www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, February 27, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

Infrastructure (Minfra) Minister Diosdado Cabello has announced that investigations into Globovision and RCTV are the most advanced out of the several similar investigations launched several weeks ago into privately-owned TV stations accused of breaking broadcasting regulations by screening violence at inappropriate times and refusing to show commercials, instead broadcasting opposition advertisements.

However, the Minister refused to give a date when the investigations may be completed by, saying only that the Ministry has 120 days in which to come to its conclusion regarding the probe. before having to announce its findings.

If the stations are found to be in breach of regulations then they could face stiff fines, a suspension of their licenses or the complete withdrawal of the broadcasting rights.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Thursday, February 27, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

The 50th Control Court has ordered the arrest of seven ex-Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) managers following an application for their detention by the Attorney General's office. Public prosecutors Jose Benigno Rojas and Gledys Carpio formally requested the detention of Juan Fernandez, Horacio Medina, Lino Carillo, Mireya Rinfanti, Gonzalo Feijoo, Edgar Quijano and Juan Luis Santana. 

The arrest orders come several days after the Attorney General's Office announced that it was planning to assess whether or not sufficient grounds exist to have the oil strike leaders arrested for treason and the damage they helped inflict on the nation's petroleum industry. 

The group's lawyer, Juan Martin Echeverria insists they are being persecuted by the government and that the actions are politically motivated with no legal basis.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 By: Roy S. Carson

VHeadline.com editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: There are occasions when I simply want to emulate the little boy in the Hans Christian Andersen story and yell out an anti-thesis to "The Emperor has no clothes!"

Put quite simply in the topsy-turvy scenario of a Venezuela gone 'loco' it's not the emperor who's naked but, instead, the bare-faced gall of an opposition that is about as far removed from constitutional and participative democracy as Vega is from Mars.

• They're quite literally so spaced out that it is difficult to determine if they will ever get their feet back on the ground or if they'll simply self-destruct like a New Year's firework display or fail to do anything more than splutter-out as they realize their own impotency.

The Emperors of Venezuela's opposition, having been faced with reality, are now either in hiding, have already fled the country or have been helicoptered to their luxury abode pending charges of willful and wanton destruction of the country we all love.  Okay, the beautiful land of Venezuela will still be there long after we all have shuffled off this mortal coil, but millions of children will be left with the dreadful legacy of four years of dishonesty bickering compounding more than 40 years of corrupt abuse of basic rights and democracy.

We're not talking here of the privileged 5% who hold up the bars in the Caracas Country Club, La Lagunita or Valle Arriba.

We're talking about the more than 18 million Venezuelans who have been driven into the depths of despair and poverty by a succession of evil and manipulative governments whose only thought was to line the feather-bedding of their Boston bank accounts and to retire to Florida when the goose that laid the golden eggs was all but slaughtered.

Our esteemed commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes fondly of a bygone age in which he was able to enjoy a 15-year-old whisky aboard a car ferry from Margarita en route to his family home in Carabobo State.  His version of reality is valid as the version that Venezuela's privileged classes prefer to view reality, but like the original Hans Christian Andersen story's Emperor what did that have to do with the real reality lived by millions of other Venezuelans.

Has Venezuelan incurred its massive foreign debts exclusively during the four years that Chavez Frias has been President?

Was "freedom" proclaimed from the battlements during Lusinchi's, CAP's, RJV's or Caldera's Presidencies?

Was Chavez the originator of the 1989 food riots?

Was Chavez the planner for Carlos Andres Perez' blatant corruption?

Was Chavez responsible for $11 billion going up in smoke when 18 banks were closed during the 1994 financial crash?

Plainly, the answer is NO!

Nor was Chavez responsible for the way in which Caldera's financial genius Luis Matos Azocar manipulated the movement of massive $ millions into forward-looking loans, foisted on the next-following regime to pay willy-nilly!

Forget the fact that Matos Azocar's sister was imprisoned for money-laundering in the United States.  Forget the fact that any journalist who dared to write about his nefarious practices was "sat upon" by Caldera hoodlums, or worse.

• I am reminded of the fact that pages had to be torn from Pan-Am's inflight magazine after Carlos Andres Perez took umbrage over an article which spelled out just some of his acts of corruption ... he even threatened to rescind Pan-Am's landing rights at Maiquetia, he got so mad!

Impeached, imprisoned and clearly unfit to ever hold political office again, CAP is nevertheless beatified by Venezuela's opposition as a salient memory of the lavishly corrupt privileges they enjoyed a decade ago ... corruption that brought Venezuela to the brink of the economic disaster that the opposition has perpetuated in a failed 2-month stoppage which saw Christmas repealed and Venezuela's international standing as one of the world's foremost oil exporters dragged through the mud.

And to what end?

They say Chavez Frias is a dictator!  With what cause?  Elected several times by a majority vote of the people, he is entitled to govern Venezuela for the next constitutionally convened period of years.

Uniquely among nations, there's Constitutional provision for a mid-term referendum on his Presidency.  But the opposition quarrels with the idea of the Constitution, decided-upon by a majority in a democratically-elected Constituent Assembly which reformed, among other things, a corrupt judiciary and set Venezuela on the route to the participative democracy it now enjoys.

But there's the rub.

The disloyal opposition doesn't like the fact that Venezuela's 80% poor should have any voice in their little clique of running a country, and so they stomp their little feet and demand that everyone does it their way, or nobody does it at all.

To hell with Constitutionality, to hell with democracy ... if Venezuela's opposition says it's the way to go, hey, it's the only way to go!

To hell with the courts, to hell with law enforcement and legal responsibility ... it's get away with what you can, as much as you can and for as long as you can that holds sway and current events are proving it.

Where else on this glorious earth would an anti-constitutional saboteur who has shown patent disregard for law & order and the country's constitution, be able to calmly sit himself down in a luxurious city restaurant to celebrate yet another day of haranguing the lawful government and plan the next day's sabotage itinerary?

Oh Dear!  And who are those nasty men who come in to the restaurant to take him downtown for questioning.  Forget the fact that his face is already well-known and the evidence against him piled higher than the twin towers at Parque Central ... the cops must first establish their documentary credentials to his satisfaction (no simple "Cops Freeze!" here) when dealing with such an Emperor.  No slamming the suspect up against a brick wall, frisking and handcuffing him.  No!

Venezuela's leading saboteur was conducted, perhaps rudely considering his Emperor status, to HQ for questioning.  And then ... to top it all ... he's given house arrest pending trial on such supremely serious charges and actually flown back home in a helicopter.

Can you just imagine Bush or Blair conceding such privileges to a common criminal who threatens to overthrow Washington or London?  Scarcely!

This Venezuelan Emperor, though, is not naked as the day he was born ... he's wearing Armani suits and other items from a wardrobe replenished during a New Year holiday on the island of Aruba ... a getaway vacation far from the mayhem he and his co-conspirators left behind for ordinary decent Venezuelan folk to cope with in the run-up to a non-celebration of Christmas and only more poverty to look forward to in 2003.

What would you do?  If it were down to me, I'd have Fernandez and Ortega transferred immediately to the La Planta prison in El Paraiso ... El Paraiso, Paradise ... a fitting destination for two common opposition thugs.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 By: Robert Rudnicki

The Venezuelan government has issued a statement in which it strongly condemns the "deplorable" attacks on the Spanish Embassy and the Colombian Consulate in Caracas. 

Interior & Justice (MIJ) Minister Lucas Rincon told reporters that the government strongly condemns the two attacks and that a thorough investigation has been launched into the bombings to discover who was responsible and that special security measures were being implemented in collaboration with embassies and diplomatic missions.

Rincon went on to express the government's solidarity with Colombia and Spain because "we have a close friendship on the grounds of mutual respect for each other's sovereignty."

The statement also outlined the government's rejection of any acts of violence that caused damage to either people or property.

sg.biz.yahoo.com Tuesday February 25, 11:21 PM

CARACAS (Dow Jones)--Eight ex-executives of Venezuela's state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela (E.PVZ) who were involved in the strike that crippled the company's operations, have been cited by the Attorney General's office, the local daily El Universal reported Tuesday.

The eight should appear shortly at the Attorney General's office to determine their involvement in the strike and whether they should be tried for treason and sabotage, among other things.

Juan Fernandez, Horacio Medina and Edgar Quijano are among the eight that are being cited, El Universal reported. The three executives are among the main leaders of the strike, which started Dec. 2 last year and was aimed at forcing the resignation of President Hugo Chavez. About 35,000 employees at PdVSA joined a nationwide strike. It was unclear who the other five executives being cited are.

The move comes after the arrest last week of business leader Carlos Fernandez, who was one of the strike leaders of the private business sector. Fernandez was released from jail over the weekend but was under house arrest. The government also tried to hunt down Carlos Ortega, the leader of the main labor union who was also involved in the strike. A judge ordered Ortega's arrest but he has disappeared.

The strike brought Venezuela's economy to a virtual standstill and crippled production in the country's all-important oil industry. Opposition leaders staged the protests in hopes of getting Chavez to step down or hold early elections. Chavez refused to give in and vowed to crack down on strike leaders.

By Fred Pals, Dow Jones Newswires; 0058-212-5641339; fred.pals@dowjones.com.