www.timesdaily.com By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER Associated Press Writer March 06. 2003 1:44AM

After falling two stories and breaking his leg, construction worker Carlos Bolivar waited in a hospital for more than 24 hours, without painkillers, for doctors to set his femur in a cast. "My family had to get a loan to pay for my medicine and other things needed for the cast," said Bolivar, 22, sprawled on a metal stretcher in the Perez de Leon public hospital in Caracas. "That's why it took so long." Supply shortages in public hospitals - a problem in this impoverished country for years - have sharpened since President Hugo Chavez imposed strict controls on foreign exchange in January. The controls are meant to protect the bolivar currency, which lost 25 percent of its value during a failed two-month strike to force early elections. The strike began Dec. 2 and fizzled last month. Chavez said he would use the controls to punish big businesses that participated in the strike, while giving priority to importers of staples such as food and medicine. Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, gets almost all of its medicine and 60 percent of its raw materials abroad. For two months, however, no one has gotten dollars. In January, the government suspended dollar sales, saying it needed time to implement the controls. The suspension ended last month, but the government has yet to put the new rules in practice or sell any dollars. On Wednesday, the government promised to provide $645 million this month to staples importers. The flow of dollars will come none too soon at the Perez de Leon hospital, where shelves in stockrooms are nearly empty. Tucked in Petare, one of Caracas' poorest districts, the hospital is flooded with patients from the surrounding shantytowns. After taking their loved ones to the hospital, relatives are often sent by doctors and nurses to buy syringes, antibiotics, painkillers and gauze bandages at nearby pharmacies. "Unfortunately, patients have to bring almost everything," said Dr. Luis Azpura, project coordinator at the hospital. "Sometimes the availability of supplies means the difference between life and death." The new controls scheme is affecting all Venezuelans. It includes limits on the number of trips businessmen can make overseas. Venezuelans cannot use credit cards abroad and are limited in the amount of foreign currency they can take overseas. The government pegged the bolivar at 1,598 to the dollar, but it's trading as high as 2,800 on the black market. The government is drafting legislation that would punish those who deal on the black market with up to 14 years in prison. Fedecamaras, Venezuela's largest business chamber, warned that 25 percent of import-reliant business risk bankruptcy while waiting in line for dollars behind medicine and food importers. But price controls accompanying the new exchange system have temporarily succeeded in keeping the cost of food down, the Venezuela-American Chamber of Commerce acknowledged in a report Wednesday.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

PROVEA human rights group has been reviewing the state of the right to health in Venezuela and paints a dismal picture. Medicine stocks and medicines in hospitals are at an all-time low, tenders to supply, maintain and update medical equipment are at a standstill, salaries payments have been placed on the backburner of several months ... there is a generalized suspension of surgical operations, and organ transplants.

The closure of medical consultations and critical drop in blood bank reserves, especially for HIV cases, have reduced hospital capacity to guarantee services, especially in emergency centers.

PROVEA admits that political and economic causes have had a negative influence but insists that it is up to the Health & Social Development (MSDS) Ministry to adopt appropriate measures to meet the crisis, whether by implementing extreme measures, such as declaring the sector in a state of emergency or intermediate measures to re-establish conditions for normal functioning throughout the entire health assistance system.

The group calls on the State to speed up dollar exchange red tape to purchase medicines and medical supplies, and to send decentralized State Governments money to pay off accumulated debts to health sector suppliers, as well as pending sector wages, salaries and benefits.

PROVEA calls on the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) to issue a ruling on a protection recourse introduced last year by the College of Caracas Medical Doctors asking for the removal of VAT on medical and dentist surgical and hospital services in private clinics.

The Ministry, PROVEA suggests, should convene  a table of dialogue between public sector health services representatives, social sectors and NGOs involved in health care aimed at setting up a consultation process to deal with problems facing the sector.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 02, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Foro por la Vida human rights umbrella organization has issued an important statement defending the work of Cofavic human rights over 14 years since it was created in the wake of February 27, 1989 (27F) spontaneous riots in which more than 400 people were killed by the Armed Forces (FAN) and police.

The group welcomes Cofavic’s victory at the Inter American Human Rights (IAHR) Court after failing to get justice in Venezuela. The IAHR Court has ordered the Venezuelan State to investigate 27F, identify those intellectually and materially responsible, as well as eventual accessories, penalize them, publish the IAHRC sentence in the Gaceta Oficial and pay compensation to families.

Foro por la Vida hits out at a silly statement made by Deputy Planning & Development (Cordiplan) Minister Roland Denis on February 27 at a religious ceremony outside the Cementario del Sur. Denis says Cofavic’s “initial spirit has disappeared under the manipulating hands of its executive director,” Liliana Ortega and those connected to Cofavic are a bunch of “poor devils that allow themselves to be used.”

Worse still, Denis has the nerve to say that the families of people who were killed have the right to receive attention but not financial compensation … “a rebellion like that cannot be solved by money … it’s not a question of payments.” Allegedly defending the State Treasury, Denis also claims that the State has no responsibility in the matter!

• Such statements, Foro por la Vida insists, contribute little to the fight against impunity and respect for human rights.

Foro por la Vida expresses its solidarity with each and every member of Cofavic and with Cofavic’s rejection of any attempt by any sector to capitalize and use 27F as a political standard in detriment to the victims that have maintained an independent and non-political 14-year struggle in favor of human rights.”

It calls on the government to comply with the IAHR Court’s ruling as soon as possible to avoid falling foul of the 1999 Constitution.

I support the statement 100% and fail to understand why the government has been skirting the issue. The only reason I can find is what Domingo Alberto Rangel suggests … that President Chavez Frias defends the Armed Force (FAN) come rain and come shine as Venezuela’s savior and scandals must be shoved under the carpet to avoid damage to the corporation.

I cannot understand either why the President hasn’t seized the opportunity to blast officers responsible for blemishing his praiseworthy Bolivar 2000 Plan. One reader has offered an explication comparing President Hugo Chavez Frias’ attitude to FAN human rights abuses to the behavior of the Catholic Church when scandals arise.

As long as President Chavez Frias fails to stand firm on his electoral HR platform, human rights abuses will continue to dog his government and the opposition will continue to capitalize human rights issues, as happened to the April 11 killings … which is why I want to see a truth commission up and working.

Cofavic has still to clear itself of the image that it has become the opposition’s favorite HR group and it could start by becoming a member of Foro por la Vida.

• The 27F commemoration reminds us that neither the government nor opposition should be allowed to kidnap human rights.

If President Chavez Frias complies with the international court, it would send a message to any military commander or politician that the era of impunity is over and that anything s/he orders could come back to haunt them.

Flunkies like Denis only reinforce the feeling that government policy on FAN HR abuses is to let sleeping dogs lie.

The President cannot hide on this one or blame it on twits like Denis! 

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 02, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Five Venezuelan opposition journalists have made a trip to Washington to highlight 200 alleged human rights abuses committed against the media.

National College of Journalists (CNP) president Levy Benshimol, El Universal journalist Alicia La Rotta, El Nacional deputy editor Sergio Dahbar, Venevision journalist Luis Alfonso Fernandez Rodriguez, and National Press Workers Union (SNP) general secretary and Latin American Journalists Federation coordinator, Gregorio Salazar were accompanied by CNP legal adviser, Primero Justicia (PJ) National Assemblyman, Ramon Jose Medina.

Journalist Alicia La Rotta recalled how a state security uncover agent hit her on the mouth to recover an ID card she had picked up during an anti-government … ”the officer is still free and the case has not been followed through."

La Rotta says she felt afraid many times when she was writing up narco-trafficking stories … "when I asked state security for protection, I got it and felt protected … not any more.”

President Chavez Frias has mentioned her several times during his Sunday radio address, referring to her as an enemy of his government.

Presidential Media Minister Nora Uribe, Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) president Ali Rodriguez Araque and Ambassador to the Organization of American states (OAS) Jorge Valero have also been visiting Washington at the same time to defend Venezuelan government policies in the wake of the 2-month opposition sabotage which almost crippled the nation's vital oil industry's capability to supply the United States with crude oil.

Posted: Thursday, February 27, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

The Inter American Human Rights Court (IAHRC) has stated that the Venezuelan State has not fully complied with the provisional measures the Court issued on November 27 to protect the lives of Luis Enrique Uzcategui (Falcon), 8 Cofavic defense attorneys (Liliana Ortega, Yris Medina Cova, Hilda Paez, Maritza Romero, Aura Liscano, Alicia de Gonzalez and Carmen Alicia Mendoza) and 5 Radio Caracas TV (RCTV).

• The Court has given the Venezuelan government until March 22 to reply.

State representative, Jorge Duarte has replied that in the case of Cofavic, the State has expressed concern for their safety and the basic problem has been one of implementation delayed by "disorder and interruptions proper to the bureaucratic nature of the State nad Venezuelan idiosyncracy."