Daily Review from veninvestor.com
April 10, 2003
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"Everybody where I live knows the guerrillas are on the other side of the river, that they maintain their camp there. Everybody knows this. Everybody." - Maria, a villager who lives on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, concerning the presence of FARC guerrillas in Venezuela "The immediate challenge of reestablishing macroeconomic stability will require addressing the government's large borrowing requirements and removing the recently imposed exchange and price controls." - International Monetary Fund Report on Venezuela "We have faith, we hope that a recall referendum takes place, according to the Bolivarian Constitution" - US Ambassador to Venezuela, Charles Shapiro Good day, While the War in Iraq seems to have ended, the struggle to institute democracy in Iraq has only started. Yesterday, we watched as many Iraqis celebrated the end of a Saddam era, stomping their shoes against images of the ruthless dictator. Others, who were not shown on US channels, cried from fear and frustration, even when they admitted that they didn't want Saddam in power. Why weren't the Iraqis jubilant when the US and British forces first arrived? Because they were living in a regime of terror, where any show of emotion meant death. One woman, clumsily waving to the troops, was quickly hanged by her own townspeople. People were willing to speak against the regime off camera, reporters said, but they knew that challenging the regime on camera could end their life. Elsewhere, Castro took advantage of the war by quickly imprisoning and sentencing anyone those who opposed his regime, including journalists, poets, and activists. "Last week, Fidel Castro's government started a series of closed-door trials of 78 dissidents, many of them associated with the Varela Project, a grassroots petition drive seeking more democracy in Cuba," reports the Financial Times. "On Monday, 36 of them were convicted...given prison sentences ranging from 12 to 27 years." Then there's Chavez. Even as the US signals that dictators that abet terrorists will no longer be tolerated, Chavez insists in meddling with the FARC. Reuters reports that "Venezuela on Wednesday rejected allegations by Colombian border residents that its aircraft bombed a village in Colombia last month in support of leftist rebels fighting right-wing paramilitaries." In fact, "Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has ordered an inquiry into the allegations by border residents that Venezuelan military helicopters and planes crossed into Colombian airspace on March 21 and bombed a border hamlet at La Gabarra, in North Santander province, killing and wounding several people." The Washington Post reports: "If corroborated by the Colombian government, the bombings would be Venezuela's first military foray into Colombia's civil war." The FARC began an offensive late last month to retake this region from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), according to the Washington Post. "The paramilitary force fights the FARC alongside the Colombian army in much of the country. But here, say refugees and paramilitary commanders who do much of the fighting, they face a new adversary: the Venezuelan military." And the accounts are overwhelming. "According to accounts from a dozen refugees who have arrived here over the last two weeks to escape a fresh surge of fighting, Venezuelan military aircraft bombed paramilitary positions inside Colombia on March 21 and again a week later to the south in a way that helped a rebel scorched-earth campaign gain momentum across the northeastern frontier," the Washington Post reports. The Washington Post also provides "Watching War in the Shadow of U.S. Power: Latin America Paying Close Attention to Events in Iraq." It provides snippets from the war coverage in Latin America. "In Tal Cual, an independent daily in Caracas, columnist Vilma Petrásh dismisses the argument, often made by Chavez supporters, that the U.S.-U.K. invasion was motivated by oil. She argues that Iraqi daily production of 2.8 million barrels of oil a day is comparable to Nigeria or what Venezuela was producing as recently as a year ago, but far behind the big three oil producers, Russia, United States and Saudi Arabia. To return to 1980 levels of production would take three years and $7 billion worth of investment, she says." While Venezuelans understandably lament the documentary release of "The Revolution will not be Televised," a couple of books on the market provide a succinct view of the Venezuelan reality, much needed after Amy Chua's "Globalization: The World on Fire.". One is "Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism," by Marina Ottaway. "Despite their growing importance, semi-authoritarian regimes have not received systematic attention. Marina Ottaway examines five countries (Egypt, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Croatia, and Senegal), which display the distinctive features of semi-authoritarianism and the special challenge each poses to policy makers. She explains why the dominant approach to democracy promotion isn't effective in these countries and concludes by suggesting alternative policies." While I don't agree that better alternatives exist to democracy, I do believe that democracy doesn't begin and end with elections, as the Venezuelan experience has demonstrated. Democracy also entails an implicit agreement to abide by universal standards of human liberties and a system that promotes a balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial powers, all gone from Venezuela. When a democratically elected president begins to abuse his own people, an international system should exist to castigate the perpetrators, leading them to either institute justice or forgo their position. A nation doesn't only elect a leader, but an orderly political system that works in their interest. The president is merely the supplier of that system. When the political contract is broken, a nation has a right to demand change. The New York Times reviews "The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracies at Home and Abroad", by Fareed Zakaria. Mr. Zakaria provides a cautionary note on elections. His book "is a calm antidote to the fervency of those who want to force elections down the throat of every society, no matter what its particular circumstances and historical experience. As any foreign correspondent knows, there are all kinds and gradations of dictators." The New York Times reports: "Because social and economic conditions in much of the non-Western world now approximate those of Europe between the wars, Mr. Zakaria is able to catalog a vast array of instances in which the electorate's will led to the retrenchment of liberty. In 1994 voters in Belarus overwhelmingly elected the extreme nationalist Aleksandr Lukashenko as their president. The recent crackdown on independent news media by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was sanctioned by the electorate in opinion polls. In 1998 Venezuelans elected as their president Hugo Chávez, the angry populist and cashiered army colonel who then eviscerated the legislature and the judiciary." The challenge for the opposition in Venezuela will be, of course, to pressure Chavez to agree to elections, and also to provide one candidate that can beat him. Recent polls show that Chavez would pummel a divided opposition, as much as the opposition may not want to smell the flowers on this one. The other challenge will be to convince the radical elements of Chavistas that they will be included in any new government, so that governability does not become a problem for the new government. Local News... * The government will spend over 23 billion to celebrate the events of April 2002. * Vice-President Rangel again accuses Colombia of neglecting the border.
- President Chavez swore in the Presidential Commission for the Local Council of Public Planning, which the government said were modeled after the Committees for the Defense of the Cuban Revolution.
- An entity that coordinates electric energy production and transportation between private and public companies warned of an imminent collapse of electricity services in the country. * According to the IMF, Venezuela will be the only country in the continent to suffer a contraction in 2003. * Venezuela intends to produce over 5 million bpd in five years according to PDVSA´s president. Opinions
Today, I've provided two opinion pieces. The first is a commentary and stratfor report by former PDVSA director, Pedro M. Burelli. The Stratfor Report is titled "The Farc, Venezuela and Brazil: Growing Security Concerns in South America."
In "Let's just call it Operation Free Iraqi Oil", The Straits Times reports that among the threats to American supplies: "Venezuela, America's fourth biggest oil supplier, is also unreliable. The Bush administration is not enamoured with the regime of President Hugo Chavez, which has cultivated close political links with Cuba, Libya and even Mr Saddam. And the recent crisis in its oil industry, when production ceased after thousands went on strike to protest Mr Chavez's appointment of cronies in the state-owned oil company, has made America wary and forced it to search for alternative sources."
Events and Announcements
A Memorial Mass remembering the victims of violence in Venezuela will take place on April 11 at 6:00 pm at the Blessed Sacrament Church on 71st street, between Broadway and Columbus Avenue in New York. The Consulate of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in New York will show the film "The Revolution will not be Televised." Then, Consul General Leonor Osorio Granado and Consul Juan Pablo Torres will speak. The event will take place at the Consulate's Gallery at 7 East 51st St. on Friday, April 11 at 6:00 PM. For upcoming events, please check www.11abril.com, www.proveo.org, www.amigosny.com and www.veninvestor.com. I hope you are safe, content, and peaceful, wherever you are, Alexandra Beech
Research Staff Carlos Penug (international news) Sol Maria Castro (local news) Conchita Fernandez (Research and Translations)