Why should we be faced with some very important personal dilemmas...

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 By: Roy S. Carson

VHeadline.com editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: A long-time correspondent, obviously strongly allied to the Venezuelan opposition, writes "you will soon be faced with some very important personal dilemmas!"

Supposedly he is referring to his repeatedly alluded to ... though mistaken perception ... that VHeadline.com Venezuela is somehow "in the pay of the Chavez regime..."

At risk of repeating ad infinitum what has already been stated in our published editorial policy statement, VHeadline.com is NOT what some would wish to label "Chavista."

Let me explain, one more time:  VHeadline.com insists on its support for the legal Constitution of the Republic of Venezuela (which is distinctly apart from the Constitution of the United States of America, though with similar aspirations for the good of its own citizens) and for the legal and democratic government of Venezuela.  It does not matter one jot who is the elected President of Venezuela although we must admit to having some basic admiration for any human being who is willing and able to offer up his/her personal freedom and to take all the crap that irrevocably ensues from holding the top office in the land.

The key words in our evaluation are democratic, legal and elected.

I sometimes wish that less discerning readers would attempt to understand that it is the role of any newspaper, anywhere in the world to support democracy and constitutionality as well as legality.

At the same time, if there is any diversion from democracy, constitutionality and legality it is beholden on a free and disciplined media to highlighted and repudiate it, no matter from which side of the political divide it may come.

This is the problem ... as I see it ... in Venezuela, today, where impunity that was traditional but unpreached to the world, has reached such proportions that people are now able to reject the nation's Constitution and democracy and to act just as they please without regard for the law.  It is a regrettable situation with cause and effect.

The situation is not helped any by an opposition-controlled Venezuelan print & broadcast media which shields loaded anti-government interests within.  In sharp contrast with former government regimes, the media in Venezuela is now very obviously unbridled, enjoying freedoms of expression that they had never before experienced through more than four decades of political-economic corruption in the guise of what the United States for its own convenience was prepared to accept as "democratic" but was not.

I can understand that large numbers of Venezuelan citizens get a surfeit of Globovision TV and El Nacional propaganda that has developed their rabid anti-Chavez attitudes ... blinded to the lawlessness that hallmarks the political opposition's continuing attempts to sabotage and disrupt and government reforms or due democratic progress.  What should have been heralded as an example to the rest of the continent of participative democracy, involving ALL of the people in the pursuit of economic well-being and happiness, has become the stomping ground of thugs and spoiled brats who want a return to the corruption that was so vehemently rejected in fair and democratic elections in December 1998 which brought Chavez Frias to the Presidency in February 1999.

With a daily diet of blatant political and economic sabotage and Goebbelsque imagery of business-suited mafia executives as saints & scholars, Venezuela is rapidly turning from simply petulant politicos and upper classes to complete and utter anarchy ... for what?

The bickering over appointments to the National Electoral College (CNE) and positioning of a myriad of vocal interest groups shows that what could have been constructive criticism of the elected government of Venezuela ... roses & brickbats that are normal in any political scenario ... have been lost in schoolyard bullying and outright criminality.  Where else in the world would you encounter a military officer who, having pledged his oath of allegiance to the Constitution, will willingly rebel against that selfsame charter and shame the uniform he once so proudly bore.

Where else in the world would there be such open rejection of the nation's Constitution?

• In the topsy-turvy world of Venezuela, of course, everything is possible while at the same time the basic elements appear to be impossible.

Associated Press, Reuters and ill-informed correspondents at the Washington Post and New York Times repeat the mantra that Chavez Frias personally rewrote the 1999 Constitution, ignoring the clearly evidenced fact that first a Constitutional reform Assembly was elected by the people to author such document which was then itself submitted to the people and approved in a December 15, 1999 referendum ... that fresh elections were held under the newly-reformed and approved Constitution and that President Hugo Chavez Frias retained his majority through this and other elections since.

The political opposition and its print & broadcast media would have you believe that Chavez Frias is a dictator ... yet when they themselves overthrew the legitimate government on April 11, 2002, the first action of Dictator-for-a-Day Pedro Carmona Estanga was to dissolve parliament, the judiciary and the constitution...

Is that the hallmark of an opposition that's committed to democracy, constitutionality and the rule of law?  Or is it mob rule by powerful mafia interests interested only in stuffing their own bank accounts and to hell with the ordinary decent people who make up a majority of that beautiful country called Venezuela?

Yes, in that sense, perhaps, it looks as though VHeadline.com is in support of President Hugo Chavez Frias ... although we would sooner see it as support for the institution of the Presidency irrespective of who currently wears the sash and bears the title.

Yes, of course, there have been mistakes made and costly rectifications have had to be made ... Chavez Frias is NOT a genius and as he himself said, he makes no claim to be "Mandrake the Magician." It would have been much too for him to do exactly what his critics said he would do, given his military background ... i.e. to impose a military dictatorship.

But the evidence is there for everybody to see ... there is no military dictatorship in Venezuela and it appears from the volume of personal abuse against him that appears in the Venezuelan print and broadcast media that there is a very much greater freedom of press and expression in Venezuela than there ever has been.

I remember well that I once wrote a fully-reasoned and critical editorial about Caldera's then Finance Minister Luis Matos Azocar's way of pushing national debt and bond issues onto the next-generations of government to repay.  He had scant regard for the future ... his efforts were designed to get the Caldera government out of immediate bankruptcy by borrowing money on international markets at a rate of knots that would make most financiers giddy.  It was left to next-following governments to pay the price for Matos Azocar's folly, never mind the demise of his sister, incarcerated in the United States on multi-$ million money-laundering charges.

The story was ready for publication when the editor with a look of abject horror on his face pulled the page and told me "'fer Crisssake! You can't criticize a government minister like that!"  Nowadays, anything goes ... unsubstantiated reports claiming the President to be the "Mr. Big" behind criminal world shootings are commonplace; claims that the President is stuffing his pockets with purloined $ millions are rife and almost every imaginable (and some more than that) are laid at his door as though he were the executor of all evils to be found more readily in a political opposition remarkably lacking personal mirrors.

Opposition Venezuelan media outlets skillfully spin a web of unsubstantiated allegations aimed at blowing up prejudices and hatred all over the place ... accusations to the right and left are strewn, but simple explanations are left scurrying for cover.  Yes, there may have been cases where government funds have been taken from one account to rush into another account to stave off an emergency situation ... but is that not more a matter of financial management (mismanagement if you wish to call it that) since we don't see any of that cash diverted into personal bank accounts in Miami, New York or Geneva as per previous governments.

Leading any government, local, regional or national is not an easy job and I am sure any of our VHeadline.com readers would not wish to have the 24/7 pressures that are placed on the shoulders of those who are called to rule.

However, as we see it ... and we could be wrong ... Chavez was elected in democratic elections to become President of Venezuela. He began a process whereby an elected body reformed the Constitution, which was then ratified by the electorate in a national referendum, after which fresh democratic elections were called under the new constitution. That constitution stipulates a certain process for a consultative referendum, and another for a revocatory referendum halfway through the term of office.

Yes, it appears that the opposition's form of collection of signatures brought a sufficient number to call a consultative referendum ... but, with the codicil that we must question the legitimacy of any opposition signature campaign as being anything even slightly approaching the democratic form stipulated under the Constitution.

• The mere fact that it was organized by the opposition should tell any neutral observer that it could not possibly be correct.

Okay, so let them have their way and let them claim that the signature campaign was valid. What does it prove?

What good will come of a consultative referendum that will cost a lot of money and cause even more divisions without any clear result other than perhaps that the opposition will discover that a democratic majority of ALL the Venezuelan people reject their anti-constitutional means of trying to overthrow the legitimate government.

Better to observe the due process of the democratically-authored and constituted Constitution and to hold a revocatory referendum at a time and place as designated by that Constitution, ensuring that due process of democracy and law are observed at all times.

The result of that referendum may not be the opposition's pleasing, it may not be to our preference if candidate in secret ballot ... but it will be the legitimate will of a majority of the voting Venezuelan public ... and surely none of us can object that that ... or can we?

So, if indeed, a revocatory referendum is held after sufficient signatures are verifiably collected in a proper manner by proper authorities after August 19, and if that referendum rejects Chavez, what then?

Why should there then be any dilemma for VHeadline.com?

If true democracy and constitutionality are observed, and the will of the Venezuelan people is expressed an a rejection of Chavez and someone else (Salas Romer?) is then elected by due democratic process, why should this pose any dilemma for VHeadline.com? Nada!

VHeadline.com has always been in support of constitutionality, democracy and the law ... would you want it to be any different, we don't!

We were in support of democracy, constitutionality and the law during the regime of President Rafael Caldera and felt free to criticize and applaud where we felt it necessary.

We did so without compunction. We supported William Ojeda in his battle against corrupt judges and we were very critical of certain aspects of the Caldera government. We have also been critical of certain aspects of the current government, but we have also been aware of the concert of disinformation and pure sabotage which has inflicted Venezuela over recent years -- and we wish it were not so.

We encourage public debate from all sides of the political spectrum but there are elements on both sides which want to suffocate dissent and to turn VHeadline.com into mouthpieces of their own particular political bias ... against this we will put up the fiercest of resistances.

So again, I ask my opposition correspondent ... why do you think we should have any dilemma?

The Avila will still be there when all of us are dust, and any markings on our tombstones will be dug up by archaeologists of the future in futile attempts to establish what form of madness had afflicted "humanity" at such an early stage of its development.

Roy S. Carson editor@vheadline.com