Sunday, July 17, 2005

Papillon, who died 32 years ago, is elligible to vote in August in Venezuela As pointed out in the comments a man who died 32 years ago is registered to vote. Yes, Henri Charriere, the famous "Papillon" appears registered and from the looks of it, he may even vote. Kudos to Andy Webb of the Financial Times that wrote this story that gives sooo much credibility to the CNE's claims!. The story is spreading around, Instapundit picked it up! Here is the data fresh from the CNE's site: Cédula: V- 1728629 Nombre: CHARRIERO SHIERRY HENRY Centro: INST UNIV NUEVAS PROFESIONES Dirección: AV PRINCIPAL EL BOSQUE Estado: EDO. MIRANDA Municipio: MP. CHACAO Parroquia: PQ. CHACAO Since FT can only be read for a couple of days, here is Andy's full story: Dead writer casts doubt on Venezuela poll By Andy Webb-Vidal in Caracas Published: July 17 2005 19:58 | Last updated: July 17 2005 19:58 Henri Charrière, the convict who vividly recalled his multiple escape bids from the disease-ridden penal colony of French Guiana in the novel Papillon, has been found “alive” in Venezuela, 32 years after his reported death. Or so Venezuela's electoral register would have you believe. Politicians in Venezuela have complained that the official voter list contains thousands of deceased voters, an irregularity that, if abused by unscrupulous election officials, could distort the result of polls. “Why is there such a big fear of undertaking an audit of the electoral register?” asks Alejandro Plaz, spokesman for Sumate, which lobbies for transparency and participation in elections. Now, the discovery that Mr Charrière, who died in 1973, is eligible to cast a ballot in local elections in August looks certain to amplify such concerns about the inadequacy of Venezuela's electoral system. In the final pages of Papillon, Mr Charrière describes his elation at receiving a Venezuelan residency document, or cédula, in 1945, after his escape from Devil's Island and, finally, his release from El Dorado, a Venezuelan prison. The number of the cédula, he wrote, was 1,728,629 a unique figure in the numerical issuance series of Venezuelan identity documents. Today, that number, when introduced into the online checking facility of the National Electoral Council, reveals that Henry Charriero, his adopted name, can vote next month in Chacao, a municipality of Caracas. In recent days, civil groups have warned that the August 7 municipal elections will be tainted by a host of reasons, including an unreliable database of voters. Last year, opponents of President Hugo Chávez protested against irregularities in the electronic vote-counting system during a presidential recall referendum. A lack of confidence in the electoral council will be the main factor that could prompt as many as 70 per cent of voters to abstain from next month's ballot, pollsters say. But given that some of the deceased on the voting roll have been there a long time, it is clear it is not just the government that has failed to audit the electoral roll. In the case of Papillon, several governments since 1973 have failed to clean up his entry on the voting list. 11:20:37 PM    comment []

Chavez shows his true class in his Sunday's program Are these the words of a sane man? The words of a statesman? The words of a man with class?: "The Cardinal (Castillo Lara) is a pantomine, it makes me sad and fills me with disgust, he is a coupster, the Pope has to know this, the Vatican's Ambassador has to know this, the Apostolic nuncio has to know this, the devil does not respect a priest's robes, he is a bandit, immoral, a coupster...may God forgive him and the devil receive him when the time comes.." All of this because the Cardinal called Chavez' Government "ominous", the CNE a "pantomine" and Chavez' Government a "dictatorship" in an interview in today's El Universal . Asked what he thought about Chavez' name calling, the Cardinal said he did not care, because they did not come from an "honorable" person. 10:04:06 PM    comment []

A dramatic rise in homicides and deaths by police since Chavez took over Every time there is some incident involving the police or the military, where innocent people are killed, Government officials from the Chavez administration argue that these type of things happened with previous Governments also, as if this excuse in some sense exexmpts their responsibility for these incidents. When such statements are made, reporters sort of nod with their heads, as if agreeing with what the Government official is saying. I have argued in the past that while the Government likes to talk about the “previous” Government, in terms of contemporary Venezuelan history, the Chavez administration has already become the previous Government. No President in the 40 year history of our modern democracy ruled more than five years, thus with the change of the Constitution, Chavez is already the longest running President of Venezuela since 1958 when our last Dictator departed. But the truth is that these Government officials are absolutely wrong. While it is indeed true that such incidents as the recent assassination of the three students in Barrio Kennedy by the police are not new, it is also true that the frequency of such incidents has dramatically increased since Chavze became President. In fact, both homicides and deaths in confrontations with the police have ballooned since Chavez took over. In contrast with economic numbers that are less and less transparent with each passing year, the Government has yet failed to completely hide crime numbers, but it is beginning to try as described in the Provea report linked below. In fact, the coroners’ office, the Minister of the Interior and Justice, the investigative police CIPC and municipalities all report the data on crime, homicides and separate whether the death occurred in a confrontation with the police. Additionally, Human Rights organization Provea has been gathering, collecting and analyzing such data, even before Chavez became President and issuing regular reports on Human Rights looking at the status of social, economic, political and civilian rights. The latest such report can be found here for the years 2003-2004. A look at the sections on the right to life or the right to personal security paint a much different picture from what the Government claims, which shows that in these areas the Venezuelan Government is also doing much worse than its predecessors.   Let us first look at homicides per 100,000 inhabitants at the national level and in the metropolitan area of Caracas, as in the graph below: Chart I Total number of homicides per 100,000 inhabitants since 1986 in Venezuela (black line) and Caracas (blue line) One can see that the number of homicides at the national level went from 20 per 100,000 inhabitants per year to 49 from 1998 to 2003, while Chavez has been President. Similarly, in the Metropolitan area of Caracas, this number went from 63 to 134 in the same period. (It has continued to increase in the last year and a half). Note that the numbers had actually been dropping since 1994, which has been explained as being the result of municipal police forces being created in the early 90’s. These forces are better trained and prepared than either the Metropolitan police or the National Guard and helped reduce crime. These are HUGE numbers, as an example, most European countries have rates in the low single digits and the US is typically in the mid single digit range. Now, these numbers do not include deaths which are incurred in police incidents, which are shown below at the national level. (Note 2004 is only partial): Chart II: Number of deaths in police confrontations since 1198 in Venezuela. The 2004 numbers are not for the full year. These numbers have also had a dramatic increase, with a four fold increase nationwide in deaths by police forces. In fact, these numbers alone would make the country's homicide rate as high as that of any developed country. There is no way that these numbers can be defended. They show that the situation is certainly not the same as it was before Chavez came to power and while it can not be proven that it represents a policy, it does represent an attitude and the disregard by the Government for human rights in general. Venezuelan security forces and military have always been very repressive, if nobody tries to contain them, they will act like they have been doing for the last few years an worse. If these deaths by police also are included in the total number of homicides, the rate of homicides for the country goes up to 59 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants and that for Caracas to 154 deaths per 100,000 per year. The absolute numbers are 11.342 homicides in 2003 and 2.305 deaths in confrontations with the police in the same year. This comes out to over thirty deaths per day! Two things have to be pointed out. First, these deaths affect mostly the poor. The deaths in Caracas every weekend are in the barrios where the cops sometimes do not even dare go in. Thus, it affects primarily those that Chavez professes to care and love so much. Second, when Chavez was elected in 1998, many people voted with him because he was former military. They thought that he would make crime a priority within his administration. The fact is that the word crime is never mentioned by the President in his lengthy speeches. It is unclear whether this is because he wants to separate himself from the failed actions by his Government in this field or whether this is not an important issue for him. In any case, the sharp jump in homicides and deaths by police represents another one of the many failed promises of Hugo Chavez. In my mind, this is the result on the one hand of a lack of interest in the issue by the maximum leader, while the violent deaths in police confrontations are simply a consequence of the repressive minds of the leaders of police forces, all of which are former military. Unfortunately, those that should raise their voice about these issues like the Attorney General and the People’s Ombudsman, are so aligned with the Government, so as to be essentially invisible on these issues. And Human Right organizations like Provea and COFAVIC, praised by Chavez when he was a candidate, have become the object of attack and criticism by this irresponsible Government. 12:57:53 PM    comment []