March 14th., 2007

Containment For Chávez?

Chávez and Bush occupied the news spaces for various days.  The media in the continent and some European media gave ample coverage to the respective agendas.  There is an analysis for every taste.  Both coincided in declaring that they were pleased for having achieved the proposed objectives.  Chávez ended in Haiti, affirming that he had “outweighed” Bush´s tour.   Bush ended in Mexico, proclaiming a new period in the relations with Latin America.  We are interested in the effects regarding the Venezuelan situation.  The first one was publicized:  USA and Brazil sealed an agreement to develop ethanol, an alternative fuel for oil.  The second, the “containment for Chávez”, still needs to be seen.  Even thought the name of the Venezuelan commander was ignored in Bush´s speeches and declarations, the Brazilian media assured that the “containment” would be a matter of dialogue.  The resident of the White House had expressed his concern for “the diminishment in Venezuela of democratic institutions”.  Mrs. Rice, who accompanied her boss, has announced in the Representatives Chamber that Washington studied how to structure its aid to democracy in Venezuela.  According to Negroponte, number 2 in the Department of State, Chávez is more dangerous than Fidel Castro, “because he conquers with money what the Cuban conquered with ideology”.  Bush was preceded, in Brazil, by the Sub Secretary of political affairs, Burns, and the joint man for hemispheric affairs, Shannon.  They admitted that there was an exchange of ideas regarding Venezuela.  In the telephone Fidel-Chávez interview, broadcasted by Aló Presidente, the theme was discussed. “We are preparing to welcome him”.  Castro was always present in Chávez discourses as well as high ranking officers of the Island in the agreements and covenants signed in the visited countries.

In Jamaica, Chávez said that promoting ethanol is using fertile lands and available water, not to produce foodstuffs destined to people, but for the vehicles of the rich.  The following day, Lula affirmed, in a tacit response, that Brazil is a sovereign country that grants a relevant contribution to the change in the world’s energy matrix and presents itself to the world as a real democratic partner.  The Brazilian media and the international agencies coincided that this was an answer to Chávez regarding ethanol.  In the framed phrase may well be the key to the dialogue between the governors of the empire of the north and of the potency from the South.  Lula was confirmed as the privileged speaker of USA in Latin America.  If the “containment for Chávez” was an issue in the dialogue of Sao Paulo, evidently, it was also an issue in the encounters with Uribe and Calderón.  Chávez plays with the cards on the table.  Oil is his sword and shield.  In Buenos Aires, apart from the personal insults to Bush, what won headlines was the announcement of a gradual cut in the supply to USA.  In an interview to a TV channel, he unsheathed his sword and made reference to the shield that allegedly protects him.  The verbal excesses throughout his contra tour provoked applauses, but also questions.

PDVSA FACES CASH FLOW PROBLEMS

According to Chávez, the North American president has given a green light to the CIA to assassinate him.  He warned that if the empire does it, the oil fields will burn, elevating the price of oil to such high levels that the capitalist economy would collapse.  Interpreting his rhetoric is a complicated task, since following that, he added that the Venezuelan economic growth would be the highest in the world, since it would supply energy to South America, China and India.  The analysts have to face, additionally, the curtain of government declarations and statistics, strongly dyed with propaganda, incoherence and contradictions.  The oil industry is handled directly by Chávez, through a man of his confidence, which, paradoxically, has the position of the President of PDVSA and at the same time, the Minister of Energy and Mines, whose legal purpose is to guide the policies of the oil company and control its performance.  Behind the curtain that protects the reality, the signs that impose the almost legal clothes of the revolution become translucent.  The Ministers submitted to the National Assembly their Memories and Reports and the Central Bank its 2006 report.

According to government sources, the ordinary public expense hit $53,000 Million, in as much as the ordinary income hit $ 51,000 Million.  The Fiscal deficit represents 4% of the GNP.  The average price of oil exported in 2006 was of $55,92 per barrel.  How much oil was exported?  The figures from the Ministry do not match the figures of OPEC and of the International Energy Agency, which reports estimate the current production in two million three hundred thousand barrels.  As per 2007, the average price of the barrel was $ 48,68.  The oil sales grant the State close to 90% of the exportation income.  PDVSA´s  authorities calculate that for each Dollar that is decreased in the price of the barrel, the yearly income for sale of oil diminishes in $ 1,000 Million. If the current prices are maintained, Venezuela will stop receiving $7,760 Million.  A bonanza scenario, if it were not for the unstoppable increase in the expense, the decision to reduce internal taxes and the figures for international cooperation that the President uses without measure.  According to the Ministerial memories and Chávez´ announcements for this year, the sum of the expenditures, agreements and promises is higher than $30,000 Million.  The social expense in PDVSA in 2006 exceeded $ 10,000 Million and now it has to face the purchase of CANTV´s shares and of Electricidad de Caracas.

It seems as if the figures do not match.  There is no problem for PDVSA to obtain loans from the national and European banks, as it has been doing, “for cash flow”.  Relative problems are being faced in the offer to pay with oil the transnational indemnities that should have migrated from the operative agreements.  The majority seem willing to accept.  The real issue is that “future sales” are commencing ($ 3,500 Million to Japan).  Mexico did it in 1994, when the renown debt crisis unfolded.  Analysts consider that it is a very expensive way to finance debts, since it obliges to deliver oil with high price discounts.  Apart from constituting a very grave message regarding the reality that may be hiding Chávez handling of oil, an instrument that according to him, has allowed him to become the leader of a new world, wherein the values of solidarity and humanism are the priority.

CHÁVEZ DOES NOT ALLOW VISIT FROM THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

For three years, the International Human Rights Commission (ICHR), has tried, unsuccessfully, a visit to Venezuela that will allow such Commission to comply with certain inherent functions.  Upon the denial from the Regime, a possibility of a visit was discussed, not from the Commission itself but from Brazilian Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, whose impartiality, obviously, could not have been questioned by the Regime.  In the hearing where Chávez´s  representative conditioned the visit in unacceptable terms and spoke ill willed of the hemispheric institution, such terms as “intellectual eunuchs of the empire” were said, as Chávez qualifications to its members.  The baffled Pinheiro made a prediction:  “ I will end up may mandate without being able to comply with the function of the Commissioner”.  He is correct.  Chávez´s reasons do not admit a reply.  Venezuela is a sovereign country and does not tolerate foreign  intromissions in its internal affairs.

The ICHR sweetened its claim, in the line of “finding ways for a constructive exchange with the Venezuelan state”, but leaving a constancy that it observes a progressive deterioration of the rule of law.  It is concerned about the denounces regarding lack of independence of the public powers, the extreme degree of the social polarization, the hostile environment to political difference and the performance of independent NGO´s.  The Commission keeps doubts regarding the impartiality and independence of the judicial power, in light of the characteristics of the so called “opposition proceedings”.  With respect to freedom of expression “it continues to be one of the themes of special concern”.  Without expressly mentioned the RCTV case, it is clear that what is at stake is freedom of expression, that in the use of the radio electric spectrum, the proceedings must prevent the impression of discriminatory policies by the editorial line of the means of communication.

The recent Washington´s  year report regarding human rights in the world affirms that in Venezuela, there is a registry of disappearances, torture and abuse of the detained ones, illegal searches of private residencies, intimidation and attacks to independent media.  The answer was adamant:  they are calumny from the Empire, who lacks moral character to talk about human rights.  In the scarce media means wherein critic journalism is still exercised, they asked if the measures taken to the newspaper Tal Cual and RCTV could be qualified as calumny.  They responded that the newspaper had only been fined and that RCTV was in favor of a coup d´etat, an enemy of the people, but that upon compliance to the Presidential order, there would be scrupulous respect for legality.

RCTV, as previously with Tal Cual and the comedian Laureano Márquez, has been imposed with a multimillion fine:  laws of the revolution applied by judges of the revolution to the enemies of the people.   The District Attorney’s Office will try a criminal action against the TV Company.  The hordes of pro Chávez followers carry out street demonstrations requesting the closure of the TV channel for it being “an enemy of the people”.  Rosales, Chávez´ contender in last December 3 elections is trying to organize an opposition movement.  The National Assembly requests him being tried and the District Attorney’s Office immediately takes the petition.  All within the “revolutionary legality”.  The post modern dictatorship spoken of by Fukuyama?