice-presidency. He appointed Menéndez for that position. The military Herbert Plaza, who was minister of Water and Air Transportation, became minister of Food. Things are not looking very bright on the food sector and Maduro thinks he can fix that without doing something about the economy. Menéndez was minister of University Education, so Maduro has to look for a replacement for him there and he found a guy called Jason Guzmán. Little is known about him.

Maduro took over many ministers from Chávez and some others he changed.

In the case of the Ministry for University Education we have this order since 2013:

Yadira Córdoba was the minister until Chávez died and Maduro replaced her as soon as he officially took office by Pedro Calzadilla, then Ricardo Menéndez and now Jason Guzmán.

In the case of Trade we have the following order since 2013:

Edmée Betanourt was the minister of Trade until Chávez died, then the job went to Alejandro Fleming, then to José Salamat Kahn and now it's in the hands of Dante Rivas.

Notice this: most key ministries but the one of oil are in the hands of military. That is the case for the ministry of Economy, the one of Interior, the ministry of Air & water transportation (control of airports and harbors), the ministry of Electricity (yes, that's key in Venezuela) and last but not least, the ministry of Food. The change we saw yesterday was from one military to another one there.

Wao: and Giordani writes a very long letter in Aporrea talking about his work. He breaks with Maduro and tries to justify what he did. There will be turmoil among the apparatchiks.