Evidentemente que “la trampa” ya está diseñada, lista y preparada.  Es imposible que el incipiente régimen CASTRO-COMUNISTA de los señores Chávez y Castro se cuente en un referendo: ¡imposible!  Denle ustedes las vueltas que más les parezcan lógicas, ¡imposible!

Los otros días el Sr. Chávez viajó a Maracay.  Coincidí con él en la capital aragüeña porque estaba reunido allá con un interesante grupo de “opositores”.  La ciudad fue virtualmente tomada por el Ejército forjador de libertades. 

Al instante de ser revocado su mandato presidencial, Chávez perdería su capacidad de protección.  Su vida estaría cambiada por lo que ustedes saben.  No tendría las prebendas necesarias que obtiene gratuitamente del Estado: apoyo logístico militar, servicio de contra-inteligencia e inteligencia, más de cuatro círculos de seguridad, todo un equipo técnico y un ejército a su servicio, enjambre comunicacional, helicópteros, aviones, ambulancias, tanquetas… y paremos de contar.  Podríamos decir que perdiendo el poder, Chávez podría perder hasta la vida, sin mencionar que al día siguiente sería acusado de los mil y un delitos, incluyendo aquel de lesa humanidad y traición a la patria.  ¿Creen ustedes que se va a contar en un referendo donde sabemos que tiene – al menos – un 60% de probabilidades de perderlo?  Él está loco, pero no come de lo que pica el pollo… por ahora.

¿Para qué le sirve a Castro un Chávez “revocado”?  El nivel intelectual de nuestro presidente está a años luz del de Fidel, así que ni para conversar en una de sus tantas noches de insomnio le sirve.  La “revolución” cubana perdería no menos de 600 millones de bolívares diarios en petróleo regalado.  Ya Castro lo dijo: “para que subsista la revolución cubana tiene que subsistir la revolución bolivariana…” ¿Creen ustedes que Fidel Castro Ruz va a dejar que le revoquen esa “papaya” con un simple, ingenuo, democrático y constitucional revocatorio?  Allá los bobos que comen arroz con picadillo, yuca y se chupan los dedos.

No hay que olvidar que ambas “revoluciones” son en realidad tinglados armados y montados con el ÚNICO FIN de beneficiar a sus dos líderes.   Ambos pueblos están al servicio y al sacrificio de Fidel Castro y Hugo Chávez, elementos maquiavélicamente siniestros que no cuentan ni votos ni muertos… ni les interesan si ambas naciones explotan en pedacitos o se mueren literalmente de hambre y de tristeza.  Algo así como vimos en Irak con Hussein.

Si estoy en lo cierto, deberíamos pensar que habrá una “trampa” para cuando llegue “el momento de la verdad” evadir el mandato constitucional del referendo revocatorio.  Eso podría parecer una realidad del tamaño de la catedral gótica de Colonia.  Sin embargo, tenemos que comenzar por preguntarnos cuál sería el momento de la verdad: ¿el 19 de agosto de este año?  No hay nada en la constitución que sustente esa teoría.  En ese día solamente se vence la mitad del período presidencial de Chávez y es A PARTIR DE ENTONCES cuando se podrá convocar al referendo revocatorio (RR), no antes.

Este régimen – anótenlo – va a “guaralearnos” (desgraciadamente con la ayuda de nuestros “líderes”) con discusiones sobre “leyes mordazas”, conformación del CNE, debates asambleístas sobre la inmortalidad del cangrejo y el sexo de los angelitos, hasta que le convenga darle el palo a la lata… eso podría ser bien entrado el año que viene.  Mientras tanto, generales cubanos como Rogelio “Eo” García nos demuestran diligencia, capacidad organizativa y logística militar metiéndonos cualquier cantidad de efectivos combatientes castristas como “enfermeros”, “médicos”, “entrenadores”… y ahora también como “alfabetizadores”.  

No obstante, podrían suceder cosas “fortuitas” de aquí a allá.  Un estallido social, por ejemplo.  Un estallido provocado o no por el régimen, no importa.   Se habla de la implementación de un “estado de excepción” para justificar el palo que definitivamente Chávez le tendría que terminar dando a la lata.  Tal vez.  Yo no creo mucho que a este régimen CASTRO-COMUNISTA le quite el sueño estar inventando y diseñando excusas para decirnos que hasta aquí llegamos.  Creo, “más bien”, que podría aplicarnos por “trampa” la “técnica” del destierro y dejar que los venezolanos pensantes y productivos – los peligrosos – vayamos tomando el camino del auto-exilio.  Esas “misiones” alfabetizadoras contribuirán mucho, ya lo verán, a nuestra desgracia como nación… ¡ya lo verán!  Cuando no haya aspirina para calmar un dolor de muelas y nos acordemos que en Colombia se venden hasta en los quioskos de revistas, nos entrará “la pepera” por dejar esta vaina.  Se quedarán los más pendejos.

Es por eso que necesitamos estar preparados para “La Guarimba”.  Donde ronca “La Guarimba” no hay burro con paludismo.  Ya podrá este régimen apelar a un “estado de excepción” que contra “La Guarimba” (bien hecha) no hay “tu-tía” ni “estado de excepción” que valga y eso lo saben los forjadores de libertades que tenemos en el Ejército.

Dios nos dé sabiduría para saber interpretar la campaña de desinformación que se nos viene encima.  Por ahí saldrá cualquier cantidad de “líderes” a advertirnos sobre el grave peligro de una defensa radical de nuestra democracia alegando que le estaríamos haciendo el juego al régimen para que éste nos aplique el “estado de excepción”.  Algo sí es cierto… y así se los hice saber a los compatriotas de Intevep en la concurrida Asamblea General de ayer, donde fui el orador de orden: si no hacemos “La Guarimba” como es debido y nos quedamos a medias, estaremos atornillando a los señores Castro y Chávez hasta el 2021… y más allá.

Caracas, 22 de mayo de 2003

ROBERT ALONSO robertalonso2003@cantv.net

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By Hil Anderson <a href=www.upi.com>UPI Chief Energy Correspondent From the National Desk Published 5/13/2003 5:37 PM

LOS ANGELES, May 13 (UPI) -- The terrorist bombs that ripped through Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, overnight helped send the price of crude in New York more than $1 higher in New York Tuesday as more bullish sentiment was added to markets already buoyed by talk of further OPEC production cuts and the usual concerns about the summer gasoline supply in the United States.

June crude broke through $28 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and settled at $28.50 per barrel, $1.15 higher on the day and the highest level since mid-April. London's International Petroleum Exchange settled $1.01 higher at $25.90 per barrel.

While traders were understandably concerned about the short-term impact of the bombing, Saudi oil installations were not affected and crude markets were already in a bullish mood before the deadly Riyadh explosions took place.

The United States continues to experience relatively low inventories levels of crude and gasoline, and the bombing comes just a day before the oil industry and the U.S. Energy Information Administration release their closely watched weekly supply reports.

Also, when OPEC meets on June 11, the cartel is expected to consider further cuts in production to offset the deflation of prices seen since the start of the war in Iraq. Cuts among the some of the 10 OPEC nations other than Iraq totaled 440,000 barrels per day, but they were virtually offset by increases by other member nations.

"For all intents and purposes the current ceiling became redundant when OPEC announced at its April 24 meeting its new higher ceiling of 25.4-mil bpd," said John Kingston, director of oil for Platts, an oil industry publication that tracks OPEC's output. "The new ceiling, even though it doesn't come into effect until June, has become the new target for OPEC."

The production figures compiled by Platts showed production increases of 390,000 bpd in Venezuela, which had been virtually shut down earlier this year by labor and political strife.

At the same time, the major cuts were led by Saudi Arabia's 260,000 bpd reduction flowed by smaller cuts by Indonesia, Iran and Nigeria.

The prospect of less crude on the market comes at a time when U.S. refiners have been hurriedly producing gasoline for an anticipated record demand during the summer driving season that unofficially begins on Memorial Day weekend.

Analysts see enough gasoline on hand and high enough production levels to avoid any sharp increases in retail prices, although, as always, unexpected disruptions could always lead to regional shortages and result in sharp spikes upward.

"Domestic gasoline markets could tighten again if world oil markets fail to continue to ease or if domestic refining and distribution facilities are disrupted in some way," the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in an analysis released late last week.

The EIA predicted that the lower crude costs would keep the nationwide average price of a gallon of regular at around $1.46 per gallon, less than 10 cents over last summer.

"The current gas price average is an encouraging development as Americans prepare for the start of the summer driving season," said Dawn Duffy, a spokeswoman for AAA. "These pump prices reflect a decline in the price of crude oil since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a gradual increase in oil and gasoline production from Venezuela, and rising gasoline imports from Europe."

LONDON, (<a href=www.arabtimesonline.com>AFP) - Washington has encouraged the privatisation of the Iraqi oil sector as it seeks to reduce its dependence on Saudi Arabia for oil since the September 11 attacks, the London-based IISS security think-tank said Tuesday. Since the al-Qaeda attacks in Washington and New York in 2001, the United States has also sought oil-supply alternatives to the Middle East, particularly to Saudi Arabia, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its annual evaluation and forecast of world affairs. "The neo-conservative gameplan that would reshape Iraq in the aftermath of the US military campaign into a market-reforming economy" has prominent supporters inside the US administration, IISS's strategic survey said. "This influential group... takes the position that change in Iraq could be steered to bring more democratic principles to the Middle East, while leveraging expanding Iraqi oil production to undermine the dominance of other oil producers and render OPEC less important," it said. "This is a highly optimistic and arguably unrealistic scenario," IISS said. "While no one can say with certainty how democratic change in Iraq might alter the region, autocracy has always been a dominant feature of the Middle Eastern political landscape," the report said. More than 60 percent of the world's proven oil reserves are concentrated in the Middle East region, which currently answers a third of the global demand. One quarter of all oil reserves are found in Saudi Arabia. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan and Libya, -- so-called "countries of concern" to the United States -- produce about 10 percent of the world's oil supply, the IISS report said. A second trend in Washington "calls for a major grassroots initiative in energy source diversity", such as encouraging renewable energies, the report said. A change in Iraq's status meanwhile could unleash competition among oil producers within the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that has been dormant for years, the IISS said. Elsewhere OPEC faces a different picture with Venezuela's capacity constrained by well shut-ins, reservoir damage, and with civil unrest in Nigeria. How the oil landscape will look in the five-to-10-year horizon is hard to predict, given the wide range of variables including geology, global environment politics, technological change and the shifting geopolitical relationships of the post-September 11 world, the survey said. "Russia and the newly independent states of its southern flank are ranked second in undiscovered oil potential after the Persian Gulf, holding about 27 percent of the world's oil reserves," IISS said. The region ranks first globally in undiscovered natural gas, it added. But, IISS said, Russia has a long way to catch up with Saudi Arabia's oil in terms of exports. "Thus, although Russia will be increasingly important to the US plans to diversify oil supply, a more varied strategy is still needed," the survey concluded.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: By this I mean that you can invade private property, build your shack and plant your corn and stay there, as long as you come under the wing of the Institute of Lands.

Or you can pump a few bullets into your favorite enemy without much fear of being caught.  Some 30,000 Venezuelans have been murdered during the last 4½ years, only a few receiving adequate attention from the police. You could also go into the kidnapping business, in special the "kidnap Express" ... of short duration ... designed for the common folk and involving modest ransoms of $1,000-$2,000.  You could take over a street and seal it off from traffic by means of a barricade and no one will stop you. Or you can install a fish market in front of PDVSA's main offices and leave the garbage on the streets.

You could perforate the main waterline to get your free water supply or, if you have some basic knowledge of electrical wiring, tie your home on to the nearest light post. You could start your cell phone renting business on any corner of the city, for local and international calls, although it would be a good idea first to vandalize nearby public phone booths, to eliminate unfair competition.

Anyone can have his/her blood pressure taken under the shadow of a tree and, if not too shy, lower their trousers to get a quick vitamin B1 injection, excellent as a general tonic.

Fortune tellers, palm readers, tarot experts, certified witches from Colombia or from the mountains of Sorte, the kingdom of Maria Lionza, lottery ticket sellers, beggars of all ages and genders will try to catch your attention as you try to drink a coffee at a sidewalk cafe. And be careful in how you say no... You will be called names and given the finger for your lack of social solidarity...

Drivers will be offered a clean windshield at all red light signs. When parking in any given street you will find a self-appointed watchman/woman. The whole country is now a single parking lot. Of course, you do not have to pay, but you soon realize you're dealing with a mild case of extortion, with the necessity to pay protection money ... or, if you want to be philosophical about it, think of it as the way national wealth is being redistributed.

It seems that there is almost nothing you can not do in Venezuela, as long as it is illegal. A cursory observer might even take this as a sign of total freedom. In fact, is more a sign of Anomie (from the greek, meaning, without laws or values), a malady characterized by destruction, crime and dissolution of social order.

But, in parallel with Anomie, Venezuelans are also experiencing physical and spiritual restrictions as they had never seen before, unless we go back almost 200 years...

Our currency is now really worth about one third of what it was only a year ago...

Inflation is running at 35% per year ... this means that Venezuelans can only buy less than half goods and services with their money than they could a year ago ... those who are formally employed ... this is only 35% of the working population.

However, the situation is still worse...

Everyday there is less to buy ... eggs, chickens, pasta, bread, corn flour for the indispensable "arepas" are rapidly disappearing from the shelves, as the government has stopped the sale of foreign currency for 120 days now and ... as a result ... no imports can be made.

This is a situation unheard of, in a country which pretends to be "modern" and has already led to significant isolation for Venezuela, being taken out of the list of countries where international business can be conducted. Lack of money to import raw materials or plant and equipment has forced the closure of hundreds of industrial concerns.

Venezuela is living, inexplicably, in a war-type economy ... at a moment in which petroleum prices are very high. Where is the money going?

The principal victim of this tragedy is the lower-middle and the middle class ... or what is left of it.  This group is the only one in the country still responding to some measure of social discipline and responsibility. The Venezuelan poor have already abandoned, by necessity, most pretexts of playing by the rules while the rich mostly never did.

The Chavez government creates its own rules on national TV, on a Sunday-to-Sunday basis ... there are no plans or programs since they have been replaced by the impromptu ideas of the President.  "Let us build vertical chicken coops," he says... "Everybody who has a flat roof should use it it to raise chickens..."  As of that moment the vertical chicken coop becomes one of the cornerstones of revolutionary economy, together with the "conuco" and the government handout. But, mercifully, the concept is not applied. "You know Hugo ... he forgets about these things ... let us wait until next Sunday." And, sure enough, next Sunday is something new: A Bank for the Military ... the eighth employment plan (none of the others have yet started) ... a refinery for Lula ... an interminable parade of fantasies.

In parallel with this exhibition of stupidity, Chavez shrewdly makes some headway on his real project: the private sector is being strangled, the Catholic church discredited, labor unions wiped out, independent media harassed, landowners driven out, the middle class encouraged to emigrate...

Because, you see, we are not in the middle of a "normally incompetent" Presidential term. If this were the case, we would patiently wait ... as we have been advised to do by well meaning external observers.

We are in the middle of an attempt at a takeover by a totalitarian ideology, one which collides head on with democratic values which we have come to embrace.

We are fighting for our freedom ... and this is what gives the Venezuelan situation an urgent, tragic flavor...

Unfortunately we seem to be only a side show in the three ring circus of international politics.

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email gustavo@vheadline.com

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Talcual afternoon tabloid has been quick to follow El Nacional in reducing its Internet media site to subscriptions. It may be worth noting that the tabloid, whose editor is former guerrilla and government minister, Teodoro Petkoff, was also quick off the mark to imitate El Nacional.com's web design a couple of months ago. 

• According to an advert announcing the measure, the site receives almost a million clicks a month (900,000 to be exact). 

The site offers three plans: three-monthly at $17.50 or 28,000 bolivares ... six-monthly $29.75 or 47,000 bolivares and annual for $44.50 or 71,200 bolivares. 

The means of payment is by credit card and while economic observers suggest that the tabloid will not break even opening subscriptions they say they admire the editor and shareholders for giving it a go, despite a downturn in adverts and revenues from Venezuelan companies.