Blogging the democratic revolution
In the struggle to name a new election board that won’t be as discredited for its pro-Hugo Chavez biases as the last one, a supposedly transparent and fair process is being put into place and supposedly neutral observers are being chosen. This of course is not happening. The candidates are being asked whether they voted or not – a highly loaded question since only 18% of the voters voted in December and the rest of the electorate boycotted the election. If saying they stayed home on election day means they aren’t patriotic (read: Chavista) then the only people who will…
Source: Daniel’s Venezuela News & Views What do 70,000 unsolved murders look like? That’s what Venezuelans tried to show today in a unique and passionate protest in Caracas. The most visible legacy of Hugo Chavez’s regime is murder. As the entire governmental infrastructure becomes politicized, one hard hit section is the police. Bad cops, so long as they are Chavistically loyal, are the ones hired, while the ethical cops get thrown out. Not only that, the government is focusing its resources on prosecuting political, not criminal, cases. That leaves the cops who could make a difference out of luck. Lastly,…
The spectacular decline in the visual appearance of Caracas, Venezuela, once one of South America’s smartest cities, continues to be noted. Caracas under the Hugo Chavez dictatorship is getting that telltale ‘Havana‘ look, as a result of the same types of policies that made Havana the heap of rubble it now is. We’ve recently noted this slideshow from The Real Cuba, and now Daniel at Venezuela News & Views, fresh from an eye-opening trip to Caracas, notes the decline and rubbishification of Caracas – as well as its new signs of massive Stalinist propaganda – in an informative and interesting…
Cuba’s state-controlled press has just reported that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is proposing a new federation of “autonomous” nations in one big Bolivarian union. It’s a massive show of self-aggrandisement (for who would rule such an entity but Chavez himself?), but also an incredible call to regess to the failed past. Chavez has dressed it up in the aggrieved language of preserving indigenous identity, something that makes sense from his point of view because he is most likely to entice into this the supporters of leaders like Evo Morales of Bolivia and Ollanta Humala of Peru, who have no knowledge…
The topic is hideous but it’s getting harder to ignore: Venezuela is becoming the New Medellin, an emerging drug-trafficking capital for our hemisphere. It’s a big change. As brave President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia crushes Marxist narcotraffickers in his own country, these same narcos are finding greener pastures by moving next door, to Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. It represents a historic shift because Venezuela’s lawmen have always fought Colombian drug traffickers like cougars to keep them out. Today, Hugo Chavez embraces these same dopers as Marxist allies in his struggle against U.S. “imperialism.” You can imagine how dispiriting this must be…
Thomas Friedman has a terrific new piece out in Foreign Policy magazine, describing something I have discussed earlier, the creepy inverse relationship between rising oil prices and declining freedom. As oil prices have shot up, many oil producing countries and regions – Venezuela, Iran, Russia – have correspondingly lost their freedoms. Others, like Nigeria and Aceh, have seen a rise of gangs and rebels, making life hell, just as surely as a tyrant. The article is not out on the Web yet but you can buy the issue, which is loaded with several good articles of great relevance. The newly…
Teodoro Petkoff, a prominent newspaper editor and politician on the left, has said he will run for president against Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in December’s election. It’s a fascinating decision. Petkoff is an ex-leftist guerrilla who can’t stand Chavez. He was also a good government infrastructural minister who really got things done. He’s extremely competent, and I don’t care what he claims his political orientation is. He does thing right. Petkoff posts on English-language Venezuelan blogs on occasion and the one striking thing I noticed about him from his posts was his brilliance and confidence, even if I did not totally…
I hate to have to waste bandwidth on this but there are still people out there who think Hugo Chavez has improved the situation in Venezuela, and is only in power because he is popular. Having been there and talked to people, I strongly doubt it. But I also used my eyes. If it’s true that Chavez is popular because he’s made things so much better for the poor, how come this is the Caracas reality today? The above PowerPoint presentation, courtesy of The Real Cuba shows the deterioration of Caracas from 1998, the last year before Hugo Chavez took…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has grand designs on the Caribbean. He considers it his swimming pool, and its tiny community of nations his pool-rafts; places where he can swirl his oily mixed drinks and get himself a back rub, made in the shade. Well, the Caribbean states don’t care for this, and today they gave a collective thump to Chavez by seeking a free trade pact as a group with the United States. With a hat tip to Boz, The Miami Herald has the item here. That’s got to be a blow for Chavez who has lavished millions of dollars…
Where were you on April 11, 2002? I was just getting on an airplane to Buenos Aires, Argentina to check out the crisis in that country. But I knew I would be flying over another nation – Venezuela – that was in an even more acute crisis, a military coup against Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. I hated the guy even then and found myself pleased that it was his time to go. By the time I landed, I got out of the plane and heard the news that Chavez was back and the coup attempt against him had failed. I…
Source: AFP, Reuters, via El Universal Protests have exploded across Venezuela against the murder of the three young Faddoul brothers, and against all crime, much of which is committed by the Venezuelan police. The three Faddoul brothers, John Bryan, 17; Kevin 13, and Jason, 12. The anger is cutting across class lines, because kidnapping, robbery and murder affect rich and poor alike. This is the first event ever that’s united rich and poor in Venezuela. The shantytowns of Caracas are some of the most dangerous places on earth. The wealthy and middle class, meanwhile, are regular targets of opportunity for…
Dictatorships are commonly thought of as authoritarian affairs, where crime is low and the trains run on time. Hugo Chavez’s dictatorship is exactly the opposite. A modern dictator, he has no need for archaic devices like secret police to come knocking on doors of dissidents to terrify them, as happened in the Stalinistic and Castroite days of old. It may come later, but right now, he’s got a more efficient means of controlling the population through terror by allowing for runaway crime across the country. Due to virtually absent law enforcement (except for “political” crimes), people area all terrified of…
Polls can be unreliable but this news is truly radical: Goldman Sachs, in its daily emerging market report, says: Grupo GEA Reports Calder????n Ahead of AMLO in the polls According to GEA (a consulting firm), in a poll conducted between March 18 and 21, Felipe Calder????n (PAN) overtook AMLO in the opinion polls. According to GEA, Calderon rose to first with 36% from 32% (in February); while AMLO fell to second to 34% from 41% in February. Madrazo remained in third with 28% (up 1%). According to El Universal, AMLO said that these polls showing him down reflect the desperation…
Fill up your tank now, because oil prices are about to go higher. Three more international oil companies are out of the game in Venezuela, an unprecedented exit from an energy-hungry industry. They just can’t do business with a thug. Venezuelan dictator has sent his agents to seize control of the assets of two major companies, Total of France and ENI of Italy, in a confiscation move directed at their resistence to being forced in joint ventures that are nothing more than communist workers collectives run by Chavista political hacks. ENI calls it a direct violation of its existing contractual…
You might not have guessed this right off, but Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has been watching Ukraine’s Orange Revolution intently. This Sunday, for the first time, he made a statement about his fear and loathing of it. On his weekly Sunday television variety show, ‘Alo President’ he made this following remark, addressed to his opposition. El Universal reports: Ch????vez wondered where his rivals for next December 3rd presidential election are. He reiterated that his opponents are determined to denounce electoral fraud. He said the dissent, with US support, would establish a “pink revolution,” just like the “gringos” did in Ukraine.…
Daniel Duquenal is a French Venezuelan with strong ties — and insights — to both countries. He is also a fervent believer in democracy as a man of the left. Daniel has written a spectacular essay describing the similarities between France’s angry antirevolution and Venezuela’s under the emerging Hugo Chavez dictatorship. Daniel sees similarities between the French thugs intent on burning Paris down in a bid to preserve their privileges, and the money grabbing and privilege-preserving maneuvers of Hugo Chavez’s vanguard party elite, who also are intent on forcing an unsustainable economic system on Venezuela, explicitly to impoverish it –…
The Dutch are deeply concerned about Venezuela’s renewed threats to take over the nearby island of Curacao as its dictator, Hugo Chavez, flexes his military muscles with an unprecedented arms buildup and condemns the Dutch for their colonialism on the island. Seeking to add more territory of his own, his stated aim is “regional integration,” which is an emerging term that bears more watching. One Chavista foreign ministry official explained it this week as the growing federation between Cuba and Venezuela, which he euphemized as “alternative models.” But his description of that “alternative” was very specific: the Cubanization of the…
Jorge Rodriguez, the chairman of Venezuela’s supposedly independent election agency, the CNE, has said he’d step down. Rodriguez is one hell of a shameless chavista, the man who brought us Venezuela’s empty elections I witnessed on Dec. 4 last year. He reduced confidence to such a low that virtually no one wanted to vote in them anymore. He added insult to injury by continuously repeating that Venezuela’s elections are all free and fair. In short, the guy is even more fraudulent than the elections he certifies. But they certainly do reflect on his leadership. Today, the net result of his…
Somewhat I feel vindicated. In August last year I posted an extremely thorough piece of investigative blogging regarding Smartmatic; the e-voting machines vendor, which owns Sequoia, that has proven so useful to Venezuela’s wannabe dictator Hugo Chavez. The recent e-voting fiasco in Chicago comes to prove the hypothesis that one thing is to observe how rigged electoral processes in far away lands, which do not affect Americans, are overlooked, or simply ignored, by the mainstream media and an entirely different matter when similar problems corrode the transparency and outcome of elections in US soil. As readers of this site know,…
Venezuela’s Viaducto 1, a key bridge on the only highway route that links the vast city of Caracas to its international airport on the northern coast has collapsed down a deep Andean ravine with a huge crash. Holding my breath, it was this bridge I rode out of Caracas across on my last day there in late December. A thin access road in the valley has since been constructed but I do not know its fate since its nominal opening in late February. Miguel Octavio has spectacular photos and along with Daniel Duquenal, analyses of what this actually means for…
To give you an idea of just what Chile, a country governed by democratic socialists, thinks of Venezuela’s banana-leftist Hugo Chavez, just click on the link here and get an eyeful. The short story is he cut the pendejo dead. The elderly gentleman featured in the mini-film is President Ricardo Lagos, the honorable outgoing president of Chile, who’s since been succeeded by Michelle Bachelet, the fine new leader of Chile who’s already made her sentiments about the Venezuelan dictator very well known indeed. And for a bit of fun, here’s a shot of President Lagos bidding farewell to Cristina Kirchner,…
Miguel Octavio has a short item on the busy, busy, busy Gonzalez family, all 1,921 of whom were born on the same day 32 years ago in Maracaibo, all 1,921 of whom registered to vote on the same day, and most all 1,921 of whom registered at the same center. My, my, my how long that line was! Check out Miguel’s heartwarming birthday wishes to the busy, busy Gonzalezes here. It’s since been picked up by The San Jose Mercury News and The Miami Herald, via Knight-Ridder. Knight-Ridder reports: Venezuela’s records suggest vote fraud MARACAIBO, Venezuela – It was the…
All four of these journalists pictured in this 2002 photo — Marianella Salazar, Ib????yise Pacheco, Marta Colomina and Patricia Poleo — are now facing trouble from the Chavista regime. Pacheco is in jail, Salazar is headed there, Colomina was subject to a murder attempt and Poleo was charged with murder and apparently sent into hiding. Source: BBC The Venezuelan press is under attack as never before. Contrary to Chavista claims that there is no campaign against the press, today Ibeyise Pacheco, a columnist for El Nacional, a newspaper MY OWN words have appeared in, was ordered imprisoned for slander by…
Daniel Duquenal has a fascinating post on Colombia’s new free trade pact with the U.S., and explains why it is causing so much distress among the Chavistas next door in Caracas. Their rage has a basis. It turns out Colombia is eating Venezuela’s lunch already in the economic arena and the free trade pact with the gringos will only raise their appetite. Here’s what’s going on: Chavez has driven most of Venezuela’s industries out of business, declaring them a class enemy. That in turn has provided a massive market opening for Colombian manufacturers who have taken over what had been…
This past weekend, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez altered the national flag to add an eighth star, in honor of the Guayana territory, a territory which once included what’s now part of GUYANA, and which is still claimed by Venezuela, based on a 19th-century dispute. Chavez also shifted the national seal, which has a horse on it, to what he says is a leftward direction. Although there were violent protests over the weekend about this change, with many in the Venezuelan opposition protesting it, and Chavista goons shooting from their motorcycles into the crowds (see the pictures here), the reaction from…