It looks like the end of Globovision as we knew it is at hand. The top group of journalists is fired or resigning and the network new owners have decided after their meeting with the regime to stop broadcasting anything about Capriles. We even learn that Globovision twitter followers are dropping quite fast, a bare few weeks Globovision had bragged becoming the most followed TV account in Venezuela (Note: for full disclosure I never followed Globovision, too many tweets).
Oh well... back to the newspapers, nothing left to listen or watch in all of Venezuela....
Sunday, 26 May 2013
Friday, 24 May 2013
Do they have toilet paper in Pyongyang?
Away from news a quick check tells me that the bolibanana republic has launched a refurbished missile from the 70ies.... And the refurbished missile was refurbished with Venezuelan technology and Cuban know how or something. I wonder if those techs and the generals involved had clean asses.
New depths of ridicule are amazingly reached again and again.
New depths of ridicule are amazingly reached again and again.
Wednesday, 22 May 2013
Mario Silva and our daily abjection
So, apparently, this week scandal in Caracas is an illegal wiretapping of a conversation between Mario Silva and some Cuban G2 operative. The good thing about being away and writing on it late is that, well, I am not really that affected and El Universal put all of its links in English as I use them for this text.
This being said, what to think about that mess?
First, Mario Silva, the infamous director of La Hojila, that show who was an expanded version in worse of "Schwarze Kanal", is of such un-trustworthiness that for all what I know he may have been the one setting up the tape and he released it to take a few down with him if he felt himself falling. I mean, the guy that has smeared so many people with illegal wiretapping is going to fall for one? Not to mention that I understood that in Today's Venezuela no one from any side talks of such matters at such lengths.
Second, did he say anything new? Is there anything that readers of this blog did not know about Venezuela that was a novelty in Mario Silva confession?
Chavismo is bitterly divided? Check!
Diosdado Cabello has a huge fortune? Check!
That he is the most corrupt in Venezuela? Check!
That Maduro is a wimp that does not control anything inside chavismo? Check!
That too many in chavismo would like to dispense with democratic forms? Check!
That we are a Cuban colony? Check!
That [...fill in the blank...]? Check!
We all knew what Silva mentioned. And to hear it confirmed by one of the main and most rotten agents of chavismo, to tell you the truth, is of little comfort for me. Because we all know that nothing is going to come out of it, that our only consolidation is that Venezuelan TV has made a quantum leap forward in quality with the "temporary" suspension of La Hojilla.
We are left with the hope that the inside wars of chavismo are as bad or worse than what Silva told the Cuban and thus the end may come sooner than later. Meanwhile we are left in the contemplation of the utter abjection of the regime.
PS: to add insult to injury Silva showed a delayed antisemitism in blaming the Mossad, Israeli secret service for the "fake". As if Israel did not have more important problems to deal with than Mario Silva.....
This being said, what to think about that mess?
First, Mario Silva, the infamous director of La Hojila, that show who was an expanded version in worse of "Schwarze Kanal", is of such un-trustworthiness that for all what I know he may have been the one setting up the tape and he released it to take a few down with him if he felt himself falling. I mean, the guy that has smeared so many people with illegal wiretapping is going to fall for one? Not to mention that I understood that in Today's Venezuela no one from any side talks of such matters at such lengths.
Second, did he say anything new? Is there anything that readers of this blog did not know about Venezuela that was a novelty in Mario Silva confession?
Chavismo is bitterly divided? Check!
Diosdado Cabello has a huge fortune? Check!
That he is the most corrupt in Venezuela? Check!
That Maduro is a wimp that does not control anything inside chavismo? Check!
That too many in chavismo would like to dispense with democratic forms? Check!
That we are a Cuban colony? Check!
That [...fill in the blank...]? Check!
We all knew what Silva mentioned. And to hear it confirmed by one of the main and most rotten agents of chavismo, to tell you the truth, is of little comfort for me. Because we all know that nothing is going to come out of it, that our only consolidation is that Venezuelan TV has made a quantum leap forward in quality with the "temporary" suspension of La Hojilla.
We are left with the hope that the inside wars of chavismo are as bad or worse than what Silva told the Cuban and thus the end may come sooner than later. Meanwhile we are left in the contemplation of the utter abjection of the regime.
PS: to add insult to injury Silva showed a delayed antisemitism in blaming the Mossad, Israeli secret service for the "fake". As if Israel did not have more important problems to deal with than Mario Silva.....
An example of economic failure
Going around I came in front of this shelf that hit me like a rock, reminding me how bad Venezuela has become. See, after 14 years of chavismo we have no more toilet paper, no more corn meal, no more crucial pharmaceuticals for cancer of HIV patients, no more X,Y and Z ..... And in France I saw that Royal Canin® display......
Yes, there is a specific type of dog food for the breed, including one for my dog. In Venezuela, after 14 year of revolution the basics are missing for rich and poor alike. In France, when the rich can afford hyper expensive specific dog food I am pretty sure that the poor can afford toilet paper... I cannot tell you how
And for that matter, by the time I come back there may not be much dog food left.....
Yes, there is a specific type of dog food for the breed, including one for my dog. In Venezuela, after 14 year of revolution the basics are missing for rich and poor alike. In France, when the rich can afford hyper expensive specific dog food I am pretty sure that the poor can afford toilet paper... I cannot tell you how
And for that matter, by the time I come back there may not be much dog food left.....
Monday, 20 May 2013
Waldoniel History Walk
UPDATED
There is this little video of a typical walk during this trip: wind, rain, cold, like a November in May. I will give a full explanation later. Enjoy your speculations.
And you certainly will agree that this is more interesting and fresh than the score from Mario Silva...
Update: I will not lift the mystery completely but will explain the video (I have another post coming).
During WWII the Germans built a defensive wall all along the Atlantic Coast. It was breached in Normandy with great difficulty but breached nevertheless. However, it would have been equally difficult anywhere else.
On the Atlantic coast that goes from the Gironde to Spain there is a long stretch of tall sand dunes and the Germans had to build huge defenses, blockhaus, on top of dunes. By definition there is no hard ground below a dune by the sea shore. However dunes move, beaches are eroded in places and grow in other places. What you see in the clip are two set of such defenses that fell down over the decades towards the eroding shores. But not only that, they got closer to each one!!! Eventually they will become reef, disappear under water and maybe in a couple of decades will be covered by the sand of a new beach. Let's say the dunes behaved over time as a sort of quicksand.
There is this little video of a typical walk during this trip: wind, rain, cold, like a November in May. I will give a full explanation later. Enjoy your speculations.
And you certainly will agree that this is more interesting and fresh than the score from Mario Silva...
Update: I will not lift the mystery completely but will explain the video (I have another post coming).
During WWII the Germans built a defensive wall all along the Atlantic Coast. It was breached in Normandy with great difficulty but breached nevertheless. However, it would have been equally difficult anywhere else.
On the Atlantic coast that goes from the Gironde to Spain there is a long stretch of tall sand dunes and the Germans had to build huge defenses, blockhaus, on top of dunes. By definition there is no hard ground below a dune by the sea shore. However dunes move, beaches are eroded in places and grow in other places. What you see in the clip are two set of such defenses that fell down over the decades towards the eroding shores. But not only that, they got closer to each one!!! Eventually they will become reef, disappear under water and maybe in a couple of decades will be covered by the sand of a new beach. Let's say the dunes behaved over time as a sort of quicksand.
Friday, 17 May 2013
Maduro is a fascist idiot, the worst kind because they are cruel by sport
 |
| Lorenzo Mendoza promoting his competition? Harina PAN all alone in the middle.... |
Apparently Maduro has been making a total ass of himself. I mean, TOTAL, as in without possible redemption, total enough that we truly must wonder why in hell Chavez named him his heir. Heck! Even Ramirez starts looking good in comparison. However I must also say that the idiotic presentations of Maduro seem at least to come in big part from his totally inadequate staff. What we see this week is the result of what happens when dumb instructs idiot.
Let's start with the Polar case I left you with last week end. Maduro attempt at blaming the Polar group for all of the food scarcity problem backfired badly as early as Monday when Lorenzo Mendoza, spotting a cheap shirt and surprising long hair showed all the corn flour brands that are supposedly produced in Venezuela. This great picture, reproduced from many angles depending on the media reporting is clearly understandable for the Venezuelan on foot, in line, branded, for a couple of kilos of corn flour. They all know that when they find corn flour, it is most of the times from Polar, almost none from the other brands. Polar is the lone one working.... On Tuesday the regime had to back down and pretend that they were going to be all love and kisses and collaboration with Polar which may get, hold tight, a lease of some state plants that went under to refurbish them for the regime to pretend it produces corn flour again....
You would think that a chastised Maduro would know better, that by now he should have realized that the staff ad the food and agriculture ministries had no f*****g ideas of Polar realities and numbers and that he would stay quiet for a while. Think again..... On Thursday he attacked another big group, Protinal. This is the main poultry producer in Venezuela, at least a third of the country and possibly the best run business in that field. I know that as a fact. Apparently Maduro received a complaint from a local producer that Protinal refused to buy his corn, preferring instead to import it. So Maduro made a big show, accusing Protinal of sabotaging the local production of corn. and easy charge to do since Protinal is partly owned by Cargill, a world grain trader.
Unfortunately the guys around Maduro once again got it all wrong, pathetically wrong. To begin with, the local production is not enough anyway to cover all the corn needs for the country, be it white corn for Polar and its Harina PAN or yellow corn for livestock feed. Second, to be allowed to import corn you must prove that the bulk of Venezuela's crop has been bought and that there is a need to import. The regime would know that, Ivan Gil the minister for agriculture would know that if he were not such a political hack. His people signed whatever import license Protinal had. Third, indeed the regime forces my customers to buy corn but sometime the corn is of such low quality that they must refuse since the corn would kill their livestock because of its moldy content, its poor nutritional value, etc.... I also know that as a fact, I have seen many quality control results from many people in my consulting activities. Whoever complained to Maduro I am willing to bet had a dismal corn not fit for animal consumption. And finally, if Protinal in the end took its chance in not buying that corn it was because harassed enough elsewhere by the regime (CADIVI, supplies, labor laws, etc... see this entry of the blog) it could not afford the losses in dead animals that this toxic corn would have caused.
OK, that would be enough for yours truly who knows his stuff. But nooooo... there had to be two purely extra fascist moments lurking in the news.
The idiot one first Maduro has convoked (what is that new mania of convoking everyone now? Is this "I am not Chavez" attempt at renewing his image?) the owners of Venevision and Televen to his office next Monday. What for? To make a new type of TV, away from the anti values of capitalism, away from promoting violence and what not. No more tawdry soap operas, no more violence inducing shows, only wholesome shows from now on. I guess cable TV and Direct TV will be banned too...... Fundamentalists in the US would be so lucky to have Maduro as president.....
But if the more than lame excuse of Maduro is officially that high crime rates in Venezuela are linked to bad TV the real reason is elsewhere: Maduro has been smarting that Televen and even Venevision dared to show some of Capriles activities in the last campaign. Very little did they show, and even less of Capriles questioning Maduro's pseudo victory But that little was too much. So what Maduro is going to tell Cisneros and Camero next Monday is that he is going to prepare a Damocles sword of a law that will force them into passing bland ratings killing shows if they give the microphone to Capriles again. Besides that naked show of fascist power, I am not going to shred a single tear for Cisneros and Camero and hope they will be shut down at once: these creeps negotiated with Chavez in the hope that offering bland to non critical news whatsoever would shield them from abuse of power, protect them from fascism. Serves them right for abandoning RCTV or even helping to its demise as the case of Cisneros was, to his never ending shame.
And last but not least, the latest outrageously fascist attack of Maduro. He had the nerve to say on the video below that he knows the identity of the 900,000 chavista that did not vote for him last April and that he was going to do something about it. First, he admits publicly that indeed he lost that many votes, at the very least we should add if votes were truly counted as they should. Second he is lying because no matter what the electoral board did in matters of cheating it is very difficult to know who voted for whom unless hidden cameras were located in voting centers. This is just a brutal and cruel fascist ploy to scare people into voting for Maduro next time, as if, I suppose, elections were coming soon... Does Maduro knows something we do not know?
You can see it here, at second 28, he mentions the 900,000, ; at 34 seconds he says that we have their ID numbers; and there is a menacing pregnant pause that starts at second 36....... with the evil smile included.......
XXI century fascism at work......
The Waldoniel bad weather trip
Bad weather requires comfort foods and this is on one is at one of my most hallowed joints, never missed.
The second picture cannot be nicer because I have not seen the sun in three days. Still, you get the idea of the wilderness in Spring.
So you need to guess two cities/areas, the name of the joint and why I go there whenever I am in site 1.
And yes, the trees are inclined because of the wind, not because I am drunk....
The second picture cannot be nicer because I have not seen the sun in three days. Still, you get the idea of the wilderness in Spring.
So you need to guess two cities/areas, the name of the joint and why I go there whenever I am in site 1.
And yes, the trees are inclined because of the wind, not because I am drunk....
Monday, 13 May 2013
Announcement and open thread
Blogging will be very erratic for the next three weeks, thus....
... I am doing a first time experience. I will have an open thread, with moderation as I hope that I will be at least able to check the blog every couple of days to approve messages. Please, I will require thoughtful comments from the following themes or other you may deem relevant since it is an open thread after all.
Do you consider Venezuela today to be a dictatorship? And why?
If you think not, that it is not a dictatorship, just a mere authoritarian regime, tell us why you think you can make such a distinction.
I mean this thread seriously because I think we should clarify terms in view of what has happened in Venezuela over the last couple of years. So take you time, think about it and post, or reply to those who post. Since there is moderation, take your time to be thoughtful as your comment may be delayed up to 48 hours..... Also, even if I post something, I will still keep this thread on top, a two weeks reader discussion. I am challenging you.
And yes, chavistas are not welcome to this thread because if you think that Venezuela is a fully functional democracy then you are insulting our intelligence by denying what cannot be denied anymore. You are not here to debate, you are agents provocateurs.
... I am doing a first time experience. I will have an open thread, with moderation as I hope that I will be at least able to check the blog every couple of days to approve messages. Please, I will require thoughtful comments from the following themes or other you may deem relevant since it is an open thread after all.
Do you consider Venezuela today to be a dictatorship? And why?
If you think not, that it is not a dictatorship, just a mere authoritarian regime, tell us why you think you can make such a distinction.
I mean this thread seriously because I think we should clarify terms in view of what has happened in Venezuela over the last couple of years. So take you time, think about it and post, or reply to those who post. Since there is moderation, take your time to be thoughtful as your comment may be delayed up to 48 hours..... Also, even if I post something, I will still keep this thread on top, a two weeks reader discussion. I am challenging you.
And yes, chavistas are not welcome to this thread because if you think that Venezuela is a fully functional democracy then you are insulting our intelligence by denying what cannot be denied anymore. You are not here to debate, you are agents provocateurs.
Saturday, 11 May 2013
Will the Venezuelan regime dare to put Polar on the scaffold? (or gallows, depending you local lingo)
I was on the road today and only tonight did I get the latest idiocies of the regime. This one must feel quite a lot of heat to consider taking over Polar, the largest private company in Venezuela, which today may represent about 4% of the GNP of Venezuela, a high number not because of any monopolistic intentions from Polar but because in a sea of bankruptcies and expropriations the Polar ship is somehow still afloat.
But first a little bit of background.
Last Wednesday as evidence of food shortages increased I wrote a template for people to understand what is going on (it is my line of work, you know, and in all modesty I think I know better than Maduro). Not wanting to be repetitive, in a nutshell, the regime controls the distribution of food in Venezuela, and the supply of raw materials to food manufacturers, either through access to currency, or by simply authorizing who gets what of each crop, or deciding what raw material can be imported regardless of the country rel needs. To this you had disastrous expropriations of productive lands, labor laws that make it very difficult to get a stable working schedule, the poor state of infrastructure from terrible roads to frequent power outages and you can guess why is it that the country needs to import straight half of its food at least.
All of this is not news but since the disease of Chavez the only care of the regime has been to survive and thus economic matters have simply not been dealt with. Period. As a consequence in the last two months the scarcity crisis has started to take a dangerous turn and the difficulty to get the basic corn flour for the "arepa" is becoming fast a political problem for the regime, as if it needed yet one more.
Anticipating an attack from the regime, Polar has already being preparing itself. After all, Polar is tired of all the attacks that Chavez himself did, but always balking once at the edge. After all, Chavez had the required intelligence to understand that his expropriations were a failure and that he simply could not afford to starve the country if he dared to take Polar. I am afraid his heirs have no such notion and may be willing to take that chance, in particular the idiot serving as Vice President, Arreaza, just because he nailed one of Chavez daughters, el bragetazo, the zipper flash, you know what for....
The market share for corn flour by Polar, Harina P.A.N., is roughly half of it. Certainly if the regime would let it be so, Polar has the technical expertise to grow all the required corn and produce 100% of corn flour required in Venezuela. I am willing to wager that in half a decade Polar could reach that goal if it wanted to and were allowed to do so, and we would all be the better for. But Chavez has hated Polar always because Polar is the symbol of what is good in Venezuelans that we can be successful and productive and honest and creative when chavismo is neither of those, plus a few tares of its own. I apologize for the chauvinistic tone of this paragraph but sometimes things need to be spelled out for the idiot chavista that still visit this blog. Thus Chavez has tried to counter Polar by taking over or pretending to build the competition of Polar, going as far as taking away grain producers from Polar so that it would not have access to corn. Polar let it be, knowing full well that the inherent chavismo incompetence would show sooner or later.
Sure enough, we got that show this week.
Thus, perhaps unwisely but knowing that the regime would attack anyway, Polar in its official tweet states that the problem is not Harina PAN which is working full speed but the other brands that are not produced anymore. I pick a couple of the tweets for your information.
I am not concerned about Polar whatsoever: I know that they have ALL the paper trail from the regime itself that can prove that not only they cannot hoard shit, but that they produce as much as they are able to do. It is possible that Polar has "decreased" its production artificially because its corn supply is not enough and on their own they have started a mild form of rationing by becoming on purpose and provisionally less productive. But even if this were to be true, can we blame Polar? Would it be a good idea to pull it all out of the silos in a couple of weeks and then wait for the next harvest starting at best in July?
What I am concerned with is the regime, that it is clearly losing its senses, if it had any left. In Maduro demands against Polar today we even learned that the regime had already sustained meetings with Polar, so we wonder why is it they want Lorenzo Mendoza Tuesday in Arreaza's office. But one of these meetings was with the dense Rafael Ramirez, the one that has ruined PDVSA, the biggest enabler of corruption himself in Venezuela. So we learn that he met "cordially" with Polar's Mendoza himself, that he told him collaboration was possible but that they would never sign a pact with the bourgeoisie. Huh? I wonder if really Ramirez is that stupid, though I can believe that he has become that stupid, that he now believes that threats against the last person able to help him out in Venezuela are going to stimulate Mendoza.....
I am telling you, this show today worries me because the regime feels cornered and it is thus becoming mental. In their pathological need to prove that they won in April, that they are able to rule and do as they please, they are willing to put the country in starvation......
But first a little bit of background.
Last Wednesday as evidence of food shortages increased I wrote a template for people to understand what is going on (it is my line of work, you know, and in all modesty I think I know better than Maduro). Not wanting to be repetitive, in a nutshell, the regime controls the distribution of food in Venezuela, and the supply of raw materials to food manufacturers, either through access to currency, or by simply authorizing who gets what of each crop, or deciding what raw material can be imported regardless of the country rel needs. To this you had disastrous expropriations of productive lands, labor laws that make it very difficult to get a stable working schedule, the poor state of infrastructure from terrible roads to frequent power outages and you can guess why is it that the country needs to import straight half of its food at least.
All of this is not news but since the disease of Chavez the only care of the regime has been to survive and thus economic matters have simply not been dealt with. Period. As a consequence in the last two months the scarcity crisis has started to take a dangerous turn and the difficulty to get the basic corn flour for the "arepa" is becoming fast a political problem for the regime, as if it needed yet one more.
Anticipating an attack from the regime, Polar has already being preparing itself. After all, Polar is tired of all the attacks that Chavez himself did, but always balking once at the edge. After all, Chavez had the required intelligence to understand that his expropriations were a failure and that he simply could not afford to starve the country if he dared to take Polar. I am afraid his heirs have no such notion and may be willing to take that chance, in particular the idiot serving as Vice President, Arreaza, just because he nailed one of Chavez daughters, el bragetazo, the zipper flash, you know what for....
The market share for corn flour by Polar, Harina P.A.N., is roughly half of it. Certainly if the regime would let it be so, Polar has the technical expertise to grow all the required corn and produce 100% of corn flour required in Venezuela. I am willing to wager that in half a decade Polar could reach that goal if it wanted to and were allowed to do so, and we would all be the better for. But Chavez has hated Polar always because Polar is the symbol of what is good in Venezuelans that we can be successful and productive and honest and creative when chavismo is neither of those, plus a few tares of its own. I apologize for the chauvinistic tone of this paragraph but sometimes things need to be spelled out for the idiot chavista that still visit this blog. Thus Chavez has tried to counter Polar by taking over or pretending to build the competition of Polar, going as far as taking away grain producers from Polar so that it would not have access to corn. Polar let it be, knowing full well that the inherent chavismo incompetence would show sooner or later.
Sure enough, we got that show this week.
Thus, perhaps unwisely but knowing that the regime would attack anyway, Polar in its official tweet states that the problem is not Harina PAN which is working full speed but the other brands that are not produced anymore. I pick a couple of the tweets for your information.
Harina PAN atiende el 48% del mercado y se está produciendo al 100% de capacidad. ¿Dónde están las demás marcas?
— Empresas Polar (@EmpresasPolar) May 9, 2013
Harina PAN se produce al 100% de su capacidad, pero no alcanza para todos por la insuficiente oferta de otras marcasMaduro coming back from a not very successful foreign tour finds this mess and decides to take the offensive. In the video below you see the moment in today's cadena when he grotesquely demands that Lorenzo Mendoza, CEO/owner of Polar, comes next Tuesday to the office of Arreaza to account on why is Polar not producing as much as "it is supposed", why it is dropping production and all sorts of other stuff which the readers by now know are not the fault of Polar but of the regime which controls are simply suffocating all. Polar has accepted the challenge. And Arreaza is an idiot for suggesting such a scene (I am sure he did, he is mean and idiot enough for that mistake, for giving Polar a platform to criticize visibly the regime policies if it wishes so).
— Empresas Polar (@EmpresasPolar) May 9, 2013
I am not concerned about Polar whatsoever: I know that they have ALL the paper trail from the regime itself that can prove that not only they cannot hoard shit, but that they produce as much as they are able to do. It is possible that Polar has "decreased" its production artificially because its corn supply is not enough and on their own they have started a mild form of rationing by becoming on purpose and provisionally less productive. But even if this were to be true, can we blame Polar? Would it be a good idea to pull it all out of the silos in a couple of weeks and then wait for the next harvest starting at best in July?
What I am concerned with is the regime, that it is clearly losing its senses, if it had any left. In Maduro demands against Polar today we even learned that the regime had already sustained meetings with Polar, so we wonder why is it they want Lorenzo Mendoza Tuesday in Arreaza's office. But one of these meetings was with the dense Rafael Ramirez, the one that has ruined PDVSA, the biggest enabler of corruption himself in Venezuela. So we learn that he met "cordially" with Polar's Mendoza himself, that he told him collaboration was possible but that they would never sign a pact with the bourgeoisie. Huh? I wonder if really Ramirez is that stupid, though I can believe that he has become that stupid, that he now believes that threats against the last person able to help him out in Venezuela are going to stimulate Mendoza.....
I am telling you, this show today worries me because the regime feels cornered and it is thus becoming mental. In their pathological need to prove that they won in April, that they are able to rule and do as they please, they are willing to put the country in starvation......
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Catastrophic news for the regime: Inflation at 4.3% and RCTV revenge
The regime got two major knockdowns today.
It had to admit, confess, after a week delay, that inflation for April was 4.3%. Think about this: how many countries in the world have an ANNUAL inflation BELOW 4.3%? To make things worse, the central bank also confessed to a scarcity index of almost 30%, which roughly means that when you go to a grocery store one out of three basic food staples you are looking for will be missing.
JUST FOR FOOD, for El Pueblo, inflation was 6,4%..........
The second blow comes from 2007. The Inter-american Commission for Human Rights got tired to wait for a response from the Venezuelan government for its arbitrary closing of RCTV in 2007 (link to the many posts I wrote on that topic, for those new here). The regime refused to attend the recommendations, gracious one by the way since they accepted that Tves was displaced as long as new bands were made available for an RCTV revival. In fact, apparently the regime did not even bother replying.... So the Commission has decided to sue the regime in the Inter-American Court where the the regime will be forced to defend its arguments for the closing on RCTV in public.
This is big, my friends. And the timing is perfect as the regime shows that it has become a dictatorship A reminder that full freedom of expression has been denied to Venezuelans since 2007 is a major plus for us.
Excerpts of today's communique by the IACHR: (my emphasis and my comments)
"In its Merits Report, the Commission concluded that this decision violated the right to freedom of expression, the right to equality and non-discrimination, and the administrative due process. Although the formal objective declared by the State to support diversity and pluralism was indeed a legitimate public interest, the evidence of the case showed that the decision was based on the editorial line of the station. In this way, the decision was a clear act of deviation of power and an indirect restriction incompatible with the right to freedom of expression."
"In addition, RCTV was treated differently in comparison with other TV operators whose circumstances related to the concession were identical. The IACHR submitted the difference of treatment to strict scrutiny and concluded that the State could not justify its acts and, therefore, it also incurred in a violation of the rights to equal protection under the law and non-discrimination. The Commission also concluded that the process that led to the confiscation of property of RCTV violated the administrative due process."
In short, ALL of the actions in 2007 were condemned by the IACHR. ALL....
"... the Inter-American Commission recommended the State of Venezuela to initiate proceedings to allocate a free-to-air nationwide television frequency in which RCTV is able to participate, at a minimum, under conditions of equality. The process should be open, independent and transparent, apply clear, objective and reasonable criteria, and avoid any political consideration that discriminates on the basis of a media outlet’s editorial stance, in keeping with the standards set forth in this report; to make reparations to the victims for the damages they sustained as a direct result of the due process violations; and to adopt the measures necessary to guarantee that the process whereby radio and television frequencies are granted and renewed comports with the Venezuelan State’s international obligations vis-à-vis freedom of expression."
See, it was not so bad. The IACHR only asked that all be treated equal, and not differently. Remember that Venevision who accepted to remove all of its talk shows was granted its renewal of license while its news hour became absolutely worthless as far as news were concerned.
"This case will allow the IA Court to analyze for the first time the effects on the right to freedom of expression, in its individual and social dimensions, as a consequence of the actions of the State related to the assignment of radio and television licenses. When deciding this case, the Court will have to establish which are the substantive and procedural guarantees necessary to assure that this procedures do not become a mean to indirectly restrict the right to freedom of expression which, although having a legality veil, seek to pressure or punish as well as reward journalists and media outlets based on their editorial lines."
And once again, as it was for the case of Leopoldo Lopez won, the abuse of Chavez regime gives an opportunity to the Court to define broadly rights for the continent. Idiot chavistas!
.
Really a bad day for the regime as Maduro is outside trying to salvage what can be salvaged.... And by the way, when the electoral challenge will reach the IACHR as it is prone to be, this trial will play in our favor as a precedent on why political campaigns cannot be fair in Venezuela.
It had to admit, confess, after a week delay, that inflation for April was 4.3%. Think about this: how many countries in the world have an ANNUAL inflation BELOW 4.3%? To make things worse, the central bank also confessed to a scarcity index of almost 30%, which roughly means that when you go to a grocery store one out of three basic food staples you are looking for will be missing.
JUST FOR FOOD, for El Pueblo, inflation was 6,4%..........
The second blow comes from 2007. The Inter-american Commission for Human Rights got tired to wait for a response from the Venezuelan government for its arbitrary closing of RCTV in 2007 (link to the many posts I wrote on that topic, for those new here). The regime refused to attend the recommendations, gracious one by the way since they accepted that Tves was displaced as long as new bands were made available for an RCTV revival. In fact, apparently the regime did not even bother replying.... So the Commission has decided to sue the regime in the Inter-American Court where the the regime will be forced to defend its arguments for the closing on RCTV in public.
This is big, my friends. And the timing is perfect as the regime shows that it has become a dictatorship A reminder that full freedom of expression has been denied to Venezuelans since 2007 is a major plus for us.
Excerpts of today's communique by the IACHR: (my emphasis and my comments)
"In its Merits Report, the Commission concluded that this decision violated the right to freedom of expression, the right to equality and non-discrimination, and the administrative due process. Although the formal objective declared by the State to support diversity and pluralism was indeed a legitimate public interest, the evidence of the case showed that the decision was based on the editorial line of the station. In this way, the decision was a clear act of deviation of power and an indirect restriction incompatible with the right to freedom of expression."
"In addition, RCTV was treated differently in comparison with other TV operators whose circumstances related to the concession were identical. The IACHR submitted the difference of treatment to strict scrutiny and concluded that the State could not justify its acts and, therefore, it also incurred in a violation of the rights to equal protection under the law and non-discrimination. The Commission also concluded that the process that led to the confiscation of property of RCTV violated the administrative due process."
In short, ALL of the actions in 2007 were condemned by the IACHR. ALL....
"... the Inter-American Commission recommended the State of Venezuela to initiate proceedings to allocate a free-to-air nationwide television frequency in which RCTV is able to participate, at a minimum, under conditions of equality. The process should be open, independent and transparent, apply clear, objective and reasonable criteria, and avoid any political consideration that discriminates on the basis of a media outlet’s editorial stance, in keeping with the standards set forth in this report; to make reparations to the victims for the damages they sustained as a direct result of the due process violations; and to adopt the measures necessary to guarantee that the process whereby radio and television frequencies are granted and renewed comports with the Venezuelan State’s international obligations vis-à-vis freedom of expression."
See, it was not so bad. The IACHR only asked that all be treated equal, and not differently. Remember that Venevision who accepted to remove all of its talk shows was granted its renewal of license while its news hour became absolutely worthless as far as news were concerned.
"This case will allow the IA Court to analyze for the first time the effects on the right to freedom of expression, in its individual and social dimensions, as a consequence of the actions of the State related to the assignment of radio and television licenses. When deciding this case, the Court will have to establish which are the substantive and procedural guarantees necessary to assure that this procedures do not become a mean to indirectly restrict the right to freedom of expression which, although having a legality veil, seek to pressure or punish as well as reward journalists and media outlets based on their editorial lines."
And once again, as it was for the case of Leopoldo Lopez won, the abuse of Chavez regime gives an opportunity to the Court to define broadly rights for the continent. Idiot chavistas!
.
Really a bad day for the regime as Maduro is outside trying to salvage what can be salvaged.... And by the way, when the electoral challenge will reach the IACHR as it is prone to be, this trial will play in our favor as a precedent on why political campaigns cannot be fair in Venezuela.
Massive shortages of corn flour in Venezuela
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| Line at a La32, a Chinese everything joint |
El Impulso earlier this week was showing front page the ridiculous long line in a Barquisimeto location, but also, way more damming, how people were branded for their turn in line!!! I am also putting these pictures at the end of this entry.
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| Line at MAKRO San Felipe, coming from INSIDE the store out. |
What can we make out of this?
First, that ration cards are not far in the future. Though in Venezuela it may be easier for the regime to be highly unjust and limit itself to branding people as an easier way to "manage" the food shortage.
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| Branding people, El Pueblo, in line. |
And to make this even worse, Venezuelans like their corn meal from white corn, not yellow corn. So finding white corn overseas is not easy because Venezuela is the main consumer of white corn, and used to be the biggest producer probably But even the few eccentrics like yours truly who much prefer yellow corn meal for their arepas cannot find it anyway. In San Felipe or Caracas it has been more than one year since last time I saw yellow corn meal. I have been told that it can be found only in Oriente where people have a liking for that more flavored variety of corn but even there it is in short supply so the regime does not allow it to be sent to other states. Or something like that since no one in the government is willing to fess up to their incompetence and Polar is certainly not going to make a fuss about it, so harassed it is already by governmental abuse.
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| Line for Harina PAN in Barquisimeto, across the highway through the on foot pass. |
Speaking of Polar. This food manufacturing giant of Venezuela is always under threat but produces more than ever the bulk of corn flour in Venezuela. All the attempts by the government at producing their own brand of corn flour have failed because of its inherent incompetence or simply because they produce a sub par product and lower classes are willing, if allowed to, to pay a surplus for Harina PAN. Meanwhile long ago Polar has set shop in Colombia from where it can export to the world Harina PAN, found in specialty stores from Sidney to Paris. This, of course underlines that if Polar were left to work on its own in Venezuela and were not harassed by the regime as it is, there would not be a corn meal crisis today. Period.
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| Fascist branding? Or is that Commie branding? I get confused sometimes.... |
Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Maduro is looking for food.... A primer on food crisis in Venezuela
I am not making this up: Maduro, the pseudo-president of Venezuela has justified his trip to Uruguay with this excuse among others:
Is the food crisis real? Yes, we do not produce enough to feed half of the population and there is no sign of the crisis being resolved.
Why can't Venezuela produce enough food when its neighbors, Colombia, Brazil and Guyana, with similar climates and soils produce enough to export to Venezuela? The dependence on oil has induced ALL governments of Venezuela, since at least 1958, to consider agriculture as a secondary issue, only used for political purposes. Price controls, subsidies and quotas have been all invented BEFORE 1999. Chavismo merely exacerbated the situation through excessive use of these control tools combined with its chronic incompetence and its insatiable corruption. Without forgetting that chavismo got more money than all previous governments since 1958 combined to spend on food imports.
Why are chavismo controls on agriculture excessive? I will give you a simple example. Any person producing supplies that are directly included in any form of food, from livestock feed to a jar of margarine in your refrigerator needs to declare its production and where that one is sent. I know that because I have to fill such forms weekly. It works this way: through Internet I must declare everything, from the nature of the load to the specific ID of the driver and truck. Not forgetting the date at which the transport HAS to take place. Then the government will decide whether to approve that shipment. When it is raw materials it is usually approved without a hitch but when it is food for human consumption sometimes you are refused to serve a given district because for some unexplained reason the government considers it as already served in full and demands you to send it elsewhere. Like this complex procedure, prone to errors, I can list a score more of such regulations that do not exist in free market countries where store shelves cringe under the weight of goods.
Is hoarding a reality in Venezuela? Hoarding is a reality in ANY economy of the world, but it only happens with items of high value, small volumes, and usually under special economic circumstances. Hoarding almost never happens with commodities because not only the margin of profit there is not worth the trouble, but also their sheer volume makes its difficult to accomplish (except, note, for cartels like OPEC which hoards its oil under ground as it pleases). And hoarding never happens with perishables unless your war economy market ensures that customers will eat rotten food. Simply said, in a global economy hoarding is difficult, does not bring high dividends and can result in you losing your market share. Venezuela does not escape from these general considerations. Even if people were trying to hoard stuff you can realize yourself that with the controls I described above, hoarding can only be successful if the people in charge of the controls are cooperating with you for kickbacks. For all practical purpose, hoarding can take place in Venezuela only at the level of local groceries, not at the level of production facilities as the regime would like you to believe.
Why the regime uses the hoarding card again and again? In an exacerbated populist regime that goes from one economic error to another one, accusing the private sector is a good way to use the ignorance of the masses to focus the blame elsewhere. The fact of the matter is that it has been years since anyone got a solid sentence for any case of hoarding even if the regime was prompt in sending them to jail for a few days based on a superficial inspection of production and storage facilities. When details come clear, once the regime journalists shut up and the producer can finally speak, we discover that any "hoarder" that was inspected never had much in store, at most a week of inventories which is below what any serious business has in serious countries under normal conditions. But certainly, the picture of a week inventory of a depot in Valencia makes for a nice political picture for people who think the shelves content in local bodega is "a lot".
Surely the renewed accusation of Maduro about hoarding cannot be the whole story as to him looking for food in tiny Uruguay? Certainly not. Maduro is paying for 14 years of agricultural mismanagement that started as soon as Chavez assumed office. By 2000-2001 expropriations of productive lands started with the expected consequences. The regime, for all its efforts, cannot show an expropriated property that produces MORE than what it produced before expropriation. When Agroisleña, the main agricultural supplier, was expropriated in 2010, it created a void that has not been filled and that has hit productivity hard. And to lower confidence of the agricultural sector, Ivan Gil, who has failed at the head of Agroisleña/Agropatria is now the new sector minister.
Can we blame expropriation alone? No, even if in my opinion expropriation are the main cause of the agricultural failure of the regime, at least psychologically, there are other reasons that weigh heavily. Currency exchange controls have been a major problem because the deficit in currency to import supplies has created havoc with production plans. As a consequence, import deficiencies and minimum investment by the private producers still at work has created an agricultural sector at least a technological decade behind other agricultural giants like Brazil in Mercosur. One pathetic example is how Venezuela was still producing enough coffee in 1999 for its consumption and now has to import half of what it needs while coffee plantations are increasingly abandoned. Even Yvan Gil has been forced into recognizing the critical state of that sector! A sector unable to compete today with international standards of quality and yields.... while the regime happily props Nicaragua by buying all of its low quality coffee.
Surely, with such scarcity those who are still working must be minting coins? Of course not. The most pernicious governmental action is the preservation over a decade now of price controls which are not adjusted according to inflation to preserve at least a balance. Subsidies also are not enough when inflation goes faster than any subsidy adjustment. Apparently the chavista bureaucrats in Caracas, from their AC offices, since they know better what the price of the crops should be than the guys in the field, fighting back insects, sun and heat. The political necessity of slowing down inflation (which has failed miserably) has made the government to force producer to sell below cost certain goods. How can the regime expect people to work hard, to invest in technology to increase productivity when they cannot be rewarded, or pay for technology and supplies?
So, in the end, what is the truth about production? Impossible to say. Ivan Gil has the gumption to state that Venezuela produces more than in 1999 when Fedeagro says we are 30% down in recent years. The truth is that it is impossible to know exactly what is truly produced in Venezuela. The regime statistics cannot be audited (like the electoral numbers!). In addition, there are numerous reports of the regime importing stuff and labeling it Hecho en Venezuela. I personally know about imported raw sugar, finished to white here and thus claimed to be fully produced in Venezuela. Also, live cattle arriving at Puerto Cabello to be slaughtered in Venezuela leaves as carcasses Hecho en Venezuela. On the other hand Fedeagro has only access to what private producers tell them so they may be more negative than necessary. In short, for the last half decade it is impossible to know how bad the agricultural sector numbers are.
The crude reality. Agricultural production in Venezuela cannot properly grow for a variety of reasons that the regime is unwilling to tackle for political reasons and for corruption. In addition to adverse conditions (deficient road infrastructure, difficultly to find supplies, unruly workers no matter how much you pay them, if you can find them, problems with electricity supply, questioned property rights) the courageous producer has to face costs that do not exist in other countries (personal insecurity, unyielding bureaucracy, inflation now three years in a row above 20%) without the means to counter these costs and conditions (price control, interdiction to export any food item out of Venezuela). The only thing that has allowed some agricultural production to remain alive is that banks are forced to loan at preferential interests a portion of their portfolio to agribusiness Those loans whose interest rates are below inflation are the last life line left for the country side. And they benefit much more the larger concerns than the small producers which are squeezed out of the field inexorably.
“Parte clave de la gira que yo arranco mañana (...) es para garantizar fortalecer nuevamente la reserva alimentaria de productos básicos de nuestro país a tres meses"So many things wrong already there, not to mention that he also accused the private agricultural sector of hoarding and sabotaging the transition to socialism. Thus I suppose that I need to write a primer on food shortages in Venezuela as the one I did a few days ago for media.
A key part of the tour I am starting tomorrow (...) is to guarantee to strengthen [sic] again the food reserve of basic products of our country for three months. (I am sorry, I cannot translate it any better, the guy cannot speak properly).
Is the food crisis real? Yes, we do not produce enough to feed half of the population and there is no sign of the crisis being resolved.
Why can't Venezuela produce enough food when its neighbors, Colombia, Brazil and Guyana, with similar climates and soils produce enough to export to Venezuela? The dependence on oil has induced ALL governments of Venezuela, since at least 1958, to consider agriculture as a secondary issue, only used for political purposes. Price controls, subsidies and quotas have been all invented BEFORE 1999. Chavismo merely exacerbated the situation through excessive use of these control tools combined with its chronic incompetence and its insatiable corruption. Without forgetting that chavismo got more money than all previous governments since 1958 combined to spend on food imports.
Why are chavismo controls on agriculture excessive? I will give you a simple example. Any person producing supplies that are directly included in any form of food, from livestock feed to a jar of margarine in your refrigerator needs to declare its production and where that one is sent. I know that because I have to fill such forms weekly. It works this way: through Internet I must declare everything, from the nature of the load to the specific ID of the driver and truck. Not forgetting the date at which the transport HAS to take place. Then the government will decide whether to approve that shipment. When it is raw materials it is usually approved without a hitch but when it is food for human consumption sometimes you are refused to serve a given district because for some unexplained reason the government considers it as already served in full and demands you to send it elsewhere. Like this complex procedure, prone to errors, I can list a score more of such regulations that do not exist in free market countries where store shelves cringe under the weight of goods.
Is hoarding a reality in Venezuela? Hoarding is a reality in ANY economy of the world, but it only happens with items of high value, small volumes, and usually under special economic circumstances. Hoarding almost never happens with commodities because not only the margin of profit there is not worth the trouble, but also their sheer volume makes its difficult to accomplish (except, note, for cartels like OPEC which hoards its oil under ground as it pleases). And hoarding never happens with perishables unless your war economy market ensures that customers will eat rotten food. Simply said, in a global economy hoarding is difficult, does not bring high dividends and can result in you losing your market share. Venezuela does not escape from these general considerations. Even if people were trying to hoard stuff you can realize yourself that with the controls I described above, hoarding can only be successful if the people in charge of the controls are cooperating with you for kickbacks. For all practical purpose, hoarding can take place in Venezuela only at the level of local groceries, not at the level of production facilities as the regime would like you to believe.
Why the regime uses the hoarding card again and again? In an exacerbated populist regime that goes from one economic error to another one, accusing the private sector is a good way to use the ignorance of the masses to focus the blame elsewhere. The fact of the matter is that it has been years since anyone got a solid sentence for any case of hoarding even if the regime was prompt in sending them to jail for a few days based on a superficial inspection of production and storage facilities. When details come clear, once the regime journalists shut up and the producer can finally speak, we discover that any "hoarder" that was inspected never had much in store, at most a week of inventories which is below what any serious business has in serious countries under normal conditions. But certainly, the picture of a week inventory of a depot in Valencia makes for a nice political picture for people who think the shelves content in local bodega is "a lot".
Surely the renewed accusation of Maduro about hoarding cannot be the whole story as to him looking for food in tiny Uruguay? Certainly not. Maduro is paying for 14 years of agricultural mismanagement that started as soon as Chavez assumed office. By 2000-2001 expropriations of productive lands started with the expected consequences. The regime, for all its efforts, cannot show an expropriated property that produces MORE than what it produced before expropriation. When Agroisleña, the main agricultural supplier, was expropriated in 2010, it created a void that has not been filled and that has hit productivity hard. And to lower confidence of the agricultural sector, Ivan Gil, who has failed at the head of Agroisleña/Agropatria is now the new sector minister.
Can we blame expropriation alone? No, even if in my opinion expropriation are the main cause of the agricultural failure of the regime, at least psychologically, there are other reasons that weigh heavily. Currency exchange controls have been a major problem because the deficit in currency to import supplies has created havoc with production plans. As a consequence, import deficiencies and minimum investment by the private producers still at work has created an agricultural sector at least a technological decade behind other agricultural giants like Brazil in Mercosur. One pathetic example is how Venezuela was still producing enough coffee in 1999 for its consumption and now has to import half of what it needs while coffee plantations are increasingly abandoned. Even Yvan Gil has been forced into recognizing the critical state of that sector! A sector unable to compete today with international standards of quality and yields.... while the regime happily props Nicaragua by buying all of its low quality coffee.
Surely, with such scarcity those who are still working must be minting coins? Of course not. The most pernicious governmental action is the preservation over a decade now of price controls which are not adjusted according to inflation to preserve at least a balance. Subsidies also are not enough when inflation goes faster than any subsidy adjustment. Apparently the chavista bureaucrats in Caracas, from their AC offices, since they know better what the price of the crops should be than the guys in the field, fighting back insects, sun and heat. The political necessity of slowing down inflation (which has failed miserably) has made the government to force producer to sell below cost certain goods. How can the regime expect people to work hard, to invest in technology to increase productivity when they cannot be rewarded, or pay for technology and supplies?
So, in the end, what is the truth about production? Impossible to say. Ivan Gil has the gumption to state that Venezuela produces more than in 1999 when Fedeagro says we are 30% down in recent years. The truth is that it is impossible to know exactly what is truly produced in Venezuela. The regime statistics cannot be audited (like the electoral numbers!). In addition, there are numerous reports of the regime importing stuff and labeling it Hecho en Venezuela. I personally know about imported raw sugar, finished to white here and thus claimed to be fully produced in Venezuela. Also, live cattle arriving at Puerto Cabello to be slaughtered in Venezuela leaves as carcasses Hecho en Venezuela. On the other hand Fedeagro has only access to what private producers tell them so they may be more negative than necessary. In short, for the last half decade it is impossible to know how bad the agricultural sector numbers are.
The crude reality. Agricultural production in Venezuela cannot properly grow for a variety of reasons that the regime is unwilling to tackle for political reasons and for corruption. In addition to adverse conditions (deficient road infrastructure, difficultly to find supplies, unruly workers no matter how much you pay them, if you can find them, problems with electricity supply, questioned property rights) the courageous producer has to face costs that do not exist in other countries (personal insecurity, unyielding bureaucracy, inflation now three years in a row above 20%) without the means to counter these costs and conditions (price control, interdiction to export any food item out of Venezuela). The only thing that has allowed some agricultural production to remain alive is that banks are forced to loan at preferential interests a portion of their portfolio to agribusiness Those loans whose interest rates are below inflation are the last life line left for the country side. And they benefit much more the larger concerns than the small producers which are squeezed out of the field inexorably.
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
The opposition challenges 2,320,490 votes of April 14 (15.4% votes cast, margin of victory 1.49% votes cast)
A few days ago Capriles challenged the whole election.
Today, there were quite a few voting centers which results of April 14 where directly challenged. In short, what the opposition demands is that the vote is repeated in those centers which are enough to not only reverse the result of last April but could give Capriles a better margin of victory than what Maduro claims (amen of the voters loss the regime has experienced in two weeks).
To understand what today means you need to understand that Capriles challenged the WHOLE election process, from the time it was called to the time Maduro was "proclaimed" in a rush.
What has been done today is a specific account of those voting centers that had unacceptable problems on April 14, problems that can cast legitimate doubt about the results in those centers (remember, from outside violence to the infamous "voto asistido" assisted vote). The opposition strategy is thus different: the judicial body is forced to look at the collected evidence, one by one, and explain why it accepts it or not. It is a lose lose for the regime's courts because if they say yes, Maduro will try to punish them and if they say no, not only the country will not accept it but all that evidence will travel ipso facto to international organizations that are more than certain to accept many of these. Exposing the lack of justice in Venezuela once again but in terms that truly can be understood overseas where unfortunately stealing an election is a graver offense than jailing Afiuni.
Do not be mistaken about the importance of today: while Maduro tries to buy legitimacy through contracts in a tour of Mercosur, the opposition renews its challenge, perhaps even legally stronger this time. Do you want to sign contracts with a guy that may neither have the time of the ability to fulfill them? Maduro's improvised tour is fast becoming a major mistake.........
Today, there were quite a few voting centers which results of April 14 where directly challenged. In short, what the opposition demands is that the vote is repeated in those centers which are enough to not only reverse the result of last April but could give Capriles a better margin of victory than what Maduro claims (amen of the voters loss the regime has experienced in two weeks).
To understand what today means you need to understand that Capriles challenged the WHOLE election process, from the time it was called to the time Maduro was "proclaimed" in a rush.
What has been done today is a specific account of those voting centers that had unacceptable problems on April 14, problems that can cast legitimate doubt about the results in those centers (remember, from outside violence to the infamous "voto asistido" assisted vote). The opposition strategy is thus different: the judicial body is forced to look at the collected evidence, one by one, and explain why it accepts it or not. It is a lose lose for the regime's courts because if they say yes, Maduro will try to punish them and if they say no, not only the country will not accept it but all that evidence will travel ipso facto to international organizations that are more than certain to accept many of these. Exposing the lack of justice in Venezuela once again but in terms that truly can be understood overseas where unfortunately stealing an election is a graver offense than jailing Afiuni.
Do not be mistaken about the importance of today: while Maduro tries to buy legitimacy through contracts in a tour of Mercosur, the opposition renews its challenge, perhaps even legally stronger this time. Do you want to sign contracts with a guy that may neither have the time of the ability to fulfill them? Maduro's improvised tour is fast becoming a major mistake.........
Sunday, 5 May 2013
The brave new opposition leadership
On Sunday night it was mandatory for all who could watch it, the interview of Maria Corina Machado on Globovision, with Nitu Perez. Globovision knows when it has a hit, as it has already the 4 segments posted.But what Maria Corina made me think of, beyond her obvious physical pain, her courage, and confirming the admiration I have for her since the 2012 primaries, is that she is just one more. Sure, right now after surgery and a swollen face she is number 1. But she is not the lone hero (1)
Since Chavez left the front scene it seems that our guys have found a new energy.
Capriles became a transformed candidate and when asked a few days ago if he was afraid of the regime he simply retorted with a smile "I am not afraid of those ones". He meant it, we could sense it.
Borges was on TV tonight. He did not get any facial fractures as MCM received but he got badly bruised and watching him hurt me. Far from scared he went one further. He called Maduro a liar and said that if the regime would release all the UNEDITED VIDEOS of April 30 at the Assembly and prove that Borges was the aggressor then he would resign. And he expected the reciprocal attitude form the regime if they could not prove it, to resign in turn. Yes, you read it clear and loud: he accused Maduro and Cabello and the others to be liars and to sue him if they dared, which is what they should do if we were in a democracy.
Or we can discuss r-General Rivero who immediately upon his illegal arrest went on hunger strike and has now 8 days.
And more, from Leopoldo Lopez and Henri Falcon threatened alongside their families, or Ismael Garcia defending all of them and exposing himself to sanctions, or Ledezma going to Miami to seek support knowing full well he risks arrest at the airport on his return.
It would be too easy to dismiss their renewed courage on Chavez exit: they all opposed him before and some paid for it then. Chavez may have surrendered Venezuela to Cuba but at least it was understood by all that he hoped to be leader of both countries. And he knew where to stop, and would have never allowed things to get out of hand like they did April 30. Never mind that Chavez knew how to insult, even if was at the barrack level: Chavez would have never been as ridiculous as Maduro was today, for example, attacking Uribe because this one s going to the Inter American Court to counter Maduro threats.
No, it is not because Chavez is gone. The admirable courage that the opposition leadership is showing today is coming from them seeing the beast in front. We always knew that the Chavez underlings were bad news. Some, like yours truly, are on record that it did not matter who Chavez chose, they were all equally bad. The thing is that they not only are amazingly worse than what we already feared, but they so clearly follow Havana's rule book that it is pathetic. They cannot even be original fascists!
And that my friends is what gives them courage and should give us courage to support our leaders.
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1) Ismael Garcia said on TV tonight that Maria Corina aggressor, a female chavista representative who made a big show to accuse MCM of being the aggressor while wearing a night collar brace (you know, the soft variety so you can sleep), was caught spending time at a mall today without even her feet hurting. Ismael also added that the doctors at the police expertise told her in confidence that the woman had nothing. Thus are fascists, always the victims even if the other guys are the dead ones.
Saturday, 4 May 2013
Who minds the Realm?
The decomposition of the regime goes apace. These last couple of days we peeled off yet another myth: that Maduro had an inkling on diplomacy. After all, he had been Chavez foreign secretary for more than half a decade before been anointed. Surely he must have learned something. But after having clashed, unnecessarily with Spain, he clashed with even less reason and potentially more damage with Peru, ending today with a special cadena trying to clash with Obama and linking him to the Devil. (1)
In other words, Maduro was not a foreign minister, he was Chavez's errands boy. And this leaves us in a very dangerous situation. See, in serious countries, foreign policy is a state matter, directed by those in charge certainly, but always with a modicum of consult with the opposition since they could well assume the burden if they reach office. You certainly do not want to give them an extra blame against you, when they can claim to be cleaning your overseas mess, and you now in the opposition. Thus, the US president usually takes along a ranking Senator from the other side of the aisle in official state visits. And in parliamentary Europe, foreign minister go frequently to their parliament to account and explain. Even France's Sarkozy named a socialist foreign minister!
But in Venezuela foreign policy ceased to be a state policy around 2000-2002 and became strictly a policy to serve the interests of Chavez, in his dreams of continental grandeur and world epic. Foreign ministers came and went with a certain frequency until Chavez assumed it all in his hand, naming what was a mere errand boy for visits he could skip, Maduro. From then on there was no need to change foreign minsters anymore.
The problem is that now that Chavez is gone, nobody around Maduro remembers that Venezuela foreign policy should be a state matter, and nobody knows what to do with a system geared for Chavez interests when this one is not interested anymore. Maduro which was thought by many, never by yours truly by the way, to be a negotiating man, a polite and affable one, has revealed that he was a mere thug all along, to the point of being unable to call on Cabello after this one has had beaten up the opposition in Venezuela's National Assembly. No matter what power struggle may be going inside chavismo, Cabello offered a great opportunity for Maduro to score a point and this one instead decided to sink further in world opinion.
I have been watching this week the first season of Games of Thrones and there was a line from the Varys character that seemed appropriate When Ned Stark asked him who he served he replied that he served the Realm, "someone had to do it". And today I thought of it because truly, I wonder if anyone in office today is serving the Realm of Venezuela. I would even settle for knowing that at least someone has the sense to feel the need to do it.
I am at a loss since Chavez left (I am not going to discuss the before here) to find any action inside chavismo which goes beyond personal interest, personal ambition, personal preservation. From Maduro to Cabello, from Tibisay to Luisa Estela, all rule against the state, the law, the tradition, the people, the whatever. All have in mind, strictly, the "what's in for me?" No decisive economic measure has been taken besides a devastating devaluation done on the run to secure election funding. No new law has been offered except for a ruling on the work law which is going to slow down economy even further. No attempt at finding stability, any stability, has been done; unless you count repression as a road to stability. Nothing but pet projects and posturing.
And after the latest Maduro outburst to make enemies when what we need are friends, I truly wonder if anyone inside the regime is minding the country, if at least one of them is going to say "enough!". I suppose they all know what the Cuban masters did to Eddard Stark.
--------------------------
1) No need to go into details. Maduro reacted to a mere statement from Obama where this one said it was ridiculous to detain as a "spy" a mere naive movie maker. Same exaggeration with Peru where the foreign minster, provisional head of UNASUR, asked for peace and tolerance and was insulted, ambassador to Lima recalled, just to call it over within hours as if nothing. And to make sure he would make Santos further uncomfortable with him, he accused Uribe to want to kill him.
In other words, Maduro was not a foreign minister, he was Chavez's errands boy. And this leaves us in a very dangerous situation. See, in serious countries, foreign policy is a state matter, directed by those in charge certainly, but always with a modicum of consult with the opposition since they could well assume the burden if they reach office. You certainly do not want to give them an extra blame against you, when they can claim to be cleaning your overseas mess, and you now in the opposition. Thus, the US president usually takes along a ranking Senator from the other side of the aisle in official state visits. And in parliamentary Europe, foreign minister go frequently to their parliament to account and explain. Even France's Sarkozy named a socialist foreign minister!
But in Venezuela foreign policy ceased to be a state policy around 2000-2002 and became strictly a policy to serve the interests of Chavez, in his dreams of continental grandeur and world epic. Foreign ministers came and went with a certain frequency until Chavez assumed it all in his hand, naming what was a mere errand boy for visits he could skip, Maduro. From then on there was no need to change foreign minsters anymore.
The problem is that now that Chavez is gone, nobody around Maduro remembers that Venezuela foreign policy should be a state matter, and nobody knows what to do with a system geared for Chavez interests when this one is not interested anymore. Maduro which was thought by many, never by yours truly by the way, to be a negotiating man, a polite and affable one, has revealed that he was a mere thug all along, to the point of being unable to call on Cabello after this one has had beaten up the opposition in Venezuela's National Assembly. No matter what power struggle may be going inside chavismo, Cabello offered a great opportunity for Maduro to score a point and this one instead decided to sink further in world opinion.
I have been watching this week the first season of Games of Thrones and there was a line from the Varys character that seemed appropriate When Ned Stark asked him who he served he replied that he served the Realm, "someone had to do it". And today I thought of it because truly, I wonder if anyone in office today is serving the Realm of Venezuela. I would even settle for knowing that at least someone has the sense to feel the need to do it.
I am at a loss since Chavez left (I am not going to discuss the before here) to find any action inside chavismo which goes beyond personal interest, personal ambition, personal preservation. From Maduro to Cabello, from Tibisay to Luisa Estela, all rule against the state, the law, the tradition, the people, the whatever. All have in mind, strictly, the "what's in for me?" No decisive economic measure has been taken besides a devastating devaluation done on the run to secure election funding. No new law has been offered except for a ruling on the work law which is going to slow down economy even further. No attempt at finding stability, any stability, has been done; unless you count repression as a road to stability. Nothing but pet projects and posturing.
And after the latest Maduro outburst to make enemies when what we need are friends, I truly wonder if anyone inside the regime is minding the country, if at least one of them is going to say "enough!". I suppose they all know what the Cuban masters did to Eddard Stark.
--------------------------
1) No need to go into details. Maduro reacted to a mere statement from Obama where this one said it was ridiculous to detain as a "spy" a mere naive movie maker. Same exaggeration with Peru where the foreign minster, provisional head of UNASUR, asked for peace and tolerance and was insulted, ambassador to Lima recalled, just to call it over within hours as if nothing. And to make sure he would make Santos further uncomfortable with him, he accused Uribe to want to kill him.
Thursday, 2 May 2013
For foreign non-illustrated media and chavista supporters: chavismo media lock up
Since there is right now a cadena that silences a Capriles press conference that I was planning to live tweet, I decided that I might as well write the current situation of the media in Venezuela. Two reasons motivate me to do so.
The first one is that there are still idiotic (sorry, no other word applies) chavismo supporters overseas that repeat the old cliche that private media oppress the people and hide the news in Venezuela. Saddest part is that many journalists who should know better, who would never accept such a thing as a cadena at home, not only fail to report on the power abuse that cadenas are, but actually repeat the idiotic cliches over private control of media in Venezuela.
The other reason is that since so many people are working to denounce the current Venezuelan dictatorship, I thought I offer them a primer they can link too whenever convenient. So here it goes in clear, simple definitions.
CADENA: mandatory, SIMULTANEOUS, FORCED, broadcast on ALL AIR WAVES, TV and radio, of governmental messages. A cadena is called at will, often several times during the day as it happens since April 14, in particular. The cadena implies that who ever holds it can speak as long as s/he wants, that whatever commercial revenue lost by private broadcaster is not compensated. What is worse, cadenas are used to attack political adversaries, including direct insults and lies, while the aggravated parties has no right of reply, not only a simple one minute cadena, should we say, but not even a minute in the state broadcasting system news or talk shows.
PUBLIC/STATE TV MEDIA: chavismo over the years, has built an impressive array of media. The official state media is VTV which reaches ALL the country. To this you must add ViVeTV and Tves which reach almost as much as VTV, and which are supposed to be cultural and educational channels but which support, at least for ViVeTV, an extensive repeat of all political events shown on VTV. In a minor role because it does not reach as much of the country as the above, there is ANTV from the parliament, Telesur which pretends to be a chavista CÑN and local TV stations and community ones. Thus we have three national network, 2 almost national ones and dozens of local stuff which pass for all practical purposes only state messages, state propaganda or edulcorated "entertainment" as politically correct as possible. It is to be noted that in some areas which are not reached by cable TV the only TV you can get in open air broadcast is state TV (VTV or Tves).
PUBLIC/STATE RADIO MEDIA: the regime disposes of RNV, the sate radio that reaches all the country, but also of the more "commercial" YVKE which is a network of associated radios that cover all the major population centers. The situation here is worse than TV because when you travel a lot as I do you will drive through areas where the only radio stations with news you may get in your car are from or aligned with the regime. The other ones only play music and, not all, quickie local news of the road-kill-of-the-day variety.
LEY DE RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EN RADIO Y TV, with CONATEL: these are the regulatory laws and agencies that make sure private media toes the line. They are of a repressive nature, with governmental appointed supervisors, whose main objective is that embarrassing news for the regime are shown, if must be, late at night. Only private media is ever sanctioned even though state media commits abuses infinitely worse such as the VTV show "La Hojilla" everyday late night. The objective here is simple: create financial hardship to media that does not tow the line, driving them to bankruptcy if necessary, or in the case of Globovision this week to a change in ownership.
PRIVATE TV AND RADIO: these have been reduced considerably since Chavez reached office in 1999 and after the strike of 2002. Today we can divide the private media news in two groups: the neutralized ones and the other.
THE PRESS: the situation there is hardly better as the regime controls the extent of freedom of expression through allowing the importation of paper and the official advertising which for many local newspaper is the only way to survive. Local papers that dare to print unpleasantness can see their income go down by half in a few days. Only major cities can support a critical newspaper that dares to expose abuses. To this we must add the general poor quality of local papers which at best reprint articles from the main ones. For example in Yaracuy where I live, I have stopped buying the local press years ago: only red pages and mostly pro regime news though some times the infighting in chavismo does appear. Non governmental news do appear but usually in short, not very well written notes.
JUDICIAL IMPOTENCE: what is worse than anything written above is the impossibility to get justice. Several example.
It should be clear that any objective observer of the Venezuelan situation should be aware and mention these things. If they fail to do so they can only be woefully misinformed and should shut up; or fascists themselves supporting these abuses for whatever reason they have.
I hope this helps and that you may use it around.
The first one is that there are still idiotic (sorry, no other word applies) chavismo supporters overseas that repeat the old cliche that private media oppress the people and hide the news in Venezuela. Saddest part is that many journalists who should know better, who would never accept such a thing as a cadena at home, not only fail to report on the power abuse that cadenas are, but actually repeat the idiotic cliches over private control of media in Venezuela.
The other reason is that since so many people are working to denounce the current Venezuelan dictatorship, I thought I offer them a primer they can link too whenever convenient. So here it goes in clear, simple definitions.
CADENA: mandatory, SIMULTANEOUS, FORCED, broadcast on ALL AIR WAVES, TV and radio, of governmental messages. A cadena is called at will, often several times during the day as it happens since April 14, in particular. The cadena implies that who ever holds it can speak as long as s/he wants, that whatever commercial revenue lost by private broadcaster is not compensated. What is worse, cadenas are used to attack political adversaries, including direct insults and lies, while the aggravated parties has no right of reply, not only a simple one minute cadena, should we say, but not even a minute in the state broadcasting system news or talk shows.
PUBLIC/STATE TV MEDIA: chavismo over the years, has built an impressive array of media. The official state media is VTV which reaches ALL the country. To this you must add ViVeTV and Tves which reach almost as much as VTV, and which are supposed to be cultural and educational channels but which support, at least for ViVeTV, an extensive repeat of all political events shown on VTV. In a minor role because it does not reach as much of the country as the above, there is ANTV from the parliament, Telesur which pretends to be a chavista CÑN and local TV stations and community ones. Thus we have three national network, 2 almost national ones and dozens of local stuff which pass for all practical purposes only state messages, state propaganda or edulcorated "entertainment" as politically correct as possible. It is to be noted that in some areas which are not reached by cable TV the only TV you can get in open air broadcast is state TV (VTV or Tves).
PUBLIC/STATE RADIO MEDIA: the regime disposes of RNV, the sate radio that reaches all the country, but also of the more "commercial" YVKE which is a network of associated radios that cover all the major population centers. The situation here is worse than TV because when you travel a lot as I do you will drive through areas where the only radio stations with news you may get in your car are from or aligned with the regime. The other ones only play music and, not all, quickie local news of the road-kill-of-the-day variety.
LEY DE RESPONSABILIDAD SOCIAL EN RADIO Y TV, with CONATEL: these are the regulatory laws and agencies that make sure private media toes the line. They are of a repressive nature, with governmental appointed supervisors, whose main objective is that embarrassing news for the regime are shown, if must be, late at night. Only private media is ever sanctioned even though state media commits abuses infinitely worse such as the VTV show "La Hojilla" everyday late night. The objective here is simple: create financial hardship to media that does not tow the line, driving them to bankruptcy if necessary, or in the case of Globovision this week to a change in ownership.
PRIVATE TV AND RADIO: these have been reduced considerably since Chavez reached office in 1999 and after the strike of 2002. Today we can divide the private media news in two groups: the neutralized ones and the other.
Neutralized ones: Venevision which could actually be considered almost pro regime and Televen which carries a difficult balancing act because it feels sort of protected through the space it gives to Jose Vicente Rangel every Sunday morning. Some local TV which also carry a difficult balancing act, frequently threatened when the regime does not like an item. On the radio the only one with a partial national coverage has buckled down. In short, through these you get more news than on the state system but very little criticism or even analytic examination.
Free media: this is reduced today to Globovision, although its sale this week is expected to change its editorial line. But this network, which is the the one the most attacked by the regime, has a limited coverage. It is only allowed to be in open air broadcast in Valencia and Caracas, which together represent about 25% of the country. Elsewhere you can get Globovision only if you are on cable. Note: the cable system of the regime managed through CANTV does not offer Globovision even though by law it should offer it, at least last time I checked. Outside of Globovision you only have a very few independent radio stations that dare and can afford to do so because they are situated in large cities and have a local base of advertisers which allow them to survive. But nobody today can strike it rich through a "dissident" radio station as the regime has no qualms in putting pressure on advertisers.
THE PRESS: the situation there is hardly better as the regime controls the extent of freedom of expression through allowing the importation of paper and the official advertising which for many local newspaper is the only way to survive. Local papers that dare to print unpleasantness can see their income go down by half in a few days. Only major cities can support a critical newspaper that dares to expose abuses. To this we must add the general poor quality of local papers which at best reprint articles from the main ones. For example in Yaracuy where I live, I have stopped buying the local press years ago: only red pages and mostly pro regime news though some times the infighting in chavismo does appear. Non governmental news do appear but usually in short, not very well written notes.
JUDICIAL IMPOTENCE: what is worse than anything written above is the impossibility to get justice. Several example.
Persecution of journalists: when critical press journalists are attacked and/or injured, it is already a miracle that they are not the ones going to jail as the aggressors To work today a journalist needs to carry at hand helmets, gas mask, etc.... Even though the situation has become a little bit better, it is still a regular occurrence that pro regime hecklers do not balk at attacking journalists. Self censorship ensues.
Fines and more: that media and journalists are fined is one thing, but their possibility to appeal, to get a fair trial, leads them invariably to international organizations.
Public lynching: there are radio and TV programs in the state system devoted to character assassination of opposition figures, but also of people in the media. "La Hojilla" is the best known one but you should listen tot he attacks made in normal newscast of the public system, without ever the right to reply being offered while the aggravated parties simply have decided to ignore it all since there is judicial recourse. But such public lynching contributes to violent attacks by pro regime goons that feel validated in their attacks.
It should be clear that any objective observer of the Venezuelan situation should be aware and mention these things. If they fail to do so they can only be woefully misinformed and should shut up; or fascists themselves supporting these abuses for whatever reason they have.
I hope this helps and that you may use it around.
The Maduro "election" is officially challenged (impugnada), and so is the electoral system
As promised we just read that the Henrique Capriles has officially challenged/impugnado the election of April 14. he did that by sending the Comando Simon Bolivar, his electoral organization, to the high court of Venezuela, TSJ, electoral hall, with a 180 pages document. The evidence will be introduced later, as the High court proceeds with the hearings.
But that is not all. The challenge is not only on the mere result: the opposition has challenged ALL the electoral process, from weeks before the election to the following days. what is on trial is not only the result of April 14, it is all the Venezuelan Electoral system. At long last.
What can we expect?
Little. After all the high court is packed 100% with pro Chavez people, that have even felt secure enough to brag about their support of the bolibanana revolution, and that separation of powers was passé. Still, something will have to happen with the court that must rule on that sooner or later, as it has a constitutional deadline (which certainly can be pushed back as the TSJ has long done what it wishes to do without regard for the laws or constitutions as we saw recently on January 9, 2913, which is when the whole current crisis officially started).
Hypothesis 1: the TSJ is divided within its chavista mind frame and the non maduristas may be tempted to repeat the election. I see it as a weak option although the sabotage of Cabello at the National Assembly cannot make us rule it out.
Hypothesis 2: the TSJ says that the election was fine, thank you. The problem here for them is that they will need to explain why the arguments advanced by the opposition are non receivable. And the opposition ipso facto will go to international court where the regime loses 99% of its arguments. See, the regime lawyers write with the regime interests in mind and not with the purposes of the laws in mind. Thus all the regime arguments in real courts of laws flounder because there each side is weighed against the standards of laws and human rights, and not the interests of whomever occupies Miraflores Palace. That is why the regime has been busy trying to withdraw from any international organization because it knows perfectly well that it cannot win any trial there. And of course no internal peace whatsoever is achieved through such a blatant abuse.
Hypothesis 3: as a face saving ploy, to try to give Maduro more time to sort out his own problems inside chavismo, the TSJ may well annul a few voting places and call for partial repeat of elections in, say, 6 months. That way the opposition goes quiet for a while and Maduro is at least recognized as "interim" president.
At any rate, tonight Capriles will talk and if possible I will give you a live tweet at @danielduquenal with more details.
PS: as a side note, ESDATA says that Capriles won by 4 points. In English here.
But that is not all. The challenge is not only on the mere result: the opposition has challenged ALL the electoral process, from weeks before the election to the following days. what is on trial is not only the result of April 14, it is all the Venezuelan Electoral system. At long last.
What can we expect?
Little. After all the high court is packed 100% with pro Chavez people, that have even felt secure enough to brag about their support of the bolibanana revolution, and that separation of powers was passé. Still, something will have to happen with the court that must rule on that sooner or later, as it has a constitutional deadline (which certainly can be pushed back as the TSJ has long done what it wishes to do without regard for the laws or constitutions as we saw recently on January 9, 2913, which is when the whole current crisis officially started).
Hypothesis 1: the TSJ is divided within its chavista mind frame and the non maduristas may be tempted to repeat the election. I see it as a weak option although the sabotage of Cabello at the National Assembly cannot make us rule it out.
Hypothesis 2: the TSJ says that the election was fine, thank you. The problem here for them is that they will need to explain why the arguments advanced by the opposition are non receivable. And the opposition ipso facto will go to international court where the regime loses 99% of its arguments. See, the regime lawyers write with the regime interests in mind and not with the purposes of the laws in mind. Thus all the regime arguments in real courts of laws flounder because there each side is weighed against the standards of laws and human rights, and not the interests of whomever occupies Miraflores Palace. That is why the regime has been busy trying to withdraw from any international organization because it knows perfectly well that it cannot win any trial there. And of course no internal peace whatsoever is achieved through such a blatant abuse.
Hypothesis 3: as a face saving ploy, to try to give Maduro more time to sort out his own problems inside chavismo, the TSJ may well annul a few voting places and call for partial repeat of elections in, say, 6 months. That way the opposition goes quiet for a while and Maduro is at least recognized as "interim" president.
At any rate, tonight Capriles will talk and if possible I will give you a live tweet at @danielduquenal with more details.
PS: as a side note, ESDATA says that Capriles won by 4 points. In English here.
BBC "imprecision": who is at fault, the lousy journalists or the Capriles/CSB media people?
When I read the account of the BBC for the latest "punch up" in Venezuela's assembly I have to wonder about whether the journalist(s) in charge are clueless or biased pro Maduro; or the press folks at the Comando Simon Bolivar (CSB) are failing dismally in their task of informing accurately the foreign press. Which is the right one? Or should I shudder at the thought that both ideas are right?
Whoever was in charge of writing that BBC note tried to put it all together in a single note, a note which I am afraid has not been as researched as it should have been. I am not willing to go further into my critics because after all the BBC is in general informed and has the delicacy of calling up people from both sides as I know myself first hand. Still, there are some missing elements in the BBC article that should not be missing.
For example it is inconceivable that the BBC has not noted that the only representatives with significant injuries were ALL from the opposition. There is not a single chavista representative that can claim to more than a scratch, which I dare speculate could have well been self inflicted for propaganda purposes. The one undergoing surgery as I type this note is Maria Corina Machado, not Odalis Monzon. Even yours truly, on the road yesterday for 7 hours, seems to have been able to get better information than the beeb agents.
The other thing is the reporting of electoral results. If you read the BBC article you simply can walk away wondering why Capriles is bitching. After all the BBC states that Maduro wins by 1.49% while 99.79% of the votes have been counted. All is said. Right? No, wrong....
Capriles is not asking for a recount, he is asking for an audit which must include verification of the voting registries to decide whether ballot boxes were stuffed, whether some people were allowed to vote more than once, or some people allowed to vote that should not have voted. It is simply unacceptable that at this point the local BBC guys do not even hint at that.
And I will pass on the mention of the arrest of Carlos Rivero, which narrative in the article would lead to the thought that he has been the only opposition guy to have been arrested since April 14. What about, say, the students in Barquisimeto with grievous wounds and torture? Are they less important than ex-general Rivero?
It would be easy to use the BBC as a punching ball but I am afraid that we may not put all the blame on them. For example, have they been properly told in detail by the opposition what is going on? Did the CSB asked them to attend special "talking points sessions"? If the answer is YES, then the BBC journos are pro Chavez jerks, and if the answer is NO then the CSB needs to straighten up its act. Please, if you are a BBC journalists currently in Caracas and are willing to use my blog for a comment, post it below, or better, write me for a guest post.
A few days before the election Juan Nagel forced me to write a note to support him in his complaints about clear deficiencies inside the media camp of the CSB. Is this still going on? From the lone reply in his comment section by Anamaría González Oxford, and the no reply by Ana Maria Fernandez, it is clear that both women must have gone to the same school of public information for pure vestals as CNE's Tibisay Lucena went. There is no fault with them although the consequences of their actions are for all to see.
Please, someone tell me I am wrong, that serious people are in charge, and that foreign press is indeed well informed by the CBS but some journos are just sold out to Maduro. At least it would make sense.
Whoever was in charge of writing that BBC note tried to put it all together in a single note, a note which I am afraid has not been as researched as it should have been. I am not willing to go further into my critics because after all the BBC is in general informed and has the delicacy of calling up people from both sides as I know myself first hand. Still, there are some missing elements in the BBC article that should not be missing.
For example it is inconceivable that the BBC has not noted that the only representatives with significant injuries were ALL from the opposition. There is not a single chavista representative that can claim to more than a scratch, which I dare speculate could have well been self inflicted for propaganda purposes. The one undergoing surgery as I type this note is Maria Corina Machado, not Odalis Monzon. Even yours truly, on the road yesterday for 7 hours, seems to have been able to get better information than the beeb agents.
The other thing is the reporting of electoral results. If you read the BBC article you simply can walk away wondering why Capriles is bitching. After all the BBC states that Maduro wins by 1.49% while 99.79% of the votes have been counted. All is said. Right? No, wrong....
Capriles is not asking for a recount, he is asking for an audit which must include verification of the voting registries to decide whether ballot boxes were stuffed, whether some people were allowed to vote more than once, or some people allowed to vote that should not have voted. It is simply unacceptable that at this point the local BBC guys do not even hint at that.
And I will pass on the mention of the arrest of Carlos Rivero, which narrative in the article would lead to the thought that he has been the only opposition guy to have been arrested since April 14. What about, say, the students in Barquisimeto with grievous wounds and torture? Are they less important than ex-general Rivero?
It would be easy to use the BBC as a punching ball but I am afraid that we may not put all the blame on them. For example, have they been properly told in detail by the opposition what is going on? Did the CSB asked them to attend special "talking points sessions"? If the answer is YES, then the BBC journos are pro Chavez jerks, and if the answer is NO then the CSB needs to straighten up its act. Please, if you are a BBC journalists currently in Caracas and are willing to use my blog for a comment, post it below, or better, write me for a guest post.
A few days before the election Juan Nagel forced me to write a note to support him in his complaints about clear deficiencies inside the media camp of the CSB. Is this still going on? From the lone reply in his comment section by Anamaría González Oxford, and the no reply by Ana Maria Fernandez, it is clear that both women must have gone to the same school of public information for pure vestals as CNE's Tibisay Lucena went. There is no fault with them although the consequences of their actions are for all to see.
Please, someone tell me I am wrong, that serious people are in charge, and that foreign press is indeed well informed by the CBS but some journos are just sold out to Maduro. At least it would make sense.
Life in the era of Youtube: old 1999 video shows the early brutality of Maduro
Oh dear.... People are unearthing stuff in Youtube and this one is a little gem, showing a younger Maduro beating up a Representative in 1999. Plus ça change et plus c'est la même chose.
Wednesday, 1 May 2013
On the road today...
... but Sylvio and Fausta managed to get me in Barquismeto for a quickie but goodie podcast.
See you tomorrow, when I am back in San Felipe and can discuss more of what is going on.
PS: Maria Corina Machado, the perverse evil aggressor of the totally unscathed chavista representative is having tomorrow morning surgery for 4, FOUR, nose fractures she got yesterday.
See you tomorrow, when I am back in San Felipe and can discuss more of what is going on.
PS: Maria Corina Machado, the perverse evil aggressor of the totally unscathed chavista representative is having tomorrow morning surgery for 4, FOUR, nose fractures she got yesterday.
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