Ortega and Fernandez: cowardly field marshals
www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 23, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue
That is how historian and political activist, Domingo Alberto Rangel brands the leaders of the failed national stoppage.
Venezuelan Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) president, Carlos Ortega and Federation of Chambers of Industry & Commerce (Fedecamaras), president Carlos Fernandez looked like and talked like two Napoleonic Field Marshals up till January 31.
"Every afternoon at the same time they used to issue a victorious proclamation ... they or the organizations they headed decreed the stoppage on December 2 ... less than 10% of mercantile establishments complied ... the most powerful international monopolies hardly stopped activities ... because they chose to undertake the stoppage at the worst moment and methods."
Rangel goes on: "the two Napoleons did not consult anyone ... December was the worst month economically and above all, they relied on the TV as if it could produce miracles ... the stoppage was a failure from the very start ... there was no stoppage in the street and no coup in the barracks."
Rangel maintains that there has always been a combative tradition in Venezuela banning cowardice in the political arena and points to students, known in Venezuela as the generation of 28, who fought the government in 1928 and were placed in forced labor camps and those who own struggle against Perez Jimenez (1953-1958).
"Now the two Marshals .. one with tears in his eyes is begging them NOT to change his comfortable house arrest to a common prison cell ... the other, Ortega running to the Costa Rican Embassy for asylum ... the two gentlemen are not only cowards but are politically as blind as bats."
The Chavez Frias regime is a farce, Rangel insists, full of thievery as Chavez Frias preaches administrative honesty ..."loaded with pickpockets that pose as heroes, quislings as never seen before,who fancy themselves ant-imperialists."
"It's an ideal regime that could be destroyed by a political trial ... turning a trial into a constant accusation against Chavez Frias for his double-speak, contradictions, slyness, hero-posturing would be ideal for any opponent."
The two marshals have let the opportunity slip away.
So why, then, are they scared in a country which has a proud tradition of warlords of risking their lives and people spending 14 years in prison under Gomez (1908-1931) and others, such as Rangel himself, spending 8 years in prison during Perez Jimenez (1953-1958) and Betancourt (1959-1964)?
Ortega and Fernandez' fear is based on class ... "they represent the moneyed oligarchy in the political arena ... they are front men."
Our oligarchy is coward ... other oligarchies are not."
Rangel compares Venezuela to Colombia where he was columnist in 1949 at El Tiempo broadsheet and virtual editor of the Revista de America owned by former Colombian President, Eduardo Santos. Rangel was 29 at the time.
Santos refused to leave Colombia despite an onslaught against members of the Liberal Party, saying the newspaper and his personal fortune were obtained thanks to Liberal activists and supporters, who were being murdered in the streets and villages.
Rangel ends his weekly column repeating that "Chavez Frias' regime is fragile because it is a farce ... the regime is full of thieves that talk with Catonian rigor and cites the example of an Energy & Mines (MEM) Minister flying to New York and Washington to shamelessly offer (unlike Gomez' ministers) Venezuela's oil resources.
Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) president, Ali Rodriguez, "supposedly a champion of nationalism ... is an traveling salesman of the national wealth share-out ... a regime in which abandoned children and beggars grow with manifest speed where there is no coherent policy or tangible undertakings."
Conclusion: Ideal for a fighting and lucid opposition and not an opposition of deserters. "Chavez Frias can be beaten because he is a hypocrite and irresponsible but one must stay here with a quiver full of arrows."