Jueves, 22 de mayo de 2003

Puede afirmarse, como plantean algunos analistas de opinión, que una de las fallas de los líderes de la oposición ha sido la falta de conexión con las aspiraciones populares. El pueblo venezolano sufre una vez más con este gobierno, el peor de su historia republicana, una enorme frustración por los resultados en materia económica y social. Las encuestas miden el desagrado en un 78%. El presidente obcecado por acumular poder, controlando las instituciones, ha ignorado sus ofertas electorales, mientras la dirigencia opositora, más preocupada por sacarlo del poder, ha perdido identificación con las grandes preocupaciones populares.

El pueblo clama por respuestas en cuatro aspectos fundamentales que afectan su calidad de vida: el desempleo, la inflación, la pobreza y la inseguridad. Mientras estas representan la demanda del pueblo a sus líderes, ni el presidente Chávez, cabeza visible del oficialismo, ni los dirigentes opositores presentan una oferta adecuada a tan apremiantes demandas. Pero cuando se indaga quien es el principal culpable de la deteriorada situación económica, los encuestados, paradójicamente, señalan mayoritariamente a la oposición en vez de al gobierno.

Debe reconocerse, que a pesar del pésimo desempeño gubernamental, el respaldo al presidente se ha mantenido en promedio, por más de año y medio, en un sorprendente 35%. Hay dos factores que pudieran explicar esta aparente contradicción. Primero la eficacia retórica del presidente y segundo la cultura imperante en el pueblo que ha visto tradicionalmente en la figura presidencial al gran dispensador de la riqueza nacional. La entrega de cartas agrarias y de alimentos subsidiados fortalecen esa existente imagen paterna.

En tal sentido la oposición está obligada a revisar su estrategia comunicacional con el pueblo. Debiera entonces, poner mayor énfasis en la problemática económica y social que en lo político, pues en la acertada conexión popular, podría encontrar su éxito.

juaamilq249@cantv.net

<a href=www.vheadline.com>venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: Caracas' most famous landmark and an obligatory tourist stop for many years was the main square, Plaza Bolivar, originally called Plaza Mayor. It dates back to 1567, when Diego de Lozada, founder of the city personally marked it out. Today no tourists go there for two main reasons: 1. There are no tourists to speak of, and, 2. the square has been taken over by vandals, (allegedly) paid by Chavista Mayor Bernal, to assail any passer by who looks prosperous.

For the last 20 years now, Venezuelan tourism has been a Cinderella unsuccessfully looking for a Prince. Dozens of tourist hotels have been repossessed by the government or simply gone broke on their own.

As we go back those 20 years we can remember hearing then the same phrases, almost the same words, we now hear. No tourism "Czar" has ever spoken of what he, she is doing but of what they will do....

Venezuelan tourism has no present, only a future...

At times it seemed as if tourism would finally take off ... from 1988 to 1991 the volume of tourists coming into Venezuela went from 380,000 to almost 600,000 ... everybody was dancing a jig. But then, in 1992, Chavez and his comrades staged two bloody coups which produced almost 200 deaths, one in February, the other in November.

Not surprisingly, in 1993 the amount of tourists went down to 300,000 (data from Business Venezuela, December 1994). In 1994 a new tourist "Czar" came in and given cabinet rank ... this man, Herman Luis Soriano, listed ten main obstacles to the development of tourism in the country, as follows:

• Insufficient promotion abroad;
• Low priority assigned by the government to the sector;
• Insufficient financial resources allotted;
• Lack of a service mentality among Venezuelans;
• Insecurity;
• Poor airline connections to main tourist destinations;
• Confusing government regulations;
• Bureaucratic red tape and exchange controls;
• Slow privatization programs and political turmoil...

He went on to say that this would now change...

Ten years later, the obstacles identified by Soriano are still there, and no less than ten other Czars have come after him ... to say the same things. Some of these "Czars," like Maria Eugenia Loriente, have been extremely incompetent, and none have received much support from the rest of the government.

Four years ago, President Chavez unveiled his Strategic Plan for the development of tourism. In this plan he predicted that, by 2002, Venezuela would be receiving 1.5 million visitors. Only 150,000, 10% of the predicted visitors, accepted the invitation ... this was an amount four times lower than 20 years before!

• During these four years tourist hotel occupation has dropped about 60%, from a yearly average of 55% in 1999 to a dismal 22% by 2002.

Why this failure?

Although Venezuela is, in theory, a far superior destination than many others in the region ... due to its natural beauty and diversity of attractions, from waterfalls to jungle, from exotic fauna to spectacular beaches, from great restaurants to snow-capped mountains ... it is in practice perceived by potential visitors as of difficult access, dangerous and unfriendly.

Many of these perceptions are too harsh, but they nevertheless dominate the decision making of many tourists ... and many of those who come to us, frankly, do so because they have no other alternative. However, when they finally make it here, they are almost always favorably impressed.

This was my personal experience for the almost three years I spent as top executive of a company owning a big Venezuelan tourist resort. Inside our doors everything was clean and in good working order. Our staff was polite and smiling. The word "no" had been eliminated from their vocabulary ... they were "aggressively friendly," a motto which I concocted.

• However, outside our doors we could not control the filth on the sidewalks, the potholes in the road, the attacks of petty thieves, the harassment of buhoneros...

There are plenty of good, hard-working people in the private sector trying to make Venezuela a better tourist destination. The government, as always, is very indifferent, very inept, frequently corrupt...

The hard-working private sector has to swim in a tank of sharks...

And so ... year in and year out ... while sharks and humans wearily swim together, tourists hesitate to come to us and Cinderella keeps waiting for her Prince ... a bit more wrinkled now (she, not the Prince)...

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

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

US Ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro has renewed the US "sniping policy" against the Venezuelan government warning that the US government is taking threats against domestic print & broadcast media very seriously. 

Speaking at his residence to fellow Ambassadors, Venezuelan media bosses and invited journalists to commemorate World Freedom of Expression Day,  Shapiro claims that press freedom in Venezuela has deteriorated over the last year and it's everyone's responsibility to remedy the situation. 

"Attempts to legislate truth always end up restricting press freedom and not improving reporting." 

The Ambassador says tension between a government and the media is at times tense, and if it isn't, then the media is not doing its job ... he admits he didn't like Venezuelan media criticism of the Anglo-American War on Iraq but admits they were doing their job. 

Turning to Cuba, Shapiro highlighted the Cuban government  clampdown on Cuban journalist, poet and writer Raul Rivero ... "a free press is enemy to dictators independent of any abuses the media might commit ... a free press is the great ally and defender of democracy." 

Venezuelan columnist Miguel Salazar reports that a visit to Venezuela by the Assistant Secretary of US diplomatic missions security arrangements, Francis Taylor must be viewed as a sign of hardening relations between the State Department and the Venezuelan government. The visit coincides with a reshuffle of intelligence officers stationed at the Embassy in Caracas.

<a href=www.orlandosentinel.com>orlandosentinel.com

In about a month Margarita Vivas hopes to make a long-awaited trip to her native Venezuela, a trip she had planned last year but which she later canceled.

As things stand, it's getting harder for the Orlando woman to plan a trip to the South American country that would avoid the country's political and economic turmoil. That's because in Venezuela political and civil unrest have become the order of the day.

Vivas, worried about her ailing 78-year-old mother, says she's going anyway because she can't wait any longer to see her.

"My mom has had a stroke and she's in a wheelchair," Vivas said.

She would have gone to Venezuela last year but, to put it mildly, 2002 wasn't a very good year for the country.

In April 2002 there was the on-again, off-again coup against President Hugo Chávez.

Since then, it seems Venezuela has experienced civil demonstrations on a weekly basis, standoffs between pro- and anti-Chávez forces, massive strikes, shootings, gasoline shortages (in an oil-rich country, no less) and a two-digit recession.

Venezuela's shock waves have been felt even in Central Florida. First, Venezuelans are among the fastest-growing Hispanic groups in the region, and will remain so as long as they seek to escape Chávez.

In addition, Venezuela's political mayhem caused Vivas to close down the Venezuelan Trade Office in Orlando, which she used to head. The office was located on the ninth floor of City Hall, where the Office of the Government of Puerto Rico and Casa de Mexico also are based.

During Mayor Glenda Hood's tenure, the doors of City Hall were opened wide to such diverse groups, often on very favorable terms. For instance, the Venezuelan Trade Office paid just $200 a month in rent, according to Vivas. The other groups also pay nominal amounts for their space.

When Chávez returned to power (48 hours after the coup attempt) and consolidated his hold over Venezuela, it seemed the folks in City Hall began to get a little nervous. Far be it for the name of Glenda Hood to be linked with that of Hugo Chávez in any way. The Venezuelan Trade Office had to go. Vivas said the office wasn't part of Chávez's government, but that may be too fine a distinction. The office received funding from the Venezuelan government.

"This is a disaster," Vivas said of Chávez's government. "People were associating us with Chávez."

Disaster or not, Vivas said she will head to Venezuela in June, and she is taking her American-born daughter with her.

Vivas' mother pleads with her not to come, but she will have none of it.

If there are gasoline shortages, Vivas said she'll figure out a way to get to her hometown, which is four hours from the capital of Caracas.

If trouble breaks out while she is there, her daughter is her ace card, Vivas said.

"My daughter is an American citizen, and we can go to the American embassy to get protection," she said.

Or, if things get really bad -- Venezuela is rocking and rolling toward a constitutional referendum in August -- Vivas may be forced to heed her mother's advice and postpone her trip, yet again.

María Padilla can be reached at mpadilla@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5162.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Landmines Monitor-Venezuela NGO chief, Antonio Gonzalez  says he will be meeting Venezuelan government officials this week to draw up a plan for the destruction of 90% of Venezuela's known landmines. 

The meeting is part of a scheduled follow-up process to the Convention Against the Use, Storage, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personal Mines and Their Destruction, which Venezuela signed in Ottawa (Canada) in 1999. 

Gonzalez admits that there is confusion about the number of mines currently possessed by the Venezuelan Armed Force (FAN).  "We aren't certain whether the actual number is 2,400 or 4,600 personal mines because of contradictions in preliminary reports." 

The government has an October 1st deadline to comply with the treaty.

Gonzalez points out that the majority of the mines are in FAN arms dumps and reveals that 100 landmines have been sown in four fields each in border areas of Apure and Amazonas States. "It happened before Venezuela signed the treaty and we are asking France to donate anti-mine uniforms and equipment to help us ... we are also concerned about mines in the hands of non-State sectors."