Jack Kemp and Bernardo Alvarez: the odd couple...
<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Monday, May 26, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel
VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: In a recent story the Wall Street Journal comes down hard on Venezuelan Ambassador to the US, Bernardo Alvarez, for being "a hypocrite." The charge is explained by saying that, while Mr. Alvarez speaks admiringly of US democracy ... Jefferson and all ... he is a member of PPT, a Venezuelan small political party which is actually the ideological motor behind the growing totalitarianism of the Chavez government.
I believe the assessment of Alvarez by the WSJ is essentially correct but they were more lenient with Kemp, who explained his apparent endorsement of the Chavez regime by saying that he has had " an old relationship with Bernardo"...
No matter how long this relationship might have lasted it can not justify Kemp's association with one of the most undemocratic governments of the hemisphere. Hugo Chavez was elected President in a legitimate manner, after leading a failed coup against a democratically elected President in 1992 and causing over 100 deaths in the process. After his election, however, his systematic violation of the Constitution and his destruction of the independence of political institutions in the country have rendered his government clearly illegitimate.
Legitimacy is not merely of origin but also of performance. Who knows what his friend Bernardo has told him, but Kemp does not appear to be well informed about what is going on in Venezuela. In addition to what Alexandra Beech has already said to him in a very good letter, let me add the following:
This year the Venezuelan GDP will "grow" -17%, according estimates of J.P. Morgan. Last year the "growth" was -9%. This collapse, Mr. Kemp, is only comparable to those suffered by Cuba and Haiti in the 1990s ... but these countries are very poor while Venezuela has had extremely high petroleum income during the last three years. This is the Midas touch in reverse ... Chavez turns wealth into misery ... you might want to ask Bernardo about that.
The Venezuelan Central Bank ... not the opposition ... reports a drop of 23% in food consumption for the first quarter of this year and a catastrophic drop of 29% in the GDP, as compared to the first quarter of last year ... which was already pretty poor. A seasoned politician like Mr. Kemp should wonder about the quality of a government which produces these dismal figures.
The government has imposed, not exchange controls, but a currency blockade for the last 4 months which has produced an increase in international reserves at the expense of total national economic paralysis. About $1.5 billion have had to be bought by the private sector in the only market available ... the black market.
The social impact of these measures has been tragic: unemployment is almost 25%, crime rate is the highest ever and almost 500 Venezuelans are murdered every month in an atmosphere of total impunity.
Venezuela shows more violent deaths, I am sure, than the ones derived from the Israeli- Arab conflict. About 200,000 children live abandoned, many under drug addiction. Beggars and "buhoneros" overflow the streets of the cities. The services of garbage collection, the hospitals, the schools, the public infrastructure, all show sad signs of extreme deterioration. The poor are now destitute, the middle class is now largely poor, the rich are now largely gone.
If Mr. Kemp lived here, he would realize that this involution can not be merely the product of stupidity. Of course there is much of that. He would see it as soon as he met the ministers of the cabinet. But what is going on, in parallel, is a very shrewd (you can be a stupid administrator and a shrewd politician) plan to turn Venezuela into a fundamentalist, totalitarian society, just like those in Cuba, Libya or Iran.
The Cuba of Fidel Castro was made possible ... to a large extent ... by the support it received during its early stages by idealistic US politicians and intellectuals, at a time in which Castro still professed to be leading a "democratic" revolution.
How you can fall for it a second time around is beyond my understanding ... fortunately, not everyone has been mesmerized and can see that the King is naked.
The US has developed almost zero tolerance for rogue governments and I think this time there will be no honeymoon with the apprentice of dictator.
I read an article by Mr. Kemp in which he speak of the saga of Martin Luther King against racial discrimination with great admiration ... and yet he seems to endorse a racist government. Racism is not only practised against colored people but also against whites ... as shown in Zimbabwe, and in Venezuela. Chavez speaks with hate of the "oligarchs", the white, blue-eyed (says Chaderton, the Foreign Minister) businessmen and managers who are blamed for most of the ills of the nation. Venezuela is a 'mestizo' country, Mr. Kemp, for years free from racism ... until Chavez started his preaching full of social resentment, just like a new "mahdi"....
At this time, laws are being passed ... bulldozer style ... to give Chavez control of the institutions not yet in his grasp: the media and the Supreme Tribunal of Justice. Public bidding has been eliminated. Land invasions are now common place, under the protection of the military siding with Chavez. Governance and guarantees for the citizen do not exist in Venezuela, Mr. Kemp...
The government which Mr. Kemp's friend Bernardo represents in the US has done so much damage to the country ... in only 4 years ... that it might take 20 years or more to reverse it. The petroleum company PDVSA, which used to be the third of the first world, is now the first of the third world. It is now at the hands of Bernardo's boss, a former Cuban-supported guerrilla who used to try to blow up the pipelines he now tries to operate.
Try to find out the truth about Venezuela, Mr. Kemp, do not listen only to Bernardo ... do not associate yourself with such an (un)kemp(t) regime ... talk to former President Carter and to Cesar Gaviria, who have no axe to grind. Talk only 5 minutes to Adina Bastidas, is all I ask from you ... listen to Chavez sing on national TV, is all I ask from you ... read about the Head of the Currency Exchange control referring the Venezuelan foreign currency problem to prophet Malachias, is all I would ask from you.
And ... if after you do this ... you still feel like endorsing the government of Hugo Chavez, so be it ... it will be God's will...
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