De: "Robert Alonso" robertalonso1990@hotmail.com Fecha: Mar, 18 de Marzo de 2003, 9:17 am Para:

EL TERROR

Así como no se puede batir concreto sin agua, es imposible instalar un comunismo sin contar con "El Terror".

Decía que en Cuba el terror es genético. Ha pasado una generación bíblica en la isla del caribe desde que los cubanos comenzaron a conocer al "Sr. Terror", un "individuo" sin alma que se presta a todo sin esperar nada a cambio.

Sentirse preso en una isla produce un impresionante terror, como terror siente el prisionero de conciencia cuando los guardias calan sus oxidadas bayonetas soviéticas. El sonar de unos disparos al salir el sol produce mucho terror porque los cubanos saben - o se imaginan - que provienen del paredón de fusilamiento y el terror se incrementa en las tinieblas del alba al sonar el tiro de gracia que destroza la sien del condenado a muerte.

Terror siente el padre cuando le dice adiós a un hijo que se marcha a una guerra absurda en un continente que está tan lejos como la esperanza de un futuro en Cuba. Terror siente una madre cuando su hijo regresa muerto o mutilado de esas misiones internacionalistas.

Terror lo produce un vecino que mira detrás de una ventana cuando cae la tarde cargada de calor y terror siente el cubano cuando supone que lo están observando día y noche.

Cuando el cubano se queda sin trabajo en la isla del terror siente un profundo terror pues sabe que fue despedido por el único patrón que tiene su patria: el estado.

Más fuerte que el terror de morir en altamar al intentar alcanzar la libertad en tierras extrañas, está el terror de seguir viviendo esclavo de los designios de un tirano, pero nada es comparable al terror que produce despedir al hermano quien se monta en una frágil balsa para alejarse de las costas y no regresar jamás a Cuba.

Terror siento yo cuando pienso que esta patria, Venezuela, pudiera cambiar su alegría de siglos por el terror eterno teñido de un rojo viejo y absurdo.

El Hatillo 18 de marzo de 2003

Robert Alonso robertalonso2003@cantv.net

onebusiness.nzoom.com

Thirty-seven defendants will be asked to explain dirty dealings within France's political and business elite involving the embezzlement of some $US200 million and former French oil giant Elf at a trial that opened on Monday.

The fruit of an eight-year investigation, the trial will expose the use of cash sweeteners to secure contracts for the then state-owned Elf in oil-rich countries, and how some of that cash slipped into the pockets of certain executives.

The trial will also rake up well-known sleaze like the kickbacks from an illegal arms deal secured via a now infamous liaison between then Foreign Minister Roland Dumas and a woman who dubbed herself "The Whore of the Republic".

The trial will be overshadowed abroad by the likely start of a US-led war on Iraq, but keenly watched in France where the affair has stirred up charges of endemic corruption a decade ago during the last years of the late President Francois Mitterrand.

Elf is now part of French oil major TotalFinaElf, which is negotiating multi-billion dollar deals with Iraq.

It was France's biggest company and controlled by the state at the time of the alleged siphoning off of huge sums of cash into offshore bank accounts between 1989 and 1993.

With the prosecution documents running to 44,000 pages - peppered with evidence of luxury villas and jewellery - the trial is due to run for around four months, following the longest investigation in French judicial history.

It has ramifications as far away as Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Angola, Gabon, Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville, as well as Spain and Germany, where judges believe Elf paid bribes linked to its 1992 purchase of the eastern German Leuna refinery complex.

The prosecution alleges politicians in Elf's African strongholds were given cash for every barrel of oil extracted.

Anti-corruption magistrate Renaud van Ruymbeke has also investigated charges Elf paid tens of millions of dollars of bribes to win a contract in Nigeria in 1995.

High drama

One of the key defendants, ex-Elf head Loik Le Floch-Prigent, 59, already serving time in prison for earlier Elf-related charges, failed to appear in court on Monday, citing a skin disease his lawyers say has worsened in jail.

He faces corruption charges carrying a prison sentence of up to 10 years, along with his former deputy Alfred Sirven, 76, and Andre Tarallo, 74, the expert for Africa, where Elf played a major business and political role.

Le Floch-Prigent, Sirven and Christine Deviers-Joncours, a lingerie model turned Elf lobbyist, were given jail terms ranging from 18 months to three years in January on corruption charges linked to lavish gifts that Deviers-Joncours showered on Dumas to secure an illegal sale of frigates to Taiwan.

Dumas, 80, wept openly as an appeals court overturned his conviction for his part in that scandal, where the total fraud was estimated at nine million euros, on the grounds he was not aware the gifts from his mistress were funded by Elf.

The latest trial promises more high drama to add to past courtroom showdowns between Dumas and Deviers-Joncours and the Hollywood-style capture of Sirven at his Philippines hideaway in 2001 following his four years on the run.

On being seized, Sirven removed the chip from inside his mobile phone and swallowed it, to prevent investigators tracking down the last few people he called as police narrowed in on him.

Source: Reuters

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, March 17, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: When told about the death of Elvis Presley, his former manager exclaimed: "Good career move!".....

For the seventh or eighth time in four years the Venezuelan government is denouncing a plot to kill President Chavez. So far, not one person has been identified in connection with these attempts, much less sent to prison. One of the first would be killers was a mysterious sniper in Puerto Ordaz, probably swallowed by Kanaima, the Jungle God of the Marikitare, since he was never seen. A rocket to be launched near the Caracas airport against the new Presidential plane, with Chavez inside, was suddenly abandoned by repentant killers, who also abandoned a cellular phone and a list of telephone numbers never made public.

Another attempt was to be made in Chile and, according to Argentinean newspapers, would have been led by Eliecer Otayza, who still is a Presidential Adviser for dirty work. Still another, according some members of the government political party, would be internationally coordinated by the CIA and the Israeli Secret Police.

In parallel, President Chavez has claimed he is being jinxed. Over national TV he described four diabolical looking, dead animals, found in the four corners of the presidential palace containing rocks and papers in their insides. In order to try to neutralize this voodoo Chavez urgently imported some Brazilian and Cuban witch doctors. These experts, however arrived too late.

Ever since the start of his presidency the country has been under the sign of tragedy. The first one was in December 1999 and resulted in 30000 or more deaths from landslides near Caracas. Bad voodoo also worked to make Chavez reject the US aid that was coming to help the survivors of that disaster. Voodoo has been responsible for the high poverty, the unemployment, the crime, the increase in the amount of street children.

Voodoo has clearly been responsible for the extreme drought and the multiple forest fires that have made necessary to ration water in most cities and imminent electrical power rationing . Black magic practitioners have promoted exchange controls, price controls and garbage accumulation in our cities. The extreme social unrest, the daily civic protests, the incontrollable invasion of private property in urban and rural areas, the huge capital flight and the long lines of citizens outside the embassies in search of visas to emigrate, are all the product of the work of witch doctors. The problem is that these witch doctors are titleholders in Chavez' cabinet. They are Chavez' ministers and his closest collaborators. No wonder Pogo went uphill and came back saying: "Today I have seen the enemy and.... the enemy is us."

This is why we should be rational concerning the alleged attempts at assassination of the President. Who would be interested in such an act?

Chavez' political demise seems to be around the corner, so that no one in his, her right mind would want to do violently what an inevitable political process will do peacefully. Killing Chavez would merely be an act of political euthanasia.

The exit of Chavez from the political scene would be an excellent career move for him since it would allow him to try again in a few years' time, trusting our short memories.

To assassinate Chavez would be the best way to give him a place in history as "the popular and charismatic leader, loved by the poor, who was shot (or poisoned or stabbed, take you pick and no pun intended) before he could get his mission accomplished"... (joropo music in the background).

Chavez does not deserve this easy way out. He has to and will be ousted by popular vote. He has to and will be rejected by the people of Venezuela. He has to and will be brought to trial for his numerous violations to the Constitution that he himself put in place. He has to be tried for the death of innocent Venezuelans in April 2001, for the destruction of PDVSA, for the giving away of our resources to Cuba due to his infatuation with Fidel Castro.... and so on and so forth.

To assassinate Chavez would be asinine. If it ever happens, look for those who would benefit the most from such a grotesque act...... those who would live politically off his idealized memory...

Watch out for someone like De Gouveia, the brute force, and the sinister minds playing him...

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 ppcvicep@telcel.net.ve

www.newsday.com March 17, 2003, 3:38 PM EST

EDs: ADDs new grafs 4-5 with prosecutor's comment on extradition time frame wkfonsyr

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) _ Authorities in New York were seeking the return Monday of a 29-year-old man arrested in California on a warrant accusing him of the October 2000 arson at a Syracuse synagogue.

Ramses Uthman, formerly of Syracuse, was arrested near North Hollywood, Calif., on Friday, culminating a two-year investigation.

Onondaga County Assistant District Attorney Rick Trunfio said local authorities were waiting to see whether Uthman would contest his extradition back to New York to face charges of arson, burglary, criminal mischief and four counts of committing a hate crime.

If Uthman waives his extradition rights, he would likely be returned to New York within a week, Trunfio said. If Uthman contests his return to New York and insists on a hearing, it could be months before he is brought back, he said.

Prosecutors were trying to schedule court time Tuesday before a Los Angeles Municipal Court judge to consider Uthman's extradition, Trunfio said.

Uthman, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Venezuela of Palestinian parents, is accused of breaking into the Temple Beth El late on the night of Oct. 13, 2000, and using gasoline to start a fire in an area of the building he apparently believed was used for worship.

The fire heavily damaged a first-floor business office in the back of the building and an office above that was used by the Montessori Learning Center. The blaze caused about $700,000 in damage. No injuries were reported.

First U.S. Assistant Attorney Joseph Pavone said Monday that federal officials will await the outcome of the state case against Uthman before deciding whether to pursue a federal prosecution of the accused arsonist as well.

If convicted of the most serious state charges, Uthman could face up to 25 years in prison. He could face up to 40 years in prison if convicted of a federal hate crime in the temple fire, Pavone said.

District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said at a news conference Sunday that authorities spent two years looking for Uthman in Michigan, Florida and California.

Uthman evaded authorities by using a number of aliases, different passports and numerous addresses to stymie his trackers. Witnesses also were reluctant to cooperate early on because they were "quite fearful" of Uthman, Fitzpatrick said.

Authorities got a break in the case in November when they learned that Uthman had been treated at a hospital in Dearborn, Mich., for burns he reportedly suffered in the temple fire, Fitzpatrick said.

Further progress in the case was made last month when an unindicted co-defendant began cooperating with authorities, providing information about how and why the temple was set ablaze, Fitzpatrick said.

Uthman has a lengthy local criminal record, but officials said they were not aware of any prior hate crime incidents. There was no evidence to link the temple arson to any wider plot, said Fitzpatrick, but the investigation by state and federal officials was continuing.

The co-defendant will face charges at a later date, Fitzpatrick said. Authorities declined to release his name, however, The Post-Standard of Syracuse said police records identified him as Ahed Shehadeh and said he drove Uthman to and from the synagogue.

Shehadeh, 29, formerly of Syracuse, is serving a 2- to 4-year prison term in Collins Correctional Facility in Erie County on an unrelated burglary conviction.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Monday, March 17, 2003 By: Hector Dauphin-Gloire

Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 09:44:08 -0500 From: Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: Comments on the Asian Model

Dear Editor: I write to comment on Daniel Burnett's letter suggesting a way out of Venezuela's economic crisis. I would like first of all to compliment him on the article, it was a very incisive and well-thought-out piece and I think it contained a lot of truth. I do however have one or two thoughts of my own to add. While I am not trained in economics, I have read some history ... so my comments are coming more from a historical than an economists' perspective.

Mr. Burnett argues, convincingly, that much attention must be paid to the record of the East Asian countries in developing their economies. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that like every country, the economic development in these countries bore a human cost.

With the exception of semi-authoritarian Singapore, the groundwork of economic development in these countries was laid during periods of extreme authoritarianism. This allowed harsh measures to be pushed through and labor unions, etc. to be suppressed. That is not to say, necessarily, that it was not an acceptable price to pay ... only the people in those countries can answer that question.

It does mean however that we should consider the cost before we encourage Venezuela to go down that road.

A further flaw in the East Asian model is that most of these countries have had low levels of social provision (unemployment benefits, welfare benefits, etc.). On the flip side, Taiwan and South Korea have accomplished something almost unknown in the capitalist world ... extremely low levels of social inequality combined with a capitalist system. For these reasons, despite my criticisms, I do have much admiration for the Asian model, and perhaps it is indeed a good way forward for Venezuela.

My own ideal, however, would borrow some from the Asian model, but also from the idea of cooperative economics. Mr. Burnett describes socialism as a system where the State owns and coordinates economic activity in the interests of social justice and equality. He offers a very lucid and accurate analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of socialist economies in the past.

The great lesson of the second half of the twentieth century, I believe, is that while socialism can do great things for developing countries, ultimately the effort is futile unless they industrialize their economies at the same time ... otherwise it comes down to socializing poverty. (Although one could argue that it is certainly better to be poor in Cuba, where some necessities of life are guaranteed, than in most other countries). But in truth, I believe that socialism depends on SOCIAL ownership, not necessarily State ownership ... and this social ownership can take many forms.

We know, as Mr. Burnett states, that State-owned companies are often economically inefficient, and that therefore a State-run command economy is not the way forward. (Although this is not necessarily always true- PDVSA, Renault, and the Brazilian oil company are all examples of nationalized industries which have continued to run profitably).

But this says more, I think, about the fact that these companies are centralized than the fact that they are non-capitalist.

Centralization produces corruption and sclerosis ... as has been amply demonstrated ... whether the company is public or private, and whether it operates for a profit or for social objectives.

What if factories and industries were owned not by the State, nor by private investors, but rather by the people who worked in those industries themselves?

Such a system would assuredly be more egalitarian than capitalism (since there would be no distinction between workers and capitalists), and more efficient than communism (since ownership would be more decentralized, more responsive to the needs of employees, consumers, and the market, and more flexible).

Cooperative economics, while historically a common form of economy particularly in the great civilizations of South America (witness the Ayllu farms of the great Inca Empire) has in modern times been largely ignored.

The capitalist countries, of course, did not want a challenge to their social hierarchy which has an investor class and a working class; and the socialist countries felt that only State ownership could overcome the anarchy and irrationality (as they saw it) of the market.

Indeed, this was one of the fatal mistakes of the whole socialist movement, and doomed their project ... to rely on State rather than cooperative ownership. However, in the few instances where it has been tried, cooperative economics has been highly successful.

The commonly cited example is Yugoslavia, which during the 1970s and 1980s had a productive, growing economy, with more equality than the West and more freedom and efficiency than the countries of the East.

Yugoslavia had a market economy ... but it was not capitalist because factories were owned by the workers themselves, who then elected their own managers and shared the profits from the industry equally. Yugoslavia had its own economic problems caused by the cooperative model, including high unemployment ... but, on balance, I believe that their model was better than either capitalist or state-socialist ownership.

Other examples of the cooperative mode of production include the Yarur textile industry, and other agricultural or industrial enterprises, during both the Christian-Democratic and Allende years in Chile; the Mondragon cooperative in Spain; the ejido farm system in Mexico; and the farms that are being set up in Brazil by the Landless Workers' Movement.

The important thing to realize about cooperative socialism is that it doesn't rule out the market mechanism. On the contrary, no healthy economy can survive in the modern world without some kind of market. However, for a market economy to serve the common good, people need both an egalitarian social system ... so that they are bargaining with each other on a level playing field ... and a spirit of social solidarity, so that greed and self-interest do not become the driver of all economic relations.

Both of these advances, the social one and the moral one, can be provided by a system in which we have decentralized cooperative ownership. Of course, such a system can be combined with the Asian model, in which there is heavy state investment and export-oriented development.

In fact, that is what I believe represents the best way forward for the countries of the Global South -- the Asian model, within an economic framework of cooperative ownership, where relatively few enterprises are owned either by the State or by private individuals.

I hope that these thoughts have been able to supplement Mr. Burnett's ideas for a new Venezuela, and I conclude by agreeing with him ... the economic development of any nation is always a slow, painful process, with much cost in suffering involved ... but at the end of the road, it is necessary if the countries of the global South are to regain their once proud place in the world.

Sincerely, Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com Environmental Technician