Monday, October 03, 2005

Another tale of the workers in the revolution Over a week ago, Hugo Chavez went to Ciudad Guayan, where some of the major State indsutries are and had to be helicoptered into the Headquarters of the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG) due to the fact that as many of four protests were taking place simultaneously and blocking the way into CVG. Chavez was mad, particularly when he found out that the pro-Chavez leader of the steelworkers union Ramon Machuca participated in the protest. In his speech that day, Chavez made his now controversial statement "The working class should not want to live like the rich", which led many of the steel workers to wonder whether they will ever get their money. What money? Here is the story and the origin of the problem: In 1997, the Caldera administration proceeded to privatize steelworks Sidor to a consortia of Argentinian, Brazilain, Mexican and Venezuelan companies created for that end specifically under the name Consorcio Amazonia. The state gave the workers 20% of the company, which included some 13 thosuand workers. In 2004 Sidor's debt was restructured and the company gave CVG US$ 188 millions in earnings to distribute to the workers . CVG used the money for something else and the workers have yet to recieve any of that money. Thanks to high steel prices, on August 15th. of this year, once again Sidor handed over US$57 million  to CVG to give to the workers. The Comptroller's Office stopped the payment to the workers. To this day, the workers have yet to receive their money, despite the fact that indvidual accounts were open for that purpose Such is life in Chavez' workers paradise where he wants people to be poor and he decides everything. I wonder why the steel workers are so mad?.  9:49:00 PM    comment []

Newspaper raided The Headquarters of Sunday weekly "La Razon", not exactly your grandamother's right wing newspaper were raided today by the investigative police (CIPCC). The agents took advantage of having an order from a judge to investigate a reporter to make a general search of the files and archives of the newspaper. All the order actually asked for was to find out the adreess of a reporter from the newspaper. La Razon was the only paper that gave Hugo Chavez a weekly column after his failed coup attempt in 1992. Another milestone in the history of the autocracy. 9:33:49 PM    comment []

Dreaming in Caracas Very cool to see Imakinaria pick up the album by my friend and faithful reader Maruja, entitled Dreaming in Caracas. You can actually listen to it at cdbaby.com (and even order it!). Yes, it is still possible to have dreams in Caracas. 9:06:27 PM    comment []

Chavez on democracy and his movements real plans Hugo Chavez' concept of "democracy" during yesterday's Alo Presidente: "Tascon, no compadre, that is not the way to go. You are part of a revolutionary process. There is a leader who is Hugo Chavez, there is cohesion, unity" What did Tascon say? That those that had two apartments would have to give one to someone that does not have one. According to Chavez: "This does not reflect the criteria that I am managing as leader of the process...nobody can make decisions on their own, it has to do with the political moment that we are managing...We can not get carried away, please calm down, particularly these days that we are in the middle of an electoral campaign." Get it? First this is not a democracy, this is an autocracy with Hugo Chavez as its leader. Second, this is not the time to reveal what they plan to do, they can do it later. But it is the autocrat that is the manager of the timing, not anyone else. Calm down for now, later they will do what they plan to do, but not now, they have to win the election first, without telling the people what their plans are. If they did, they may lose, so please be quiet and be obedient of the autocrat says. Some democracy, no? Can it be clearer than this? 8:57:02 PM    comment []