<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic news Posted: Monday, June 09, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Veteran historian and political analyst, Domingo Alberto Rangel say the disarming issue is a permanent feature in all the opposition's petitions ... "general secretary of the cadaverous Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV),  Manuel Cova went so far as to demand disarming of civilians in six months ... he forgot to ask Washington to send the Marines." That's what it would take to disarm civilians in Venezuela. 

Rangel maintains that Venezuela is armed to the teeth. The US State Department declared that it would suspend all arms sales to Venezuela but the State stops functioning at the entrance of Caracas' barrios where the law of the jungle starts. To survive one needs two weapons: the revolver or machine gun and cunning or sympathy , friendship.

"In Venezuela, there are two powers, two States, two societies: that of the urbanizations and that of the barrios ... the urbanizations where the civil sector holds sway and the barrios where the natural sector rules."

The neighborhood warlord is Head of State with his entourage and his armed guard.  If there are two states in Venezuela,  it's only natural that there are two armies. "We have the Armed Force (FAN) and thousands of armies ... it's a reality that everybody knows about but nobody makes public ...  disarm in six months? ... it would be a job for General Tommy Franks."

Rangel maintains that battles have already taken place ever since the civil sector army and the natural sector armies clashed on February 27, 1989 (Caracazo) ... "the barrio armies made a mistake and withdrew to the hillsides leaving unarmed protesters that had acted as a shield unprotected." The barrios started re-arming after that and international arms-traffickers fed but Russia, Israel and Belgium made a killing. 

"Over the last couple of years middle-class urbanizations have been purchasing arms since they lost confidence in the FAN to protect them ... I was told that in Valencia, El Trigal, El Vinedo and other urbanizations have set up barricades, as though they were at war."

Hammering home, Rangel states it's an impossible task to disarm the population ... " the army guessed as much on 27F ... who is going to disarm the barrios and withdraw barricades in the urbanizations?" 

Rangel comments that there is one character that revolutionaries have overlooked in the barrios and urbanizations: the petty criminal who mugs and robs and yet knows about guns and has gunfights with the police at night. "I'm not saying he should be enrolled ... I'm just suggesting we should not ignore his existence ... he can fight better than any cop or soldier." 

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, June 09, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

El Ultimas Noticias editor, Eleazar Diaz Rangel says the heart of the conflict in Venezuela's Legislature lies in the legislation committee, which came under the complete control of the opposition with the desertion of Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR) deputies ... "the committee did not reflect the correlation of forces inside the National Assembly (AN) and the problem is that the committee controls everything in Parliament ... nothing gets passed to the plenary session without its approval." 

After each attempt to change the composition of the committee was blocked, the government bench decided to approve the internal debate regulation, according to which a draft law would automatically pass on to the Assembly, if the committee did not present its report before the deadline. 

The opposition reacted making blocking the media content law a point of honor by using obstructionist tactics, such as stacking the list of orators to draw the process out. This time round, they decided to prevent the AN board from taking their seats and the result were the fisticuffs we saw last Wednesday. 

The government bench convoked a plenary session in El Calvario. 

The rule isn't clear about the need of the majority to hold sessions outside the Capitolio ... the government bench has shown it has parliamentary majority.

Rangel says he doubts whether the opposition is ready to challenge the basis of democracy which lies in majority rule, especially after signing the negotiations agreement, especially the clause defending the spirit of tolerance. 

Opposition forces have tried to change the balance in Parliament using bribes and even though the government majority has waned, it is still majority and must be respected, as the steamrolling Accion Democratica (AD)- Christian Socialists (COPEI) were in the old Congress and AD and Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR) majorities in the Constituent Assemblies in 1946 and 1999 respectively.

Rangel suggests that both sides are obliged to act according to the negotiations agreement spirit. "I don't think that the opposition is so blind as not to realize that policies such as the current one means ignoring the golden rule of democracy and not accepting that they are in the minority ... it could force indecisive sectors of society to move in to the government camp."

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic news Posted: Monday, June 09, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

"I repeat.... I will be in power until 2021, possibly beyond"...  Hugo Chavez, in a national TV and Radio hookup, April 6, 2003.

"The Venezuelan revolution is the younger sister of Mao's revolution" -- Hugo Chavez, in his farewell to Whan Zhem, departing Chinese Ambassador to Venezuela, April 9, 2003.

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: When the President of a democratic country says what he said on April 6th there are only three possible explanations, since such a statement represents an open violation of our legal and constitutional framework:

1. The person is mentally disturbed;
2. The person is irresponsible, or,
3. The person is declaring his intention to place himself above and outside the Law of the Land.

There is an even worse alternative: that the person combines all of the problems above listed. Whoever listened to all or part of the speech given by the President April 6 will attest to the truculence of the language, to the lack of verbal restraint which characterized the outpour and to the waves of violence and hate for dissidents that he transmitted to the listeners. This is the worst we have heard from his lips. This behavior suggests some type of mental disturbance, the more dangerous since it afflicts a top public servant. This has already been expressed by Dr. Franzel Delgado Senior, president of the Venezuelan Association of Psychiatry ... a man who should know what he is talking about.

In parallel, the President exhibits an irrepressible tendency to behave like a TV showman. He can not find the proper balance between being sober and being over frivolous, which greatly detracts from the majesty of the Presidency.

But, worst of all, the continuous reference to his stay in power far beyond the period which the constitution allows (Article 230) and our laws dictate, clearly represent a serious offense. It is not enough to say that he has not done it since he is clearly telling us that he intends to do it. If I stood in Main Street shouting that I am going to kill the President and the police just laughed at me when passing by, they would not be doing their job. They should take me into custody, run some mental tests to discard insanity and, then, put me in prison, either because of my lack of civic restraint (falta de respeto) or because I am a potential killer and can not be left on the loose.

The equivalent of the police for matters of State and for serious constitutional violations in our country is the armed force. We have never been involved in a war since independence and, still, we manage to spend an average of $1.4 billion per year in military equipment. The justification for this expenditure is that the armed force acts as the guardian of our territorial integrity and as protectors of our constitution (Article 328). However, our armed force is doing much less than their job. Our territory is being systematically violated by irregular armed groups of Colombians and by Brazilian "garimpeiros" who destroy our environment with their brutal mining in our rivers for gold and diamonds. Our constitution is being violated by a President who is placing himself above and outside the law. The duty of the armed force is to restrain him and restore the majesty of the Law. This has nothing to do with a military coup but with the correct application of constitutional checks and balances. In fact, not restraining the immoderate servant of the State would, in itself, constitute the coup.

While the issues described above make up the essential malady of our country at this moment, the crisis increases by leaps and bounds all across the board. The National Assembly is in chaos, after the government lost their fragile majority over the intended Gag Law for the Media.  As a result, the government group called an illegal meeting away from the Assembly headquarters and replaced the dissident members with their alternates, all in violation of existing legislative procedures. As a result the National Assembly is close to dissolution. This and other signs of political disintegration have combined to place Venezuela as next to last in the ranking of the OAS on Efficiency of Governance, only above Paraguay. The internal debt, which was $900 million in 1998 is now over $11 billion, while minister Nobriega is touring the First World trying to get loans of up to $5 billion to balance the 2003 budget, an effort bound to fail given the discredit of the government in international financing circles.

The latest actions by the government have given a second air to dissidents, fatigued after the national strike. The adversaries of the government are again on the move, propelled by indignation due to the unethical behavior of the government.

By trying to place himself above and outside the Law, President Chavez is unleashing a new wave of popular and civic protests which will have unpredictable consequences. At first sight only two outcomes are possible: either the President will have to go, or he will emerge as a dictator. In a way, therefore, no matter what happens, this crisis marks the end of the "normal" Presidency of Hugo Chavez, the "democrat." Only the coupster remains.

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

By Hil Anderson UPI Chief Energy Correspondent Published 6/9/2003 6:23 PM

LOS ANGELES, June 9 (<a href=www.upi.com>UPI) -- Crude futures reached a 12-week high Monday as traders dug in ahead of anticipated production cuts by OPEC that are aimed at offsetting Iraq's return to the oil market, but that could take effect even before Iraqi exports resume.

July crude settled 17 cents higher at $31.45 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday, while OPEC officials continued dropping hints the cartel could decide this week to reduce output to prevent a price collapse when Iraqi exports hit the market later this summer.

The timing of Iraq's return to the export market is not clear, which apparently had refiners and speculators preferring to stock up as a precaution against being caught short during the peak demand of the summer driving season in the United States.

"The war in Iraq has been over for over a month, and the OPEC basket price has risen to the upper part of its target range," the U.S. Energy Information Administration noted in its latest assessment of OPEC's intentions. "Part of this may be attributable to the replacement of the 'war premium' by an 'uncertainty premium' over the anticipated time period when Iraqi oil exports will resume and reach pre-war levels."

Iraq has already announced it would accept bids for some 8 million barrels of crude stored in Ceyhan, Turkey, since before the war; however, Iraq's capability for sustained production and exports from its oilfields are a far larger factor in how world crude prices will shape up for the remainder of the year.

A sizable delay between the sale of the Ceyhan oil and the resumption of regular exports could leave the world's consuming nations in a lurch during July and August when demand for gasoline in the United States is at its highest.

"We've seen nearly three months of slowly falling prices and that trend should continue for the short term," Carol Thorp, a spokeswoman for the Automobile Club of Southern California, said as AAA's nationwide average retail gasoline price held at $1.49 per gallon. "Crude oil and gasoline inventories have increased significantly in recent days, which relieves some analyst concerns over potential supply problems. However, crude oil prices have climbed back to $30 per barrel range and this could affect retail prices later in the summer."

Meanwhile, OPEC is looking past the summer to the time when the shoe will be on the other foot. Autumn tends to see gasoline demand drop as summer vacations come to an end, which could leave OPEC in a buyers market at the same time Iraq is trying to regain its share of the world market.

OPEC may also be contributing to the perceived oil glut by its own capitalistic instincts to cash in on the current bull market for crude. With NYMEX well over $30 per barrel, the OPEC nations have been increasing their output over and above their official quotas.

The authoritative oil publication Platts Oilgram reported Monday that the 10 OPEC members -- excluding Iraq -- produced 26.35 million barrels per day last month, up 250,000 bpd from April and a combined 1.85 million bpd above the official quota. Only Nigeria, Indonesia and Venezuela were within their quotas, suggesting that OPEC's Middle East members were not prepared to surrender their market share to Iraq.

As happened at its last meeting, OPEC may announce it will reduce production by amounts that in reality only bring output in line with the current quota.

"Instead of reining in overproduction towards their new quotas, most OPEC countries have actually increased production. With (NYMEX) WTI (West Texas Intermediate crude oil) around $30/bbl and (International Petroleum Exchange) Brent around $27/bbl, there has been little incentive for them to cut back," said John Kingston, global director of oil at Platts. "Some OPEC officials have talked about cutting official quota levels at the June 11 meeting in Doha, Qatar, but that looks unlikely now."

El Universal, Executive Daily news and Summary

"Customers of Venezuela's Pdvsa are reporting renewed difficulties securing crude from Pdvsa, stoking fears that the country's output figures are inflated," Petroleum Argus says this week.

According to the oil bulletin, term buyers have expressed growing frustration with the situation. "Even Pdvsa's affiliates in the US have been forced to look for an alternative supply."

It adds that buyers complain they have been unable to get straight answers on how much oil they can receive, and some say it is a challenge even contacting Pdvsa's traders. "A Latin American trader says it now takes weeks to do deals with Pdvsa, where it used to take days, asserting that politicization and bureaucracy at Pdvsa are out of control."

"Us refiners have asked Mexico if it can supply more crude to make up Venezuelan shortfalls. But Pemex says it has no crude to spare, and cannot help. Russian Urals is filling some of the gap. Citgo and its Lyondell-Citgo sister have bought large volumes of Urals arriving this month and next, and are also seeking heavy crude in the Americas."

Argus also says that speculation that Venezuelan crude output is well below the 3.1 mn b/d claimed last month by Pdvsa's president Alí Rodríguez are increasing. "One rival says that Venezuela's output is no higher than 2.6 mn-2.7 mn b/d, and some of this is coming from Caribbean storage rather than Venezuelan fields."