Wednesday, July 20, 2005

The shortage that wasn't. Or is it? Sometimes you have to wonder about these guys in the Chavez Government. look at today's headline: "Minister denies meat shortage" Given that my wife could not find meat last week at the store and the market where I shop had no meat Saturday and Sunday, I delve deeper into the article: Says the Minister "This perception has been created because some supermarkets have refused to acquire meat for fear of being closed, because they do not abide by the regulated price of the product". The Minister also explained that there is plenty of meat at Government supermarkets. So, there is no shortage, but because the price is controlled, the meat is not available at some supermarkets, because it is illegal to sell it above the regulated price. Isn't that what a shortage is, the unavailability of products for whatever reason? Moreover, the Minister boasts that there is plenty of meat in Government supermarkets. Of course there is. It is imported with officials dollars, it pays no customs duty, it is sold at non-profit markets, where all the transportation and labor is provided, free of charge, by the military. No wonder there is meat at those markets at regulated prices! Oh! I forgot, there is no charge for the value added tax at Government supermarkets either. This is against the law, but hey! This is a revolution, they do whatever they want, wherever they want and whenever they want. There is no shoratge of that! 11:52:11 PM    comment []

Threats and intimidation are the rule of the day in this regime. While some fools still claim and say Venezuela is a democracy, the truth is certainly much different. If not, ask reporter Roberto Giusti, one of the harshest critics of the Government, who not only manages to get at the Government directly, but through his interviews always gets a reaction out of the Government, like last Sunday's interview with Cardinal Castillo Lara. Giusti also has a TV program in TV station Globovision called Primera Pagina, very early in the morning and during his program, the National Anthem has to be played, as required by law. Well, apparently Giusti is not too happy or maybe not yet accustomed to the new name of Venezuela as defined by the 2000 Constitution, so he says every morning "The National anthem of the Republic of Venezuela", instead of saying explicitly the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Well, this omission appears to irk the Government so much that the General Secretary of National Defense Council, General Melvin Lopez Hidalgo, sent a letter to the President of Globovision in which the illustrious General says that Giusti's "attitude" can be "appreciated to be an act of provocation against public authorities". General Hidalgo adds: "it is a fault or infraction to insult or disrespect patriotic symbols, specifically the National Anthem"..."the denomination of Republic of Venezuela used by reporter Giusti could constitute a violation of constitutional dispositions, since the current Constitution identifies the Venezuelan state as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela" Jeez, I certainly wish that General Hidalgo would apply the same strict precepts to all of the violations of the Constitution made daily by the Chavez Government. With regards to human rights, for example. In fact, recently when somebody said that a new law being considered by the National Assembly violated the Constitution, a Deputy from Chavez' MVR answered that they were going to approve it anyway because "they felt like it". In fact, only yesterday, the Chavez backed majority in the National Assembly approved the change in the Central Bank's law that takes away the responsibility of managing the international reserves from the Central Bank to the Government. This, despite the fact that article 310 of the Constitution says explicitly that the Venezuelan Central Bank "will administer international reserves" or will not (Art. 320) "validate or finance public policies which lead to a deficit". But this does not bother General Melvin (Am I insulting him because I left out his last name?), because his boss wants it that way. But of course, General Hidalgo could care less about violations of the Constitution, what he really wants to do is to threaten and intimidate Mr. Giusti, accusing him of insult or disrespect by omission, which would certainly create a precedent in Venezuela. After all, Giusti did not call Venezuela anything but what the country has been called for the last forty years or so. How can that be an insult? He did not add anything which could be considered an insult, after all, the term Bolivarian so far seems to be more of a negative, given the lack of results of the revolution. Umm, I wonder if I can't call our President Hugo eirther. Is that disrespectful too? But this is what autocratic Government's are all about. Threaten, intimidate and discriminate are the rule of the day in order to corner and dimisnih the opposition. While the Government is spending millions in setting up and buying equipment for creating broadcaster Telesur, it denies foreign currency to private broadcasters that need to buy new equipment or newspapers that need to import newsprint. To naive foreigners who have never lived under an autocratic dictatorship, this may seem like part of daily life, but to those that are old enough to remember the last dicator, or those that have seen the autocratic Governments in other countries in Latin America, this are simply the daily steps towards tighter and tighter control via threats and intimidation and are certainly not the hallmarks of a democratic society. 8:24:14 PM    comment []