<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 By: Oscar Heck

VHeadline.com commentarist Oscar Heck writes: The USA appears to be sticking their nose (again) into Venezuelan internal affairs … and Vicente Rangel is saying that the Venezuelan government doesn’t give a damn about what the USA thinks (and rightly so) ... and that Venezuela is not (and will never be) a colony of the USA.

In Iraq, apparently, at least a million Shiite Muslims (the Iraqi majority) took to the streets to celebrate a religious ceremony recently. Meanwhile, they also apparently expressed their desire to establish an Iran-style religious government now that Saddam and gang are gone.

The USA does not agree...

The USA wants a “democratic” government ... better said, the USA wants a USA-style and USA-dictated “democratic government that will allow for USA financial (and exploitation) interests to proliferate without question (under threat of military superiority).

In the last few days, again in Iraq, there have been Iraqi-led demonstrations asking for the US military to leave Iraq. It is reported that in one of these demonstrations, 13 people were killed and over 75 injured after the US troops opened fire on the demonstration. The dead and/or injured included children (to make it clearer, not USA children, but Iraqi children).

What does Iraq have to do with Venezuela?

A lot … principally about oil and who wants to control it, but with a twist called SAIC.

After having done some research, SAIC is: Science Applications International Corporation ... SAIC is 60% owner of a company called Intesa, a joint-venture established in 1996 between PDVSA and SAIC which controls and operates all information systems at PDVSA, and has, according to some reports, an estimated 3,000 employees (40% of Intesa is apparently owned by PDVSA).

Who or what is SAIC?

SAIC was founded in 1969 and is one of the major USA defense and intelligence contractors. According to some ... 55% of their contracts are from USA military and intelligence agencies. The board of SAIC (as well as several lead employees and advisors) is comprised mainly of ex USA military and intelligence heads, including some formerly (?) from the CIA, the FBI and US defense agencies.

According to La Red, a Venezuelan scientific news publication, PDVSA is trying to find a way to buy out the 60% share ownership from SAIC. According to Intesa’s website, Intesa will be dissolved ... and according to another report, it is being dissolved amicably at the request (imposition) of SAIC.

The first question is: Who in his or her right mind would enter into a minority control joint-venture agreement with a USA company specialized in intelligence and defense contracting … and that allows the joint-venture majority owner (SAIC) to control all data and information of a government owned Venezuelan enterprise (i.e., owned by the Venezuelan people)?

I suspect that the joint-venture was approved by the PDVSA Board of Directors at the time.

What were they thinking?

I am not in the petroleum business, but it seems quite evident to me that such a decision (regardless of possible positive economic impacts) is completely irresponsible and anti-Venezuelan.

The next question is: Why is Intesa being dissolved? Perhaps the Chavez government is getting too close to the fire? Was/is SAIC involved (through the 60% ownership of Intesa) in conspiring or in aiding and abetting in the attempted coup against the Chavez government and in the sabotage of PDVSA?

According to SAIC website, some of Kent Greenes’ clients also include, in addition to PDVSA, the US Navy and the US Department of the Defense and according to The Guardian's investigative reporter Duncan Campbell, there are allegations that that the US Navy aided the abortive Venezuelan coup on April 11 with intelligence from its vessels in the Caribbean.

Coincidence?

In addition, as per the SAIC website, the Corporate CKO (Chief Knowledge Officer) of SAIC, is Kent Greenes, formerly a 17-year employee of British Petroleum.

Petroleum interests? Coincidence?

SAIC, being one of the major USA defense contractors was also possibly (and probably) involved with the invasion in Iraq, whether directly or indirectly and/or with the establishment of the USA military high-tech operations base in Doha many months before the invasion. Could it be that SAIC is/was also involved indirectly or directly in the attempted coup against Chavez or in an eventual planned invasion of Venezuela?

SAIC is also deeply involved in the USA “Homeland Security” projects … and there is also a USA-based anti-Chavez and pro-ex-PDVSA-employees group preparing to present a proposal to “Homeland Security” insisting that the present Venezuelan government is a “terrorist” threat … according to them on the same footing as Saddam Hussein!

Coincidence?

CIA’s SAIC ? (palindrome)

Oscar Heck oscar@vheadline.com

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Historian and political analyst, Jorge Olavarria continues his crusade to get the opposition united and behind the recall referendum. This time he attacks Coordinadora Democratica (CD) leader and Miranda State Governor Enrique Mendoza for "short-sighted strategy." 

Olavarria says he doesn't understand why the opposition has not responded more quickly to the government's counter-proposal regarding the recall referendum.  The government's answer, he says,  is reasonable and constitutional and there is no reason why the opposition should NOT sign it, as it stands. "There can be no argument justifying Mendoza's stubbornness." 

Examining the government's counter-proposal, Olavarria suggests a hidden agenda on the part of some opposition leaders. The government's answer to clause 12 of the agreement, Olavarria notes,  is to widen the recall referendum to all elected officials once they reach half-term in office. 

A stickler for legal detail, Olavarria sees Mendoza's posturing and threat to abandon negotiations as childish...

The opposition, he insists,  sees a double threat in the government's proposal:

• The government is requesting recall referendums for all opposition State Governors, including Mendoza and Metropolitan Mayor Alfredo Pena before Chavez Frias recall referendum comes up

• There is a precedence to hold all the referendums requested or to be requested, which will be regulated according to the date they were requested. 

Olavarria welcomes the idea of a recall referendum for all elected officials, since some opposition State Governors are far from saints and he  asks what is the problem, if they take place before the presidential recall referendum. "If Mendoza and Alfredo Pena have to go through the referendum process it could be a testing ground for their Presidential aspirations ... the recall referendum cannot be revoked but it can be lost and the way Mendoza and others are acting, they will lose."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic news Posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan Human rights group PROVEA  has taken on the National Assembly (AN) for not implementing a transitory regime after promulgating the new Social Security law (LOSSS) on December 31. 

PROVEA HR Defense Area coordinator, Marino Alvarado says the group will lodge an appeal at the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) asking it  to fill the legal void. 

Alvarado  points out that the AN has not listed corresponding percentages to employer and worker's contributions under the concept of forced layoffs aimed at helping a worker who has been laid off from work. 

The law also ignores other accumulated benefits, Alvarado claims,  and it means that the worker is exposed to abuses because there are no legal obligations forcing an employer whether public or private to keep up with payments. "The principle of progressiveness of human rights, the right to social security and the principle of inalienability of worker's rights are under threat."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: Some 15 months ago the President reluctantly sacked his mentor, Planning Minister Jorge Giordani, in order to inject some modern ideas into his collapsing economic cabinet. He also replaced the Minister of Finance, Nelson Merentes, who had illegally diverted ...at the President's request ... some $3 billion away from the Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund (FIEM) and into the government payroll, to pay for central administration bureaucracy Christmas bonuses.

You might think that anyone coming in would have been more satisfactory than the Giordani-Merentes team ... but what has happened in these months of performance by the new economic team, has left no doubt that the problem can not be solved simply by playing musical chairs in the economic cabinet.

The replacement team of Felipe Perez and Tobias Nobrega proved to be as inefficient (Perez) as Giordani and as unethical (Nobrega) as Merentes.

Felipe Perez was honest but came to his job armed with unusual economic theories, in which the Holy Spirit should be invoked in order to improve the situation of the economy. Although this is a method frequently resorted to in our churches, it had never been used as an official component of national economic policy. His first public announcements were related to the need all Venezuelans had to believe that everything was going to be alright. "If you fervently think that the currency will not be devalued, it will not..." To think otherwise, he added "would be an insult to the Holy Spirit."

These declarations sent Catholics and atheists alike rushing to the Currency Exchange Agencies to buy dollars, and produced a clearly blasphemous capital flight estimated at some $8 billion during the past year.

"Felipe the Brief" soon started to become harsher in his pronouncements ... he said, at one point in time, that dissident PDVSA managers should be shot.

He became extremely critical of the World Bank and other multilateral financial agencies, asserting that they had never been able to predict how the Venezuelan economy would behave.

He claimed that Venezuelan inflation would not be bigger than 20% when it was already apparent that it would be closer to 35-40%.

He said that the fiscal deficit would not surpass 3-4% when in fact it was inevitable that it would reach 8% or more.

He never stopped sounding extremely optimistic ... which is a healthy attitude in normal circumstances, but not when you are a piano player on the Titanic.

One thing was positive about his performance: He opened up an Internet channel of communication with the general public, something that no other cabinet member has done, since there are no conclusive indications that they have heard about Internet.  On this website, Perez discussed economic theory with gusto, true to his vocation as an academician. He was sold on what he termed the theory of positive expectations ... or something like that ... which simply means that, if you repeat endlessly that things will be okay, they will be okay. This did not work...

Worse, Felipe started to encroach on Nobrega's turf where he is a hard ball player ... not in vain, he had worked as an economic Advisor at the National Assembly ... a shark tank ... and had been quite a hustler in the hotly competitive economic consulting sector. When Noriega saw that Felipe wanted to do the two jobs, that of Planning and Finance Ministers, he complained to Chavez ... and Chavez came up with a brilliant move ... he brought Jorge Giordani back!

But I really have to ask: Among 24 million people or so in our country, can no one better than Giordani be found to do the job of Planning Minister?

After all, we already found out what he could do the first time around. His major contribution to the government was to describe the Venezuelan economy as a "submarine" ... temporarily being underwater, until government programs would make it surface...

As readers would do well in suspecting, Giordani's submarine theory was simply an aquatic variation of Perez's theological thesis. Marine science and religion coming to the rescue of our economy during the 5th republic. Giordani's pet program to produce the surfacing of the submarine was the development of the Orinoco-Apure fluvial Axis. This program is reminiscent in scope to the program dreamt of by old Sukarno in Indonesia (the father, not the daughter) ... that of transmigrating some 50 million surplus Javanese from the overcrowded island to other units of the Indonesian archipelago.

The small problem with this was the logistics ... with the amount of ships Sukarno had, it soon became obvious that moving this crowd from Java to the other islands would take about 1,100 years. In other words, the program had an almost geological dimension, rather than political.

• As we know now, Sukarno would not have been able to see the results of his efforts, as he died soon after.

The program conceived by Giordani is more modest but no less unrealistic. It has to do with converting the southern portion of Venezuela into a true industrial and economic emporium, to be built along the big rivers.

In order to do this, some substantial money will be needed ... which is nowhere to be seen. Only the preliminary studies ordered by Giordani almost exhausted the money allocated to the total program in the desperately cash short government. Still, the return of Giordani to the cabinet means that the Orinoco-Apure project will be resurrected ... in fact, Chavez already mentioned it during his last radio program.

Predictably the return of Giordani to the government, as the main financial and development ideologue, produced an immediate dive of the Venezuelan Bonds.

My telling this will not add much to the panic already existing among international investors who have stakes in the country ... or will make up the minds of those who are thinking about coming, to come or not to come.

They are well informed. We have a saying in Venezuela: "La culpa no es del ciego sino de quien le da el garrote" ... The one to blame is not the blind man but he who gives him the stick...

Giordani is not the guy to blame, but he who named him ... both the first time around and, incredibly, this second time around.

It could be argued that Giordani could have graciously declined, but this would have needed another kind of man...

And these kind of men do not exist in the 5th republic.....

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: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 By: Jorge Marin

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 13:58:59 -0400 From: Jorge Marin Jorge.Marin@pollak.com To: Editor@VHeadline.com Subject: PDVSA here to stay

Dear Editor: I have been reading Gustavo Coronel's commentaries for some time now. Many times, I have disagree and other times it has made me wonder whether he has a point. But his last editorial Explosions, anarchy and mercenaries in the new PDVSA goes beyond criticism, it is fanaticism of the worst kind.

The PDVSA that he once knew is gone, never to be return.

These people made an error of judgement when they decided to joint the strike last December. And by refusing to return to work, as ordered by Supreme Court, they in fact gave up their positions.

Their actions affected all Venezuelans and as such it should be punishable by law. That is why their leaders are flying to other lands to escape prosecution.

The people that took the reigns of this company are people with great conviction ... they are Venezuelans called out of retirement, and Venezuelans from foreign lands who have come to rescue PDVSA ... and by association the elected government. They did so while their lives were threatened, some had their cars riddled with bullets at their homes, some had daily demonstrations of fanatics outside their homes. And yet they overcame the sabotage of computer systems and equipment in order that the Venezuela's economy and democracy would not collapse.

The fact that production has reached the 2.8 million barrels a day in such a short time proved that they know what they are doing. They are all heroes in my book.

I am sorry that so many PDVSA employees lost their jobs. But it is ridiculous to think that the same people that committed sabotage be allowed to return to work. If they're truly skilled, I am sure they will eventually find work in the private sector, otherwise they were probably deadweight anyway.

I believe the facts that Kira Marquez Perez presents, as opposed to Gustavo Coronel's "facts" ... which are plain rhetoric.

Jorge Marin Jorge.Marin@pollak.com