The following image accompanies a four part series Constantine C. Menges and Phil Brennan on Latin America in Crisis, which is included in its entirety a few articles down:
Read Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, 2006-Nov-27, from the Cato Institute, by Gustavo Coronel. Excerpt:
Corruption has existed in Venezuela since at least 1821, when it gained independence. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the level of corruption fluctuated, depending on the government in power. During the government of President Hugo Chávez, however, corruption has exploded to unprecedented levels. Billions of dollars are being stolen or are otherwise unaccounted for, squandering Venezuelan resources and enriching high-level officials and their cronies.
The windfall of oil revenues has encouraged the rise in corruption. In the approximately eight years Chávez has been in power, his government has received between $175 billion and $225 billion from oil and new debt. Along with the increase in revenues has come a simultaneous reduction in transparency. For example, the state-owned oil company ceased publishing its consolidated annual financial statements in 2003, and Chávez has created new state-run financial institutions, whose operations are also opaque, that spend funds at the discretion of the executive.
Corruption now permeates all levels of Venezuelan society. Bureaucrats now rarely follow existing bidding regulations, and ordinary citizens must pay bribes to accomplish bureaucratic transactions and have to suffer rampant neglect of basic government services. All this has been encouraged by a general environment of impunity: officers implicated in major corruption scandals have sometimes been removed from their posts, but they have not otherwise been held legally accountable.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2010-Jan-24:
Hammering Honduras
The State Department keeps slapping an ally.Honduras will inaugurate president-elect Porfirio Lobo this week, two months after one of the world's most recently famous little countries held a successful democratic election. So we are left to wonder why the United States State Department is still trying to hammer anyone there who dared to participate last summer in the constitutional removal of President Manuel Zelaya from office.
The U.S. has formally recognized the November presidential election, and the State Department tells us it also recognizes the congress's second vote to remove Mr. Zelaya. So what's the problem?
It appears that State's pettiness still flows from the refusal of interim president Roberto Micheletti and his cabinet, from June to December, to cave to the U.S. demand that they reinstate Mr. Zelaya. In earlier acts of pique, State stripped the U.S. visas of Mr. Micheletti, his advisers and cabinet officials and even the entire Honduran Supreme Court. Last week it yanked more visas from members of the interim government.
Insofar as Mr. Micheletti is leaving office January 27, the only explanations for this pistol-whipping would appear to be: Don't mess with Uncle Sam's regional agenda, which since April's Summit of the Americas includes overtures to Hugo Chávez, Raúl Castro and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega.
A day after the latest U.S. slap, Mr. Micheletti said he'll withdraw from public appearances for the remainder of his term. "I am going home to my house, for the peace of the nation and because I do not want to be an obstacle to the new government," he said.
Meanwhile, also under pressure from the U.S., President-elect Lobo said last week he will let Mr. Zelaya go to the Dominican Republic despite legal charges pending against him. The U.S. has been lobbying for a "get out of jail free" card for Mr. Zelaya. Mr. Lobo no doubt wants the foreign aid tap turned back on, so this arrangement benefits both sides. Prediction: Mr. Zelaya will join the Chávez network to make constant trouble for the region's democracies. And his U.S. visa will remain intact.
The State Department has never explained its harsh treatment of Honduras, a democratic ally. And this latest bullying won't help U.S. credibility with other Latin leaders who might help us, as opposed to assisting the chavistas.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2010-Jan-30, p.A14:
The Chávez Meltdown
There's a lot of ruin in Venezuela.To the short and brutal list of life's certainties, let us add that socialism invariably leads nations to economic ruin. Latest case in point: Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian" Republic of Venezuela.
Earlier this month, the Venezuelan strongman moved the official U.S. dollar exchange rate to 4.3 bolivars to the greenback from 2.15. At a stroke, he wiped out the savings and purchasing power of the very working-class people he purports to represent, most of whom have barely been getting by. News of the devaluation instantly sent the country—where consumer prices had already risen by 25% in 2009, according to official figures—into a panic, with consumers standing in line to stock up on goods before prices rose.
Mr. Chávez next decreed that he would fine and even arrest any merchant caught adjusting prices, eliding the fact that Venezuela imports nearly everything and exports only oil. Now Venezuelans have the Hobson's choice of either complying with the diktat, which means shortages, or disobeying it, which means inflation.
Yet no sooner was one catastrophe of "21st-century socialism" inflicted on Venezuelans than Mr. Chávez unveiled another. On January 12, the government instituted a series of rolling blackouts due to an electricity shortage that had been building for months. Ostensibly, the reason for the shortage was a drought that had left water levels at the country's huge Guri Dam—the source of more than 70% of its electricity—at critically low levels. But that is a function of the government's failure to maintain the dam and build additional capacity.
The instant result of the blackouts was chaos, particularly in Caracas, where people were left "stuck in elevators or in dangerous parts of town without street lighting," according to Reuters. The capital city already has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world, and Mr. Chávez was forced to suspend blackouts there two days later. The rest of the country, however, remains subject to sporadic power outages.
Behind the crack-up of Mr. Chávez's utopia is the fact that he's running out of money because Venezuela's oil production is plunging. In 1998, the year Mr. Chávez was first elected, the country pumped 3.3 million barrels a day. Today, the figure is 2.4 million barrels, and that's an optimistic estimate.
Venezuela isn't running out of crude. The problem is that Mr. Chávez has expelled or seized the assets of foreign companies capable of properly maintaining the country's fields, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. It didn't help, either, that in 2002 Mr. Chávez fired thousands of skilled employees of state oil company PdVSA because he didn't like their politics and replaced them with his political cronies.
On Monday, Mr. Chávez made a grudging concession to reality when he agreed to a joint venture with Italian oil major ENI, which itself had been run out of Venezuela in 2006. We'll leave it to the Italians to place their own bets about the limits of Mr. Chávez's caprice. They've already had fair warning that Bolivarians, like other predators, rarely change their spots.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2010-Jan-31, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Chávez Drops the Democracy Mask
Venezuela's president promises 'radical measures.'Hugo Chávez likes to say that Venezuela is a democracy and that a majority of the electorate supports him and his "21st Century Socialism." Or at least he used to make that claim. Last week the strongman gave up trying to maintain a democratic image.
Referring to nationwide civil protests—led by university students—he warned the country Thursday that if they "intensify" he is ready to take "radical measures."
Given that the Chávez government already expropriates property at will, jails political opponents, polices prices, controls foreign currency exchange, seizes media outlets and fires rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators, his threat to turn "radical" is chilling. Venezuelans have reason to fear martial law.
The Venezuelan economy is in a free fall and Mr. Chávez is in damage-control mode. One thing he can't afford is to let Venezuelans complain without consequences. Successful dictators, like Fidel Castro, make dissent a dangerous proposition, and if Mr. Chávez is to survive he knows he must do the same. His plan starts with carrots and ends with sticks.
To use carrots Mr. Chávez needs money, and that's why he announced a mega-devaluation of the bolivar on Jan. 8, taking it to an official rate of 4.3 bolivars to the dollar, from the previous 2.15. Importers of basic necessities (some foods and medicines) will still be able to buy dollars at 2.60, but for all other imported goods a dollar will now cost twice the prior rate. The net effect is that prices of "nonessential" imports doubled overnight.
This sounds like a raw deal, but not for the aspiring dictator. He has dollars because the state oil monopoly, PdVSA, is an exporter. Now when he sells those dollars he will get twice as many bolivars as he used to. Imagine what can be done with that gusher of funny money ahead of the Sept. 26 legislative elections. No need to worry about inflation either, according to Mr. Chávez. Businesses caught raising prices will be confiscated and turned over to the workers.
Students of chavismo will recognize that there's nothing new here. The revolution is built on transfers to the struggling underclass, thus creating the illusion among the poor that their Bolivarian messiah is going to make them better off.
But this perpetual motion machine is losing steam. "It is possible," one Venezuelan analyst told me, "to crunch the numbers and conclude that the 'E' class [the largest and poorest segment of society] has increased its bolivar income. But the quality of life for them has deteriorated greatly."
Exhibit A is the violent crime rate, which is the highest in the hemisphere. The poor are suffering this epidemic disproportionately more than the rich because they aren't able to purchase personal security. Public transportation is also failing the working class.
Because of its oil, natural gas, hydro and thermal resources, Venezuela ought not have a day of worry about its power supply. But after 11 years of Mr. Chávez's "revolution" there is now rationing. Only Caracas has escaped rolling blackouts instituted last month, and that may not be for long.
Experts say that the main causes of the problem are poor planning for low water levels and poor maintenance at the Guri Dam, which generates the lion's share of the country's electricity. On the health-care front, the president himself declared last year that hospitals are in a state of emergency and that many of the small health clinics that he built and staffed with Cuban doctors have been abandoned.
Mr. Chávez's base is disillusioned, and now he is going to try to make it up to them with more devalued bolivars. But with the black-market rate stubbornly stuck above six to the dollar, it's clear that the government is not able to supply the market at 4.3.
In other words, the currency is even weaker than the new official rate reflects. This means that last year's official inflation rate of 25% is not about to be tamed.
Only two things can save Hugo. One would be a new dollar windfall of oil revenue. This is why he conducted auctions for oil concessions with foreign companies last week, even though in the past he has condemned them. Just in case that doesn't pan out, he's putting the finishing touches on his police state. Last week he closed the independent cable network, Radio Caracas Television, and five other channels.
His move provoked the student marches, which have been met by heavily armed National Guard troops with shields, rubber bullets and tear gas. Now Mr. Chávez says the marches are part of an effort to overthrow him and that he is ready to get radical.
With Castro as his role model, it's not hard to guess where he's headed, oil or no oil. It is also increasingly clear that the September elections, run by the Chávez-controlled electoral council, will not offer Venezuelans a chance to vote in change.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Nov-1, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Hillary's Honduran Exit Strategy
Honduras signs a deal that means international recognition of the November 29 elections.If there is one person in Honduras who is more despised these days than deposed president Manuel Zelaya it is a foreigner who goes by the name of Hugo. We refer here not to the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez but to U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.
Many Hondurans, including, rumor has it, President Roberto Micheletti, see Mr. Llorens as the principal architect of a U.S. policy that has caused enormous Honduran hardship.
There is a chance that the agreement signed late Thursday between the interim government and Mr. Zelaya will put an end to that suffering. Finally the U.S. and the Organization of American States (OAS) have agreed to step aside and allow Honduran institutions to decide if Mr. Zelaya is to be reinstated. Without international meddling, it is quite likely that Mr. Zelaya will be refused the presidency once more.
Yet many risks remain, starting with the fact that though the U.S. said it was going to butt out of Honduran affairs, old habits die hard. Referring to Mr. Zelaya's bid for reinstatement, Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs, said last week, "That's the issue that's the most provocative and the one we will be watching most closely." Mr. Shannon should try watching the World Series instead.
The need to dictate to Hondurans how to run their country has been the problem from the start. The moment the Honduran Supreme Court ordered the arrest of Mr. Zelaya in June for organizing mob violence and attempting to overthrow the constitution Mr. Llorens anointed himself colonial viceroy in charge of imposing U.S. will. Plenty of Molotov-hurling leftists also took Mr. Zelaya's side. But Mr. Llorens staked out a position for the U.S., defending the legitimacy of the erratic former president. The U.S. ambassador used every weapon he could lay his hands on to try to force the country to restore Mr. Zelaya to power.
This violated Honduran sovereignty. But Mr. Llorens's boss back home, Barack Obama, seemed more interested in appeasing U.S. enemies than standing by friends, or even sticking to his pledge not to meddle in other countries' affairs. Mr. Chávez and Fidel Castro were supporting Mr. Zelaya, and Mr. Obama apparently wanted to be part of the gang.
Clearly no one in Washington expected it to be so hard to break the will of Hondurans. That effort became even more embarrassing when zelayistas mounted a campaign of terror, kidnapping and murdering Honduran authorities and their relatives. There were at least three such incidents in two weeks. The terrorists were also sabotaging the country's electricity grid. To avoid further taint, the U.S. sent a delegation to strike the compromise reached late Thursday.
The spin is that Mr. Zelaya will return to power. But the Honduran Congress will decide that, using opinions from the Supreme Court, the attorney general and other legal experts. Since it was the court and Congress that threw Mr. Zelaya out, this is positive. Yet if the court, which has the legal upper hand, stands firm and Congress reverses itself in favor of Mr. Zelaya, there will be a constitutional crisis.
That's not impossible, as the Zelaya reputation for buying votes is legendary. In May, the mayor of Tegucigalpa publicly denounced an offer by the Zelaya government to pay him $15 million to support a referendum on rewriting the constitution. Mr. Chávez has money too, and so do other drug-trafficking terrorist organizations around the region, like Colombia's FARC and numerous Central American gangs. These groups are notorious for infiltrating institutions. Honduras isn't immune.
Yet it is likely that the interim government decided to take the gamble because it believes that the high court and Congress, which both voted overwhelmingly to strip Mr. Zelaya of the office, will stand strong. In return for this risk, it gets U.S. and OAS recognition of the Nov. 29 presidential elections.
What is more, there will be no amnesty for Mr. Zelaya. He already has more than a dozen outstanding arrest warrants against him, and when he steps out of the Brazilian Embassy it is fully expected that he will be detained. The agreement also says that there will be no constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution so as to end presidential term limits.
Unnamed U.S. officials have told the press that Mr. Zelaya probably is coming back, turning up the heat on Honduras's Congress. And the OAS's General Secretary José Miguel Insulza is making noise about returning to Honduras to involve the OAS in Congress's decision. But Mr. Shannon reiterated to me yesterday that the U.S. believes this is now an issue for Honduran institutions to settle. He completely rejected a report in Sunday's El Pais newspaper claiming he is lobbying for votes for Mr. Zelaya's return.
By signing this agreement, Honduras helped Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton save face. In return, Mrs. Clinton should tell Mr. Insulza to stay out of the country and its affairs. She should also tell U.S. officials to cease and desist with their pro-Zelaya rumors. While she's at it, the secretary could reassign Mr. Llorens. Havana comes to mind as a suitable posting. He will be greeted as a hero by the Castros and will find it easy to continue his friendship with Mr. Zelaya.
from the Washington Post, 2009-Nov-30, by Mary Beth Sheridan:
Hondurans elect conservative businessman as president
U.S. backs election; Other Latin countries call it illegitimateTEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS -- Hondurans chose a conservative businessman as their new president Sunday in an election that Washington supported but most countries in the hemisphere called illegitimate because it occurred under the shadow of a coup.
Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo, of the traditional National Party, declared victory late Sunday and pledged to form a government of national unity to try to end a five-month crisis that began with the military's ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. With nearly two-thirds of the vote counted, Lobo had 56 percent. That put him well ahead of another centrist candidate, Elvin Santos, who conceded the race.
The U.S. State Department commended the elections in a statement issued at midnight Sunday, saying that Hondurans "took a necessary and important step forward" toward resolving their political crisis and months of international isolation. However, it said, "significant work remains to be done to restore democratic and constitutional order" in the impoverished Central American nation.
The Honduran crisis has caused a split between Washington and allies in the hemisphere who said they cannot recognize elections under a coup-installed government that has shut down media, limited demonstrations and committed other abuses.
Adding to doubts about balloting, electoral observation groups from the Organization of American States, the Carter Center and other prominent institutions declined to monitor the vote.
The crisis began on June 28, when Zelaya, who had embraced the leftist agenda of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was arrested on charges related to his campaign to rewrite the constitution. Many Hondurans believed Zelaya was trying to extend his rule. Soldiers bundled him onto a plane for Costa Rica, the first time in 18 years that the military had exiled a president in this hemisphere.
Zelaya, who is not allowed to seek reelection under the constitution, called on Hondurans to boycott Sunday's vote.
"The elections will be a failure," he told Radio Globo on Sunday from the Brazilian Embassy, where he sought sanctuary after sneaking back into the country in September. "The United States will have to rectify its ambiguous position about the coup."
Zelaya's appeal seemed to resonate in poor neighborhoods built on Tegucigalpa's hills. But a steady stream of voters in many middle-class and working-class neighborhoods appeared to defy the call for a boycott.
In the San Francisco neighborhood, where skinny dogs and chickens roamed the dirt streets, just a trickle of voters turned up Sunday morning. Naun Argijo, 21, said his family of 10, which shares a two-room shack, would not vote because they were upset over Zelaya's ouster. "He was the only president who looked out for poor people," Argijo said.
Still, the large demonstrations after Zelaya's ouster have dwindled to small protests. Many Hondurans hope the long-scheduled elections will provide relief from a crisis that has crippled the country's important tourist industry and led to a sharp drop in aid from the United States and international lending institutions.
"We are so anxious for this all to end," said Rosa Maria Flores, 62, a teacher. She was casting a ballot in the working-class Kennedy neighborhood, which was crowded with voters. Zelaya's agenda and his frequent clashes with the country's institutions terrified Hondurans, she said. "Here, we don't want Hugo Chávez."
Non-governmental groups and the U.S. Embassy have reported a significant deterioration in the human rights situation in Honduras since the coup. International human rights groups have accused Honduran authorities of using excessive force against protesters and harassing human rights defenders. The de facto president, Roberto Micheletti, suspended many civil liberties for three weeks during the campaign and temporarily shut down an opposition radio and TV station.
On Sunday, human rights groups protested after police and military launched tear gas and water cannons at a peaceful pro-Zelaya demonstration of about 500 people in the northern city of San Pedro Sula.
Most voting appeared peaceful, however, and fears of attacks by Zelaya supporters were not realized. Honduran authorities dispatched thousands of police and soldiers to guard polling stations.
While the Rio Group of Latin American and Caribbean nations had warned they would not recognize Sunday's vote, some analysts believe that countries will gradually have little choice but to recognize the balloting.
Already, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a highly respected international figure, has said he would recognize the election if it is deemed fair. Other Central American and Caribbean countries are expected to follow.
The U.S. government has indicated it will accept the winner as long as Honduran authorities take further steps toward national reconciliation, including a congressional vote on whether to restore Zelaya for the final two months of his term. That vote is expected Wednesday.
U.S. diplomats say a newly elected president may sway Congress to reinstate Zelaya in the hopes of winning international legitimacy. But many Hondurans expect the lawmakers to vote against Zelaya, and the former president says he has no plans to return to the job.
from the Weekly Standard, 2009-Oct-1, by Jaime Daremblum:
The Bear and the Caudillo
Russia is feeding a dangerous arms buildup in Venezuela.U.S.-Russia diplomacy is currently dominated by issues such as Iran, missile defense, and the post-Soviet republics. But the Obama administration must not ignore Moscow's role in facilitating the dangerous Venezuelan arms buildup and the nuclear ambitions of Hugo Chávez.
On September 13, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez announced triumphantly that Russia had agreed to extend his government a $2.2 billion credit line for the purchase of sophisticated military hardware, including tanks, missiles, and air-defense systems. Chávez insisted that these arms purchases "are necessary for our national defense." But U.S. officials think otherwise--and with good reason. "What they are looking to purchase and what they are purchasing outpaces all other countries in South America," State Department spokesmen Ian Kelly said of the Venezuelans on September 14. "We're concerned about an arms race in the region." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed these comments a day later.
Venezuela's arms buildup is indeed threatening to fuel a regional arms race--and no foreign country has done more to make that arms buildup possible than Russia. In recent years, Caracas and Moscow have signed arms deals worth more than $5 billion. Russian strategic analyst Ruslan Pukhov has predicted that over the next decade, Venezuela may purchase another $5 billion worth of Russian arms. Meanwhile, in June 2008, the two countries agreed to create a bi-national bank with $4 billion worth of starting capital. They have also signed several energy pacts, including a nuclear-cooperation accord. Venezuelan officials recently confirmed that their country is receiving assistance from both Russia and Iran as it seeks to locate uranium deposits. (The South American nation is believed to have massive untapped uranium reserves.)
In December 2008, Venezuelan and Russian warships--including a Russian nuclear cruiser--held joint military exercises in the Caribbean. The Guardian noted that these exercises represented "Moscow's first show of naval force in the region since the Cold War." Speaking of the Cold War, the Russian warships that participated in the December 2008 naval maneuvers paid visit to Cuba that same month. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has been keen to strengthen military ties with the Raúl Castro regime. Raúl, for his part, has always been an admirer of the Russian armed forces.
Given the authoritarian nature of the Medvedev-Putin government and its aggressive push to reestablish Russia as a world power, we should be wary of the Kremlin's renewed interest in Latin America and its military links with Venezuela and Cuba. In mid-September, Russia's top military official, General Nikolai Makarov, traveled to the Communist island and met with his Cuban counterpart, General lvaro López Miera. Other senior Russian officials who have visited Cuba this year include Igor Sechin, a deputy prime minister, and Nikolai Patrushev, chief of the Russian Security Council. According to Russia's RIA Novosti news agency, Russian military sources have suggested that Moscow may decide to "resume operations" at its former electronic-espionage facility in Lourdes (a town near Havana), a Cold War-era installation that was closed in 2001, and also "use airbases in Cuba for refueling of strategic aircraft."
Of course, Cuba is no longer the main destabilizing force in Latin America; Venezuela has assumed that role. Under Chávez, the "Bolivarian Republic" has undermined Latin democracies, supported terrorist groups, and embraced terror-sponsoring regimes such as Iran and Syria. This is why the Russia-Venezuela relationship is so worrisome. Thanks to his deals with Moscow, Chávez has been stockpiling modern fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, missiles, anti-aircraft systems, and tens of thousands of Kalashnikov submachine guns. There is a very real possibility that some of these weapons will wind up in the hands of terrorists. It is now undeniable that the Chávez government has provided material support to the FARC terrorists in Colombia. This past July, Colombian military forces raided a FARC camp and found Venezuelan anti-tank rocket launchers. There is also persuasive evidence that Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, has established a presence in Venezuela. Last year, the U.S. Treasury Department accused the Chávez regime of "employing and providing safe harbor to Hezbollah facilitators and fundraisers."
Chávez is a leftist, but also a militarist--a self styled caudillo similar to prior Latin American despots. He has repeatedly threatened the conservative, pro-U.S. government in Bogotá, and has bitterly denounced Washington's plans to expand U.S. military activities in Colombia. His stockpiling of advanced weaponry poses a very real threat to regional stability, and it would not be happening without Moscow's assistance. Thanks to Russian arms sales, Chávez is now in a stronger position to consolidate his dictatorship at home and provide military support to anti-democratic, pro-Chávez governments and terrorist groups elsewhere in Latin America.
Jaime Daremblum, who served as Costa Rica's ambassador to the United States from 1998 to 2004, is Senior Fellow and director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the Hudson Institute.
from the Associated Press, 2010-Jan-23, by Christopher Toothaker:
Anti-Chavez channel removed from cable
CARACAS, Venezuela—Venezuelan cable television providers stopped transmitting a channel critical of President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, after the government cited incompliance with new regulations requiring the socialist leader's speeches be televised on cable.
Radio Caracas Television, an anti-Chavez channel known as RCTV that switched to cable in 2007 after the government refused to renew its over-the-air license, disappeared from the airwaves shortly after midnight.
RCTV was dropped just hours after Diosdado Cabello, director of Venezuela's state-run telecommunications agency, said several local channels carried by cable television have breached broadcasting laws and should be removed from the airwaves.
Cabello warned cable operations on Saturday evening that they could find themselves in jeopardy if they keep showing those channels.
"They must comply with the law, and they cannot have a single channel that violates Venezuelan laws as part of their programming," he said.
Several channels have not shown Chavez's televised speeches—a requirement under new regulations approved last month by the telecommunications agency, Cabello said.
RCTV did not broadcast a speech by the president to his political supporters during a rally early on Saturday.
The station's removal from cable and satellite television prompted a cacophony of protests in Caracas neighborhoods as Chavez opponents leaned out apartment windows to bang on pots and pans.
Cabello's agency notified RCTV and 23 other local cable television channels on Thursday that they must carry mandatory government programming, including Chavez's frequent and long speeches.
Cabello said Saturday that other violations include failing to warn viewers of sexual and violent content as well as broadcasting more than two hours of soap operas during the afternoon, which should be mostly dedicated to children programming.
He did not specify which TV channels have purportedly violated the law, but RCTV said it was the target. It accused the agency of pressuring cable providers to drop channels that are critical of the government.
The agency "doesn't have any authority to give the cable service providers this order," RCTV said in a statement. "The government is inappropriately pressuring them to make decisions beyond their responsibilities."
In denying RCTV a renewal of its over-the-air broadcast license, Chavez accused the station of plotting against his government and supporting a failed 2002 coup.
In August, Chavez's government forced 32 radio stations and two small TV stations off the air, saying some owners had failed to renew their broadcast licenses while other licenses were no longer valid because they had been granted long ago to owners who are now dead. Officials said they planned to take more stations off the air.
Government figures say that as of 2008 about 37 percent of Venezuelan homes received cable television. But some private companies say that according to their research, about six out of every 10 households have subscription television service.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2010-Jan-17, by Darcy Crowe:
Venezuela Nationalizes French Retail Chain
CARACAS -- President Hugo Chavez ordered Sunday the seizure of a French-owned retail chain on accusations that it raised prices after Venezuela devalued the currency by half.
"Until when are we going to allow this to happen?" Mr. Chavez asked during his Sunday television program in reference to the alleged price hike by Almacenes Exito SA, headquartered in Colombia and controlled by French retailer Casino Guichard-Perrachon S.A.
The Venezuelan leader said that new law may need to be approved to carry out the nationalization. "I'm waiting for the new law to begin the expropriation process," he said. "There's no going back," he added.
Almacenes Exito saw some of its stores closed this week by government authorities on accusations that it was increasing prices regardless of Mr. Chavez's orders that retailers were not to adjust prices after he devalued the currency to 4.3 bolivars per dollar from the previous rate of 2.15 bolivars.
Almacenes Exito, which also runs Colombia's largest retail chain, controls six hypermarkets and around 32 supermarkets in Venezuela.
Gonzalo Velasquez, Exito's director of communications, said his company won't comment. He added France's Casino owns a majority stake in the Venezuelan supermarket chain.
In the past Gonzalo Restrepo, Exito's Chief Executive, had said Exito had set apart 45 billion Colombian pesos ($23 million) for its minority stake in the Venezuelan retailer to write off the assets if needed.
Separately, Mr. Chavez also ordered the nationalization of a large shopping-mall recently built in a downtown district in Caracas. The stores controlled by Exito and the shopping mall will be used to build up Comerso, a new government-run retail chain which seeks to sell its products at "socialist" prices, according to the president.
During his 11 years in power Mr. Chavez has nationalized large swaths of the Venezuelan economy, including a Spanish-owned bank and an Argentine-controlled steel-mill.
In some cases the government has reached a compensation agreement with the owners, while other companies, including Cemex SA and Exxon Mobil, are mired in international arbitration proceedings to secure payment for their nationalized assets.
from the New York Times, 2010-Jan-8, printed 2010-Jan-9, p.A5, by Simon Romero, with María Eugenia Díaz contributing reporting:
Chávez Devalues Currency Amid Oil Fall
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez announced a sharp devaluation of Venezuela's currency on Friday night, a move that reflects the financial stress faced by his government since the price of oil, the country's top export commodity, fell from its peak as a result of the global financial crisis.
The action, which Mr. Chávez had repeatedly ruled out in the past, came after Venezuela's economy contracted by 2.9 percent in 2009. Hampered by disarray in the oil industry and nationalizations that have shattered business confidence, the economy is expected to remain sluggish this year even as other large Latin American economies show signs of vibrancy.
“This is all about one objective: revitalizing the productive economy,” Mr. Chávez said in a cabinet meeting that was broadcast live on state television.
Mr. Chávez said he would maintain currency controls and create two different exchange rates for the currency, the bolívar. He also said he would clamp down on black-market currency trading in a bid to slow capital flight; officials have already increased audits of travelers abroad to limit spending of hard currency outside the country.
Mr. Chávez set one rate for most imported items, ranging from cars to construction materials, at 4.30 bolívars to the dollar, a 100 percent devaluation from the previous rate of 2.15. He also announced a separate rate of 2.6 bolívars to the dollar for essential items like basic foods and hospital equipment.
Planning Minister Jorge Giordani said the devaluation was intended to make exports like coffee and cacao more competitive in foreign markets. Independent economists here said the government could also benefit by receiving more bolívars for oil exports, allowing Mr. Chávez to bolster social spending.
But the devaluation could also send inflation higher, by making imported goods more expensive and encouraging arbitrage by traders who seize on speculative opportunities presented by the new dual exchange rates.
Venezuela already has Latin America's highest inflation rate, at 25 percent in 2009.
Venezuela also has a thriving unregulated market in trading of bolívars, with the currency's black-market value reaching 6.25 to the dollar in trading Friday amid rumors of the devaluation by Mr. Chávez.
“This announcement does not transmit confidence in economic stability,” said Orlando Ochoa, an independent economist here. “There is still no program in place to control inflation.”
Still, economic analysts here do not see an imminent crisis following the devaluation. Prices for oil, which provides Venezuela with about 90 percent of its export income, have climbed from last year's lows, settling at more than $80 a barrel in recent days. Subsidized food and medical care also soften the impact of inflation on the poor.
But other subsidies, including a policy that keeps gasoline priced at less than 10 cents a gallon, drain resources. And private businesses here, fearful of abrupt nationalizations and expropriation threats by Mr. Chávez, are hesitant to increase investments, denying the economy a source of vitality at a time of stagnation and high inflation.
from the Wall Street Journal's Political Diary, 2009-Nov-9, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
How Cuba Is Commemorating the Fall of the Berlin Wall
No one should forget that 90 miles off the coast of Florida, communist tyranny lives on as if Berlin were still divided and the Soviets were still ruling Eastern Europe. The Castro brothers served up a nasty reminder last week when they detained internationally famous Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez on her way to a peaceful "performance" march organized by musicians in Havana.
On Friday Ms. Sanchez told a telephone interviewer from Miami's El Nuevo Herald that she had been walking to the gathering with a fellow blogger when a car approached and three men insisted that she and her companion get in. When they resisted, she said they were "dragged toward the car" and "thrown head-first inside." Then the beatings began. "They applied judo or karate holds to us. The punches . . . kept raining down," she told El Nuevo Herald. "No blood, but black and blues, punches, pulled hairs, blows to the head, kidneys, knee and chest." Twenty minutes later she was dumped on the street far from the gathering.
Ms. Sanchez writes a blog about life for ordinary Cubans. Her posts say what so many others are frightened to acknowledge openly -- that daily tasks, from providing food for the family to getting from point A to point B, are monumental undertakings 50 years after the "revolution" that was supposed to produce a Cuban utopia. Nothing works, everyone steals to survive and shortages are rampant. Soap is a luxury.
Ms. Sanchez is a threat because she has helped to erode the silence and fear factor necessary to the regime's survival. She's also a threat because she has embarrassed Fidel Castro with her growing fame around the globe. In 2008, she won Columbia University's prestigious Maria Moors Cabot prize and The El Pais Ortega y Gasset Prize for Digital Journalism. Time magazine named her one of the world's 100 most influential people last year.
Of course the message that Ms. Sanchez received wasn't meant only for her. An estimated 200 young Cubans gathered for last week's peaceful musicians' demonstration. According to the Cuban blog "Penultimate Days," it was the second such gathering in three weeks. Tyranny may survive in Cuba, but so does the urge for freedom.
from the Wall Street Journal Europe, 2009-Oct-20:
Castro's Man in Europe
It's been a good year for dictators in Cuba and beyond. If Spain's foreign minister has his way, 2010 will be even better.Havana's man in Europe is returning from Cuba with a simple request: For his EU partners to drop their focus on human rights. After a two-day visit with the Cuban government, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will press his Continental counterparts to scrap their 1996 "Common Position" on Cuba in order to fully normalize ties with Raul Castro's dictatorship.
This would be mainly a cosmetic change, since last year the EU abandoned all diplomatic sanctions against Cuba, and Brussels says it expects to pour some €36 million in "cooperation" funds into the country this year. The Castro machine, which remains as repressive as ever despite the substitution of Raul for Fidel, already benefits from preferred trading status with the EU and counts the 27-nation block as its largest trading partner.
The 1996 document is today the EU's only official caveat to ever-warmer relations with Cuba. It lays out that its objective "is to encourage a process of transition to pluralist democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms." That position statement nudged Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in 2008 to temper praise for Havana with dissatisfaction with its human-rights record, and Finnish President Tarja Halonen in 2007 to direct the world to be "firm" as well as "encouraging" with Castro. In other words, it's not much. Even so, Madrid tells us it will use its turn at the EU presidency next year to try to do away with the text and relieve Havana of special scrutiny of its political prisoners—numbering more than 200, at the U.S.'s last count.
Consider Mr. Moratinos a trend-setter in the age of Obama, as the U.S. president's own overtures to Castro (not to mention to Iran, Burma and now Sudan) follow a distinctly Moratinian philosophy. This holds that engaging dictators will yield better results than offering succor to their dissidents, and that tyrants and terrorists are somehow more malleable than their brutality suggests. Mr. Moratinos is the same Socialist minister who has lobbied in the past to have Hamas removed from the EU's blacklist.
To make his point in Havana, Mr. Moratinos did not meet with the families of any political prisoners, nor any independent journalists, nor any human rights organizations. Raul responded with the Castros' standard parting gift for well-behaved guests: human life. He freed a jailed Spanish businessman pending trial, and one political prisoner, the Associated Press reported. We wonder what Mr. Moratinos could offer for the other 199-plus, though we suspect the "change in attitude" he wants toward the regime won't do it.
Despite his passion for engagement, Mr. Moratinos can expect resistance from at least a few EU nations, namely the Czech Republic, the U.K., Sweden, and Germany, who are unlikely to grant Mr. Moratinos's request. But overall, it's been a good year for autocrats in Cuba and beyond seeking international legitimacy while denying their people basic rights. If Mr. Moratinos has his way, 2010 will be even better.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Nov-8, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Chávez's Next Target: El Salvador
Twenty-first century socialism may have stumbled in Honduras but it is being tried again in El Salvador.Fidel Castro learned a lot from Chilean President Salvador Allende's failed power grab in 1973. And he used the lessons of that bitter defeat to coach Venezuela's Hugo Chávez to dictatorship under the guise of democracy more than 25 years later.
Now Latin America's revolutionaries may be experiencing another setback and this time they can't claim that a military coup removed their would-be dictator. Instead, former Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was arrested by order of the Supreme Court and deposed by Congress. And despite enormous international pressure, the Honduran democracy has so far defended its rule of law.
Yet far from giving up, Castro protégés are already using what they learned in Tegucigalpa in El Salvador. Central America's most promising free-market democracy is now fighting for its life.
Allende got the boot from his military because he had been trampling the constitution. The Supreme Court, the Bar Association and the Medical Association all denounced his disregard for the rule of law. According to James R. Whelan, author of a history of Chile titled "Out of the Ashes," the lower house of its Congress passed a resolution on Aug. 22, 1973, that "said bluntly that it was the responsibility of the military . . . 'to put an immediate end' to lawlessness and 'channel government action along legal paths . . . .'" Less than a month later, the military complied.
The lesson from Chile for the hard left was that success depended on first getting control of the institutions with the power to check an aspiring tyrant. Now the leadership of El Salvador's FMLN party, composed of many former guerrillas, is attempting just that.
It took some 20 years for the political party of the FMLN to get to the presidency. Many Salvadorans distrust it because of its violent history. But FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes ran as a moderate. The economy had suffered under former President Tony Saca of the center-right Arena Party. Disillusioned Salvadorans sought change.
Mr. Funes is still widely viewed as a moderate. Last week one former president, Alfredo Cristiani, told me in a telephone interview that he believes Mr. Funes is "genuinely not part of the group inside the FMLN that wants to take El Salvador to a dictatorship."
Yet Mr. Cristiani is worried, and with good reason. There are plenty of extremists around Mr. Funes, starting with José Luis Merino, who is commonly believed to be the party's de facto leader. His nom de guerre, "Ramiro," showed up as an ally in correspondence among leaders of the Colombian guerrilla group FARC that were captured by the Colombian military in 2008.
A couple years back Mr. Merino explained in a media interview the FMLN's political agenda this way: "It is to take power, to conquer the entire nation and, in that way, assure that the form of government does not change. Of course, not with bayonets or persecution. There are examples, like Venezuela, that is our model."
The institutions that stand in Mr. Merino's way are the congress, the Supreme Court and the electoral council. The party tried to wrest control of the high court's constitutional panel, in collaboration with Mr. Saca while he was still president. Luckily, the backroom deal was challenged and the rule of law prevailed.
But the event showed that the FMLN really is following Mr. Merino's "Venezuela model." It also suggested that, just as critics have warned, Mr. Saca may be willing to help the FMLN. The former president knows that it is not uncommon for an incoming political party to investigate a former president. If Mr. Saca has anything to hide, the best chance of doing so would be to make sure there is no investigation.
Speculation about such political machinations increased last month when 12 Arena congressmen announced a break from their party. Calling themselves "independents," they proceeded to vote with the FMLN against an investigation Arena wanted into abuses of agricultural subsidies.
What prompted the defection? Mr. Cristiani told me that a high-ranking member of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) has told him that at least one PDC congressman has been offered $700,000 to vote with the FMLN. Separately, the secretary general of the PDC, Rodolfo Parker, has publicly warned of multiple offers from a middleman of between $300,000 and $500,000.
Mr. Saca denies any involvement in the vote-buying scheme, and surely Mr. Merino has enough motivations to act on his own. But rumors are swirling in the Salvadoran press about links between individuals close to Mr. Saca and alleged middlemen acting on behalf of Mr. Merino.
The Arena defection is no ordinary betrayal of the electorate. In Salvador voters choose a party ticket. Congressmen are named according to how many votes the party gets. These congressmen were not elected as individuals but rather as representatives of the elected party. With their votes the FMLN is now only one or two votes short of a two-thirds majority. If it gets that majority, the party can tell the moderate Mr. Funes what to do. Then Chávez acolytes will be well on their way to winning what their bedfellows could not in Honduras.
from Reuters, 2009-Nov-8, by Hugh Bronstein, with editing by Philip Barbara:
Colombia turns to UN, OAS after Venezuela war talk
BOGOTA - Colombia said on Sunday it will appeal to the U.N. Security Council and the OAS after Hugo Chavez, the fiery leftist president of neighboring Venezuela, ordered his army to prepare for war in order to assure peace.
For months Chavez has said that a military cooperation pact signed last month between Bogota and Washington could set the stage for a U.S. invasion of Venezuela from Colombian territory.
The United States and Colombia dismiss that idea, saying cooperation is aimed strictly at fighting drug traffickers and Marxist insurgents within Colombia.
During a Sunday television address, Chavez ordered his military to prepare for war as the best way to preserve peace in the region. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe shot back with a statement rejecting Chavez's remarks.
"Considering the threats of war enunciated by the government of Venezuela, the government of Colombia proposes going to the Organization of American States and the Security Council of the United Nations," the statement said.
Colombia also called for "frank dialogue" with Venezuela over their long-simmering diplomatic spat.
Venezuela has spent more than $3 billion on arms, prompting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to warn against an arms race in the region.
Colombia recently asked the World Trade Organization to intercede after Chavez blocked the import of some Colombian goods in protest of the U.S. military pact.
After the United States, the neighboring Andean countries are each other's second biggest trade partners. Commerce last year between Colombia and Venezuela was more than $7 billion.
Colombia says the blocking of imports has exacerbated the country's recession and hurt an export sector already clobbered by low global demand brought by the world financial crisis.
Washington sees Uribe as a buffer against Chavez and other socialists in the region such as Rafael Correa of Ecuador, a country that also shares a border with Colombia.
The three leaders have all moved to extend their time in power through Constitutional changes allowing for re-election.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-25, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Argentina's Kirchner Targets the Press
As the state-run economy hits the skids, the government responds with a crackdown on the free press.One way a president can boost poll numbers in a bad economy is to wrest control of the central bank and start printing lots of pesos. There's nothing like cheap financing to restore the market's enthusiasm for buying all sorts of stuff—from stocks to houses—already on sale at fire sale prices. The great reflation will make people feel rich again. A weak currency will also be a short-term boon to exporters, whose profits can then be taxed at ever higher rates. Complainers can be denounced for their greed.
Of course this perpetual motion machine will eventually conk out and when it does, a government that expects to survive will find it necessary to silence its critics. Just ask Argentines, who are living all of this in real time.
After more than five years of heavy state intervention in the economy, Argentina is again sliding into recession. Double-digit inflation is spiraling north and the government is running out of money. In response, President Cristina Kirchner is cracking down on the free press. Argentines are wondering if their democracy will survive.
The story of how Argentina got here is important to recall. The economy was flat on its back after the 2001-2002 collapse of "convertibility," the monetary arrangement that pegged the peso to the dollar. A demoralized nation was looking for a savior.
It thought it found one in Néstor Kirchner. He became president in 2003 and set about to restore the state-run economic model of Juan Peron; the market, he maintained, had failed. Mr. Kirchner took control of the central bank. He demonized the private-sector and investors. Using price controls, subsidies and regulation he made himself a Robin Hood to the masses. The legislature granted him extraordinary powers.
The economy bounced back as one would expect after a harsh contraction, and in 2007 his wife was elected president with 45% of the vote.
Now the illusionists are losing their touch. Not only is the economy going sour, but according to polls, the nation is growing intolerant of what many consider to be the first couple's abuse of power.
Four examples serve to make the point: First, when Mrs. Kirchner attacked the farm sector last year because it resisted her plan to impose high export taxes on its harvests, the nation rallied to the defense of the farmers, much to her surprise. Second, her decision to confiscate privately held pension accounts was loudly denounced as a violation of the rule of law. Third, there is a widespread belief that her government is using the state intelligence service to collect information against the president's "enemies." Fourth, an overwhelming majority of Argentines resent the privileges and jet-set lifestyle of the first family while national living standards plummet.
This popular dissatisfaction showed up at the polls in the June midterm elections, when Mrs. Kirchner's wing of the Peronist party lost badly. Even Mr. Kirchner did not manage to prevail in his bid for a house seat representing the province of Buenos Aires, which should have been a stronghold for the first couple.
Mrs. Kirchner and her husband have decided that they lost because of bad press coverage. They are especially upset with the Clarin media company, which though once a supporter, is now an outspoken critic. In public comments Mr. Kirchner often implies that the government is analyzing the company to see if it might not need to be downsized. In September, tax authorities launched a raid on the Buenos Aires offices of its daily newspaper. Tax authorities later issued an apology for the raid, but the paper maintains that it was an act of intimidation.
Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.
Yet the problem of bad press for the Kirchners is much bigger than Clarin. As the antimarket economic model hits the skids, the nation is turning against its architects and a free press will not remain silent. This is why the president forced a media law through the legislature two weeks ago, creating a new "audio-visual" regulatory board controlled by the executive.
The law also grants the executive control over all licensing of the radio spectrum and reserves at least two-thirds of it for state-owned and nongovernmental broadcasters approved by the executive. There is concern that Mrs. Kirchner is now preparing to take over the most important domestic supplier of newsprint and to begin using import licensing to control access to foreign supplies.
Hugo Chávez has become a dictator in Venezuela under the guise of democracy, and he has similarly shut down the free press. Argentines are worried.
Last week in the Argentine daily La Nación, philosopher and writer Santiago Kovadloff summed up opposition sentiment about the government's use of "the law" to consolidate power: "The law has become a beloved tool of corruption," Mr. Kovadloff wrote. "The executive has put it at its service. It manipulates it with skill." And where does that leave society? "Insecurity is no longer a threat. We are in the jungle."
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-4, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Revolutionary Anti-Semitism
Chávez imports Ahmadinejad's ideology to Latin America.Sometimes I ask myself if Hitler wasn't right when he wanted to finish with that race, through the famous holocaust, because if there are people that are harmful to this country, they are the Jews, the Israelites.
David Romero Ellner
Executive Director
Radio Globo, Honduras, Sept. 25, 2009Meet one of Honduras's most vocal advocates for the return of deposed president Manuel Zelaya to office. He's not your average radio jock. He started in Honduran politics as a radical activist and was one of the founders of the hard-left People's Revolutionary Union, which had links to Honduran terrorists in 1980s. A few years ago he was convicted and served time in prison for raping his own daughter.
Today Mr. Romero Ellner is pure zelayista, hungry for power and not ashamed to say so. This explains why he has joined Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Mr. Zelaya in targeting Jews. Mr. Chávez has allied himself with Iran to further his ability to rule unchecked in the hemisphere. He hosts Hezbollah terrorists and seeks Iranian help to become a nuclear power. He and his acolytes cement their ties to Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by echoing his anti-Semitic rants.
The Honduras debate is not really about Honduras. It is about whether it is possible to stop the spread of chavismo and all it implies, including nuclear proliferation and terrorism in Latin America. Most troubling is the unflinching support for Mr. Zelaya from President Barack Obama and Democratic Sen. John Kerry—despite the Law Library of Congress review that shows that Mr. Zelaya's removal from office was legal, and the clear evidence that he is Mr. Chávez's man in Tegucigalpa. On Thursday, Mr. Kerry took the unprecedented step of trying to block a fact-finding mission to Honduras by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who is resisting Mr. Obama's efforts to restore Mr. Zelaya to power.
Mr. Zelaya, recall, was arrested, deposed and deported on June 28 because he violated the Honduran Constitution. He snuck back into the country on Sept. 21 and found refuge at the Brazilian Embassy in the capital. Mr. Romero Ellner's calumny against Jews was a follow-up to Mr. Zelaya's claim that he was being "subjected to high-frequency radiation" from outside the embassy and that he thought "Israeli mercenaries" were behind it.
The verbal attack on Jews from a zelayista is consistent with a pattern emerging in the region. Take what's been going on in Venezuela. In the earliest years of Chávez rule, a Venezuelan friend, who is a Christian, confessed his fears to me. "In his speech, he always tries to create hate between groups of people," my friend told me. "He loves hate speech."
For a decade, Venezuelans have been force-fed the strongman's view of economic nationalism laced with this divisive language. Venezuelans are encouraged to seek revenge against their neighbors. Crime has skyrocketed.
The Jewish community has been targeted as Mr. Chávez's relationship with Mr. Ahmadinejad has blossomed. In 2004, I reported on a police raid at a Jewish school for young children in Caracas. The pretext was a "tip" that the school was storing weapons. No weapons were found, but the community was terrorized.
In recent years, Venezuela and Iran have signed joint ventures estimated to be worth $20 billion. There are similar pacts, estimated at $10 billion, between Iran and Venezuelan satellite, Bolivia. Both South American countries accused Israel of genocide in Gaza in 2008 and cut diplomatic ties. Mr. Chávez's tirades against Israel during that time emboldened his street thugs. In January 2009, vandals broke into a temple in Caracas and desecrated the sacred space with graffiti calling for the death of Jews.
New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau recently gave a speech to the Brookings Institution in which he said "Iran and Venezuela are beyond the courting phase. We know they are creating a cozy financial, political and military partnership, and that both countries have strong ties to Hezbollah and Hamas."
Iran has courted Honduras as well. When Mr. Zelaya was still in power, the Honduran press reported that his foreign minister Patricia Rodas met with high-ranking Iranian officials in Mexico City. That raised plenty of eyebrows in Central America.
Neither Venezuela nor Honduras has any history of anti-Semitism. But with Mr. Chávez importing Mr. Ahmadinejad's despicable ideology and methods, an assault on the Jewish community goes with the territory.
Honduras recognizes that it was a mistake to deport Mr. Zelaya after he was arrested. But it argues that fears of zelayista extremism and use of violence as a political tool in the months leading up to June 28 provoked desperation. Mr. Romero Ellner—whose radio station was closed down by the government last week—provided exhibit A with his remarks. If the U.S. State Department is opposed to the exile, let it call for Mr. Zelaya to be put on trial now that he is back in Honduras. It has no grounds to demand that democratic Honduras restore an anti-Semitic rabble rouser to power.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Oct-31, p.A18:
Honduras 1, Hillary 0
A Honduran compromise provides Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with an elegant diplomatic exit.The big news in Honduras is that the good guys seem to have won a four-month political standoff over the exile of former President Manuel Zelaya. Current President Roberto Micheletti agreed yesterday to submit Mr. Zelaya's request for reinstatement as president to the Supreme Court and Congress, and in return the U.S. will withdraw its sanctions and recognize next month's presidential elections.
Mr. Zelaya, whose term would have expired in January, isn't likely to be reinstated, given that the court has twice ruled against his right to remain in office. The Honduran Congress, which voted in June to remove Mr. Zelaya, will then use that high court's opinion to decide if he should be restored to power.
There is a risk that Venezeula's Hugo Chávez and other Zelaya allies will try to buy support for their man and stir other trouble. But Hondurans who have rightly stood up to enormous U.S. pressure to reinstate Mr. Zelaya aren't likely to be intimidated now.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trumpeted the result as a diplomatic triumph, but it's more accurate to say that it extricated her and the Obama Administration from the box canyon they entered by throwing in with Mr. Zelaya. Hondurans had deposed Mr. Zelaya on entirely legal grounds for threatening violence and violating the country's constitution in an attempt to run for a second term. The U.S. nonetheless meddled and demanded that Mr. Zelaya be reinstated.
But Hondurans refused to bend, and the State Department apparently decided at last that Honduras was going to go ahead with its election whether the U.S. agreed or not. The Honduran compromise provided Mrs. Clinton with an elegant diplomatic exit.
Washington and the Organization of American States have now promised to send observers and recognize the elections; there will be no amnesty for Mr. Zelaya if he is charged with a crime; and the zelayistas will renounce their plans to call for a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution. If Mrs. Clinton wants to call this a victory, it is—for Honduras.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Sep-23:
The Honduras Mess
A dangerous standoff that the U.S. helped to create.After nearly three months in exile, Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president of Honduras, made a stealth return to Tegucigalpa on Monday, taking sanctuary in the Brazilian embassy. He is now using this diplomatic sanctuary to demand reinstatement and stir up his supporters in the streets. This is a dangerous moment, and if violence breaks out the U.S. will bear no small part of the blame.
Mr. Zelaya was deposed and deported this summer after he agitated street protests to support a rewrite of the Honduran constitution so he could serve a second term. The constitution strictly prohibits a change in the term-limits provision. On multiple occasions he was warned to desist, and on June 28 the Supreme Court ordered his arrest.
Every major Honduran institution supported the move, even members in Congress of his own political party, the Catholic Church and the country's human rights ombudsman. To avoid violence the Honduran military escorted Mr. Zelaya out of the country. In other words, his removal from office was legal and constitutional, though his ejection from the country gave the false appearance of an old-fashioned Latin American coup.
The U.S. has since come down solidly on the side of—Mr. Zelaya. While it has supported negotiations and called for calm, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have both insisted that Honduras must ignore Mr. Zelaya's transgressions and their own legal processes and restore him as president. The U.S. has gone so far as to cut off aid, threaten Honduran assets in the U.S. and pull visas to enter the U.S. from the independent judiciary. The U.S. has even threatened not to recognize presidential elections previously scheduled for November unless Mr. Zelaya is first brought back to power—even though he couldn't run again.
This remarkable diplomatic pressure against a small Central American ally has only reinforced Mr. Zelaya's refusal to compromise short of a return to the presidency, with all of the instability and potential for violence that could involve. It also probably encouraged him to gamble on returning to Honduras on Monday, figuring even that provocation won't endanger U.S. support. And so far it hasn't.
Now that he is back, Mr. Zelaya and his allies aren't calling for calm. His supporters have flocked to Brazil's embassy with cinder blocks, sticks and Molotov cocktails. "The fatherland, restitution or death," he shouted to demonstrators outside the embassy. In anticipation of trouble and with concern for public safety, President Roberto Micheletti announced a curfew. But when police tried to enforce the curfew, the zelayistas resisted and there is now a Honduran standoff.
On Monday Mr. Zelaya said he owed his return and political survival to "the support of the international community." He's getting support from Nicaragua's Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla group FMLN in El Salvador, and especially from Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. But let's face it: None of that support would mean very much without the diplomatic and sanctions muscle of the U.S.
If the U.S. didn't know about Mr. Zelaya's stealth return, it ought to feel deceived and drop its support. Now that he's back in Honduras, the best solution to avoid violence would be for the U.S. to urge Mr. Zelaya to turn himself over to Honduran authorities for arrest and trial.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Sep-27, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Honduras Just Wants an Election
The U.S. demand that Mr. Zelaya be returned to power before a vote is destructive.At a luncheon reception for Brazilian President Lula da Silva earlier this year, a Brazilian official explained to me that the reason Brazil does not raise its voice for human rights in the dictatorship of Cuba is that it does not wish to intervene in the island's domestic affairs. Apparently the policy of nonintervention does not apply to democratic Honduras.
Last Monday former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, who was arrested, deported and legally deposed from office on June 28, made a stealth return to Tegucigalpa and sought shelter at the Brazilian Embassy. Mr. Zelaya told a Honduran radio station that his plan to return was hatched in consultation with Mr. da Silva and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim. Brazil says it had nothing to do with smuggling Mr. Zelaya into the country, which is tantamount to calling the former Honduran president a liar. On that point, many Hondurans would agree.
Mr. Zelaya has corruption charges pending against him in Honduras but "noninterventionist" Brazil refuses to hand him over to authorities. Instead it is allowing him to use the embassy as a command center from which he has been calling his violent supporters into the streets.
Mr. da Silva's sympathies with the extreme left and his friendship with Fidel Castro are legendary. At home he doesn't engage in the leftist militancy of the 1970s because Brazilians won't have it. He is constrained by institutions, economic reality and public pressure. His admiration for communism even waned a bit when Venezuela and Bolivia tried to nationalize Brazilian investments. Yet he has to feed crumbs to his notoriously left-wing foreign ministry and that's where Honduras comes in handy.
This practice of moderation at home and extremism abroad is not unique to Brazil. Many Latin American presidents do the same thing. What is frightening is that the U.S. seems to be adopting a similar policy.
Last week Tegucigalpa was under attack by zelayistas. They burned tires in the streets, vandalized property, looted businesses and blocked roads. But the U.S. repeated its support for Mr. Zelaya. Without producing any legal review, Washington decreed once again that a president who tried to trash the constitution must be reinstated or it will not recognize the November presidential election.
Why does the U.S. threaten to undermine a free election that would very likely restore peace and security? Venezuela's Hugo Chávez may have answered that in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last Thursday. Taking the podium, Mr. Chávez told his audience that he didn't smell "sulfur" the way he did last year. This was a reference to his last U.N. tirade, when he called George W. Bush a devil who had left behind a sulfuric odor. This year, Mr. Chávez said, there was a smell of "hope."
Mr. Obama clearly has won acceptance from the Latin American tyrant and the U.S.'s Honduras policy has been helpful. But will this great honor last longer than a hiccup and yield any return? Probably not. Beyond sparing Mr. Obama the verbal barbs he delivered to Mr. Bush, Mr. Chávez shows no inclination toward being a good neighbor. He's engaged in a massive military buildup and he's even talking about his own nuclear ambitions.
The Obama administration's position on the Honduran election is embarrassing. Can anyone imagine that if Fidel Castro declared tomorrow that he would hold free elections and invite the whole world to come as observers, the U.S. would reject the idea because Cuba is a military dictatorship? It would be absurd.
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli told me last week in New York that he believes that "the only way and the best way to get out of the Honduran problem is to allow the Honduran people to have a free, participative election where they select whoever they think is the best candidate to run their government." Mr. Martinelli notes that the candidates in this race were chosen while Mr. Zelaya was still president. Honduran President Micheletti ran in a primary but lost to Elvin Santos, who is now the candidate for Mr. Zelaya's party and who also wants the elections to go forward. Panama once had the problem of democracy interrupted, Mr. Martinelli says, and it was elections that restored it.
Mr. Martinelli says—as many in the Honduran government do—that it was wrong to deport Mr. Zelaya. He also says that he was hoping that negotiations in San José, Costa Rica, would produce an agreement to resolve the dispute. But he adds that what Mr. Zelaya is demanding "is not within the laws and regulations of Honduras." So now the election is the answer.
A transparent election is the path to political stability endorsed by the Free World. It is unseemly and churlish for the U.S. to threaten that process. Does Mr. Obama treasure kind words from Hugo Chávez that much? If so, we're all in trouble.
from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, 2009-Sep-28, by Michael J. Totten:
Hands Off Honduras
The United States government, along with the rest of the Western Hemisphere's governments, is so worked up about returning ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to power that it hasn't thought through the long- or even medium-term consequences of its threats and demands.
Millions of dollars in aid to Honduras–one of the poorest countries in Latin America–was cut off after Zelaya was arrested by the military and sent into exile in June. The U.S. is not only threatening to cut off hundreds of millions more, it's threatening to impose sanctions and not recognize the results of the November election if he isn't first allowed back in office. These threats, if carried out, will put both Honduras and the U.S. in impossible positions.
Sanctions are supposed to be temporary. Targeted countries are always told what they can do to restore the status quo ante. Iran, for instance, can dismantle its nuclear-weapons program. Syria can cease and desist its support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Saddam Hussein, while he still ruled Iraq, had the option of admitting weapons inspectors.
Honduras, though, will have no way out if the interim government doesn't return Zelaya to power before his term ends in January. Because the Honduran constitution prohibits him and every other president from serving more than one term, it won't be legally possible for Honduras to do what's demanded of it after the end of this year. Unlike Iraq, Iran, and Syria, it will be isolated and trapped under sanctions indefinitely.
Sanctions and diplomatic isolation aren't the geopolitical equivalents of jail time and fines; they're used to coax rogue regimes into changing their behavior. They are tools of coercion, not punishment. By the time 2010 rolls around, it won't make any difference how badly the current interim government of Honduras is or is not behaving right now if the next one is elected in a free and fair election. The “coup regime” will have been replaced. The crisis will be over, the problem resolved. Punishing the next government–and by extension, the people of Honduras–for something a temporary former government did the previous year is gratuitous and, as far as I know, unprecedented. Even a country as roguish and oppressive as North Korea can come in from the cold if it holds a genuinely free and fair election.
While Honduras will be placed in an impossible position that it can't escape from, refusing to recognize the results of the November election will put the U.S. in an equally impossible position. Reality will force the U.S. to back down for one simple reason–it will be possible for the U.S. to back down, while Honduras could only surrender to our demands by using a time machine. We might as well play “chicken” with an inanimate object.
In the unlikely event that Zelaya is allowed to return to the presidential palace and finish out the final days of his tenure, he'll redefine the term “lame duck” all by himself. He'll be reduced to a figurehead and a chair warmer. The Congress, the courts, the military, and even his own political party are now against him.
Imagine how detested President George W. Bush would have to have been if the Supreme Court, every Republican senator and representative, and even Vice President Dick Cheney supported his removal from office. That's what Zelaya faces today in Honduras. No president's political capital could be lower. The interim government may find that the path of least resistance is letting Zelaya sit in his now powerless chair for a couple of weeks after running out most of the clock.
Either way, whether the ousted president returns or he doesn't, a new election is scheduled to take place in November, and a new government will be sworn in next January. The crisis will then be over no matter what else happens between now and then. This may not be the preferred solution for the Obama administration and the Organization of American States, but it will solve the problem. Both Zelaya and the controversial interim government will be history. The only reason Honduras should be isolated or sanctioned after November is if the election is stolen or canceled.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Aug-30, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Obama vs. Honduran Democracy
The Obama administration is using its brass knuckles to support Latin American thugs.If the Obama administration were a flotilla of ships, it might be sending out an SOS right about now. ObamaCare has hit the political equivalent of an iceberg. And last week the president's international prestige was broadsided by the Scots, who set free the Lockerbie bomber without the least consideration of American concerns. Mr. Obama's campaign promise of restoring common sense to budget management is sleeping with the fishes.
This administration needs a win. Or more accurately, it can't bear another loss right now. Most especially it can't afford to be defeated by the government of a puny Central American country that doesn't seem to know its place in the world and dares to defy the imperial orders of Uncle Sam.
I'm referring, of course, to Honduras, which despite two months of intense pressure from Washington is still refusing to reinstate Manuel Zelaya, its deposed president. Last week the administration took off the gloves and sent a message that it would use everything it has to break the neck of the Honduran democracy. Its bullying might work. But it will never be able to brag about what it has done.
The most recent example of the Obama-style Good Neighbor Policy was the announcement last week that visa services for Hondurans are suspended indefinitely, and that some $135 million in bilateral aid might be cut. But these are only the public examples of its hardball tactics. Much nastier stuff is going on behind the scenes, practiced by a presidency that once promised the American people greater transparency and a less interventionist foreign policy.
To recap, the Honduran military in June executed a Supreme Court arrest warrant against Mr. Zelaya for trying to hold a referendum on whether he should be able to run for a second term. Article 239 of the Honduran constitution states that any president who tries for a second term automatically loses the privilege of his office. By insisting that Mr. Zelaya be returned to power, the U.S. is trying to force Honduras to violate its own constitution.
It is also asking Hondurans to risk the fate of Venezuela. They know how Venezuela's Hugo Chávez went from being democratically elected the first time, in 1998, to making himself dictator for life. He did it by destroying his country's institutional checks and balances. When Mr. Zelaya moved to do the same in Honduras, the nation cut him off at the pass.
For Mr. Chávez, Mr. Zelaya's return to power is crucial. The Venezuelan is actively spreading his Marxist gospel around the region and Mr. Zelaya was his man in Tegucigalpa.
The Honduran push-back is a major setback for Caracas. That's why Mr. Chávez has mobilized the Latin left to demand Mr. Zelaya's return. Last week, Dominican Republic President Leonel Fernández joined the fray, calling for Honduras to be kicked out of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (Cafta). Mr. Fernandez is a close friend of Mr. Chávez and a beneficiary of Venezuela's oil-for-obedience program in the Caribbean. The Americas in the News
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Mr. Obama apparently wants in on this leftie-fest. He ran for president, in essence, against George W. Bush. Mr. Bush was unpopular in socialist circles. This administration wants to show that it can be cool with Mr. Chávez and friends.
Mr. Obama's methods are decidedly uncool. Prominent Hondurans, including leading members of the business community, complain that a State Department official has been pressuring them to push the interim government to accept the return of Mr. Zelaya to power.
When I asked the State Department whether it was employing such dirty tricks a spokeswoman would only say the U.S. has been "encouraging all members of civil society to support the San Jose 'accord'"—which calls for Mr. Zelaya to be restored to power. Perhaps something was lost in the translation but threats to use U.S. power against a small, poor nation hardly qualify as encouragement.
Elsewhere in the region there are reports that U.S. officials have been calling Latin governments to demand that they support the U.S. position. When I asked State whether that was true, a spokeswoman would not answer the question. She would only say that the U.S. is "cooperating with the [Organization of American States] and [Costa Rican President] Oscar Arias to support the San José accord."
In other words, though it won't admit to coercion, it is fully engaged in arm-twisting at the OAS in order to advance its agenda.
This not only seems unfair to the Honduran democracy but it also seems to contradict an earlier U.S. position. In a letter to Sen. Richard Lugar on Aug. 4, the State Department claimed that its "strategy for engagement is not based on any particular politician or individual" but rather finding "a "resolution that best serves the Honduran people and their democratic aspirations."
A lot of Hondurans believe that the U.S. isn't using its brass knuckles to serve their "democratic aspirations" at all, but the quite-opposite aspirations of a neighborhood thug.
from the New York Times, 2009-Sep-3. by Ginger Thompson:
U.S. Terminates $22 Million in Aid to Honduras
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, responding to calls to increase pressure on the de facto Honduras government, announced the termination on Thursday of about $22 million in United States aid that was suspended immediately after President Manuel Zelaya was deposed.
“Restoration of the terminated assistance will be predicated upon a return to democratic, constitutional governance in Honduras,” said the State Department announcement.
The announcement came after Mrs. Clinton's meeting with Mr. Zelaya, who had called on the United States to match its tough words on his ouster with action. United States trade and assistance are the lifeblood of the Honduran economy.
The State Department also announced that it was revoking the visas of several people who had been identified as members or supporters of the current Honduran government. And officials said that, as matters stand, the Obama administration would not recognize the upcoming Honduran presidential elections.
Mrs. Clinton took these actions “recognizing the need for strong measures in light of the continued resistance to the adoption of the San Jose Accord by the de facto regime and continuing failure to restore democratic, constitutional rule to Honduras,” Charles Luoma-Overstreet, a spokesman, said in a statement. The accord, brokered by the Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias, provided for Mr. Zelaya to resume his presidency in advance of the elections, to be held in November.
In addition to the terminated $22 million in aid, officials said as much as $200 million in Millennium Challenge funds was at stake. The board of the fund, whose chairwoman is Mrs. Clinton, will discuss its grants to Honduras in a meeting next week.
Mr. Zelaya said Wednesday, after a speech at George Washington University, that he appreciated the numerous statements President Obama had made in his defense since June 28 when Honduran soldiers rousted him from bed and loaded him, dressed in his pajamas, onto a plane leaving the country.
Yet without tougher actions, he said, Mr. Obama's statements had begun to ring hollow, hardening the intransigence of those who deposed him, and signaling to Latin America that the United States put politics above democratic principles.
“He's risking his prestige in Latin America,” Mr. Zelaya said. “We are not asking him to intervene. We are asking him to be consistent with democratic principles. And if he does that, Latin America will applaud.”
A senior State Department official rejected Mr. Zelaya's criticism on Wednesday, saying that the United States had exerted more pressure than any other country to restore Honduran democracy.
“I would contest that this situation can be resolved with easy formulas,” the official said. “This situation is complex. If it weren't it would have already been resolved.”
So far, the reviews of Mr. Obama's handling of the Honduras crisis have been mixed. Initially, the administration won praise throughout the hemisphere for condemning the coup in no uncertain terms and collaborating with other countries in the region to resolve the crisis rather than taking unilateral action.
But with talks on restoring Mr. Zelaya at an impasse, there have been charges that the United States was sending mixed messages, publicly saying that it supports Mr. Zelaya's return but refusing to use all its economic influence in Honduras to force the de facto government to resign.
“If they can't get the cast of characters in Honduras to behave the way they want them to,” said Julia E. Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, “how are they going to deal with Afghanistan or Iran?”
The longer the political crisis in Honduras continues, the more of a conundrum it threatens to create for Mr. Obama. A handful of Congressional Republicans, backed by a well-connected group of lawyers and lobbyists, have mobilized in support of the de facto government, accusing Mr. Zelaya of illegally trying to change the Constitution so that he could run for another term.
They have held up crucial State Department appointments to pressure the administration not to impose sanctions against Honduran leaders.
A clash also appears to be brewing between the administration and some Latin American countries over whether to recognize the Honduran election scheduled to take place this autumn. Several countries, including Brazil, Mexico and Chile, have said they would not recognize an election overseen by the de facto government.
The United States, Canada and Caribbean countries have so far not taken a formal position, saying that an election may be the only peaceful way to end the conflict that has polarized Honduras.
Presidential campaigning began on Tuesday there, and in a televised address the head of the de facto government, Roberto Micheletti, said the contest would show the world that democracy was alive and well in Honduras.
“This process will serve to categorically show that we appreciate democracy, that we are a people who want to live in harmony,” Mr. Micheletti said, according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Micheletti, who is not a candidate, added that an election was the “only and definitive solution to the political crisis.”
But Mr. Zelaya said the coup undermined Hondurans' faith in democracy and in the rule of law.
“Any elections without my presence would not end the crisis in my country,” he said. “They would only deepen the crisis.”
Officials close to both Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti said that although formal negotiations seemed to be going nowhere, informal talks between Mr. Zelaya and his opponents had begun, raising hopes that a settlement could be reached.
from Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog, 2009-Sep-6, by Rick Richman:
The Situation in Honduras─for Now
The Obama administration’s position on Honduras seems more than a little strange. When a president is removed from office by order of the country's Supreme Court and is replaced by the civilian next in line (a member of the president's own political party), pursuant to a nearly unanimous vote of the country's Congress, and there is a broad consensus in the church and civil society that the president's return to office would cause violence, it makes no sense to call the removal a “coup” — much less the “military coup” necessary under U.S. law to terminate aid to the country.
Even stranger is the idea that the solution to the situation (assuming the situation is bad) is to not hold the previously scheduled November presidential elections — particularly since the removed president cannot run for re-election and would, even if he were restored to office, have to leave it a few months later.
So why is the Obama administration focused on forcing Honduras to restore Manuel Zelaya, even though the Honduran Supreme Court ruled that his removal was constitutional and that his reinstatement would violate Honduran law? Does the State Department know Honduran constitutional law better than the Honduran Supreme Court? Does it know the desires of the Honduran people better than the Honduran Congress?
And how would the Obama administration ensure that returning Zelaya to office would, in fact, be temporary? That question was raised in the September 3 State Department press conference after the removed president met with Secretary of State Clinton. Here is the colloquy with Phillip J. Crowley, assistant secretary of state:
QUESTION: P.J., you mentioned that the Secretary in the meeting today with Zelaya also suggested steps to him that he could take to give more guarantees or whatever to the de facto government. What are those?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, obviously, what we have here is a lack of trust on both sides. . . . Part of [the Honduran government's] concerns, we believe, are questions about whether President Zelaya would abide by the San Jose Accords if both sides do, in fact, accept them.
And what the Secretary said to President Zelaya is there are things that you can do to create assurances within Honduras that if both sides accept the San Jose Accords formally, that he will in fact live by them . . .
QUESTION: And what specific steps would those include?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, obviously, part of this also is to bring down the — there's anxiety within Honduran society. We remain concerned about human rights, intimidation by various — by the police, others, some episodes of violence. And we think that if all sides can bring down the rhetoric, tone down the acrimony, that then that would create a climate where ultimately, more rational actors can prevail.
Bringing down the rhetoric, toning down the acrimony, and creating a climate for “rational actors” is probably not going to be viewed by the Honduran government and civil society as responsive to their concerns. On the contrary, their concerns will probably be heightened when they read the September 4 article “Zelaya Speaks” in the Nation:
What the June 28 coup was able to prevent, for now, was an advisory referendum planned for three days later on whether there should be a constituent assembly to rewrite the Honduras constitution. . . .
“The grassroots movement [provoked by the coup],” Zelaya said, has only one purpose, the transformation of Honduras, including deep structural changes. “This movement is now very strong. It can never be destroyed,” he said. . . .
The present tension may be winding down, but it is not over. . . . Any return to Honduras by Zelaya could be volatile, with the right-wing wanting his arrest or even his death. He cannot run for re-election under the present constitution. There is no visible candidate to replace him, and the constituent assembly proposal is off the agenda for now (or “por ahora,” as a young Hugo Chávez once said upon release from prison). [Emphasis added]
If you can just get reinstated, and if you realize you've only got a few months left to transform Honduras, “por ahora” might not be too long. You might simply need a serious crisis as an opportunity you would not want to waste.
from Reuters, 2009-Sep-7, by Patricia Rondon Espin, with writing by Frank Jack Daniel and editing by Patrick Markey and Sandra Maler:
Chavez foes struggle in face of clampdown
CARACAS - For six months, a prison cell holding three generals and one latrine has been home to Raul Isaias Baduel, once Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's savior, now dubbed a traitor by his former friend.
Defense minister and close Chavez ally until two years ago, Baduel now shares his cell with two other generals accused of conspiracy. He has become a symbol of how the left-wing president neutralizes opponents who threaten him politically.
"I won't be leaving here until Chavez leaves the presidency," the graying 54-year-old told Reuters in his cell, sitting beside a photo of the youngest of his 12 children.
Chavez remains popular and has won numerous elections during a decade governing one of the world's top oil suppliers. But this year, the former soldier is consolidating his power with a clampdown against local media and the opposition, which won some important states and cities in elections in 2008.
Although Venezuela will hold multi-party legislative elections in 2010 and presidential elections in 2012, some Chavez critics say he wants to create a single-party system.
The measures against his rivals help keep them divided ahead of next year's vote for new lawmakers, allowing the president to power ahead with laws that further his goal of turning Venezuela into a socialist state.
The country's most visible leader, former presidential candidate Manuel Rosales, fled corruption charges in April and now lives in Peru. while Mayor of Caracas Antonio Ledezma had much of his budget and power stripped by Chavez loyalists soon after he was elected in November.
Other opposition officials have legal cases hanging over them, a presidential hopeful is barred from elections and a group of Caracas municipal workers were jailed after August protests.
"It is a very difficult moment in Venezuela, we have seen critical times before, very hard, but never a transformation like this," said Venezuelan political risk analyst Claudia Curiel, referring to Chavez's radicalization this year.
The government says all the people are being processed for breaking the law, not for their political beliefs and Venezuela is still far from a violently repressive state of the kind common in Latin America a generation ago.
Anti-government television station Globovision faces a string of investigations and threats to close it down while local radio stations are under investigation. These measures came after a score of nationalizations of the oil and other industries as part of an acceleration of Chavez's revolution.
"Sectors of the opposition talk about peace and democracy, but they don't believe in it. The Venezuelan opposition wants violence," Chavez said in August.
OFFENSIVE BEFORE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS
Just over two years ago, Baduel was still considered a hero of Chavez's "revolution," having helped reverse a coup that ousted the president for 48 hours in 2002.
But he incurred the wrath of his former comrade-in-arms by breaking with the government and calling Chavez power-hungry over a proposed constitutional reform aimed at increasing Chavez powers to overhaul Venezuela's laws and stay in office.
He was accused of misusing $14 million of army funds and was arrested in April after failing to show up in court and was sent to the Ramo Verde military jail.
The clampdown has compounded problems for the opposition, which is fragmented between half a dozen parties and leaders. Even though the president's popularity ratings have slid several points this year to about 50 percent, none of his opponents has even 10 percent support.
Venezuelans will vote in December next year for deputies in the National Assembly, where Chavez allies hold a huge majority. Already some former Chavez loyalists have broken away and opponents hope to gain more seats in the legislature.
But bitter infighting over lists of candidates for the elections has caused deeper splits within and between parties, with more division over how to respond to Chavez's policies.
Leaders such as Mayor Ledezma, who went on a hunger strike for several days this year in protest, say Venezuelans must take to the streets to demonstrate against Chavez.
Protests have grown against a new education law that will give Chavez greater control in schools and universities, and the government has often been intolerant of disturbances on marches, liberally using tear-gas and arresting troublemakers.
After one march against the education law that ended in scuffles between police and protesters in August, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said that anybody who upset the peace or public order would be prosecuted, in comments critics say are an attack on the right to protest.
Ortega is one of the most hardline figures in the government and this year unsuccessfully proposed a law that could have jailed journalists. She said unruly protests will be considered "civil rebellion," a crime carrying a maximum 24-year sentence.
Her statements could lead to a conviction for Ricardo Blanco, who works in Ledezma's office and was jailed on charges of attacking a policeman at a protest. Eleven other workers in the same office were jailed after another protest in August.
"They are using legal mechanisms to criminalize peaceful protest," said Liliana Ortega, who heads rights group Cofavic and says 2,000 people are currently under investigation for crimes such as obstructing roads during protests.
from CNN, 2009-Sep-6:
Chavez pledges closer ties with Iran
Iran and Venezuela plan to stand up against "imperialist" foes by strengthening bilateral cooperation on a range of issues, including nuclear power, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday.
Chavez: "Tehran and Caracas should help revolutionary nations through further expansion and consolidation of their ties."
Chavez: "Tehran and Caracas should help revolutionary nations through further expansion and consolidation of their ties."
"Expansion of Tehran-Caracas relations is necessary given their common interests, friends and foes," Ahmadinejad said after a meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart President Hugo Chavez, according to Iran's semiofficial FARS news agency.
Chavez was in Tehran on Saturday with a team of high-ranking officials for a two-day visit.
Chavez reiterated the goal: "Tehran and Caracas should help revolutionary nations through further expansion and consolidation of their ties."
Venezuela announced a new agreement with Iran for a joint geological study in the South American country's Andean belt, the state-run ABN news agency said.
Chavez highlighted bilateral projects already under way, including the construction of ethanol plants in Venezuela, and gas exploration in Iran by Venezuela's state-run oil company.
On Saturday, Chavez hinted of future projects as well.
The Venezuelan president said he aims to build a "nuclear village" with Iranian help in his country, according to Iran's Press TV. The details of such a plan were unknown.
Chavez backed Iran's claims that its nuclear ambitions are for peaceful purposes.
"There is not a single proof that Iran is building ... a nuclear bomb," Chavez said after the leaders met, according to Press TV. "Soon they will accuse us also of building an atomic bomb."
The visit was Chavez's eighth to Iran, and the first since Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.
Chavez's trip to Iran follows visits to Libya, Algeria and Syria. He will visit Belarus and Russia before returning to Venezuela.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Jul-27, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
The White House's Latin Connection
Is Greg Craig driving U.S. Latin America policy?Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya returned to his country on Friday, traveling by SUV from Nicaragua to a small border town. It was his first time back in Honduras since he was arrested and deported on June 28 for violating the constitution.
Mr. Zelaya appeared somewhat disappointed that his theatrical re-entry did not provoke a shoot-out. A few hours later he jumped back into Nicaragua where Sandinista President Daniel Ortega has given him shelter.
If Mr. Zelaya keeps this up, the crisis could drag on. But however the standoff is resolved, it is likely to be remembered as a defining moment for U.S. Latin America policy under Barack Obama.
Mr. Zelaya had means, motive and opportunity to destroy the country's democratic institutions and was moving to do so. If he succeeded, he could have consolidated power in the manner of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and turned the country into a police state. Mr. Obama's insistence that Mr. Zelaya be restored to power has strengthened the image of an arrogant and patronizing Uncle Sam disconnected from the region's reality.
Hondurans might be more amenable to an Obama democracy lecture if the U.S. showed any interest in standing up to Mr. Chávez and his antidemocratic allies or any grasp of the dangers they present. Instead, since taking office in January the American president has embraced the region's bad actors only to be subsequently embarrassed by revelations that his new “friends” are actually enemies of liberty and peace.
The weirdness started with the April Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, when Mr. Obama practically high-fived Mr. Chávez like they were long lost soul mates. The administration's spin was that tension in the region was caused by George W. Bush. The charming Mr. Obama would change all that, and from there U.S. influence would rise again. Mr. Chávez didn't get the memo. On July 19, the Washington Post reported that a new Government Accountability Office report finds “that corruption at high levels of President Hugo Chavez's government, and state aid to Colombia's drug-trafficking guerrillas, have made Venezuela a major launching pad for cocaine bound for the United States and Europe.” Now Mr. Chávez says he will overthrow the Honduran government.
Mr. Obama called Ecuador's Rafael Correa in early June to “congratulate” him on his recent re-election, and according to a White House spokesman, “express his desire to deepen our bilateral relationship and to maintain an ongoing dialogue that can ensure a productive relationship based on mutual respect.” This made Mr. Obama look uninformed again since Mr. Correa's disrespect for U.S. interests is legendary.
On June 22, I reported in this column that Colombian military intelligence had evidence the Correa government is a supporter of the Colombian rebel group FARC. A furious Mr. Correa jumped in front of television cameras to issue a threat to sue The Wall Street Journal. “We are fed up with their lies,” he warned. The Americas in the News
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He couldn't know that the Associated Press would release a video days later of a rebel reading a letter from the FARC's deceased leader about “compromising” documents that talk of the FARC's financial support for Mr. Correa's 2006 presidential campaign and “agreements” with Correa envoys. Reporting on the news, the Spanish daily El Pais wrote that “various emails from the computers of [FARC honcho] Raúl Reyes tell about the delivery of $100,000 to the Correa campaign team. What is new is that a high-ranking leader of the guerrillas verbally acknowledges the contribution.” Mr. Correa denies FARC connections and says it is a “setup.” No word yet on whether he plans to sue all the other newspapers that subsequently reported the story.
Having established that making nice with the region's troublemakers is a priority, Mr. Obama now wants Mr. Zelaya—who was endorsed by the FARC last week—reinstated. If Honduras does not comply, the U.S. is threatening to freeze assets and revoke the visas of interim government officials.
Some Washington watchers figure this bizarre stance is due to the fact that Mr. Obama is relying heavily on White House Counsel Gregory Craig for advice on Latin America.
Mr. Craig was the lawyer for Fidel Castro—er, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the father of Elian Gonzalez—during Bill Clinton's 2000 repatriation to Cuba of the seven-year-old. During the presidential campaign when Mr. Craig was advising Mr. Obama, the far-left Council on Hemispheric Affairs endorsed Mr. Craig as “the right man to revive deeply flawed U.S.-Latin America relations.” In other words, to pull policy left.
There is plenty of speculation that Mr. Obama is making policy off of Mr. Craig's “expertise.” It is not too much to believe. Indeed, if all policy is now being run out of the White House, as many observers contend, then the views of the White House counsel may explain a lot.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Jul-13, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Why Honduras Sent Zelaya Away
The former president threatened to use force against the Congress and other institutions.In a perfect world former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya would be in jail in his own country right now, awaiting trial. The Honduran attorney general has charged him with deliberately violating Honduran law and the Supreme Court ordered his arrest in Tegucigalpa on June 28.
But the Honduran military whisked him out of the country, to Costa Rica, when it executed the court's order.
His expulsion has given his supporters ammunition to allege that he was treated unlawfully. Now he is an international hero of the left. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Cuban dictator Raúl Castro, and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez are all insisting that he be restored to power. This demand is baseless. Mr. Zelaya's detention was legal, as was his official removal from office by Congress.
If there is anything debatable about the crisis it is the question of whether the government can defend the expulsion of the president. In fact it had good reasons for that move and they are worth Mrs. Clinton's attention if she is interested in defending democracy.
Besides eagerly trampling the constitution, Mr. Zelaya had demonstrated that he was ready to employ the violent tactics of chavismo to hang onto power. The decision to pack him off immediately was taken in the interest of protecting both constitutional order and human life.
Two incidents earlier this year make the case. The first occurred in January when the country was preparing to name a new 15-seat Supreme Court, as it does every seven years. An independent board made up of members of civil society had nominated 45 candidates. From that list, Congress was to choose the new judges.
Mr. Zelaya had his own nominees in mind, including the wife of a minister, and their names were not on the list. So he set about to pressure the legislature. On the day of the vote he militarized the area around the Congress and press reports say a group of the president's men, including the minister of defense, went to the Congress uninvited to turn up the heat. The head of the legislature had to call security to have the defense minister removed.
In the end Congress held its ground and Mr. Zelaya retreated. But the message had been sent: The president was willing to use force against other institutions.
In May there was an equally scary threat to peace issued by the Zelaya camp as the president illegally pushed for a plebiscite on rewriting the constitution. Since the executive branch is not permitted to call for such a vote, the attorney general had announced that he intended to enforce the law against Mr. Zelaya.
A week later some 100 agitators, wielding machetes, descended on the attorney general's office. "We have come to defend this country's second founding," the group's leader reportedly said. "If we are denied it, we will resort to national insurrection."
These experiences frightened Hondurans because they strongly suggested that Mr. Zelaya, who had already aligned himself with Mr. Chávez, was now emulating the Venezuelan's power-grab. Other Chávez protégés -- in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua -- have done the same, refusing to accept checks on their power, making use of mobs and seeking to undermine institutions.
It was this fondness for intimidation that prompted Mr. Zelaya's exile. Honduras was worried that if he stayed in the country after his arrest his supporters would foment violence to try to bring down the interim government and restore him to power.
It wouldn't be a first. Bolivia's President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was removed in 2003 using just such tactics. Antigovernment militants, trained by Peruvian terrorists and financed by Venezuela and by drug money from the Colombian rebel group FARC, had laid siege to La Paz. As the city ran short on supplies, Mr. Sánchez de Lozada issued a decree to have armed guards accompany food and fuel trucks. The rebels, who had dynamite and weapons, clashed with the guards. Sixty people died. The president was pressured to step down.
Mr. Sánchez de Lozada told me by telephone last week that he only presented a letter of resignation to the Bolivian Congress when the U.S. threatened to cut off aid if he left the country without doing so. He signed under duress but the letter was then used by the international community to endorse what was in effect a brutal Venezuelan-directed overthrow of the democracy.
The fact that the Organization of American States and the U.S. never defended the Bolivian democracy cannot be lost on the Hondurans or the chavistas. You can bet that Venezuela will try to orchestrate similar troubles in an attempt to bring condemnation to the new Honduran government. Honduran patriots have better odds against that strategy with Mr. Zelaya out of the country, even if Washington and the OAS don't approve.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-May-11, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Cuba Doesn't Belong in a Democratic Club
Castro's apologists make a move at the OAS.The Organization of American States claims to be "the region's principal multilateral forum for strengthening democracy, promoting human rights, and confronting shared problems such as poverty, terrorism, illegal drugs and corruption."
Now OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza wants the group to be able to add a new goal to the list: legitimizing the Cuban military dictatorship by making it a member.
How he intends to do it and why I'll get to in a moment. But first let's review how Cuba got the OAS boot in the first place. Contrary to Mr. Insulza's assertions, Cuba has not changed since its 1962 expulsion, and renewing its membership now will undermine OAS credibility. It will also be a gut punch to the island's dissidents who, according to the Center of Human Rights Rapporteurs in Cuba, are being brutalized daily by Raül Castro's thugs.
Dissidents also can't be too happy with the news that the Obama team has been holding meetings with the regime to see if it can, according to one official quoted in the New York Times, have a "serious, civil, open relationship" with the owners of the Cuban slave plantation. Still, Tom Shannon, the State Department's assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere, suggests that, at least within the OAS, the U.S. is planning to stand up for the long-suffering Cuban people. "Giving Cuba a pass on the OAS's democracy and human rights requirements would be bad for the OAS and bad for Cuba," he says.
Since its founding in 1948, the OAS has professed a belief that the "historic mission of America is to offer to man a land of liberty and a favorable environment for the development of his personality and the realization of his just aspirations." The Americas in the News
Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.
The Cuban regime is at odds with these ideals and in January 1962 the OAS expelled it, resolving: "That adherence by any member of the Organization of American states to Marxism-Leninism is incompatible with the inter-American system and the alignment of such a government with the communist bloc breaks the unity and solidarity of the hemisphere."
In other words, because the Castro government had murdered and imprisoned dissidents, done away with free elections and economic and civil liberties, and allied itself with communism, Cuba was deemed unfit for OAS membership.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the OAS strengthened its commitment to democracy and free elections by adopting the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
All OAS members signed onto the charter, signaling that political liberty and to a lesser extent economic liberty might be finally taking hold in Latin America. But Cuba was still supporting violence and terror in the region. Worse yet, one of Fidel Castro's disciples, Hugo Chávez, had won the presidential election in Venezuela and was militarizing the government. Over the next seven years he would slowly strip the population of civil and economic rights and use his oil wealth to spread Bolivarian revolution to neighboring states.
He has also bought allegiances at the OAS. Today, it is Mr. Chávez along with Brazil's President Lula da Silva (another Fidel ally) who call the shots at the OAS, not Mr. Insulza (though as a Chilean Socialist, he is no doubt sympathetic to their views). What the fidelistas want is international legitimacy for Cuba. "Step one," as Mr. Insulza has referred to his proposal, is to lift the 1962 resolution. Then, he told me by telephone last week, "countries" can decide whether the dictatorship should be allowed back into the OAS.
His reasoning? The 1962 resolution is "not valid anymore," he told the Americas Society in an interview last week, "and it doesn't condemn Cuba for not being democratic. It condemns it for being a member of the Sino-Soviet axis and says that this axis is aggressive against the United States. But it doesn't exist anymore. . . it's really crazy. It is a piece of the Cold War that was left in a corner and we must get rid of it."
This so betrays both the letter and the spirit of the resolution that it is hard to interpret it as anything other than a sop to the dictator and his friends. Yes, the Cold War is over. But the Cuban military today has close bilateral ties with North Korea and Iran, two points on a new axis of evil that threaten world peace and stability. Cuba is also a safe haven and medical outpost for Colombian narcotrafficking guerrillas. Moreover, the regime still pledges its loyalty to Marxist-Leninist ideology, which is directly at odds with human liberty.
Mr. Shannon says that the Democratic Charter was a "hard-won accomplishment, and it would be a big mistake for the OAS to step away from it." But Mr. Insulza seems to have another take. He told me that he would like to see all countries be democracies. Yet when I asked him how the Castro dictatorship could possibly comply with the charter, he told me that the charter is a resolution of the general assembly but it is not necessary for all countries to sign it. One wonders what other dictatorships in Latin history the secretary-general would have lobbied for.
from BBC News, 2009-May-15:
Venezuela seizes US pasta company
Venezuelan officials accompanied by soldiers have seized "temporary" control of a US-owned pasta producer.
Venezuela says the plant, owned by the big US firm Cargill, had violated regulations on price controls intended to guarantee cheap food for the poor.
The move further increases President Hugo Chavez's hold on the economy, after a series of recent take-overs of private and foreign-owned businesses.
They include a Cargill rice plant, and services companies in the oil industry.
Deputy Food Minister Rafael Coronado said the government would run the factory for 90 days, and would reassess the situation after that.
He said it has not been producing sufficient quantities of a type of pasta sold at cheap, government-established prices.
Price control
The Cargill rice mill, taken over by the government for not producing rice covered by price controls, was similarly taken over this year. It was nationalised last March.
Cargill had said it did not break the government's pricing rules on rice because the mill did not produce the plain rice which is regulated.
Venezuela has set quotas and prices for 12 basic foods including rice, powdered milk, cheese and tomato sauce.
Under the measure, 80% of all rice produced must be basic white rice. The measure also includes 95% of all cooking oil, coffee and sugar.
Last week Mr Chavez sent troops to take over oil service companies including hundreds of supply boats, and two American owned gas facilities.
He nationalised Venezuela's oil reserves, one of the largest in the Americas, two years ago.
from the New York Times, 2009-May-8, by Simon Romero, with María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting from Caracas, and Jad Mouawad from New York:
Chávez Seizes Oil Contractors'Assets
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez asserted greater control over the country's energy industry on Friday by seizing the assets of some foreign and domestic oil contractors while his government grapples with a sharp decline in oil revenue and mounting debts.
The move points to a greater concentration of power by Mr. Chávez, who is busily exerting sway over important industries and political institutions during the economic crisis. In recent weeks, his government has also hounded top rivals, stripping the mayor of Caracas of financing for the city budget while forcing the mayor of Maracaibo to seek asylum in Peru after he was confronted with corruption charges.
The move by Mr. Chávez on Friday also raises concern about Venezuela's ability to increase its declining oil production at a time of low oil prices. The national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, hired the contractors to help it produce oil by operating drilling rigs, using technology to extract oil from aging wells or moving personnel or equipment on boats.
Venezuela, which relies on oil for about 93 percent of its export earnings, has not paid some of the oil contactors since late last year, according to filings by companies like Williams Companies, based in Tulsa, Okla., which said last month that it did not expect to receive $241 million it was owed here. Petróleos de Venezuela had been seeking a reduction of about 40 percent in its overall debt to the companies, which is estimated by industry analysts to be about $10 billion.
Our “people will never again be anyone's slave,” Mr. Chávez said Friday.
Industry representatives in the oil-producing state of Zulia said uniformed soldiers had begun occupying oil installations on Thursday, shortly before the National Assembly approved a measure allowing the takeovers. The move deepens Mr. Chávez's control of the oil industry, following the imposition of higher royalties on foreign oil companies, raids on their offices by tax authorities and the nationalization of large oil-producing projects in recent years.
In other countries, national oil companies have been trying to negotiate better terms with contractors since prices plunged with the onset of the global financial crisis. But Mr. Chávez's move marks an aggressive turn in such negotiations, highlighting the risks that many energy companies face in doing business in Venezuela.
Some foreign companies began shutting down their drilling rigs earlier this year when it became apparent they would not get paid by Petróleos de Venezuela. Helmerich & Payne, a drilling company based in Tulsa, has told investors that it stands to lose $116 million because of unpaid bills by Petróleos de Venezuela.
Particularly for large oil-services companies, like Schlumberger or Halliburton, opportunities still exist in Venezuela, where they have carved out a presence that has spanned decades. It was not immediately clear whether they could remain as minority partners with Petróleos de Venezuela or continue talks over debts they hoped to collect.
For the time being, Mr. Chávez's government said it would expropriate at least 13 drilling rigs, 39 oil terminals and about 300 boats used in waters and land around Lake Maracaibo in western Venezuela. Still, industry leaders said the scope of the expropriations could easily be widened. Cathy Mann, a spokeswoman for Halliburton declined to comment on whether the company would be affected.
Despite the abrupt shifts in energy policy here, large oil companies like Chevron and Total of France have tried to maintain their business activities in the country, attracted by its sizable oil reserves. Unlike some other major oil countries, like Saudi Arabia or Mexico, Venezuela still allows foreign companies to be minority partners in nationalized oil fields.
In an attempt to increase production, Venezuela has recently been soliciting bids from private oil companies in the West, as well as from state-controlled Chinese and Russian companies, for new oil projects capable of producing up to 1.2 million barrels of oil a day. The bidding has been delayed this year, but it is scheduled to begin here in late July.
“For those thinking about bidding, the action against the contractors is another reminder of how unsettling the environment in Venezuela can be,” said RoseAnne Franco, lead analyst for Latin America at PFC Energy, a company in Washington.
While the new projects up for bid would be assembled in the Orinoco Belt, an area with an enormous hydrocarbon reserve in southern Venezuela, the seizure of the contractors' assets on Friday took place largely in Zulia, in western Venezuela, where some of the country's oldest oil wells are located.
Zulia is also a bastion of opposition to Mr. Chávez. Resentment has been festering against the president there since corruption charges were brought against Manuel Rosales, a leading opposition figure who ran against Mr. Chávez for president in 2006 and was elected mayor of Maracaibo last year. Mr. Rosales fled to Peru last month rather than submit to an order for his arrest to face corruption charges.
Mr. Chávez will expand his power in Zulia with the takeover of the contractors by his loyalists, but it is a move that could heighten tension in one of the most strategically important states.
“They want to come for all of Zulia,” said Néstor Borjas, a leader in Fedecámaras, a regional business association in western Venezuela.
“They come with their soldiers from the National Guard, and they take what they want,” he said, “and you, as the owner of your company, can do absolutely nothing.”
from the Washington Post, 2009-Apr-22, by Juan Forero:
Opposition Leader Seeks Asylum in Peru After Fleeing Venezuela
A top Venezuelan opposition leader is seeking political asylum in Peru, according to his aides, after fleeing his country to avoid what he calls a politically motivated witch hunt directed by the government of President Hugo Chávez.
Manuel Rosales, a fierce critic of Chávez and until last month the mayor of Venezuela's second-largest city, left the country Sunday amid a wave of indictments and government investigations of the president's most vocal political foes. The Chávez administration has also stripped some functions of government from opposition politicians who wrested control of several of Venezuela's biggest cities and states from his socialist party in regional elections in November.
"There is a persecution against the entire democratic dissidents' movement in this country," Edward Rodríguez, a spokesman for Rosales, said Tuesday by telephone. "It is a political persecution, and it is not just against him."
Venezuela's justice minister, Tareck El Aissami, told state television in Caracas, the capital, that the investigation against Rosales was criminal, not political. "This citizen is being investigated by Venezuelan justice for crimes outlined in the anti-corruption law," he said, adding that the government will seek his extradition.
Prosecutors called for Rosales's arrest in March on charges of illicit enrichment, and lawmakers in the National Assembly have opened a probe to determine the source of $60,000 that Rosales made while governor of the oil-rich state of Zulia. Rosales was elected mayor of Maracaibo, the capital of Zulia, in November but stepped down last month in the wake of the government's investigation.
All but a dozen members of the National Assembly openly side with Chávez, and his allies are stacked throughout the judicial system, including the Supreme Court. Chávez has said he was determined to jail Rosales, leader of the New Time political party, and "wipe" him "from the political map."
"I have decided to make Manuel Rosales a prisoner," Chávez said in October. Soon after, authorities in the attorney general's office and a special commission in the assembly launched investigations against him.
Asdrúbal Quintero, a legal adviser to Rosales, said by telephone from Maracaibo that Rosales had considered showing up at a pretrial hearing Monday to argue that the money in question was earned legally through his agricultural business.
But Quintero said the opposition leader decided to flee after Ismael García, an anti-Chávez lawmaker in the National Assembly, announced that he had obtained a draft of a sentencing document against him. The document, García said, showed that Rosales was to be sentenced to a 30-year prison term.
"The idea was to capture him and imprison him," Quintero said. "This is the operating style of a dictatorship."
Opposition leaders characterize the crackdown as a government strategy designed, in effect, to criminalize the opposition movement. "It is a general political witch hunt that no sector that opposes the government can escape," Antonio Ledezma, mayor of metropolitan Caracas, said in an interview.
This month, authorities -- with guns drawn -- arrested former Defense Minister Raúl Baduel, once a close friend of Chávez who turned against him, on corruption charges. Authorities have also announced investigations against Henrique Salas, governor of the economically important state of Carabobo, and César Pérez Vivas, governor of the border state of Tachira.
Tax authorities, meanwhile, are investigating Henrique Capriles Radonski, governor of Miranda state, and Teodoro Petkoff, a newspaper editor whose columns have infuriated the government.
In office since 1998, Chávez won a referendum in February that eliminates term limits and permits him to run for office indefinitely. Luis Vicente León, a political analyst and pollster with a Caracas firm, Datanalisis, said that the president wants to use his newfound political capital to push through controversial reforms, including the centralization of power. Leon said a vital part of the strategy is demonizing opposition leaders.
"He has to make sure that the opposition is seen as being responsible for going against the interests of the people," Leon said. "For some people, middle class people, what is happening is an attack on the opposition, but for another part of the population, it is not."
Indeed, Chávez continues to enjoy the support of 61 percent of Venezuelans, Leon said. A disjointed opposition, meanwhile, faces obstacles in winning converts despite polls that show Venezuelans tired of rampant crime, food shortages and other problems. Leon said the investigations against key opposition leaders could further weaken the anti-government movement.
Even those leaders who are not facing investigation, like Ledezma, who was elected mayor of greater Caracas in November, have seen their power diminish in recent months. Oversight of police agencies, hospitals and other services have reverted to central government control. Chávez has also appointed a special vice president who will oversee much of the city's budget.
"It is a way to asphyxiate us financially," Ledezma said. "In addition to being unconstitutional, it is a way of not recognizing the will of the people who elected me as mayor."
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Apr-20, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Americas Summit: Missed Opportunity
If President Barack Obama's goal at the fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend was to be better liked by the region's dictators and left-wing populists than his predecessor George W. Bush, the White House can chalk up a win.
If, on the other hand, the commander in chief sought to advance American ideals, things didn't go well. As the mainstream press reported, Mr. Obama seemed well received. But the freest country in the region took a beating from Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, Bolivia's Evo Morales, and Nicaragua's Danny Ortega.
Ever since Bill Clinton organized the first Summit of the Americas in 1994 in Miami, this regional gathering has been in decline. It seemed to hit its nadir in 2005 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, when President Nestór Kirchner allowed Mr. Chávez and his revolutionary allies from around the region to hold a massive, American-flag burning hate-fest in a nearby stadium with the goal of humiliating Mr. Bush. This year things got even worse with the region's bullies hogging the limelight and Mr. Obama passing up a priceless opportunity to defend freedom.
Mr. Obama had to know that the meeting is used by the region's politicians to rally the base back home by showing that they can put Uncle Sam in his place. Realizing this, the American president might have arrived at the Port of Spain prepared to return their volley. They have, after all, tolerated and even encouraged for decades one of the most repressive regimes of the 20th century. In recent years, that repression has spread from Cuba to Venezuela, and today millions of Latin Americans live under tyranny. As the leader of the free world, Mr. Obama had the duty to speak out for these voiceless souls. In this he failed.
The subject of Cuba was a softball that the American president could have hit out of the park. He knew well in advance that his counterparts would pressure him to end the U.S. embargo. He even prepared for that fact a few days ahead of the summit by unconditionally lifting U.S. restrictions on travel and remittances to the island, and offering to allow U.S. telecom companies to bring technology to the backward island.
Think that helped cast the U.S. in a better light in the region? Fat chance. Raúl Castro responded on Friday from Venezuela with a long diatribe against the Yankee oppressor and a cool offer to negotiate on "equal" terms. In case you don't speak Cuban, I'll translate: The Castro brothers want credit from U.S. banks because they have defaulted on the rest of the world, and no one will lend to them anymore. They also want foreign aid from the World Bank.
Anyone who thinks that Raúl is ruminating over free elections is dreaming. Nevertheless, the Cuba suggestion to put "everything" on the table became the "news" of the summit. And while it is true that Mr. Obama mentioned political prisoners in his list of items that U.S. wants to negotiate, he could have done much more. Indeed, he could have called Raúl's bluff by putting the spotlight on the prisoners of conscience, by naming names. He could have talked about men like Afro-Cuban pacifist Oscar Elias Biscet, who has written eloquently about his admiration for Martin Luther King Jr., and today sits in jail for the crime of dissent.
The first black U.S. president could have named hundreds of others being held in inhumane conditions by the white dictator. He could have also asked Brazil's President Lula da Silva, Chile's President Michelle Bachelet and Mexico's Felipe Calderón where they stand on human rights for all Cubans. Imagine if Mr. Obama asked for a show of hands to find out who believes Cubans are less deserving of freedom than, say, the black majority in South Africa under apartheid or Chileans during the Pinochet dictatorship. Then again, that would be no way to win a popularity contest or to ingratiate yourself with American supporters who are lining up to do business in Cuba.
Instead the U.S. president simply floated down the summit river passively bouncing off whatever obstacles he encountered. The Chávez "gift" of the 1971 leftist revolutionary handbook "Open Veins of Latin America" followed by a suggestion of renewing ambassadorial relations was an insult to the American people. Granted, giving the Venezuelan attention would have been counterproductive. But Mr. Obama ought to have complained loudly about that country's aggression. It has supported Colombian terrorists, drug trafficking and Iran's nuclear ambitions. As former CIA director Michael Hayden told Fox News Sunday, "the behavior of President Chávez over the past years has been downright horrendous -- both internationally and with regard to what he's done internally inside Venezuela."
Too bad Mr. Obama didn't have a copy of the late 1990s bestseller "The Perfect Latin American Idiot" as a gift for Mr. Chávez. Another way Mr. Obama could have neutralized the left would have been to announce a White House push for ratification of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. That didn't happen either. He only promised to talk some more, a strategy that will offend no one and accomplish nothing. It is a strategy that sums up, to date, Mr. Obama's foreign policy for the region.
from Agence France-Presse, 2009-Apr-17:
Obama and US critic Chavez shake hands at summit
PORT OF SPAIN — US President Barack Obama and one of the most voluble critics of the United States, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, have cordially shaken hands as they met for the first time at a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad.
A Venezeulan official said on Friday: "It was only a matter of seconds. They saw each other, they greeted each other, as the official inauguration got underway. It was very brief. President Chavez greeted Obama in Spanish, and he responded in English."
The Venezuelan presidency supplied photos showing Chavez and Obama, both smiling and looking at ease, together.
Chavez was said to have told Obama at that moment: "I shook hands with (George W.) Bush with this hand eight years ago. I want to be your friend."
Obama responded by thanking Chavez, the official said.
Although Chavez maintains his tirades against the "imperialist" United States, he has expressed respect for Obama, in contrast with Bush, whom he called a "poor idiot."
The United States government, however, sees Venezuela as maintaining obscure relations with leftwing FARC guerrillas in neighboring Colombia and not doing enough to fight drug trafficking.
Chavez last September expelled the US ambassador to Caracas, prompting Washington to retaliate by ordering the Venezuelan ambassador out.
from the Telegraph of London, 2009-Feb-16, by Jeremy McDermott:
Hugo Chavez could succeed Fidel Castro as most enduring leader
President Hugo Chavez was granted free rein to succeed Fidel Castro as Latin America's most enduring leader yesterday after Venezuelans voted to allow him to stand for office indefinitely.
The populist strongman, who has said he wishes to rule until 2049, secured an amendment to the constitution that lifts a two-term limit and ensures he will be able to continue his "socialist revolution" for as long as he retains the support of the electorate.
Immediately after the result of Sunday's vote was announced, Mr Chavez, 54, a former paratrooper colonel and leader of a failed coup, declared himself a candidate for the presidency in 2012, when his current term ends.
Shouting from the balcony of the Miraflores presidential palace in the capital, Caracas, he told tens of thousands of his supporters: "This soldier is a pre-candidate for the presidency for 2013 to 2019. We have cleared the political horizon.
"The doors of the future are wide open. Today I declare that I dedicate, and will dedicate, my life to the service of the Venezuelan people.
"In this path I will dedicate all that remains of my life."
Mr Chavez said that the first foreign leader to ring and congratulate him was his political mentor, Fidel Castro, whose political longevity, with almost 50 years as head of state in Cuba until his resignation on health grounds in 2007, is what the Venezuelan leading is seeking to emulate.
He said that the Cuban leader had told him: "Dear Hugo, congratulations to you and your people for a victory of such magnitude that it is impossible to measure."
Mr Chavez's victory, in which he won a better-than-expected 54 per cent of the vote, allows for an amendment to the 1999 constitution, which Mr Chavez drew up, which limited presidents to two six-year terms in office.
Other elected officials including mayors, governors and members of parliament are also affected by the amendment.
The opposition conceded defeat, although insisted that it had not been a fair contest with the government using state funds on an unprecedented scale to secure a "yes" vote, while also controlling most of the media.
Leopoldo Lopez, one of the opposition's most charismatic leaders, said that it had been a David and Goliath contest and that Goliath had won.
The student movement, which has led street protests against Mr Chavez insisting he wants to turn himself into a dictator, also recognised the results.
"We accept the results, but must denounce the opportunism and the abuse of power by the government," said David Smolansky, a student leader.
Monitors said that the elections were fair, although over 150 people were arrested across the country, accused of destroying election material, fraud and trying to vote several times.
Whilst Mr Chavez has achieved his goal of opening the path to indefinite re-election, there is no guarantee that he will find himself in a strong position in 2012.
Venezuela, a member of Opec, is almost wholly dependent on oil sales, which make up more than 90 per cent of exports and half of the government budget. But Mr Chavez is running the country at a loss and has had to plunder an estimated $12 billion (£8.36 billion) from the Central Bank's foreign reserves, in order to finance his lavish referendum campaign at a time when Venezuela's super heavy crude is fetching less than $40 a barrel.
Critics in the pro-business opposition complain that his largesse in foreign policy, with subsidised oil shipments to allied countries, has been matched in extravagance by his domestic policy, with its social programmes and job creation for his supporters.
He has also scared away foreign investors by nationalising a number of foreign-owned private enterprises.
Washington had no immediate reaction to his victory. Mr Chavez, in power since 1998, set himself up as the regional nemesis to George W.Bush in Ameica's "back yard". However he has subdued his rhetoric with President Barak Obama, stating that he would be happy to meet the US leader to improve relations with Washington.
from Reuters, 2009-Jan-22, by Jeff Franks, with editing by Doina Chiacu:
Fidel Castro breaks silence to praise Obama
HAVANA - Cuba's Fidel Castro praised U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday for his "noble intentions" but said in his first opinion column in five weeks that the new American leader had many questions to answer.
Castro's prolonged silence after months of prolific column writing had contributed to speculation that the ailing 82-year-old was on his death bed.
He did not disclose the reason that he had not written a column, or "reflection" as he calls them, since December 15, after averaging nine a month in 2008.
Castro wrote that he had met with Argentine President Christine Fernandez on Wednesday near the end of her three-day visit to Havana and told her the revolution that put him in power on January 1, 1959, had outlasted 10 U.S. presidents.
He spoke of his admiration for Obama, who took office on Tuesday, replacing George W. Bush, and is the United States' first black president.
"I expressed that personally I had not the least doubt of the honesty with which Obama, the 11th president since January 1, 1959, expressed his ideas, but in spite of his noble intentions there remained many questions to answer," he said.
One question, Castro said, was "how can a wasteful and consumerist system par excellence preserve the environment?"
Obama has said he wants to move toward normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations but would not eliminate the 46-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the communist-led island.
Castro's column, published on state-run Internet site www.cubadebate.cu, came out a few hours after his younger brother, President Raul Castro, denied rumors that Fidel Castro's health was worsening.
"He is exercising, thinking a lot, reading a lot, assisting me and helping," Raul Castro said. "Soon I'm going to make a trip to Europe. Do you think I could leave from here if Fidel was gravely ill?"
The elder Castro has been seen only in a few videos and photos since undergoing intestinal surgery in July 2006 from which he never fully recovered.
But he has maintained a public profile through his writings, and the frequency of his columns has become an informal barometer of his health among Castro watchers.
Raul Castro provisionally took power after the surgery, then officially became president in February when his brother said he was not well enough to continue.
Fernandez said at the Havana airport that Castro wore a blue jogging suit during their meeting and told her he had followed Obama's inauguration on television.
"With much passion, with much conviction, he told me he's a sincere man, believes absolutely in everything he's saying, he has many good ideas and a very good history," Fernandez said.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Jan-12, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Dictatorship for Dummies
Learn how to quash dissent Chávez-style.Optimists have long theorized that Venezuela's Hugo Chávez would meet his Waterloo with the burst of the petroleum bubble. But with oil prices down some 75% from their highs last year and the jackboot of the regime still firmly planted on the nation's neck, that theory requires revisiting.
It is true that popular discontent with chavismo has been rising as oil prices have been falling. The disillusionment is even likely to increase in the months ahead as the economy swoons. But having used the boom years to consolidate power and destroy all institutional checks and balances, Mr. Chávez has little incentive to return the country to political pluralism even if most Venezuelans are sick of his tyranny. If anything, he is apt to become more aggressive and dangerous as the bloom comes off his revolutionary rose in 2009 and he feels more threatened.
Certainly "elections" can't be expected to matter much. Mr. Chávez now controls the entire electoral process, from voter rolls to tallying totals after the polls have closed. Under enormous public pressure he accepted defeat in his 2007 bid for constitutional reforms designed to make him president for life. But so what? That loss allowed him to maintain the guise of democracy, and now he has decided that there will be another referendum on the same question in February. Presumably Venezuela will repeat this exercise until the right answer is produced.
All police states hold "elections." But they also specialize in combining the state's monopoly use of force with a monopoly in economic power and information control. Together these three weapons easily quash dissent. Venezuela is a prime example.
The Venezuelan government is now a military government. Mr. Chávez purged the armed forces leadership in 2002 and replaced fired officers with those loyal to his socialist cause. Like their counterparts in Cuba, these elevated comandantes are well compensated. Lack of transparency makes it impossible to know just how much they get paid for their loyalty, but it is safe to say that they have not been left out of the oil fiesta that compliant chavistas have enjoyed over the past decade. Even if the resource pool shrinks this year, neither their importance nor their rewards are likely to diminish.
Mr. Chávez has also taken over the Metropolitan Police in Caracas, imported Cuban intelligence agents, and armed his own Bolivarian militias, whose job it is to act as neighborhood enforcers. Should Venezuelans decide that they are tired of one-man rule, chavismo has enough weapons on hand to convince them otherwise.
Yet the art of dictatorship has been greatly refined since Stalin killed millions of his own people. Modern tyrants understand that there are many ways to manipulate their subjects and most do not require the use of force.
One measure that Mr. Chávez relies on heavily is control of the narrative. In government schools children are indoctrinated in Bolivarian thought. Meanwhile the state has stripped the media of its independence and now dominates all free television in the country. This allows the government to marinate the poor in Mr. Chávez's antimarket dogma. His captive audiences are told repeatedly that hardship of every sort -- including headline inflation of 31% last year -- is the result of profit makers, middlemen and consumerism.
The Orwellian screen is also used to stir up nationalist sentiment against foreign devils, like the U.S., Colombia and Israel. The audience has witnessed violence in Gaza through the lens of Hamas, and last week Mr. Chávez made a show of expelling the Israeli ambassador from Caracas.
Investments in revolution around South America may have to be pared back as revenues drop. But outreach to Iran and Syria is likely to continue since those relations may serve as a source of financing Mr. Chávez's military buildup. In December, the Italian daily La Stampa reported that it has seen evidence of a pact between Caracas and Tehran in which Iran uses Venezuelan aircraft for arms trafficking and Venezuela gets military aid in return. This month Turkish officials intercepted an Iranian shipment bound for Venezuela that reportedly contained materials for making explosives.
Despite all this, the most effective police-state tool remains Mr. Chávez's control over the economy. The state freely expropriates whatever it wants -- a shopping center in Caracas is Mr. Chávez's latest announced taking -- and economic freedom is dead. Moreover, the state has imposed strict capital controls, making saving or trading in hard currency impossible. Analysts are predicting another large devaluation of the bolivar in the not-too-distant future. The private sector has been wiped out, except for those who have thrown in their lot with the tyrant.
The drop in oil revenues may impoverish the state, but the opposition is even poorer. Organizing a rebellion against a less-rich Chávez remains a formidable task.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2007-May-4, p.A14:
Losing Latin America
A popular theme among Democrats running for President is their pledge to make America better liked around the world. Hillary Clinton says she'll even dispatch her husband as a kind of ambassador to the world. Well, he might start in Latin America, where our allies are getting stiffed by Democrats in Congress on trade and security.
We're referring in particular to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has been in Washington this week, making his case for the U.S.-Colombia free-trade agreement and for continued U.S. help against terrorism. Colombia, Peru and Panama have all negotiated trade accords with the U.S. that, pending Congressional approval, would raise living standards and expand American influence.
A defeat for any of the three would do great harm to the Andean region, where democrats are battling Hugo Chávez's neo-socialist populism. Mr. Uribe, Peruvian President Álan Garcia and Panamanian President Martin Torrijos have all bet their futures on opening their economies to the U.S. If they're rebuffed, the local disciples of Mr. Chávez will say they were right not to trust the capitalist Yankees. The consequences won't look good on Nancy Pelosi's resume.
On economic grounds alone, the U.S. has everything to gain by approving these trade deals. Most Peruvian and Colombian exports already have duty-free access to the U.S. market through the Andean Trade Preferences Act. But U.S. manufacturing and farm exports heading south still face high tariff and non-tariff barriers. The regional financial center of Panama is especially attractive for U.S. services but is likewise a protected market.
The larger goal is spurring development and improving the investment climate in all three countries. While Colombia and Peru have duty-free access to U.S. markets, that privilege must be renewed every few years. The FTAs end this uncertainty. Even if Latin producers lose some protection, new access to imports means they can use help from abroad to innovate and grow more competitive. This is how Chile became an export powerhouse and reduced poverty. Maybe that's why Chile's Socialist President Michelle Bachelet has endorsed the deals.
None of this matters to some Democrats, whose loyalty to the AFL-CIO trumps their concern for the poor. Having won assurances that our Latin trading partners would enforce their labor and environmental laws at home, such Democrats as Michigan's Sander Levin are now asking for more. They're threatening to block the Latin FTAs unless the U.S. accepts language that would force U.S. companies to adhere to International Labor Organization "core principles." These "principles" have never passed Congress, in part because they'd put "right-to-work" states in legal jeopardy. Republicans won't support a trade pact with such a provision, which suggests that Mr. Levin intends it as a poison pill.
All of this is taking place while Venezuela's Mr. Chávez is working to reduce American influence in the Western Hemisphere. He's doing energy deals with China while confiscating U.S. oil assets. And he's pressing to supplant the U.S. goal of hemispheric free trade with a high-tariff South American customs union that he would run. Bolivia and Ecuador have already been captured by versions of chavismo, though Peru and Colombia have so far escaped thanks to their political leadership.
Colombia is especially vulnerable, as Mr. Chávez provides aid and comfort to that country's narco-trafficking guerrillas. This is why Mr. Uribe is also asking for continued U.S. assistance to fight organized crime. The State Department has certified that Colombia has held up its commitment to human rights under this "Plan Colombia" agreement.
But now that they control Congress again, Democrats are putting this policy in doubt. Mr. Levin says the Colombia FTA should be blocked on human rights grounds, claiming that Mr. Uribe's impressive record of reducing murder, kidnapping and terrorism isn't good enough. Vermont Senator Pat Leahy has put a hold on $55 million in new Plan Colombia funding because of false human rights charges coming from Mr. Uribe's political enemies in Bogotá. Mr. Leahy's grandstanding is all the more embarrassing because U.S. demand for cocaine is the largest source of financing for the criminal networks that have killed so many innocent Colombians.
If Democrats want to make more enemies in Latin America, this is the way to do it. The twice-elected Mr. Uribe is the most far-sighted leader Colombia has had in decades, and his FTA is an attempt to align his country's future firmly with the hemisphere's free-market democracies. Peru, Panama and Colombia are saying they want to be America's political and economic partners. Do Democrats in Congress want to drive them into the arms of Mr. Chávez?
from the Associated Press, 2009-Mar-21, by Rachel Jones, with Fabiola Sanchez contributing:
Venezuela brings ports under federal control
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela's government seized seaports and airstrips in at least four states on Saturday, a move that critics say is meant limit the powers of mayors, governors and other potential rivals to President Hugo Chavez.
The takeover, ordered by Venezuela's socialist president last weekend and approved by lawmakers, aims to bring the country's major transportation hubs under federal control this year.
Military troops were dispatched to ports in the three Venezuelan states governed by Chavez opponents: Zulia, Carabobo and Nueva Esparta this weekend. Chavez last week warned that any governors who challenged the takeover could end up in prison.
The measure also prohibits states and municipalities from collecting tariffs or tolls at transportation hubs or on highways, cutting off a key source of funding for local projects that could otherwise compete with federal handouts, Caracas-based economist Abelardo Daza said.
The order, along with a prosecutor's request Thursday that opposition leader Manuel Rosales be arrested on corruption charges, sparked protests in Venezuela's second-biggest city.
Rosales, who lost to Chavez in Venezuela's 2006 presidential election, is now mayor of that city, Maracaibo. He denies the charges and has not been arrested.
"They're not using reason, they're using force," Chavez opponent Eliseo Fermin, head of Zulia state's legislative council, said Saturday.
Chavez promised to invest an unspecified amount to modernize port facilities and protect thousands of port employees' jobs.
from BBC News, 2009-Mar-1:
Chavez sends army to rice plants
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the army to take control of all rice processing plants in the country.
Mr Chavez accused some firms of overcharging by refusing to produce rice at prices set by the government.
He warned that some companies could be nationalised if they tried to interfere with supplies of the grain.
Mr Chavez - who has nationalised large swathes of Venezuela's economy - did not say how long the government intervention would last.
Major rice processors in the country include the US-owned giant Cargill and Venezuela's main food company, Polar.
Last year, Venezuela seized control of plants and offices belonging to Mexican cement giant Cemex.
In 2007, the government said it had taken control of the massive Orinoco Belt oil projects as part of President Chavez's nationalisation drive.
Price squeeze
Announcing the move to send troops to the rice plants in a televised address to the nation on Saturday, Mr Chavez criticised the producers for failing to sell their rice at government prices.
"I have ordered the immediate intervention in all those sectors of agro-industry, intervention by the revolutionary government," he said.
"This government is here to protect the people, not the bourgeoisie or the rich."
He said that those companies who had threatened to paralyse rice production could be expropriated.
"I will expropriate them, I have no problem with that, and I'll pay them with bonds. Don't count on me paying with hard cash," he said, without mentioning any companies by name.
The agriculture minister later confirmed that the military were in control of at least one major national producer, Primor, the BBC's Will Grant reports from Caracas.
Further interventions are expected in the next 48 hours.
In Venezuela, the government provides basic foodstuffs at low prices in state-run markets known as "mercales".
But many rice, wheat, meat and dairy producers complain that the price regulations leave them without a profit and that many are facing bankruptcy, our correspondent says.
The country's inflation levels are the highest in Latin America and, as a result, there are often shortages of items such as rice and coffee, leading to hoarding and sale on the black market.
With President Chavez recently granted the right to stand for a third term in office, he is keen to ensure the provision of cheap food to the poor is not put in jeopardy, Will Grant adds.
from the Washington Post, 2008-Dec-13, p.D1, by Anthony Faiola:
Calling Foreign Debt 'Immoral,' Leader Allows Ecuador to Default
Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said yesterday that his nation is defaulting on its foreign debt, fulfilling his longtime populist pledge to leave international creditors in the lurch.
The default, Ecuador's second in 10 years, could rattle already jittery investors who have pulled billions of dollars out of emerging markets in recent months as the global financial crisis has spread. It could also set back U.S. interests in Latin America, as Correa now seeks to deepen financial ties with allies like Iran, which this week granted the South American nation a new $40 million credit line.
Yet some analysts say the impact of Ecuador's default may be relatively contained.
They note the size of Ecuador's $3.9 billion worth of global bonds -- though four times larger than those held by the Seychelles, the only other country to default this year -- is still relatively small. By comparison, Argentina in 2002 defaulted on a whopping $100 billion in foreign debt.
And while developing world economies have taken a sharp turn for the worse in recent months, Ecuador is ceasing payments not because the oil-rich country cannot afford to pay but because it has made a political decision not to.
Correa has been threatening default and demonizing foreign investors since his presidential campaign in 2006. Most recently, he has cited a presidential commission report that found evidence of criminal violations by previous governments that sold debt to pension funds, hedge funds and other overseas investors.
Last month, Correa, an economist with a degree from the University of Illinois, said Ecuador would hold off on a $31 million interest payment, triggering a 30-day grace period that runs out Monday. He had hinted since then that Ecuador might make the payment. But speaking to reporters in the commercial center of Guayaquil yesterday, Correa said it would not be made and declared the country in default.
"We are ready to accept the consequences," Correa said, according to a transcript of his comments. He described the debt as "immoral," saying the government would take its findings that past debt sales were tainted by graft and bribes to international courts.
Ecuadorian officials have been making their case in capitals across the hemisphere this week, including during a visit by Correa's top cabinet members to Washington and New York. But that may not prevent investors, who Correa said would receive a restructuring proposal in coming days, from suing Ecuador and possibly seeking the attachment of foreign assets.
Bondholders could be in for a steep haircut, though perhaps no worse than current market value for Ecuador's debt. As expectations of a default grew since September, the value of Ecuador's bonds fell more than 65 percent, to 30 cents on the dollar before Correa's announcement at 2 p.m. yesterday. They sank below 24 cents on the dollar shortly after his announcement.
It is exceedingly rare in global finance for a nation not to honor its debt because it doesn't want to, as opposed to not being able to make payments because of a financial crunch. Some analysts fear it may set a precedent, emboldening other leaders who share Correa's ideology -- such as Venezuela's Hugo Chávez -- to make similar pronouncements.
"That is the real concern," said Alessandra Alecci, senior analyst for Moody's Investors Service in New York. "At some point, do you see Argentina and Venezuela saying, 'Well, Ecuador did it, why can't we?' "
Oil represents about 60 percent of Ecuador's exports, and speculation has surged that crude's steep drop since this summer was making it more difficult for Ecuador to pay its debt. In a telephone interview yesterday Ecuador's homeland security minister, Fernando Bustamante, strongly refuted that. "I want to dispel the notion that this has any connection with any potential troubles related to our finances," he said.
Critics say the government may be playing a high-stakes game of chicken with investors.
On Thursday, the Quito-based newspaper El Comercio reported that the government had quietly bought back $680 million in debt from foreign creditors in recent weeks. It has raised the possibility that Ecuador may have purposely been trying to drive down the value of its bonds on international markets, allowing the government to step in and buy them back for a fraction of the cost of honoring them and making a renegotiation of the debt easier now.
Bustamante declined yesterday to comment on those reports.
from the Economist, 2008-Nov-27:
Friends of opportunity
China, rather than Russia, is the new partner that mattersFOR those who think a new cold war has broken out, this week seemed to provide some evidence. The Peter the Great, a nuclear-powered cruiser, and two other Russian warships, arrived in the Caribbean to exercise with the Venezuelan navy. Onshore, Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, met Venezuela's Hugo Chávez as part of a Latin American tour. In Peru, he attended the APEC summit, a get-together of leaders from 21 Asian and Pacific countries. Like Mr Medvedev, China's Hu Jintao (pictured with Peru's president, Alan García) also used the Lima meeting as a pretext for a Latin American tour, which in his case took in Costa Rica and Cuba. Last year another visitor from far-flung parts, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, turned up in Latin America.
To some in the United States, this flurry of outside interest in a region that they considered their “backyard” is threatening. They see it is a sign that under President George Bush America has lost influence in the region. In fact, Latin America's international ties have long been more diverse than caricature allows, but they are becoming even more so as the world changes. For some South American countries, Europe has always been at least as important as a trade and investment partner as the United States. Trade with Japan and the Middle East grew in the 1970s, while the Soviet Union sold arms to Peru as well as sustaining communist Cuba.
It is Mr Chávez's search for allies in his rhetorical and political battle against the “empire”, as he likes to call the United States, that pricked the interest of Russia and Iran. For Russia, its Caribbean naval jaunt is a symbolic riposte to America's plan to place missile batteries in Poland and to its dispatch of naval vessels to distribute aid in Georgia after Russia's incursion in August. The same goes for its recent revival of ties with Cuba.
But Mr Medvedev's main purpose in Latin America is business. Mr Chávez has already bought arms worth $4.4 billion from Russia—including a Kalashnikov factory due to start producing 50,000 rifles a year in 2010. Russia was reported this month to have signed a contract to sell Venezuela portable air-defence missiles. That would alarm Colombian officials, who will fear their onward unofficial sale to the FARC guerrillas. Russian oil, gas and mining companies have signed deals to invest in Venezuela. Mr Chávez would like the Russians to build a nuclear power station.
Mr Medvedev arrived in Caracas from Brasília. Brazil is close to signing an arms deal with France, which has agreed to pass on jet-fighter technology. But it may buy Russian helicopters, and sees scope for collaboration with Russia on civilian nuclear technology and aerospace. Mr Medvedev said in Rio de Janeiro that he hoped trade between the two countries would soon double from last year's $5 billion. Russian companies are interested in extracting Brazilian oil too. After initially embracing Mr Chávez as an ally, Brazil's government has recently sought quietly to neutralise his influence. By inviting Mr Medvedev Brazil's message to Russia is: “if you want to have a significant relationship in South America, have it with us,” says Paulo Sotero, a Brazil specialist at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a think-tank in Washington, DC.
The motive for Iran's recent interest in Latin America seems to be a desire to add to its small stock of diplomatic friends around the world, and to score propaganda points against the United States. Mr Chávez has signed no fewer than 200 co-operation agreements with Iran. Venezuelan officials say that Iran has invested more than $7 billion in their country—in plants to assemble cars, tractors, farm machinery and bicycles, as well as oil—and that bilateral trade has reached $4.6 billion. But these figures may be exaggerated. Last year Ultimas Noticias, a pro-government newspaper, reported big delays on some Iranian investments and rake-offs by local officials involved in them.
In Mr Chávez's wake, socialist presidents in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua have also developed ties with Iran. Mr Ahmadinejad promised investments of $1.1 billion in developing Bolivia's gas, and $350m to build a port in Nicaragua. But there is little sign of either investment materialising. Brazil's foreign minister, Celso Amorim, recently visited Tehran and delivered a letter from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva inviting Mr Ahmadinejad to visit. Since Iran is the subject of United Nations sanctions, and Brazil has been actively, if fruitlessly, pursuing a permanent seat at the UN, this raised eyebrows in Brazil. Mr Amorim's visit was “inexplicable” and “gratuitous”, according to Luiz Felipe Lampreia, a former foreign minister.
The intercontinental ambitions of Iran, Russia and Venezuela have all been puffed up by oil, and so are vulnerable to the steep fall in its price. The lasting change for Latin America is its burgeoning ties with China. At the APEC summit, Mr Bush's last trip abroad, it was Mr Hu who was the centre of attention. Mr García treated him to a parade around Lima's colonial centre before they announced that they had wrapped up a free-trade agreement between their two countries. That matches a similar accord China concluded with Chile in 2005.
China's total two-way trade with Latin America has shot up from just $12.2 billion in 2000 to $102 billion last year. Though Chinese investment—mainly in mining and oil—has grown more slowly, it is now picking up. Last month China became a member of the Inter-American Development Bank. But China has also disappointed some Latin Americans. Some Brazilians complain that Brazil sells raw materials to China while buying manufactures from it. Brazil is frustrated that neither China nor Russia has helped its Security Council bid.
All Latin American countries are naturally keen to diversify their economic relations, and some seek wider political ties. But Europe ($250 billion last year) and the United States ($560 billion) remain Latin America's biggest trade partners. And the foreign leader that most Latin American politicians will be keenest to see over the coming year is Barack Obama.
from the Jerusalem Post, 2009-Jan-9, by Matthew Wagner:
Venezuela's Jews close their schools
The Jewish community in Caracas is "tense" and "preoccupied" in the wake of President Hugo Chavez's decision to expel the Israel ambassador, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Venezuela Pynchas Brener said on Thursday.
"This government has been very friendly with Iran," Brener said. "And many Venezuelans make no distinction between Jews and Israelis - maybe they are right."
Brener, 77, who spoke with The Jerusalem Post by telephone from New York, said that Jewish schools in Caracas closed for few days out of concern that they would attract anti-Israel demonstrations.
Chavez's decision to expel Ambassador Shlomo Cohen came in protest against what he called Israel's "barbaric" military operation in Gaza.
In 2002, Brener, a graduate of Yeshiva University who has been a rabbi in Venezuela for 41 years, supported a coup against Chavez that succeeded in deposing him for less than a week in April 2002.
Since then, Brener has been on bad terms with the government.
The rabbi said the latest incident affecting the Jewish community was the decision by the government to expropriate ownership of a large mall that was built by a Jewish businessman outside the San Bernadino district in Caracas.
In addition, twice in recent years Venezuelan military forces have raided the 1,400-pupil Jewish school in the Los Chorros neighborhood, ostensibly looking for arms.
But the most important development, which could have a major impact on the future of the country, is a referendum slated for next month.
Venezuelans will be asked to approve a measure that would allow Chavez and other politicians to be reelected indefinitely.
Chavez has been president since 1998.
"If that referendum passes I expect a lot of Jews will leave Venezuela, because it would mean Chavez is here to stay," the rabbi said.
Shmuel Kornblit, Bnei Akiva's Buenos Aires-based regional director for Latin America, said that in addition to the diplomatic staff, Bnei Akiva's emissary to Venezuela, Yoav Weiner, and his wife, Maya, a Jewish Agency emissary were forced to leave.
"This move does not bode well for Jewish education in Venezuela," Kornblit said by by telephone from Argentina.
"Jewish education in South America depends on outside educators. Now with the diplomatic mission forced to leave it will be very difficult to convince educators to come to Venezuela," he said.
Kornblit explained that for security reasons the Weiners could not remain in Caracas. He added that Israelis who lacked non-Israeli passports had a difficult time obtaining visas to visit Venezuela.
"There is a strong anti-Israel sentiment in Venezuela, not so much anti-Semitism more anti-Zionism. That's why Haredim have fewer problems there."
Over the past decade thousands of Jews left Venezuela for Miami, Madrid and other cities, he said.
The Jewish community, like other affluent Venezuelan communities, was deeply concerned about Chavez's Marxist economic policies, he said.
"People are afraid he is going to nationalize the economy and take possession of privately owned factories and businesses. I think that concerns them more than anti-Semitic-related violence," Kornblit said.
from the Associated Press, 2009-Jan-9, by Fabiola Sanchez:
Venezuela faces racing inflation, slowing growth
CARACAS, Venezuela — Analysts predict Venezuela's economy is headed for a worse year than the government admits, as falling oil prices stall growth and inflation soars in the import-dependent country.
Venezuela saw growth of 4.8 percent in 2008 — down nearly half from 8.4 percent in 2007 — as its economy began to cool after expanding rapidly for years and as prices plummeted for the country's top export, oil.
Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez is forecasting 6 percent growth for 2009, but the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean predicts a 3 percent expansion.
OPEC-mandated cuts in oil output are contributing to the slowdown and could slow growth to as little as 1 percent, said economist Jose Guerra, a professor at Venezuela's Central University and a former Central Bank official.
Inflation has meanwhile soared to 30.9 percent, the highest in Latin America, and prices in Caracas are climbing at their quickest pace in 12 years. The Finance Ministry expects 15 percent inflation in 2009, but economists say prices will more likely climb by 28 percent to 35 percent. The Central Bank raised interest rates once last year to try to slow the surge.
Oil accounts for 94 percent of Venezuelan exports and nearly half its federal budget, and falling crude prices are pinching the public spending that fueled the country's recent boom.
President Hugo Chavez vows to continue oil-funded social programs, including subsidized food and cash benefits for single mothers. But lawmakers assumed $60-a-barrel oil prices when drafting this year's budget, and now face a likely shortfall that may force cuts or deficit spending.
Yet even as growth slows, inflation persists in Venezuela's heavily regulated and import-reliant economy, where price gains are slashing buying power.
Falling oil prices, which have slowed inflation in countries across Latin America, may in fact accelerate price gains in Venezuela, former Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala said.
Venezuela uses the dollars it earns from oil to buy foreign goods, and a sharp drop in oil earnings is reducing the amount of dollars available for imports — potentially causing scattered shortages and pushing inflation as high as 35 percent this year, Maza Zavala said.
Chavez should battle price gains by reining in government spending on nonessentials, while taking other measures to boost production and growth, he added.
The government has already started saving dollars for imports by cutting the amount that Venezuelan travelers can spend abroad on their credit cards from $5,000 to $2,500 a year.
The government is preparing an economic package to battle the downturn, but has no plans for new taxes or a currency devaluation, Rodriguez said this week.
Some analysts expect Chavez to eventually make painful cutbacks, but doubt he will announce such measures until after a referendum on abolishing presidential term limits, expected in February. If he wins, Chavez would be able to run again in 2012 and beyond.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Nov-17, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Dodd's 'Democrat' Tightens His Grip
Hugo Chávez's threat last week to bring tanks to the streets if his side does not win key states in Sunday's gubernatorial elections is chilling. But it is not surprising. It is only the next logical step in what is the Venezuelan president's drive to seize all power and silence all dissent.
Despite numerous setbacks for Venezuelan democracy, many still believe that they can rid themselves of Mr. Chávez democratically. Their expectations were raised last year when voters defeated a referendum in which Mr. Chávez attempted to rewrite the constitution to strengthen his authoritarian powers. Now they hope to deliver another setback by voting in anti-Chávez governors in at least three and maybe more than 10 of the country's 23 states. The top post in the capital district of Caracas is also up for grabs.
There are currently at least 18 states with pro-Chávez governors, and despite deteriorating living standards, Mr. Chávez's United Socialist Party of Venezuela is expected to be returned to power in a good number of them.
One reason is that the cards are stacked against the opposition. The government is using state funds for pro-Chávez candidates and has dramatically outspent the competition. The National Electoral Council is dominated by pro-Chávez representatives. Scores of individuals who are popular were declared "ineligible" to run. The government has refused to release the voter rolls so that the opposition can ensure that they are clean. On election day, lines are expected to be long and the widespread assumption that the government will use tricks to win could dampen opposition turnout.
Yet even these odds are not enough for Mr. Chávez. In recent weeks he has begun threatening to use the military against his own population in states where his municipal and gubernatorial candidates are defeated. On a trip to the state of Carabobo last week, for example, he told voters, "If you let the oligarchy return to government then maybe I'll end up sending the tanks of the armored brigade out to defend the revolutionary government." Just as troubling are the president's declarations that in states where his candidates are not elected, he will withhold federal funding.
Venezuelans saw this coming. From his earliest days as president in 1999, Mr. Chávez began working to destroy any checks on his power. On April 11, 2002, after weeks of street protests against this effort, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans marched again in Caracas. Nineteen people were shot dead in the streets by government supporters. When Mr. Chávez asked the military to use force against the crowd, the generals refused and instead told him he had to step aside.
One might think that all Americans would have supported the demand to stop the bloodshed. But Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd threw a fit over Mr. Chávez's removal. The self-styled Latin America expert insisted that since Mr. Chávez had been initially "democratically elected" in a fair vote, he should have been immune from challenges to his power, no matter the abuses. To this day the senator calls the event a U.S.-backed coup, even though a State Department Inspector General's report found that the charge was false. Even the Organization of American States accepted the change in power.
Of course it wasn't a coup, U.S. backed or otherwise, as witnessed by the fact that while Mr. Chávez was removed from power, he was allowed to keep his cell phone, chat with Havana and negotiate his future. With the inadvertent help of the opposition, which acted incompetently, Mr. Chávez was back in office days later.
The circumstances of Mr. Chávez's political resurrection are still debated, but what is not in question is the reason Venezuelans had massed in the streets that day: They opposed the strongman's consolidation of power, which they warned would lead to dictatorship.
Fast forward six and a half years, and it turns out that the protestors were right.
Nearly all economic, judicial, electoral and congressional power in Venezuela is now in the hands of Mr. Dodd's "democratically elected" Chávez. Cuban doctors and teachers blanket the country, indoctrinating the poor. Cuban intelligence personnel are always on hand to support the Bolivarian Revolution while neighborhood gangs do the grass-roots work of enforcement. Political prisoners are rotting in Venezuelan jails without trials.
Being identified as a political opponent of the revolution is a ticket to the end of the unemployment line. Private property has zero protection under the law and the economy's private sector has been all but destroyed.
Mr. Chávez appears surprised that after a decade of repression, Venezuelans are still struggling to regain their liberty. But he is just as determined to retain control, and has made it clear he will not accept defeat at the polls. This is your "democratically elected" president, Sen. Dodd.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Oct-23:
Argentina's Property Grab
A cautionary tale for anyone who owns a retirement account.Argentine President Cristina Kirchner announced this week that her government intends to nationalize the country's private pension system. If Congress approves this property grab, $30 billion in individually held retirement accounts -- think 401(k)s -- managed by private pension funds will become government property.
That the state could seize retirement savings no doubt seems outrageous to Americans. But it is a predictable development in a country where government intervention in the financial system is the norm. With Washington now expanding its role as guarantor in American banking, that's something to think about.
Mrs. Kirchner won't have trouble making the case for expropriation to Congress, which is controlled by her fellow Peronists. When the Argentine government ran out of money in 2001, it blamed the market and increased its own role in the economy. Since then it has imposed price controls, defaulted on its debt, seized dollar bank accounts, devalued the currency, nationalized businesses and tried to set confiscatory tax rates with the aim of making society more "fair." Mrs. Kirchner and her predecessor (and husband) Nestór Kirchner have also preserved the Peronist tradition of big spending.
All of this has been deemed acceptable because of the "crisis." But it has come at a cost: Among emerging market investors Argentina is now considered one of the worst places on the planet to put your money. Now that commodity prices are cooling and the global economy is slowing, Mrs. Kirchner is facing a $10 billion shortfall in what is due on government debt by the end of 2009. Where else to turn but to the resources of the private sector? Argentina, if little else, serves as a cautionary tale on how to ruin an economy.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Nov-3, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Argentina Impoverishes Itself Again
What happens when government meddles with private wealth."It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder."
-- Frederic Bastiat, "The Law," 1850Our subject today is not Barack Obama's "change" plan to "share the wealth." But readers who want to know what happens to a nation that legalizes plunder -- as the 19th century French economist termed the taking of private property for socialist ends -- will want to pay attention just the same.
Argentines protest the nationalization of their pension funds, Oct. 28.
Argentina is a constitutional republic with many historical similarities to the U.S. It has a rich immigrant heritage and an abundance of natural resources. But the U.S. is a rich, advanced country and Argentina is poor.
How did the breadbasket of South America fall so far behind? One explanation goes back some 90 years, when the Argentine Supreme Court began chipping away at property rights as a way of addressing economic inequality. Argentine politicians quickly learned that lawful plunder was their path to power.
This history is still being written, and the latest chapter ought to frighten Americans.
After seven straight years of driving up government spending and hammering every capitalist in sight, the Argentine government, which went bust in 2001, is running out of money -- again.
No surprise there. For more than a few years, analysts have warned that inflation, trade protectionism, disregard for contracts and confiscatory tax rates were having a deleterious effect on capital flows.
Suboptimal investment rates, the same analysts warned, would mean economic trouble when global growth began to slow and the commodity boom came to an end. But former President Nestór Kirchner (2003-2007) and his wife, current President Cristina Kirchner, had promised to bring change to Argentina and didn't want to hear it. They thought they saw better returns to their own bottom lines by stoking class warfare while increasing government spending.
That revenues would, at some point, fail to meet the rising expenses of the welfare state was predictable. The only mystery was when the wall would be hit and how the further plunder to make up the difference would be carried out.
On Oct. 21, Mrs. Kirchner ended the suspense by announcing that the nation's private pension system -- with a stock of $30 billion and a flow of $5 billion annually -- would become government property. To put that in words that Americans can more clearly comprehend, it would be as if the assets of all 401(k)s were suddenly swept out of owners' accounts and into a single government account.
Mrs. Kirchner defended her decision to seize the pension assets by asserting that the market is too risky for retirement savings, and that the returns earned by private-sector fund managers are not adequate.
That's quite a claim considering that the average annual return of Argentina's private-sector pension managers over the past 14 years is 13.9%. But it is even more absurd if one compares the private-sector returns to those of the government's pay-as-you-go social security system over four decades.
Last week La Nacion columnist Adrián Ventura reminded his compatriots of this "history of state fraud." In the 1960s, "the law guaranteed retirees 82% of their salaries," Mr. Ventura writes. But, he says, "it became impossible to calculate." How come? Because the government did not publish the true rates of inflation and, more broadly, because politicians had zero interest in protecting the assets. "The government did little to maintain its promise to pay good pensions to workers," Mr. Ventura explains, "and it did a lot to make use, for itself, of their savings."
The columnist was not just teaching a history lesson. He was reminding change advocates that plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Today, the Argentine central bank stands accused of manipulating official inflation data and, because politicians have been spending like mad, between now and the end of 2009 the government will encounter a $10 billion financing gap.
By law half of the privately managed pension assets are already allocated to government debt. But it is not unreasonable to suspect -- as more than 70% of respondents in a Buenos Aires poll said last week -- that Mrs. Kirchner is acting not to achieve better returns, but to get her hands on the rest of the money ahead of midterm elections next year.
Mr. Ventura echoes the fears of many when he writes that her legislation "puts almost no limits on how the money can be used, and if it did, nothing would stop the government from modifying it or ignoring it."
Long-suffering Argentines know well that once converted into "an instrument of plunder" there is no limit to the pain the law can inflict. Americans might note that even when government is already highly interventionist, things can get worse.
from the Associated Press, 2008-Sep-10, by Ian James and Vladimir Isachenkov, with Fabiola Sanchez in Caracas and Matthew Lee in Washington contributing, and Vladimir Isachenkov reported from Moscow:
Russian strategic bombers land in Venezuela
CARACAS, Venezuela — Two Russian strategic bombers landed in Venezuela on Wednesday as part of military maneuvers, President Hugo Chavez said, welcoming the unprecedented deployment at a time of increasing tensions between Moscow and the U.S.
The Venezuelan leader said the two Russian Tu-160 bombers will conduct maneuvers and that he hopes to "fly one of those things" himself.
Russian military analysts said it was the first time Russian strategic bombers have landed in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War. The provocative foray into Venezuela was certain to add to the strain in U.S.-Russian relations created over Russia's war in Georgia.
Chavez called the deployment part of a move toward a "pluri-polar world" — a reference to moving away from U.S. dominance. "The Yankee hegemony is finished," Chavez said in a televised speech.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the bombers flew to Venezuela on a training mission and would conduct training flights over neutral waters in the next few days before returning to Russia, according to a statement carried by Russian news wires.
Ministry spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky refused to say how long the deployment would last or whether the planes were carrying any weapons. Military officers in the past have said Russian strategic bombers do not carry live weapons on patrol flights.
NATO fighters escorted the two Russian bombers on their 13-hour trip to Venezuela over the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, the Defense Ministry said.
The Russian deployment appeared to be a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. move to send warships to deliver aid to U.S.-allied Georgia after its war last month with Russia.
"This is a redux of Cold War games, and a dangerous thing to do," said Moscow-based military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer. "It will only strengthen the hand of those in the United States who want to punish Russia for its action in Georgia."
Earlier this week, Russia said it will send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes to Venezuela in November for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean.
Alexander Konovalov, head of the Moscow-based Institute for Strategic Assessment, said the deployment would lead to further deterioration in U.S.-Russia relations.
"It's a demonstration of Russia's ability to do things nasty: You send warships to the Black Sea and we send bombers next to your door," Konovalov said. "It will have a negative impact on global stability."
Meanwhile, NATO said Wednesday it had ended a routine exercise by four naval ships in the Black Sea. Russia had denounced the exercise as part of a Western military buildup sparked by the Georgia conflict.
The alliance said the four ships — U.S. frigate USS Taylor and three similar vessels from Spain, Germany and Poland — were moving back to the Mediterranean Sea after the 18-day mission.
Chavez has strongly backed Russia's stance in Georgia. He denied that Russia's plan for a deployment later this year is related, saying the Russian navy's visit has been planned for more than a year.
Venezuela remains a leading oil supplier to the United States, but as tensions with Washington have grown, Chavez's government has spent billions of dollars on Russian weapons including helicopters, Kalashnikov rifles and Sukhoi fighter jets.
Chavez said Wednesday that Venezuela is looking to buy Russian submarines and is working with Russia to set up an air-defense system including long-range radar and "rockets ready to defend the country."
He also announced the country will soon buy 24 Chinese-made K-8 flight training and light attack aircraft.
The socialist leader, who survived a failed 2002 coup he blames on Washington, repeated his accusations of U.S.-backed attempts to kill him or topple him, saying U.S. forces are "looking for active soldiers, looking for pilots to bomb Miraflores," the presidential palace.
The U.S. Embassy denied it.
"The United States continuously strives for positive and productive relations with Venezuela," Embassy spokeswoman Robin Holzhauer said. "Unfortunately, the Venezuelan government often responds to these open overtures with name-calling and storytelling. These Venezuelan actions are unfortunate for both of our countries."
Chavez has called the U.S. Navy's newly re-established Fourth Fleet a threat. On Wednesday, he said he's sure "nuclear submarines pass under our noses" off Venezuela's coast. He said Venezuela is aiming to strengthen its "defensive capability with our strategic allies, and Russia is one of them."
Later, Chavez called the U.S. the "empire" as he addressed troops at the christening of a new coast guard patrol ship. "Every day, relations between Venezuela and Russia will continue to deepen."
He dismissed comparisons to the Cold War, but mentioned Cuba while saying he had been reviewing flight theory in a simulator in hopes of flying one of the Russian planes.
Addressing his close friend Fidel Castro, Chavez said: "I'm going to fly a Tu-160. Fidel, I'm going to fly low past you there."
from BBC News, 2008-Oct-10:
Venezuela shuts down McDonald's
Venezuela's government has shut all branches of restaurant chain McDonald's for 48 hours, citing tax irregularities, officials have said.
The head of the country's tax agency, Jose David Cabello, said the chain had inconsistencies in its accounts.
The 115 branches in Venezuela were closed from Thursday to Saturday.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is a fierce US critic and last month was at the heart of tit-for-tat US-Latin American diplomatic expulsions.
Oil battle
Since winning elections 10 years ago, Mr Chavez has increased taxes and often temporarily shuts firms accused of failing to pay.
The government recently temporarily closed the offices of Pepsi, which is operated by a local consortium.
Mr Chavez has also taken on US oil firms, nationalising their Venezuelan operations and pursuing a legal battle with Exxon Mobil.
In last month's diplomatic exchange, Bolivia and Venezuela expelled their US envoys, accusing Washington of trying to oust Bolivia's government.
Washington responded by throwing out envoys from Bolivia and Venezuela and freezing the assets of three aides to President Chavez.
Honduras refused the credentials of a new US ambassador, postponing his appointment.
from Reuters, 2008-Sep-12, by Frank Jack Daniel, with editing by Eric Walsh:
Venezuela insults United States, expels ambassador
CARACAS - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has thrust the OPEC nation into its worst diplomatic crisis for years by expelling the U.S. ambassador in a growing feud between Washington and Latin America's leftist leaders.
Chavez, who calls ex-Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor, also on Thursday repeated a threat he has made often to cut off Venezuela's oil supply to the United States.
"Go to hell, shit Yankees, we are a dignified people, go to hell a hundred times," Chavez shouted at a political rally to thousands of roaring supporters dressed in red.
Chavez is the most radical of a growing number of leftist governments in Latin America that to a greater or lesser degree oppose Washington's traditional dominance in Latin America.
Venezuela has some of the largest oil reserves outside the Middle East and despite Chavez's clashes with the Bush administration, is a major supplier to the United States, which is its biggest customer.
Chavez said Thursday's move was made in support of his close ally President Evo Morales of Bolivia, where violent anti-government protests have killed eight people.
"The Yankee ambassador in Caracas has got 72 hours to get out of Venezuela, in solidarity with Bolivia," Chavez said.
Morales, a leftist Aymara Indian, this week expelled the U.S. ambassador in the poor Andean nation after accusing him of instigating the protests.
Chavez said Washington was behind an alleged plot by retired military officers to kill him and said it had plans to bomb him from planes marked as Venezuelan.
"If there was an aggression against Venezuela there would be no oil for the people or for the government of the United States," the former paratrooper said.
The United States has rejected the allegations by Chavez and Morales. It retaliated against Bolivia on Thursday by ordering its ambassador to Washington to leave. Chavez told his own ambassador to the United States to come home before he was thrown out.
The U.S. State Department said it had not been officially notified of the expulsion.
Chavez was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup that was initially welcomed by Washington. Even after the coup Chavez did not go so far as to expel the U.S. ambassador.
In a busy week even for the outspoken socialist, Chavez allowed two Russian long-range bombers to land in Venezuela and played audio tapes live on television that appeared to show military officers conspiring against him.
He also cut U.S. flights to Venezuela and warned he would support "armed movements" to back Morales in the event of a coup against him.
Chavez frequently calls the United States an aggressive empire and has aligned himself with Russia. Moscow is also sending warships for naval exercises later this year in its first such move since the Cold War.
from the New York Times, 2008-Sep-12, by Simon Romero, with Graham Bowley contributing reporting from New York:
U.S. Calls Venezuelan Officials Rebel Supporters
CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States stepped up the diplomatic skirmish with its left-wing adversaries in Latin America on Friday, saying it would expel the Venezuelan ambassador and declaring that Venezuela's top two intelligence officials had supported the “narco-terrorist activities” of rebels in the region.
The moves heightened the political tensions that have been building between the United States, Venezuela and Bolivia in recent days. On Wednesday, Bolivia's embattled president, Evo Morales, expelled the American ambassador there, Philip S. Goldberg, accusing him of supporting rebellious groups in eastern Bolivia.
Then on Thursday, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela said he was expelling the American ambassador to his country, Patrick Duddy, contending that an American-supported coup plot had been discovered.
The State Department responded by declaring Bolivia's ambassador to Washington persona non grata. Then on Friday morning, it said it would expel Venezuela's ambassador, while the Treasury Department accused the Venezuelan intelligence officials of aiding Colombia's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, “even as it terrorized and kidnapped innocents.”
The department said that the head of Venezuela's military intelligence agency, Hugo Carvajal Barrios, protected drug shipments from seizure by Venezuelan anti-drug authorities and helped provide weapons to the FARC, which the United States considers a terrorist organization. The department also said that Henry Rangel Silva, the director of the DISIP intelligence agency, “materially assisted” the FARC's drug trafficking activities and pushed for greater cooperation between the Venezuelan government and the rebels.
In addition, the Treasury Department said a third official, Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, who resigned as interior minister this week, was the Venezuelan government's main weapons contact for the FARC. It said the rebel group uses proceeds from narcotics sales to buy weapons from the Venezuelan government.
The United States and Venezuela have been sparring over a variety of issues, including claims that Venezuela is growing as a transshipment point for cocaine, Mr. Chávez's plans for military exercises with Russia's Navy in the Caribbean and the safety of Venezuela's airports for American airlines.
But there are significant internal issues that could be playing into these disputes as well. Bolivia is grappling with violent, spreading protests in its increasingly ungovernable east. Venezuela, and particularly the Chavez government, is facing uncomfortable revelations about a spy scandal unfolding in a Miami courtroom, as well as rising inflation and potential losses in regional elections later this year.
As for the Bush administration, it has been unable to effectively engage either of those governments, and anti-American sentiment has been mounting in the countries for years, a phenomenon aptly stoked by both Mr. Morales and Mr. Chavez. In Venezuela, that sentiment was fueled in 2002, when the Bush administration tacitly approved of a coup that briefly toppled Mr. Chavez.
On Thursday, Mr. Chávez gave Ambassador Duddy 72 hours to leave the country, asserting a new plot, and recalled his ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Álvarez.
“When there is a new government in the United States, we'll send an ambassador,” Mr. Chávez said, using an expletive to refer to Americans.
The latest moves represent a low point in Venezuela's political relations with the United States, which imported more than $40 billion in oil from Venezuela last year. Trade between the countries has remained resilient, topping $50 billion in 2007, despite repeated threats by Mr. Chávez to halt oil exports to the United States, a warning he reiterated on Thursday.
For all the warnings, refusing to sell oil would probably hurt Venezuela more than the United States. America is the country's main customer for oil, and therefore a significant part of its revenues. By contrast, American refiners could buy oil elsewhere.
The Chávez government also said Thursday that it would reduce the number of flights by airlines from the United States to Venezuela, which now number about 70 a week, after the Bush administration complained that American inspectors were not allowed to review the security of Venezuelan airports.
The airline issue offers a window into tension over claims of drug trafficking, with news reports here saying that government officials are hesitant to allow inspectors into facilities thought to be used to smuggle cocaine to the United States and Europe.
Mr. Chávez said that a plot to overthrow and assassinate him had been uncovered and that the Bush administration was behind it. State television here played what it described as intercepts of phone discussions between active-duty and retired military officers that referred to a plot to take Miraflores, the presidential palace.
The State Department responded Friday that the “charges leveled against our fine ambassadors by the leaders of Bolivia and Venezuela are false — and the leaders of those countries know it.”
Mr. Chávez has claimed at least 26 times in the last six years that there were plots to kill him, according to counts in the local media.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Sep-15, p.A21, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady
As two Russian Tu-160 bombers landed in Venezuela last week on a training mission, President Hugo Chávez took to his nation's airwaves to celebrate. It was the first time since the Cold War that military jets sent from Moscow touched down in the Western Hemisphere. "Yankee hegemony is finished," Mr. Chávez declared. What the Venezuelan did not mention was the fact that, according to a State Department official, "the U.S. Air Force picked up the Russian aircraft just west of Norway and escorted them all the way to Venezuela." That American top guns could toy with Russians sent to show solidarity with Venezuela is not surprising. Vladimir Putin has been trying to rebuild his military, but it is no match for U.S. might. Nor is it believable that Russia seriously expects to challenge the U.S. in the Caribbean with the flotilla it says that it is sending next month for joint exercises with Venezuela. Yet 17 years after we thought the Cold War had ended, Russia is evoking memories of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis by playing war games with another would-be Latin strongman. It's Mr. Putin's way of making a face at President Bush for his proposed missile defense in Europe, and his resistance to Russia's latest efforts to restore its former empire by force.
What are Russian bombers doing in Venezuela? The Americas columnist Mary O'Grady lays it out for Kelsey Hubbard. (Sept. 15) Mr. Chávez is only too happy to be used. He thinks he's getting something in return. His Bolivarian Revolution -- a full-court press designed to impose communism throughout Latin America -- is in trouble, and as its popularity has waned, so too have his options for restoring confidence in his leadership. Yet there is still the fail-safe practice of Yankee-baiting. In the spirit of Fidel Castro, Mr. Chávez seems to believe that if the foreign devil can be painted as an imminent threat to sovereignty, the nation might rally behind him. This idea, shared by Bolivian President Evo Morales, explains not only Russian military tourism in the Caribbean but also last week's expulsion of the U.S. ambassadors to Caracas and La Paz. Mr. Chávez has troubles at home, and elsewhere in the region resistance to his Bolivarian Revolution is also rising. Last week it boiled over in Bolivia, where Mr. Morales, backed by Mr. Chávez, seeks to consolidate power through a Venezuelan-style rewrite of the constitution. Governors and local populations in four of Bolivia's nine departments have said they will not accept ratification of the new constitution by popular referendum. They also have expressed a desire for increased autonomy from La Paz. But on Aug. 28, Mr. Morales signed a decree that put the referendum in motion anyway. That ignited a firestorm, and in recent weeks road blocks and strikes designed to paralyze the country have provoked violence in the streets. Last week, eight people were killed in civilian clashes in the province of Pando. It is true that Bolivia is witnessing a battle between regions for control of the nation's resources. But we are also watching a life-or-death struggle against the communist ideology that Mr. Morales -- also an admirer of Fidel -- wants to impose. He has admitted that Castro coached him on how to use the guise of democracy as a way of reaching his goal. Yet he hasn't been prepped to face resistance. His hard line has unified and emboldened his critics. Now he can no longer reach out to the governors without appearing weak. Frustrated by these failures, Mr. Morales decided to blame the Yankees. On Sept. 11, he expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg, claiming that the U.S. was supporting the dissident governors. No evidence was provided. Mr. Chávez followed suit the same day, expelling U.S. Ambassador Patrick Duddy from Caracas in solidarity with Mr. Morales and threatening to cut off oil supplies if the U.S. attacks Venezuela. Clearly the objective for both presidents was to rally the hard-core base, but it is doubtful that it impressed anyone else. Bolivia remains a nightmare for Mr. Chávez and not only because a Morales defeat would damage his own imperial aspirations. A greater problem is that the opposition at the local level in Bolivia is made up of popular, democratically elected leaders who are viewed by their constituents as defenders of the people. Back in Venezuela, Mr. Chávez's opposition has been relatively weak. But it might learn from Bolivian dissidents ways to mobilize a serious challenge to chavismo. This is the scenario that Mr. Chávez faces ahead of the Nov. 23 gubernatorial elections in 23 states and the district of Caracas. With the economy in shambles, inflation hovering around 30% and the opposition beginning to unite, Venezuela's messiah is feeling some heat. It is not impossible, assuming fair elections (which is far from certain), for opposition candidates to win at least three important states and perhaps as many as six. For a man with dictatorial ambitions, this is anathema. Which is why the Uncle Sam boogeyman is being trotted out, the Russians were called in, and Washington's ambassadors have been sent packing. from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Aug-11, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady: It is no secret that Hugo Chávez wants to be just like Fidel Castro someday. And last week he took a step closer to that goal by laying down 26 new decrees designed to eviscerate property rights and further consolidate economic power in the presidential palace. He also nationalized the third-largest bank in the country. Yet it is not only in the economic realm that Hugo is mimicking his Cuban idol. What has been less publicized is the Venezuelan president's expanding collection of political prisoners, and his other sinister methods of neutralizing opponents. The economic measures of the Bolivarian Revolution are worrying enough on their own. The government has proclaimed food production and distribution a public good, which means that the state can intervene in any way it wants. Indeed, it already has; and many believe that Mr. Chávez now has the Venezuela food processor and beverage maker Polar targeted for nationalization. Mr. Chávez has spent nearly a decade trying to transform Venezuela into a centrally planned economy. The results are dismal. There are food shortages, private-sector investment and employment are shrinking, and inflation for the past 12 months was almost 34%. A rising homicide rate suggests that civil order is breaking down. Nevertheless, Mr. Chávez appears pleased with the circumstances, illuminating another way in which he resembles Castro: Both men are narcissists above all else, and both have been driven by an intense desire to rule as the omnipotent caudillo. The welfare of the nation is beside the point. In political terms, this means that all challengers to the president's power must be put down, and forcibly if necessary. Contrary to claims by both Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and Jimmy Carter that Mr. Chávez's Venezuela is a democracy, this government is trying to annihilate its political competition. Mr. Chávez hasn't had to play hardball with many Venezuelans. Few are secure enough to challenge him, and many have been easy to co-opt by tying their financial survival to his agenda. Moreover, Venezuela is a notoriously corrupt place, and it's not only the inner Chávez circle that is enjoying the party. There are, though, the few upstarts who can't be bought or intimidated; and for them, Mr. Chávez has had to make use of his own version of "the law." Last week, his handpicked supreme court ruled that 260 aspiring candidates for the November municipal and gubernatorial elections -- most of whom oppose him -- will be barred from the ballot because they have been accused of corruption. Of course this doesn't quite work under Venezuelan law, because an individual may only be barred as a candidate if he is convicted. But the Chávez government got around that problem: None has been tried but the National Controller -- a chavista -- has declared them guilty by fiat. More ominous is the growing list of political prisoners. One is Ivan Simonovis, the former chief of the Caracas metropolitan police, who during his tenure earned a reputation as a disciplined professional and dedicated crime fighter. He was the top cop in the city on April 11, 2002, the day of a mass protest that provoked the brief resignation of the president. Seventeen people were murdered that day, and an independent police force would have tried to figure out who was behind the killings. But Mr. Chávez took over the metropolitan police. Mr. Simonovis was arrested on Nov. 22, 2004, accused of being responsible for three of those deaths. His wife Bonny is one of his lawyers, and I spoke to her by telephone on Thursday. She told me it is against Venezuelan law to hold a suspect for more than two years, but her appeals for his freedom have been rejected. She also said that during his entire three years and eight months of incarceration, her husband has been held in solitary in a four square-meter cell that has no windows and no ventilation. His health has deteriorated. His trial, which began on March 20, 2006, is now the longest in Venezuelan history. Closing statements were supposed to be heard last week, but the judge granted the prosecution more time to review the arguments. Mrs. Simonovis tells me that this means the case can drag on for months longer, though no evidence to convict her husband has ever been presented. Another political prisoner is National Guard Lt. Col. Humberto Quintero, who was responsible for capturing Colombian terrorist leader Rodrigo Granda in Venezuela in December 2004 and turning him over to Colombia. Mr. Quintero ought to be treated as a hero in Venezuela. Instead he has been thrown into a maximum security prison and has been allegedly tortured. These men are being punished for nonconformity with chavismo. But their arrests also serve as warnings to the rest of the nation: Get in the way of Mr. Chávez's caudillo aspirations at your peril. from the Telegraph of London, 2008-Jul-22, by Adrian Blomfield: Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has called for a strategic relationship with Russia to counter aggression from the United States. Moscow -- With a long shopping list for state-of-the-art defence equipment under his arm, Mr Chavez did his best to ingratiate himself with his hosts. He first signed off on a deal giving Russia's state-owned energy companies – often accused of doubling as private piggy banks for powerful Kremlin forces – exclusive rights to develop new deposits Venezuela's Orinoco Oil Belt. Then he switched smoothly to flattery, with a call for the Russian rouble to replace the US dollar as the world's global currency. "We in OPEC have proposed to put an end to the dollar," Mr Chavez said, speaking in his role as self-appointed spokesman for the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Mr Chavez was given correspondingly warm welcome as he met with one old friend, prime minister Vladimir Putin, and one new one in the form of president Dmitry Medvedev. Mr Medvedev was particularly effusive, describing Venezuela as Russia's "most important partner". Ignoring accusations of electoral fraud and authoritarianism that have been directed at both countries, Mr Medvedev told his guest: "We have one common task; to make the surrounding world more democratic, fair and secure." Despite the bonhomie, it was unclear whether Mr Chavez had got everything he had come for. The Venezuelan leader wants to buy three submarines and 20 Tor-M1 air defence missile systems in a £1 billion arms contract that would undoubtedly infuriate the US. Washington's anger, however, is unlikely to persuade Russia to desist. Mr Putin, whose anti-American speeches were often as colourful as his Venezuelan counterpart's, revelled in his status as Venezuela's champion and principal ally. So far Dmitry Medvedev, who became president in May, has shown few signs of wanting to depart from the foreign policy of Mr Putin, who has become prime minister and remains, in the eyes of many, Russia's most powerful man. During Mr Putin's last term, Russia sold Venezuela over £2 billion in arms, from combat helicopters and Sukhoi fighter jets to Kalashnikov rifles. from USNews.com, 2008-Jul-3, by Michael Barone: Wonderful news: The Colombian military yesterday rescued a group of 15 hostages held for years by the narcoterrorist FARC organization, including the French-Colombian one-time presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, held for six years, and three Americans—Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes and Marc Gonsalves—held for three years. This was a brilliant sting operation: The Colombians evidently infiltrated the FARC at several levels, ordered FARC officials in the name of a top commander to gather hostages from three locations and deliver them to a helicopter manned by operatives of a nongovernmental aid organization. Except that the helicopter was actually operated by the Colombian military. Inside the helicopter, they disarmed and tied up the two FARC operatives they had let aboard, as other army personnel arrested the 15 FARC operatives left on the ground. No shots were fired. Betancourt tells what happened next on the helicopter: "The chief of the operation said, 'We're the national army. You're free.' The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another. We couldn't believe it." On one count, Betancourt went a little too far when she said, "Such a perfect operation is unprecedented." Perhaps, but it reminds me of the Israeli rescue of 105 hostages held at the Entebbe airport in Uganda on July 3-4, 1976, a much more complex operation and one that resulted in several deaths, including that of the head of the rescue team, Jonathan Netanyahu. The Israelis relied on main force, the Colombians on stealth, but both performed brilliantly. I trust the Colombian military will not be insulted if one says that its competence and ingenuity are comparable to that of the Israeli Defense Force. To be sure, the Colombians did have the advice and cooperation of the U.S. military, which has been advising the Colombians under the Plan Colombia program originally put in place by Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress in 1998. And they may have benefited from information found on the computer of FARC leader Raul Reyes, who was killed in a cross-the-border raid in Ecuador earlier this year. U.S. diplomats were briefed on the rescue operation, and so was John McCain, who was in Colombia meeting with President Alvaro Uribe on the day the raid occurred—surely a coincidence, since the operation must have been months in the planning. The Reyes computers, whose contents have been independently verified, showed the Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez has been sending aid in money and other forms to the FARC for some time. Some Americans are inclined to see Chavez and the FARC as romantic champions of the people responding to oppressive governments. Congressional Democrats, in justifying their opposition to the Colombia free trade agreement by echoing U.S. labor union cries that Colombian union leaders are being murdered (although the number of such murders is down by 80 percent since 2002, in part because the Uribe government has set up a special unit to prevent them), have given some support to such fantasies. But Uribe's government is far from oppressive; he was re-elected by an overwhelming margin, and his job rating is something on the order of 70 percent positive. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's rejection of the Colombia free-trade agreement, by changing House rules in a way that may have destroyed the fast track procedure by which the United States has secured free-trade agreements for more than four decades, seems to me to be the one truly shameful act of this Congress. This rejection of an ally, the third largest country in Latin America, a nation that is threatened by authoritarian and terrorist opponents, and has nonetheless succeeded in strengthening human rights and stimulating economic growth, is as disgusting as anything I've seen Congress do. John McCain hailed Colombia's action; Barack Obama, an opponent of the Colombia trade agreement, unblushingly chimed in a bit later. I wonder how he reconciles this with his message on the Colombia trade pact, summed up aptly in the title of a Washington Post editorial, "Drop Dead, Colombia." from the Washington Times, 2008-Mar-4, by Martin Arostegui: SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia The Colombian government yesterday accused its neighbors Venezuela and Ecuador of working with Marxist rebels who have waged a four-decade campaign to establish a revolutionary state in Colombia. "We are unmasking FARC's support network in Colombia and in other countries," said Oscar Naranjo, director of Colombia's national police force, citing information he said was recovered from computer hard disks seized in a rebel camp in Ecuador. Frontier closings were reported yesterday along Colombia's border with Venezuela, a day after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez deployed tanks, troops and fighter jets along the border. Mr. Chavez threatened war over a weekend battle in which Colombian forces killed a top leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who was hiding in Ecuador. Gen. Naranjo said there were "close personal links" between Raul Reyes, the dead FARC official, and Gustavo Larrea, Ecuador's interior minister. Gen. Naranjo also said that FARC's chief spokesman, Ivan Marquez, lives in Venezuela and is the main "interlocutor" with Venezuelan Interior Minister Ramon Rodriguez Chacin. He said Mr. Chacin has provided false Venezuelan documentation and facilitated border crossings for FARC leaders. FARC is Latin America's oldest revolutionary group with Marxist roots. It was established in 1964 by the Communist Party of Colombia and has been fighting to overthrow the Colombian government ever since. Some Latin American governments, including diplomatic heavyweight Brazil, lined up to condemn Colombia's raid and demand an apology for Ecuador. Other nations, including Peru, voiced concern that FARC was using neighboring countries to wage war against Colombia. Governments from France to the United States, as well as U.S. presidential candidates, urged diplomacy to defuse the tensions. Ecuador yesterday followed Venezuela in ordering troops to its section of the Colombian border, Reuters news agency reported. Ecuador also severed diplomatic ties with Colombia, and Venezuela expelled all Colombian diplomats, a day after Venezuela withdrew all its own personnel from its embassy in Bogota. Gen. Naranjo said that documents captured in Ecuador showed that Venezuelan and Ecuadorean authorities were aware of clandestine cross-border movements of rifles, cocaine shipments to Mexico and a sale of 110 pounds of uranium. "We can't establish ... for what ends [the uranium] was intended. But we can determine from information stored in computer hard drives that trafficking with the substance took place," the general said. The general did not specify the form of uranium. The most common form of the element does not support a nuclear chain reaction, and it is technically difficult to extract and enrich the rare U-235 isotope that can be used to fuel an atomic power plant or bomb. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said yesterday that Colombia's neighbors were close to securing a deal with FARC rebels to free 12 hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, a one-time presidential aspirant. from the Associated Press via Google.com, 2008-May-15, by Frank Bajak and John Leicester: BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Interpol said Thursday it found no evidence of tampering in computers Colombia says it seized from a slain leftist rebel. The finding discredits Venezuelan assertions that the files are bogus and gives Colombia the international backing it sought. The forensic study by the France-based international police agency will increase pressure on Venezuela's socialist president, Hugo Chavez, to explain documents indicating his government was financing and arming the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Colombia said its commandos recovered the three Toshiba Satellite laptop computers, two external hard drives and three USB memory sticks after destroying a rebel camp across the border in Ecuador. FARC foreign minister Raul Reyes and 24 others were killed in the March 1 raid. Chavez has called the documents fakes, mocking Colombia's revelations about "the supposed computer of Raul Reyes." He denies arming or funding the FARC, though he openly sympathizes with Latin America's most powerful rebel army. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe turned to Interpol in hopes of dispelling any doubts about the documents' authenticity, and after two months of forensic work, the agency's 39-page report gives him what he wanted. Interpol found Colombian authorities did not always follow internationally accepted methods for handling computer evidence, but that they did not modify, delete or create any user files. "There was no tampering with or altering of any of the data contained in the user files by any of the Colombian law enforcement authorities following their seizure on March 1," said Interpol's secretary general, Ronald Noble, a former enforcement chief for the U.S. Treasury Department. The drives contained a vast trove of information — 610 gigabytes of data including 210,888 images, 37,872 written documents, 22,481 Web pages, 10,537 sound and video files, 7,989 email addresses and 452 spreadsheets, Interpol said. Ten Interpol computers ran nonstop for two weeks to crack the 983 files that were encrypted, Noble said. The forensic exam was limited to verifying whether Colombia had altered the files and correctly handled the evidence. Interpol was not asked to analyze the contents of the documents themselves. Interpol's two forensic experts, from Australia and Singapore, do not speak Spanish, "which helped to eliminate the possibility that they would be influenced by the content of any data they were examining," reads the report. Attached to the report are photos including one of Reyes at his laptop wearing combat fatigues. A Colombian anti-terrorism officer accessed the computers before they were handed over to Interpol, leaving multiple traces in operating system files, which Noble said runs against internationally accepted protocol. But Colombian authorities properly told Interpol's experts about the episode and Noble praised their professionalism. An independent computer forensics expert consulted by the AP, Richard M. Smith of Boston Software Forensics, said it would be very difficult to manipulate data generated by the computer's operating system, which records when a computer is turned on or off and any time a document is opened, modified or moved. Interpol's experts first obtained access to the data on March 10, according to the report. Colombian officials first showed reporters copies of some of the documents on March 2 and have been leaking pieces of information ever since. The most damning evidence to date against Chavez came in text files shown to The Associated Press last week by a senior Colombian official. More than a dozen internal rebel messages detail several years of close cooperation between top Venezuelan and FARC officials, including rebel training facilities on Venezuelan soil and a meeting inside Venezuela's equivalent of the Pentagon. They also suggest Venezuela was preparing to loan the rebels at least US$250 million (euro190 million), provide them with Russian weapons and possibly even help them obtain surface-to-air missiles for use against Colombian military aircraft. "They are serious allegations about Venezuela supplying arms and support to a terrorist organization," U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. "Certainly, that has deep implications for the people of the region." John Leicester contributed to this report from Paris. On the Net: from CNN.com, 2007-Dec-5: CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday denied he bowed to voters' rejection of a referendum only at the prodding by the military and said he would continue to push for sweeping constitutional changes. "Get ready, because a new offensive is coming," Chavez said after breaking into a news conference being given by the military high command to address issues surrounding Sunday's vote. "If the people collect the signatures, the reform can be submitted for a referendum again." The referendum, which would have opened the door for Chavez to hold on to power indefinitely and moved the country toward institutionalized socialism, lost 51 percent to 49 percent, according to official results. In contrast to the conciliatory tone he took in announcing the victory of the "No" forces early Monday, he heaped scorn on the opposition's "Pyrrhic" victory Wednesday, saying that "they're now filling it with sh--." "It's a piece of sh-- victory, and ours -- they can call it a defeat, but -- it was courageous, full of valor, full of dignity," he said at the Miraflores presidential palace with his top military commanders. Chavez and his defense minister, Gustavo Rangel Briceno, rejected media reports that sectors of the military pressured Chavez to accept the defeat of his proposals after delays in announcing the referendum results. "I can't be pressured," Chavez said. "I decided to come out immediately in favor of the (National Electoral Council's) decision, because I do want to keep playing clean." Briceno seconded that, saying, "It's absolutely false that we pressured our commander in chief." Despite the widespread use of computers to tally the votes, the Electoral Council did not release results for more than nine hours after polls closed. As the night wore on, opposition leaders, who had access to their own data, publicly called on officials to announce the results. The independent newspaper El Nacional, citing unidentified government officials, reported that military officials had pressured Chavez to concede during late-night deliberations. Also hinting at such a military role was former Defense Minister Raul Baduel, who played a key role in turning back a coup attempt against Chavez in 2002 but broke ranks last month over the proposed changes. Chavez lashed out at Baduel during the Wednesday press conference, calling him a "traitor" who had been "bought by the (U.S.) empire." Although Chavez has been re-elected twice by large margins, his policies have caused deep divisions in Venezuelan politics. During his presidency, he has faced a contentious recall attempt, a bitter national strike and an abortive coup in 2002. Since winning a second six-year term in December, Chavez has promised to push forward with his particular brand of socialism and his "Bolivarian Revolution." He insists the majority of the country's 26 million people back him, and he enjoys widespread support in poorer neighborhoods. The opposition argues that Chavez has undercut Venezuela's democracy by systematically concentrating power in his own hands. from the Wall Street Journal, 2008-Jan-14, p.A12, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady: It was Christmas week in the Colombian city of Villavicencio and the events, as they were set to unfold, had all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. If only the "heroes" hadn't been exposed as liars. A 3-year-old boy, his mother and another woman, all hostages of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), were about to be freed. Credit for their release was to go to Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela. Former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner had flown up from Buenos Aires to take part in the show. Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone was on hand too, eager to document the Christmas spirit of the revolutionary killers and their socialist sympathizers. The child, as luck would have it, was called Emmanuel. The part of the villain was bestowed on Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, a U.S. ally who as a matter of policy has refused to give in to FARC demands for Colombian territory in exchange for the release of hostages. Mr. Uribe had also recently announced that Mr. Chávez was no longer welcome as a negotiator in the broader effort to free former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, three American contractors and 41 other politically valuable FARC hostages. He had jerked away the welcome mat after Mr. Chávez tried to bypass him and talk directly to the Colombian military. According to the script, even Mr. Uribe's stubbornness couldn't stop the big-hearted Mr. Chávez from winning the freedom of these three. For Mr. Stone, an anti-American Christmas miracle was in the offing. His film would portray Mr. Chávez as a humanitarian hero while demonizing Mr. Uribe. But it wasn't to be an obscure foreign film with no American message. It would also complement the assertions of U.S. unions, other trade protectionists and President Bush's political adversaries, all of whom insist -- against the evidence -- that the Colombian president violates human rights. Of course, the American left's current obsession with Mr. Uribe is not really about concern for human life. It's about the pending U.S.-Colombian free trade agreement, which they want to kill on "moral" grounds. Depicting Mr. Uribe as an intransigent right-winger is critical to their narrative. In this, the protectionists are allies of the rebels. The truth is that Mr. Uribe's restoration of law and order in Colombia has thrown the guerrillas back on their heels, and they are now frantically pulling the levers of international propaganda. Over Christmas week the suspense surrounding the promised release was building. Mr. Chávez reminded TV viewers daily that his dramatic rescue plan had nothing to do with him and everything to do with his tender concern for the hostages. Mr. Uribe had agreed to allow Venezuelan aircraft to swoop into Colombia to pick up the two women and the child. The FARC had only to say where. But no word came. The rebels blamed the delay on bad weather and on Mr. Uribe, who they said had mobilized his armed forces in the area. Mr. Uribe denied the charge, as did his top military commander. Mr. Chávez said Mr. Uribe could not be trusted. Meanwhile the Venezuelan minister for FARC relations, Ramon Rodríguez Chacín, made excuses for the rebels, who, he said, had to be ready for Colombian military actions against them after the handover. The guerrillas, he said, should "prepare their retreat strategy and take all the security measures they need." Finally, on Dec. 31, Mr. Uribe held a press conference to give his "hypothesis" of why the liberation hadn't occurred: The FARC had lied when it said it had the child, and it had been trying to buy time to find him. In fact, the boy was in a foster home in Bogotá. The suggestion was a bombshell, but after DNA tests confirmed the fact, Mr. Uribe was vindicated. Among the more shocking revelations was the FARC's inhumane treatment of the infant. His mother, Clara Rojas, who had been Ms. Betancourt's vice presidential running mate, was kidnapped in 2002. The child was born in a rebel camp in 2004, and was less than one year old when he was left with a local peasant. After about a month, his humble caretaker realized he could not treat the child's serious illnesses and took him to a local clinic, which transferred him to a hospital. Press reports say that doctors diagnosed the baby with anemia, malaria, a parasitic skin disease, malnutrition and an arm that had been broken at birth and not treated. "Anyone would have fallen apart before this child, with so many diseases," the hospital director told the Miami Herald. "He didn't raise his eyes. He got toys but did not pick them up. He did not stand but dragged himself on his butt. He cried but no tears came because of the malnutrition." When the news of the child's whereabouts broke Mr. Stone went away spitting mad, not at his FARC heroes, who had been exposed as child abusers, but at Mr. Uribe and Mr. Bush. Of the FARC he said, "Grabbing hostages is the fashion in which they can finance themselves and try to achieve their goals, which are difficult. I think they are heroic to fight for what they believe in and die for it, as was Castro in the hills of Cuba." Meanwhile, with Mr. Chávez looking like a fool, the two women were finally freed on Thursday. The FARC had reason to help him try to salvage his image: As this column has frequently noted, it needs Venezuela as its main transit route for cocaine and as a safe haven. Mr. Chávez tried to paint himself as a neutral, third-party peacemaker but a day later he peeled off his mask. We already knew that a diplomat from Cuba, which has been sowing terror in Colombia for 50 years, accompanied the hostages to Caracas, underscoring the ties between Mr. Chávez, Cuba and the rebels. We also knew that as the helicopter carrying the hostages took off Mr. Rodríguez Chacín called to the rebels, "keep up the fight and count on us!" On Friday, Mr. Chávez went further, arguing that the FARC has a "true" army that "occupies space" and is therefore a "belligerent" -- a term that would give it standing under international law. He demanded that its terrorist status be revoked. Colombia called his speech "off-the-wall" but it knows better. Following the hostage release, this was a calculated move and is only the latest step in what is now Mr. Chávez's war, waged by the FARC, against Colombia. from the Miami Herald, 2007-Aug-13, by Juan Forero: At a sleek, airy factory built by Venezuela's populist government, 80 workers churn out shoes -- basic and black and all of them to be shipped to Fidel Castro's Cuba, a leading economic partner. With no manager or owner, the workers have an equal stake in a business celebrated as a shining alternative to the “savage capitalism” President Hugo Chávez disparages. “Here there are no chiefs, no managers,” said Gustavo Zuniga, one of the workers, explaining that a workers' assembly makes the big decisions. Like the Venezuelan economy itself, the assembly line here is designed to put workers ahead of the bottom line and, in the process, serve as a building block in Chávez's dream of constructing what he calls 21st-century socialism. According to a 59-page economic blueprint for the next six years, free-market capitalism's influence will wane with the proliferation of state enterprises and mixed public-private firms called social production companies, the objective being to generate funding for community programs. `HUMAN NECESSITIES' “The productive model will principally respond to human necessities and be less subordinate to the production of capital,” the report says. “The creation of wealth will be destined to satisfy the basic necessities of all the population.” In year nine of Chávez's presidency, Venezuela's economy is undergoing a sweeping, if improvised, face lift as a president with powers to pass economic laws by decree enacts wholesale changes. The transformation includes the creation of thousands of state-run cooperatives, the government takeover of companies and new trade ties to distant nations such as Iran and Belarus. . Venezuela's state oil company, the engine for what Chávez calls a peaceful revolution, will have an even bigger role: The president has approved the creation of seven subsidiaries of Petróleos de Venezuela to grow soybeans, build ships and produce clothing and appliances. Venezuela has also taken majority control of the oil sector, driving out Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips. Venezuelan officials hint that the government might nationalize production of natural gas by the end of the year. The big question -- still not spelled out in detail by government officials -- is: What exactly is 21st-century socialism? “Chávez is, of course, radicalizing his model, but not in the Cuban way,” said Luis Vicente Leon, a pollster and political analyst. “This is not communist. This is not capitalist. What is it? It's a mix.” Economic advisors and strategists, including Haiman El Troudi, who helps develop economic policy at the state's International Miranda Center in Caracas, say Venezuela is learning from failed models. “We're distancing ourselves from the errors committed in the socialism of the past century,” El Troudi said. In a country that was once as Americanized as any in Latin America, the economic alterations have resulted in a strange blend. Workers are tutored on socialist values, and officials frequently call for the creation of a selfless and patriotic “New Man.” The one prevailing feature of economic policy here is high government spending, particularly on popular social programs. The budget has gone from $20 billion in 1999, Chávez's first year in office, to $59 billion last year. IRONIC CAPITALISM The excess liquidity, ironically, has helped generate unbridled capitalism, as construction, banking and other sectors are flooded with government spending. The contradictions have not escaped the attention of economic policy makers, who say Venezuela needs to distance itself from the American-style capitalism Chávez frequently derides. “That's not the society we want to build,” said Jorge Giordani, minister of planning and development and one of Chávez's oldest associates. With oil income rising fourfold during Chávez's presidency, the economy has registered double-digit growth the past three years. But in frequent speeches, Chávez has lauded the bounties of Marxism, praised Castro's economic ideology and threatened private businesses with takeovers. That has helped unsettle markets. Foreign investment has screeched to a halt, registering an outflow of $543 million last year. The Caracas stock exchange has lost much of its volume after the government nationalized CANTV and the Caracas electric utility. And, perhaps most significant, Venezuela's state oil company has seen production decline over the past decade. Though a solid majority of Venezuelans approved of Chávez's influence on national events, according to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, an even higher majority, 72 percent, agreed that people are better off in a free-market economy. Rigoberto Lanz, a senior advisor in the Ministry of Science and Technology, acknowledged that Venezuela is going through “a very risky time,” as businesses wait to see exactly what kind of economic model will develop. “In the short term, Venezuela will not be an attractive market for foreign investment, because this search to define an economic model, 21st-century socialism if you will, is a bit complicated,” he said. Some respected Latin American economists say the growing state role, coupled with the improvisation, could unravel the economy. “It might look great for a while, but we know these are formulas that don't work,” said Hernando de Soto, a Peruvian economist. from Reuters, 2007-Jun-27, by Bernd Debusmann: WASHINGTON - Insecurity, "malignant narcissism" and the need for adulation are driving Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's confrontation with the United States, according to a new psychological profile. Eventually, these personality traits are likely to compel Chavez to declare himself Venezuela's president for life, said Dr. Jerrold Post, who has just completed the profile for the U.S. Air Force. Chavez won elections for a third term last December. Since then he has stepped up his anti-American rhetoric, vowed to accelerate a march towards "21st Century socialism" and suggested that he intends to stay in power until 2021 -- a decade beyond his present term. But Post -- who profiled foreign leaders in a 21-year career at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and now is the director of the Political Psychology Program at George Washington University -- doubts that Chavez plans to step down even then. "He views himself as a saviour, as the very embodiment of Venezuela," Post said in an interview. "He has been acting increasingly messianic and so he is likely to either get the constitution rewritten to allow for additional terms or eventually declare himself president-for-life." Post portrays Chavez as "a masterful political gamesman" who knows that his popularity largely rests on being seen as a strong leader who takes on the United States, the Venezuelan elite and a host of other perceived enemies -- often with public insults that are rarely used by other leaders. "To keep his followers engaged, he must continue outrageous and inflammatory attacks," Post said. Even Chavez's most determined opponents concede that he is a gifted orator and has a rare ability to mesmerize audiences. In the language of political psychology, this is a "charismatic leader-follower relationship." DONKEYS, THIEVES AND CRYBABIES Chavez has called U.S. President George W. Bush a "donkey," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice an "illiterate," former Mexican President Vicente Fox a "lapdog of imperialism" and Peruvian President Alan Garcia a "rotten thief" and a "cry-baby." Jose Miguel Insulza, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States, attracted the public label "asshole" (as did Bush), and Chavez described the entire Brazilian Congress as "puppets." "The major psychological reward for Chavez derives from being seen as the pugnacious openly defiant champion of the little man, as one of 'us' versus 'them,'" Post said. In his assessment, one of the character traits that drive Chavez is "malignant narcissism," a term that denotes an extreme sense of self-importance and is usually coupled with extreme sensitivity to criticism. "The arrogant certainty conveyed in his (Chavez's) public pronouncements is very appealing to his followers. But under this grandiose facade, as is typical with narcissistic personalities, is extreme insecurity," Post wrote in his profile "The Chavez Phenomenon" for the U.S Air Force. Chavez's supporters dismiss such criticism as U.S. efforts to discredit a popular president. Chavez himself has repeatedly said Washington was engaged in psychological, political, economic and media warfare against him. And yet, only last month, the Venezuelan government refused to renew the broadcast license of TV and radio network RCTV, the loudest voice against Chavez, highlighting his sensitivity to criticism. His description of the Brazilian Congress as "puppets" came in response to a statement expressing concern for the freedom of expression after RCTV's closure. Chavez was so angry about a similar remark by the Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, that he said he would "take distance" from Spain. "There are two circumstances when Chavez's messianic personality adversely affects his decision making, with a potential for flawed judgement," Post wrote in his study for the Air Force. "When he has just achieved a major success and when he perceives himself as failing." That pattern has been consistent throughout his presidential terms -- bold actions when he felt heady with success; harsh rhetoric, confrontational moves and temporary depression when he felt weakened. In the heady wake of his electoral triumph last December (he won 63 percent of the vote) Chavez nationalized the country's largest telecommunications company and its most important private electricity firm, as well as silencing RCTV. But in the wake of one of his worst diplomatic defeats, the failure of a protracted and costly lobbying campaign to win a seat for Venezuela on the United Nations Security Council, Chavez was so despondent that he stayed away from an Ibero-American summit meeting in Uruguay. "My colleagues don't like me," he complained. In Post's analysis, Chavez's flawed judgement was on display with his speech to the U.N. last September, when he called Bush "the devil" who had left a smell of sulphur in the assembly hall. Chavez's speech drew chuckles and applause -- but it lost him the U.N. Security Council seat that he had coveted. from the Los Angeles Times, 2007-Aug-16, by Chris Kraul: CARACAS, VENEZUELA -- President Hugo Chavez presented his long-awaited plan to revise the Venezuelan Constitution on Wednesday, including a proposal to eliminate presidential term limits -- a move critics fear would allow the fiery anti-U.S. leader to further concentrate power in his hands. In an address to the National Assembly, Chavez laid out 33 changes that he says would incorporate socialist ideology into the constitution that he pushed through in 2000, and redistribute power and resources to the poor and disadvantaged. Chavez proposedadding one year to the current six-year presidential term and eliminating the two-term limit, allowing him and future presidents to run for reelection indefinitely. He rejected criticism that he was becoming increasingly autocratic. "It's not that I want to enthrone myself," Chavez said. "This shouldn't surprise anyone. It's done this way in any number of countries. "There are many lies circulating in the world, about a dictatorship in Venezuela, about a concentration of power in Venezuela," he said. "This is a transfer of power to the people." The proposal had been expected. Chavez said his overwhelming electoral victory in December authorized him to lead the country to socialism, and that a law passed by the National Assembly in January giving him power to rule by decree also gave him the authority to direct a reform of the constitution. The constitutional revisions must be approved by the National Assembly before being put to voters in a referendum at the end of the year. Especially since a short-lived coup in 2002 that Chavez says the U.S. orchestrated, the Venezuelan leader has been a strident critic of Washington. He regularly belittles President Bush and uses the promise of free or cut-rate oil and refining facilities to counter U.S. influence in Latin America. And he has made friends with countries such as Iran. Chavez proposed a new "geometry of power" by grouping several Venezuelan states together to create an unspecified number of federal districts with economic and political autonomy. He said creation of these districts would enable him to effectively concentrate resources and frustrate local officials "who pretend to be little presidents." The president also wants to confer legal status on about 25,000 "communal councils" that he has formed in conjunction with worker cooperatives to own and operate thousands of state-owned assets, including steel plants, toll roads, foreclosed hotels and confiscated farms. The councils and cooperatives are the nuclei of the socialist society that Chavez envisions. Critics charge that by creating federal districts and giving new power to the communal councils, the populist president seeks to bypass governors and mayors and extend his personal power. "His plan is a trick that has an anti-democratic objective," said Gerardo Fernandez, a constitutional law expert based here. Teodoro Petkoff, a former planning minister and Chavez supporter who now publishes a newspaper critical of the president, described Chavez's government as "regressively autocratic." Chavez said that, although tempted, he was not prepared to abolish private property. He said other socialist leaders told him that would be a mistake. But he said private property owners risked confiscation if their operations "damaged" communities. By calling his proposal a "reform" rather than a wholesale revision, Chavez avoids elections to form a constitutional assembly such as the one he called in 1999. Rather, Chavez has drafted the new measures himself with the help of a constitutional commission made up of sympathetic lawmakers, judges and journalists. Javier Corrales, a political scientist at Amherst College who specializes in Venezuela, said Chavez didn't call an assembly because he might not have been able to control the result as closely as he can by presenting a slate of proposals that a compliant National Assembly is likely to pass. The National Assembly has consisted of 100% Chavez followers since opposition parties boycotted 2005 legislative elections. Corrales said the current difficulties being experienced by Bolivian President Evo Morales in molding an assembly to his will have been a lesson to Chavez. Although Chavez has been subjected to widespread criticism in recent weeks, his popularity remains above 60%. He has been criticized for bending Venezuela's institutions to his will, but Chavez's supporters remind critics that he has won four national elections, including his initial election victory in 1998. His reform proposals had been expected since shortly after Chavez handily won reelection in December and promised to extend what he calls his socialist Bolivarian Revolution to all facets of society. His refusal in May to renew the broadcast license of the nation's most popular television station, which took a critical line in covering Chavez, was criticized by some of his own supporters as suppression of free speech. The move against RCTV also cost him support internationally among leftists unhappy with Bush and neoliberal economic policies, who saw Chavez as a counterweight. More recently, Chavez's image suffered after a Venezuelan businessman with links to the state oil company was caught trying to enter Argentina with nearly $800,000 in cash. Chavez so far has declined to investigate the incident, describing it as an "imperialist trick" by the U.S. Critics allege that it reflects widespread money laundering and influence peddling. In recent weeks, Chavez has floated trial balloons to gauge public reaction to possible constitutional reforms. Those that apparently have been discarded included plans to impose government control over all the nation's private universities and schools, and to pass legislation to prohibit foreigners from criticizing the government. The National Assembly will debate the proposed changes "starting tomorrow," assembly President Cilia Flores said Wednesday. Miguel Tinker Salas, a Latin America studies professor at Pomona College, said that though "the process up to now has been rather closed, from here forward we're going to be seeing a broad and ample national debate." "It's not just a matter of a president proposing it and the assembly rubber stamping," Tinker Salas said. from the Associated Press, 2007-Jun-25, by Christopher Toothaker:
Hugo Chávez's Russian Dalliance
Chávez Sees Cuba as a Model
Russia and Venezuela in deal to counter 'US aggression'
Colombia's Commandos Perform Remarkably
Venezuela, Ecuador accused of FARC ties
Interpol backs Colombia in case of rebel laptop
Chavez denies pressure to concede
A Hollywood Yarn Unravels
Chávez's '21st-century socialism' baffles experts
Venezuela's Chavez seen wanting office "for life"
Chavez proposes scraping term limits
Venezuelan's plan would let him stay in power indefinitely. Other changes would incorporate socialist ideology in the constitution.
Chavez Warns of Resistance War With U.S.
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers on Sunday to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States, saying that Washington is using psychological and economic warfare as part of an unconventional campaign aimed at derailing his government.
Dressed in olive green fatigues and a red beret, Chavez spoke inside Tiuna Fort - Venezuela's military nerve-center - before hundreds of uniformed soldiers standing alongside armored vehicles and tanks decorated with banners reading: “Fatherland, Socialism, or Death! We will triumph!”
“We must continue developing the resistance war, that's the anti-imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war everyday,” said Chavez, who has repeatedly warned that American soldiers could invade Venezuela to seize control of the South American nation's immense oil reserves.
U.S. officials reject claims that Washington is considering a military attack. But the U.S. government has expressed concern over what it perceives as a significant arms build-up here.
Chavez - a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro - told soldiers the Washington was trying to weaken and divide Venezuelan society, including the armed forces, without resorting to combat.
“It's not just armed warfare,” said Chavez, a former army officer who is leading what he calls the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a socialist movement named after 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar. “I'm also referring to psychological warfare, media warfare, political warfare, economic warfare.”
Under Chavez, Venezuela has recently purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets.
Last week, Chavez said he is considering arms purchases, including submarines and a missile-equipped air defense system, as he prepares for a tour of Russia, Belarus and Iran.
“We are strengthening Venezuela's military power precisely to avoid imperial aggressions and assure peace, not to attack anybody,” he said Sunday.
Opposition leader Julio Borges condemned the president's interest in acquiring weapons, saying the government should focus on reducing violent crime in Venezuela, which has one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America.
“This isn't resolved with military purchases and foreign tours,” Borges said. “This is resolved with the determination of having a country with justice.”
from Reuters, 2007-Jul-2, by Parisa Hafezi:
Iran, Venezuela in "axis of unity" against U.S
ASSALOUYEH, Iran - The presidents of Iran and Venezuela launched construction of a joint petrochemical plant on Monday, strengthening an "axis of unity" between two oil-rich nations staunchly opposed to the United States.
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who both often rail against Washington, also signed a series of other deals to expand economic cooperation, ranging from setting up a dairy factory in Venezuela to forming an oil company.
"The two countries will united defeat the imperialism of North America," a beaming Chavez told a news conference during an official visit to the Islamic Republic, which the United States has labeled part of an "axis of evil."
"When I come to Iran Washington gets upset," he said.
The two presidents -- whose countries are members of the OPEC oil producing cartel -- earlier attended the ceremony to start building a methanol facility with an annual capacity of 1.65 million tons on the Islamic Republic's Gulf coast.
"Iran and Venezuela -- the axis of unity," read one of many official posters at the site near the port town of Assalouyeh, showing the two leaders hugging each other and shaking hands.
Ahmadinejad -- who came to power two years ago pledging to revive the values of the 1979 Islamic revolution -- hailed the event as a step towards boosting "brotherly" ties of the two "revolutionary" nations. Iran is embroiled in a worsening nuclear standoff with Western powers.
WESTERN "BARBARIANS"
Chavez, who last week pushed two U.S. oil giants out of his country as part of his self-styled socialist revolution, said: "This is the unity of the Persian Gulf and the Caribbean Sea."
Iranian officials said a second methanol plant would be set up in Venezuela. Each would cost about $650 million to $700 million and take four years to complete. Methanol is an alcohol which can be used as a solvent or an element in fuel.
That would help Iran to access the Latin American market, while Venezuela would get closer to buyers in India and Pakistan.
Chavez, who wants to forge an alliance of leftist states to counter U.S. policies, arrived in Tehran on Saturday after visiting Russia and Belarus.
from Reuters, 2007-May-27, by Brian Ellsworth and Christian Oliver:
Venezuela TV station says troops seized equipment
CARACAS - Venezuelan troops have seized an anti-government television channel's broadcast equipment, the station said on Sunday, ahead of a controversial midnight EDT/0400 GMT takeover by President Hugo Chavez that will take the broadcaster off the air.
Chavez sparked international criticism with his decision to not renew RCTV's license and to replace Venezuela's most-watched channel with a state-backed network that will promote the values of his self-styled socialist revolution.
RCTV representatives said troops had taken over relay stations across the country amid a show of military force meant to deter possible violence by opposition demonstrators.
"They have taken over the transmission stations," said Edgardo Mosca, Vice President of Engineering Operations at RCTV.
Since coming to power in 1999, Chavez has taken control of the judiciary, army and crucial oil industry as part of his leftist reform campaign.
But until the closure of RCTV, he had not moved aggressively against Venezuela's media, which his critics called a safeguard against him forging a Cuban-style system in the OPEC nation.
Thousands of opposition supporters marched through Caracas to protest the closure. Several hundred gathered outside RCTV's headquarters, chanting anti-Chavez slogans and shrieking excitedly to greet the arrival of the station's beloved soap opera stars.
"People should watch the channel they want to see, and if someone does not like it they can change the channel," said industrial engineer Luis Mora, 46, standing outside the headquarters. "I do not think it is right."
CHAVEZ SUPPORTERS CHEER
Thousands of Chavez supporters dressed in their signature red T-shirts filled a Caracas avenue to celebrate the opening of the new government-run channel.
Chavez accuses RCTV of participating in a bungled 2002 coup against him. He has also criticized the station's racy soap operas, which he says verge on pornography, and what he characterized as degrading references to the nation's poor, who overwhelmingly backed his landslide re-election last year.
"I am here to celebrate the closure of RCTV, it is a coup-supporting television station; that is why its license is not being renewed," demonstrator Horacio Marquez said in an interview with state television.
Critics say the move silences the opposition's voice on the national airwaves and will intimidate other media, deterring them from criticizing Chavez's reform crusade.
Human rights organizations and the U.S. Senate have expressed their concern that Chavez is clamping down on free speech and trying to extend state control over every aspect of society.
But government supporters say RCTV has repeatedly violated basic journalistic ethics through open involvement in opposition politics. State television is openly pro-Chavez.
RCTV along with the country's other networks openly supported the coup that toppled Chavez for two days, then refused to cover supporter protests that helped bring him back to office.
But the government on Saturday renewed the license of Venevision, which took the same stance during the coup but has since softened its editorial line to favor Chavez.
from Xinhua (mainland Chinese state media) via People's Daily Online, 2007-May-29:
Venezuelan opposition figure seriously injured in demonstration
Antonio Ledezma, leader of Venezuela's opposition Brave People's Alliance (ABP), suffered a chest wound on Sunday night during the protest against the closure of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), Richard Blanco, a member of the ABP board told press Monday.
Ledezma is now in intensive care at the San Roman Urology clinic, eastern Caracas, where he was taken after police and National Guard officers broke up the demonstration, just hours after RCTV was taken off air Sunday.
Blanco said that his party would continue fighting for political change in the nation, despite the wounding of many people during the violent breakup of the demonstration outside the offices of Venezuelan regulator Conatel.
RCTV is a privately-owned entertainment channel which had been on air since 1953 and had 2,500 direct employees and 500 indirect workers. It stopped broadcasting Sunday night after the Venezuelan government refused to renew the channel's license.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused RCTV of having supported the failed 2002 coup against him, according to local media.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2007-Mar-5, p.A16, by Armando Valladares:
Castro's Gulag
Like thousands of other Cubans, I was arrested in the middle of the night. Fidel Castro's police raided my parents' home, stuck a machine gun in my face and took me away. It was 1960 and I was 22 years old.
The news that the Cuban dictator is gravely ill floods my mind with memories of my years spent in captivity. I believe that those of us who were political prisoners know his legacy better than anyone. For 22 years, I was an inmate in his vast prison system, mostly confined to an island gulag, for crimes I did not commit.
Like the majority of Cubans in 1959, I cheered Castro's victory over Fulgencio Batista, a dictator on friendly terms with the U.S. Castro called himself the enemy of all dictatorships; he had a cross hanging round his neck and he swore that there would be free and fair elections. But as his near five decades of uninterrupted power proved, he tricked everyone and replaced the dictatorship of Batista with his own bloodier version.
In a famous 1959 appearance on "Meet the Press," Castro answered a question put to him by Lawrence Spivak, "Democracy is my ideal, really . . . I am not communist . . . There is no doubt for me between democracy and communism." Once Castro began making his sympathies overt, I began speaking out against his ideological shift amongst the people in my workplace, the postal savings bank.
At the time, the government was distributing placards with the slogan: "If Fidel is a communist, then put me on the list. He's got the right idea." The phrase was ubiquitous, from decals to billboards. When officials in the bank demanded that I put the slogan on my worktable, I refused. When they asked if I had anything against Fidel, I told them that if he was a communist, then, yes, I did. I had no desire to become a symbol of political dissidence. That decision was made for me that day.
Thirteen days after my arrest, I was tried on charges of threatening the powers of state security, even though there was no evidence against me. The justice system under Castro was a mockery of the rule of law; members of my tribunal were Communist Party apparatchiks who sat with their boots up on tables, smoking cigars and reading comic books. Their very presence was but a formality; the verdicts had already been decided. I was not permitted an attorney.
I received a 30-year prison sentence as a potential conspirator. Two men in the same court room falsely accused of shooting at a government spokesman were executed by firing squad. When their defense attorney (whom they had met just minutes before) pleaded with the prosecutor to reduce the sentence, the prosecutor responded that he had received orders to have them shot, no matter what, as a means of social prophylaxis.
Once in prison, if the guards felt like punishing us, they would put us in cages, with mesh roofs, and walk along the edge while pouring buckets of urine and excrement all over our bodies. Sometimes, guards would shoot prisoners for target practice. That is how they killed Alfredo Carrion and Diosdado Aquit. Many of the men whom Castro had imprisoned, tortured and killed had been his comrades in overthrowing Batista. But most of them were innocent people eliminated in Ernesto "Che" Guevara's psychotic quest for what he and Castro called the "new man."
The impunity of Castro's dictatorship was marked by its cruelty. A prisoner in my block, Julio Tan, once refused an order by a prison guard to dig weeds. The guard struck him with his bayonet, another hit him with a hoe, and a gang of guards beat him until he bled to death in just a matter of minutes. My friend Pedro Luis Boitel, a student leader and courageous opponent of Batista, went on a hunger strike in 1972 to protest his treatment. On the 49th day of the strike, Castro personally ordered that Boitel be denied drinking water. Boitel died of thirst, in horrific agony, five days later.
Terror was Castro's main tool. The tactics used for enemies of the regime included the exploitation of phobias such as reptiles and rats; the use of drugs so as to have prisoners lose all notion of time and place; blindfolding prisoners, hanging them by their feet, and then lowering them into wells they were told are filled with crocodiles; the use of guard dogs that had their teeth removed and which were set upon prisoners with hands tied behind their backs. Usually, these dogs attacked the genitals first. All of this was investigated and extensively documented by a visiting delegation from the United Nations. The evidence can be found in Geneva.
The legacy of Castro for Cuba will be much like that of Stalin in Russia, Pol Pot and Ieng Sari in Cambodia and Hitler in Germany. It will be the memories of the unknown numbers of victims, of concentration camps, torture, murder, exile, families torn apart, death, tears and blood. Castro will go down in history as one of the cruelest of all dictators -- a man who tormented his own people.
But his poisonous legacy will also include the double standard by foreign governments, intellectuals and journalists who fought ferociously against the unspeakable violations of human rights by right-wing dictatorships, yet applauded Castro. To this day many of these intellectuals serve as apologists and accomplices in the subjugation of the Cuban people. Rafael Correa, the recently inaugurated president of Ecuador, has declared that in Cuba there is no dictatorship. Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, considers Castro his mentor and has already shown that he is willing to silence his own critics at the point of a gun. Venezuela, once a democracy, is the new Cuba, replete with a growing population of political prisoners.
Castro hemmed and hawed in the early 1960s, concealing his ideological allegiance to the most murderous system of government humanity has ever experienced. Today's Latin American caudillos openly express their allegiance to communist ideals. "I am very much of Trotsky's line -- the permanent revolution," Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said in January.
If we have learned anything from Fidel Castro, it is that the totalitarian impulse outlives even its most hardened -- and ruinous -- practitioners.
Mr. Valladares, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, is chairman of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and author of "Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag" (National Book Network, 2001).
from the Wall Street Journal, 2007-Apr-2, p.A15, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
The Lives of Cubans
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's 2007 Academy Award winning film, "The Lives of Others," recalls the bitterness of East German life under the Stasi. But it is also a reminder of the evils totalitarianism inflicts wherever it lands. When I watched it in a New York cinema recently, I saw Fidel Castro's ruthless Ministry of the Interior -- the Cuban equivalent of the Stasi -- in every frame.
Take, for example, the moment when Stasi police rifle playwright Georg Dreyman's apartment in search of an "illegal" typewriter, after they have broken his fearful girlfriend in a skillful interrogation.
That heart-pounding scene evokes images of Cuba's "black spring," only four years ago, when the ministry's secret police descended on the homes of scores of writers, journalists, peaceful activists and poets, seizing their typewriters, fax machines, paper and ink. Seventy-five were arrested, run through summary trials and handed sentences averaging 20 years.
Today almost all those judged guilty are still rotting in rodent-infested dungeons, largely forgotten by the outside world, while Western audiences recoil in horror at the police state depicted by Mr. Henckel von Donnersmarck. My guess, based on the little we already know, is that when the long tropical totalitarian nightmare finally ends, the cruelty unveiled will make the East Germans look like amateurs.
A report released over the weekend by the Web site Cuba Archive on the murder of 37 civilians who tried to flee the island aboard a tugboat in 1994 suggests just how horrid the the truth is likely to be.
The story of how the "March 13th" was attacked by the Cuban government seven miles offshore has been told in Spanish by Jorge A. García -- who lost his son, grandson and 12 other relatives in the tragedy -- in a 2001 book called "The Sinking of the March 13th Tugboat." But until now the full account, as told by survivors, has not reached English-speakers.
Cuba Archive is an independent research project working to document the deaths of innocents under both the Batista and Castro dictatorships. As part of this work, the project has published an account of that fateful day, drawing heavily from Mr. García's book. Cuba Archive Executive Director Maria Werlau says that she used other sources as well and cross referenced witness claims in order to produce a verifiable document that summarizes the events as they happened.
The tragedy of the March 13th begins at 3 a.m. on July 13, 1994, when 68 civilians boarded the vessel for the final stages of an escape plot that had been hatched months before and promised to land them in freedom 90 miles away. Among the passengers were 15 children, including a 5-month-old infant and five toddlers. Fifty-one-year-old Fidencio Ramel Prieto, the head of operations at the Port of Havana, may have been the most important player in the plan.
According to survivors, the tugboat had only just left the port when another tug began to pursue it, suggesting that the group had been infiltrated. Near the mouth of the harbor the boat giving chase tried to push the March 13th onto the reefs. That effort failed but two other tugs joined the chase and began flooding the March 13th with water cannons. Once out of sight from the shore, the tugs in pursuit began to ram the fleeing vessel and aimed the water cannons at the passengers. Survivors say that from the deck of the boat they signaled that they had children on board and they made their intentions to surrender clear. But the attack continued. Soon a Soviet-built Cuban Coast Guard cutter arrived on the scene.
Many passengers took refuge from the high-pressure water jets by going below deck, a decision that left them trapped when the ramming eventually took its toll and the boat began to sink. Some managed to swim free. But even after the tug sank, government boats made no effort to rescue the survivors who were in the water, clinging to debris and calling for help. When a merchant vessel with Greek flags approached, the Cuban crews finally pulled 31 survivors out of the water, perhaps because foreign witnesses to further deaths were likely to embarrass the regime.
According to Mr. Garcia, all but one of the suvivors have since escaped Cuba. But for the island's brave dissident movement, the event remains a symbol of the hateful system. On July 13, 2005 four activists held a public commemoration in Havana for the victims of the massacre. They were promptly assaulted by Castro's Rapid Response Brigades and later arrested. On Feb. 27 of this year, the four finally went to trial, were found guilty of public disorder and are serving sentences of up to two years.
The intentional sinking of the "March 13th" reveals a government policy of murdering refugees, not unlike the East German practice of shooting those who tried to make it over the Berlin Wall. The only difference is that the Cuban government seems to be running up the score. While there are 227 documented cases of East Germans killed for trying to clear the Wall, Cuba Archive has already documented the deaths of 233 Cubans executed for trying to flee the island. According to Ms. Werlau, there are likely many more. Without a central place to report lost loved ones, there is no way of knowing how many Cubans are missing, let alone killed. Should family members one day be free to come forward, Ms. Werlau says, the total of disappeared will almost certainly climb, even if their fates may never be known. For now that number is Fidel's dirty little secret.
In opening East German archives, researchers have found that the Castro regime worked closely with the Stasi in the 1970s to perfect surveillance and interrogation techniques and on other methods of enhancing fear. Let's remember that the fall of the Wall was not the end of all that. The Stasi's ideals, so grimly portrayed in Mr. Henckel von Donnersmarck's film, live on in Cuba today.
from the Miami Herald, 2007-Feb-28, by Frances Robles:
Ex-insider: Cuba has bioweapons
A former top Cuban military official said Cuba is manufacturing biological weapons.The former chief of Cuba's military medical services is calling for international weapons inspections of a secret underground lab near Havana, where he says the government is creating biological warfare agents like the plague, botulism and yellow fever.
Roberto Ortega, a former army colonel who ran the military's medical services from 1984 to 1994, defected in 2003 and now lives in South Florida.
After living here quietly for four years, this week Ortega went on the Spanish-language media circuit to denounce what he claims is an advanced offensive biological warfare weapons program. He spoke Tuesday night at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies where one angry heckler stormed out accusing him of deliberately sowing fear among Cuban exiles.
''They can develop viruses and bacteria and dangerous sicknesses that are currently unknown and difficult to diagnose,'' Ortega told The Miami Herald. “They don't need missiles or troops. They need four agents, like the people from al Qaeda or the Taliban, who contaminate water, air conditioning or heating systems.''
He said Cuba was ready to use the biological agents ''to blackmail the United States in case of an international incident'' such as the threat of a U.S. invasion.
The Cuban government has denied such programs exist, but if Ortega's allegations are true Washington could face the prospect of an enemy nation 90 miles away with the capability of launching germ attacks.
UNDERGROUND LAB
Ortega said he told the CIA nearly two years ago about an underground Cuban facility southwest of Havana. The maximum security lab dubbed ''Labor One'' has an above-ground civilian cover and employs dozens of scientists, he said.
But in the underground facility, scientists reproduced and stockpiled deadly germs and bacterias collected in Africa, he added.
He visited the lab in 1992 when he accompanied a high-level Russian military delegation, he said.
''I saw it,'' Ortega said. “I lived it.''
Ortega is believed to be the first defector with details of such an alleged biological warfare facility, said University of Miami professor Manuel Cereijo, who studies Cuba's biotechnology and terrorism issues.
Ortega said he has come forward now because he did not see the CIA taking public action on his information. The CIA and the U.S. State Department declined to comment.
''He talks about a place I never heard about,'' Cereijo said. “There are many other places where there exists the capacity to develop bioweapons. That doesn't mean they are doing that. Only a person like him would know.''
ADVANCES KNOWN
Cuba's advanced biotechnology industry is well-known, having produced vaccines for hepatitis and meningitis B and exported them to dozens of countries around the world. In 2002, John Bolton, then a top U.S. State Department official for arms control, said Cuba “has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort.''
In a report last year, the State Department acknowledged analysts were divided on the issue of whether Cuba has such a program. Experts also argue that the U.S. government is unlikely to have high-level spies in Cuba feeding it information on what must be, if it exists, a highly secret program.
Ken Alibek, former deputy director of the Soviet Union's bioweapons program, said Russian scientists always suspected the Cubans were developing a biological warfare program, but said he doubts that any Soviet military delegation would have been invited to visit it.
''If you ask whether the Cubans are capable, I'd say easily,'' he told The Miami Herald in a telephone interview from Virginia. “Are they doing it? I can tell you when I was involved in the late 80s, we suspected so.''
from the New York Times, 2007-Apr-10, by Simon Romero and Clifford Krauss, with Simon Romero contributing from Caracas, and Clifford Krauss contributing from Houston:
High Stakes: Chávez Plays the Oil Card
CARACAS, Venezuela, April 9 — With President Hugo Chávez setting a May 1 deadline for an ambitious plan to wrest control of several major oil projects from American and European companies, a showdown is looming here over access to some of the most coveted energy resources outside the Middle East.
In September, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, left, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran visited an oil rig in Anzoátegui state.
Moving beyond empty threats to cut off all oil exports to the United States, officials have recently stepped up the pressure on the oil companies operating here, warning that they might sell American refineries meant to process Venezuelan crude oil even as they seek new outlets in China and elsewhere around the world.
“Chávez is playing a game of chicken with the largest oil companies in the world,” said Pietro Pitts, an oil analyst who publishes LatinPetroleum, an industry magazine based here. “And for the moment he is winning.”
But this confrontation could easily end up with everyone losing.
The biggest energy companies could be squeezed out of the most promising oil patch in the Western Hemisphere. But Venezuela risks undermining the engine behind Mr. Chávez's socialist-inspired revolution by hampering its ability to transform the nation's newly valuable heavy oil into riches for years to come.
As Mr. Chávez asserts much greater control over Venezuela's oil industry, his national oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, is already showing signs of stress. Management has become increasingly politicized, and money for maintenance and development is being diverted to pay for a surge in public spending.
During the last several decades, control of global oil reserves has steadily passed from private companies to national oil companies like Petróleos de Venezuela. According to a new Rice University study, 77 percent of the world's 1.148 trillion barrels of proven reserves is in the hands of the national companies; 14 of the top 20 oil-producing companies are state-controlled.
The implications are potentially stark for the United States, which imports 60 percent of its oil. State companies tend to be far less efficient and innovative, and far more politicized. No place captures the shift in power to nationalist governments like Venezuela.
“We are on a collision course with Chávez over oil,” said Michael J. Economides, an oil consultant in Houston who wrote an influential essay comparing Mr. Chávez's populist appeal in Latin America with the pan-Arabism of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya two decades ago. “Chávez poses a much bigger threat to America's energy security than Saddam Hussein ever did.”
Consider the quandary facing Exxon Mobil after its chairman, Rex W. Tillerson, recently suggested that Exxon might be forced to abandon a major Venezuelan oil project because of its growing troubles with Mr. Chávez.
The energy world took notice. So did Mr. Chávez's government.
Only a day later, Venezuelan agents raided Exxon's offices here in the San Ignacio towers, a bastion for this country's business elite. The government said that the raid was part of a tax investigation, but energy analysts said the exchange of threat and counterthreat was all too clear.
Politics and ideology are driving the confrontation here as Mr. Chávez seeks to limit American influence around the world, starting in Venezuela's oil fields. Mr. Chávez views the Bush administration as a threat, in part because it indirectly supported a coup that briefly removed him from power five years ago. Yet the United States remains Venezuela's largest customer.
Mr. Chávez recently decreed that Venezuela would take control of heavy oil fields in the Orinoco Belt, a region southeast of Caracas of so much potential that some experts say it could give the country more reserves than Saudi Arabia. The United States Geological Survey describes the area as the “largest single hydrocarbon accumulation in the world,” making it highly coveted despite Mr. Chávez's erratic policies.
By setting a May 1 deadline for what some foreign oil executives consider an expropriation, the Venezuelan leader risks losing Exxon, ConocoPhillips and other companies, which are loath to put their employees and billions of dollars in assets under Venezuelan management.
A departure of expertise and investment could weaken an oil industry already unsettled by being transformed into Mr. Chávez's most crucial tool for carrying out his reconfiguration of Venezuelan society.
Mr. Chávez has raised taxes on foreign oil companies and forced other oil ventures to come under his government's control. And he has purged more than 17,000 employees from Petróleos de Venezuela after a debilitating strike about four years ago.
The talks have bogged down over how much the oil companies' stakes in four big Orinoco projects are worth, whether Venezuela's cash-short oil company would pay for the assets in oil instead of cash and, most important, who would manage the reduced operations of the foreign oil companies.
Still prevented from producing oil in places like Saudi Arabia and Mexico, the companies desperately want to hold on to their Venezuelan reserves. Companies like Exxon, whose Venezuelan assets were nationalized in the 1970s and returned to it in the 1990s, know the pitfalls of operating here and figure that Mr. Chávez will not be around forever.
With oil prices at high levels, oil-rich countries as varied as Angola, Norway and Russia are also waiting to see how the talks unfold. Governments in Kazakhstan and Nigeria are trying to negotiate better terms with foreign oil companies as well. But none are doing so with Mr. Chávez's revolutionary flourish.
“It is a defining moment,” said Christopher Ruppel, a geopolitical risk analyst at John S. Herold Inc., the energy consulting firm.
Last week, Rafael Ramírez, Venezuela's energy minister, sent a chilling signal to the oil companies, saying Venezuela might sell refineries in Texas and Louisiana that process crude from Exxon's Venezuelan oil fields. Analysts say Venezuela could be setting the stage to produce much less oil in ventures with American oil companies for export to the United States.
The oil companies decline to talk publicly about the negotiations, but people in the industry say Exxon and ConocoPhillips, two of the largest American companies in Venezuela, are digging in their heels. The companies, however, lack a united front: Chevron is expected to accept Mr. Chávez's terms, since it is also negotiating access to a large natural gas project in Venezuela.
“If the majors want to negotiate a settlement, they have to be able to let Chávez save face and look like he has won this with his people,” said Michael S. Goldberg, head of the international dispute resolution group at Baker Botts, a law firm in Houston that represents many of the major oil companies around the world.
For decades, Venezuela has been a leading supplier of oil to American refineries, a resilient economic relationship that remains intact despite deteriorating political ties. Venezuela is the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the United States, accounting for more than 10 percent of American oil imports.
Once Venezuela's heavy oil is counted, its reserves may surpass those of Saudi Arabia or Canada, though the oil will be worthless without ventures to extract it. American oil producers are drawn here by Venezuela's 80 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, among the largest outside the Middle East.
But Mr. Chávez is chipping away at those ties by forming ventures with state oil companies from China, Iran, India and Brazil. Venezuelan exports of oil and refined products to the United States fell 8.2 percent to a 12-year low in 2006 of about 1.3 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Meanwhile, Mr. Chávez has accepted higher shipping costs to reach China, expanding exports tenfold to about 160,000 barrels a day since 2004.
“If the United States wants to diversify its oil supplies for reasons of national security, then Venezuela should be allowed to diversify its customer base for the same reason,” said Mazhar al-Shereidah, an Iraqi-born petroleum economist who is one of Venezuela's leading energy experts.
But even under the best of circumstances, China's retooling of its refineries to handle Venezuela's sour, or high-sulfur, crude oil could take five to seven years. And it is not clear whether Mr. Chávez's new foreign energy partners are prepared to invest heavily until they are confident they can trust him.
In a country where many facets of life are politicized, output levels are no exception. Venezuela says it produces 3.3 million barrels a day, but OPEC officials say production is closer to 2.5 million, 1 million barrels less than in 1999 when Mr. Chávez's presidency began.
No one sees an immediate crisis at Petróleos de Venezuela. But its windfall from high oil prices masks the devilish complexity and rising costs of producing heavy oil.
Meanwhile, the company acknowledged last month that spending on “social development” almost doubled in 2006, to $13.3 billion, while its spending on exploration badly trailed its global peers. And Petróleos de Venezuela's work force has ballooned to 89,450, up 29 percent since 2001 even as production declined.
Independent analysts are alarmed by a troubling increase in explosions and refining accidents during the last two years, which authorities brush off as sabotage. Mr. Ramírez, the energy minister, declined repeated requests for an interview.
With heavily subsidized domestic oil consumption surging, the government spends an estimated $9 billion to keep gasoline prices under 20 cents a gallon. Moreover, Mr. Chávez uses Petróleos de Venezuela to finance other nationalizations, like its $739 million purchase of an electric utility in Caracas from the AES Corporation.
Petróleos de Venezuela's cash is said to be running short as Mr. Chávez uses its revenue to cement political alliances with Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua. The company has borrowed more than $11 billion since the start of the year, a rapid debt buildup that reflects a wager by Mr. Chávez that oil prices will remain high indefinitely.
from Reuters, 2007-Jan-31, by Christian Oliver:
Chavez gets powers to rule by decree
CARACAS - Venezuela's Congress on Wednesday granted President Hugo Chavez powers to rule by decree for 18 months as he tries to force through nationalizations key to his self-styled leftist revolution.
The vote allows anti-U.S. leader Chavez, who has been in power since 1999, to deepen state control of the economy and other sectors of public life such as defence and security.
Chavez's increasing centralization of power in the No. 4 oil exporter to the United States prompted rare public comments from U.S. President George W. Bush.
"I'm concerned about the Venezuelan people, and I'm worried about the diminution of democratic institution(s)," he said in an interview with Fox News to be broadcast later on Wednesday, after being asked about Chavez's nationalizations.
Afternoon headlines in the anti-Chavez press were more scathing. Tal Cual splashed with "Heil Hugo" and equated the enabling law with powers granted to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. El Mundo had the headline "Superchavez enabled."
The lawmakers, all loyal to Chavez after opposition parties boycotted the 2005 congressional elections, flaunted their populist credentials by taking the unusual step of holding their vote in public in a square in downtown Caracas.
"We in the National Assembly will not waver in granting President Chavez an enabling law so he can quickly and urgently set up the framework for resolving the grave problems we have," said congressional Vice President Roberto Hernandez.
The economic reforms are set to work in tandem with increased political centralization. Chavez is forging a single party to lead his radical reforms, stripping the central bank of autonomy and seeking indefinite re-election.
The vote was applauded by hundreds of Chavez supporters in red T-shirts, carrying placards such as "With Chavez, the people rule" and "Venezuela towards socialism."
Chavez has targeted the oil industry, power utilities and the country's biggest telecommunications firm for takeover, affecting many foreign owners and shareholders.
STEP Towards TYRANNY?
Washington's direct response to the law itself was muted, saying the United States would wait to see what Chavez does with his new powers.
"We, along with the rest of the hemisphere, will be keeping a close eye on how the enabling law is used. But at the end of the day, this is not so much a question for the United States and other nations as for the Venezuelan people," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon told reporters in Bogota.
Chavez's opponents at home were more cutting.
The opposition accuses Chavez of being a tyrant in the making, taking a slow-burning approach to following Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Chavez argues he will always tolerate opposition and will step down if he loses an election.
Julio Borges, leader of an opposition party Primero Justicia, said he found the vote worrying.
"Unfortunately, what I think we are going to see in the next 18 months is a still greater separation between power and the Venezuelan people," he said.
Opposition politician and newspaper editor Teodoro Petkoff wrote in Wednesday's Tal Cual: "The enabling law is designed to consolidate and reinforce the autocracy that has been developing for eight years."
Hernandez, of the Venezuelan Communist Party, rebuffed such charges.
"When our enemies say we are granting dictatorial powers to Chavez, they know that they are lying," he said.
(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Patricia Rondon and Fabian Andres Cambero in Caracas and Patrick Markey and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota)
from the New York Times, 2007-Mar-9, by Jim Rutenberg reported in São Paulo and Larry Rohter in Buenos Aires:
Visit by Bush Fires Up Latins' Debate Over Socialism
SÃO PAULO, Brazil, March 8 — President Bush has portrayed his trip to Latin America this week as a “We Care” tour aimed at dispelling perceptions that he has neglected his southern neighbors.
But fresh graffiti on streets here in São Paulo, where he landed Thursday night for his first stop, calls him a murderer. The smattering of protests and the placement of military vehicles around the city, South America's largest, also present an alternate interpretation of his visit: as a clash between the open capitalism that Mr. Bush espouses and the socialist approach pushed by leftist leaders who have grown in power and popularity.
And as the administration prepares to use the president's five-nation tour to highlight a new ethanol development deal with Brazil, the most efficient producer of the fuel, and American health care and education programs elsewhere, much of the tour attention is focusing on what may best be called “the Rumble on the River.”
President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Mr. Bush's chief nemesis in the region, will be leading a protest against him in Buenos Aires, as Mr. Bush arrives Friday in Montevideo, Uruguay, across Rio de la Plata from Argentina. “Our planes will almost cross paths,” Mr. Chávez said this week, though he denied any intention to sabotage Mr. Bush's visit.
In interviews with Latin American reporters this week, Mr. Bush played down Mr. Chávez's planned rally, telling one group on Tuesday: “I go a lot of places and there are street rallies. And my attitude is, I love freedom and the right for people to express themselves.”
Whether inadvertently or not, though, Mr. Bush irritated Mr. Chávez with a speech on Monday in Washington, in which he said Simón Bolivar, the hero of South America's independence struggle and Mr. Chávez's idol, “belongs to all of us who love liberty.” This brought a sharp and sarcastic rejoinder from Mr. Chávez the next day.
But in spite of administration attempts to minimize the shadow cast on the visit by Mr. Chávez — who has pushed an aggressively anti-American agenda throughout the region — the tour itself seems at least in part geared to counter his influence. Mr. Chávez has built that influence in part by showering poor communities with money for housing and health care and by freely dispensing oil at cut-rate prices.
Mr. Bush's new agreement with Brazil to increase ethanol production in the region represents a way to cut back on the influence that Mr. Chávez's oil supply gives him, while encouraging employment and economic development. And before arriving here, Mr. Bush announced a number of programs to help the poor in the region, whom he referred to, in Spanish, as “workers and peasants.”
He promised hundreds of millions of dollars to help families buy homes and said he would dispatch a Navy hospital ship to the region to provide free health services.
In his interviews this week, Mr. Bush has repeated that the United States' aid to the region has doubled during his tenure, to about $1.6 billion annually. “When you total all up the money that is spent, because of the generosity of our taxpayers, that's $8.5 billion to programs that promote social justice,” including education and health, he told reporters on Tuesday.
But the view from here could scarcely be more different.
In an editorial headlined “Uncle Scrooge's Paltry Package,” the conservative daily newspaper O Estado de São Paulo noted Wednesday that Mr. Bush's offering amounted to “the equivalent of five days' cost of the war in Iraq, and a drop of water compared with the ocean of petrodollars in which Chávezism is navigating at full speed, from Argentina to Nicaragua.”
Some of Mr. Bush's aides said they were worried that perceptions that the United States had neglected its southern neighbors, and frustration in lower classes that had not reaped the benefits of free trade, were helping to fuel leftist movements.
Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said, “Something we have not done well enough is getting out the full scope of the president's message.”
Mr. Bush told reporters that he hoped to counter Mr. Chávez's message by espousing the benefits of free trade.
Asked by a reporter about Mr. Chávez's “so-called alternative development model” calling for nationalization of industry, Mr. Bush said: “I strongly believe that government-run industry is inefficient and will lead to more poverty. I believe if the state tries to run the economy, it will enhance poverty and reduce opportunity.”
He added, “So the United States brings a message of open markets and open government to the region.”
But even Mr. Bush's Brazilian hosts seemed divided in their reaction to that message. Although President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be meeting with Mr. Bush on Friday to sign the ethanol accord and is scheduled to visit him at Camp David on March 31, the leftist Workers' Party he leads has chosen to support and take part in the anti-Bush demonstrations.
The party warned on its Web site that Mr. Bush “shouldn't count on Brazil for imperialist actions in the region.” One essay called him “the big boss of international terrorism,” while another declared that Mr. Bush was “persona non grata” in Brazil.
“The United States in general and the Bush government in particular are brutally violent,” wrote Valter Pomar, the party's secretary for international relations. “We will only be free of this threat when the North American people constitute a government on the left.”
At an evening rush-hour protest in the central business district here, several thousand activists wore stickers showing Mr. Bush with a Hitler-style mustache and a swastika next to his head and the words “Fora Bush,” or “Bush Out.”
With the police standing by in riot gear, antiwar protesters mixed with unionists and environmentalists, who are concerned that harvesting ethanol from sugar could hurt the Amazon. A sea of signs read “Adolf Bush” or “Quit Playing With the Environment.”
Later, the Brazilian news media reported that police officers used tear gas and batons on protesters who were throwing rocks and struggling with the officers, sending hundreds of demonstrators running through the streets of São Paulo. There were no major injuries reported.
from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2007-Jan-17:
Hugo and Mahmoud
What do Ahmadinejad and Chris Dodd have in common?We've known for some time that Hugo Chávez is a menace to the economic well-being of his own people. But the question that seems increasingly urgent is whether he's becoming a threat to U.S. security interests--both in the Western Hemisphere and beyond.
Specifically, we'd like to know what Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Bill Delahunt make of Mr. Chávez's weekend summit with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian President stopped by Caracas on Saturday as part of a four-day engagement with Latin America's new leftist governments. On Sunday, the Iranian communed with Nicaragua's new boss, Daniel Ortega, and then on Monday he hit the inauguration of Ecuador's new pro-Chávez President Rafael Correa.
The Caracas visit was Mr. Ahmadinejad's second in four months. "This is just a prelude of what we will do," declared Mr. Chávez, in a televised speech announcing the creation of a joint $2 billion fund to finance development and other projects. "This large and strategic fund, brother, is going to be converted into a mechanism of liberation," he added, saying their goal is to build "a network of alliances."
In Managua, the Iranian also signed a "broad cooperation accord" with Mr. Ortega. Mr. Chávez openly funded the Sandinista's Presidential campaign last year, and he earlier supported Evo Morales in Bolivia. Venezuelan soldiers have reported that they are under orders to give Colombian rebels safe haven, and Mr. Chávez signed contracts last year to buy Russian MiGs and open a Kalishnakov factory at home.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan is using his recent election victory to consolidate his grip on the economy. A week ago, he announced he would nationalize the country's electricity and telephone companies; he already controls the oil business. His goal here is to redistribute income but especially to shrink the private economy in order to reduce the space in which any political opposition can operate.
The Caracas Stock Exchange Index fell 16% last week, but that didn't phase Señor Chávez. He's moving to withdraw the license of a prominent independent television network, and he has asked Congress to grant him temporary executive power to rule by decree. "The world should know: Our revolution is not turning back," he said. "This is the path our boat is on: socialism. Country, socialism, or death."
The world should have known this a long time ago but too many people chose to ignore it. Mr. Chávez took office in 1999 on a promise to end corruption and injustice. By 2000, human rights groups warned of a deterioration in constitutional protections, and Mr. Chávez began importing Cuban security agents along with Cuban doctors and teachers to spread propaganda.
Each time Mr. Chávez has faced resistance, he has tightened the screws. Price and capital controls and property seizures became state policy. Employees of the state-owned oil company and its contractors were fired if they opposed the government; political opponents were jailed.
All the while, Mr. Chávez has had American enablers who excused his growing repression, or blamed it on a reaction to U.S. policy. Foremost among them has been Mr. Dodd, who has defended Mr. Chávez as "democratically elected" despite his clear trend toward authoritarianism. In 2004, the circumstances surrounding a recall referendum were so anti-democratic that the European Union refused to act as an observer. Jimmy Carter nonetheless blessed the outcome amid heavy irregularities, and the U.S. State Department endorsed the process. Other politicians, such as Mr. Delahunt, embraced and flattered Mr. Chávez for his PR stunt of offering cut-rate oil to poor Americans.
Perhaps it's time these Americans paid attention to the kind of "socialism" and "revolution" that their support is helping Mr. Chávez to build in Venezuela.
The following item also appears in the Spooks, Nukes, and Terror chapter.
from the Telegraph of London, 2007-Jan-12, by Jeremy McDermott:
President of Iran woos allies in Latin America
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, is to fly to Latin America this weekend in search of new international allies as three of the region's most anti-American leaders are sworn into power.
On a four-day trip, Mr Ahmadinejad will be calling on the presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador and Nicaragua – who are being sworn into power within days of each other after election victories in recent months.
He will also meet the Left-wing president of Bolivia who took office a year ago.
The visit is certain to alarm the Bush administration, which will look on as one of its biggest global foes – who is suspected of wishing to acquire nuclear weapons – courts Washington's regional opponents in its own backyard.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the region's most outspoken Left-wing leader, was inaugurated for a third term yesterday and promised Cuban-style reforms to complete his socialist revolution.
The former Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was inaugurated in Nicaragua yesterday, returning to power after 16 years in the cold.
Rafael Correa, an unabashed fan of Mr Chavez and his fierce anti-Americanism, assumes the presidency of Ecuador on Monday.
Mr Ahmadinejad is due to meet Mr Chavez on Saturday before flying to Managua for talks with Mr Ortega, the former Marxist leader who fought a decade long civil war against United States-backed Contra rebels in the 1980s. On Monday, the Iranian leader will attend Mr Correa's inauguration ceremony.
Venezuela and several other Latin American countries are members of the Non-Aligned Movement that at a summit last year backed Iran's right to nuclear energy.
But Venezuela was alone in opposing a September 2005 resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency that found Iran in violation of nuclear safeguards.
"Hugo is my brother," Mr Ahmadinejad said during a visit to Caracas last year, adding: "Venezuela and Iran have demonstrated that together, out of the reach of hegemony and American imperialism, they can work and improve."
Iran is OPEC's fourth largest oil producer while Venezuela is also a major player in the cartel and is hoping that its Orinoco oil belt could make it one of the leading producers worldwide.
Mr Chavez indicated this week that he would nationalise power and telecommunications companies as part of a new phase in his "revolution". Critics have voiced concerned that, as Mr Chavez begins his third term, he is showing increasingly autocratic tendencies.
He is seeking to establish a single party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, has pledged to close down the opposition media outlet Radio Caracas Television, and has promised to change the constitution to allow for indefinite re-election.
"Fatherland, socialism or death — I swear it," Mr Chavez said at his inauguration ceremony, evoking Fidel Castro's famous call-to arms: "Socialism or death."
from the Associated Press via the San Diego Union Tribune, 2007-Jan-24, by Jorge Rueda:
Former Chavez confidant becomes critic in Venezuela
CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chavez's political mentor – who once persuaded the fiery leader to seek power through elections after he led a failed coup – now says the regime has “all the characteristics of a dictatorial government.”
Luis Miquilena, who helped guide Chavez to his initial 1998 election win and later was his interior minister, spoke out Tuesday five years after he left Chavez's Cabinet, while hundreds of government opponents held a separate protest over a congressional measure that would grant Chavez broad powers to pass laws by decree.
“This is a government with a hypocritical authoritarianism that tries to sell the world certain democratic appearances,” said the 87-year-old Miquilena, who has maintained a low profile since resigning from Chavez's government in early 2002.
“The government is not abiding by any rule. It has all the characteristics of a dictatorial government,” Miquilena told reporters during a ceremony at the newspaper El Nacional, which is highly critical of the government.
Chavez, who was re-elected by a wide margin last month, says he is committed to democracy and is overseeing changes that will give a greater voice in decision-making to poor Venezuelans. He regularly accuses his opponents of being backed by the United States, but he does not often refer to Miquilena.
Since his re-election, Chavez has accelerated plans to nationalize electrical and telecommunications companies, and is expected next week to be granted special powers by lawmakers to pass various laws by decree for 18 months.
Some 400 to 500 protesters, blowing whistles and waving flags, voiced their opposition to that bill in a peaceful protest in Caracas on Tuesday.
Lawmakers in the entirely pro-Chavez National Assembly, meanwhile, announced they would postpone until next Tuesday a session to approve the so-called “enabling law” allowing Chavez to enact laws by decree in areas from the economy to defense.
Plans announced by Chavez so far include nationalizing the country's main telecommunications company and imposing new taxes on the rich.
Miquilena said he sees a clear effort to “centralize power.”
A former communist and pioneer of Venezuela's labor movement, Miquilena was a close collaborator who helped Chavez after he led a failed coup in 1992 against then-President Carlos Andres Perez.
Miquilena provided financial support to Chavez's family while he was in prison for the two years after the coup attempt and convinced the former paratrooper once he was released to seek the presidency through elections.
Miquilena helped Chavez found the Fifth Republic Movement and formed alliances with other parties.
As Chavez's interior minister in 1999, Miquilena earned the reputation as a conciliator between Chavez's fiery rhetoric and the nervous opposition. But he left the government in 2002 after quarreling with Chavez and denouncing his “autocratic style.”
In recent years, he had largely disappeared from public view. Miquilena said Chavez's so-called “21st Century Socialism” has “no basis or doctrine of any nature, nor does it have a theory it is based upon.”
“Nobody knows what it is, not even Chavez has it clear. Anything that occurs to him he puts in the minestrone,” he said.
from the Associated Press, 2007-Jan-10, by Ian James:
Chavez Touts Socialism in Inauguration
CARACAS, Venezuela -- Invoking Christ and Castro as his socialist models, President Hugo Chavez began his third term Wednesday by declaring that socialism, not capitalism, is the only way forward for Venezuela and the world.
His first stop: Nicaragua, where leftist ally Daniel Ortega was returning to power with his own inauguration hours later. Chavez can now count on remaining president until 2013 - or later if he gets his way with a constitutional amendment allowing him to run again.
At the apex of a resurgent Latin American left, Chavez has been emboldened to make more radical changes at home after winning re-election with 63 percent of the vote, his widest margin ever.
His next moves include nationalizing electrical and telecommunications companies, forming a commission to oversee constitutional reforms and asking the National Assembly, now entirely controlled by his supporters, to allow him to enact "revolutionary laws" by presidential decree.
His right hand raised Wednesday, Chavez declared in words reminiscent of Fidel Castro's famous call-to-arms: "Fatherland, socialism or death - I swear it." He also alluded to Jesus: "I swear by Christ - the greatest socialist in history."
In a speech, he said the central aim of his term will be "to build Venezuelan socialism."
"I don't have the slightest doubt that is the only path to the redemption of our peoples, the salvation of our fatherland," Chavez told lawmakers to applause.
Chavez's re-election capped a series of Latin American presidential votes, and his closest ideological allies were all gathering Wednesday in Managua. Also on Ortega's guest list were Ecuador's Rafael Correa and Bolivia's Evo Morales. Acting Cuban leader Raul Castro sent a high-level delegation.
Chavez said a commission was being assembled to consider constitutional reforms to be decided in a popular referendum, including one allowing "indefinite re-election" by doing away with presidential term limits that bar him from running again in 2012.
"The important thing is that the people will make the decision, because nothing can be done without that here," Chavez said, dismissing criticism that he is becoming authoritarian or trying to change Venezuela into something like Castro's Cuba.
Displaying blunt confidence during his speech, Chavez scolded leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Organization of American States for criticizing his decision not to renew the license of an opposition-aligned television station.
Turning to Venezuela's top Catholic prelate, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, Chavez said he could not understand why the church supported Radio Caracas Television, which Chavez accuses of subversive activities aimed at ousting him.
"Mr. Cardinal," Chavez said, "the state respects the church. The church should respect the state. I wouldn't like to return to the times of confrontation with Venezuelan bishops, but it's not up to me. It's up to the Venezuelan bishops."
With oil profits booming and his popularity high, Chavez seems to be in step with many Venezuelans even as spooked investors rushed to sell off Venezuelan stocks in companies subject to his nationalization plans.
Chavez called that a knee-jerk overreaction, and shares in Venezuela's leading telephone company rebounded as the congressional finance chief assured reporters Wednesday that the government will negotiate compensation to the affected companies.
He also visited the tomb of Simon Bolivar, the South American independence hero and inspiration for his "Bolivarian Revolution," and blew kisses to supporters tossing rose petals at his open car. Before flying to Nicaragua, the former paratroop commander also watched a military parade with Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jets thundering overhead.
Chavez said he is crafting a new sort of "21st century socialism" for Venezuela. Critics say it is starting to look like old-fashioned totalitarianism by a leader obsessed with power.
"They want to nationalize everything. This is the beginning," said Marisela Leon, a 47-year-old engineer who said she would like to leave Venezuela because she sees difficult times ahead.
But many of Chavez's largely poor and working class supporters remain optimistic. Miguel Angel Martinez, a 52-year-old street vendor, said the president "has dedicated himself to studying communist, socialist and democratic models and has taken the best of those models."
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll three weeks before his re-election found 62 percent support for nationalizing companies when in the national interest. But the poll also found 84 percent said they oppose adopting a political system like Cuba's, despite Chavez's reverence for Castro.
And while Chavez denies trying to adopt Cuba's system, he ended his inaugural speech Wednesday with Castro's signature phrase: "Socialism or death! We shall prevail!"
Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez, Jorge Rueda and Elizabeth M. Nunez in Caracas contributed to this report.
from Reuters, 2007-Jan-15, by Christian Oliver and Alonso Soto:
UPDATE 5-Ecuador's leftist Correa promptly begins reforms
QUITO - Leftist Rafael Correa became Ecuador's eighth president in a decade on Monday in a ceremony that drew presidents from a growing anti-U.S. alliance, but the bold reforms he promptly set in motion could imperil his hopes of serving a full term.
Some of Washington's fieriest critics such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez came to the world's second-highest capital to show solidarity with the U.S.-educated economist.
After his swearing-in, Correa signed a document calling for a popular vote on March 18 to set up an assembly to change the constitution and accelerate his "citizens' revolution".
"This is the first battle in a long war to retake our country," he told a crowd.
The proposed constitutional changes are meant to lessen the influence of politicians in the judiciary and force legislators to live in the small constituencies that they represent.
Many legislators fear this assembly could be a step toward cutting them out of the political process, raising the specter of a showdown in the Andean country of 13 million.
Analysts have said such tension in Congress threatened Correa's hopes of serving a full term in the volatile Andean state where three presidents have been ousted in popular and congressional turmoil in the last decade.
Correa has already sent shivers down Wall Street with his promises to renegotiate debt, rework oil deals that he equates with theft and end the lease on a major military base used by the U.S. military.
"I will not negotiate with anyone on the dignity of our homeland. Our homeland is not for sale," he said in his inaugural speech that often quoted Chavez. He wore a traditional Andean shirt and brandished a sword given to him by Chavez.
DEBT PAYMENTS
Correa, who comfortably won a November election run-off against a business magnate, vowed to purge South America's No 5 oil producer of corruption and encourage the return of emigrants.
He also continued his rhetoric against the country's debt payments, saying some of the sovereign debt was "corrupt," and needed international arbitration. He specified the terms of a 2000 debt swap as especially "unacceptable."
The tall, charismatic 43-year-old has promised to challenge the country's political elites who are largely perceived as corrupt. Such a fight could open fault lines in the highly fragile political system of the world's top banana exporter.
Correa's anti-U.S. rhetoric has not been as harsh as that of his Venezuelan counterpart, Chavez.
Although Correa said the devil should feel offended for being compared by Chavez to President George W. Bush at the United Nations in September, the Ecuadorean later called Bush "noble" for congratulating him on his election win.
He also asserted independence from Chavez, insisting, "My friend does not rule in my house, I do."
It appeared earlier this month that Correa's first weeks in power would be tense, with a congressional majority opposing his constitutional reforms.
However, an ousted president who heads parliament's second-largest party threw his weight on Thursday behind Correa, allaying the risk of the new president running into early trouble. He now enjoys a slight majority in Congress.
Raised in a middle-class family in the port city of Guayaquil, Correa won scholarships to study in Europe and the United States. He speaks English, French and a little Quechua, a native language of the Andes.
"We want a profound transformation where the governing classes have failed," he said.
from the Scotsman, 2006-Dec-5, by Alfonso Daniels and Jeremy Mcdermott in Caracas:
Chavez talks his way back to power by huge margin
He had arrived to vote in a red Volkswagen Beetle, not that his ballot mattered over much, as Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, was yesterday the clear winner of the presidential elections by a huge margin of 20 percentage points over his rival.
But it was the kind of gesture that goes to explain the appeal of Mr Chavez, 53, among the country's many poor.
Proclaiming his victory, Mr Chavez said Venezuelans should expect an "expansion of the revolution" aimed at redistributing the country's oil wealth among the poor.
"Long live the revolution!" Mr Chavez shouted from the balcony of the presidential palace. The populist politician, who has yet to miss a chance to attack the US president, George Bush, insisted his victory was another defeat for Washington and the man who he referred to in the United Nations as the Devil.
Mr Chavez said: "Down with imperialism. We need a new world."
Mr Chavez, in power since 1998, won 61 per cent of the vote while rival Manuel Rosales, the governor of an oil-producing province who managed to unite the fragmented opposition, won 38 per cent after nearly 80 per cent of the votes had been counted.
He plans to use the mandate to move into the next phase of his "Bolivarian Revolution", which he has entitled "Socialism of the 21st Century". What this may actually be no-one really knows and opponents fear that Venezuela is heading towards a totalitarian state like that of Mr Chavez's ally and mentor Fidel Castro of Cuba. The only concrete measure that the president has promised is to lift the two-term restriction on presidents, allowing him to be re-elected indefinitely. He believes that he needs to rule until at least 2021 to consolidate his revolution.
Since he first won office, Mr Chavez has survived a coup attempt, supported he insists by Washington, a national strike which brought the economy to its knees and a recall referendum designed to remove him from office. His response has been to take undisputed control of all the organs of government, stacking the judiciary with his appointees, purging the military of those not committed to his revolution and taking an iron grip of the state oil company PdVSA, which bankrolls his massive social programmes.
One thing is clear from the elections: the opposition, backed by mainly middle- and upper-class voters, has shown that it simply does not comprehend its own country.
Until the very end, opposition backers were convinced they would win, a hope that would have quickly dissipated had they taken a short trip to Caracas's slums, where the majority poor populations lives and where red Chavista flags could be found everywhere.
"Rosales's team thinks that the problem of Venezuela's poor is a question of handing them money so that they are happy and keep quiet. They don't realise that the poor are grateful that Chavez has allowed them to participate in their own affairs and develop as people," said Andres Antillano, a leader of the country's mass social movements that are behind Mr Chavez's projects and hold considerable power in the country.
Mr Rosales's main proposal - a debit card that would directly hand the poor 20 per cent of the oil proceeds of the world's fifth-largest oil exporter - reflected the opposition's myopia.
Ricardo Villasmil, his main economic advisor, insisted that people would only receive the money in exchange for participating in social projects, but other opposition leaders said the opposite.
In a central square near the place Mr Chavez celebrated his victory, where dozens of Chavitas gathered to wave red flags and chant, no-one was thinking of the vague opposition promises. "I'm really happy. Thanks to Chavez I can now study medicine; before, the poor didn't have any rights," said one, Juan Rico.
But few expect Mr Chavez to enjoy an easy term. Social movement leaders warn that the new government will have to tackle rampant corruption and widespread crime. Contradictions within the government are also erupting as some Chavista sectors insist on a quick move toward socialism, demanding the outright abolition of private property, and resist the government's increasing tendency to bureaucratise social projects.
In his victory speech, Mr Chavez insisted that corruption and violence were the main enemies of the state, giving hope that these and other problems will be seriously tackled. But the absence of proper checks and balances - most institutions like the National Assembly and the Supreme Court are under complete Chavista control - and a lack of clarity over the final objectives being pursued, paint a different picture.
A senior western diplomat told The Scotsman that the regime is expected to fail in two to five years.
"You can say goodbye to what little freedom there is left in our country," said Jorge Diaz, 37, an office manager.
"After another six years of this lunatic, this façade of democracy will be just a memory."
LEFT-WINGERS SWEEP TO POWER ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA
President Hugo Chavez's victory concludes a year of left-wing wins across South America:
• BRAZIL - President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was re-elected in October with 60.8 per cent of the vote against 39.2 per cent for Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party.
• NICARAGUA - Daniel Ortega, a former Sandinista guerrilla leader, won the presidency in November against conservative Eduardo Montealegre, by 38 per cent to 29 per cent.
• BOLIVIA - Evo Morales of the Movement Towards Socialism won the presidency with 54.2 per cent.
• CHILE - Michelle Bachelet, a Socialist in a centre-left coalition, became the country's first female leader after winning 53.5 per cent in January over Sebastian Pinera's 46.5 per cent.
• PERU - President Alan Garcia beat Ollanta Humala by 52.6 per cent to 47.4 per cent. Mr Garcia was more centrist than his radical rival, but has well-established left-wing credentials.
• ECUADOR - Left-wing economist Rafael Correa won Ecuador's November presidential vote against banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa with 56.67 per cent of the vote, while Noboa received 43.33 per cent.
from the Associated Press via FoxNews.com, 2006-Dec-5:
Chavez Promises to Eradicate Poverty Through Socialism
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday praised his opponents for accepting defeat and said his overwhelming re-election victory shows Venezuela supports a radical turn toward socialism.
Chavez spoke after a full vote count was released showing he defeated Manuel Rosales with nearly 63 percent of the vote Sunday.
"Those who voted for me didn't vote for me. They voted for the socialist plan, to build a profoundly different Venezuela," Chavez said. "I want to salute the responsible opposition ... It was time they assumed the attitude of true democrats."
The results showed Chavez won some 7.2 million votes out of about 12 million cast. He had said before the vote he aimed to achieve 10 million votes.
U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield on Tuesday congratulated Venezuelans on a peaceful vote that saw a high turnout and expressed Washington's willingness to seek a less conflictive relationship with Chavez.
Click here to go to FOXNews.com's Americas Center.
"The president was re-elected by the decision of the Venezuelan people," Brownfield told Union Radio. "We recognize that and we're ready, willing and eager to explore and see if we can make progress on bilateral issues."
Brownfield said the United States and Venezuela share an interest in cooperating on various issues including combatting drug trafficking, international crime, terrorism as well as trade and energy issues.
"Venezuela is a partner of the United States, for geographical reasons, for historical reasons," he said.
While the United States remains the No. 1 buyer of Venezuelan oil, tensions have often precluded dialogue between U.S. and Venezuelan officials.
Chavez accuses Washington of backing a 2002 coup against him and refers to U.S. President George W. Bush as "Mr. Danger" and "the devil." Chavez celebrated his victory in Sunday's vote by calling his re-election "another defeat for the devil, who tries to dominate the world."
American officials have expressed concerns about the health of democracy in a government dominated by Chavez and his allies -- a worry echoed by Chavez's domestic opponents.
On Tuesday, Cuba's Communist newspaper published a message reportedly from ailing leader Fidel Castro congratulating Chavez, his close friend and protege, on his win.
"The victory was resounding, crushing and without parallel in the history of our America," read the brief message published in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma. The message said "the Cuban people are happy" and sent a "very strong" hug.
Bolivian President Evo Morales on Monday congratulated Chavez on what was the latest in a string of elections won by leftists in Brazil, Ecuador and Nicaragua.
Chavez's re-election means he may now pursue what he calls a new, more radical phase in what he calls a transition to socialism, although it is unclear what his first steps may be.
Chavez has said he plans to seek constitutional reforms to end presidential term limits, enabling him to run again in 2012. He also has said he plans to deepen programs to reduce poverty, and has hinted he may nationalize Venezuela's largest telecommunications company.
His promises to use the country's oil wealth to eventually eradicate poverty have raised high expectations, and his core constituency is apt to pressure him to deliver on them.
Opponents view Chavez as power-hungry, but many Venezuelans say they see benefits from his oil-funded social programs, called "missions."
Chavez's multibillion-dollar social programs provide the poor with subsidized food, free university education and cash benefits for single mothers, among other aid.
from the Associated Press via the Guardian of London, 2007-Jan-8, by Ian James:
Chavez: Will Nationalize Telecoms, Power
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced plans Monday to nationalize the country's electrical and telecommunications companies, calling them “strategic sectors'' that should be in the hands of the nation.
The New York Stock Exchange immediately halted trading in CANTV, Venezuela's largest publicly traded company, which was singled out in Chavez' speech. The decision was also likely to affect Electricidad de Caracas, owned by AES Corp.
It was the boldest move by the Venezuelan leader since he was re-elected by a wide margin last month promising to a more radical turn toward socialism in Venezuela.
“All of those sectors that in an area so important and strategic for all of us as is electricity - all of that which was privatized, let it be nationalized, Chavez said in a televised speech after swearing in a new Cabinet.
“C.A. Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela (CANTV), let it be nationalized,'' Chavez said. “The nation should recover its property of strategic sectors.''
Chavez threatened last August to nationalize CANTV, a Caracas-based former state firm that was privatized in 1991, unless it adjusted its pension payments to current minimum wage levels, which have been repeatedly increased by his government.
from the Associated Press, 2006-Nov-27, by Monte Hayes:
Leftist Economist Wins Ecuador Election
QUITO, Ecuador -- Rafael Correa, a leftist nationalist who is friendly with Venezuela's anti-U.S. president, trounced a Bible-toting banana tycoon in Ecuador's presidential runoff on Sunday, partial results indicated.
A victory by Correa, a U.S.-trained economist who has rattled Wall Street by threatening to reduce foreign debt payments and oppose free trade efforts, would strengthen South America's tilt to the left, with Ecuador joining like-minded governments in Venezuela, Bolivia and several other countries.
"We receive this very high honor that the Ecuadorean people have bestowed on us with profound serenity, with profound hope," Correa told a news conference.
His opponent, Alvaro Noboa, declined to concede defeat and demanded a recount, saying he was concerned about fraud.
With 31 percent of the ballots counted, Correa had nearly 67 percent compared to 33 percent for Noboa, Ecuador's Supreme Electoral Tribunal said before dawn Monday. The results were consistent with an unofficial quick count by the citizens election watchdog group and two exit polls.
The 43-year-old Correa, who is an outspoken admirer of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, secured a place in Sunday's runoff by pledging a "citizens' revolution" to radically reform the discredited political system. Ecuadoreans have driven the last three elected presidents from power and Correa appealed to voters as a fresh face in a field of established politicians.
In the first round, Correa called President Bush "dimwitted" and threatened to reduce payments on Ecuador's $16.1 billion foreign debt to free up money for social programs. He was favored to win the first round but came in second to Noboa in the field of 13.
Since he softened his radical rhetoric in the second round and began to make populist promises of his own, his support has been climbing.
Noboa, a 56-year-old billionaire who has touted his close relationships with the rich and powerful in the U.S., said he would not concede defeat until the official count is completed.
Noboa had run an old-fashioned populist campaign, crisscrossing Ecuador and handing out computers, medicine and money. Before voting earlier Sunday in the coastal city of Guayaquil, he read a passage from the Bible in the midst of a mob of supporters pushing to touch him.
He then fell to his knees, asking God for his support and saying all he wanted was "to serve, to serve, to serve" the poor.
"Like Christ, all I want is to serve ... so that the poor can have housing, health care, education, jobs," he said.
The winner will face the tough task of ruling this poor, politically unstable Andean nation which has had eight presidents since 1996, including three who were driven from office by street protests.
Correa, who has a doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois, is new to politics. He served just 106 days last year as finance minister under interim President Alfredo Palacio, who replaced Lucio Gutierrez in the midst of street protests in April 2005.
Correa pledged to construct 100,000 low-cost homes and copied Noboa's promise to double to $36 a "poverty bonus" that 1.2 million poor Ecuadoreans receive each month. Ecuador is an oil-exporting country, but three-quarters of its 13.4 million inhabitants live in poverty.
"I'm voting for Correa because he's the lesser of two evils and because he represents a new option," said Georgina Cornejo, a 59-year-old housewife waiting to vote in a middle-class suburb on Quito's south side. "We're hoping he doesn't let us down."
In Guayaquil, Noboa's stronghold, Arnulfo Napoleon, a 50-year-old security guard voting at a school in a poor neighborhood said he was supporting Ecuador's wealthiest man, who has twice run for the presidency before.
"He's lost two elections. It's time he wins so that he can help the neediest as he has been doing up to now giving away so many things," he said.
Noboa had pledged to build 300,000 low-cost homes a year, financing them through government bonds, and to create jobs by persuading his rich foreign friends to invest in Ecuador. He counts the Kennedys and Rockefellers among his friends.
He also proudly pointed out he is Ecuador's biggest investor, the owner of 114 companies. He said he would use his business skills to bring Ecuador's poor into the middle class.
from NewsMax.com, 2006-Oct-23:
Zogby: Chavez Holds Huge Lead in Poll
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez enjoys a huge lead in his effort to win re-election to another six-year term as president, a new University of Miami School of Communication/Zogby International poll shows.
Chávez, representing the Fifth Republic Movement, wins 59 percent support from Venezuelan voters, compared to 24 percent for Manuel Rosales — the governor of Zulia, representing A New Time party — and just 2 percent for Benjamin Rausseo, a Venezuelan comedian endorsed by the "piedra" party, the survey shows.
The controversial world leader, who has built an international reputation for himself in opposing initiatives advanced by the United States, and specifically President George W. Bush, has also pushed for reforms at home to pull Venezuelans out of poverty, and to improve the public health care system in the nation, among other reforms.
On the world stage, Chavez has worked to enhance his influence with other nations, particularly in Latin America, leveraging his nation's substantial oil revenue to curry favor. He has built a particularly close relationship with Cuba President Fidel Castro, who long has been a thorn in the side of U.S. leaders.
Chávez's lead in the race stems at least in part from his popularity and job performance — 59 percent said they have a favorable opinion of him and the same percentage give him positive job performance marks, while 40 percent had a negative review of his work on behalf of the nation.
In addition, 59 percent said he deserves to be re-elected, compared to 33 percent who said he does not.
No matter the controversy Chávez engenders on the world stage, 58 percent of likely voters in his homeland said their nation is headed in the right direction, while 28 percent said things are off on the wrong track. Another 15 percent said they were unsure.
Asked what issue was most important in decided whom to support in the election, a plurality (39 percent) said they were most concerned about bringing change to Venezuelan life. Of those who said that, Rosales held a slim 42 percent to 38 percent lead. But Chavez led by huge margins among those who had other top priorities in mind for their president. Among those who said the personality of the candidate was most important, Chavez led Rosales by a 73 percent to 14 percent margin.
Chávez, 52, has promoted stronger ties to other Latin American countries as an effort to counter what he calls "imperialism" imposed by the U.S. In a speech last month at the United Nations, he publicly ridiculed Bush, calling him the "devil."
And his attacks on Bush seem to reflect sentiment at home — just 20 percent of Venezuelan likely voters said they hold a favorable opinion of Bush, compared to 57 percent who have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. leader. That compares to 39 percent who hold a favorable opinion of Castro, and 43 percent who hold an unfavorable opinion of him. The rest were either unfamiliar with Bush and Castro, or were unsure.
Asked about that U.N. speech, 36 percent said they were proud of their president's performance in New York City, while 23 percent said they were ashamed of it. Another 15 percent said it didn't matter to them, while 26 percent were either unfamiliar with the speech or were unsure what to think about it.
As a member of OPEC, he has constantly pushed for strict production controls to make sure the price of oil remains high. But the national economy is not the most important issue to Venezuelans — crime is, as 64 percent identified it as the top issue facing them and their families. Fully 58 percent said they feel that they or their families are threatened by crime, a far greater percentage than the University of Miami School of Communication/Zogby International series of polling has found in other nations in the region.
Still, 68 percent said they are making enough money to get by without difficulties, while 32 percent said they do face either some or significant difficulties because they are not making enough money.
Half of those Venezuelan likely voters surveyed said that they are doing better than they were six years ago when Chávez was last elected, and there is rampant optimism that good times will continue — 71 percent said they believe they will be better off six years from now.
from the Associated Press via the International Herald Tribune, 2006-Dec-1:
Venezuela's Chavez backs possible referendum on closing private TV stations
CARACAS, Venezuela: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez backed the possibility of holding a national referendum, if he's re-elected, on whether to shut down private television stations that he has accused of subversive activities.
Chavez's comments late Thursday came amid rising tensions between the government and the country's largely opposition-aligned private media ahead of Sunday's vote.
Chavez was asked in a televised interview if he would consider asking the nation whether the government should block certain channels from renewing their broadcast licenses next year.
"That is perfectly possible," Chavez said. "It's perfectly possible that the country gives its opinion, including for how long."
Chavez also said he regretted not having shut down the country's major private broadcasters right after a short-lived 2002 coup against him, citing four in particular: Globovision, Venevision, RCTV and Televen.
Chavez has clashed with the country's private television and radio networks, which are often highly critical of his government and have favored the opposition in recent years.
During the coup, several TV channels chose to broadcast cartoons and movies instead of his return to power by loyalists in the military amid a popular uprising. Many media outlets also supported a devastating 2003 strike that failed to unseat Chavez.
In the run-up to Sunday's vote, Chavez has warned that he may refuse to renew their licenses, accusing them of fomenting conspiracies against his government, and also said he's ready to shut down any that try to disrupt the election.
On Thursday, he threatened to immediately shut down any outlet that defies electoral rules prohibiting exit polls and other unofficial counts from being reported until after the National Electoral Council issues its preliminary bulletin.
"You can be sure that they will be closed for breaching the law," he said.
Just a day earlier, a top lawmaker from Chavez's ruling party told government supporters to take over private TV stations on election day if they report that opposition challenger, Manuel Rosales, is in the lead ahead of official results, alleging the channel may use rigged exit polls to mislead the public.
"When they start to do that, we must take over the TV channels ... a peaceful takeover as we have always done at the doors of these TV stations," Iris Varela said.
Asked about the possibility that closing private TV stations would likely provoke an international backlash, Chavez said that was what held his hand earlier but declared the days of a "permissive Chavez" were over.
"I don't care what the world says. I care about what happens in Venezuela," he said. "The world can say, 'Oh, dear!' but this is my country, I'm responsible."
Local media executives — joined by the United States and the Miami-based Inter American Press Association — argue that Chavez has sought to limit freedom of expression since taking office in 1999.
His government has passed a law restricting violence and sexual content over the airwaves, but critics call it a "gag law" that is deliberately vague so that the government can punish media outlets that oppose the administration.
Chavez has denied taking excessive measures, arguing that he is not trying to stifle criticism but rather clamp down on those allegedly using journalistic activities as a front for illegal efforts to topple his government.
Chavez was speaking in a joint interview with two state-backed and two private TV stations in the final hours before the end of campaigning.
from the Independent of London, 2006-Nov-8, by Phil Davison:
Daniel Ortega: Return of the Sandinista
He was a Nicaraguan hero, a symbol of resistance to the imperial might of America, a compadre of Castro, an icon of the Left. Now, nearly 30 years after he first swept to power, Daniel Ortega is back - poised to lead his country once more. Is he about to declare a new revolution? Phil Davison reports
Short in stature and wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, Daniel Ortega looked more like Buddy Holly than Fidel Castro when he burst onto the world scene in the days after Nicaragua's 1979 revolution. Today, 27 years on, the man Ronald Reagan called "the little dictator" and considered America's greatest military threat, is no taller and quite a bit podgier. The AK-47 is rusting in the cupboard and the glasses have given way to contact lenses. But he appears to be back in business.
Ortega, 61 next Saturday, looks to have won outright in Sunday's presidential elections, obviating the need for a second round. But is he still a Marxist? Should the US be stepping up security along its southern border, as Reagan said it should when Ortega's Sandinistas cosied up to Cuba and Moscow during the Eighties?
Don't be ridiculous, says Ortega. "Jesus Christ is my hero now. In fact, he always was. He was a rebel and a revolutionary. He always sided with the poor and humble, never with the powerful." Ortega attends weekly Mass and has publicly asked for forgiveness for the excesses of his first Sandinista regime. His supporters obviously bought his new-found religion, some of them calling him "Our Saviour" after hearing of his apparent victory.
His campaign flag and theme tune, he insists, said it all. The old red-and-black flag and silk scarves of the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) were still on show, but alongside them were flags and banners in Ortega's new favoured colour - shocking pink - chosen by his wife and meant to symbolise the new Ortega's softer, gentler side.
The old FSLN anthem, which included the words "let us fight the yanqui, enemy of humanity", could still be heard during his campaign, but it played second fiddle to Ortega's latest theme tune - a Spanish version of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance", which calls for reconciliation and whose refrain is "We all want to live in peace". It also gave a Washington Post headline writer the chance to come up with "Daniel Ortega, from Lenin to Lennon".
The man known to his supporters only by his first name - or as "el Comandante" - has long since given up the camouflage fatigues in which he toured the world in the Eighties, replacing them with a white open-necked shirt, blue denims and high-heeled cowboy boots to give him an extra couple of inches in height. As with Fidel Castro, the olive military jeep has also long gone and the new President-apparent favours a silver Range Rover, a burgundy Mercedes 4WD or, for dramatic effect during his election campaign, a white horse.
But it has to be asked whether the changes are skin-deep, designed merely to aid Ortega's re-election 16 years after he and the Sandinistas were ousted by a disgusted populace in favour of white-haired grandmother Violeta Chamorro in 1990. "Ortega is a tiger that has not changed his stripes," says the US ambassador to Nicaragua, Paul Trivelli.
So fearful were the ambassador's bosses in Washington of this particular tiger, and of another Sandinista government, that they campaigned openly against Ortega and in favour of rival candidate Eduardo Montealegre, a conservative, Harvard-educated banker. Given Nicaragua's strongly nationalist electorate, such blatant support from the yanquis was effectively the kiss of death for Sr Montealegre, as former US president Jimmy Carter, heading an election-observer team, pointed out.
A visit to Managua last month by Lt Col Oliver North, the man who organised and armed the anti-Sandinista Contra guerrillas throughout the Eighties with the obvious approval of Reagan, did more good than harm to Ortega's campaign, particularly after North compared the Sandinista candidate to Adolf Hitler. Roger Noriega, a former senior US envoy to Latin America, was slightly more subtle, referring to Ortega merely as "a hoodlum".
As part of his new image, Ortega had shrewdly chosen as his running mate a former Contra, Jaime Morales. The fact that Morales supported Ortega was seen as an important symbol of reconciliation, particularly since Ortega, in the early months of the Sandinista regime, had expropriated Morales's luxury home for his own use. Ortega continues to live in the six-bedroom house in Managua's El Carmen district, justifying this by saying that he paid $2,000 for it when he left office in 1990 even though it was estimated to be worth $1m, including its furniture and art collection.
After the end of the Contra war, and his return to Nicaragua, Morales fought a long legal battle to win his home back, but always in vain. He said Ortega had commandeered the house the day after the revolution, by which time Morales had fled the country. He only learned it had been confiscated when his wife returned to Managua, knocked on the door and was answered by Ortega's wife wearing Morales's daughter's bathrobe.
Now Morales has given up the claim: "I'm not obsessed. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life shouting, 'Give me that house back." He has said he has never visited Ortega in the house.
While Ortega and Morales spoke of reconciliation, critics said their alliance was cynical politicking. Morales denied this, telling the Miami Herald: "I think Ortega has matured, learned from his mistakes, and has sincerity and a desire ... to have true reconciliation." Morales said that his own desire for improved relations with Washington would not conflict with Ortega's policies, despite the latter's anti-American rhetoric. "Times have changed," Morales, now vice-president apparent, said.
The long war with the Contras, who received almost limitless support from the US, was a black era for Nicaragua, costing 30,000 lives and setting brother against brother. With the added effect of a US economic blockade, Sandinista rule came to an end in 1990.
It was Jimmy Carter who was in the White House when the 33-year-old Ortega and his FSLN compañeros ousted Anastasio Somoza in July 1979 after bloody fighting against the dictator's US-trained National Guard. Ortega was hardly the most romantic or photogenic of the new five-member junta, but his communication skills pushed him to the forefront and he effectively became leader of the country.
Given Somoza's cruel dictatorship, Ortega and the Sandinistas became something of a cause célèbre to liberals worldwide, who supported their battle against Reagan and the Contras at the same time as they were campaigning for the release of Nelson Mandela. Thousands of students and hippies, including many from the UK, flocked to Nicaragua to "help the revolution" by picking coffee beans or simply hanging out drinking rum in Managua. As a correspondent in Central America at the time, I recall dubbing them the Sandalistas.
Revolution had been in Ortega's genes. His mother and father had both opposed Somoza, the former serving time in jail after her love letters were considered subversive. His brother died in the early years of the revolution, and Daniel Ortega joined the newly formed underground FSLN when he was still a teenager. His first "test" was to rob a Bank of America branch in Managua, to prove his loyalty and get some cash for weapons. Brandishing an automatic rifle, he passed the loyalty test but was caught and spent seven years in the cynically named el Modelo (the Model) jail outside the capital, often in solitary confinement, and forced to stand during daylight hours.
Friends said his spell in prison hardened him into the man who for a decade took everything the US could throw at him and survived - not to mention the man who eventually ruled much like a dictator himself, suppressing freedom of the press and jailing opponents.
After the revolution, Ortega visited Carter in Washington, purportedly to allay US fears of "another Cuba" and of the spread of Marxism through Central America. Carter was amenable to reconciliation but the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, who became obsessed with overthrowing Ortega and the Sandinistas, led to a decade of conflict between Washington and Managua, pushing Ortega closer to Havana and Moscow.
"President Reagan, remember that Rambo exists only in the movies," Ortega famously told the United Nations General Assembly, to rousing applause from supportive delegates.
Helped by the popularity of his wife, fellow-FSLN revolutionary and poet Rosario Murillo, often described as "the power behind the throne", Ortega was confirmed as President in a 1984 election and he remained in power until his shock defeat in 1990. Certain he would win easily, Ortega had invited countless international observers to oversee the elections and had no recourse when his female rival, a Catholic from an aristocratic family, emerged the victor.
Before last weekend's election, Ortega had campaigned twice for president, in 1996 and 2001, losing on both occasions, partly because of his lingering reputation as el Piñatin, or the Piñata Man.
In Latin America, the piñata is a package full of toys or other goodies hung from a ceiling at children's parties. The children hammer at the package until the toys fall out. Ortega won the nickname during his presidency after he randomly expropriated luxury estates and properties and handed them over to Sandinista supporters.
His 2001 election flop could also be blamed on the scandal that had erupted in 1998 when his grown-up step-daughter, Zoilamerica Narvaez, herself a Sandinista militant, stunned the nation by announcing that he had started abusing her when she was 11 and eventually raped her while still a child. Ortega angrily denied the claim, saying it was a US-inspired ploy by his political opponents.
He was indicted, and confronted with protest placards labelling him "rapist" when he toured the country. His political career appeared over, but his influence led to the case being quashed. His step-daughter was humiliated, and even her own mother, Rosario Murillo, labelled her a "slut". The scandal appeared to have been forgotten this time around as villagers chanted "Daniel, Daniel" wherever he toured.
Also apparently forgotten was his notorious 1999 pact with former president and former political enemy Arnold Aleman, later jailed for 20 years for embezzlement. The pact effectively gave Ortega and the Sandinistas control of parliament, the Supreme Court and even the electoral commission, which raised fears of ballot-rigging. But Jimmy Carter said after voting was complete that the election had been as clean as any he had seen.
Assuming Ortega's victory is confirmed, he will owe much to the death earlier this year of his former Sandinista comrade Herty Lewites. Lewites, a former tourism minister and mayor of Managua who had broken with Ortega in recent years, had been leading the polls in the presidential election when he died of a heart attack in July.
When Lewites announced his candidacy, Ortega promptly organised his expulsion from the FSLN, forcing him to run independently. When it became clear that Lewites's popularity was growing, Ortega ensured that he could not get permits for political rallies, barred him from using Sandinista flags or symbols, and even claimed that his rival was corrupt. (After Lewites's sudden death, however, Ortega praised his old comrade as a fine patriot.)
Before he died, Lewites said Nicaragua should not kowtow to the US, but neither should it be obsessed with Washington. "I think we should be respectful, but firm, with Washington. I think we must maintain good relations. Nicaragua and the United States need each other."
So will Ortega once again become a thorn in the side of the United States? George W Bush is certainly the ideal personality for a new confrontation, but he surely has enough on his hands without worrying about a little Central American nation, the poorest in the western hemisphere after starving Haiti.
"George W Bush is the Reagan of our times," Ortega yelled to supporters during his campaign. "The yanquis no longer rule Nicaragua. The US no longer rules Latin America!" That, of course, was a reference to the shift to the left in several Latin American nations over the past few years, notably with indigenous President Evo Morales in Bolivia and populist Hugo Chavez in oil-rich Venezuela, adding to Washington's ongoing conflict with Fidel Castro's Cuba. Chavez was one of Ortega's most outspoken supporters during the Nicaraguan campaign, backing up his words with a deal for cheap oil.
Chavez is expected to help Ortega finance social programmes in his nation of 5.6 million people, where many peasants live on less than a dollar a day, in crumbling shacks with no facilities, and have no access to medical treatment or education. At least one million children of school age do not attend because they cannot afford fees, uniforms or materials, and are forced to work to help their families earn an income.
Hence the cries yesterday of "Daniel's victory is a victory for the poor". Many peasants who voted for him after he toured the country handing out cash and medicines said they now felt they would have a voice in the Congress, the presidential palace and the government ministries.
"The triumph of the Sandinistas will raise the morale of all of Latin America," Ortega said during the campaign. "Other countries will say, 'Look, that little country got away with it, therefore so can we!' We will spread the revolution. There is an alternative to surrendering to the American empire."
Despite the inevitable nationalistic campaign rhetoric, and comments from Bush officials insisting "once a Communist, always a Communist" and that an Ortega regime would be denied US aid or foreign investment, diplomats familiar with Central America believe Daniel Ortega has cast off more than his horn-rimmed glasses. Carlos Chamorro, a journalist and son of former president Violeta Chamorro, agrees.
"He has grown up. He's become a pragmatist. The problem may not be with him, but on the American side. Washington is still living in the past. The new right who run Bush's Latin American policy are all leftovers from the Eighties. They still behave like we are in the middle of the Cold War. And every time Washington attacks Ortega, his supporters close ranks."
With the Cold War long over, not only Ortega's supporters but all Nicaraguans hope that George W Bush will refrain from attacking their apparent new president, even with words. The two men are, after all, both the same age, and both now, apparently, God-fearing patriots. And they both wear cowboy boots. Perhaps they might just get along.
A nation steeped in blood and mayhem
* 1937 General Somoza elected President, the start of a 44-year dictatorship ruled by the Somoza family.
* 1956 Marxist poet Rigoberto Lopez Perez sneaks into a party attended by General Somoza and shoots him in the chest. Perez is immediately gunned down but Somoza dies from his wounds two days later. His son Luis Somoza succeeds him.
* 1961 Using Sandino's 1930s guerrilla war as their inspiration, a group of broadly socialist revolutionaries set up the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) to combat Somoza.
* 1967 Luis Somoza dies and is succeeded as President by his brother, Anastasio Somoza.
* 1979 Lead by Ortega, Sandanistas topple the Somoza government in a popular revolution.
* 1982 US-backed, ring-wing Contra rebels begin a military campaign to oust the Sandanista government. Both sides commit numerous atrocities in a civil war that claims 60,000 lives.
* 1986 Nicaragua takes the US to the International Court of Justice. ICJ orders the US to pay $12bn in reparations for violating Nicaragua's sovereignty. US refuses to pay and withdraws from the ICJ.
* 1988 Peace deal signed with the Contras.
* 1990 As the economy spirals out of control, FSLN loses the elections to US-backed National Opposition Union.
* 1996 FSLN, still led by Daniel Ortega, loses elections for a second time.
* 2001 Daniel Ortega loses another presidential election, this time to Enrique Bolaños, who remains President to this day.
* 2002 Sandinistas re-elect Ortega as leader despite suffering three consecutive defeats since 1990.
* 2003 In a trial that grips a nation, former president Arnoldo Alemán is given 20-year jail sentence for financial fraud and embezzlement.
* 2005 Street protests erupt following widespread discontent at rising fuel and food prices.
* November 2006 More than a generation after he first swept to power, Daniel Ortega stands on the brink of a becoming the country's President once more.
from Reuters, 2006-Dec-1, by Kieran Murray and Frank Jack Daniel:
Mexico's Calderon takes power as fists fly
MEXICO CITY - Felipe Calderon took power as Mexico's president on Friday in a chaotic ceremony rattled by fist fights in Congress and jeering protests from leftists who claim he stole a July election that sparked months of political unrest.
Surrounded by bodyguards, the conservative Calderon slipped into Congress through a back door, quickly declared the oath of office and put on the presidential sash as left-wingers who had vowed to stop him taking office screamed "Get out! Get out!"
He was then rushed out again. The lightning-fast ceremony lasted just four minutes, including the singing of the national anthem, and Calderon was unable to make his inaugural speech.
Conservative lawmakers cheered and hugged each other, while the left-wing opposition blew whistles and jeered.
Dozens of rival deputies earlier threw punches and chairs at each other and leftists built barricades to block the main doors and try to prevent Calderon from entering the building.
Although Calderon's security team outwitted his opponents in Congress, the brawls underlined Mexico's deep political divide and cast doubt on how successful Calderon can be in ending the unrest that followed his razor-thin election victory.
Calderon later met with party faithful and appealed to his political foes to open talks to end five months of turmoil.
"It is clear Mexico is going through times of tension ... I'm aware of the seriousness of the distance between us and I accept my part of the responsibility to resolve it," Calderon said in a speech at an elegant concert hall in the capital.
Calderon, 44, wants to push pro-business reforms through Congress, where his ruling National Action Party holds just 40 percent of seats and needs opposition support.
He replaced outgoing President Vicente Fox, an ally and fellow conservative, in a midnight ceremony at the presidential residence. The later swearing-in sealed his taking of office.
STREET PROTESTS
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an anti-poverty campaigner who was Calderon's election rival, led thousands of protesters in a march across the capital and some demonstrators hurled cans of red paint at riot police.
"They imposed him with a coup, and we are living with the consequences," said Lopez Obrador, who has declared himself Mexico's "legitimate president."
"We have not given up, we have not sold out, we will never accept his imposition," he said.
Mexico's financial markets were closed on Friday but the peso currency zigzagged in volatile trading abroad on concerns about the protests and Calderon's ability to control an increasingly violent country.
Former U.S. President George Bush, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Spain's Crown Prince Felipe were among the foreign dignitaries to see the chaos in Congress.
"It's good action," Schwarzenegger, best known for his Hollywood action movies, said dryly.
Calderon will be a key ally of the United States in Latin America, which has turned away from Washington in recent years with a string of left-wing gains in presidential elections.
A career politician who has an iron will but little charisma, he will also push for tax, energy and labor reforms and keep a tight rein on government spending even as he promises to cut the vast gap between rich and poor.
from Bloomberg News, 2006-Aug-25, by Allen T Cheng:
China, Venezuela to Jointly Develop 19 Oil Areas, Chavez Says
China National Petroleum Corp., the nation's largest oil company, will cooperate with Venezuela to develop 19 oil-producing areas in the Latin American nation, President Hugo Chavez said.
China National will help develop the oil blocks in the Zumano oilfield, which have potential to produce as much as 2 million a barrels of oil a day, with state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, Chavez said in Beijing today.
Chavez, who completes his five-day trip to China tomorrow, signed 28 accords with China valued at at least $11 billion, including agreements on energy and transportation, as the South American country seeks to lessen its dependence on the U.S.
“We have advanced our bilateral relationship with China to a higher level,'' Chavez told reporters. “You will see a trend of continuing increasing oil exports to China. We will supply more and more energy to China.''
Venezuela's July exports of oil to China jumped almost fourfold to 658,000 metric tons (155,601 barrels a day), making it the nation's seventh largest supplier, China's customs office said today. This year, Venezuela has shipped 2.38 million tons of oil to China (82,000 barrels a day), almost three times the year- earlier level, customs said.
China will invest $2 billion in the country's oil industry and another $10 billion to help Venezuela build a 1,000-kilometer (622-mile) railroad, Chavez said today. The South American country aims to double oil sales to China next year to 300,000 barrels a day and more than triple that within five years to half a million barrels a day, Chavez said.
Junin 4 Block
China National and Venezuela have signed an agreement to develop Junin Block 4, which has proved reserves of 40 billion barrels of oil, Chavez said.
Chavez is seeking to lessen Venezuela's dependence on the U.S., which buys the majority of the country's daily exports of 2 million barrels. Chavez, who took office in 1999, has repeatedly threatened to cut off sales to the U.S., alleging its government has attempted to assassinate or overthrow him. Even so, Venezuela will continue to supply 1.5 million barrels of oil a day to the U.S., Chavez said today.
Venezuela can send oil to the U.S. gulf coast in four to five days, while shipment to China can take as long as 40 days. Transportation costs also are higher, and Venezuela is probably losing as much as $3 a barrel by paying for the crude to be shipped to China, according to oil analysts.
Ten years ago, the prospect of Venezuelan oil sales to China was viewed as impossible, Chavez said. “Now we know that is not true.''
Moving Away
Chavez's visit is an attempt by China to tell the U.S. that it has influence in South America and that it supports Venezuela's efforts to move away from the U.S., said James Brock, a Beijing-based independent energy adviser for major foreign oil companies.
“Chavez is playing the China card and China is playing the Chavez card in a very rapidly evolving international situation,'' Jaspal Singh, a World Bank energy consultant, said in an interview in Beijing yesterday.
Venezuela may sell China as much as 1 million barrels a day of oil in the next decade, Chavez said. The South American country exported 14,000 barrels a day to China during 2004.
China and Venezuela “complement'' each other because China is “one of the world's largest oil consumers, while Venezuela is one of the world's largest producers,'' Chavez said yesterday.
Certifying Reserves
Zumano, in the eastern part of the country, has proven reserves of about 400 million barrels of light oil and 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Petroleos de Venezuela will hold a majority stake in the enterprise. The Zumano fields are currently producing about 25,000 barrels a day.
The two companies will certify reserves in the Junin 4 tract, one of Venezuela's heavy oil blocks. Venezuela is seeking to certify reserves in 27 blocks, which Chavez says may hold up to 235 billion barrels of oil.
Like Canada's oil sands, much of the crude in the Orinoco belt wasn't recognized as recoverable because it is heavy oil that is difficult and expensive to extract.
Petroleos de Venezuela said in a press statement that the new joint ventures are expected to produce up to 400,000 barrels a day by 2011.
China would want to “keep their options open on securing supply,'' Gavin Thompson, country manager for China at energy consultant, Wood MacKenzie Ltd., in Beijing said. Venezuela would like to see “lots more Chinese investment for onshore'' development, Thompson said.
from the Associated Press, 2006-Jul-27, by Henry Meyer:
Venezuela's Chavez Thanks Russia for Arms
MOSCOW -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that Russia had helped his country break a U.S.-imposed "blockade" by agreeing to sell Caracas fighter planes and helicopters worth billions of dollars.
Neither Chavez nor Russian leader Vladimir Putin gave details about any new deals signed Thursday, but Russia's defense minister said last week that Moscow had agreed to sell the oil-rich South American nation about 30 Su-30 fighter jets and some 30 military helicopters.
Putin said Thursday that Moscow and Caracas would prove "reliable partners" and - in comments clearly aimed at Washington - said their cooperation should not be viewed as being "aimed against any third country."
The head of Russia's state arms-trading agency, Sergei Chemezov, said Venezuela over the last 18 months had signed contracts for arms purchases including 24 military planes and 53 helicopters for more than $3 billion, the Interfax news agency reported.
The helicopter and fighter plane deal announced last week by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov will cost Caracas $1 billion.
Chavez, who has become an increasing thorn in Washington's side because of his anti-U.S policies, is also hoping to set up Kalashnikov weapons and ammunition plants in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan leader spoke Thursday of the "astonishing progress in military-technical cooperation" - a euphemism for arms sales - and repeated his thanks to Putin for supplying Caracas with weaponry.
In opening remarks at his Kremlin meeting, Chavez said the fighter jets were critical because it was unable to purchase replacement parts for its aging fleet of U.S.-made F-16s.
The United States in May announced a ban on U.S. arms sales to Venezuela.
"We would like to thank you for delivering us from a blockade," Chavez said. "We were almost disarmed."
He also thanked Russia for supporting Venezuela's push for a non-permanent U.N. Security Council seat - which the U.S. government is lobbying to block.
Chavez has used surging oil revenues to modernize Venezuela's military, signing multibillion defense deals with Russia and Spain. Venezuela also has agreed to buy 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles.
The United States underlined its opposition to the arms sales Tuesday, saying they were not helpful to regional stability, and urged Moscow to reconsider.
Russia's defense minister flatly dismissed the U.S. demands.
Moscow-based defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said that Russia, which has sold anti-aircraft missiles to Syria and Iran in defiance of U.S. criticism, saw Venezuela as a lucrative partner.
"Chavez wants to thumb his nose at the U.S. and the Russians are delighted to get his money," he said.
The Venezuelan arms deals are one of the many irritants in US-Russian relations that have chilled markedly in recent years amid U.S. criticism of Putin as backsliding on democratic reforms and using Russia's oil and gas reserves as instruments of political pressure.
However, Washington has shown little inclination to confront Russia with anything more than harsh statements.
Chavez, a leftist former army lieutenant colonel who has frequently warned that the United States could invade, is on an international tour that will take him onto Iran, Qatar and Vietnam.
On his way to Russia, the Venezuelan leader visited neighboring Belarus, where he met with authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who is dubbed "Europe's last dictator" in Washington and shares Chavez's strong anti-U.S. views.
from the Associated Press via the International Herald Tribune, 2006-Oct-1:
Half of state enterprises in Cuban capital cheat customers, newspaper says
HAVANA More than half of state-run enterprises inspected in the Cuban capital this year have cheated their customers, the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde reported Sunday.
Officials making spot inspections found that nearly 11,700 of the 22,700 businesses checked through August were selling their products at a higher price than advertised or delivering lesser quantities than required, a local director of inspection told the newspaper.
Among the worst offenders are farm markets, restaurants and bakeries, the director said. Reporters at the newspaper did their own investigation, describing state cafes where beer mugs weren't filled to the brim and taxi drivers charged more than the metered fare.
The two-page spread on the pervasive cheating came four days after Cuba's acting President Raul Castro urged workers to crack down on corruption and stealing from the state in a speech to the island's communist labor union.
Castro, also the island's defense minister, is in charge while his older brother Fidel recovers from intestinal surgery. Before falling ill, the elder Castro had been leading his own campaign against corruption, portraying the widespread stealing from the state and other examples of "moral decay" as the greatest threat yet to Cuba's socialist system.
"Some state services are being used for personal gain by insensible people who change the prices and norms of the products, deceitfully passing the limit between state-run and private," the report in the state-controlled newspaper said Sunday.
The newspaper urged "a strengthening of the general conscience against these illegalities, under the principle that in our society, state services are for the benefit of the population."
The report echoed last week's comments by Raul Castro, who called on leaders of the workers to "meditate profoundly" on how they can combat the stealing, which he said has been prompted by leadership error as well as severe shortages created when Cuba lost economic support after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Cubans with state salaries earn an average of US$15 (€12) a month, a wage virtually impossible to live on even with heavily subsidized government services and mostly free housing. Many Cubans say some of those stealing from the state are doing so just to make ends meet.
The article quotes some Cubans who also complain that the state doesn't provide the necessary materials to do their job. Those selling less-than-required volumes of beer or other drinks said it's because they had to bring in their own glasses, which are smaller than those provided by the state.
A woman repairing shoes said she had to charge more than the advertised rate because of the money she's invested in her own materials and the earnings she has to turn over to the administrator each day. When she discovered she was talking to Cuban reporters and inspectors, she took back what she'd said about having to pay the administrator.
from the Associated Press, 2006-Jul-16, by Anita Snow:
Cuba Vows Communist Succession Post-Castro
HAVANA -- What will Cuba be like when Fidel Castro is gone? Washington and Cuba have - no surprise - startlingly different versions of a post-Castro Cuba, and many dissidents on the island complain they will be caught in the middle.
In Washington's scenario, presented this week by a presidential commission, a democratic Cuba will endorse multiparty elections and free markets and become a new ally to be rebuilt with American assistance after nearly five decades of communism.
But Castro, who apparently enjoys good health and turns 80 on Aug. 13, has been fortifying the ruling Communist Party to ensure the status quo long after his death. He plans to hand over power to his 75-year-old brother Raul, the first vice president of Cuba's Council of State.
The key aim of the 93-page report by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba is to halt that succession, using diplomacy to enlist Cuban citizens and other countries to demand a new government after Fidel dies.
It recommends that the United States spend $80 million over two years to encourage that change, saying Cubans could appeal to the United States for food, water and other aid. It envisions U.S. technicians rebuilding schools, highways, bridges, financial specialists designing a new tax system and the United States helping Cuba join the International Monetary Fund.
"The greatest guarantor of genuine stability in Cuba is the rapid restoration of sovereignty to the Cuban people through free and fair, multiparty elections," says the report that was released July 10.
Other experts say the commission is being unrealistic.
"We need a reality check here," said Wayne Smith, America's top diplomat to Havana from 1979 to 1982. "Anyone who knows Cuba knows the Cuban people aren't going to rise up against a successor regime."
Dissidents in Cuba say they appreciate the gesture, but fear it will backfire and lead to more arrests. In 2003, 75 dissidents were arrested and accused of being "mercenaries" receiving U.S. aid - a charge the activists denied.
Opposition member Manuel Cuesta Morua called the U.S. offer a "poisonous embrace."
"Those are 80 million arguments for the Cuban government to make it seem all Cuban dissidents are financed by the United States," he said.
The dissident community has not fully recovered from the 2003 arrests, and no Cuban opposition leader has emerged with widespread support.
Cuba also lacks the powerful nongovernment institutions that existed in communist-era Poland, where the Solidarity movement, organized around a strong Roman Catholic church and labor unions, managed to topple the Communist leadership.
The U.S. report has been well-received in Miami, where U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-born Republican, said it shows "the strong commitment of President Bush to help the Cuban people free themselves from the shackles of their brutal oppressor."
But Smith calls the U.S. report "pure pie-in-the-sky."
"The reality will end up being somewhere between those two visions, and probably closer to the Cuban succession plan - with the addition of popular pressure for economic reforms," said Smith, who heads the Cuba program at the Center for International Policy, a foreign policy institute in Washington.
Long a taboo topic, Cuba's planned succession has been discussed more openly in recent months with Raul Castro, the longtime defense minister, appearing frequently in state media to insist the party will continue its dominant role.
If Raul Castro does succeed his brother, the United States will likely be sidelined while other countries interact with Cuba's new leadership, said Philip Peters of the Lexington Institute, a think tank outside Washington.
That's because the United States in 1996 tightened its Cuba sanctions and prohibited aid to Cuba until multiparty elections are planned, political prisoners are released, and both Castro brothers are out of power.
Peters said the report only hardens Washington's position on Cuba.
"The report leaves no doubt that the administration will not support in Cuba the kind of change it applauds in China - economic liberalization without significant political change," Peters wrote this week.
Cuban parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon said he believes the report's classified section contains plans to attack the island or assassinate its leaders.
"We have the right to expect the worst," said Alarcon, referring to the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and earlier U.S. assassination attempts against Fidel Castro.
from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2006-Jan-16, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
The Tehran-Caracas Axis
Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are more than just pen pals.With Iranian nuclear aspirations gaining notice, it's worth directing attention to the growing relationship between Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. The Reagan administration repulsed Soviet efforts to set up camp in Central America. Iranian designs on Venezuela perhaps deserve similar U.S. attention.
The warmth and moral support between Ahmadinejad and Chávez is very public. The two tyrants are a lot more than just pen pals. Venezuela has made it clear that it backs Iran's nuclear ambitions and embraces the mullahs' hateful anti-Semitism. What remains more speculative is just how far along Iran is in putting down roots in Venezuela.
In September, when the International Atomic Energy Agency offered a resolution condemning Iran for its "many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply" with its treaty commitments, Venezuela was the only country that voted "no." Ahmadinejad congratulated the Venezuelan government, calling the vote "brave and judicious."
Three months later, in a Christmas Eve TV broadcast, Chávez declared that "minorities, the descendants of those who crucified Christ, have taken over the riches of the world." That ugly anti-Semitic swipe was of a piece with an insidious assault over the past several years on the country's Jewish community. In 2004, heavily armed Chávez commandos raided a Caracas Jewish school, terrifying children and parents. The government's claim that it had reason to believe that the school was storing arms was never supported. A more reasonable explanation is that the raid was part of the Chávez political strategy of fomenting class hatred--an agenda that finds a vulnerable target in the country's Jewish minority--and as a way to show Tehran that Venezuela is on board. Ahmadinejad rivals Hitler in his hatred for the Jewish people.
It's tough to tell whether Chávez is a committed bigot or whether his anti-Semitism and embrace of the mullahs are simply a part of his calculated efforts to annoy the Yanquis. But it doesn't make much difference. The end result is that the Iranian connection introduces a new element of instability into Latin America.
In his efforts to provoke the U.S., the Venezuelan no doubt hopes that saber rattling against imperialismo can stir up nationalist sentiment and save his floundering regime. That view argues that the U.S. would do best to ignore him, but it's not easy to ignore a Latin leader who seems intent on forging stronger ties with two of the worst enemies of the U.S., Ahmadinejad and Fidel Castro.
That Chávez is making a hash of the Venezuelan economy while he courts international notoriety is no secret. There are shortages of foodstuffs that are abundant even in other poor countries. Milk, flour for the national delight known as arepas, and sugar are in short supply. Coffee is scarce because roasters say government controls have set the price below costs, forcing them to eat losses. The Chávez response last week was a threat to nationalize the industry.
Property rights are being abolished. Last week, authorities invaded numerous "unoccupied" apartments in Caracas to hand them over to party faithful, part of a wider scheme to "equalize" life for Venezuelans.
A bridge collapse earlier this month on the main artery linking Caracas to the country's largest airport, seaport and an enormous bedroom community is seen as a microcosm of the country's failing infrastructure. Aside from the damage to commerce, it has caused great difficulties for the estimated 100,000 commuters who live on the coast, Robert Bottome, editor of the newsletter Veneconomy, told me from Caracas on Wednesday. The collapse diverted all this traffic to an old two-lane road with hairpin turns and more than 300 curves. It is now handling car traffic during the day and commercial traffic at night, with predictable backups.
With Venezuelan oil fields experiencing an annual depletion rate on the order of 25% and little government reinvestment in the sector, similar infrastructure problems are looming in oil. In November, Goldman Sachs emerging markets research commented on a fire at a "major refinery complex" in which 20 workers were injured: "In recent months there has been a string of accidents and other disruptions [of] oil infrastructure, which oil experts attribute to inadequate investment in maintenance and lack of technical expertise to run complex oil refining and exploration operations."
Chávez is notably nonchalant about all this, as if the health of the economy is the last thing on his mind. His foreign affiliations are more important to him. The Iranian news agency MEHR said last year that the two countries have signed contracts valued at more than $1 billion. In sum, Iranians, presiding over an economy that is itself crumbling into disrepair, are going to build Venezuela 10,000 residential units and a batch of manufacturing plants, if MEHR can be believed. Chávez reportedly says these deals--presumably financed with revenues that might be better employed repairing the vital bridge--include the transfer of "technology" from Iran and the importation of Iranian "professionals" to support the efforts.
Details on the Iranian "factories"--beyond a high-profile tractor producer and a widely publicized cement factory--remain sketchy. But what is clear is that the importation of state agents from Hugo-friendly dictatorships hasn't been a positive experience for Venezuelans. Imported Cubans are now applying their "skills" in intelligence and state security networks to the detriment of Venezuelan liberty. It is doubtful that the growing presence of Iranians in "factories" across Venezuela is about boosting plastic widget output. The U.S. intelligence agencies would do well to make a greater effort to find out exactly what projects the Chávez-Ahmadinejad duo really have in mind. Almost certainly, they are up to no good.
from the Associated Press, 2006-Oct-29, by Stan Lehman:
Brazil's President Easily Wins 2nd Term
SAO PAULO, Brazil -- President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a second term in a landslide victory Sunday with Brazilians rewarding their first working class leader after he helped ease grinding poverty while improving the economy of Latin America's largest country.
With 94 percent of the votes counted, Silva had 61 percent support compared to 39 percent for the center-right Geraldo Alckmin, Sao Paulo state's former governor. Election officials said Alckmin would be unable to pull ahead even if he won all of the remaining votes.
Silva's win came after Alckmin made a surprisingly strong showing in a first round of voting on Oct. 1. The vote went to a second round after Silva failed to get 50 percent plus one vote required for an outright win.
But the leftist president had the firm support from Brazil's tens of millions of poor voters, who have benefited handsomely over the past three years as Silva increased social spending without raising taxes. Silva also overcame corruption scandals that tarnished the image of his administration.
His Workers Party has been battered for two years by charges of vote-buying and illegal campaign financing, scandals that have cost the former labor leader and lathe operator his reputation as a bastion of political ethics.
Alckmin hit the corruption allegations hard, but the scandals never touched Silva personally and his tepid campaign style and robotic image failed to win over working-class voters in this country with one of the widest gaps between rich and poor.
Silva voted at a school in the industrial Sao Paulo suburb of Sao Bernardo do Campo, just next to the small house where he lived when he got his start as a union leader organizing strikes and opposing Brazil's 1964-85 military dictatorship.
"If I win these elections, then the integration of South America will have won," Silva said. He promised to ease the vast divide between rich and poor and to improve education so that Brazil can "take a leap in quality in the world of politics, economics and business."
Outside the polling station, Silva plunged into the adoring crowds to hug supporters and kiss the Brazilian flag.
More than 125 million Brazilians were expected to vote in Sunday's runoff elections for president and for governor in 10 of Brazil's 27 states where elections were not decided in the first round.
Alckmin voted in Sao Paulo's upscale Morumbi district accompanied by former-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the state's governor-elect Jose Serra, who lost to Silva in the 2002 presidential elections.
"What really matters is the voting and not the polls," Alckmin said.
Alckmin trailed Silva throughout the campaign but appeared to gain momentum briefly early this month after he forced Silva into a second round in the Oct. 1 elections, where Silva fell just short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.
Polls had predicted Silva would win outright, but his campaign was tripped up after the news media ran photos of $770,000 in cash that members of his Workers Party allegedly planned to spend on purchasing an incriminating file about Alckmin and his allies.
The charges followed a string of corruption allegations against Silva's leftist Workers' Party. While Silva was never personally implicated, the allegations reinforced suspicions of government corruption - suspicions stressed by Alckmin in his campaign speeches.
Cardoso, who was president for eight years prior to Silva, continued to hammer at the allegations against Silva's party, known here at the PT.
"The PT can't cover up the crimes, Brazil has to investigate," Cardoso said. "Brazil is tired of impunity."
Still, Alckmin failed to make the corruption charges stick to Silva during the second round.
Instead, Silva battered his opponent with accusations that the former governor of Brazil's richest state would privatize cherished state industries and end the popular Family Allowance program that provides monthly payouts to 11 million poor families as long as they keep their children in school and get them vaccinated.
While Alckmin has repeatedly said he would continue the program, analysts say it has helped lift millions out of poverty and translated into guaranteed votes for Silva. Also, Silva managed to reduce Brazil's notoriously high inflation through high interest rates, and prices of staples such as rice and beans even dropped.
Aloisio Pisco, a 36-year-old doorman, said Silva's handling of the economy earned him the right to a second term.
"Lula, he's the best; he's created jobs and prices are cheaper," said Pisco.
But some felt the corruption scandal showed Silva is no different than other politicians in a nation long accustomed to corruption.
"I didn't vote for that bum," said Jose Gomes Araujo, who reupholsters furniture. "He says the PT is the party of the workers, but he's never worked a day in his life."
from BBC News, 2006-May-2:
Bolivia gas move met with shock
Brazil and Spain have reacted sharply to a decree from Bolivia's President Evo Morales which asserts state control over the country's energy industry.
Under the May Day decree, private energy companies will have to sell a controlling stake to the Bolivian government and renegotiate contracts.
At the largest gas fields, royalty payments will increase from 50% to 82%.
The fate of Bolivia's gas reserves was at the heart of protests which saw two presidents thrown out of office.
Mr Morales' move is the fulfilment of an election promise to secure better benefits for impoverished ordinary Bolivians from the gas reserves - the second largest in the continent.
Hundreds of Bolivians celebrated the decree in the de facto capital, La Paz, on Monday.
But the private gas companies, which have invested about $3.5bn in gas exploration and development since 1997, say it is a worrying development.
'Unfriendly'
A spokesman for Petrobras, one of the largest foreign investors in Bolivia, called it an "unfriendly" action.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was said to be meeting Petrobras President Jose Sergio Gabrielli and government ministers for urgent talks on Tuesday.
Spain's Repsol YPF is also a big player in Bolivia, and the Spanish government expressed "deep concern" at the move.
The US Exxon Mobil Corporation said it was "closely monitoring" the situation.
Other major international corporations operating in Bolivia include the British companies British Gas and British Petroleum and France's Total.
The firms will get less favourable terms but current high global energy prices may be an incentive to see if they can work with Mr Morales, the BBC's Americas editor Simon Watts says.
Contracts redrawn
Under the terms of Decree 28701, the Bolivian government has declared absolute control over the country's energy resources and radically altered the conditions of its relationship with the energy companies.
Companies have six months to negotiate new contracts with the Bolivian government. During that time, the Bolivian government says it will carry out audits of each company to determine how much it should pay for a stake of at least 51% in each.
Bolivia's state-owned energy company, YPBF, will take control of the production, transport, refinery, and sale of the gas.
GAS DECREE
The state takes control of all gas fields
Companies have six months to renegotiate contracts or be expelled
They will be obliged to sell at least 51% of their holdings to the Bolivian government
The two largest gas fields - San Alberto and San Antonio - must give 82% of production to the state, up from 50%
The state will take 60% of production from other fields
Details of new contracts to be worked out on a case-by-case basisWith immediate effect, gas fields producing more than a daily 100 million cubic feet of gas will retain only 18% of the gas they produce, down from 50%. This is reported to apply to two fields, San Alberto and San Antonio.
Companies operating other fields will retain 40%, local media report.
Speaking at an oilfield in the south of the country on Monday, Bolivia's left-wing president called it an "historic day".
"The pillage of our natural resources by foreign companies is over," he declared.
About 100 soldiers peacefully took control of the Palmasola refinery in the south-eastern city of Santa Cruz, reported the news agency Associated press.
The government said soldiers and engineers were sent to 56 locations around the country.
Mr Morales said the gas fields were "just the beginning, because tomorrow it will be the mines, the forest resources and the land".
from the New York Times, 2006-May-12, by Carter Dougherty:
Oil Companies Not Entitled to Payment, Bolivian Says
VIENNA, May 11 — The leader of Bolivia on Thursday ruled out compensating oil companies for nationalized oil and gas fields as he came under questioning from European officials at the start of a high-level meeting on energy and trade.
President Evo Morales said there was no need to pay companies like British Gas, Total of France, Repsol of Spain and Petrobras of Brazil because they had already recovered their investments and had earned a significant profit from the fields. Mr. Morales declared a nationalization of the oil and gas fields on May 1, backed by Bolivian army troops.
The European Union wants closer economic ties with Latin America, and its commissioner for foreign relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, said the Continent was looking for discussions with Bolivia and the affected companies. "If there are already contracts, these have to be tackled and changed by dialogue," Ms. Ferrero-Waldner said.
But Mr. Morales was firm. "There is no reason to indemnify them whatsoever," he said at a news conference at the beginning of the meeting of dozens of European, Latin American and Caribbean leaders. "If we were to expropriate their technology or their assets, in that case there could be talk of indemnifying them, but that is not the case."
Mr. Morales added that there was "no reason for us to ask, no reason for us to consult, and there is no reason for us to discuss the policies of a sovereign nation."
He also confirmed expectations that his government planned to seize farmland and redistribute it to peasants, a prospect that has unnerved neighboring Brazil, whose oil giant, Petrobras, was affected by the gas field nationalization and whose farmers hold land in Bolivia.
"We're not going to limit ourselves to oil resources," Mr. Morales said. "We're also going to finish with huge landowners," on especially productive land, "in our country."
The Bolivian energy nationalizations are to be followed by a six-month phase in which the government renegotiates energy contracts.
Although Mr. Morales said on Thursday that no compensation would be paid because there was no confiscation of energy companies' assets, Bolivian officials have said that if the new contract talks fail, expropriations are possible, and in that case, restitution would be made.
from the Associated Press, 2006-May-2, by Alvaro Zuazo with Alan Clendenning in Mexico City and Harold Olmos in Santa Cruz contributing:
Bolivia Plans to Nationalize More Sectors
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Bolivia's leftist government said Tuesday it would extend control over mining, forestry and other sectors of the economy after President Evo Morales nationalized the country's huge natural gas industry. Foreign governments warned relations could be damaged.
Soldiers were posted at 56 gas installations around the country a day after Morales issued a decree that analysts say could drive petroleum companies from South America's poorest nation and isolate Bolivia from important allies like Brazil and Spain.
The move solidifies Morales' role alongside Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro in Latin America's new axis of socialist-inclined leaders united against "capitalist, imperialist" U.S. influence.
Morales said Monday that the gas decree "was just the beginning, because tomorrow it will be the mines, the forest resources and the land." Morales' planning minister earlier this month spoke of plans for "drastic reforms" of mining laws.
On Tuesday, Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said mining companies could face higher taxes and royalty payments and that the government will intensify enforcement of existing laws to break up big underdeveloped land holdings, apparently to turn them over to the poor.
The government also will crack down on foreign timber companies violating conservation laws, Garcia said, and would steer companies to export finished wood products rather than raw timber.
While the gas nationalization decree was not unexpected, analysts called Morales' use of the army extreme, the images of soldiers toting automatic weapons outside refineries and gas fields reminiscent of military dictatorships past.
"With this move, he risks alienating natural and otherwise sympathetic partners like Brazil and Spain," said Michael Shifter, a Latin American analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "Ordering the military to seize the natural gas fields is unnecessarily confrontational and antagonistic."
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil held an emergency Cabinet meeting to assess the impact on his nation - the biggest buyer of Bolivian gas and the owner of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, one of Bolivia's biggest gas producers.
Petrobras President Sergio Gabrielli said officials were seeking "to secure our rights" to Bolivian gas and the $1.6 billion that Petrobras has invested in Bolivia since the mid-1990s.
Spain's Foreign Ministry summoned Bolivia's business attache to express "deep concern about the measure and the possible consequences for bilateral relations."
The Spanish-Argentine Repsol YPF petroleum company is one of the largest foreign players in Bolivia and Argentina is the second-biggest market for Bolivian gas.
Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said Tuesday that the nationalization "is definitely negative for Bolivia" and would likely deter foreign investment.
Besides Petrobras and Repsol, the biggest natural gas investors in Bolivia are Britain's BG Group PLC and BP PLC, France's Total SA and U.S.-based Exxon Mobil Corp.
About 100 soldiers were posted Tuesday at Petrobras' Palmasola refinery in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, some carrying submachine guns, others with anti-riot gear.
Engineers with Bolivia's state-owned oil company were also ordered to natural gas installations, with no indication how long they may stay.
Foreign companies extracting and exporting Bolivia's gas have invested about $3.5 billion over the last decade, much of that to supply Brazil. But new investments have been largely frozen since last year over concerns about Morales' nationalization plan.
Under Monday's decree, foreign companies have six months to agree to new contracts that would give the government a majority stake in 67 oil and gas fields and raise the tax and royalty rate from 50 percent to 82 percent in Bolivia's two biggest fields. If they do not comply, Morales said, they must leave Bolivia.
In Santa Cruz, Bolivia's petroleum hub and the country's financial center, business leaders called for a one-day general strike Thursday to protest the nationalization plan.
The use of the military "was an excessive measure and a media show that sends negative signals to the international community," said Gabriel Dabdoub, who heads the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
from the Associated Press, 2006-May-17, by Gonzalo Solano:
Military to Guard Ecudaor Oil Facilities
QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuadorean President Alfredo Palacio sent troops to guard oil facilities seized from Occidental Petroleum Corp. as they are transferred to state control, officials said Tuesday.
But officials said the cancellation of Occidental's operating contracts and the seizure of its assets did not mean the Andean nation is nationalizing its oil industry.
Defense Minister Oswaldo Jarrin told reporters late Tuesday that Palacio issued a decree directing the soldiers, who started arriving to the oil fields earlier in the day, "to provide protection and safekeeping" for up to 60 days "of all hydrocarbon complexes" formerly held by the U.S.-based oil company.
Ecuador unilaterally canceled Occidental's operating contracts on Monday over a dispute that stretched back several years, claiming that the oil company had broken the terms of its contract.
Occidental produces about 100,000 barrels of crude daily in Ecuador, about 20 percent of the country's total output, and has invested about $1 billion since 1999 in its operations.
"The state awarded Occidental the development of a resource, but now it must leave the country for having failed to meet its contract and violated the laws," Fernando Gonzalez, president of state-run Petroecuador, told reporters early Tuesday.
The Bush administration responded to the measure by breaking off negotiations on a free trade agreement with Ecuador.
"We are very disappointed at the decision of Ecuador, which appears to constitute a seizure of assets of a U.S. company," Neena Moorjani, a spokeswoman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said in a statement. "At this time no further (free trade agreement) discussions are scheduled."
Ecuador's top government spokesman, Enrique Proano, told The Associated Press that his country "laments deeply the declaration by the United States ... that a sovereign decision by Ecuador should have influenced the continuity of trade relations and especially negotiation" of the pact.
The trade talks were already on shaky ground after Ecuador's Congress last month passed a hydrocarbons reform law to give the government 50 percent of oil companies' profits whenever the international crude market exceeds the prices established in existing contracts.
Most of those deals were pegged to 1990s prices when oil was worth a fraction of its current price.
A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said the bill appeared to violate a bilateral investment treaty between the two nations.
Larry Meriage, a spokesman for Los Angeles-based Occidental, said Tuesday the Ecuadorean government had not taken over the company's operations yet. Employees were still running the facilities.
Meriage said the parties were working on a timetable for when Occidental's employees will leave.
"The government has appealed to us for cooperation and for an orderly transition, which is an interesting development in itself," Meriage said. "They're telling you they're throwing you out, but they want you to help them. We're going to try to be cooperative, up to a point."
"We're just trying to feel (or way) through this. We're in uncharted waters. This is the largest expropriation of assets in this hemisphere in the last 30 years," he said. "When they take over your assets without remuneration it is tantamount to an expropriation."
"From today, Petroecuador is taking effective possession of the fields," Gonzalez said Tuesday from the steps of Occidental's local offices, where he arrived with a team of auditors to begin work on the government takeover.
The ruling comes two weeks after Bolivia nationalized its oil and gas industry, alarming officials in countries whose companies operate there.
On Friday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez indicated his government may seek a larger ownership stake in key heavy oil projects run by foreign companies in the Orinoco River basin. Other oil fields previously run by private oil companies under contract have been transferred to new "mixed companies" in which Venezuela holds a majority share.
But Ecuadorean Interior Minister Felipe Vega dismissed suggestions that Ecuador was lining up with Bolivia and Venezuela. He told Universal Radio Tuesday that the "only factor in common" with those countries is "the conduct of the oil companies - conduct which is absolutely unfair."
from the Associated Press via the San Jose Mercury News, 2006-Jan-13, by Christopher Toothaker:
Chavez denounces bid to block jet sale
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez on Friday blasted an attempt by the U.S. to block Spain from selling Venezuela 12 military planes with American parts, calling it proof of Washington's "imperialism."
Displaying deep annoyance, Chavez asked hypothetically in his comments before the National Assembly what would happen if oil-exporting Venezuela cut off shipments to the United States.
Chavez also accused a U.S. Jewish rights group of joining a Washington-backed smear campaign after it denounced him for making anti-Semitic remarks. Chavez insisted those remarks had nothing to do with Jews and were badly misconstrued.
His comments came after the U.S. Embassy in Madrid announced that the United States had denied permission for the sale of planes, citing concerns about a Venezuelan government that it said had "grown progressively more autocratic and antidemocratic."
"What is this if not evidence of the horrific imperialism that the government in Washington wants to impose on the world?" Chavez said, reading news of the U.S. action as he addressed the assembly on the state of the nation.
"I denounce once again before the world the imperialist attack by the U.S. government against the Venezuelan people and the Venezuelan government," he said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States concluded the proposed transfers were not consistent with the country's interests.
"We're concerned that this proposed sale of military equipment and components to Venezuela could contribute to destabilization in Latin America and have made that view clear to the Spanish, Venezuelan and other governments in Latin America," McCormack said.
Chavez has accused the United States of plotting to overthrow him, and has warned any invasion would be defeated. Washington has strongly denied any such plans, but Chavez says Venezuela - the world's No. 5 oil exporter whose main customer is the United States - must be prepared.
"Every day we send them 1.5 million barrels of oil," said Chavez. "What would happen if tomorrow I were to say that no ship leaves for the United States?"
"How high would the price of a barrel go? I think it could hit $100," he said, making clear the idea wasn't being considering at present but was possible if the U.S. were to try to oust him.
"I don't want to do it, but war is war," Chavez said. "The best thing is for us to understand each other in peace."
U.S. law authorizes the government to prevent a country from transferring military equipment purchased in the United States to a third country.
The acquisition by Venezuela of certain types of military equipment, McCormack said, would raise "a lot of questions about their potential use and what effect that may have on the stability in the region."
Chavez called the U.S. concerns ridiculous, saying "these are transport planes."
Spain said Friday it did not share the U.S. concerns and would go ahead with the deal, removing the U.S.-made components and replacing them with parts made elsewhere.
Spain agreed in November to sell Venezuela the planes and eight patrol boats for $2 billion, despite U.S. threats at the time to oppose the transfer. It would be Spain's largest-ever defense deal, involving 10 C-295 transport planes and two CN-235 patrol planes, as well as four ocean patrol boats and four coast patrol vessels.
Officials have said neither the boats nor the transport planes were armed and that the patrol planes were equipped only for self-defense.
But McCormack said Friday that the U.S. was rejecting the entire sale, including the boats.
The U.S. government has also expressed concern about Russia's planned sale of helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles to Venezuela starting early this year. But Russia has said it too is going ahead with the deals.
Chavez called the U.S. action part of a campaign to smear his government.
"A new attack against Venezuela is just beginning," Chavez said. "Mr. Danger will crash up against the force of the truth and the force of morality," Chavez added, in a reference to President Bush.
Chavez also lashed out at The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S. based Jewish organization that demanded he apologize for remarks made in Christmas Eve speech.
"The world has enough for all," Chavez said, according to a transcript of the Dec. 24 speech. "But it turned out that some minorities, descendants of those who crucified Christ, descendants of those who threw Bolivar out of here and also crucified him in their own way in Santa Marta, there in Colombia, a minority took the world's riches for themselves."
Chavez said those comments had nothing to do with Jews, but rather with poverty and the expulsion of 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar from Venezuela.
The Wiesenthal Center claimed similar remarks have long been used to persecute Jews, but Chavez noted that a prominent leader of Venezuela's Jewish community had issued a statement saying the community does not believe in the slightest that Chavez was targetting Jews.
Chavez, who says he is leading a socialist revolution for the poor, is up for re-election in December. He remains popular amid high oil prices that have funded his social programs and helped bring economic growth of 9.4 percent last year.
from Reuters, 2006-Jan-25, by Anthony Boadle:
Castro says billboard threatens US ties
HAVANA - President Fidel Castro said on Wednesday the electronic billboard flashing human rights messages from the U.S. Interests Section in Havana threatened the few diplomatic ties between the United States and Cuba.
But he said Cuba, which has not had formal diplomatic relations with Washington since 1961, had nothing to lose.
"The only purpose of this garbage is to provoke the destruction of those tenuous links, as if we needed them," Castro told foreign reporters.
The two governments, bitter enemies since Castro came to power in a 1959 revolution, do not have formal diplomatic relations. Interests offices were opened in each other's capital during U.S. President Jimmy Carter's administration. Washington has enforced sanctions against Cuba since 1962.
Castro accused U.S. diplomats of breaking the rules of international diplomacy by funding his opponents and "smuggling" tons of equipment into Cuba in diplomatic pouches, including cameras and radios handed to dissidents.
Cuba, which buys $400 million a year in food imports from the United States under an exception to the U.S. trade embargo, had taken steps to guarantee alternative supplies, Castro said.
The Cuban leader spoke to reporters during a nighttime visit to workers building a structure in front of the U.S. Interests Section that will apparently block the view of the electronic billboard.
Brigades of workers began the task on Tuesday night, hours after Castro and hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched past the mission to protest the 5-foot-high (1.5-meter) ticker that streams messages across the facade of the Interests Section.
U.S. diplomats said Cuba's communist authorities were building a wall or screen to obstruct the view of the ticker, which displays messages to the Cuban people, news headlines and quotes from Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and Lech Walesa.
"Building walls to isolate Cubans from the rest of the world is what the regime knows best," a spokesperson for the Interests Section said.
Cuban officials said they were extending an open-air stage that has been the main venue for political rallies against the United States since 2000.
TIT-FOR-TAT BILLBOARDS
The ticker across the 25 windows of the fifth floor of the Interests Section on Havana's Malecon waterfront is a new salvo in a decades-old propaganda war between Washington and Havana.
Last year, Cuba set up billboards with pictures of abused Iraqi prisoners at the site in reply to a Christmas decoration displaying the number of dissidents jailed in a political crackdown.
On Tuesday, Castro called U.S. diplomats "cockroaches" and accused the administration of President George W. Bush of seeking a new crisis between the United States and Cuba with "perfidious" provocations.
As Castro spoke from a podium, the U.S. ticker flashed "Conservatives win elections in Canada" and other news headlines in bright letters in full view of the marchers.
The headlines were followed by quotes from Lincoln, Gandhi and Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement that toppled Poland's communist government and helped bring about the collapse of Soviet control over Eastern Europe.
The ticker began flashing messages on January 16 with the words "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up" from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 speech.
U.S. diplomats said they wanted to break the "information blockade" or censorship of Cuba's state-run media.
from Knight Ridder via the San Jose Mercury News, 2005-Dec-18, by Jack Chang and Bill Faries:
Leftist candidate Morales appears headed for win in Bolivia
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - Peasant leader Evo Morales, who has harshly criticized U.S. policies in Latin America, appeared headed for a major victory Sunday night in the race for this fractured country's presidency, according to exit polls.
Early poll results by the poll company Unitel showed Morales winning 45 percent of the vote and former President Jorge "Tuto" Quiroga coming in second with 33 percent. Businessman Samuel Doria Medina won 10 percent of the vote.
Morales, a 46-year-old Aymara Indian, would become Bolivia's first indigenous president and has already made international headlines with his bold attacks on Washington-approved policies such as free trade agreements and the eradication of coca leaf, the main ingredient in cocaine.
His election would mark a significant setback for U.S. interests in Latin America. U.S. diplomats had remained studiously silent during the campaign to avoid tipping the results.
Despite the apparently strong showing in the presidential poll, Morales may encounter difficulty implementing his policies because his supporters failed to win control over the Congress.
After voting Sunday morning in the central Bolivian town of Villa Catorce de Septiembre, Morales said he was about to end centuries of foreign exploitation and empower long-suffering indigenous groups.
"This is not just about changing the government or changing the presidency, but changing our history," Morales said. "I am a candidate of those despised in Bolivian history, the candidate of the most hated and discriminated against, and I hope the vote today will end this xenophobia and discrimination."
On the campaign trail, Morales pledged to nationalize Bolivia's vast hydrocarbon reserves and legalize the growth of coca leaf. He regularly called himself a "nightmare" of the United States and allied himself closely with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, both frequent anti-U.S. critics.
Sunday morning, Morales said he would welcome a relationship with the United States government, as long as it was "not one of subordination, not of blackmail." He also called for the United States to remove all of its military bases from Latin America.
Despite fears that civil unrest could return to the streets of this fractured country, Bolivians went peacefully to the polls Sunday, a major feat for this Andean country where blockades and street protests have ousted two presidents since October 2003.
Bolivia's 3.6 million registered voters elected a new president, the entire 157-member Congress and, for the first time in its history, nine provincial governors.
If the exit poll results prove correct, Morales will not have won the presidency outright. Bolivian law requires Congress to choose between the top two candidates if no one wins more than half of the vote, although the margin of Morales' lead appears to ensure endorsement by the Congress.
Many expected the Congress to pick Morales if he won by more than a 5 percentage point gap.
Morales has said he would respect the results of the congressional vote but did not discount the possibility of protests by other activists if he were cheated out of the presidency. The former coca grower helped lead violent protests over foreign control of natural gas.
Nearly 200 election observers were dispatched to Bolivia from international bodies such as the Organization of American States, the Andean Community of Nations and the Mercosur trade bloc.
Steven Griner, the OAS assistant chief of mission in the capital of La Paz, said no major irregularities had been reported as of early Sunday night.
from Bloomberg.com, 2005-Dec-18, by Alex Emery:
Bolivian Activist Morales Wins Election as President (Update3)
Lime -- Bolivian Indian activist Evo Morales, who describes himself as the “United States' worst nightmare,'' won election as president of South America's poorest nation.
Morales, 46, took 51 percent of the vote based on 80 percent of ballots counted, Bolivian station Unitel reported. Ex-President Jorge Quiroga, 45, the second-place finisher, conceded at a press conference in La Paz, Bolivia tonight. Polls had indicated no candidate would win the majority needed for a first-round victory.
An ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Morales will increase opposition to the U.S. in the region and discourage foreign investment, said Jose Cerritelli, an emerging-market debt trader at London-based broker ICAP Plc. Morales campaigned against U.S. efforts to eradicate production of coca and vowed to increase state control of the nation's natural-gas reserves, the largest in South America after Venezuela's.
Morales's victory may “add new risk to investments in many emerging markets that lack political consensus,'' Cerritelli said in a telephone interview from New York. “Chavez is the inspiration of Evo. This adds a huge chunk of the Latin American map to the Chavez axis.''
Fireworks
Thousands of Morales supporters chanting “We feel it, Evo president,'' set off fireworks and danced in the streets of the eastern cities of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz as election results were announced.
Morales said at his final campaign rally Dec. 16 in Cochabamba, Bolivia that he was “the United States' worst nightmare'' and pledged to oppose “parasitic businesses that grow richer at the expense of the poor.'' Morales, who led protests to topple the government in 2003, today called on Bush to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and close military bases in Latin America.
He also reiterated a pledge to endorse output of coca, a traditional medicine in Bolivia that is also used to make cocaine.
“There will be zero cocaine, zero drug trafficking, but not zero coca,'' Morales, an Aymara Indian and former llama herder, told reporters today in La Paz.
Bolivia's 9 million inhabitants are the poorest in the region. The country's gross domestic product totals $2,600 per capita, compared with $10,200 in Argentina and $7,600 in Brazil.
Economic growth slowed to 3.9 percent in the second quarter after a 4 percent expansion in the first quarter and 5.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. Investment in the oil and gas industry dropped 40 percent to $62.5 million in the first six months of 2005 from a year earlier.
More Jobs
Morales's supporters say he will provide more job opportunities for Bolivia's 4 million Aymara and Quechua Indians, whom Morales said in an interview Oct. 31 have been excluded from the benefits of tapping the country's natural resources, including tin and silver as well as oil and gas.
“There's no work for people of my skin color,'' said Hugo Mamani, a 25-year-old soft drinks street vendor of Aymara Indian origin, in an interview in La Paz. “Evo will bring change for our people.''
About 50,000 police and soldiers were deployed along the main avenues of La Paz to help guard against protests during the election. More than 200 international monitors also are in Bolivia for the vote. Popular protests have toppled two governments in the country in the past two years.
“It wasn't easy to make it to Dec. 18,'' President Eduardo Rodriguez said during the day at a ceremony at the National Electoral Court in La Paz broadcast on television station Bolivision. “We overcame many dangers along the way.''
The elections, originally scheduled for Dec. 4, were set back after Congress was unable to agree on congressional seat distribution. Rodriguez established seat allocation by decree last month.
New Congress
The nation's 3.6 million voters also elected the 157-member Congress and prefects for the country's nine departments. Morales' Movement Toward Socialism won party 78 seats in congress, one short of a majority, and two prefect's seats, according to Unitel.
Morales, who would be Bolivia's fifth president since 2002, said in the Oct. 31 interview in La Paz he wants Venezuela's state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, to replace the dozen multinationals, including Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. and Reading, England-based BG Group Plc, which will have to renegotiate exploration and production contracts under a law passed in May.
An accord with Venezuela's oil company would give Bolivia's government more income from gas sales, enabling it to boost spending, according to Morales. Venezuela is the world's fifth- largest oil exporter.
“We could definitely see a greater role of the state, driving out some foreign companies,'' Theresa Paiz-Fredel, a sovereign debt analyst at the Fitch Inc. ratings service, said in a phone interview from New York.
Protests
The year after losing the 2002 election, Morales headed anti- government protests in which at least 70 people died and forced President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, 75, from office. In May, Morales again led protests, prompting Congress to hike royalties on oil and gas output.
President Carlos Mesa, 52, resigned in June as protests continued. His successor, Rodriguez, 49, called elections for this month.
Supporters of Quiroga, nicknamed “Tuto,'' said Morales will bring greater instability.
“We don't know how long Evo would last as president or if his own people will eventually kick him out,'' 46-year-old waiter Victor Mendoza said in an interview in La Paz.
Quiroga, a former IBM executive and finance minister who studied at Texas A&M University, said Morales' policies and anti- U.S. sentiment will scare away investment and fail to spur economic growth.
`Bare Minimum'
“Bolivia's missed the boat in many ways,'' Fitch's Paiz- Fredel said. “Oil companies are investing the bare minimum.''
Rodriguez replaced his energy minister last month after talks to renegotiate contracts with eight companies, including Exxon Mobil and BG Group, broke down. The companies are demanding that the government honor bilateral investment-protection agreements.
BG spokesman Neil Burrows said Dec. 13 the company remains committed to Bolivia, despite some concern with legislation. Exxon Mobil spokesman Len D'Eramo said his company wants to do business “under attractive fiscal terms and in a fair and equitable investment climate.''
Lula
A dialogue with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and a realization that Bolivia needs foreign investment to tap its reserves will have a moderating influence on Morales, said investors such as James Barrineau at Alliance Capital Management LP in New York.
“Cool heads will prevail before kicking foreign investors out of the country,'' said Barrineau, senior vice president responsible for Latin American economic analysis at Alliance Capital, which manages $163 billion in fixed income securities and had $8 billion in emerging market debt as of Dec. 1.
Morales said in the interview as president he would press the Inter-American Development Bank and other lending agencies to forgive his country's $4.9 billion of international debt, equivalent to 60 percent of GDP.
Before the vote, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato urged Bolivia's next president to hunt for private capital to tap the country's gas.
“To mobilize those natural resources, the Bolivian authorities will need financial resources that the country doesn't have today,'' de Rato said at a Dec. 16 news conference in Washington.
from the Associated Press, 2006-Jan-15, by Eduardo Gallardo:
Socialist Bachelet Wins Chilean Presidency
SANTIAGO, Chile A socialist doctor and former political prisoner was elected Sunday as the country's first female president, with her conservative multimillionaire opponent conceding defeat in a race that reflected Latin America's increasingly leftward tilt.
The victory of Michelle Bachelet — a political prisoner during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet and defense minister in the current administration — extends the rule of the market-friendly center left coalition that has governed since the end of Pinochet's 1973-90 rule.
With 97.5 percent of some 8 million votes counted, Bachelet had 53.5 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Sebastian Pinera, who congratulated his opponent on her victory but vowed "to continue to fight for our principles, which do not die today."
Sunday's runoff was necessary after a Dec. 11. election involving four candidates failed to produce a winner with a majority.
Her political success has baffled many Chileans who thought a left-leaning single mother jailed during Pinochet's dictatorship stood little chance in this socially conservative country.
Current President Ricardo Lagos made her his health minister, then in 2002 named her defense minister. She won praise for helping heal divisions between civilians and military left over from the dictatorship.
Bachelet had expected resistance from Chile's conservative military establishment when appointed defense minister. "I was a woman, separated, a socialist, an agnostic ... all possible sins together," said Bachelet, who nonetheless became a popular figure among the admirals and generals.
Bachelet's gender still prompts questions she does not like.
"You wouldn't be asking that question if I was a man," she chided a Chilean reporter who asked if she would marry again.
But she did answer: "The truth is that I haven't had the time to even think about that. My next four years will be dedicated to work."
Bachelet, 54, will be only the third woman directly elected president of a Latin American country, following Violeta Chamorro, who governed Nicaragua from 1990 to 1997, and Mireya Moscoso, president of Panama from 1999 to 2004.
However, Bachelet, unlike those two women, did not follow a politically prominent husband into power.
Bachelet's father was an air force general who was arrested and tortured for opposing the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power. Alberto Bachelet died in prison of a heart attack, probably caused by the torture, Bachelet says.
A 22-year-old medical student at the time, Bachelet was also arrested along with her mother and later forced into five years of exile, first in Australia, then in communist East Germany. She married a fellow Chilean exile while in East Germany. Back in Chile, they separated, and she had a third child from a new relationship.
Lagos, the mentor she is following into power, has deftly balanced his socialist ideology with market-oriented economics and enjoys an approval rate above 70 percent. Lagos is constitutionally prohibited from seeking immediate re-election, but as he voted, his backers chanted "2010," referring to the next election.
In a speech to the nation after congratulating Bachelet on the phone, Lagos said, "We now have a new Chile, we have for the first time in our history a woman president."
In spite of their different political backgrounds and ideologies, both Bachelet and Pinera outlined similar goals, promising to continue the two-decade-long free-market policies that have made Chile's economy one of the healthiest in the region.
They two said they would fight to lower the 8 percent unemployment rate, improve public health, housing and education services and curb rising urban crime. They also promise to reform Chile's 25-year-old private social security systems to ensure better pensions for retirees, though neither has given details of how.
Bachelet said she would stress efforts to reduce inequities among the rich and the poor.
Lagos and Bachelet belong to the same Socialist Party as Salvador Allende, whose leftist policies prompted Pinochet's bloody coup. But the party allied with other major left-center parties in 1990 to oust the right wing, and their coalition has held while leading Chile into a free-trade pact with the United States, cutting inflation and fostering growth of about 6 percent a year.
Chile's next president will be inaugurated on March 11, joining the ranks of Latin American leaders including leftists such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and newly elected Evo Morales of Bolivia.
Bachelet indicated she would work with all the region's leaders. "We shouldn't take Latin America back to the Cold War. Chavez, Morales, they are presidents elected by their peoples. Chile must have relationships with all of them."
Pinochet, who dominated Chilean political life for a generation, was not a factor in the campaign, and his spokesman, retired Gen. Guillermo Garin, said he paid little attention to it. At 90, Pinochet is ailing and was only recently freed from house arrest. He faces charges of human rights abuses and corruption stemming from his 17-year rule.
from US News, 2005-Feb-14, by Mortimer B. Zuckerman (the editor in chief):
Cracking down on Caracas
While we have our eyes on the Middle East and the recent good news out of there, a danger to democracy is brewing right here in our backyard. Venezuela, long one of Latin America's strongest democracies, is now under siege by its president, Hugo Chavez. Thanks to an ill-judged intervention by former President Jimmy Carter, Chavez narrowly survived a recall election and has now accelerated his subversion of Venezuela's democracy by a scummy deal with Fidel Castro.
According to Miami's El Nuevo Herald, Chavez has granted Cuban judicial and security forces extensive police powers within Venezuela. Cubans are already running the intelligence services and indoctrinating and training the military. They will effectively bypass what is left of Venezuela's judicial system when they exercise new powers to investigate, seize, detain, and interrogate Venezuelans and Cubans living in Venezuela, with the right to extradite them to Cuba and try them there. This threatens the safety of some 30,000 Cubans in Venezuela.
All this is a culmination of Chavez's frontal attack on civil society, reducing state institutions to mere shadows with only ceremonial powers. Just for starters, Chavez has rewritten Venezuela's Constitution to enhance his powers, purged critics in the military, set up legislation to pack the Supreme Court, intimidated the media by threatening the expropriation of the licenses of private television stations that supported the opposition, and given succor to thousands of Castro's military and intelligence officers, along with many social and medical workers, while tens of thousands of young Venezuelans have been sent to Cuba for indoctrination.
Chavez, in turn, provides Castro with 80,000 barrels a day of essential oil. Venezuela's rich flow of oil revenues has enabled Chavez to buy the support of sectors of Venezuelan society and assert himself as the leader of what he calls a "jihad" against American imperialism. Chavez's sense of moral justice is manifest in his alliance with the worst criminal organizations in Latin America, especially the narcoterrorists in Colombia. Just recently, he denounced Colombian authorities because they arrested a senior member of the narcoterrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who had been given sanctuary in Venezuela.
To get a sense of the degree to which Chavez is intimidating his opponents and harassing dissidents, just read the language of a new criminal law that he pushed through the legislature: "Any individual who creates panic in the community or makes it restless by disseminating false information via print media, radio, TV, phone, electronic mail, or pamphlets will be punished with two to five years in prison." Even the most popular form of political protest, banging pots and pans, done in the presence of members of his government, now carries with it up to a three-month jail sentence.
A distinguished international coalition, including former Czech President Vaclav Havel, Sen. John McCain, and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, wrote to Chavez expressing concern that his actions are "a grave threat to democracy."
Alas, our own President Carter compromised the hopes of Venezuelans in the recall election by prematurely endorsing the vote that Chavez did not earn or deserve. Carter's people counted fewer than 1 percent of the polling stations, which, instead of being selected at random, as originally anticipated, were selected by Venezuelan officials. Even then, only 76 of the previously agreed 192 ballot boxes were counted, with either opposition witnesses or international observers present at only 26 out of the 76 boxes reviewed. The Chavez-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) forbade access to the tallying centers, not only to Carter's people but to the representatives of the opposition, and even to the two members of the CNE who opposed Chavez. Two professors from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a report concluding that there was at least a 99 percent chance the election was a fraud. The audited sample (Carter's) was simply not a random sample, the professors concluded. Various independent exit polls showed that Chavez had lost the vote by 59 percent to 41 percent, instead of Chavez's contention that he had won by that margin.
Jimmy Carter, in effect, provided a seal of approval for a left-wing demagogue intent on destroying democracy in Venezuela even as he seeks to extend his ideology to other parts of Latin America. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was correct when she pointed out that Chavez is a danger not just to Venezuela but to much of Latin America. Very soon, we must translate those wise words into an effective policy.
from the New York Post, 2005-Sep-15, by Thor Halvorssen:
CHAVEZ THE KILLER
AS Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hit town for this week's special U.N. session, Chavez's flunkies were renting buses and offering to reimburse activists willing to create a "spontaneous" welcome crowd for the populist anti-American.
Tomorrow, Chavez will be the guest of Columbia University's president, Lee Bollinger. And he'll speak Saturday at St. Paul and St. Andrew Methodist Church on 86th Street; Jesse Jackson is set to appear alongside.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan Ambassador in Washington, Bernardo Alvarez, has been busy calling on the U.S. government to protect Chavez during his visit and to forbid remarks like those made by Pat Robertson on how the United States should neutralize the Chavez threat.
Full disclosure: Robertson's remarks came in conversation with me as a guest on his TV show, while discussing the deplorable human-rights situation in Venezuela.
And I'm still trying to figure out why Robertson caused a firestormm yet we hear no U.S. outrage over Chavez's own involvement in advocating violence against President Bush -- let alone the Venezualan's past attempts to assassinate a president.
On Feb. 4, 1992, then-Lt.-Col. Chavez tried to assassinate Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez. Members of the years-long conspiracy had formally vowed to "kill the commander, if necessary" and to "wash the country's blemished honor with blood." Early that February morning, Chavez's rebel forces stormed the presidential palace, indiscriminately firing on loyalist soldiers and killing several dozen people.
Though the first family was in residence, the coup failed, and Chavez was court-martialed. Several months later, the imprisoned Chavez again plotted to murder Perez and to overthrow the government.
At his command, rebel aircraft ruthlessly pounded the president's residence while other insurgents took over a television station and broadcast a tape of Hugo Chavez announcing that the government had fallen. Chavez then invited the people to take the streets. They didn't, and his coup failed once again.
In more than one public speech since becoming president, Chavez has boasted that his intentions back then were not just to topple the government, but also to execute President Perez. In 2002, as the families of his victims mourned the 10th anniversary of their loss, Chavez memorialized his unsuccessful assassination attempt by decreeing that henceforth, Feb. 4 would mark a day of "national celebration."
Just last month, calls for President George Bush's death emanated from a Venezuelan government-funded conference --the 16th World Youth and Students Festival, Aug. 7-15, in which Chavez and His cabinet took an active part. (The "festival" is a communist gathering that in past decades had been hosted in Moscow, East Berlin, Havana and Pyonyang.)
Participants' political sympathies were obvious as the international delegates, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the image of Josef Stalin, networked in Caracas and discussed their respective struggles for communist revolution. Enormous portraits of Che Guevara, Karl Marx, Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh adorned the general meeting hall.
The multimillion-dollar extravaganza included an international tribunal, broadcast in Venezuela and Cuba. The presiding judge: Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel. Star witness for the prosecution: President Chavez. The accused: George W. Bush, charged with (among much else) being the cause of the world's terrorism. Delegates are on film chanting "Death to America" and holding signs that read, "Death to Bush."
Eliecer Otaiza, the Chavez government's minister for land reform, recently went on TV to lament the Venezuelan people's fondness for America, declaring that the government must prepare for war and invest in "sowing hatred toward the United States." He concluded: "Evidently. the ties that bind us with the United States, even political and historic, are too strong but we must prepare to see, and start seeing the 'gringos' as enemies and that is the first step for combat."
How can the Venezuelan government justify condemning Robertson when it spends millions of dollars hosting a conference that promotes violence, hate and assassination? And why does the U.S. media, which blitzed Robertson, give Chavez a free pass?
Thor Halvorssen is president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation.
from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2005-Nov-30:
Oil for Friends
Hugo Chávez repays his Congressional amigo.Money can't buy love, unless you're Anna Nicole Smith. But these days a little heating oil can buy friends in Washington, especially when they come as cheap as Democrat William Delahunt. Massachusetts wants bargain oil prices to help it through the winter. Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chávez wants influence in Washington. Leave it to the Congressman from the Commonwealth and a Kennedy to close the deal.
Last week Venezuela announced that its U.S.-based Citgo Petroleum would sell 12 million gallons of home heating oil at a 40% discount to help the poor in Massachusetts. The deal was announced by Mr. Delahunt on the lawn of a beneficiary before Thanksgiving, with Congressman Ed Markey at his side. "This today is about people, it's not about politics," Mr. Delahunt said with a straight face. Massachusetts-based Citizens Energy, run by the Kennedy clan, will be one of the distributors.
"To Citgo, to the people of Venezuela, our debt," the Congressman pledged. Mr. Delahunt should rightly feel a debt to the people of Venezuela, whose per-capita income is perhaps one-tenth that of Massachusetts and whose sole source of hard currency is the oil that their leader is now giving away to the second-richest state in the union. But Mr. Delahunt has no unpaid debt to Mr. Chávez. For some years now the Congressman has been lobbying hard for the Venezuelan despot, whom he paints as a misunderstood humanitarian. How French.
Mr. Chávez came to power in 1999. In seven years he has a domestic record of human rights abuses, election fraud, property confiscations a la Zimbabwe's Mugabe, erosion of the independent judiciary, limits on press freedom and militarization. His best friends include Fidel Castro, the Iranian mullahs and Colombia's FARC terrorists.
The Bush Administration is worried about all this, but Mr. Delahunt has no qualms. After Mr. Chávez was briefly deposed in 2002 because of his use of violence against dissent, Mr. Delahunt visited Venezuela and proclaimed, "I think he's learned from this. I think he understands that healing and reconciliation are the true qualities of leadership, not division." Mr. Chávez's attacks on his critics have since worsened.
Mr. Delahunt returned to Caracas to dine with Mr. Chávez in August and was asked whether he might be acting in opposition to U.S. policy. "I don't work for Condoleezza Rice. I don't report to the State Department. I report to the people who elected me in the state of Massachusetts. I belong to an independent branch of government."
Which would be more accurate if it were possible for Massachusetts to have a separate foreign policy. Mr. Delahunt's lobbying for the dictator undermines any official U.S. pressure on Mr. Chávez to behave more humanely, which is precisely why Mr. Chávez is returning the favor by plying Mr. Delahunt with cheap oil.
For less pliable Americans, el jefe del Caracas has a different policy. On Monday, a U.S. Congressional delegation led by House International Relations Chairman Henry Hyde and ranking Democrat Tom Lantos was barred from entering the country and held aboard their aircraft for two hours. The delegation's itinerary had been known to Venezuelan officials for weeks. For a little more discount oil, perhaps Mr. Delahunt will explain to his colleagues how this was all just one big misunderstanding.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2005-Dec-6, p.A20:
The Dictator of Caracas
After last week's editorial about his oil-for-influence campaign aimed at the U.S. Congress, several readers objected to our description of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as a "dictator." Let's hope these forgiving souls paid attention to Sunday's congressional elections in that country.
Mr. Chávez's party or parties sympathetic to his Bolivarian revolution won all 167 seats in the country's unicameral congress. Every single seat. But that Saddam-like sweep was only possible because most Venezuelans decided not to participate. Even the government admits to an abstention rate of greater than 75%. While it's true the opposition boycotted, it did so knowing how the government had cheated to win the August 2004 recall referendum.
The Chávez transgressions in 2004 included the use of voting machines in which software was not reviewed, refusal to allow auditing of the voting registry, not guaranteeing the secrecy of the vote, and using the list of Venezuelans who had signed the recall petition to threaten the livelihoods of government employees and contractors. Overseeing it all was a government-appointed electoral council, which did what it could to outlaw competition. The European Union was so appalled that it refused even to monitor the 2004 vote.
The EU and Organization of American States did show up this weekend. But suspicions were heightened before Sunday's vote when a technician showed foreign monitors that the fingerprint tracking machines used at the polls could be used to identify how individuals voted. In a country where the government owns the means of production (mostly oil), Venezuelans fear that voting wrong could cost them their jobs.
The government agreed to pull the fingerprint scanners, but the damage was done. Venezuelans went on electoral strike. Mr. Chávez demanded that government workers go to the polls, but to little avail. Venezuelans seem to think they live in a dictatorship. The only issue is whether the rest of the world, especially the OAS, will have the nerve to admit it.
from Canada Free Press, 2005-Dec-3, by William John Hagan:
Unholy Trinity: CITGO, Kennedy, and International Terrorism
In Massachusetts, an organization known as the Citizens Energy Corporation (CEC) provides low cost heating oil for the state's disadvantaged each year. On the surface their mission seems laudable; however, the reality is far from valiant. This organization has been used for years by its Chairman, former Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II (son of the late US Senator and Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy,) as both a tool for the implementation of his personal political aims and for Kennedy's own personal financial enrichment. The CEC operates as a non-profit corporation but despite Kennedy's personal wealth, which is reported to be in the millions of dollars, he receives compensation from his charitable endeavor of $400,000 a year based on CEC financial reports from 2003 (the last year upon which such reports were available).
When an individual already worth millions of dollars uses a tax-free organization and self-styled non-profit charity for personal financial gain it is outrageous; however, when he uses that same charity to undermine the foreign policy of his nation his actions become diabolical. Joseph Kennedy has recently announced that he solidified a deal with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to purchase 12 million gallons of heating oil from CITGO, the United States subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA, for 60 to 80 cents less than the current market price.
The primary purpose of this deal is not to help the poor of Massachusetts but to create a much needed public relations coup for the tyrannical Chavez, thereby undermining public support for the Bush Administration's efforts to, peacefully, bring about much needed reforms in Venezuela. Furthermore, it is clear that the executives of CEC, with their six- figure compensation packages, will benefit directly from the ability to purchase oil at below-market rates, from a nation that has directly supported terrorism and is presently working to destabilize democracy in South America.
Hugo Chavez has supported communist terrorists in Colombia, opposed free-trade agreements with neighboring countries, and referred to Saddam Hussein as "my brother". After the United States was attacked on September 11th, Chavez demonstrated his sympathy by stating, "The United States brought the attacks upon itself, for their arrogant imperialist foreign policy." Chavez has also been accused by a high ranking military defector from Venezuela, of transferring one million dollars to Osama bin Laden. As a direct result of this financial aid to Al Qaeda, the citizen's action organization "Judicial Watch" has filed a $100 million dollar lawsuit against Hugo Chavez on behalf of the victims and survivors of September 11. The lawsuit alleges that Chavez provided material financial support and other assistance to the Al Qaeda terror network. In addition, Al Qaeda is reportedly to be presently operating a training camp on the Venezuelan island of Margarita.
Ironically, the vast financial power that Chavez welds [wields], and uses, to support international terrorism abroad and political oppression within comes directly from his business dealings with United States oil traders such as Joe Kennedy. While Kennedy may be a small player in enriching Chavez and his anti-United States agenda, the people of the United States have become unwitting supporters of Chavez at the gas pumps. As stated earlier, CITGO is owned by the government of Venezuela. Seventy percent of Venezuela's oil sales are attributable, directly, to their dealings with the United States. Therefore, Chavez's policies are supported by the U.S. consumer each time they purchase gasoline from a CITGO station.
While men like Joe Kennedy may have no moral qualms about manipulating U.S. taxpayers' money to subsidize tyrants like Hugo Chavez, or doing business with him, the good people of the United States ought to have plenty. Because CITGO has no monopoly on energy in the United States, there is no reason for any person to voluntarily purchase gasoline from a company that funnels its profits back to a nation that supports international terror. The people of this country, unlike Joe Kennedy, can do their part in the war against terror and the human rights abuses in Venezuela, by allowing their wallets to speak in their stead. The time has come for all good people, from all walks of life, to boycott the purchase of gasoline from CITGO, thus depriving Chavez of the U.S. dollars that he needs, and is using, to undermine our nation's very security.
William John Hagan is a columnist for the Canada Free Press. His work has appeared in the Providence Journal, the Houston Home Journal, Freedom Today Magazine (UK), and World Net Daily. He can be reached at: William_Hagan@excite.com.
from the Associated Press, 2005-Nov-1, by Natalie Obiko Pearson:
Chavez Warns of Moving Jets to Cuba, China
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez warned Tuesday he might share Venezuela's U.S.-made F-16 fighters with Cuba and China, accusing the United States of making it difficult for his country to obtain spare parts for the aircraft.
Chavez claimed the U.S. broke a contract to supply parts for Venezuela's fleet of 21 F-16s and pressured other countries not to help maintain them.
"We can do whatever we want with the planes. Maybe we'll send 10 to Cuba, or maybe to China so that they can see the technology. I say with whatever country that can use them," said Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Venezuela originally purchased its fleet of F-16s in 1983. Until Chile acquired a fleet in 2003, Venezuela was the only Latin American country to possess the warplanes made by Lockheed Martin.
U.S. officials did not address Chavez's comments specifically. The Pentagon said in a statement that it has not had any conversations with Venezuela regarding the sale of F-16s to any third country, and that regulations governing the transfer of U.S. military equipment are quite strict.
The Venezuelan president's comments -- made during a ceremony announcing Venezuela's plan to launch a telecommunications satellite with the help of China -- are the latest in a yearslong series of charges and counter charges that have strained relations with Washington. Chavez regularly claims the United States is trying to overthrow his government, an accusation the United States has dismissed.
In his comments, Chavez pledged to challenge U.S. "imperialism" at an upcoming Summit of the Americas, beginning Friday in Argentina and drawing leaders from 34 Western Hemisphere nations, including both Bush and Chavez.
Chavez said he would go the summit with the message that Washington's "capitalist, imperialist model" was responsible for exploiting developing economies and ruining the global environment.
He also criticized U.S.-backed free-trade policies that he said make poor nations poorer while keeping them trapped in cycle of crippling debt payments.
"They make us slaves," said Chavez, pledging to oppose the U.S. plan for a Free Trade Area of the Americas and saying it would be "buried" at the summit.
Chavez, who says he is leading a socialist "revolution," has used Venezuela's oil wealth to push for regional solidarity, offering fuel with preferential financing to various Caribbean and Latin American countries.
Venezuela has also bought $950 million this year in Argentine bonds in what Chavez has called a step toward creating a so-called Bank of the South to help provide financing to the region. Chavez said he would be pushing that banking initiative again at the two-day summit.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2005-Feb-11, p.A11, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Try Telling Latins 'Freedom Is on the March'
There's been quite a bit of grumbling among pro-Bush Latin Americans about the fact that the recent State of the Union address included no reference to their part of the world.
One reasonable reaction to the carping is: Get over it. The single biggest problem for the resource-rich region, from Peronist Argentina to gridlocked Mexico, is too much government. That's for locals to sort out through the democratic process.
But there is also justifiable concern. Latins know from experience that if Dubya is too busy with the rest of the world, U.S. policy-making for the region will fall to incompetent State Department underlings and career bureaucrats. That's exactly what happened in Mr. Bush's first term, with depressing results.
In this week's U.S. News and World Report, for instance, Mortimer Zuckerman -- not exactly a right-wing neocon -- outlines Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's consolidation of power and the stolen August recall referendum, which included government intimidation and likely ballot manipulation. Irregularities with that vote were well established at the time but the State Department eagerly blessed Chávez's claim that he won anyway.
The legitimacy granted Chávez by State has already caused enormous harm to Venezuelans. What Latin freedom-lovers intuitively know is that with Mr. Bush's attention the world gets efforts to promote freedom in Iraq and Ukraine, and without it, we have U.S. policy facilitating the collapse of democracy in Venezuela.
Ecuador could be next. Elected president Lucio Gutierrez has been aping Chávez. Last year he dissolved the supreme court, and violence against his opposition is on the rise. Yet the U.S. Embassy and its foreign assistance arm, the U.S. Agency for International Development (Usaid), seem to have spent more energy undermining the country's embattled democrats than they have recognizing Mr. Gutierrez's assaults on the constitution.
Prominent Ecuadoran attorney Edgar Terán knows this personally. As I reported in this space on June 11, 2004, Mr. Terán is the architect of the Rule of Law project, a reform effort designed to address the dysfunctional legal system built by three military dictatorships since 1963 and never corrected by subsequent civilian governments. The project has wide support from Ecuadoran academics, lawyers, the Chamber of Commerce and the president of the national congress; and it won a "soft earmark" for U.S. funding in FY2002 from Congress. By Feb. 2004 it had made serious headway toward its objectives.
But as I warned in June, the U.S. Embassy in Quito and officials at Usaid didn't appreciate the fact that elected politicians, not State Department bureaucrats, had approved funding Mr. Terán's project. So while Mr. Gutierrez was dangerously consolidating his power, the U.S. Embassy was beavering away at efforts to discredit the Rule of Law project so that it could redirect funding to a Usaid contractor of its choosing.
This may seem like it's too much in the weeds to command the attention of a U.S. administration busy battling Islamic extremists, but it is at the heart and soul of what ails U.S. foreign policy in the region. Usaid is supposed to be about development and our embassy is supposed to carry our flag, but Rule of Law's experience suggests a far different reality.
To understand why Mr. Terán's project is so important, have a look at Alvaro Vargas Llosa's new book "Liberty for Latin America," which surveys the Latin tradition of state oppression: from the time of the Mayans, and later the Aztecs, the Incas, the conquistadores, the republicans of independence, and right through the 20th century's economic nationalism. Each transition of power, each revolution, Mr. Vargas Llosa finds, was advertised as throwing off the yoke of a ruling class, and brought various new policies. "But one paramount shift did not take place: Latin America was not able to break the chains of underdevelopment."
This failure leads the Peruvian-born author to search for "a set of touchstone principles governing the relationship among Latin American individuals and between them and the institutions of power, that made sweeping transformations of the economy and of society insufficient to break the region loose from underdevelopment." What he finds in every case are "five principles of oppression," namely "corporatism, state mercantilism, privilege, wealth transfer and political law."
Mr. Vargas Llosa notes that despite this weighty history the region also has a "hidden capitalist or liberal [in the classical sense] tradition" which reminds us that "things could have been different, and could still be different." To turn the "tide," he argues, step one is "cleansing the law" by "subjecting the whole body of laws and norms to a painstaking scrutiny that judges each one by the same standard."
This could serve as a summation of the Rule of Law project, with its impressive backing from civil society. So why did Usaid work to withdraw U.S. funding for the project?
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the agency was motivated by its own interests. Mr. Terán, a self-described Reaganite, generated disfavor when Rule of Law won funding from Congress. Usaid's priority was to regain control. As I detailed in June, the embassy in Quito impugned Mr. Terán's integrity in e-mails to the U.S. business community and Usaid in Quito issued its own task order for a similar project from Management Systems International Inc., one of its "regular" contractors.
Then the agency hired an MSI subcontractor to evaluate Mr. Terán's project although the evaluators refused to sign a noncompete agreement. Not surprisingly, the evaluation that would have justified continued funding for Rule of Law came back with a thumbs down. Having displaced the Rule of Law project, MSI now continues unchallenged as Usaid's contracted consultant on legal reform.
In his rebuttal to the agency's rejection of his project, Mr. Terán intellectually demolishes both the MSI assessment and its understanding of the problem, which he says is "outmoded, shallow and reflects impossible ignorance." These are serious charges from a highly reputable U.S. friend. Mr. Bush owes the region his attention, not only in this particular matter but as regards the wider consequences of U.S. public diplomacy run amuck in Latin America.
Okay, maybe freedom is on the march in at least one Latin American country:
from Reuters, 2005-Apr-23, by Patrick Markey:
Ecuadoreans rebelled by radio, e-mail and text
QUITO, Ecuador - Fed up with politicians, Ecuadoreans turned to local radio, text messages and the Internet to whip up a street rebellion this week that helped push their president Lucio Gutierrez out of office.
Gutierrez, a former army officer elected in late 2002, was waiting in Quito's Brazilian embassy residence on Saturday for safe conduct to asylum in Brazil, three days after intense protests played their part in forcing him from office.
Buoyant protesters, including businessmen, housewives and students, described the demonstrations as a popular rebellion that grew through word of mouth, cellular telephone text messages and broadcasts on La Luna, a local radio station.
Many said the week-long rallies were a spontaneous reaction to frustration with what they saw as the government's abuse of power and disappointment with leaders of all political colours.
"We opened the microphones to the people so they could talk about what Ecuador was living at the moment," Radio La Luna manager Ataulfo Tobar told Reuters.
As protests grew, opposition lawmakers held a special session on Wednesday to dismiss Gutierrez. The president fled in a helicopter after military leaders also withdrew their support for him.
Police firing tear gas clashed with opposition protesters who accused Gutierrez of authoritarian rule. At least two people were killed.
Gutierrez told supporters by telephone from the embassy residence on Friday that he had been illegally ousted. The United States and regional leaders, concerned over Ecuador's democracy, are urging a constitutional solution to the crisis.
Lawmakers named vice president Alfredo Palacio to replace Gutierrez. But demonstrators say opposition parties were simply reacting to the victory of the mass movement.
"The opposition parties can't take credit for this even if they want to," said student Ramiro Serrano.
OUTLAWS ON THE AIRWAVES
Quito protesters took their name -- the Forajidos, or the outlaws in Spanish -- from criticism Gutierrez fired at them when demonstrators rallied outside his family home.
Car windshield stickers and T-shirts carrying the logo soon appeared on Quito's streets.
When momentum started to build last week, La Luna began broadcasts calling for peaceful pan-banging demonstrations, protests with balloons and even demonstrations by lobbing rolls of paper towels.
One distributed e-mail showed an animated image of pots banging on the screen.
La Luna, a small independent Quito FM radio station that has a history of questioning the government, was key in mobilizing the rallies.
"People came here to denounce things. When it started to get big the politicians turned up, but the people just shouted at them to get out," Tobar said.
As protests grew the Gutierrez government blocked La Luna's signal, Tobar said, a charge the former government dismissed. Demonstrators began sending text messages with details of rallies when La Luna went briefly off the air.
Outside the Brazilian embassy residence, protesters have rallied for three days to demand their new government stop Gutierrez leaving the country. Many want to see him jailed.
La Luna blasted this week from the radio of a car parked outside the residence, keeping protesters up to date on new developments.
Gutierrez, who was jailed before for leading a coup, came to office with the popular support of the poor and Indian groups after promising populist reforms. But many said they felt betrayed by his tough economic policies.
The former government blamed Radio La Luna for fomenting violent protests on the streets and threatened legal action. But the radio station insists on its independence though manager Tobar acknowledged its open opposition to Gutierrez.
from the New York Times, 2005-Mar-2, by Larry Rohter:
Leftist Chief Is Installed in Uruguay and Gets Busy on Agenda
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, March 1 - Culminating a long and divisive struggle, the left took power on Tuesday for the first time in the history of this small South American nation as Tabaré Vázquez, a 65-year-old physician, was sworn in as president.
Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the streets here to celebrate the sharp break with the past, many carrying Uruguayan flags or banners of the triumphant Progressive Encounter/Broad Front/New Majority Coalition. Until Dr. Vázquez, a Socialist, won a narrow victory in balloting last October, two traditional parties that had become increasingly difficult to distinguish from each other had alternated in power for more than 150 years.
"We promised change, and we will make changes, starting with the government itself, in its attitudes and its actions," Dr. Vázquez said in a 25-minute inaugural address. He said he would emphasize economic and social policies, "especially to the benefit of those who need them to achieve a life with dignity."
As his first official action, Dr. Vázquez announced a sweeping "Social Emergency Plan" that contains food, health, job and housing components. The program, whose cost is estimated at $100 million, is to be aimed at the hundreds of thousands of Uruguayans who have fallen below the poverty line as a result of economic crises of recent years.
Dr. Vázquez's inauguration came exactly 20 years after the restoration of democratic civilian rule in Uruguay. From 1972 through early 1985, this nation sandwiched between Brazil and Argentina was ruled by a right-wing military dictatorship that killed, jailed, tortured or forced into exile thousands of Uruguayans in order to fight off what it described as a Communist threat.
In an act that was laden with symbolism and offered an example of the "political maturity" that visiting heads of state praised, it was Senator José Mújica who presided over the swearing-in ceremony in his role as the titular head of Congress. A founder of the Tupamaro guerrilla movement that sought to lead a socialism revolution here, Mr. Mújica was jailed for virtually the entire period of the military dictatorship and was also tortured.
Offering an aside from the dais, overcome with emotion, Mr. Mújica, now committed to the parliamentary democracy he once dismissed as "bourgeois," offered his "thanks to life for having reached here." Other aging leaders of the Uruguayan left were seated in the benches reserved for members of Congress, with their eyes glistening or wiping tears from their faces.
Dr. Vázquez alluded in his inaugural speech to the widespread abuses of that era, saying there are still "dark zones in the area of human rights" that his government intends to investigate. "For the good of all, it is possible and necessary to clarify" such issues, he said, so that "the horrors of past eras never happen again."
The new president's second act in office was to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. Ties were broken in 2002 as a result of a dispute that began when Dr. Vázquez's predecessor, Jorge Batlle Ibáñez, suggested that human rights observers be sent to Cuba to document abuses there.
Fidel Castro had been expected to arrive here today to mark the resumption of relations with a series of rallies, speeches and other public appearances. But Dr. Vázquez said Monday that the Cuban president had decided not to come "for medical reasons," presumably related to injuries he suffered in a fall last year.
In his inaugural address, Dr. Vázquez vowed that Uruguay would adopt "an independent foreign policy," in contrast to the closer ties with the United States that Mr. Batlle had sought. He said his government condemned "all forms of terrorism," favored nonintervention and peaceful resolutions of conflicts, and would insist that international financial institutions recognize "the necessity and the right to development of Uruguayan society as a whole."
"We will tolerate no outside interference in our internal affairs," Dr. Vázquez said to thunderous applause.
from the Washington Post, 2005-Mar-21, p.A18, by a staff editorialist:
A Threat to Latin Democracy
ANOTHER LATIN American democracy is on the verge of crumbling under pressure from leftist populism. The trouble comes this time in Bolivia, where a democratic president and Congress face a paralyzing mix of strikes and road blockades by a radical movement opposed to foreign investment and free-market capitalism. The insurgents, who claim to represent the country's indigenous population, drove one democratically elected president from office 18 months ago; now they are working on his successor, Carlos Mesa, who has searched valiantly but unsuccessfully for compromise. The populists ride a leftist wave of momentum in Latin America and have the rhetorical, and possibly material, support of the region's self-styled "Bolivarian" revolutionary, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The democrats could use some outside help, from their neighbors and the United States.
Accounts of political crises in Andean countries such as Bolivia sometimes portray a poor and disenfranchised indigenous majority pitted against an ethnically European and mestizo elite. The facts tell a different story in Bolivia. Mr. Mesa, polls show, has the support of two-thirds of his compatriots, while the party leading the protests, the Movement Toward Socialism, has never received more than 21 percent of the vote in an election. Nor is it the case that Bolivia's experiment with free-market policies in the 1990s failed to help the poor. Per capita incomes rose by 20 percent in the second half of the decade. Thanks to private foreign investment, significantly more Bolivians gained access to water, sewage systems and electricity.
The populist minority, led by former coca farmer Evo Morales, is bent on using force to reverse that progress. Already it has effectively blocked natural gas exports to the United States. Its current strikes are aimed at stopping further foreign investment in that industry through confiscatory taxes and reversing the privatization of other industries. Mr. Mesa, swearing off the use of force to break up the road blockades, has countered with democratic political tactics: first a national referendum on a compromise gas policy, then an accord with Congress on political and economic reforms. Last week, in desperation, he proposed that his own term as president be cut short and new elections be held in August; Congress rejected the proposal, and Mr. Mesa later announced he would stay on. But the opposition still threatens to renew a blockade that is devastating one of the hemisphere's poorest economies and prompting talk of secession in Bolivia's relatively prosperous and pro-capitalist eastern provinces.
All of this is good news for Mr. Chavez, who along with Cuba's Fidel Castro dreams of a new bloc of Latin "socialist" (i.e., undemocratic) regimes that will join with like-minded states such as Iran, Libya and China to oppose the United States. Bolivia's neighbors, including Brazil, Argentina and Chile, ought to be alarmed by this trend; but though their own leftist governments have expressed support for Mr. Mesa they have refrained from more concerted action -- such as demanding that Mr. Chavez cease his meddling. The State Department issued a statement last week expressing "support for the people of Bolivia and a peaceful democratic process." If there is a deeper U.S. policy to head off the breakdown of democracy in Latin America, there isn't much sign of it.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2005-Jan-14, p.A8:
Our Men in Caracas
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been pressing his anti-American agenda more aggressively all the time, so we can only imagine what the strongman thought of the solicitous visit this week by three U.S. Senators.
Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, ranking member on the Western Hemisphere subcommittee, came calling with Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Bill Nelson of Florida. Mr. Dodd emerged from a two-hour meeting with Mr. Chavez to declare that "this is a very, very, very important bilateral relationship" and that "we're here to see if we can't move this in a better direction." He then urged soon-to-be Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to "try something new" to improve Washington-Caracas ties.
Good luck with that. Only last month Mr. Chavez gave his view of America in an interview with Al-Jazeera television on a swing through the Middle East, accusing the U.S. of "horrendous terrorism" in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said Venezuela is on a jihad against imperialism, which means that "confrontation with the United States becomes inevitable." And he made clear that he is "on the offensive, because attack is the best form of defense. We are waging an offensive battle. Yesterday, in Tehran, the spiritual guide Khamenei told me a true statement: Power, power."
Ayatollah Khamenei happens to be one of the Iranian mullahs attempting to build a nuclear weapon as a way to dominate the Persian Gulf. "Power" indeed. Mr. Chavez also declared that "We have to unite in South America, Africa and Europe. Please follow our recent tour -- Madrid, Tripoli, Moscow, Tehran, Doha and then Madrid; and later our trip to Ayacucho in Peru. . ." (Ayacucho is the birthplace of Peru's Maoist Shining Path.) Sounds like Mr. Dodd would have done better to tell Mr. Chavez that he's the one who should "try something new."
from the Wall Street Journal, 2004-Dec-31, p.A11, by Oswaldo Payá:
A Cuban Cry for Justice
HAVANA -- I once asked a visiting Chilean friend what he thought of Havana. "Well, it's an impressive city," he replied, "but it gives the impression of having been evacuated 40 years ago by people who when they return will find it frozen in time and in ruins." Havana has become a giant slum, but as we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the city's founding, I feel obliged to raise my voice in its defense. A Catholic mass was celebrated when the city was founded. That attests to the roots of Havana and of the Cuban nation, which in recent years have been culturally and spiritually ransacked. Cuba has undergone a forced de-Christianization, one that has annihilated its institutions and profaned its houses of worship, converting many of them into centers of persecution and apostasy. One must grasp the full dimensions of this pillage to understand how Cubans have been relegated to almost slave status in their own country while foreigners go about with great privilege. The government might as well post a sign: "Citizens of Havana, this is not your city. It is a playground for foreigners. You are merely background. If your skin is black or you are shabbily dressed, be advised that any policeman may ask for your papers. Your money is worthless. Press your face against the glass and watch the outsiders who, by despotic decree, are now your superiors." Prostitution is one manifestation of this tyranny. The problem is so rife in Havana today that many tourists (and some police officers) treat all Cuban women as if they were prostitutes. This is possible and tolerated only because all Cubans are denied the human rights associated with civility. Precisely because the neo-colonialists in Cuba today know that the government neither recognizes nor respects human rights, they feel as free to exploit young people as they do to exploit our labor and to assert a dominating superiority. It is painful to watch rich historic districts, such as Old Havana, disintegrate into slums. Never has there been so much petty crime, corruption and poverty or so many stark class differences. Never before have natives of Havana felt so discriminated against in the city of their birth or diminished in social stature simply because they are Cuban. The daily humiliations inflicted by the government's fascist or Stalinist agents (there is no difference) remind us that our senile, drooling dictator still has claws sharp enough to maintain his repression. A bitter joke circulates in Havana: A Cuban child is asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up, a doctor, pilot, lawyer, fireman?" The child responds, "I want to be a foreigner." Decades of humiliation and discrimination have disoriented Cubans, and collectively we have lost our self-esteem. Special privilege extended to foreigners has become our nation's crown-of-thorns. It is worth recalling that there was once another Havana, one that possessed 10 daily newspapers and many more radio stations. It was a place that had a huge, reliable system of public transportation. The poor had a few pesos in their pockets that could be used to buy something. Havana was never a place that scorned people from other provinces, although today the government prohibits Cubans from moving into the city. The government tells us that Havana is better today. Those of us who know otherwise should raise our voices against such denigration. We have a right to defend our parents. Even under the Batista dictatorship, Havana was a city in which women, old people, teachers and ordinary citizens were respected. It is time to remind people that Havana, including the parts now in ruins, was built before 1959. True, Havana had "wealthy" districts. But it also had large districts of middle-class Cubans. That was before socialism imposed its system of "equality" and turned the city's rich districts over to the housing of state officials and Communist Party elites, neighborhoods that ordinary people now dare not enter. What a spectacle it is to have the new rich preaching "socialism or death" to the new poor. Whatever its faults, colonial "Old Havana," was a city of enormous vitality. It was home to thousands of small businesses, tended by honest, hard-working families building up restaurants, stores, small factories, print shops, coffee shops, shoe-shine stands, and every other kind of enterprise. The fruit of generations was swept aside in a moment by a "revolutionary offensive" that, in the name of Soviet-style socialism, vanquished all vestiges of economic freedom. Shops were closed in buildings that were then destined to fall into ruin and, as if that were not enough, the former entrepreneurs were scorned and hated. Among the thousands of families destroyed were immigrants who had cast their lots with the Cuban people. Jews, Arabs, Chinese, and above all, Spaniards were treated with special contempt. For what purpose? So that a few self-appointed leaders could some day transform themselves into "managers" and "capitalist entrepreneurs," who are really front men for the government's joint-ventures with foreign investors. Just as the one-party state permits no competition in the political realm, we now have a new class of capitalists that permit no competition in the economic realm. Cubans are told, "Yes, capitalism for the state, but not for you. For you it's 'socialism or death.'" High on a hill overlooking the harbor is the Cabaña fortress, a building with walls pockmarked by bullets that have snuffed out the lives of many political prisoners, and a statue of a contemplative Christ. Many of us are afraid to look up at Him, to speak to Him, or to invite Him into our city. When we turn loose of such fears and invite Him to join us then, perhaps, Havana will be free and Cuba as well. Mr. Payá heads Cuba's Christian Liberation Movement, which sponsored the Varela Project and gathered 11,000 signatures on a petition calling for free elections and the protection of human rights. In 2002, the European Parliament awarded Mr. Payá the Sakarov Prize for Freedom of Thought. This article was adapted from a longer version that appeared in Spain's ABC newspaper.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2005-Jan-21, p.A9, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Should Chavez Be on the List Of Terrorism Sponsors?
In the war on terror no Latin American leader has been a better ally to George W. Bush than Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. It has not been without cost.
In circumstances similar to those former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar had to endure for his support of the Iraq invasion, the Colombian president has faced anti-Yanqui grandstanders who want to blame America first. Yet Mr. Uribe has remained true to the anti-terror cause and a good friend to the U.S. Now, Mr. Bush has a chance to return the favor.
In the last month, evidence has surfaced that Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez is harboring Colombian terrorists. Although the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá is supporting Mr. Uribe, Mr. Bush owes the Colombian leader an even stronger effort towards containing the Venezuelan tyrant.
Another good reason to take Chávez seriously is that there are alarming reports that suggest he may be bent on arming his revolutionary cadres all over South America. That could threaten regimes friendly toward the U.S. throughout the region.
Mr. Uribe's troubles with Chávez came to a head in December with the capture by bounty hunters, inside Venezuela, of a key leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), which has for years waged war on Colombians. Rodrigo Granda, known as the "foreign minister" of the FARC, was delivered to Colombian officials in the border state of Cúcata.
It turns out that Granda had been living in Venezuela since 2002, in a comfortable mountain residence just south of Caracas, coming and going as he pleased. Just before the August recall referendum that challenged the Chávez presidency, Granda was granted Venezuelan citizenship.
Chávez's denials that he knew about Granda are implausible, given the man's political importance and the Chávez network of domestic spies. Reliable sources say that Interpol advised Venezuela a year ago that Granda was a wanted man.
But why arrest a friend of the family? Venezuelan Foreign Minister Alí Rodríguez is on the editorial board of the hard-left Argentine-based magazine "America Libre;" so are the FARC's Comandante Manuel Marulanda, and the leader of Colombia's other main terror group known as the ELN. This is a strange association considering the fact that the FARC, heartily supported by Fidel Castro, has murdered, maimed and kidnapped thousands of Colombians and terrorized society over its 40-year history. The Financial Times reported yesterday that "according to Granda's diary, excerpts of which were seen by the FT, the top FARC representative kept the telephone numbers of several people in the Chávez government and other FARC members in Venezuela."
All of this raises the likelihood that Venezuela is a safe haven for FARC terrorists, just as Colombia has claimed over the past few years. Officials in Bogotá maintain that at least seven guerrilla bigwigs are enjoying Chávez's protections. The Colombian government also says that FARC members have attended conferences hosted by the Venezuelan government in Caracas and it further alleges that there are various FARC encampments on the Venezuelan side of the border.
Chávez is bent out of shape about the Granda capture. He, like Granda, protests that Venezuelan sovereignty was violated, even though it was not Colombian law enforcement agents that brought Granda in but Venezuelans who wanted the reward. Chávez can't very well object to the use of reward money, since he has offered just such compensation for the capture of his own enemies, inside or outside Venezuela.
Granda's complaints give a good picture of just how safe the Colombian terrorist thought he was in Venezuela. "There has to be a minimum of good manners toward another government, for sure," he told Colombian authorities. Otherwise, if captures like his are allowed, "we return to the law of jungle." Venezuela's vice president is telling the Colombian government that Bogotá must pinpoint the whereabouts of the guerrillas it alleges are inside Venezuela or stand accused of lying.
President Bush has made it clear that any government that gives safe haven to terrorists is a U.S. enemy. That would seem to require a more serious approach to whether Venezuela is supporting terrorism in Colombia.
Special attention might be profitably directed at FARC's role in South American arms smuggling and why that might tie in nicely with ambitions of Chávez and Castro to expand their influence throughout the region. Russian press reports say that Chávez has recently ordered 100,000 Kalashnikov automatic weapons from Moscow. His national guard and police are already well armed so it is reasonable to worry that these guns are meant for clandestine distribution on the continent. Former Colombian Interior and Justice Minister Fernando Londoño wrote in Bogotá's El Tiempo on Monday that, "Chávez and Castro know that there is no dictatorship without arms." That could be why the Granda seizure has caused such uproar in the Chávez government: The FARC's arms and narcotics trading network is key to spreading the Chávez revolution throughout South America.
The State Department has badly bungled its handling of Chávez. In August it endorsed his victory in a recall referendum even though voters faced government intimidation and no serious investigation was ever allowed of plausible charges that voting machines were rigged. State's ill-considered action, granting Chávez a legitimacy that he doesn't deserve, will be used in his defense for years to come. Only this week, Rhode Island Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee used it during Senate hearings on Condoleezza Rice's nomination to head up State. Complaining about Ms. Rice's criticisms of Chávez, he said "It seems disrespectful to the Venezuelan people. They have spoken." Mr. Chafee is not one of Washington's brighter bulbs, but the initial problem was State's blessing of Chávez's tainted "victory."
It can be hoped that Ms. Rice will give serious attention to the slippage in Latin America and set about to build a team that will address the problems of the region in a more knowledgeable and active way. The U.S. cannot ignore Venezuela's alliance with the worst criminal organizations on the continent or its support of aggression against a neighboring government. All those tender souls who worry that Chávez will "cut off the oil" need to be told that he would do himself far more harm than the U.S. if he ever attempted such a power play.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2004-Dec-3, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Night Falls on Caracas,
With No Carter in SightIt is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom that it must steal in upon them by degrees and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes in order to be received.
David Hume
Of the Liberty of the Press, 1742If the Ukrainian people manage to salvage their democracy they might think about erecting a monument to Jimmy Carter to thank him for not "observing" their elections. Just ask Venezuelans. After a fraudulent national vote last August blessed by Mr. Carter they are now experiencing the slow suffocation of liberty that Hume so eloquently described.
The parallels between the two recent, fraud-riddled elections are eerie, especially the heavy interference from Soviet-trained heads-of-state in both. But Ukrainians can still hope for a different outcome. Mr. Carter was not on hand to bless the theft there as he was in Caracas to endorse the success of Castro protégé Hugo Chávez in fighting off a recall through tampering with the vote and other chicanery. Without Mr. Carter whispering in his ear this time around, Secretary of State Colin Powell apparently felt free to say that the U.S. was "deeply disturbed by the extensive and credible reports of fraud."
Contrast this to what happened in Venezuela. As in Ukraine, there was flagrant intimidation and harassment of voters. The government had also packed the supposedly independent electoral council, which rejected transparent oversight of the voting-machine programming. After the polls closed it flatly refused all requests for an open, independent audit of the paper ballots, which would have determined the real winner.
Mr. Carter, having staked his "observer" reputation on this ridiculously lopsided game, sealed the fate of the Venezuelans when he rushed to anoint Chávez as the winner and advised Mr. Powell to do the same. This betrayal of a neighboring democracy may one day leave ugly scars on the Bush administration's legacy, on Mr. Powell's record and on the reputations of his inept underlings at the State Department.
The tragedy is already unfolding. As Hume predicted, Chávez did not immediately strip Venezuelans of their rights when he first took office in 1999. Instead, over the course of five years, he withdrew liberties bit by bit to produce the "legal" environment that duped Mr. Carter. Having defeated recall, he is packing the supreme court by adding 12 new justices to the existing 20, ending any hope of judicial independence. He also wants to bring all police power under the control of his interior ministry.
Those cops will be needed as Chávez casts his net ever-wider to ensnare his opponents. Using the murder of a prosecutor as a pretext, arrests and police shootings of Chávez adversaries are mounting, as are police raids. One notable but under-reported incident involved a police raid on a Jewish school for young children on Monday. The government claims it had reason to believe there were arms stored there, but a more reasonable reading of the event, consistent with Chávez's close relations with Middle Eastern militants, can't ignore the chilling anti-Semitic overtones.
State terror using arbitrary police power is not the only weapon Chávez is wielding. There also are new laws. A pending "reform" of the penal code will make a variety of public protest criminal. It would outlaw cacerolazos or the practice of banging pots and pans in protest made famous by Chilean housewives when Chilean president Salvador Allende was running the economy into the ground. Those Chilean women mobilized a nation with their cacerolazos. Chávez is well aware of that history, which explains why making noise with kitchen utensils will now be a crime of "intimidation" that can earn from three to eight years in prison.
None of this will work though if television and print media are not brought to heel. The effort has been underway for some years, using both the force of the police and hateful rhetoric from the bully pulpit. But clearly more is required. As Hume also pointed out, while enslaving must be done insidiously, the media must be silenced in one fell swoop.
"But if the liberty of the press ever be lost, it must be lost at once . . . either the clapping an imprimatur upon the press or the giving very large discretionary powers to the court to punish whatever displeases them. But these concessions would be such a barefaced violation of liberty that they will probably be the last efforts of a despotic government. We may conclude that the liberty of Britain is gone forever when these attempts shall succeed."
The relevance to Venezuela today is startling. A pending "content law" would give the government the discretionary censorship powers without legal recourse that Hume dreaded. The Inter-American Press Association has objected on the grounds that it would damage not only press freedom but also the public's access to information. To which the government might properly respond: precisely.
Some impressive world figures have noted the swelling repression and have written a letter to Chávez objecting. Signatories include former Czech President Vaclav Havel, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, U.S. Sen. John McCain, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, Chairman Peter Eigen of Transparency International, Thomas R. Donahue, president emeritus of the AFL-CIO, and Richard Goldstone, former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
The letter points out that the state's prosecution of nongovernmental organizations "for receiving democratic assistance is a violation of both the Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies, a document your government signed along with over 100 others four years ago."
As if any of this will matter to Chávez, as he revels in his authority and power to quash dissent. He is just back from a visit to the mullahs in Tehran, the folks who plan to bring us an Islamic A-bomb. He also dropped in on the Kremlin, which will reportedly sell Venezuela lots of new automatic weaponry including attack-capable MiG 29 jets. Maybe it won't be long now before Mr. Carter returns to Caracas -- the new Havana -- to meet with imprisoned dissidents, photo-op with the smiling strongman and speak softly of peace for all. Watching it all from Kiev, Ukrainians ought to get busy on that monument.
from the Washington Post, 2004-Nov-20, p.A18:
Watch Venezuela
THIS WEEKEND President Bush visits Chile and Colombia, two nations that he will rightly celebrate for their capable democratic governments. But it is foolish to pretend, as does some of the administration's rhetoric, that democracy is thriving across Latin America. In fact, while the Bush administration has been ignoring the region over the past four years, political conditions have seriously deteriorated in several key countries -- and the prospect is of still worse developments, especially if U.S. neglect continues.
The likely focal point of trouble is Venezuela, a country of 25 million that supplies the United States with 13 percent of its oil. In August, after months of heavy-handed governmental actions to influence the outcome, President Hugo Chavez survived a recall referendum; since then his supporters have gained control of 21 of 23 states, as well as the capital, in local elections. Those triumphs have prompted the erratic former military rebel to accelerate what he calls his "Bolivarian revolution" -- a push toward authoritarian rule at home and a deepening alliance abroad with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and other antidemocratic movements.
In the past Mr. Chavez has been assailed by independent media who sympathize with his opposition; he has responded with a new media law that will allow his government to suspend the licenses of radio and television stations for content deemed "contrary to the security of the nation." A new penal code will outlaw most forms of public protest and designate some as terrorism. An expansion of the Supreme Court will allow the president to stack the only judicial body that has retained some independence. A campaign has been launched against civil society groups, beginning with the election monitoring group Sumate, whose organizers are threatened with charges of treason. Mr. Chavez is using Venezuela's oil revenue to fund antidemocratic or populist movements in nations such as Bolivia and to subsidize Mr. Castro's bankrupt regime.
Late Thursday, state prosecutor Danilo Anderson was killed, apparently with a car bomb. He had been preparing to bring charges against some 400 people who signed a statement of support for an interim president after Mr. Chavez was briefly ousted in a 2002 coup. The apparent assassination was a shocking and despicable act, from which the opposition -- made up largely of mainstream politicians, and business and church leaders -- should quickly disassociate itself. But it should not provide a pretext for Mr. Chavez to continue seeking the imprisonment of nonviolent political opponents.
It is difficult for the United States to respond to Mr. Chavez, in part because he has adopted Mr. Castro's practice of portraying the United States as an enemy bent on imperial intervention in Venezuela. Mr. Bush's choice for secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, was quoted recently as describing Mr. Chavez as "a real problem" and saying that "the key there is to mobilize the region to both watch him and be vigilant about him and to pressure him when he makes moves in one direction or another. We can't do it alone." That sounds like a wise policy; once she takes office, Ms. Rice should end the administration's passivity toward this important region and pursue it.
from NewsMax.com, 2004-Mar-16, by Constantine C. Menges:
Latin America in Crisis: Castro's Power Grows
Part one of NewsMax’s special series on Latin America is written by Dr. Constantine C. Menges, an acclaimed expert on Latin America at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
Dr. Menges served as as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and at the CIA as a National Intelligence Officer. He is a scholar, author, and for years has been a university professor. His responsibilities in the government included the design of several major successful foreign policy strategies. For example, he devised strategies to counter Soviet political warfare and indirect aggression and to encourage transitions to democracy abroad.
His warning about the growing threat of a new pro-Castro axis through the region follows:
There is growing but unnoticed threat to U.S. national security. A new terrorist, nuclear/bioweapons and geopolitical threat may well come from an axis including the regimes of Castro in Cuba, Chavez in Venezuela and the pro-Castro presidents of Brazil and Ecuador.
Together, these four countries have a population of 223 million.
Castro, Chavez, and Brazil’s President Lula da Silva all have years of links with Iran and China. Visiting Iran in May 2001, Castro said, "The peoples and governments of Cuba and Iran can bring America to its knees."
Chavez also visited Iran in 2001 where he declared a "strategic alliance" with that sponsor of terrorism.
Since 1990, Lula da Silva has chaired the Forum of Sao Paulo, a Castro-initiated international group that has convened all the communist and terrorist organizations of Latin America, many terrorists from the Middle East and Europe, as well as representatives of Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Vietnam and China.
The new pro-Castro axis could expand to include more than nine countries with 340 million people. There is also the possibility that thousands of Islamic and newly indoctrinated regional terrorists could try to attack the United States from Latin America.
Combining the strategic experience of communist Cuba, its Soviet-provided bioweapons technology with the oil derived financial resources of Venezuela and the long-established nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs of Brazil could mean that the pro-Castro axis might be able to threaten its neighbors and the U.S. with weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.
Also, communist China has established close political and military relations with Cuba (1999) and Venezuela (2000). It is flying two reconnaissance satellites with Brazil, and President Lula da Silva has announced his plans to greatly expand Brazil’s relations with China. Therefore, it is likely that the pro-Castro axis could soon be geopolitically aligned with and militarily helped by communist China.
The Castro regime in Cuba has been using political means as well as covert action, terrorism and insurgency to bring anti-U.S., radical regimes to power in the Western Hemisphere and other regions since 1959.
In 2002, a high-level defector from Cuban intelligence wrote that "Cuba’s espionage apparatus (the DGI), one of the largest and most efficient on the planet, with more than 10,000 spies, has been active on a global scale. The DGI rapidly [learned] … undercover operations …, cryptography, falsification of documents, training of operatives, theft of secret information, [establishing] illegal centers, the penetration of governments and armed forces, disinformation, assassination of political figures …"
Cuba's Ties to Middle East
Furthermore, Cuba trained more than 30,000 terrorists from various continents of which 10,000 were from Latin America, with the rest being operatives from the Middle East and Europe. Castro’s terrorist/insurgent methods mostly failed in Latin America, except in Colombia, where the threat from the communist insurgency continues and has increased. However, the 10,000 DGI personnel and many of the 30,000 Cuban-trained terrorists provide the cadre for Castro’s new strategy.
Castro’s intentions have not changed since 1959, nor since the end of the Cold War. In 1990, Castro initiated the Forum of Sao Paulo with Lula da Silva as its chairman.
This organization is a successor to Castro’s Tricontinental Congress which, beginning in 1966, increased collusion among terrorist organizations from Latin America, the Middle East and Europe. The Forum of Sao Paulo also convenes all the communist parties and terrorist organizations of Latin America, along with terrorist organizations from the Middle East and Europe, as well as representatives from Iraq, Libya, North Korea, China, Laos and Vietnam.
During the 1990s, Castro decided on a new strategy: helping radical political leaders friendly to him take control of their countries by winning national elections in which they present themselves as "populists," opposed to corruption, while concealing their ultimate purposes. This new Castro method has four components:
'Neoliberalism' – That Has a Familiar Ring ...
Providing propaganda and political support openly and covertly to radical, pro-Castro leaders, not officially members of any communist party, who would run for the presidency of their countries. They would avoid Marxist-Leninist rhetoric and instead favor "populism" and oppose "neoliberalism," expressing Castro's ideological agenda in more neutral terms.
These pro-Castro democratically elected presidents would then use the Chinese communist approach of pursuing a two-level international strategy.
One level would be to permit foreign and especially U.S. corporations to continue functioning and to earn profits. They would continue international trade relations and encourage foreign investment, all of which would both provide useful income for the regime and assure a friendly voice about it from the foreign business and international financial community.
At the second level, while professing to seek "good relations with all countries," these radical pro-Castro presidents would selectively work with radical or communist political and armed groups in Latin America such as FARC, ELN and others in the Forum of Sao Paolo, with state sponsors of terror such as Cuba and Iran, as well as with communist regimes such as China and North Korea.
Step by step, these "populist" pro-Castro presidents would use electoral and pseudo-constitutional means to consolidate their rule and make it irreversible.
The New Pro-Castro International Network
A key nexus in the new Castro strategy is the Forum of Sao Paulo. At Castro’s suggestion, this group was founded in 1990 with Brazil’s Lula da Silva as its public leader. Since then, it has brought together virtually all the communist, radical and terrorist organizations of Latin America, the majority of which were allies of Castro since the 1960s.
The main theme of the first (1990) and fourth (1993) annual meetings of the Forum of Sao Paulo was that "our losses in Eastern Europe will be offset by our victories in Latin America." This was an explicit indication of its solidarity with communist regimes and of Castro’s future intentions, which in fact are being realized.
Participants at the 2001 Forum meeting in Cuba and the December 2002 meeting in Guatemala included communist and radical parties from nearly every state in Latin America - including the Worker’s Party of Brazil and Chavez’s MVR of Venezuela; Latin American terrorist groups such as FARC, ELN, MIR, M19 and Tupac Amaru, and global terrorist groups such as IRA, ETA, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
In December 2002, as in most past years, there were representatives from supportive regimes such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Libya (both of which have had connections to Cuba and its allies during and after the Cold War) and the communist regimes of North Korea, Laos, Vietnam and China.
The December 2002 meeting of the Forum, as usual, issued a number of statements hostile to the United States, examples of which include:
"NATO troops perpetrated genocide in Kosovo, U.S. and British forces massacred the population of Afghanistan… [prisoners held by the U.S. in Guantanamo, Cuba] are submitted to punishment and tortures … with full U.S. support, the government of Israel continues to carry out a systematic policy of murdering Palestinians."
The recent Forum meeting declared further that the Bush administration’s military actions abroad were an attempt to "apply a strategy of unilateral political domination that unfolds in worldwide warmongering" in order to avert the public attention away from the domestic and societal contradictions "neoliberalism" creates in the U.S.
from NewsMax.com, 2004-Mar-17, by Phil Brennan:
Latin America in Crisis: Brazil Shifts Left, Considers Nuclear Option
The war on terror has preoccupied Washington policy-makers with the Middle East, even as America's own backyard festers in political crisis.
Since the days of FDR the U.S. has pursued America’s "Good Neighbor policy," aimed at fostering close ties and friendship with the nations south of the Rio Grande.
But today that policy is in shambles as one major Latin country after another has fallen to anti-American leaders who admire Fidel Castro. Behind the growing anti-U.S. atmosphere is a carefully planned and executed drive to turn South America into a Marxist stronghold challenging the U.S. and eliminating every shred of its influence there.
In this special report, NewsMax.com explores the Latino attitude towards the United States and how it is affecting U.S. policy on South and Central America.
Venezuela's Castro Wannabe
Nothing is more indicative of the growing surge to the extreme left south of the border than what happened at the end of the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey on Jan. 14, when Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez jetted off to Havana for one of his frequent chats with Fidel Castro. Communist-led Cuba was the only country in the Western Hemisphere not invited to the 34-nation meeting.
The summit of freely elected heads of state wrapped up its gathering the night before. Chavez was the only leader to sign the final declaration with reservations because of his opposition to free trade. He refused to attend the official dinner and called the gathering of regional leaders a "waste of time."
He said he missed one luncheon because he was on the phone with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi planning a summit between Latin American and African nations.
Tensions have increased between the U.S. and Venezuela since Chavez called national security adviser Condoleezza Rice a "true illiterate" for noting he has not played a constructive role in Latin America.
Rice had said Chavez should show "that he believes in democratic processes" by allowing a recall referendum on his rule. He responded by saying that U.S. officials shouldn't "stick their noses" in Venezuelan affairs.
Argentina and Brazil
Relationships between the U.S. and Argentina have also soured.
Washington has yet to get a handle on Argentina's president, Nestor Kirchner. While the United States has praised his leadership it has also criticized him for not taking "difficult decisions" to deal with Argentina's staggering $81 billion debt. Moreover, Washington officials warn that Kirchner is a little too buddy-wuddy with Castro.
And while the White House feels all warm and cuddly about Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's economic policies, he is busy plunging his nation into communism and allying himself with Castro and Castro's puppet in Venezuela, Chavez.
Moreover, there is friction between the U.S. and Brazil over new U.S. security measures that include photographing and fingerprinting foreign visitors. Brazil has retaliated by imposing similar measures for U.S. travelers entering crime-ridden Brazil.
Angry About Iraq
Disagreement over the war in Iraq has added to the rift. Most Latin American nations refused to support the U.S.-led war, and Honduras has just decided to follow socialist Spain's cue and leave Iraq.
In the United Nations Security Council, Chile and Mexico opposed a resolution authorizing force in Iraq. Only seven out of the 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations supported U.S. military action in Iraq.
Throughout Latin America, there was strong and widespread resistance to an American strategy that Latinos viewed as unilateral and pre-emptive. That ill will has continued among nations whose support for U.S. actions have long been taken for granted.
Gabriel Marcella, a Latin America expert at the United States Army War College, told the New York Times that Latin Americans "were asked by the United States to support a preventive war."
"They did not," he said. "The ugly head of unilateralism seemed to reappear."
Peter Hakim, the president of Inter-American Dialogue, a forum for leaders in the hemisphere, told the Times: "I don't think you can overestimate the damage to the U.S.-Mexican relations. No relationship was more damaged, with the possible exception of France."
Colombia ran into trouble with the administration on the International Criminal Court. When Bogota balked at signing an exemption from prosecution for American personnel, the administration withheld some aid and threatened to cut off $160 million more. Colombia, which gets more American aid than any other country except Israel and Egypt, eventually acceded.
Communist China, fast becoming a favorite trading partner, draws in airplanes from Brazil, soybeans from Argentina, thus boosting economies and leading to new political alliances. Brazil's exports to China surged 81 percent in the first 11 months of last year to $4.23 billion, Dr. Constantine C. Menges reports.
Brazil's Lula last year persuaded China to join a bloc of developing nations that forced the collapse of the World Trade Organization's talks by demanding that the United States and Europe abandon their farm subsidies.
"China is importing from others and selling to us," said David Malpass, chief global economist for Bear, Stearns in New York. "As in any commercial relationship, they are treated well as a customer. This raises China's importance relative to that of the U.S."
But these are merely symptoms of the turmoil in U.S. relations with its southern neighbors. The danger lies in the steady advance of a Latino version of the Soviet Union.
Already three major South American countries are infected with the Marxist virus: Venezuela, a major source of oil for the U.S.; Brazil; and Cuba, where Fidel Castro is acting as the midwife for communism’s rebirth.
Danger in Brazil
Brazil is the locus of the newest Marxist threat to the region. As NewsMax.com has reported, since "Lula" da Silva took office in January, 2003, Brazil has become a new staging area for communism in our hemisphere. It has toyed with becoming a nuclear threat.
Working behind the scenes is Lula's foreign policy adviser, Marco Aurelio Garcia, a notorious hard-line Marxist operative and founder and executive secretary of Sao Paolo Forum, a coalition of leftist parties and revolutionary movements dedicated, he admits, to "offsetting our losses in Eastern Europe with our victories in Latin America."
In an article he wrote about Marx's "The Communist Manifesto," he concluded: "The agenda is clear. If this new horizon which we search for is still called communism, it is time to re-constitute it."
In other words, rebuild shattered world communism in Latin America.
An investigation by NewsMax.com revealed that Garcia, as head of Sao Paolo Forum, controls and coordinates the activities of subversives and extremists from the Rio Grande to the southernmost tip of Argentina.
In a policy dictated by Havana, Garcia has shown special interest in the terrorist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Every year since 1990, Garcia has made it his priority to meet with murderous FARC. The meetings have not just taken place in Havana (with Castro himself always present), but also in Mexico, where Garcia traveled to meet with FARC member Marco Leo Calara on Dec. 5, 2000.
Brazilian-American Gerald Brant, a former candidate for federal deputy (Congress), wrote that in his native land, "a country of significant social inequalities, Marxism in Brazil has always been a force, but it has never been as close to realizing true power in this country as it is now. By abandoning the traditional Marxist strategy of launching an armed insurgency and revolution, Brazil's Workers' Party, known as the 'PT,' has been able to effectively elaborate a 'Gramscian' [inspired by renowned Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci, widely read in PT circles] strategy of penetrating the key institutions of civil society and democracy first, and then using the legitimate authority conferred by elections to abridge constitutional restraints to establish a Marxist state."
Look Who's Being Unilateralist
The Times reported that Brazil would resist a plan by the International Atomic Energy Agency that would allow for spot inspection of nuclear sites.
In addition, "Brazil has announced that by mid-2004 it expects to join the select group of nations producing enriched uranium and that within a decade it intends to begin exporting enriched uranium. But it is balking at giving international inspectors unimpeded access to the plant that will produce the nuclear fuel.
"Government officials say efforts to enrich uranium are entirely peaceful in purpose … as a peaceful nation, Brazil, which has the world's sixth-largest known deposits of uranium, should not be subject to the same regimen of unannounced spot inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran and Libya have recently accepted."
Brazil has refused to allow inspections that would reveal the capacity, characteristics and scope of the equipment developed by its navy to enrich uranium. These inspections, if allowed, would assist in determining whether Brazil is indeed seeking the enrichment of uranium for peaceful purposes or is pursuing a weapons program that many officials within the Brazilian government have occasionally alluded to in the past.
These are indicators of movements toward development of nuclear weapons.
Luiz Vieira, president of Nuclear Industries of Brazil, admits that the technology developed by the navy's Sao Paolo Technology Center could be used to build an atomic bomb.
from NewsMax.com, 2004-Mar-18, by Phil Brennan:
Latin America in Crisis: Venezuela Falls Into Castro's Orbit
Under President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela is on the verge of becoming a satellite of dictator Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba.
Chavez is blocking a popular movement to remove him through a referendum, and his actions have caused violence in the streets. The nation could be on the way to a bloody revolution. In part three of this series, NewsMax.com examines Chavez and the threat this Castro stooge represents to the peace and stability of Latin America. Venezuela is in chaos, with rioting in the streets as Chavez defies citizens’ demands that a referendum leading to his ouster be held.
His ambassador to the United Nations has resigned to protest Chavez’s abuses of human rights and threats to freedom, even as the U.N., following its usual practice of ignoring atrocities of the left, continues to ignore the regime’s tyranny.
In his resignation Milos Alcalay, a career diplomat who has represented Venezuela for 30 years, stated: “Sadly, Venezuela now is operating devoid of these fundamental principles, which I still remain intensely committed to. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart today that I am resigning from my position. “We’ve seen army and police repression, unacceptable loss of life, disappearance of political leaders and there have been allegations of torture,” Alcalay noted. “A peaceful demonstration of citizens is no longer feasible in Venezuela and brutal repression must stop.
“I cannot remain indifferent before the sad events in my country, the loss of many lives and the outcry of the Venezuelan people whose political and civil rights are under threat,” he said.
Chavez has made no effort to disguise his affinity for Castro’s communist revolution. He once said, “I am the second Fidel.”
He has imported thousands of Cuban doctors, education administrators and athletic trainers to revamp the Venezuela’s government services. Venezuela’s federations of doctors and athletic trainers protested that Cubans were being given jobs despite Venezuela’s high unemployment.
A Sea Patrolled by Two Sharks
In an article March 26, 2002, headlined “Castro Wannabe Chavez Wrecks Venezuela,” NewsMax.com reported that Chavez described his closeness to Castro’s dictatorship by saying that Cuba and Venezuela were “swimming together toward the same sea of happiness.”
Would that be the same sea in which Cuban escapees risk their lives to swim for freedom in Florida?
Venezuelan Assemblywoman Liliana Hernandez has accused the president of importing Cuban secret police to run DISIP, Venezuela’s political police. As NewsMax.com reported when Chavez was still a candidate, thousands of Cubans were sent to Venezuela to help rig the election in his favor.
Castro and Chavez held a meeting in Venezuela that the latter described as an encounter between “two men in complete harmony and agreement on how to run their nations, as well as on the state of the world.”
Chavez noted that this was the fifth time he had hosted Castro in Venezuela since taking office in February 1999. “Fidel told me once again that the global situation is untenable as it stands today. He is convinced, as am I, that either the system changes or the world will end,” said Chavez. “…Fidel told me that what we are achieving has no precedent in the world.”
The presidents discussed an initiative to bring more than 10,000 Cuban doctors to poor Venezuelan communities and a literacy campaign inspired by Cuban methods, which critics say are part of a plan to move Venezuela toward a Castro-inspired dictatorship.
Castro issued a warning to the United States during a televised eight-hour speech to legislators in reference to statements made recently by White House special envoy Otto Reich that Cuban agents were operating in Venezuela under the guise of volunteer workers. The dictator said that according to Reich, “many people from Venezuela have received reports that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of military-like personnel from Cuba in Venezuela. But in reality the Cuban workers in Venezuela were 10,169 young volunteer doctors.”
Castro warned the United States. “I hope they don’t err with the Venezuelans. Right now, any foreign intervention in Venezuela … would ignite a powder keg in all of South America, right down to Patagonia. You can’t govern this hemisphere of hundreds of millions of people with a rifle and bayonet on every block, in every factory, in every school and on each street.”
In a reference to the U.S. intervention in Iraq, Castro said it was necessary “to remind them that the experiences they are living now would be multiplied by 100” in South America.
‘The Second Fidel’ Indeed
Having wrecked the oil-rich nation’s economy, Chavez is under siege with demands he resign, but he refuses to accept demands for his ouster.
Opposition leaders say that more than 3.6 million people signed a petition demanding a recall referendum, far more than the 2.4 million needed to trigger a vote, which could take place next year. The next scheduled elections are in 2006. National Elections Council, however, turned thumbs down on referendum claiming that only 1,830,000 of the signatures were valid but that more than a million others might be valid, if personally validated by the signatories, an obvious impossibility.
The decision has led to serious unrest. Protests last week left at least six dead and dozens wounded. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has said it is concerned about the serious acts of violence and criticized “the use of undue force on the part of the National Guard, Venezuela’s intelligence services and police.”
The regime is “disrespecting millions of Venezuelans,” Enrique Mendoza, the opposition governor of central Miranda state, told AP. “Don’t do any more tricks to avoid a process that the majority of Venezuelans want,” he told the regime.
Venezuela’s new defense minister vowed to crush any attempts to rebel against Chavez, as residents in Caracas banged pots to demand a referendum on his rule.
“I won’t allow coup plotters and terrorists to threaten the country’s democratic and constitutional life,” Gen. Jorge Garcia Carneiro said after Chavez swore him in as defense minister. “They would face a severe and effective response from the national armed forces.”
The nation’s Supreme Court ruled this week that the regime must accept the signatures, but the regime is resisting the rule of law. Venezuelan and foreign intellectuals have denounced Chavez as the greatest political threat generating turmoil in Latin America and exhorted the world to watch over freedom in Venezuela. International Foundation for Freedom warned, “The international community must express itself clearly in favor of the implementation on the agreed date of the recall referendum and declare its opposition to the stratagems devised to prevent it.” A report from the army’s Special Patrol and Reconnaissance Unit revealed that, during July 2003, orders were issued from superiors to abort an operation in the state of Zulia intended to evict Colombian FARC terrorists from Venezuela. He emphasized that, since 2000, no operations had been conducted in that border zone. In other words, three years have elapsed without any large-scale actions to expel FARC’s forces.
Moreover, Washington has received thousands of reports over the past four years that leftist Colombian terrorists have established camps, obtained weapons and false identity documents within Venezuela. Additionally it is widely reported and believed that hundred Cuban security advisers are active in the Venezuelan armed forces’ Directorate of Military Intelligence and the country’s secret political police, DISIP.
Despite media reports this year that Venezuelan identification documents might have been issued to Arab radicals, Chavez appointed as the No. 2 official in the nation’s passport office a Venezuelan of Syrian ancestry, whose father and uncle served as officers in the Venezuelan branch of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, and in the former Baghdad branch.
Cuba’s dictatorship-backed Granma newspaper recently ran a story that showed how close Chavez’s Venezuela has come to becoming a Cuban satellite.
“In the case of the documents that unite Caracas and Havana, there is a wide range of cooperation including public health and sports, covering 3,000 Cuban trainers,” Granma revealed. “The Links have promoted bilateral exchanges, through which governors, politicians, youth delegates and trade unionists, among others, have visited our country, and ours have visited theirs.”
In addition, swarms of Cuban medical personnel have arrived in Venezuela and all but taken over the nation’s medical care services.
Granma, ranting against the anti-communist movement in Venezuela, attacked those who chanted “Death to Communism” and claimed that this “was the worn-out, hysterical cry, despite the fact that thousands of Venezuelans are benefiting from the care provided by Cuban medical personnel in Venezuela.”
“Cuba and Venezuela are united by strong ties and joined by history,” the story concluded. “Those who wish to break those ties have already wracked their brains trying to destroy the Cuban Revolution. Those who choose the path of counterrevolution opt for hate; in contrast, Cubans and Venezuelans have the antidote of solidarity ….”
from NewsMax.com, 2004-Mar-19, by Phil Brennan:
Latin America in Crisis: The Final Dominoes Fall
In this final part of the series we examine the unfolding of the new pro-Castro alliance that stretches from his island gulag to Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Colombia: For some years Colombia has been the target of Marxist narcoterrorists who finance their drive to take over the government and install a communist regime by operating a huge and multibillion-dollar drug operation. The guerrillas, known as FARC, have murdered thousands of Colombians, kidnapped or killed Americans and earned for themselves the reputation as one of the most brutal terrorist groups in the world.
FARC closely cooperates with other communist movements in South America and with Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba.
The FARC and ELN communist narco-guerrillas, supported by Castro since 1962, now control more than half of Colombia and seek to replace the republican government.
According to "Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2002," issued by the U.S. Department of State in April 2003, FARC was established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party. It is Colombia’s oldest, largest, most capable, and best-equipped Marxist insurgency.
FARC, governed by a secretariat, is organized along military lines and includes several urban fronts. In February 2002, the group’s slow-moving peace negotiations with the Pastrana administration was terminated by Bogota afer the group’s plane hijacking and kidnapping of a Colombian senator from the aircraft.
Communists Killing the Poor
On Aug. 7, FARC launched a large-scale mortar attack on the Presidential Palace, where President Alvaro Uribe was being inaugurated. High-level foreign delegations, including from the United States, attending the inauguration were not injured, but 21 residents of a poor neighborhood nearby were killed by stray rounds in the attack.
FARC engages in bombings, murder, mortar attacks, kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, as well as guerrilla and conventional military action against Colombian political, military and economic targets. In March 1999, FARC executed three U.S. Indian rights activists on Venezuelan territory after it kidnapped them in Colombia. Foreign citizens often are targets of FARC kidnappings for ransom. It has well-documented ties to full range of narcotics trafficking, including taxation, cultivation and distribution.
FARC is composed of 9,000 to 12,000 armed combatants and several thousand more supporters, mostly in rural areas. In addition to Colombia, is engages in extortion, kidnapping, logistics, and provides rest and relaxation for its guerillas in Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador. Cuba provides some medical care and political consultation.
Argentina: Washington officials say President Nestor Kirchner’s left-leaning government is too soft on Cuba and note that last year Kirchner restored full diplomatic ties with Castro’s communist regime. Roger Noriega, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, recently expressed his "disappointment" that during Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa's recent trip to Cuba he failed to meet dissidents.
In response, Vice Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana told a radio station:
"We consider the declarations aggressive ... and inopportune, and the foreign minister has expressed this in the name of the Argentina government."
Tensions are growing between the United States and Argentina, as Kirchner has continued to establish closer ties with Washington's main political enemies in Latin America, from Castro to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Last year, for example, Kirchner appeared in a regional summit photo opportunity with Chavez and Evo Morales, a leader of coca growers in Bolivia who angers Washington by opposing the U.S.-led war on cocaine trafficking from Latin America which has been fueling communist insurgencies in Colombia and elsewhere in the hemisphere.
The Worst Kind of Big Labor
Bolivia: Under siege from the far left, led by Evo Morales, who heads Movement Towards Socialism, Bolivia has faced violent demonstrations that have brought the nation to a standstill and led to the resignation of its former president. Morales is a controversial figure whose base of power is in the coca-growing areas of central Bolivia where his connections to the growers caused ousted President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to call him a "narco-trade unionist" and, in the past, open condemnation from the United States.
His influence in Bolivia was obvious when he came in second in the presidential election campaign two years ago, and widespread support he won during Bolivia’s "gas riots" shows the radical socialist congressman is a key figure in Bolivian politics.
In the presidential election, his campaign received a healthy boost when the U.S. ambassador in Bolivia, Manuel Rocha, warned that Washington could cut off aid if Bolivians chose candidates like Morales. The comments reinforced Morales' position as a radical anti-U.S. candidate.
Venezuela's military attache to Bolivia was expelled a few months ago for giving money to Morales, and it is reported that Morales received money from Venezuelan officials in a visit to Caracas.
Ecuador: Another pro-Castro radical, Col. Lucio Gutierrez, known for his Chavez-supported coup against the government in January 2000, was imprisoned, given amnesty and then elected president in November 2002. Reliable sources report that Chavez provided most of his campaign money. Gutierrez is an open admirer and friend of Chavez and is also likely to emulate Chavez by openly or secretly helping pro-Castro radicals in other countries.
He announced that he would seek to mediate in the war in neighboring Colombia. Given the support for FARC by Castro and Chavez, Gutierrez is likely to use any mediating role to secretly assist FARC and help it take power.
There are credible reports that Ecuador is permitting FARC to have more than six bases on its territory.
from the Wall Street Journal, 2005-Jan-14, p.A9, by Mary Anastasia O'Grady:
Hold the Applause; Argentina Isn't Well Yet
Call it an anniversary gift. Three years after Argentina's former interim President Adolfo Rodriguez Saa cut off payment on $80 billion of private-sector debt, the government presented its offer to "restructure" the bad loans this week.
But don't break out the champagne yet. The total value of the unpaid debt, when interest-due is added, now comes to some $108 billion. Analysts widely expect that the new bonds will factor out to only about 30 cents on the dollar. Not surprisingly, some investors are expected to take a pass and Argentina's chances of a return to the credit markets remain iffy.
That's only part of the problem for this disgraced nation. More troubling is the fact that even if Argentina manages to persuade a great many creditors to sit still for this haircut, the political economy remains a shambles of broken contracts, corrupted courts and socialist doctrine.
President Nestor Kirchner no doubt felt he had to do something to address the huge default, or else join Fidel Castro in the junkyard of wrecked economies.And indeed, some creditors will accept the deal. Jamming devalued paper down the throats of German hausfraus and Italian pensioners isn't all that hard after three years in which they were made to wonder if they would ever get anything back. But that "victory" will do nothing to inspire confidence in a country that has proudly discarded all semblance of the rule of law.
Odds are that Argentina will reach a participation rate that the government deems necessary to declare victory. Almost 40% of the total is owed to Argentines and about half of that is expected to be exchanged early in the process.
The consensus view is that Argentina may get 70% (face value) of the old bonds exchanged for the government's new paper of far less value. Some institutions -- the so-called vultures who picked up their bonds on the secondary market at deep discounts -- will cash in and move on to other opportunities.
If at least 70% is reached, Argentina will want to consider the case closed. Yet a holdout number as large as 30% would amount to $24 billion before interest, not an inconsiderable sum. That bad paper will continue to cast an ominous shadow on Argentina's credit ratings.
In an interview with the Argentine newspaper Ambito Financiero in November, UCLA economics professor Sebastián Edwards expressed concern about the country's ability to clean up its shady reputation. "Growth in the medium-term doesn't look very good," Mr. Edwards said. "If Argentina doesn't achieve strong investment increases and especially foreign investment, its medium-term growth will be pathetic. And increased investment requires seriousness in the rules of the game and in judicial security. None of this now exists."
In other words, it is not only the resolution of the debt that threatens to undermine Argentina's future as a serious country but more importantly the terrible precedent set by a government that during its debt crisis brazenly confiscated property and remains unrepentant. Mr. Edwards asserted that, "The world sees the country governed by a rebellious, capricious and badly mannered adolescent. It is a negative image that will corrode the credibility and the reputation of the country."
Mr. Kirchner and his Peronist political machine have tried to counter this bad image by boasting of an economic "recovery" as if it was the result of some unique Argentine skill. Never mind the fact that nonpayment on $80 billion of debt would make anyone feel suddenly rich. Other factors that have helped the economy include the weak U.S. dollar and robust commodity prices. This boosted gross investment to 19% of gross domestic product in 2004. But even this "boom," attributable to unusual liquidity circumstances and a collapsed financial system, is too low to sustain needed growth.
A flattened economy seldom has trouble bouncing off the bottom. As Guillermo Mondino, Chief Latin America Economist for Lehman Brothers, puts it: "In proportional terms the recovery matches the performance of other economies through crisis. If you fall a lot, you rebound strongly in the short-term."
But the operative phrase in Mr. Mondino's assessment is "short-term." This year economists are forecasting 5% to 6% growth, down from 8% in 2004, and plenty of cracks in the façade are now starting to show. One festering problem is utility contracts. Recall that the government converted those contracts from dollars to devalued pesos and then froze them unilaterally. They still have not been renegotiated and investment in basic services, such as electricity, could suffer.
A second looming worry is labor costs. Argentines who lost their savings in the 2001 collapse have until now made job security their No. 1 priority. But recently they have begun to pressure the government for wage adjustments. Devaluations only increase the "competitiveness" of countries if wages are not adjusted for the loss of purchasing power. But workers at some point grow tired of carrying that burden and agitate for raises. This issue is likely to grow more contentious in 2005 with Argentina's powerful labor unions leading the charge.
This will probably add difficulty to the central bank's job of maintaining price stability. Thus far the country has avoided the sharp rise in inflation that might have been expected with the devaluation by using price controls and export taxes on energy and through the natural effects of high unemployment on wages.
The growing threat of inflation is real, and in the first week in January Mr. Kirchner used it as an opportunity to drive home his economic theology -- just in case the bond restructuring was beginning to lull investors into any sense of normality. "I ask businessmen and companies -- everyone involved in commercial activity -- that they not raise prices, not prices for construction materials nor everyday prices," he said. "If not, the state will do what it has to do so that prices don't rise."
So the president wants to do battle with an iron law of economics, which offers a simple choice: free prices or shortages. The forces Mr. Kirchner disapproves of can't be controlled by decree. Successful debt restructuring or not, once-mighty Argentina won't recover until its political leadership comes to terms with reality.
from the Chicago Tribune, 2004-Nov-21, by Hugh Dellios:
Sandinista election victories worry U.S.
Washington fears that the leftist party's recent gains in Nicaragua's mayoral contests will boost Daniel Ortega's chances of regaining the presidencyMANAGUA, Nicaragua -- As leftist leaders make gains across Latin America, an old U.S. adversary from the 1980s contra war has set off alarm bells in Washington: Daniel Ortega's Sandinistas.
The Sandinista Front won 87 of Nicaragua's 152 mayoral posts in elections this month, making significant inroads against a right-wing ruling faction torn apart by infighting and corruption scandals. Analysts say the victories also reflect the leftist party's success in running several cities efficiently and fairly.
Already fending off a growing chorus of leftist criticism in the region, Bush administration officials worry the victories will boost Ortega's chances of winning back the presidency he lost when Nicaraguans voted him out in 1990 after a decade of socialist rule and war against the U.S.-backed contras.
"People have begun to lose their fear of the Sandinista Front," said Herty Lewites, the popular Sandinista mayor of Managua who is leaving office but was praised for his governing in the past four years.
Not so in Washington. The U.S. State Department last week dispatched one of its top Latin America specialists, Dan Fisk, to Managua to meet with right-wing leaders and emphasize Washington's concern that they could help Ortega win in 2006 if they don't settle their differences and reunite.
Rumsfeld visit
A week earlier, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited in a show of U.S. support for embattled President Enrique Bolanos. Rumsfeld also urged Nicaraguan officials to destroy hundreds of 1980s-era surface-to-air missiles that U.S. officials fear could fall into the hands of terrorists.
The developments come after a string of victories by leftist leaders across the region, at least in part because of frustrations over the failure of free-trade agreements and other U.S.-backed neoliberal policies to alleviate poverty and other problems.
Last month, Uruguay elected its first leftist president, Tabare Vazquez, adding to a growing bloc of leftist leadership, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Conservative Nicaraguans fear Ortega would take the country in the more radical direction of Cuban leader Fidel Castro and maverick Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
"There is a lot of concern," said Eduardo Montealegre, a former government minister and banker whom many see as a leading presidential candidate for the right in 2006. "If [the Sandinistas] win the presidency, the fault will be ours."
U.S. officials believe the key to containing Ortega is persuading leaders of Nicaragua's Liberal Constitutional Party, or PLC, to drop their fierce allegiance to former President Arnoldo Aleman, who last year began serving a 20-year prison sentence on corruption charges but still wields extraordinary power over the party.
Bolanos pushed for the prosecution of Aleman after succeeding him in 2001, but that split the party, costing Bolanos most of his support. Aleman's followers, who control the majority in the National Assembly, have since been feuding with Bolanos and blocking his initiatives.
President under siege
The assembly is trying to strip powers from the president and investigate questions about his campaign contributions. It also passed a law allowing it to block any destruction of military weapons, just days after Bolanos promised Rumsfeld that all the 1980s missiles would be destroyed before he leaves office.
Aleman's followers and Sandinista legislators have worked together on many of the measures. Bolanos' allies and others believe the unusual alliance is part of a pact between Aleman and Ortega with the aim of winning Aleman's release from prison.
Much of Nicaragua's judicial system is believed to be controlled by Ortega through dozens of judges named when the Sandinistas ruled the country.
"It's hard to understand the tremendous loyalty [the PLC leaders] have for [Aleman]," said U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua Barbara Moore, who has played host to meetings trying to get the right wing to put aside its differences.
U.S. accused of meddling
"Arnoldo Aleman stole from this country and represents the corrupt practices that the U.S. finds intolerable," she said. "This is the second poorest country in the hemisphere. Children don't have enough to eat. The government should be looking out for the weakest rather than ripping off the country for their own benefit."
Several PLC leaders publicly chafed at Fisk's stern message last week, while the Sandinistas accused the U.S. of again meddling in Nicaraguan affairs.
In Washington, too, critics of the Bush administration warned that its intervention could backfire if it is seen as too heavy-handed.
"They detest Ortega and the Sandinistas. Remember that this is what almost brought down the Reagan government, the Iran-contra scandal," said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington.
"I think Ortega would probably be a disaster [if he were president again], but so are the Liberals," he added.
U.S. officials say they are only trying to "facilitate" dialogue among what they call Nicaragua's "democratic forces."
Some Nicaraguan conservatives were hoping the Sandinista victories in the mayoral elections would scare the right wing into coming together. But the immediate reaction to Fisk's visit was not all that encouraging.
Many PLC leaders owe their positions to Aleman. Others believe he has leverage because he knows who was involved in his government's corrupt practices. Others point to his resilient popularity among many Nicaraguans.
"This isn't a crisis," said Jamileth Bonilla, a PLC legislator and Aleman loyalist who accused Sandinistas of dangling Aleman's freedom like "a golden egg" in negotiations. "Aleman continues to carry weight on the political scene, and whoever our candidate is, he will need [Aleman's support]."
During the mayoral elections, Bolanos and his allies tried to offer a third alternative to Aleman and Ortega by creating a party, the Alliance for the Republic. But the new organization won only seven mayoral seats, as more than half the voters expressed their opinion by just staying home.
from the Associated Press via The Pioneer Press, 2004-Nov-27, by Filadelfo Aleman:
Nicaraguan crisis could give Sandinistas more clout
MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- In a deepening political crisis touched off by anti-corruption efforts, Nicaragua's congress has voted to give itself the power to ratify and dismiss Cabinet ministers and other officials.
The constitutional amendment, which was approved late Thursday and would have to be affirmed again in next year's legislative session to take effect, grew from a power struggle between President Enrique Bolanos and the party that put him in office, the Liberal Constitutionalist Party.
Bolanos lost its support after his anti-corruption campaign landed the party leader and former president, Arnoldo Aleman, in prison, where he is serving 20 years for fraud and corruption.
Bolanos' spokesman, Lindolfo Monjarretz, warned Friday that the congressional vote has created a political crisis that endangers Nicaragua's fragile economy.
It also could bolster the Sandinistas, who governed Nicaragua in the 1980s as a Soviet ally in Cold War-era struggles with the United States. Although the Sandinista Front has lost the past three presidential elections, it remains the nation's most cohesive political force and has nearly enough votes in Congress by itself to block presidential appointments under the new rule.
The Liberals "are giving everything to the Sandinistas in exchange for Aleman's freedom," said Congressman Miguel Lopez, part of a Liberal breakaway faction loyal to Bolanos.
The National Assembly voted 74-7 for the amendment to require a 60 percent vote in the congress to ratify the president's nomination of any public official or diplomat. Such officials also could be removed by a 60 percent vote, and under some circumstances, the congress could impose its own candidates.
Aleman is a patron of many Liberal lawmakers, and the party rebelled when Bolanos' new administration accused him of siphoning millions of dollars in government funds to Panamanian bank accounts. Complaints of graft led several foreign lenders to suspend aid during Aleman's administration, which ended in early 2002.
Bolanos' anti-corruption campaign has drawn new foreign aid and debt relief to Nicaragua. Monjarretz, the presidential spokesman, said the congressional vote endangers that.
On Wednesday, European Union Ambassador Kees Rade said aid cannot be given "to a country where there is an institutional deadlock." U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fisk expressed concern, and the heads of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have warned attempts to remove Bolanos could throw Nicaragua into crisis.
from the Associated Press, 2004-Nov-24:
Nicaragua Army Destroys 300 Missiles
MANAGUA, Nicaragua - Nicaragua's army destroyed more than 300 surface-to-air missiles on Wednesday as part of a U.S.-spearheaded effort aimed at keeping such weapons out of terrorists' hands.
But shortly after the batch of 337 rockets was destroyed, a Managua-based appeals court issued an injunction against further demolition.
The destruction of the SA-7 missiles brings to about 1,000 the number eliminated so far. The country had about 2,000 such weapons.
U.S. officials repeatedly have urged Nicaragua to rid itself of the missiles, saying they could fall into the hands of terrorists and be used against civilian targets such as aircraft.
Earlier this month, President Enrique Bolanos promised Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that his country would eliminate the SA-7 stockpile within about 18 months. Click Here
The injunction came at the request of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which governed Nicaragua in the 1980s. The group argued against the destruction because countries that have border disputes with Nicaragua have not taken similar steps toward disarmament. They also insist that the United States compensate Nicaragua for the missile destruction.
Further details of the injunction weren't immediately available Wednesday evening.
The Soviet Union supplied the missiles at a time when the leftist Sandinista government was an ally in Cold War-era struggles against the United States, which supported Contra rebels trying to overthrow the Sandinistas.
from The Miami Herald, 2001-Mar-10, by Paul Brinkley-Rogers:
People on run finding selves at home abroad with Castro
U.S. authorities seeking to arrest a Key Largo woman on kidnapping charges for taking her son to Cuba would be making history if they persuade Havana to send her back for prosecution.
Cuba has never returned any of the 77 federal fugitives the FBI says are enjoying Fidel Castro's protection despite demands from Congress that go back 30 years. Giving political asylum to Arletis Blanco, the Key Largo woman, or to black radicals such as convicted murderer Joanne Chesimard -- better known to her supporters in the United States as Assata Shakur -- gives Cuba yet another opportunity to thumb its nose at Washington, U.S. officials say.
Blanco fled to Cuba in November with her 5-year-old, U.S.-born son and was indicted last month. In an interview in the Communist Party daily Granma, Blanco claimed she sought asylum because she uncovered an anti-Castro plot by her former employer.
She is wanted on a grand theft charge in Monroe County for allegedly stealing close to $150,000 from McKenzie Petroleum, where she worked as an office manager. Company officials have denied her allegations.
Like Blanco, 52 of the 77 fugitives are Cuban-born. Sixty-eight are air hijackers. According to Dennis Hays, the former State Department Cuba Desk officer who heads the Cuban American National Foundation's Washington office, there may be “many more fugitives from state charges.''
Once in Havana, many fugitives become fiercely outspoken advocates for Castro even as they eke out a living as tour guides, translators and entrepreneurs doing favors for the Cuban state.
"You could call this little community an ego booster for Castro,'' said a Washington official familiar with Cuban affairs. “They are beyond the reach of American justice and Fidel loves that. But in reality, they are a sad, homesick bunch.''
When the Cuban president spoke at a Harlem church last year during a visit to the United Nations, he was lauded for rejecting a request by Congress in 1998 to return Chesimard -- the aunt of slain rapper Tupac Shakur -- to the United States.
Patricia Wilson, a New York City-based member of one of several support groups, claims Chesimard is a victim of FBI “terrorism'' directed at the Black Panthers. Wilson said Chesimard did not fatally shoot a New Jersey state trooper after she helped hold up a bank in 1973. Chesimard staged a dramatic escape in 1979 from a maximum-security facility with the help of four friends who commandeered a prison van.
But New Jersey officials such as U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez, a Democrat, say she is an unrepentant murderer. “She committed some very heinous crimes,'' Menendez said.
When former Gov. Christie Todd Whitman offered a $100,000 reward in 1998 to “anyone who assists in the safe return'' of Chesimard, Cuba Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro González described her as a “well-known civil rights activist.''
Change Unlikely
The cases of these renegades, who include former CIA agent Frank Terpil, an arms dealer convicted of weapons charges, and financier and indicted swindler Robert Vesco, have long been a major irritant to the United States.
Antonio Jorge, professor of economics and international relations at Florida International University, said the issue probably will not be resolved as long as Castro rules.
The Cuban leader, Jorge said, “continually inveighs against the American system -- the oppression of minorities, the exploitation of capitalism, imperialism. With these people he can prove that there are political dissenters in America.
“If he were to send them back it would mean he that he was surrendering to American imperialism,'' he said. There is no extradition treaty with Cuba.
Many of these Americans on the run are given a basic package: an apartment in Havana, ration cards, medical care, a wedding blessing, and sometimes e-mail privileges and the ability to make pro-Castro political statements at arts festivals.
Some have been in Cuba for decades. Puerto Rico hijacking suspect Luis Peña Soltren has been a fugitive longer than anyone else, according to the FBI. A warrant was issued for him on Dec. 5, 1968. It is not known what he does in Cuba.
Still on the Run
Some of the half-dozen former Panthers who hijacked planes -- often to escape prosecution -- are now senior citizens. Most of them speak Spanish, are raising families, and say they are still committed to revolution.
Former Panther William Lee Brent, now almost 70, shot two police officers and hijacked a plane in June 1969. He spent 22 months in a Cuban jail but was released to teach at a Cuban high school. He is married to American travel book writer Jane McManus, who is not a fugitive.
Nehanda Abiodun, 51, calls herself a “political exile.'' But according to the FBI, the former Cheri Dalton has been a fugitive since 1981 from charges she held up armored cars in the New York City area. She said in an interview last year she still regards herself as a Black Liberation Army soldier.
Deeply Homesick
Charlie Hill, a member of the separatist Republic of New Afrika, shot a police officer and hijacked a plane from Albuquerque 28 years ago. In Cuba, he is a translator. In a 1999 interview, Hill said he tunes his radio to sports events from the United States and acknowledged in a 1999 interview that he is deeply homesick.
Puerto Rico nationalist Guillermo Morales, 51, lost both hands when a bomb he was making in Queens, N.Y., blew up in 1978. He was convicted of weapons charges and sentenced to 89 years in jail but escaped from a prison hospital and fled to Mexico. Mexico concluded he was a victim of U.S. political persecution and put him on a plane to Havana in 1988.
Morales has told interviewers he remains steadfastly “anti-imperialist.'' Cuba, he said, treats him with “dignity.'' Castro has asked the U.N. Decolonization Committee to declare Puerto Rico a colony.
Not all of the fugitives are treated warmly.
An air piracy agreement signed by Havana with the United States in the 1960s obliges Cuba to apprehend hijackers.
Tyrone Wong of San Francisco killed himself at a prison farm with a machete. Tony Bryant, a Panther who forced a Miami-bound plane to fly to Havana, was jailed and then expelled after complaining about prison conditions. After U.S. officials decided not to prosecute, he joined the Miami-based anti-Castro Commandos L.
Vesco fled to Havana in 1982 after allegedly stealing $250 million from American investors and then helped the Cubans with high finance. But in 1996 he was sentenced to 13 years in Villa Marista prison -- the headquarters of Cuba's secret police -- for trying to market a miracle drug behind Castro's back.
Terpil, who allegedly supplied arms to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, was placed under house arrest in 1995 after Cuba investigated his business. “Cuba could never completely trust a man like that,'' said FIU's Jorge. “He could embarrass Castro.''
The FBI says it cannot discuss which suspects are thought to have most recently fled to Cuba. The bureau's fugitive list once included Panther founders Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver.
But other sources say newcomers may include more players on the international finance and arms smuggling scene who may be of use to Cuba as it struggles with economic distress.
They could include, for example, the dapper, Chile-born Carlos Remigio Cardoen, who is wanted on a warrant out of U.S. District Court in South Florida for exporting munitions without a license.
“Cuba is a rogue state,'' said a Washington official. “It is an ideal place to hide, or use as a base for illegal activities -- as long as you please friends in high places.''
Rep. Menendez said sheltering fugitives enables Castro to claim he is protecting citizens of the country most critical of Cuba's human rights record.
Menendez and other members of Congress have made the fugitives' return a condition for ending the embargo. Castro is capable of bargaining the future of the fugitives, he asserts.
“With Vesco, it was a lot of money -- not politics. Castro is, at any given time, not beyond using these people to his advantage.''
from the Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2001-Oct-10, by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.:
Revolt of the Misesians
This story of the political dissent begins in Guatemala City, the capital of a country that is deeply troubled economically. The problems are familiar. There are mercantilist trade policies designed to enrich the politically well-connected at the expense of everyone else. Taxes are very high. Laws and courts are tainted and often corrupt. Labor regulations are onerous. Property rights, the very foundation of prosperity, are uncertain and often unenforced. The currency is unstable, and the freedom to be entrepreneurial and to trade is hindered.
The government is probably no more interventionist-minded than the United States, and all governments seek ever more power and are limited, as Ludwig von Mises pointed out, only by the level of public resistance. But Guatemalans do not have a long history of well-developed private enterprise, and thus they are capital-starved to the point that even small hindrances to trade are felt very strongly. The annual output of the country is $16 billion, which is less than half of the new spending the US government authorized after the terrorist attack.
Last year, the US and the IMF took a look at Guatemala with an eye toward fixing up the economy, with the goal, of course, of reshuffling the country’s loan portfolio. After extensive study, the conclusion of the geniuses was the following: the country needs more financial transparency and higher taxes.
Now, the financial transparency issue is a red herring. It helps the banking class keep a close eye on the finances of a particular country, which matters for the accountants but does little to promote prosperity. As for high taxes, there turns out to be a political problem with that. The way the US sees it, the economy will be helped by higher taxes to fund infrastructure and more compliance with existing taxes.
This summer, the Guatemalan Congress passed a new consumption tax of an additional 2 percent to the existing rate of 10 percent. But it turns out that the people were not pleased. Workers in all twenty-two provinces went on strike. Eighty percent of public transit stopped, and the entire country, apart from the political class, joined together in outrage. Students were appalled and gathered to protest.
Five thousand people spontaneously marched on the capital. Arriving in front of the US embassy, the protestors burned US flags and shouted, "Yankee, Go Home." The head of the teachers’ union grabbed a bullhorn and shouted: "This protest is to inform the international financial organizations that Guatemala rejects a tax increase that will make the poor poorer." The union there evidently has more sense than ours does. Students at the universities promised hunger strikes, and crowds formed human blockades against government trucks.
The crowds continued to grow, and by noon, they numbered 16,000 in Guatemala City alone, to say nothing of the rest of the country, where the business class joined with peasants to denounce the state. And there was violence, particularly against politicians. Government buildings were attacked and their windows broken. The residences of some members of congress were burned. In a nearby farming community, the mayor’s house was torched, and the local banks, said to favor the tax, were vandalized.
This was no anticapitalist protest of the type we saw in Seattle and Genoa, but quite the opposite: a mass movement in defense of liberty and property. The government then began to act: it shut down the media and turned loose the military to pump tear gas into the crowds and arrest people. By that time, the mayhem was over, and the military was running the country in a state of siege reserved for foreign invasion, while nearly one hundred were injured and just as many people were arrested.
Meanwhile, the government stuck to its position on taxes: "The country needs resources to respond to social demands," a spokesman said. "Congress, the government, and the ruling party are aware of the political cost, but it is necessary."
After the dust settled, the American Embassy in Guatemala wrote a report on the alarming collapse of government authority. Rather than blame the politicians for attempting to loot further an already impoverished people, or dismissing the excuse as worthy of a typical socialist despot, the report blamed the people who were unwilling to obey.
The US complained that "the failure to pay taxes deprives the government of the resources it needs to provide services that could create institutional confidence and support. As a result, the public has little incentive to pay taxes, and the government has little incentive to provide adequate services and thus to convince the public of the value of paying taxes."
It sounds like a typical complaint The New York Times would make, but then the report moved on to unearth what it called the "intellectual origins of anti-statism among Guatemala’s elite." In particular, the US embassy blamed "the economic philosophy of the Austrian school economists, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek," which has taken root in a local university.
The US embassy report continues with alarm: "These extreme views would have little practical effect if they only reflected the opinions of a few individuals. But ironically, as the threat from the left has receded, the libertarian view has gained strength and has become unquestioned dogma."
The US embassy is particularly struck that such opinions would take root in Guatemala, because there is virtually no socialist threat, particularly not an academic one. "There are probably fewer Marxists at San Carlos University today," the report observes with candor, "than at many American universities."
But of course socialist doctrine is different from run-of-the-mill government intervention only by degree and not kind. It is useful, in fact, to think of socialism as nothing more than complete permission for government to do what it instinctively wants to do anyway, which is order people around as much as possible.
What the Misesians have done in Guatemala is create an intellectual infrastructure that promotes a hard-core attachment to freedom among the business class, which dovetails very nicely with the working classes’ instinctive opposition to taxes.
Yes, this infrastructure sustains an abiding hatred of socialism, but it does something more: it creates a love and longing for liberty, which is the necessary precondition for economic advancement. In the end, this intellectual infrastructure is more important to the country’s future than all the natural resources or foreign aid, to say nothing of the IMF’s preposterous advice.
It is an ominous sign that the US government would get behind such a rabid attack on libertarian theory and policy. Some people have chalked it up to a rogue bureaucrat named Paula Bushnell, who serves as the US ambassador to this country. But I doubt that this is all there is to it.
It is hard for us as Americans to admit, but the US government has become a Nottingham Sheriff of the Globe, and this is only the most recent example. It believes itself to be the indispensable nation that must maintain the civic order of the entire world, which means suppressing all forms of political instability, even the good type that stems from libertarian motivation.
And we can draw a lesson here from this incident—namely, that the government fears political rebellion most of all when it is backed by a serious intellectual movement. The right combination is beginning to exist in Guatemala, and it is having a huge effect.
Credit goes to Manuel Ayau, who founded the Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala. He is a disciple of Mises who has worked to build an independent intellectual presence there.
And when his institution and ideas were blamed for raging political violence, Ayau didn’t back down. He stated very plainly that the ideas he holds are the same as those of America's Founding Fathers. The real scandal, he said, is that the US is now trying to work against those ideas in the tax policy it is pushing on the world.
Saying such things, especially during times when all the powers of the State are marshaled against you, takes guts.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. is president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama and editor of LewRockwell.com. Send him email at Rockwell@mises.org. See also his Mises.org Daily Archive.
from Agence France-Presse, 2004-Sep-19:
Cuba is 'giant prison', says Czech ex-president Havel
PRAGUE : Former Czech president Vaclav Havel described Cuba as "a giant prison", as he called for international mobilisation to persuade the country to commit to a peaceful transition to democracy.
"Cuba is a giant prison. We have to put up alarm bells around the walls," he said. "With every signature, every conference we make another step towards freedom in Cuba."
The former playwright dissident, who himself spent five years in communist prisons, was speaking on the second day of a summit on Cuba attended by European and American former heads of state and governments, parliamentarians and human rights capaigners in Prague.
The summit was organized by the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba (ICDC), founded one year ago at the initiative of Havel with the help of former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Polish dissident Adam Michnik and former Russian dissident Elena Bonner.
It was staged 18 months after the arrests in March 2003 of 75 Cuban opponents of the Castro regime and their sentencing to up to 28 years imprisonment.
They included the poet and writer Raul Rivero, who according to his wife is in a poor state of health.
"This summit is important as the least signature of a petition is important. All this creates pressure," said Havel.
"It is inconceivable and unacceptable that people continue to be imprisoned in Cuba because of their ideas and their peaceful politics," said a final declaration issued at the summit, named the Prague Memorandum.
from the Washington Post, 2004-Jul-16, p.A1, by Mary Jordan:
A Risky Route to Freedom
Desperate Cubans Head For U.S. Via HondurasLA CEIBA, Honduras -- Nine rafters slipped out of Cuba on May 3, guided by a full moon and buoyed by hope and ocean currents. After two days at sea, in the black and cold of 2 a.m., a screw shook loose from their old outboard and it sputtered to a stop. As the screw plunged into the shark-filled depths, their spirits sank with it.
"That was the moment I thought we were going to die," said Luis Machado Hernandez, 42, a Cuban hospital manager who said he was fleeing the unbearableness of existing on $10 a month in a place where a pair of child's shoes costs three times that much. But Machado and the others kept going, and for the next five weeks their remarkable voyage twisted and turned on the kindness and greed of strangers.
A day after their engine failed, they washed up on the Cayman Islands and were locked up with murderers for a month. There, as they recalled later, they bribed themselves free and set off again into the mountainous waves. Finally, on June 5, they landed in this Central American country, whose welcoming immigration policies have made it the hottest new haven among Cuban refugees.
"The Honduran people know what the Cubans are suffering, that they are being repressed and that they don't have liberties," said Ramon Romero, Honduras's director of immigration, who said his country welcomed Cuban boat people and would never return them to Fidel Castro, now 45 years at the helm of the communist island.
Far more Cubans attempt the 90-mile trip to Florida than the risky 500-mile voyage to Honduras. But because most rafters get caught by Cuban authorities or the U.S. Coast Guard in the heavily patrolled waters off Florida, an increasing number desperate to flee Cuba's miserable economic conditions are pointing their rafts toward Honduras, one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. Romero said at least 100 Cubans came to Honduran shores last year, more than twice the number in 2002. As the numbers keep increasing, he said, Honduras is recruiting families to take them in. "Hondurans identify with them and want to help them whenever they can," Romero said.
Rafters interviewed in Honduras said word had spread that this country is a safer bet than Cuba's other neighbors, including Belize, Mexico and the Cayman Islands, which routinely return the refugees to their homeland.
Machado estimated that at least one boat a day is setting off from Cuba for Honduras. Many of those turn back when motors and nerves break down on the high seas, he said. "And no doubt some don't make it," he added, describing how easily makeshift boats can be blown off course and swallowed by the Caribbean.
Rafters said going to Honduras makes more sense than taking a chance with the United States' "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, under which Cubans who make it to U.S. soil are free to seek political asylum but those caught offshore are returned to Cuba. Sometimes Cubans win the race against the U.S. Coast Guard, as did the wife and two daughters of New York Yankees pitcher Jose Contreras, who reached an island off Florida last month after a three-hour chase. But, more often, they do not: The Coast Guard said it had caught and returned about 2,100 Cubans since the beginning of last year after finding them on rafts, rickety boats and even riding a floating 1951 Chevrolet pickup.
Once rafters reach Honduras, their relatives in Miami often send them money. Some try to find legal ways into the United States, but many set off through Guatemala and Mexico to attempt to cross the border illegally, they said.
Machado said some in his group had already left Honduras for the United States. "I don't know if they are dead or alive or in a jail somewhere," he said. Machado and the three others with him said they were trying to figure out a safer way to Miami.
"In Miami, whatever job you want you can have," Machado said. "I'm ready to work hard. I might not make it this month, or in three months or next year. But I want to go."
A Similar Journey
Thirty miles from where Machado is now living, another group of Cuban rafters is being cared for by Honduran families. Lelis Arnulfo Hernandez, a gardener on the island of Roatan, said he was startled one day late last month when he found seven haggard Cubans stumbling out of a 12-foot boat that looked like an old fiberglass bathtub. They had spent seven days and eight nights at sea; all were dehydrated, and some were hallucinating. They had run out of food, water and fuel by the time they washed ashore near Hernandez's one-room home on the waterfront.
"One of them asked me, 'Is this Honduras?' And when I said yes, you couldn't believe how happy he was," said Hernandez, who then welcomed them into his wooden home, gave them food and hot coffee and took the ragged men to see a doctor.
Two weeks after their arrival, three of the men had already left for Mexico, hoping to sneak across the U.S. border, where the desert and soaring temperatures claim many lives. The four who remained were interviewed outside Hernandez's house, their backs and legs still covered with rashes where the boat's fiberglass had rubbed them raw.
"I was seeing things in the water and heat. My mind was going," said Yunior Buceta Cañete, 28, who had been a welder in Cuba earning $8 a month. He found out in a phone call to Cuba that his wife had given birth to their first child while he was at sea; he said he hopes to get to Miami, then find a way to get his family there. "We risked a lot to get here, but at least we are free."
The group set off from Santa Cruz, on Cuba's southern coast, with little more than an antique compass and a 1953 map. Buceta said the little outboard quit three times, and each time the men coaxed it back to life. A plastic sack that once had carried beans served as their backup sail. As storms churned the water and rain fell hard into the open boat, one man decided to turn himself in on the Cayman Islands, less than halfway through the journey. The men let him off on a Cayman beach, where they assume he was caught and returned to Cuba.
Days later, the men landed in Roatan, where their battered boat rests in high grass outside Hernandez's home, stirring awe among the locals who come to hear their story. "We were not sure if it was Belize or Honduras," said Jorge Abel Sosa Reina, a fisherman who served as chief navigator, talking about the moment when they saw land and Hernandez. Sosa moved toward land first, planning to wave on the others if it turned out they had miscalculated and were in Belize. That way, perhaps only he would be detained and returned to Cuba and the others could keep going. Sosa said he nearly fainted with relief when Hernandez told him he was in Honduras: "My whole body wanted to fold, collapse. I was so relieved." Sosa said he had been inspired to make the trip by his brother, who made it to Honduras in November and now lives in Miami with his two other brothers. Sosa said he hoped to join them.
Reaching Roatan was especially sweet for history professor Nicolas Gonzalez Verona, 51, the oldest on the boat. He said he had tried to escape Cuba in 1994 but the Cuban Coast Guard rammed his vessel and sank it. He paid a fine to avoid prison and spent the next decade waiting to try again. Once at sea, Gonzalez said he passed the time praying.
Sick of the Sea
In La Ceiba, Machado and the three others from his group are living in a fire station.
Machado found a job upholstering furniture three days after arriving and said he worries constantly about his wife and two daughters back in Cuba. He said he would never allow his family to take the risk he did on the ocean. After one of the men's two small motors died, they lashed their two rafts together and kept going, fighting howling waves and the smell of spilled gasoline and vomit.
He said their troubles got worse when they smashed up against rocks on the shore of the Cayman Islands. They were caught, locked up and told they would be returned to Cuba. After a few days, their relatives from Spain and the United States arrived. One of the men was allowed to fly to Spain, and the American relatives paid bribes to get the eight others freed after 28 days in jail. They also paid $10,000 to a smuggler to carry the men the rest of the way to Honduras.
"It was a miracle," Machado said. "We had seconds' notice that we were leaving. We just ran out of jail."
They set off in the smugglers' 30-foot boat the first week of June. Before dawn on their fifth day at sea, Machado said, the smugglers suddenly announced that they were just off the Honduran coast and that the Cubans should jump.
"Go! Swim!" the men said and sped off.
After a half-hour of swimming, with Machado dragging his nephew who did not know how to swim, the Cubans reached a remote part of Honduras known as Gracias a Dios, or "Thanks to God."
A local woman who found the shivering Cubans gave them food and dry clothes, and they soon hopped a cargo boat heading for La Ceiba, Honduras's third-largest city. After their ordeal, Machado said, none of them can stand to look out the fire station window at the sea. "Cubans love the beach and the sea," he said. "But I have had enough of the sea for a long, long time."
from NewsMax, 2004-Nov-14, "Insider Report":
Chavez Already 'Disappearing' Opponents
A pro-American Brazilian with high-level government contacts throughout Latin America warns that after Mexico's upcoming elections, the pro-Castro (anti-American) left will almost completely dominate the region.
Our source regularly advised the late Constantine Menges, the former Reagan National Security Council adviser, on matters relating to Latin America.
Source tells us that Marxist Hugo Chavez is already "disappearing" opponents to his regime in the wake of his recent electoral "victory."
"Midlevel people who seriously opposed Chavez are just disappearing," the source said. "They [Chavez and his Cuban advisers] are starting small and testing the waters by kidnapping and killing opponents."
So far, the world is not paying attention, though even the European Union refused to certify Chavez's win because he controlled the very mechanism of the vote count and would not let an independent body count the vote.
No matter. Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center were on hand to declare communist Chavez the legitimate winner.
from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2004-Aug-19, by Thor L. Halvorssen:
The Price of Dissent in Venezuela
Hugo Chávez's thugs celebrate their "victory" by shooting my mother.CARACAS, Venezuela--On Monday afternoon, dozens of people assembled in the Altamira Plaza, a public square in a residential neighborhood here that has come to symbolize nonviolent dissent in Venezuela. The crowd was there to question the accuracy of the results that announced a triumph for President Hugo Chávez in Sunday's recall referendum.
Within one hour of the gathering, just over 100 of Lt. Col. Chávez's supporters, many of them brandishing his trademark army parachutist beret, began moving down the main avenue towards the crowd in the square. Encouraged by their leader's victory, this bully-boy group had been marching through opposition neighborhoods all day. They were led by men on motorcycles with two-way radios. From afar they began to taunt the crowd in the square, chanting, "We own this country now," and ordering the people in the opposition crowd to return to their homes. All of this was transmitted live by the local news station. The Chávez group threw bottles and rocks at the crowd. Moments later a young woman in the square screamed for the crowd to get down as three of the men with walkie-talkies, wearing red T-shirts with the insignia of the government-funded "Bolivarian Circle," revealed their firearms. They began shooting indiscriminately into the multitude.
A 61-year-old grandmother was shot in the back as she ran for cover. The bullet ripped through her aorta, kidney and stomach. She later bled to death in the emergency room. An opposition congressman was shot in the shoulder and remains in critical care. Eight others suffered severe gunshot wounds. Hilda Mendoza Denham, a British subject visiting Caracas for her mother's 80th birthday, was shot at close range with hollow-point bullets from a high-caliber pistol. She now lies sedated in a hospital bed after a long and complicated operation. She is my mother.
I spoke with her minutes before the doctors cut open her wounds. She looked at me, frightened and traumatized, and sobbed: "I was sure they were going to kill me, they just kept shooting at me."
In a jarringly similar attack that took place three years ago, the killers were caught on tape and identified as government officials and employees. They were briefly detained--only to be released and later praised by Col. Chávez in his weekly radio show. Their identities are no secret and they walk the streets as free men, despite having shot unarmed civilian demonstrators in cold blood.
I was not in the square on Monday. I was preparing a complaint for the National Electoral Council regarding the fact that I had been mysteriously erased from the voter rolls and was prevented from casting a vote on Sunday. In indescribable agony I watched the television as my mother and my elderly grandparents--who were both trampled and bruised in the panic--became casualties in Venezuela's ongoing political crisis.
Col. Chávez assumed power in 1999. One need not go into great detail about the deterioration of Venezuelan life since then to understand why a recall referendum has been years in the making. Every aspect of existence has worsened. The only people who are not profoundly affected are those at the highest levels of the government party. Poverty, for instance, is at an all-time high and the country is afflicted, for the first time ever recorded, with malnutrition on a massive scale. This unprecedented suffering has occurred during the greatest oil boom in the nation's history (Venezuela has oil reserves on the scale of those in Iraq). Col. Chávez and his "revolution" have not only led a ferocious assault on civil liberties, but have also needlessly alienated one of Venezuela's closest allies, the U.S.
The recall referendum process has been obstructed and delayed at every turn. Dozens of independent polls predicted defeat for Col. Chávez, who did everything--including granting citizenship to half a million illegal aliens in a crude vote-buying scheme and "migrating" existing voters away from their local election office--to fix the results in his favor. One opposition leader was moved to a voting center in a city seven hours away. Another man, Miguel Romero, had for years voted in his neighborhood school in a Caracas suburb. But this time the Electoral Council computer indicated that he was to vote at the Venezuelan Embassy in Stockholm. Thousands of others, like me, were wiped from the voting rolls. Ironically, in the runup to the vote, the embassy in Stockholm, like Venezuelan diplomatic posts around the world, inexplicably ran out of passports. Many Venezuelan expatriates were thus prevented from returning to their country to vote.
In the early hours of Monday, the Electoral Council's president (who had imposed a gag order on all exit polls until a full audit of the vote had been completed) issued a statement declaring that the computer votes had been tallied and that the government had won the referendum with 58% of the vote. The announcement came in a vacuum, without an audit, with no verification whatsoever from the international observers, and over the indignant protest of two of the five council members, who publicly questioned the result's transparency.
The opposition, understandably shocked and demoralized, insisted on a hand-count of all computer voting receipts as the only way of settling the dramatic disparity between exit polls that showed 58% to 41% in favor of the recall and the announced result of 58% to 41% in favor of retaining Col. Chávez. Later that morning the most important observer, former President Jimmy Carter, declared that he was shown the computer tally by government supporters and that everything seemed in order. Mr. Carter then left Venezuela, and the opposition groups that had put their faith in him to facilitate a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Mr. Carter, who was vociferous and insistent about patience, transparency and hand-tallies during the Florida recount, left Venezuela to attend Mrs. Carter's birthday party.
Many in the opposition are baffled by the inverse relationship between the projected numbers and those reported by the Chávez regime. One possible clue to this remarkable phenomenon lies with the companies hired to supply the voting machines and the software. Smartmatic Corp., a Florida company that has never before supplied election machinery, is owned by two Venezuelans. The software came from Bizta Software, owned by the same two people. The Miami Herald recently revealed that the Chávez regime spent $200,000 last year to purchase 28% of Bizta and put a government official and longtime Chávez ally on the board. After the story broke, Bizta bought back the government-held shares and the official resigned from the board. But not until after the two companies were granted a significant part of the $91 million contract for the referendum. Executives at both Smartmatic and Bizta have denied any political allegiance to the Chávez regime and have issued public statements saying the contract was awarded purely on the merits.
Col. Chávez has publicly stated that the results of the referendum are irreversible and permanent and that the revolution will now intensify. He is firmly in control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government; the armed forces; electoral bodies and two-thirds of the country's economy.
In a free and decent society, it is not a crime to differ with the democratic government. The vast distance between democracy and contemporary Venezuela may be seen in the depth of Col. Chávez's disregard for Monday's bloodbath. Blithely ignoring the overwhelming video evidence that a massacre had taken place in his name, he minimized the incident's importance and suggested that the gunmen were most likely linked to opposition groups. His reactions chillingly indicate the fate that might befall the millions of Venezuelans who oppose him, and who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid political violence in registering their dissent by peaceful protest or by vote.
Mr. Halvorssen is First Amendment scholar at The Commonwealth Foundation. He lives in New York.
from the Wall Street Journal via OpinionJournal.com, 2004-Sep-9:
Conned in Caracas
New evidence that Jimmy Carter got fooled in Venezuela.Both the Bush Administration and former President Jimmy Carter were quick to bless the results of last month's Venezuelan recall vote, but it now looks like they were had. A statistical analysis by a pair of economists suggests that the random-sample "audit" results that the Americans trusted weren't random at all.
This is no small matter. The imprimatur of Mr. Carter and his Carter Center election observers is being used by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to claim a mandate. The anti-American strongman has been steering his country toward dictatorship and is stirring up trouble throughout Latin America. If the recall election wasn't fair, why would Americans want to endorse it?
The new study was released this week by economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard and Roberto Rigobon of MIT. They zeroed in on a key problem with the August 18 vote audit that was run by the government's electoral council (CNE): In choosing which polling stations would be audited, the CNE refused to use the random number generator recommended by the Carter Center. Instead, the CNE insisted on its own program, run on its own computer. Mr. Carter's team acquiesced, and Messrs. Hausmann and Rigobon conclude that, in controlling this software, the government had the means to cheat.
"This result opens the possibility that the fraud was committed only in a subset of the 4,580 automated centers, say 3,000, and that the audit was successful because it directed the search to the 1,580 unaltered centers. That is why it was so important not to use the Carter Center number generator. If this was the case, Carter could never have figured it out."
Mr. Hausmann told us that he and Mr. Rigoban also "found very clear trails of fraud in the statistical record" and a probability of less than 1% that the anomalies observed could be pure chance. To put it another way, they think the chance is 99% that there was electoral fraud.
The authors also suggest that the fraud was centralized. Voting machines were supposed to print tallies before communicating by Internet with the CNE center. But the CNE changed that rule, arranging to have totals sent to the center first and only later printing tally sheets. This increases the potential for fraud because the Smartmatic voting machines suddenly had two-way communication capacity that they weren't supposed to have. The economists say this means the CNE center could have sent messages back to polling stations to alter the totals.
None of this would matter if the auditing process had been open to scrutiny by the Carter observers. But as the economists point out: "After an arduous negotiation, the Electoral Council allowed the OAS [Organization of American States] and the Carter Center to observe all aspects of the election process except for the central computer hub, a place where they also prohibited the presence of any witnesses from the opposition. At the time, this appeared to be an insignificant detail. Now it looks much more meaningful."
Yes, it does. It would seem that Colin Powell and the Carter Center have some explaining to do. The last thing either would want is for Latins to think that the U.S. is now apologizing for governments that steal elections. Back when he was President, Mr. Carter once famously noted that the Afghanistan invasion had finally caused him to see the truth about Leonid Brezhnev. A similar revelation would seem to be in order toward Mr. Chavez.
from the Wall Street Journal via VCrisis.com, 2004-Aug-17, p.A18:
Chavez's 'Victory'
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed victory early yesterday in his battle to defeat Sunday's recall referendum. The opposition is crying foul, citing a litany of referendum irregularities. They may be right, but Mr. Chavez made it clear some time ago that he is not leaving office. His democratic opponents have few avenues for recourse.
Sunday's vote is a metaphor for the sorry state of Venezuela's "democracy." Mr. Chavez controls the military, the Supreme Court, the Congress, the National Electoral Council (CNE), the state-owned oil monopoly and the intelligence services. There is no balance of power, no transparency, and Venezuela is fast becoming an authoritarian state.
Equally worrying is that when the oil-rich Mr. Chavez claimed victory, he claimed it for all of the Americas, reinforcing his commitment to spread revolution on the continent. With Fidel Castro as his closest ally, Mr. Chavez is a dangerous presence in the region.
Mr. Chavez's claims of a "landslide" victory are not supported by independent evidence of how the voting was going. All day long Sunday, exit polls were reporting a 16 to 20 point margin in favor of removing the president. As the Journal's Jose de Cordoba and David Lunhow reported from Caracas yesterday, the opinion polling firm of Penn, Shoen and Berland Associates had the vote to remove Mr. Chavez at 59% in early exit polls. A number of other exit polls throughout the day showed similar results.
Just before 4 a.m. Monday, Mr. Chavez's hand-picked CNE director announced that Mr. Chavez had won with exactly the opposite result of that indicated by the exit polls. As Dow Jones writer Charles Roth reported, the opposition said the "CNE didn't allow an audit of the paper receipts issued by the touchscreen machines, or allow opposition representatives to be present during its tallying of the vote."
Venezuelan expats in the U.S. say they were turned away even though they had confirmed their registrations in advance. Some Venezuelans inside the country report that they had their polling stations reassigned hours away from their homes. The government expanded voter rolls by more than one and a half million people mainly in areas where Mr. Chavez is supported. The finger-print scanners that were supposed to ensure one-man, one-vote, malfunctioned, creating long lines.
Turnout appeared high but official tallies didn't reflect that fact. Perhaps most suspicious is that the government is claiming that fewer people voted to remove Mr. Chavez in this secret balloting than signed the referendum petition last fall. That one is hard to swallow since signing the petition exposed individuals to government sponsored harassment and job insecurity.
Mr. Chavez has already made it clear that it is his way or the highway for Venezuelans. He said yesterday that "It is absolutely impossible that the victory of the 'no' be reversed."
In recent years Mr. Chavez has praised Middle Eastern terrorism as heroic and lobbed rhetorical grenades at George W. Bush. On his own continent he has given Colombian guerrillas sanctuary inside Venezuelan territory. His survival on Sunday cannot be good for the future of peace in the hemisphere.
from the International Herald Tribune (New York Times), 2004-Aug-18, by Enrique ter Horst:
Evidence of an electoral fraud is growing
Chávez and the voteCARACAS The perception that a massive electronic fraud led to President Hugo Chávez's mandate not being cut short in the recall referendum on Sunday is rapidly gaining ground in Venezuela. All exit polls carried out on the day had given the opposition an advantage of between 12 percent and 19 percent. But preliminary results announced by the government-controlled National Electoral Council at 3:30 a.m. gave Chávez 58.2 percent of the vote, against 41.7 percent for the opposition.
At first people scratched their heads in disbelief, including many Chávez supporters, but accepted these figures after César Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States, and former President Jimmy Carter said their own quick counts coincided with the electoral council's figures. Two days after the referendum, however, evidence is growing that the software of the touch-screen voting machines had been tampered with. The opposition has requested that the votes be recounted manually and that the boxes holding the voting papers, currently stored in army garrisons, be put under the custody of international observers.
Chávez had to be dragged kicking and screaming into holding the presidential recall referendum, even though it had been provided for by his Constitution. He was conscious that two-thirds of the people opposed his Cuban-inspired "revolutionary project" and his autocratic, aggressive style.
Two petitions were necessary to overcome the electoral council's tricks and delaying tactics. After the second petition was declared valid, under strong national and international pressure, and after having poured billions of dollars into social programs, Chávez accepted that the referendum be held Aug. 15.
The electoral council has stated that the voting machines were audited after the vote, but the council did so in the absence of any opposition representative or any international observer. A cause for even greater concern is the fact that the papers the new machines produced confirming the voter's choice - which the voter had to verify and then drop into a closed box - were not added up and compared with the final numbers these machines produce at the end of the voting process, as the voting-machine manufacturer had suggested.
Evidence of foul play has surfaced. In the town of Valle de la Pascua, where papers were counted at the initiative of those manning the voting center, the Yes vote had been cut by more than 75 percent, and the entire voting material was seized by the national guard shortly after the difference was established.
Three machines in a voting center in the state of Bolivar that has generally voted against Chávez all showed the same 133 votes for the Yes option, and higher numbers for the No option. Two other machines registered 126 Yes votes and much higher votes for the No. The opposition alleges that these machines, which can both send and receive information, were reprogrammed to start adjudicating all votes to the No option after a given number of Yes votes has been registered.
Although the Organization of American States and the Carter Center have called the election free and fair, their quick count justifying this statement was also based only on the numbers provided by the voting machines. The two organizations had brokered an agreement to examine, in the presence of government and opposition representatives, a sample of 150 voting points chosen at random. A comparison of the results printed out by these machines with the papers contained in the corresponding boxes was to be concluded this week. But the opposition now wants all machines and ballot boxes to be examined.
This is not just another election in a country where political actors abide by democratic rules and civilized behavior. It is an election where a choice of society is being made, and where one side is prepared to use any method to remain in power, even elections if it is assured of "winning" them.
Enrique ter Horst, a Venezuelan national, is a lawyer and political analyst in Caracas. A former assistant secretary general of the United Nations, he headed the UN peacekeeping operations in El Salvador and Haiti, and was the UN Deputy High Commissioner of Human Rights.
from United Press International via Petroleum World, 2004-Sep-14:
Analysis: Venezuela eyes Russian MiGs
CARACAS - Venezuela plans to acquire 50 of Russia's most advanced warplanes, according to U.S., European and Latin American military intelligence officials who are concerned about regional ambitions harbored by President Hugo Chavez.
Chavez's plans to use oil revenues to upgrade his military were reported last May by CNN, which quoted Pentagon sources as saying that Venezuela would spend an estimated $5 billion to obtain sophisticated hardware.
United Press International has details of agreements being negotiated with Russian defense contractors for a large number of super jet fighters fitted with state-of-the-art weaponry. In letters addressed last year to the director general of Russian Aeronautic Corp., Nicolai F. Nikitin, the Venezuelan air force requested the "latest version" of the MiG 29 SMT equipped with high-tech weaponry, including radar-guided missiles and 2,000-pound bombs.
"The plane must have the capacity to carry no less than 4 tons of bombs," says the document signed by the Venezuelan air force commander, Maj. Gen. Regulo Anselini Espin, a copy of which has been obtained by UPI. Venezuelan generals have told European diplomatic officials that they need the MiGs to protect the Panama Canal. When asked against whom, the air chiefs wouldn't specify.
Venezuelan defense officials tell UPI that they are turning to new defense partners because of deteriorating military relations with the United States. More than half of Venezuela's 22 F-16s are currently grounded due lack of maintenance and spare parts. But Colombia and other neighboring countries fear that the new arms would enable Chavez to impose his geopolitical and ideological agenda.
The MiG purchase order asks for various types of offensive air-to-surface missiles, including anti- radar Kh-31A, Kh-31P and Kh-29T "for use against ships." Radar-guided KAB-500 KR bombs as well as RVV-AE, R-27 T1, R27 R1, R27 ER1 and R-73E air-to- air systems are also specified in the inventory, as are multifunctional Zhuk-M cockpit radars for "over the horizon" combat operations.
"The total quantity of airplanes provided is of 40 single-seat planes and 10 twin-seat planes," Venezuelan air force documents state. Defense analysts point out that two-seat MiGs are normaly used for deep, surgical bombing missions.
Ten aircraft are due to be delivered within 18 months of signing the contract, which also involves setting up a MiG 29 maintenance center in Venezuela, according to air force officials who outline plans for long-term supply and maintenance. "Future deliveries will be made with the participation of the specialists of the Venezuelan air force in the joint assembly of the planes and their test flights following their assembly on Venezuelan territory," say letters of intent with Russia.
Several MiGs already are in Venezuela, according to Colombian defense officials who have shown UPI photographs of the planes being prepared for flight testing at the Libertador air base in Maracaibo. A U.S. intelligence source also claims that MiGs have been spotted flying near the Caribbean island of Curcao.
Members of Venezuela's military say handpicked pilots are undergoing flight training in Cuba, which has six MiG 29s. Cuba is the only country in Latin America, except Peru, to be equipped with the advanced Russian model. Fidel Castro offers various types of security assistance to Venezuela in exchange for oil.
Russian and Cuban military officials enjoy warm relations with the Venezuelan Defense ministry, according to American and EU diplomatic sources who believe that Russia is prepared to sell the full MiG package. The sources say that Russia's defense attache, air force Col. Oleg Krajotin, holds regular meetings with Venezuelan Defense Minister Garcia Carneiro.
Venezuelan contracts are also being drawn up for Russian Mi-17 heavy-lift helicopters as well as radar systems from China, according to U.S. intelligence reports.
The arms give Chavez the military muscle to project regional leadership following his presidency's reaffirmation through a national referendum held last Aug. 15. He also is strengthening ties with Iran.
"This is battle not only for Venezuela but for all of Latin America and the Third World," Chavez told a cheering crowd of followers when he kicked off his referendum campaign last July. He warned about worldwide retaliation against American interests if the United States intervened against Venezuela's " irreversible revolutionary process" and called on all Latin Americans to unite against the "empire from the north."
Domestic political opponents accuse Chavez of using fraud to win last month's referendum. The Organization of American States is investigating the allegations.
Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage conditioned improved American relations with Venezuela on a "toning down of anti-American rhetoric" and a "modification of policies prejudicial to U.S. interests".
Chavez has granted American oil companies important offshore oil drilling concessions. But his foreign minister was in Tehran just two weeks ago to arrange a state visit, which would be Chavez's second official trip to Iran since 2001. He also enjoyed close relations with Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi regime was toppled by a U.S. invasion.
Colombian officials fear that a Venezuelan military buildup might embolden Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) guerrillas who hailed Chavez's referendum victory as "a stimulus for liberation movements in all of Latin America".
"FARC forms part of our Bolivarian Revolutionary Army," says Ileana Ibarra, a local leader of the Circulos Bolivarianos in Caracas. "We are forming the Great Colombia" she says, referring to a project for integrating both countries that was proposed in the 19th century by Venezuela's independence hero, Simon Bolivar.
Colombia has received billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance for counterinsurgency operations, including a fleet a of Blackhawk helicopters. But Colombia has nothing to match the MiG 29s, which would give Venezuela "the largest and most potent air force in Latin America," according former Colombian air force chief, Gen. Nestor Ramirez.
The Colombian government alleges that Venezuelan aircraft have flown incursions to support leftist FARC guerrilla units along border areas. Chavez, in turn, accuses Colombian right-wing paramilitary groups of conspiring with domestic opponents to destabilize his government.
Other longstanding territorial disputes have caused Bogota to raise a protest against Caracas this week. According to the news agency EFE, the Colombian government has complained that Venezuelan offshore concessions just granted to international oil companies infringe on Colombian territorial waters.
"We are heading toward a war with Colombia," said a Venezuelan military intelligence officer who claims that contingency plans are being drawn up for a potential conflict with the neighboring country.
Venezuela also is backing Bolivia's historical claims on Chilean Pacific ocean ports. At a meeting of Latin American presidents held last year, Chavez called for the return of a stretch of coastline annexed by Chile during a war in 1879. He just gave 11 armed T-34 jet trainers to the Bolivian air force and has offered to train its combat pilots.
Bolivia's main leftist opposition leader, Evo Morales, who is a close friend of Chavez, has been heading a campaign to block gas exports to Chile. U.S. intelligence sources maintain that Venezuela's ruling Revolutionary Movement channeled $15 million to Bolivian leftist organizations that toppled a pro-U.S. government last year.
from CNN, 2002-Jul-29, by Lucia Newman, CNN Havana Bureau:
Church: 23 Cuban youngsters defect
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) -- Twenty-three of the 200 Cuban youngsters who attended the World Youth Conference in Toronto, Canada, decided not to return to the communist island, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba said Monday.
The youngsters are in hiding in a "safe house" until Tuesday, when the Cuban delegation is slated to return to Cuba, said Joe Garcia of the Cuban American National Foundation.
Garcia said relatives of the youths from Texas, New York, New Jersey and Florida had traveled to Canada to help them seek asylum.
The weeklong conference culminated Sunday with a Mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II, who left Monday for Guatemala, where he arrived late in the afternoon.
In a statement issued by the Catholic Church in Havana on behalf of the Catholic bishops conference of Cuba , spokesman Orlando Marquez Hidalgo said most of those who chose not to return were from the dioceses of Pinar del Rio, in western Cuba, and Santiago de Cuba, in eastern Cuba.
In addition to those who had the support of family members from the United States, some of the youths separated themselves from the group on their own, leaving farewell notes, the statement said.
"We have also been informed that this action has left a bitter taste among the rest of the delegation," Marquez said.
In a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Florida, asked that the youths be granted asylum.
"I urge you to take all necessary steps to assure the well-being of the young Cubans who are seeking freedom in Canada and to facilitate the process by which they may claim political asylum," Diaz-Balart said.
from the Toronto Globe and Mail, 2002-Jul-30, by Vernon Clement Jones:
Asylum-seekers disappoint WYD organizers
It's unfortunate that 23 young Cubans used World Youth Day as an opportunity to seek asylum in Canada, organizers of the Toronto event say.
The young Catholic Cubans are now hiding out in various locations around the city, anxious to elude the officials from their country who accompanied them to Toronto.
The 200-strong Cuban delegation arrived in Toronto last week for the start of World Youth Day celebrations, six days of events that closed Sunday with a Papal mass for 800,000.
But that celebration is an extremely religious and pious ocassion, Paul Kilbertus, WYD communications director, told globeandmail.com Tuesday. Refugee-seekers were neither planned nor welcomed.
"You know that's not why we held World Youth Day," said Mr. Kilbertus. "We wanted people to come for the right reasons. We were diligent as we could be when working with Canadian immigration officials - we're sorry that there are people who've used the opportunity to take part in a religious event as an excuse to get in the country."
Mr. Kilbertus notes that all WYD pilgrims met the rigorous visa standards set down by Immigration officials, although processing fees were waived. The real possibility of some of the 206,000 registered pilgrims launching refugee claims was, however, acknowledged by Ottawa, he said.
Almost 16,000 foreign pilgrims were still in Toronto Tuesday, said Mr. Kilbertus, most are expected to depart within the next few days. Many are helping WYD volunteers labouring to clean up Downsview Lands, the site of Sunday's Papal mass.
It's plastic debris from that site - caught in the city's sewer system - which is being blamed for a blanket of raw sewage on the floor of a nearby furniture store. Garret de Boer, the owner of Idomo, is calling on the city to pay for the millions of dollars in damage to his store.
Filth from thousands of portable toilets used by WYD pilgrims was dumped into a nearby sewer, he says, making the city responsible for his losses. The city is now investigating.
Mr. Kilbertus said that the damage to Idomo is regrettable and WYD organizers welcome the Toronto city investigation.
But WYD organizers have even more troubles to worry about, said Mr. Kilbertus. As many as nine other WYD visitors to Toronto have already filed refugee claims, some as early as July 15 - almost a week before the celebrations actually began.
A spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration, Rejean Cantlon, told globeandmail.com Tuesday that the young Cubans aren't likely to come before a refugee officer for another month. In the meantime they will continue to enjoy those visitor rights granted by their temporary visas. The ministry's confidentiality rules prohibit the disclosure of a refugee claimant's identity, he added.
A spokesman for the Cuban asylum-seekers said the group is fleeing religious persecution in a country that has only begun to reconcile itself to the Catholic Church and the idea of religious expression.
"They decided to leave Cuba to escape from the repression there, because it is not possible to express freely these religious ideas and political ideas," said the president of the Cuban Canadian Foundation, Ismael Sambra. That organization is avowedly "anti-Fidel Castro" and the communist regime he leads.
But a spokesperson for the Cuban Council of Catholic Bishops, an organization that signed visas for the young pilgrims, doubts their claims of persecution.
"I think they really are just young professionals, educated Cubans, who are looking for economic enrichment," said Orlando Diaz. Catholics in Cuba face neither threat of imprisonment nor violence, he said.
[oh, gee, quite a crime, this "looking for economic enrichment" - particularly criminal since they likely envision doing so by their own individual efforts. Appalling! What will they ask for next, freedom of speech? privacy and property rights? Just ghastly! -AMPP Ed., mustering quite a spasm of sarcasm]
from TPDL 2001-Oct-24, from SmarterTimes, by Ira Stoll:
Soft on Cuba
During Fidel Castro's visit to New York last year for the United Nations Millennium Summit, the Cuban dictator made time to visit the offices of the New York Times, an article by Julie Pecheur in the current issue of the journal Correspondence recounts. As Castro walked down the portrait gallery, he asked, "Where is Herbert Matthews's portrait? There was a good journalist!"
Though the Times's man in Havana had long since retired and died, the newspaper's nearly slavish devotion to the Communist dictatorship on Cuba continues to this day. Sometimes, as today, it descends to the point of self-parody.
The Times metro section today carries an article on a Cuban-government sponsored propaganda tour by a group of Cuban musicians. The article's third paragraph passes along unchallenged a quote by one of the Cubans, who claims, "In Cuba, people don't have pistols. There are problems in Cuba, but we don't have gangsters." There are, of course, people with pistols in Cuba -- they work for the government security forces charged with capturing and torturing political dissidents, labor union organizers and religious leaders. They are, by any reasonable definition of the term, gangsters.
The Times article goes on to report that the musicians "rap in Spanish and come from a socialist world." "Socialist" is a euphemism for the system in Cuba, which would be more accurately described as Communist.
The Times article goes on to quote unchallenged the claim by an American that "the Cubans have an advantage in not having a music industry to contend with." The American claims that "Art here is a reflection of what the record labels want. That's why you see these negative stereotypes of mostly minorities in hip-hop." No American record executive is given a chance by the Times to point out that funding from the record industry offers more of a chance for financial success and artistic freedom than does the apparent alternative, funding from the Cuban government. No American record executive is given a chance by the Times to defend the American record industry from what seems like a thinly veiled accusation of racism.
The topper is the claim that one of the musicians rapped about "those Cubans who take to the sea because of their dire economic condition and end up drowning." This is such an outlandish distortion that it might be funny if it weren't being mobilized in defense of such a brutal and evil regime. It is not merely "their dire economic condition" that causes Cubans to take to the sea. That, after all, can be blamed -- wrongly -- by Castro on the American economic sanctions against Cuba. It is the lack of freedom that causes them to flee, and for that the Communist dictator and his henchmen are to blame. It is a closed-door policy by Castro that restricts emigration by normal, safer methods and causes Cubans to flee by sea on rickety boats.
Stalin: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times runs under the headline "The Specter of Joseph Stalin Descends Over Mayoral Race." The Times reports this story in a whimsical tone that suggests the issue is beside the point. That is the position of Mark Green's mayoral campaign. The Times article begins, "Never mind the state of the public schools, the qualifications of the two candidates or even what the city should do to recover from the attack on the World Trade Center. The campaign to be the next mayor of New York turned yesterday on two unlikely subjects: Stalin (as in Joseph) and South Africa."
At issue is a passage in Mr. Green's 1982 book that says, according to the Times, "At his first press conference, Reagan said he knew of 'no leader of the Soviet Union since the revolution' whose aim was not world revolution, a view which ignores a Soviet leader named Joseph Stalin, who pushed for 'socialism in one country' instead of Leon Trotsky's approach of 'world revolution.'"
Never mind Mr. Green's use of "which" instead of "that." His unthinking acceptance of Stalin's slogan as representative of Stalin's genuine intention shows him as a dupe of the Communists. Reagan saw through that. If Stalin genuinely was not aiming for world revolution (or, more accurately, world domination), why was the Soviet Union pouring millions of dollars into funding Communist parties, propaganda efforts, front groups and revolutionary activity abroad?
The Times handles this by reporting, "Several scholars of Soviet history said in interviews yesterday that while there were debates about whether Stalin had renounced the concept of world revolution, Mr. Green's abbreviated version reflected a well-known school of thought and did not seem to be particularly pro-Stalin." Well, at issue is not whether Mr. Green's side of this debate is "well-known" but whether it is correct. The Times goes on to quote Robert Conquest, who is a brilliant scholar who is well aware of Stalin's true intentions. But his quote is used merely to reinforce the Times-Green position that this is all an amusing sideshow. If Mr. Green still believes today that Stalin was not bent on world domination, he's lost the vote of at least one New Yorker.
Booing: Senator Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton were roundly booed Saturday night at a benefit concert in New York. The New York Times reports this news today in the context of an article that devotes a headline, a photo and 17 paragraphs to the booing of Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen and exactly one half of one sentence to the booing of Senator Clinton. The crowd's reaction to the ex-president is not mentioned at all.
NY Post: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times complains about the New York Post that "Since the attack, The Post has aggressively criticized local and national leaders." The same could be said of the New York Times. Today's Times, for instance, carries a headline that says, "Criticism of Postal and Health Officials Grows Louder." And the September 13 New York Times was full of criticism of President Bush, including an editorial that said it was "disturbing" that Mr. Bush did not field questions from the press in the hours after the September 11 terrorist attack. A New York Times Times columnist on September 14 accused Republicans in Congress and the White House of "disgraceful opportunism" and suggested they "are not true patriots." The important question to consider is not whether the criticism has been aggressive or not but whether it is justified. That is a question that the Times does not get into.
from the Boston Globe, 2001-Jun-21, by Jeff Jacoby:
Cuban liberty and a test for Bush
`'THE SANCTIONS our government enforces against the Castro regime are not just a policy tool; they are a moral statement.'' Thus spake President Bush last month, at a White House ceremony marking the 99th anniversary of Cuban independence.
''My administration will oppose any attempt to weaken sanctions against Cuba's government - and I will fight such attempts until this regime frees its political prisoners, holds democratic, free elections, and allows free speech.''
Good words; strong words. Whether they are also true words we will find out next month, when Bush must decide whether to let Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act finally take effect.
President Clinton signed the law, also known as Helms-Burton, in March 1996, following the Cuban government's murder of four unarmed American civilians. The four, members of Brothers to the Rescue, had been flying over international waters, searching for stranded Cuban refugees. They died when the Cuban Air Force, without warning, blew their two small planes out of the sky. In the uproar that followed, Clinton agreed to let Helms-Burton become law, but then suspended Title III, its most important provision.
Title III is rooted in an ancient and obvious principle of law: A thief cannot pass good title to the property he has stolen, not even to an innocent third party who buys it from him in good faith. The original owner retains his rights and can assert them against the third party in any court having jurisdiction.
After seizing power in 1960, Fidel Castro nationalized - stole - all foreign-owned private property in Cuba. According to the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, the property confiscated from American owners - houses, factories, banks, mines, real estate - was valued at more than $1.8 billion in 1960. The Castro regime never acquired lawful title to those assets. And when, desperate for hard currency after its subsidy from the former Soviet Union dried up, it began selling them to Canadian, Mexican, and European companies, they didn't either.
The American owners never surrendered their rights to their stolen property. But since the property remained in Castro's physical control, they also never had any realistic way of asserting those rights. Title III of Helms-Burton partially rectified that injustice by permitting the owners to bring suit in US court against the foreign companies that acquired the stolen goods from the Cuban government.
As former US Court of Appeals Judge Malcolm Wilkey analogized it in a 1997 essay, the foreign purchaser, ''knowing that the property had been confiscated without payment to the rightful owner, is in no better moral or legal position in regard to his use of the property than a sleazy used car dealer who buys a car with the serial numbers chiseled off.'' Title III doesn't restore that stolen car to its original owner, but it lets him demand compensation from the sleazy used-car dealer who acquired it from the thief.
The purpose of Helms-Burton is to bring the Cuban people closer to freedom by applying economic pressure to the Cuban dictatorship. Title III would make it harder for foreign firms to do business in Cuba; that in turn would make it harder for Castro to amass the wealth that keeps him in power. But Title III has never taken effect because Clinton repeatedly invoked a presidential waiver to suspend it.
The most recent waiver expires in July. If Bush really meant the words he spoke on Cuban Independence Day, he will refuse to extend it. That will send a message to our business-uber-alles allies in Canada and Europe: There is a price to pay for trafficking in stolen American property. And it will signal the abused and persecuted Cuban people that they have not been forgotten.
It is not repeated enough: Cuba under Castro is a hideous place to live. It is the only dictatorship in this hemisphere, a once-vibrant island ground into desolation by a Stalinist despot. It is a place where freedom of speech, of the press, of association are nonexistent. A place where government agents eavesdrop on private phone calls, read private correspondence, censor private e-mail. A place where all media is Castro's media, and where journalists who don't play ball can end up in prison.
Cuba's dictator has always had an American cheering squad: leftist sycophants who look at 40 years of Communist ruin in Cuba and blame it on the United States, or the credulous celebrities who gush about the ''good things'' Castro has done for ''his people.'' With those sort of people, the Clinton administration was always quite comfortable.
That is going to change, says Bush. Liberty for Cuba will now be a priority. We will know that he means it if Title III takes effect.
from Salon, 1999-Jan-11, by David Horowitz:
I, Rigoberta Menchú, liar
How left-wing propagandists, a fellow-traveling Nobel committee and a corrupt media perpetrated a monstrous hoax.The story of Rigoberta Menchú, a Quiché Mayan from Guatemala whose autobiography catapulted her to international fame, won her the Nobel Peace Prize and made her an international emblem of the dispossessed indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere and their attempt to rebel against the oppression of European conquerors, has now been exposed as a political fabrication, a tissue of lies. It is one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century.
Equally remarkable, and also indicative of the cultural power of the perpetrators of this hoax, is the fact that the revelation of Menchú's mendacity has changed nothing. The Nobel committee has already refused to take back her prize, the thousands of college courses that make her book a required text for American students will continue to do so and the editorial writers of the major press institutions have already defended her falsehoods on the same grounds that supporters of Tawana Brawley's parallel hoax made famous: Even if she's lying, she's telling the truth.
The 1982 autobiography that launched the hoax "I, Rigoberta Menchú," was actually written by a French leftist, Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, wife of Marxist Regis Debray, who provided the foco strategy for Che Guevara's failed effort to foment a guerrilla war in Bolivia in the 1960s. Debray's misguided theory got Guevara and an undetermined number of Bolivian peasants killed, and as we shall see is at the root of the tragedies that overwhelmed Menchú and her family.
As told in her autobiography, the story of Rigoberta Menchú is a classic Marxist myth. The Menchús were a poor Maya family living on the margins of a country from which they had been dispossessed by the Spanish conquistadors whose descendants are known as ladinos, and who try to drive the Menchús and other Indian peasants off unclaimed land that they had cultivated. Rigoberta was illiterate and her peasant father, Vicente, refused to send her to school because he needed her to work in the fields. So poor is the Menchú family because of their lack of land that Rigoberta has to watch her younger brother die of starvation. Meanwhile, Vicente is engaged in a heroic but ultimately hopeless battle with the ladino masters of the land for a plot to cultivate. Finally, Vicente organizes a resistance movement called Committee for Campesino Unity. Rigoberta becomes a political organizer too. The resistance movement links up with a Guatemalan revolutionary force, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor. But the ruling class's brutal security forces enter the fray and prevail. Vicente Menchú is killed. The surviving members of the family are forced to watch as Rigoberta's brother is burned alive. Rigoberta's mother is raped and killed.
As told by Rigoberta, the tragedy of the Menchús is a call to people of good will all over the world to help the good but powerless indigenous peoples of Guatemala and other third world countries to their rightful inheritance. Made internationally famous by the success of her book and by the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1992, Menchú, now head of the Rigoberta Menchú Foundation for Human Rights, is a powerful spokeswoman for the cause of "social justice and peace."
Unfortunately for her case, virtually everything that Menchú has written is a lie -- and the lies are neither incidental nor accidental. They are lies about the central events of her story and have been concocted for specifically political purposes, in order to create a specific political myth. And they begin on the first page, where she writes:
When I was older, my father regretted my not going to school, as I was a girl able to learn many things. But he always said: 'Unfortunately, if I put you in school, they'll make you forget your class; they'll turn you into a ladino. I don't want that for you and that's why I don't send you.' He might have had the chance to put me in school when I was about fourteen or fifteen but he couldn't do it because he knew what the consequences would be: the ideas that they would give me.To the unsuspecting reader, this looks like an all-too perfect realization of the Marxist paradigm, in which the ideas of the ruling class become the ruling ideas through its control of the means of education. But, contrary to her assertions, Menchú was not uneducated. Nor did her father oppose her education because he feared it would indoctrinate her in the values of the ladino ruling class. Her father, in fact, sent her to two prestigious private boarding schools, operated by Catholic nuns, where she received the equivalent of a middle-school education.
These and other pertinent details have now been established by anthropologist David Stoll, one of the leading academic experts on Guatemala, who interviewed more than 120 Guatemalans, including relatives, friends, neighbors and former teachers and classmates, as the basis of his new book, "Rigoberta Menchú." The New York Times subsequently sent reporter Larry Rohter to Guatemala to verify Stoll's findings, which he did. Because Menchú was indeed away at boarding school for most of her youth, her detailed accounts of herself laboring eight months a year on coffee and cotton plantations and organizing a political underground are also probably false. Whether it was the education she received in Catholic boarding schools that made her a spokeswoman for Communist guerrillas, neither Stoll nor Rohter says, but it is all too possible.
Menchú's account of her family's situation is also distorted. She had no brother who starved to death, at least none that her own family could remember. The ladinos were not a ruling caste in her town or district, in which there were no large estates as she claims. The Menchús, moreover, were not poor in the way Rigoberta describes them. Vicente Menchú had title to 2,753 hectares of land. The 22-year land dispute described by Rigoberta, which is the central event in the book leading to the rebellion, in fact concerned a tiny 151-hectare parcel of land. Moreover, his "heroic struggle against the landowners who wanted to take our land" was in fact not a dispute with representatives of a European-descended conquistador class but with his own Mayan relatives, the Tum family, headed by his wife's uncle.
Vicente Menchú did not organize a peasant resistance called Committee for Campesino Unity. He was a conservative, insofar as he was political at all. His consuming passion was not any social concern, but the family feud with his in-laws, who were small landowning peasants like himself. It was his involvement in this feud that caused him to be caught up in a larger drama, one that was irrelevant to his concerns and that ultimately killed him.
At the end of the '70s, Cuba's Communist dictator, Fidel Castro, launched a new turn in Cuban foreign policy, sponsoring and arming a series of guerrilla offensives in Central America -- Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala -- along the lines laid down by Regis Debray and Che Guevara a decade before. The leaders of these movements were generally not Indians but Hispanics, principally the disaffected middle- and upper-class scions of the ruling castes of those countries. They were often the graduates of cadre training centers in Moscow and Havana, and of terrorist training camps in Lebanon and East Germany. (The leaders of the Salvadoran guerrillas even included a Lebanese Communist and Shi'ite Muslim named Shafik Handal.)
One of these forces, the Guerrilla Army of the Poor, showed up in Uspantan, the largest township near Menchú's village, on April 29, 1979. They painted everything within reach red, grabbed the tax collector's money and threw it in the streets, tore down the jail and released the prisoners and, according to an eyewitness, chanted in the town square "We're defenders of the poor" for 15 or 20 minutes.
None of the guerrillas were masked because none of them were local. As strangers, they had no understanding of the local situation, in which virtually all the land disputes were between the Mayan inhabitants themselves. Instead, they perceived things according to the Marxist textbook version -- perpetuated now by Menchú and the Nobel Peace Prize committee -- and executed two sons of a local ladino landholder. Thinking that the guerrillas were now the power in his region, Vicente Menchú cast his fate with them by providing them with a meeting place and accompanying them on a protest. But the Guatemalan security forces, primed for the hemispheric offensive that Castro had launched, soon descended on the region with characteristic brutality. They were abetted by enraged relatives of the murdered ladino peasants seeking revenge on the leftist assassins. The violence this triggered resulted in the deaths of many innocents, including Rigoberta Menchú's parents and a second brother (although it is certain that Rigoberta did not witness his death, as she claims).
The most famous incident in Menchú's book is the occupation of the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City in January 1980. Vicente Menchú was the peasant spokesman for the group. The group in fact was led not by Mayan peasants but by the Robin Garcia Revolutionary Student Front. Vicente Menchú was appointed spokesman. A witness, cited by David Stoll, later described how Vicente was primed for his role:
"They would tell Don Vicente, 'Say, "The people united will never be defeated,"' and Don Vicente would say, 'The people united will never be defeated.' They would tell Don Vicente, 'Raise your left hand when you say it,' and he would raise his left hand."
When they set out on the trip, the Uspantan peasants who accompanied the student revolutionaries to the Spanish embassy had no idea where they were going or what the purpose of the trip was. Stoll interviewed a survivor whose husband died in the incident. She told him that the journey originated in a wedding party at the Catholic church in Uspantan. Two days after the ceremony, the wedding party moved on. "The señores said they were going to the coast, but they arrived at the capital." Once there, the student revolutionaries proceeded with their plan to occupy the embassy and take hostages, with the unsuspecting Mayans ensnared. Vicente Menchú was appointed their spokesman. Although the cause of the tragedy that ensued is in dispute, Stoll presents persuasive evidence that a Molotov cocktail brought by the students ignited and set the embassy on fire. At least 39 people, including Vicente Menchú, were killed.
Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú has been exposed by this research as a Communist agent working for terrorists who were ultimately responsible for the death of her own family. So rigid is Menchú's party loyalty to the Castroists that she refused to denounce the Sandinista dictatorship's genocidal attempt to eliminate the Miskito Indians, despite billing herself as a champion of indigenous peoples. She even broke with her own translator, Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, over the issue (Burgos-Debray, along with other prominent French leftists, had protested the attacks on the Miskitos).
Rigoberta's response to this exposure of her lies has been, on the one hand, to refuse comment, and on the other to add another lie -- denying that she had anything to do with the book that made her famous. Stoll listened to two hours of the tapes she made for Burgos-Debray (which provided the text for the book) and has testified that they are identical to the (false) version of the facts as recorded in the book itself.
The fictional story of Rigoberta Menchú is a piece of Communist propaganda designed to incite hatred of Europeans and Westerners and the societies they have built, and to build support for Communist and terrorist organizations at war with the democracies of the West. It has become the single most influential social treatise among American college students. Over 15,000 theses have been written on Rigoberta Menchú the world over -- all accepting her lies as gospel. The Nobel Peace Prize committee has made Rigoberta an international figure and spokeswoman for "social justice and peace."
In an editorial responding to these revelations, the Los Angeles Times typically glosses over the enormity of what Menchú, the Guatemalan terrorists, the French left, the international community of "human rights" leftists, the Nobel committee fellow-travelers and the tenured radicals who dominate the American academic community have wrought. The Times does recognize that something has gone amiss: "After the initial lies, the international apparatus of human rights activism, journalism and academia pitched in to exaggerate the dire condition of the peasants when a simple recounting of the truth would have been enough."
But would it? If it had been enough, then Menchú's lies would have been unnecessary. The fact is that there was no social ground for the armed insurrection that these Castroists tried to force, any more than there was for Guevara's suicidal effort in Bolivia years before. Ultimately, the source of the violence and ensuing misery that Rigoberta Menchú describes in her destructive little book is the left itself. Too bad it hasn't the decency to acknowledge this, and to leave the third world alone.
from TPDL 2000-Jul-20, from the Wall Street Journal:
Fidel Strikes Out
Right now there are probably two dozen major league teams who would kill to have Andy Morales playing ball for them, now that the Cuban all-star has landed on American soil. But we'd say his talents are probably more urgently needed over at the Clinton State Department.
p>Mr. Morales, you might recall, was the player who last year hit a home run for Cuba's national team against the Orioles in Baltimore and who last month saw his first bid for freedom end when he was intercepted at sea and quickly repatriated back to Cuba. There, surrounded by state security agents, Mr. Morales was no doubt supposed to brood on his situation and learn from the example of Elian, who arrived shortly after. Separated from his father and packed off to a state "education" center, Elian has been transformed into what Fidel hails as "a symbol, an example and a glory for all the children of Cuba and a pride for all the teachers of Cuba." p>Apparently Mr. Morales wasn't buying. Though the details of his dramatic escape have not yet emerged, his landing in Florida Tuesday night represents a huge embarrassment for Messrs. Clinton and Castro both. For he is far from unique: Over a five-day period from July 5-10, three over-loaded vessels filled with desperate refugees fleeing Fidel's regime washed up on dry, free land. Though most Americans no doubt will be inclined to cheer, there will be no champagne opened at the White House. Indeed, that Cubans continue to arrive at all only underscores the human price paid for Bill Clinton's Cuba policy. p>The latest batch of 37 refugees was found on a Bahamian desert island, having gone without food or water for five days. They included a pregnant woman and an unconscious child. Another group of 25, 10 of whom were children, made it to Marathon, Florida. A separate boat with 43 aboard, this one with children, rammed a U.S. border patrol boat that was chasing it, took off and managed to land on Islamorada, another Florida Key. Said a Border Patrol spokesman referring to their right to asylum, "They were dry feet." p>These are just a fraction of the more than 1,200 Cubans whom the Coast Guard reports as having made it to the U.S. this year. The number is impressive because success requires not only piecing together something that floats, outwitting Fidel's notoriously inhuman border guards and surviving the ravages of nature. It also means dodging the Clinton Administration legal blockade. And Havana is not shy about pressing its advantage: The Miami Herald reports that Cuba has sent a note to the State Department demanding the names of these latest arrivals, with particular interest in any children who might have made it out. p>Now under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans who reach the U.S. have the right to refuge. And until Bill Clinton came along, picking up a Cuban at sea was not unlike helping a Soviet Jew out of Russia. But in August 1994, Mr. Clinton started sending Cuban refugees back, to the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay. A few months later he announced a new immigration accord with Fidel, whereby an annual lottery would provide 20,000 resident visas a year. Henceforth, all rafters picked up at sea would be returned to the island dictatorship unless they could prove fear of persecution. p>The rationale behind this change in policy was that it would coax better behavior from the Cuban government while providing Cubans themselves with an alternative to leaky liferafts. The problem, of course, is that 20,000 visas is nowhere near enough to meet demand. And it doesn't address the people who might most need them: those Fidel is determined not to let go. p>Which brings us back to Mr. Morales. Last month the third baseman was returned because U.S. authorities found he did not meet the fear-of-persecution standard. But if he didn't before, he does now. Which tells you something about what makes Cuba different from, say, Haiti. Though the government claimed he would not be punished, Mr. Morales's every move was watched. At that time, his father said his son might as well prepare himself for a career sweeping streets. As he told the New York Post, it was the worst moment in his son's life: "He has no future. He is dead. I am dead." p>That Mr. Morales could defy the odds and make it back to Florida creates huge problems for Washington and Havana alike. No doubt Fidel's response will be to do what he always does: Rev up the propaganda machine. Within days of Elian's repatriation, after all, the government promised new, mass demonstrations in a different provincial city every Saturday to protest the Cuban Adjustment Act. And so by day Cuba has "anti-Yanqui" rallies -- which American journalists report on with straight faces -- while by night Cubans continue to pile into boats hoping to get to America. p>Clearly there was never much heart behind the Administration's shift in U.S. policy toward Fidel. But the continued exodus of Cuban refugees and the increasing anti-American belligerence of Fidel himself shows there is not much logic in it either. So what is it exactly that Fidel has that Bill Clinton thinks worth the soul of a small boy like Elian or the future of a talented, young ballplayer like Andy Morales?
