No one relishes the idea of getting into a verbal spat with the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelan president is a thug, a dictator, a caudillo and atrociously violent and vulgar with words, not even counting spit flecks and dog breath. Fighting with him is like wrestling a pig – you both get dirty and the pig likes it.

George Bush won’t do it. Condi Rice wouldn’t do it. Neither will Vicente Fox or Felipe Calderon. Alvaro Uribe won’t, and lately, neither will Alan Garcia (although we hope that will change; Alan knows how to mop the floor with Chavez in the verbal – and I bet physical – sphere, when necessary.)

But there are times when the obvious needs to be stated, come hell or high water. That’s why the sudden rise to the occasion of the CANTV chief, openly questioning Chavez’s proposed “nationalization” of Venezuela’s phone company is such a surprise.

The CANTV chief, Gustavo Roosen, a blunt Dutchman of some sort, (maybe of Curacao origin?), questioned the idea of nationalization, citing the decline in telephone service that would inevitably follow a chavista takeover, and the disastrous mess that would mean for all of Venezuela’s people. He’s plainly against the nationalization and he wants to go on the record to say so before Chavez’s filthy red-t-shirted political mobs eventually overrun the once-proud company, Venezuela’s finest.

MarketNews has the story in this link here and note this cool quote from this man who gets it:

“Who wins here, the country or ideology? Aside from telecommunications being a strategic sector, does this serve a government need for control?,” Gustavo Roosen, president of CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela (VNT), CANTV, wrote in an oped piece in the El Nacional newspaper.

UPDATE: Miguel has the link to the original piece along with translations of some choice quotes well worth reading here.

I don’t know what will happen to Roosen now that he’s spoke out. Obviously, he’s concluded that nothing worse can happen to him than what’s already happened and therefore he’s taking his chances against the vengeful dictator. His statement pointing out the obvious on nationalization – it’s inevitable trash-heap-of-history failure – is an echo of what we heard from White House spokesman Tony Snow, who said nationalization has been a failure all over the world, everywhere it’s tried.

Something got into this CANTV chief and he’s obviously a man of cojones. Somehow he senses he might be able to shift things by speaking out. If he’s wrong, he’s lost nothing. If he’s right, a disaster will be avoided for all Venezuela. If he’s neither, others will be encourage to speak out, too, something that drives Chavez bonkers. Any way it turns out, this guy has struck a true blow for democracy in the gloom and despair of Venezuela.

Let’s hope that’s what’s going on.

UPDATE!

Brave ExxonMobil and Sincor are resisting Chavez’ nationalization, too! They too are standing up on their hindlegs now that no one else will! Self reliance at work! I hope Chavez has trouble fighting them all! Check out what Rig Zone has here and go to Venezuela Today to check out all the other links on these dramatic matters here.

UPDATE: One of the characteristics of dictatorship is paranoia. Putting on his tinfoil hat, Hugo Chavez now says that CANTV was taping his no-doubt long conversations with people like Castro over the phone lines. I guess he’s got it all figured out now, and he’ll be safe as a bug. Read the whole ludicrous story of the increasingly paranoid dictator, here.