<a href=www.vheadline.com>venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Friday, July 04, 2003 By: Eva Golinger-Moncada

Eva Golinger-Moncada  writes: On May 29, 2003, the Venezuelan government and representatives of the Coordinadora Democratica (an opposition umbrella organization) signed an accord accepting the idea of a referendum on President Chavez’ mandate as permitted by Article 72 of the Venezuelan Constitution.

Venezuelan and international media have misinterpreted Article 72 on the referendum to their advantage ... making it appear as though the Venezuelan government plays a role in the referendum, and, as such, will try to impede its attainment.

This is false.

Article 72 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela states:

“All popularly-elected officials’ and magistrates’ terms of office are subject to revocation. During the midway point of the term for which the functionary was elected, a number no less than twenty per cent of the registered voters can solicit the convocation of a referendum to revoke his/her mandate.

When a number equal or greater than the number of registered voters that elected the functionary have voted in favor of the revocation, and always assuring that a number equal to or greater than twenty-five percent of registered voters voted in the referendum, the functionary’s mandate will be considered revoked and the process will begin to fulfill the position immediately according to and conforming with all available means in this Constitution and in the Laws.

The revocation of a functionary will be conducted in accordance with established laws.

During the term for which a functionary was elected, no more than one petition for his/her revocation can be made.”

The Article 72 referendum is entirely at the initiative of the voting public in Venezuela and has two (2) separate requirements ... both of which must be fulfilled in order that a referendum on an official’s term shall be declared valid.

Those requirements can be summarized as follows:

Step 1: The first clause in Article 72 specifies that 20% of registered voters must solicit the convening of a referendum before the actual referendum can occur. Registered voters soliciting such a referendum must adhere to all established laws for valid petitions, and the signatures must be counted and verified by the National Elections College (CNE) to determine whether or not the actual referendum will take place.

Step 2: In the event that the Step 1 requirement is met, the referendum vote will take place ... in order for it to be successful, the following two requirements must be met:

a. An equal or greater number of voters that elected the functionary (in this case the President) must vote for the revocation of his mandate; and

b. At least 25% of the registered voters must participate in the referendum.

All votes will be verified and counted by the National Elections College (CNE) before a determination is made on the outcome of the referendum.

Please note: that the Venezuelan government does not play any role in the convening or determination of the referendum. It is a process initiated entirely by registered Venezuelan voters, and all Constitutional requirements must be met for the referendum to be valid.

Due to the gravity of the potential outcome of an Article 72 referendum, i.e. cutting short the term of office of an elected official or magistrate, it is necessary to place safeguard provisions within the Article itself ... which explains why the process contains two (2) steps, which must both be met and verified in accordance with established laws.

The date set out for the commencement of Step 1 of the Article 72 referendum is August 19, 2003.

However, before any signatures that result from a petition conducted on this date can be counted and verified, new members must be appointed to the Venezuelan National Elections College (CNE).  Any delay in such appointments will delay any determination of whether or not the amount of signatures necessary per Article 72 is obtained so that the referendum may proceed. The Venezuelan legislature is currently in the process of appointing these new members, but due to divisions along party lines in the legislature, such appointments could take some time.

What is the opposition now doing to sabotage the referendum and destabilize Venezuela?

• The opposition is proposing to hold a major “Firmazo” (signing) on August 19, 2003, the supposed half-way point of President Chavez’s term;  
• The opposition has manipulated supporters into believing that the actual referendum occurs on August 19, and not just the first part of the process which determines if the constitutionally required number of voters petitions for the referendum;  
• The opposition plans to initiate a new civil resistance strategy on August 20, 2003, since they already know that the referendum will not have occurred by this date -ú of course, it would be impossible!  
• But, they are manipulating the referendum rules, deceiving their supporters into believing that the government will sabotage the referendum and that is why it will not have passed by August 20 ... one day after the signatures are taken ... before they can even be officially counted!  
• The opposition will begin to again claim that the Venezuelan government is not constitutional, because they did not permit the referendum ... despite the fact that it is the opposition who is manipulating the concept of the referendum;  
• They will begin to initiate a new media campaign at national and international level, claiming that the Venezuelan government is unconstitutional and undemocratic because it did not allow the referendum, and could potentially call for international intervention from the US and the OAS.  
• They may try to invoke the Democratic Charter, and OAS Instrument that allows member states of the OAS to intervene militarily into another member state if that state’s government is undemocratic in order to restore constitutional order

Note: the Charter was first invoked on April 11, 2002 when the opposition led a coup d’etat in Venezuela which briefly ousted President Chavez ... in that case, constitutional order had truly been disrupted;

• The opposition is forming close ties with the Colombian government and Colombian paramilitary forces, and is planning on the US-led Plan Colombia to spill over into Venezuela. They are trying to spread rumors about the Venezuelan government harboring terrorists, FARC guerrillas and members of Al-Qaeda;  
• They could elaborate massive media campaigns, including “Pais Que Queremos” (The Country We Want), which will manipulate and distort information about the Venezuelan government, with the intention of destabilizing and creating a climate of violence and aggression similar to that proceeding the coup d'etat in April 2002;  
• They will again try to create enough civil unrest and destabilization to justify a military coup, with the hopes this time it will be successful.

Eva Golinger-Moncada evagolinger@hotmail.com Venezuela Solidarity Committee in New York

<a href=www.vheadline.com>venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 22, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

"No hay peor sordo que quien no desea oir" "The worst type of deafness belongs to those who do not want to listen" Old Spanish proverb.

"Chavez has utilized 60,000 minutes of national TV and radio hookups to distill his hate... in his "yagua" speech ... only two hours long ... he mentions "Chavez" twice as often as he mentions Bolivar ... he mentions revolution 16 times and democracy 9 times ... he uses terms like armed forces, army, soldiers, generals ... 207 times and citizens only one time ... he mentions coupsters 30 times ... traitors 6 times ... oligarchs 2 times ... squalids not at all ... Chavez shamelessly suggests that Venezuelan history started with him..." The Distillery of Hate; Antonio Pasquali, Venezuelan philosopher and communications expert Tal Cual, page 9, June 20, 2003.

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: My summary of a plan being put together by Venezuelans who are preparing for a probable post-Chavez transition has received at least two replies from followers of the current President. I would like to comment on those replies since it would serve to expand on some aspects of what I see as the Venezuelan tragedy.

I will comment, first, on the commentary by David Cabrera: What are the real incentives for Venezuelan right-wing and semi-fascist ideas?  The headline contains an archaic term (right wing) and an imprecise one (semi-fascist.... is that 50% fascist?).

A response is very disappointing for those who are waiting for concrete ideas on how to help Venezuela emerge from its most profound social and economic crisis since Ezequiel Zamora was alive and destroying the countryside. In fact, it looks as if the commentarist had essentially used my editorial as an excuse to exhibit his new-found knowledge on economic theory. He dedicates about one third of his reply to a description of neoliberalism in the US and China, mentioning Keynes, the "invisible hand," free market and so on ... all well and dandy, but mostly irrelevant to the issue at hand.

So that we are on solid ground, let me remind readers of what the Venezuelan reality looks like (percentages are approximate, as I am writing from memory, but within 10% or so):

• Poverty ... 80-85% of total population.
• Unemployment ... 22% according government ... 25% according the private sector.
• Inflation ... 35% according MVR member Rodrigo Cabezas, 45% according to the private sector.
• GDP for 2003 ... will fall between 10 and 15%, an historical record.
• Internal Debt ... has increased by a factor of six since 1998, to $12 billion.
• External debt ... stable at about $30 billion.
• Crime Rate ... second highest in Latin America. 500 murders per month.
• Quality of Governance ... next to last in Latin America, according the World Bank.
• International Competitiveness ... next to last, according the Davos Group.
• Index of Corruption ... second highest in Latin America, after Paraguay.
• United Nation's Human Development Index ... Dropped four places since 1998.
• Children in the Streets.... more numerous today than in 1998.
• 2003 Budget Deficit ... about $8 billion, new debt being sought.
• Agricultural production ... down about 10% according expert Hiram Gaviria.
• Food consumption in 2003 ... 35% lower than last year. This means hunger.
• Industrial production ... in chaos due to the government restrictions.
• Foreign private investment ... 60% lower than in 2002.
• Car sales  2003 ... 70% lower than in 2002, already considerably down from 2001.
• Currency controls ... foreign currency only available on the black market at Bs. 2,500 per US$.

These indices are just an example of the revolutionary fiasco, although they do not take into consideration the "intangible" components of the crisis, such as the hate, stress,  fear, frustration and indignation prevailing in society.

This explains why 75% of Venezuelans ... as shown by all available surveys ... reject the government today. It also illustrates why it is so important to have a plan to try to revert Venezuela back to normalcy. The experience of Chavez in the Presidency has shown us, beyond doubt, that Venezuela can not be efficiently managed by a charlatan, particularly when surrounded by inept collaborators.

Cabrera claims that "there is hardly anything new" in the plan. I ask: Why should there be "new" elements in the plan, besides those old and valid elements of reconciliation, private investment, justice for all, action over rhetoric? What should be new in a plan is the will to put it into motion. What is new about this plan is that it has been structured by a group of true democrats, in an open forum. This is a welcome change from the Chavez "plan", made as he goes along from Sunday to Sunday in "Alo Presidente." Depending on who he has been talking with, he will decide to create the vertical chicken coops, the route of the empanada, the Bank of Women or a new literacy plan staffed by Cubans, although the country has had over 92% literacy for years now ... without Cuban help.

The commentarist resents that the plan calls for military subordination to civilian authority ... something that is the norm in all developed countries of the world. He says that, then, the military will not be able to sell chickens anymore. Well, they probably will not. Frankly, military selling chickens while the Colombian guerrilla trespass our national borders with total impunity is not my idea of what an army should be.

We spend over $1 billion per year in military toys for these boys ... only good for parades three times a year. I say that this is money badly spent. More conceptually, military subordination to civilian authority is a fundamental ingredient of democracy. Countries which are not democratic ... like Cuba, Iraq and North Korea ... have had a military regime for many years. When we speak of progressive societies we term them civilized, not militarized. In a civilized society Generals do not burp on national TV.

Cabrera is also worried about the privatization of prisons ... he mentions the negative experience of  the Wackenhut Corporation in New Mexico. I am no expert on prisons, but I think that what can not continue is the present situation of our prisons. I go by the Tocuyito prison almost every day, and I am horrified by the sight of this filthy group of buildings which have 2,000 inmates originally designed for a capacity 600 . These inmates eat rats and snakes because money allotted to feed them does not reach the place.

The man responsible for this outrage is General Lucas Rincon Romero, the highest ranking officer in the Venezuelan Army and current Minister of the Interior & Justice ... the same man who asked Chavez to resign in April 2002 and obtained his resignation ... according to his report on national TV in the early hours of April 12th ... as everybody in Venezuela saw and heard.

Rincon Romero is also the same man who has been charged with illegal use of military funds, together with other generals, by no less than by the Military Comptroller.

While the commentarist is fully entitled to his views on the privatization of prisons, and he could well have some valid points in this regard, what he is not entitled to do is to say that "I happen to believe that all of these right wing and semi-fascist ideas should be looked upon carefully to discover the real incentives behind them..."

In plain English, he says that the promotion of the privatization of prisons has as its main objective making a buck or two i.e: the opposition is corrupt.

Well, this is insulting and does Cabrera no credit ... rather than predicting corruption in a future that seems a little distant, he should be protesting, like all decent Venezuelans, against the high levels of corruption present at this very moment within the revolutionary government ... a corruption which already involves many of the big fish and the small fish in the regime. His silence about the current reality contrasts with his sentencing of people he has never seen ... a selective ethical posture which is typical of the fanatical deaf.

Cabrera confesses to being all in favor of a "politically-oriented PDVSA." This is all I need to hear to calibrate his views. What he wants is what we now have ... a PDVSA in shambles, undergoing a power struggle while normal operations grow increasingly faulty, where maintenance has ceased, where exploration, research and training are words of the past. This current PDVSA is a mad house and if this is what he wants ... he can have it.

Mr. Elio Cequea's reply is much more to the point, no intellectual cellulitis here.

However, it shares many of the presuppositions which weakened Mr. Cabrera's posture. Mr. Cequea chooses to say that what the plan means by "national reconciliation" will be no more than "rapid elimination of subversive elements." I ask: why should reconciliation mean this rather than reconciliation? Mr. Cequea shows a deep distrust of the "others" which illustrate how successful the distillery of hate constructed by Chavez has been.

To almost every point of the plan, Mr. Cequea adds his own deformed vision of what he thinks the point "really" means ... economic recovery, to him, is "surrendering to the IMF." Self-financing of universities, to him, only means that no poor student can enter them (he has never heard of scholarships to the bright?). Military obedience to the civil authority only means that the army will be used to "disappear" people.

I have news for him. Today, the armed force in Venezuela is an instrument of popular repression at the service of a man, not at the service of the nation. With this attitude of distrust, Mr. Cequea, how can we solve the Venezuelan crisis by non-violent means?

• If distrust is at the bottom of this discussion, how can we ever hope to get out of this horrible mess?

You remind me of the patient who was to undergo a colonoscopy. The night before, he was put in a hospital room and, just before sleeping, he placed his glass eye in a glass of water by his side. Next morning they went to look for him and he, very nervous, drank the water and swallowed the glass eye. When the doctor inserted the instrument up the tract, the first thing he saw was the glass eye that seemed to be looking at him. Taken aback, he said to the patient: " Mister Smith. I am very sorry, but if you don't trust me, I will not be able to be your doctor."

Well, let us make an effort to be more trusting...

I refuse to join this insane tournament of hate and fear which Chavez has been very good at installing in our country. And. above all, never swallow your glass eye...

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.   You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email gustavo@vheadline.com

June 20 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would lose a referendum on his presidency by 38 percentage points if a vote were held today, El Nacional reported, citing a poll by Consultores 21.

The May 17-27 poll of 1,500 Venezuelans found that 66 percent would vote for Chavez to leave office, while 28 percent would cast ballots for him to stay. Eight percent were undecided. No margin of error was given.

A similar poll in April showed that Chavez would lose by 18 percentage points.

Venezuela's opposition plans to seek a binding referendum on Chavez's presidency after Aug. 19 when the former paratrooper passes the halfway point of his term in office. Negotiations over holding the vote continue.

(EN 6/20 A5) (To see El Nacional's Web site, click on {NCNL })

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, June 19, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

During his trip to Paraguay to attend the Southern Cone Economic Community (Mercosur) as a guest, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has cast doubts on the Andean Community (CAN) capacity to advance and has once again criticized the US Free Trade for the Americas Agreement (FTAA).  

Venezuela has applied to enter Mercosur ... President Chavez Frias has said  that Venezuela is Mercosur's route to the Caribbean. 

Mercosur Presidents  ended a three day meeting reaffirming their intention to strengthen Mercosur and its ties with CAN ... improve a common foreign tariff policy and raise a " physical structure that will put some flesh on the integration effort" ... another important factor emerging from the meeting was a clear intention to move the Mercosur economic community towards a political union. 

President Chavez Frias has angered opponents in Venezuela and CAN Heads of State, stating that CAN is moribund because of its heavy reliance on neoliberal policies  .... "Mercosur is emerging more and more as a forum to debate ideas and contrasts." 

Chavez Frias warns that if the CAN does not insist on political union, then the market will dominate CAN ... politics should take the lead with economics in the rearguard."

Posted on Sat, Jun. 14, 2003 By ALEXANDRA OLSON Associated Press

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela troops fought pitched street battles Friday with supporters of President Hugo Chavez who tried to disrupt an opposition rally in an impoverished area of Caracas considered a government stronghold. At least 14 people were injured.

Troops in armored vehicles arrived at the scene while ''Chavistas,'' as the president's supporters are known, fought back, throwing bottles, rocks and firecrackers at security forces. They also looted a nearby police station after tearing down the walls with sledgehammers and metal rods.

Hundreds of national guard troops and police in riot gear launched tear gas grenades to disperse more than 100 rowdy government backers. Columns of black smoke rose from tires burning in the street and mingled with thick clouds of white tear gas.

Gunfire from unknown sources wounded one police officer and three civilians, said Caracas fire chief Rodolfo Briceno. At least 10 people were slightly hurt by flying objects, he added. The tear gas forced the evacuation of 25 children from a nearby hospital.

Ignoring government warnings that violence could erupt, opposition parties called the rally as part of a series of events in Caracas slums to prove Chavez's traditional support among the poor has evaporated.

Interior Minister Lucas Rincon pleaded with march organizers to take the protest to an area where there would be less potential for violence.