An open letter about PDVSA to President Hugo Chavez Frias

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: Mr. President: I just heard you saying that the 18,000 rebel PDVSA managers and workers who were fired by you, in an undignified fashion through newspaper listings, "will never go back to work at PDVSA."

You added that "they are criminals who deserve 30 years in jail."

In answer to these utterances, I would like to say to you that, yes, these people will go back to work at PDVSA ... not while you are President, of course, but almost the instant you go out of the Presidency by means of a popular referendum ... much before the normal end of your Presidential term.

This will happen, as sure as the sun goes up every morning...

It will happen because what you have installed in PDVSA is not a group of true and professional managers and technicians ... some of whom know about petroleum what you know about running a country ... i.e. very little.

Let me tell you why the real PDVSA professional managers and technicians decided to rebel. I am sure that many of the things I will tell you will be new to you, since you have a praetorian, authoritarian perspective of the Presidency, certainly not a democratic and civic outlook: 1.-- PDVSA, Mr. President, does not belong to the State, much less to the government and, of course, much less to you, Hugo Chavez ... a public servant and not a feudal ruler. PDVSA belongs to the Venezuelan nation ... this is all of us, you included, together with 23.4 million others. 2.-- The nation is not at the service of the State and the government, but these must be at the service of the nation. You, as a servant of the State, are clearly at the service of the nation and should be accountable to the nation ... but you are not. 3.-- From 1. and 2. above, it clearly follows that PDVSA is not your personal playground. It is one of the most important institutions of the nation and, as such, it has to be protected at all costs by the servants of the nation, of which you are one. 4.-- As a national institution, PDVSA belongs to all Venezuelans, not only to your followers. We are all shareholders of PDVSA. The State is not the only shareholder, much less the government or you as a person. All shareholders have the right and the duty to protect PDVSA from destruction, contamination, prostitution of its mission and corruption of its activities. 5.--The rebel staff that you fired had been trained in a tradition of meritocracy, apoliticism and professional management. These values formed the backbone of the corporation and their practice explained its sterling operational and financial performance for 25 years, until you came into action. These values had been accepted by the nation as the guiding principles for the Institution. You came, as gracefully as an elephant in a china shop, and proceeded to demolish all these principles. You named a madman, a Marxist enemy of professional management and a terrorist as successive presidents of the institution. You placed as members of the board people who lacked the credentials to be there. You promoted the use of PDVSA's facilities and equipment for political events. You became enemy number one of the institution which provides most of the financial resources for the nation, resources that the State and the government have consistently tried to misuse for their selfish purposes. 6.-- The managers and technicians of PDVSA acted on their triple duties as trustees of the institution, as shareholders of the institution and as citizens of the nation, Venezuela, to protect the institution from this gross attempt at destruction and prostitution of its values, norms and procedures. They acted against you, the person who has tried and is still trying to destroy PDVSA. Do you think, for a moment, that these managers and technicians want to go back to work under a Presidency which represents the exact opposite of the values they cherish?  They are selling cakes in the streets today but, every morning, they see themselves in the mirror and they see people with dignity and self-esteem. They do not see lackeys...

Do I go on or you got it clear?

I doubt that you did, or that you would, no matter how much in detail I explained it to you. Because for ten years, by your own admission, you plotted a coup against the democratic governments of Venezuela.

Whoever discredits his own institution in this manner can not understand what institutional loyalty means.

And ... after ten years of plotting, you finally came up empty.

On the other hand, the managers of PDVSA did not plot ... they met in a public assembly and decided to act immediately, on the basis of their conscience, putting everything on the line: jobs, financial stability, family and career. They are not asking for your mercy and they would not accept it. They know they will be back to PDVSA after the national nightmare is over, after you are gone. Some of them will find that there is life after PDVSA and will not go back to the institution ... but the majority will get their jobs back and, more importantly, they will put right most of the wrongs.

And there will be no more fish markets in front of PDVSA's headquarters, there will be no more political commissars, there will be no more international embarrassments.

As you are still young, I hope that the example of civic responsibility given by the PDVSA rebels will make you reflect on your own ethical posture and will help to improve it.

Moral force is always stronger than brute force, you can be certain of that...

You have some personal qualities which, if properly blended with true democratic manners and a more humble disposition, would allow for a reasonably good political career.

But, right now, you are making a mess of it.

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