Sunday, November 20, 2005

Picture of yesterday's pro-Chavez march Somehow Daniel posted this picture of the march yesterday, but posted it on such small scale that it did not show how small it was, more people showed up at the end, but hey Patricia Poleo before she was charged was gathering as many people as this, every single Saturday. Without paying anyone to show up! The picture is the best one the Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias could find! 11:06:07 PM    comment []

The forgotten man in the accusation by the President of the Assembly I did not write much about the statements by the President of the National Assembly Nicolas Maduro, charging that The President of TV station Globovision was at a meeting with banker Nelson Mezerhane, where they attempted to bribe the judge in the case to the tune of US$ 3 million. The charge seemed preposterous because Mezerhane had turned himself at noon on the same day that Maduro had charged the meeting had taken place in the evening. Moreover, the President of Globovision was at a meeting at the station with some 200 people organizing the sale of ads for the 2006 season. When a reporter asked Maduro about the fact that Mezerhane was in jail that night, he was certainly taken by surprise. But lost in the shuffle and the noise, was the fact the accusation was broader than this. What Maduro had actually said was that Mezerhane, the President of Globovision and Tobias Carrero were reportedly at this meeting. Who is Carrero? Well, that is where it gets interesting: Tobias Carrero is the owner of one of the largest insurance companies in the nation, Multinacional De Seguros, as well as hotels, radio stations and newspapers. Carrero was in fact, the main financer of Chavez’ Presidential campaign. Carrero is from Chavez’ Barinas state and went to the same high school as Chavez. Chavez went around Venezuela in Carrero’s car, had offices at Multinacional de Seguros during the campaign and Carrero and Luis Miquilena were in charge of collecting funds for the campaign including the infamous illegal campaign contributions by Spanish bank BBVA and Santander to the tune of a few million dollars. Once Chavez won, Carrero’s empire blossomed as the Government contracted with his insurance company and awarded him licenses to radio stations without competitive bidding. Lawyers from Carrero’s companies were named to the Supreme Court after the Constituent Assembly (and are still there, dominating the Constitutional Hall). Carrero has seldom appeared with Chavez in public and has kept a low profile, but I doubt they are no longer close. The question is then why did Maduro included Carrero in the accusation, given that Carrero is close to Chavez? Moreover, why has the media played down this inclusion, deciding instead to simply ignore it? It certainly sounds like this was a political move on Maduro’s part, including Chavez’ financial buddy for a specific reason. The question is why? And why is the media ignoring it? Simply Fear? 7:57:28 PM    comment []

Economists ask Comptroller to investigate why Government issues so much debt A while back I wrote this long post on the corruption racket in Venezuela with official deposits in the private commercial banking system. Basically, 28.6% of all the country's monetary liquidity is owned by the Government and deposited in private banks, which makes no sense, since the Government issues bonds in local currency in order to get liquidity to pay Government institutions. But then, these same institutions simply turn around and deposit the funds in private banks getting interest, and the banks use those funds to buy the more Government debt at higher interest rates. The amount is simply staggering, it was US$ 6.76 billion when I wrote the article. This means that the Government is getting financing that it simply does not need in huge amounts. While people don’t say much publicly about this, there is a simple explanation for it: corruption, these deposits move around on the basis of commisions paid by some private banks to attract them. Well, last week two economists who used to work at the Central Bank decided to do something about it and went to the Comptroller’s Office and asked him to investigate the “equity damage” for the country, implied in the Government issuing debt without needing it. This essentially asks the Comptroller to investigate, without specifically telling him where the source of corruption is, let him figure it out! According to the two economists, the Ministry of Finance issued new debt in the amount of Bs. 9.9 trillion (US$ 4.8 billion) in 2004 and 2005, despite the fact that the Government did not need to issue any debt, as it had almost twice that amount deposited in the private banking system. Thus, these two economists ask:” If the Government has such a high surplus, why does it need to issue debt?” They claim the Government paid Bs. 1.34 trillion (US$ 640 million) in the last two years in unncessary interest. Moreover, the damage will continue as most of this debt is medium term and additional unnecessary interest will need to be paid before it matures. They ask the Comptroller to investigate the reasoning behind all this, which would lead to what I posted about in August. The only question is whether we will ever hear anything from the comptroller; after all he has not acted in previous cases of blatant corruption as he is an integral part of the support system for the “robolucion” 7:26:10 PM    comment []

The militaristic and non-democratic side of the Bolivarian revolution exposed in detail Last week, a document which had been circulating via the Internet was actually posted in its entirety at this web address. The document entitled "Pensamiento Militar Venezolano" or "Venezuelan Military Thinking" looked too elaborate to be a fake, but doubts lingered in some circles. Well, today a number of those that were linked to the creation of the document, including a retired General, Gral. Muller Rojas, and the Minister of Defense, Gral Maniglia, were asked about it in local newspaper El Nacional (page-A5). The first one said that the document is an earlier version that is missing the last chapter and goes on to describe that what is missing is a historical recount of the thinking of Venezuela's forefathers. The second one considers it unlikely that it is the "true" document , as only one person of those involved in writing the document has an electronic copy. But Gral. Muller Rojas is supposed to be the coordinator and seems to have vouched for its veracity, which is downright scary. As described in PMBcomments in Chapter V of the document, the military defines its views and their role in Venezuelan political life in a very confrontational manner, defending the historical and geographical heritage of Venezuela as originally "developed by the forefathers of the homeland". The whole document is based on a perverse view of ideological differences in terms of military confrontation, conflicts and war, defining the US as the enemy, envisioning provoking the US into invading Venezuela in order to develop a demoralizing war of insurgency against that country. It presents a romantic view of Venezuelan’s ability to use creativity and ingenuity to defend their homeland, as well as their idealized solidarity to help defend "that peripheral world, condemned to exclusion by Darwinian policies advanced by the neoconservative forces". Moreover, the document even includes a justification for military action against those that oppose the Government locally, viewed as a "fifth column", who simply wants to defend the "Empire" and the ideas of "Free Markets". This document defines a scary outlook of the role of Venezuela as military interms of confrontations, where instead of using ideas (even if claims science and technology are integral part of the weapons for the upcoming battle), force and tactics will be used to impose on others the "only correct" ideas, those of their leader Hugo Chavez expouses, whatever they may be now or evolve into in the future. In the next few days this document should continue hitting the news with force and showing the true face of this not so pretty revolution, whose main goal is to promote the image and increase the power of autocratic Hugo Chavez. Maybe its veracity will begin to be denied. For those supporting Hugo Chavez, here and abroad, they will have to face an important decision in the upcoming days if the document is defended by the Government: Do they fall on the side of an autocratic, corrupt, incompetent, fascist, militaristic, warmongering and non-democratic revolution, or do they defend the most basic rights of human beings? The choice is clear. 1:06:55 AM    comment []