<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Roy S. Carson

VHeadline.com editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: In the latest ploy by elements in Venezuela's rabid opposition, millions of computer-virus carrying emails have been sent scurrying across the face of the planet purporting to be from Venezuelan embassies and institutions in electronics guerrilla warfare labeled "background chatter" by foreign intelligence agencies.

In a curious parallel with an Iraqi pre-invasion scenario, the emails ... which mostly trace back to servers in Caracas and/or exile Cubans in Miami ... appear on the surface to come from Venezuelan embassies, consulates or other related institutions with partial messages where full context would be contained in attachment.  But beware!  If your firewall or virus protection software is not up-to-date, clicking on the attachment could introduce a computer-virus which will wipe out your system in minutes if not seconds.

During the month of May 2003, VHeadline.com Venezuela itself detected 14,405 attempted hacker intrusions of our website ... 10,216 of them were "high-rated" (meaning they were able to penetrate 20% through our firewall but not more than 40%) 33 were "priority" (meaning they penetrated further than 40% but not more than 55%).  In just 24 hours last week we recorded more than 200 attempts to introduce computer viruses through email attachments (which we unequivocally do NOT open unless we know the sender)

In any case all "friendly" files are virus-checked before they're opened but we prefer NOT to receive attachments of any kind unless they are clearly labeled from identifiable sources and known to be free from infection.

The indications therefore are that there are certain elements which wish to cause irreparable damage not only to VHeadline.com Venezuela as a truly independent service of news & views from Venezuela, but to thousands upon thousands of pro-constitutional Venezuelan internauts as well.

Why all the effort?  Why the attempt to muzzle what's truly happening in Venezuela ... why resort to Venezuela's particular brand of MBWs?

Of course, sabotage is nothing new to the Venezuelan political-economic scenario after (or even before!) last December-January's supreme failure by the opposition to bring the democratically-elected government to its knees.  Electronic warfare reached its all-time peak in the days and weeks prior to the April 11, 2002 coup d'etat which saw the imposition of Dictator-for-a-day Pedro Carmona Estanga.

The latest surge in subversive electronic warfare is simply the latest round in attempts by rogue elements in Venezuela's opposition to seek out and destroy anything that can even remotely be misinterpreted as negative to their psychotic hatred of the duly-elected Head of State and their total rejection of Constitutional Law and democratic order.

"If only these people would use their intellectual capacities and command of technology to help make Venezuela a better place in which to live, everybody might benefit," a Venezuelan security source tells VHeadline.com.  "We have to waste so much time and effort dealing with their sabotage that more useful resources and efforts must unfortunately deflected to this branch of crime prevention from routine maintenance of law and order."

How do security services know the electronic warfare originates with Venezuelan opposition elements?

IC sources say it's the logical conclusion from the level of IT know-how required to spread computer viruses while putting up a myriad of ruses to avoid detection.  "It's not exactly the level you'd expect to come from under-educated poor people in the barrio-slums: firstly they do not have the computers; secondly, they do not have the telecommunications capacity or level of education and thirdly, they are forced to spend so much time trying to eke out a living that they simply would not have enough time or resources to even make a feeble attempt at it.

On the other hand, hot-beds of anti-government dissent at leading universities, combined with funding from anti-government sources in private industry, the corrupt trade union movement and traditional commercial and government black bag operations out of the United States are the most logical origins of subversive perpetrators who are already being fast-tracked for investigation by Venezuelan State Political & Security (DISIP) and Military Intelligence (DIM) experts.

"It used to be that Spanish-language internet mailing lists such as Atarraya were used to back-channel disinformation but this has been superceded over the last few years by offshore online chatrooms which mostly function as communication channels for the already anti-government converted to preach hatred to like-minded souls."

While Venezuelan IC keeps an eye on the chatrooms and has been successful in logging thousands of the most vitriolic abusers, there is no intent to take action against dissenters until they reach the point where they factually break the law ... "just like the CIA, FBI and other law enforcement agencies in the USA and elsewhere, we keep records of fringe elements and get to know exactly who we are dealing with against the possibility that they go 'loco' and take their obsessions into another sphere!"

"There's a tremendous MBW capacity on the Venezuelan internet!"

MBW?  Male Bovine Waste, otherwise known as BS!

Meanwhile, using the latest technology and basic common sense in email and other communications procedures, we at VHeadline.com will continue to endeavor to defend freedom of speech and press freedoms as they are enshrined in the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution and international fora.

Roy S. Carson VHeadline.com Venezuela

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Former Presidential Secretariat Minister Rafael Vargas  has been warding off attacks about his influence in the Social Security Institute (IVSS)  highlighted by www.aporrea.org  in a report on a Radio Nacional de Venezuela (RNV)  decision to take "Actores Economicos" program off the air. 

Program presenter, Rafael Febles says the decision was taken after he criticized Vargas (currently IVSS acting director) for his performance at the Institute. According to the journalist, Vargas was rude to him over the phone but in a letter to aporrea.org Vargas denies the phone conversation and says the campaign against him was inspired by the opposition.

Quinto Dia columnist, Miguel Salazar has been highlighting Vargas, calling him the "mentor of the gang that has taken the IVSS by assault" and lists him as second in the order of the new rich under the Chavez Frias Administration. Salazar accuses Vargas of precipitating the exit of respected IVSS director, Roberto Rodriguez.

Vargas calls himself a revolutionary and denies intervening to get rid of Rodriguez or other IVSS personnel ... "this information is typical of opposition-managed news and the only person arrested in connection with corruption was  a middleman and not any director." In a veiled warning to aporrea.org, Vargas, using what old timers call "60s revolutionary surplus," demands the respect that his revolutionary work merits for his efforts in helping alternative media.

Salazar's list of Fifth Republic "nouveaux riches" is the following: Rafael Sarria, Rafael Vargas, Luis Alfonzo Davila, Ismael Garcia, Eliecer Hurtado, Jorge Kamkoff, Jorge Castillo, Antonio Rojas Suarez, Enrique Medina Rubio, Arturo Garcia, and Guaicaipuro Lameda. The journalist promises more revelations. Salazar reports that Vargas has placed another henchman as new general director of the passports & identification Office (Oni-Dex) ... the new man comes from IVSS where he headed the Control & Losses Department!

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Coordinadora Democratica (CD) has reacted to Venezuela's legislature crisis by appointing Timoteo Zambrano and Asdrubal Aguiar as its representatives on the negotiations agreement liaison committee and sending them to the Organization of American States (OAS)  general assembly in Santiago (Chile)  to lobby support against alleged Venezuelan government violations of the negotiations agreement. 

CD spokesman, Leonardo Carvajal says President Chavez Frias has violated Agreement Clause 8 regarding violence. "What happened in Parliament last week violates Clause 4, which stipulates that both sides must cease any direct or indirect aggression, threat, harassment and violence that breaks or prevents free exercise of rights in Constitution." 

Speaking for CD, Carvajal says he supports opposition deputies' appraisal of Movimiento Quinto Republica's (MVR) El Calvario plenary session last Friday as null and void. "The opposition will not fall into provocation and we will take the matter to the international scene ... Chavez Frias will uncover himself before the international community."

However, Accion Democratica (AD) has opposed the appointment of Zambrano and Aguiar. AD president Jesus Mendez Quijada calls the appointment a political error because he says the two men are dissident voices and as negotiators failed to come up with a favorable agreement. 

It has been learned that AD wanted CD to accept one-time Transport & Communications (MTC) AD minister, Luis Carlos Serra Carmona to represent CD in the liaisons committee.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan human rights PROVEA laments recent outbreaks of political violence typified in the opposition "Assault on Catia" two weeks ago and calls on the State to guarantee public security of demonstrations. 

The organization summarizes the results of the opposition-called protest in Catia, confirming one death, 28 injuries (20 due to firearms, 6 hit with heavy objects and the rest with minor injuries), defends the right of political fractions to undertake pacific political party activities and insists that the State has the duty to ensure that participants in a protest are protected from violence. 

However, the group also calls on political parties to act responsibly when convoking rallies and marches and to ask a basic question whether they are contributing or not towards creating an environment of tolerance and peace. 

"We reject the insistence of political sectors in calling marches without coordinating with the respective authorities .... the right to protest implies responsibility on the part of people those who convoked the rallies."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Amnesty International (AI) Venezuela has criticized what it calls a "cocktail of laws" passed by President Hugo Chavez Frias' government and warns that it could unleash a crisis of human rights. 

AI Venezuela director, Marcos Gomez goes back to laws passed since December 2001, which he claims caused 66 deaths and more than 849 wounded persons, as well as a deterioration of economic, social and cultural rights and the appearance of irregular and armed actors that have been seen acting with weapons. 

Taking the media content law, anti-terrorist law and criminal code reforms as examples of dangerous laws, Gomez says AI-Venezuela is concerned not just about the background of the laws but also the way reforms are brought about, adding that the above-mentioned laws are against constitutional principles, such as continuity, non-discrimination, subordination to the Constitution, international and institutional responsibility to reinforce the rule of law.

The strong-worded criticism comes a day after the National Assembly (AN)  pro-government bench held its first session outside of the Capitolio without the presence of opposition deputies passing internal procedures reform.