A crisis coming to a boil...
<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic news Posted: Monday, June 09, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel
"I repeat.... I will be in power until 2021, possibly beyond"... Hugo Chavez, in a national TV and Radio hookup, April 6, 2003.
"The Venezuelan revolution is the younger sister of Mao's revolution" -- Hugo Chavez, in his farewell to Whan Zhem, departing Chinese Ambassador to Venezuela, April 9, 2003.
VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: When the President of a democratic country says what he said on April 6th there are only three possible explanations, since such a statement represents an open violation of our legal and constitutional framework:
- The person is mentally disturbed;
- The person is irresponsible, or,
- The person is declaring his intention to place himself above and outside the Law of the Land.
There is an even worse alternative: that the person combines all of the problems above listed. Whoever listened to all or part of the speech given by the President April 6 will attest to the truculence of the language, to the lack of verbal restraint which characterized the outpour and to the waves of violence and hate for dissidents that he transmitted to the listeners. This is the worst we have heard from his lips. This behavior suggests some type of mental disturbance, the more dangerous since it afflicts a top public servant. This has already been expressed by Dr. Franzel Delgado Senior, president of the Venezuelan Association of Psychiatry ... a man who should know what he is talking about.
In parallel, the President exhibits an irrepressible tendency to behave like a TV showman. He can not find the proper balance between being sober and being over frivolous, which greatly detracts from the majesty of the Presidency.
But, worst of all, the continuous reference to his stay in power far beyond the period which the constitution allows (Article 230) and our laws dictate, clearly represent a serious offense. It is not enough to say that he has not done it since he is clearly telling us that he intends to do it. If I stood in Main Street shouting that I am going to kill the President and the police just laughed at me when passing by, they would not be doing their job. They should take me into custody, run some mental tests to discard insanity and, then, put me in prison, either because of my lack of civic restraint (falta de respeto) or because I am a potential killer and can not be left on the loose.
The equivalent of the police for matters of State and for serious constitutional violations in our country is the armed force. We have never been involved in a war since independence and, still, we manage to spend an average of $1.4 billion per year in military equipment. The justification for this expenditure is that the armed force acts as the guardian of our territorial integrity and as protectors of our constitution (Article 328). However, our armed force is doing much less than their job. Our territory is being systematically violated by irregular armed groups of Colombians and by Brazilian "garimpeiros" who destroy our environment with their brutal mining in our rivers for gold and diamonds. Our constitution is being violated by a President who is placing himself above and outside the law. The duty of the armed force is to restrain him and restore the majesty of the Law. This has nothing to do with a military coup but with the correct application of constitutional checks and balances. In fact, not restraining the immoderate servant of the State would, in itself, constitute the coup.
While the issues described above make up the essential malady of our country at this moment, the crisis increases by leaps and bounds all across the board. The National Assembly is in chaos, after the government lost their fragile majority over the intended Gag Law for the Media. As a result, the government group called an illegal meeting away from the Assembly headquarters and replaced the dissident members with their alternates, all in violation of existing legislative procedures. As a result the National Assembly is close to dissolution. This and other signs of political disintegration have combined to place Venezuela as next to last in the ranking of the OAS on Efficiency of Governance, only above Paraguay. The internal debt, which was $900 million in 1998 is now over $11 billion, while minister Nobriega is touring the First World trying to get loans of up to $5 billion to balance the 2003 budget, an effort bound to fail given the discredit of the government in international financing circles.
The latest actions by the government have given a second air to dissidents, fatigued after the national strike. The adversaries of the government are again on the move, propelled by indignation due to the unethical behavior of the government.
By trying to place himself above and outside the Law, President Chavez is unleashing a new wave of popular and civic protests which will have unpredictable consequences. At first sight only two outcomes are possible: either the President will have to go, or he will emerge as a dictator. In a way, therefore, no matter what happens, this crisis marks the end of the "normal" Presidency of Hugo Chavez, the "democrat." Only the coupster remains.
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