www.vheadline.com Posted: Friday, March 07, 2003 By: Oscar Heck

VHeadline.com commentarist Oscar Heck writes: I have been watching more television here in Venezuela in recent days (I got sick of watching it at some point) and must say that finally, Globovision, Venevision, RCTV and Televen, the four privately-owned stations, appear to be reporting quite objectively.

However, their editorial news and commentary programs ... similar to some recent Washington Post, BBC and other USA media articles and editorials ... are still overtly anti-Chavez, pro-USA and manipulative, distorting facts in favor of anti-Chavez bashing ... claiming that Chavez is inciting terrorism, Chavez is a communist, Chavez is allowing infiltration of FARC members, Chavez is a dictator, Chavez must be ousted, Chavez people are sabotaging the refineries, the Chavez government is backing terror cells ... Chavez this and Chavez that.

Their advertising appears back to normal, however they still pass a few opposition sponsored ads (paid for by whom?) calling for people to take to the streets. The next "march" is planned for this coming Saturday, March 7, and the ads include the following calls:

"...all Venezuelans take to the streets... to the highway at Chacao... march against political oppression...against judicial terrorism...for our liberty and for democracy...in support of those who are persecuted for political reasons...you have the right to demand liberty and democracy for your country..."

The more I see of these commercials, the more they appear to contain American-style rhetoric: against terrorism, for liberty, for our country, for democracy, etc. Also, the increase in the use of the word terrorism by opposition people started after the bombings of the Colombian and Spanish embassies/consulates a few days ago. (Note that Chavez has been using the word "terrorism" for weeks ... to describe the opposition's attempt without-conscience at destroying Venezuela ... and in my opinion, correctly so).

For months, the opposition tried (and are still trying) to link Chavez to people such as Saddam Hussein and Khadaffi ... to biological weapons. Now they're trying to link him to the FARC. They also accuse Chavez of being a communist because of his close relations with Fidel Castro, but wasn't Carlos Andres Perez close to Fidel Castro in some way as well?

I speak of these things to bring to view another side of Venezuela.

Expensive restaurants are full, banks are open, some "casas de cambio" are open. Even with all the talk of scarcity of food, it appears to me that there is plenty. Manufacturers are working in the industrial area of the barrio where I am. Everything appears to be coming back to normal (except for the continuation of marches and demonstrations by opposition supporters, which include blocking the main arteries of Caracas).

However, speaking with people here in the barrio, it's obvious that many are struggling. The economy was taken to the floor by the incessant attempts by the opposition to oust Chavez by paralyzing the country ... and many people lost their jobs, including some of my friends.

But ... there is a positive side.

Many people are realizing that now is a good time to start businesses, to be creative, to find new ways of making money ... and perhaps to not be so customarily dependent on an employer who pays a pitiful minimum wage.

Has the opposition helped open the eyes of the average Venezuelan to greater possibilities?

Venezuela has all the basics and the talent to produce anything they want (instead of importing 60-70 % of consumer items, including food). Venezuela has oil, gold, precious stones, aluminum, ore, and extensive undeveloped agricultural capacity.

Now is probably the best time to start new ventures.

Venezuela can be "The best country in the world." For readers who have not been to Venezuela, I highly recommend that you come to visit and disregard the negative press that some of the "international media" and the Venezuelan anti-Chavez media is spreading.

In a recent telephone survey by Globovision (the major anti-Chavez television station) viewers were asked to answer the following question: "What is the main problem in Venezuela at this time?"

The answers:

1. Unemployment 14.0%
2. Insecurity (as in personal safety) 5.7%
3. Political situation 76.0%
4. Cost of living 4.3%

...and imagine, these are answers coming almost entirely from anti-Chavez, pro-opposition people! The same ones that are spreading all sorts of horrible rumors about the "dangers," "terrorism," "kidnappings" and "human rights abuses" that a visitor will supposedly encounter in Venezuela.

Venezuela has mountains (Andes), lakes, plains, jungles, Caribbean beaches and islands, tepuys, waterfalls and deserts.

There is dry heat, humid heat, cool weather, cold weather, snow.

There are crocodiles, boas, snakes of all kinds, capibaras, monkeys, lots of parrots, eagles, vultures, dolphins and piranhas.

You can go para-gliding in the Andes, white river rafting, parachute, take helicopter trips to Angel Falls (the highest falls in the world) and the Tepuys ... you can take 4-5 days tours into the Amazon jungles and live with the indians ... you can rest at top-notch tourist resorts on Isla de Margarita or Los Roques or rent inexpensive "posadas" in small fishing villages along the Caribbean.

In Merida you can take a spectacular trip on the longest cable car in the world (if I recall correctly 11-12 km. in length).

Venezuela has everything ... but above all ... Venezuelans.

Venezuelans are a kind, jovial, family oriented, resourceful and proud people.

Families take care of their elders at home ... children and adults feast together ... the music is everywhere.

For me ... and for many people who immigrated to Venezuela ... and for many Venezuelans ... Venezuela is "The best country in the world."

Oscar Heck oscarheck111@hotmail.com

www.iht.com Moisés Naím Thursday, March 6, 2003 The Venezuelan nightmare   WASHINGTON For decades Venezuela was a backwater, uninteresting to the outside world. It could not compete for international attention with nearby countries where superpowers staged proxy wars, or where military juntas "disappeared" thousands of opponents, or where the economies regularly crashed. Venezuela was stable. Its oil fueled an economy that enjoyed the world's highest growth rate from 1950 to 1980 and it boasted a higher per-capita income than Spain from 1928 to 1984. Venezuela was one of the longest-lived democracies in Latin America.Venezuela is no longer boring. It has become a nightmare for its people and a threat not just to its neighbors but to the United States and even Europe. A strike in its oil industry has contributed to a rise in gasoline prices at the worst possible time. Hasil Mohammed Rahaham-Alan, a Venezuelan citizen, was detained last month at a London airport as he arrived from Caracas carrying a hand grenade in his luggage. A week later, President Hugo Chávez praised the arrest orders of two opposition leaders who had been instrumental in organizing the strike, saying they "should have been jailed a long time ago." Chávez has helped to create an environment where stateless international networks whose business is terror, guns or drugs feel at home. Venezuela has also become a laboratory where the accepted wisdom of the 1990s is being tested - and often discredited. The first tenet to fall was the belief that the United States has almost unlimited influence in South America. As one of its main oil suppliers and a close neighbor has careened out of control, America has been a conspicuously inconsequential bystander. And it is not just the United States. The United Nations, agencies like the Organization of American States and the International Monetary Fund, or the international press - all have stood by and watched. Another belief of the 1990s was that global economic forces would force democratically elected leaders to pursue responsible economic policies. Yet Chávez, a democratically elected president, has been willing to tolerate international economic isolation - with disastrous results for Venezuela's poor - in exchange for greater power at home. The 21st century was not supposed to engender a Latin American president with a red beret. Instead of obsessing about luring private capital, he scares it away. Rather than strengthening ties with the United States, he befriends Cuba. Such behavior was supposed to have been made obsolete by the democratization, economic deregulation and globalization of the 1990s. Venezuela is an improbable country to have fallen into this political abyss. It is vast, wealthy, relatively modern and cosmopolitan, with a strong private sector and a homogeneous mixed-race population with little history of conflict. Democracy was supposed to have prevented its decline into a failed state. Yet once Chávez gained control over the government, his rule became exclusionary and profoundly undemocratic. Under Chávez, Venezuela is a powerful reminder that elections are necessary but not sufficient for democracy, and that even longstanding democracies can unravel overnight. A government's legitimacy flows not only from the ballot box but also from the way it conducts itself. Accountability and institutional restraints and balances are needed. The international community became adept at monitoring elections and ensuring their legitimacy in the 1990s. The Venezuelan experience illustrates the urgency of setting up equally effective mechanisms to validate a government's practices. The often stealthy transgressions of Chávez have unleashed a powerful expression of what is perhaps the only trend of the 1990s still visible in Venezuela: civil society. In today's Venezuela millions of once politically indifferent citizens stage almost daily marches and rallies. This is not a traditional opposition movement. It is an inchoate network of people from all social classes and walks of life, who are organized in loosely coordinated units and who do not have any other ambition than to stop a president who has made their country unlivable. For too many years they have been mere inhabitants of their own country. Now they demand to be citizens, and feel they have the right to oust through democratic means a president who has wrought havoc on their country. Even though the constitution allows for early elections, and even though Chávez has promised that he will abide by this provision, the great majority of Venezuelans don't believe him. They are convinced that in August, when the constitution contemplates a referendum on the president, the government will resort to delaying tactics and dirty tricks. With international attention elsewhere, Chávez will use his power to forestall an election and ignore the constitution. Venezuela's citizens have been heroically peaceful and civil in their quest. All they ask is that they be given a chance to vote. The world should do its best to ensure that they have that opportunity. The writer, Venezuela's minister of trade and industry from 1989 to 1990, is editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

You would if you had been listening to what we have been saying for eighteen months. Peak Oil is here. The world is starting to run out. There is no more oil to find and what's left can't be put into your gas tank or our power generating stations quickly. Global production capacity is stretched like a rubber band about to break and the slightest hiccup in world oil production will crash the global economy like a Styrofoam cup under an elephant's foot at a Rave party. Don't believe me? Well then perhaps recent warnings by Goldman Sachs and James Baker might. Those warnings, and an incredibly precise economic analysis by Marshall Auerback, were recently published by The Prudent Bear at: www.prudentbear.com.

To make it simple, the problem is this: In spite of microscopic fig leaves stating that OPEC will ramp up production to meet oil needs, the fact is that OPEC just can't do it. Goldman Sachs knows it. James Baker knows it. Bush knows it. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, having survived U.S. coup attempts, now holds a "whip hand" as Venezuelan production still lags behind. Saudi Arabia is unstable. Nigeria, the world's sixth largest producer ... just had an oil strike. Its production is down and every other producing facility is on overtime. In the latest issue of FTW we poke yet another hole in the grand illusion about an Iraqi windfall. It may take two to five years and as much as $50 billion in new investment to increase Iraqi production from two to five million barrels a day as the rest of the world's reserves dry up.

The planet is currently consuming a billion barrels of oil every 12 days. Peak Oil is here now. What difference does it make if Saudi Arabia and OPEC might be able to add five million barrels a day? It's who gets it that matters.

Worse, countries like India and Pakistan have announced a version of panic buying to build up their reserves before the war. This places a further strain on production capacity. With the invasion, if the Iraqi supply is interrupted for just a month then the markets will see the light and there will be a capitulation sell-off on Wall Street that might take the Dow down to 4000. Ten million could be unemployed inside of six months. U.S. reserves are at 27 year lows and the administration is prepared to open up our Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) which can sustain the US for about 75 days. Tap into the SPR and what do you think prices will do? And if prices double or triple what do you think will happen to your job? Your checkbook?

Gas prices have not yet begun to rise. This is what FTW has been saying since October of 2001. There may soon come a day when we will all look back on $2 gas the way I look back on the 28 cent premium gas I bought in 1969.

Now think for a moment what happens if the U.S. backs down, as I think it should. 36% of all the proven recoverable reserves in the world are in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Not all oil reserves are recoverable. Only lunatics believe that wells, pipelines and refineries are already in place and paid for in the smaller fields that have not been developed. A perceived American power vacuum would unleash a polite, at first, but ultimately frantic, scramble for Saudi and Iraqi oil in the full knowledge that whoever loses out will be the first civilization to collapse; the first of many.

Yes, it all makes perfect sense.

From: www.fromthewilderness.com By Michael C. Ruppert 19 December 2002

Feb. 28 2003, 1200 PST (FTW) -- So many emails. So many people worried and confused. So many people acting as if it doesn't make sense.

Yes, there's good reason to be confused. Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nephew refuses to be drafted while his uncle all but threatens to attack Belgium for its OK to prosecute Ariel Sharon for war crimes when he leaves office. NATO is, or will soon be, dead. France, Germany and Russia are sponsoring a Security Council resolution to prevent what France has called "an illegitimate war". Turkey, with 85% of its people opposing the invasion, is extorting the U.S. blind as budget deficit projections leave orbit. Ari Fleischer is hysterically laughed out of the White House Press room by reporters after insisting with a straight face that George W. Bush would never bribe another country for a vote. Americans are renaming French fries as Liberty fries while the larger powers Germany and Russia ... who make France's stance credible - stand back and let France take both the heat - et la gloire!

Aside from the tense laughter over words we have real threats. In Colombia, FARC guerillas shoot down a CIA contract plane; kill one occupant and hold three others hostage while President Bush uses statutory authority to send 150 more Green Berets to follow the 70 he just sent. North Korea is having the time of its life cutting business deals with China and Seoul while using its possibly one nuclear weapon to make the U.S. divert bombers and elements of the 1st Air Cavalry away from the Gulf. In the Philippines Abu Sayyaf rebels have prompted the U.S. to commit 1,700 more troops to take an active role in the fighting. And the U.S. is now sending 10,000 troops to the Dominican Republic for a training exercise that looks much more like preparation for intervention in either Venezuela or Colombia.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 By: Oscar Heck

VHeadline.com commentarist Oscar Heck writes: I have been getting some flack from some irate opposition people recently ... again ... calling me "ignorant and uneducated." Why? Because they think I have some figures mixed up.

I will explain: According to the opposition, the recent Firmazo (Signing) of February 2, 2003, accumulated 4.4 million signatures in several petitions including one asking Chavez to resign.

According to recent opposition sponsored press announcements, TV ads and newspaper editorials, 70-80% of the Venezuelan population want Chavez to resign.

Where do they get these figures?

The only explanation I have seen is the following:

4.4 million signatures of a possible 6 million, represents 73%.

Why 6 million? Because, they base themselves on the voter turnout of 1998, when Chavez won the elections with approximately 56% of the votes (3 million+ votes).

The abstention rate was approximately 50% at the time.

Now, what perplexes me? The firmazo was intensely advertised (and pounded into people's heads) for weeks previous to February 2, 2003.  There was a monumental effort by the opposition to have as many people as possible show up to sign. So, if the turnout for the firmazo was say 80%, which I believe is a little low (i.e., abstention of 20%), then this means that the maximum number of anti-Chavez signatures could have been 5.5 million signatures.

Now, if elections were held ... and the abstention rate is 20% ... this means that 9.6 million people would vote and Chavez would get 4.1 million votes (43% of all votes). Together, all other opposition parties would have a total of 5.5 million votes, that is 57% of all votes. (It seems to me that 57% anti-Chavez votes are a far cry from 70-80%.)

Based on the above figures, for Chavez to lose the elections, one opposition party would have to have at least 4.1 million votes +1, that is 4.1 of 5.5 million anti-Chavez votes, or 75% of these votes.

I suppose, theoretically, this could happen ... but I doubt it, especially since there are 18 political parties represented in the National Assembly, a good portion of them being anti-Chavez.

Another point is that if the turnout for the 'firmazo' was higher that 80 % ... say 90% (which I believe is closer to reality - especially after all the advertising) ... then Chavez would win the elections, no matter how many votes the opposition would get -- the maximum number of combined anti-Chavez votes would be 4.9 million of a total of 10.8 million, or 45%.

The flack I have been receiving is precisely concerning the above discussions.

Does the opposition really believe that if there were elections, there would be 80% anti-Chavez voter turnout and say 50% pro-Chavez voter turnout?

Or that if an election were held, the voter turnout would still remain at 50% ... as it was in 1998? I don't think so!  I believe that voter turnout will be the highest in Venezuelan history. My prediction is that the anti-Chavez and pro-Chavez voter turnout will be about 80%.

The fact that the opposition is claiming that 70-80% of the Venezuelan population wants Chavez out, is based on a false premise that the turnout for the 'firmazo' was 50%!

I don't think so ... considering the amount of advertising and incitement that went on, my estimate is that the turnout for the 'firmazo' was closer to 90%.

Furthermore, if elections were called, Chavez would ask all his supporters to go to the ballot box ... just as the opposition would.

Now, supposing that the opposition's premise (50% turnout) is correct ... then Chavez would win 1.6 million votes.  For Chavez to lose, one anti-Chavez political party would have to win at least 1.6 million votes ... or 26% of the anti-Chavez votes.

According to the Venezuelan National Assembly site the anti-Chavez political party that holds the largest number of seats is Accion Democratica (AD) with 15% of the seats. (Remember that there are a total of 18 political parties represented at the National Assembly).  This would mean that Accion Democratica ... one of the conventional Venezuelan political parties ... would have to increase their votes by approximately 75%!

Considering that the Accion Democratica is still, in the eyes of many Venezuelans, the party that is associated with Carlos Andres Perez and massive proven corruption, it appears to me that an increase of 75% is asking a lot.  I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Now, I can understand that many opposition people would love their premise to be correct. If it is correct, I must congratulate them for seeing more deeply into the situation than I have been able to do.  However, I find it difficult to believe, especially since 12 weeks of travel across approximately half of Venezuela's territory has not demonstrated to me that the premise is valid.

Another factor:  The opposition claims that many people who voted for Chavez in 1998 signed at the 'firmazo.'  Numbers-wise this bit of information only has bearing on the matter if their premise is correct.

Another interesting fact: The opposition has been inviting all Venezuelans to take to the streets for the last 3 Sundays ... a  religious march for "Venezuela", "for peace", "for democracy". This past weekend they added "against political persecution."

Oscar Heck oscarheck111@hotmail.com