June 30th., 2011

Chavez’s disease

Chavez, admitted at the CIMEQ hospital, Habana, is experiencing a critic complicated clinical manifestation which has not been medically reported. Nevertheless,  Chavez addressed the country tonight, and read for the first time, a very short message, confirming the version handled by non-governmental media that had been denied by the regime’s spokespersons, that is, he stated he had cancer but did not say which one of his organs was affected by it. In this kind of situations it’s natural to observe signs of deterioration of health in such person, besides being emotionally affected. The government’s secretiveness accentuated the uncertainty regarding the president’s state of health. The Minister of Information presented evidence that Chavez is governing from Cuba. The opposition gave a statement demanding official information on the health of the Head of State since ‘’it’s not of a private nature, it´s in the interest of the public ’’.  The Constitution provides that in the case of the president’s temporary absence, the vice-president must assume his functions, but undoubtedly this does not happen in Venezuela. The people have witnessed that for the regime, the norms are applied in accordance with that of the Executive’s convenience and not with those provided in the rule of law, whatever their range may be.  

According to the Miami Herald, Chavez would be going through a ‘’critic medical manifestation’’. Surgeons from the Tufts Medical Center in Boston traveled to Havana and performed the post-operation biopsy cuts by freezing methods, which ‘’determined a cancer and that its treatment had to start immediately, by radiation and hormonal blocking means’’ Chavez’s health has been commented by several newspapers.  The Wall Street Journal stresses that Chavez’s absence has lighted up a debate in regard to succession.  He left the country on the 6^th, and traveled to Brazil with a bad knee condition, as soon as he got to Havana on the 10^th, he had to be urgently hospitalized and operated from which operation he is convalescing. He has been absent for 5 weeks. One of the ministers that accompany him, stated anonymously, that he has lost more than 10 kilos but that nevertheless he was planning to return on July 1^st. if recovered at this time, but that in any case, he would be back to Venezuela on the 5^th, on the bicentennial anniversary of independence. With these precedents Venezuelans have the right to ask ourselves, what if Chavez dies ?  According to the Constitution, the death of a president or its absolute fault forces the substitution by a vice-president but in this government space there does not appear to be a successor nor a leader able to rally the people, there are factions fighting as gangs in order to take over the spoils left by Chavez: energy crisis, disastrous roadways, cities without water, swarming crime, inflation up to the ceiling, permanent health crisis and the sense of community cracked, since the balance of the revolution is the abyss of hate that separates the country’s inhabitants.  

 THE SITUATION OF THE VENEZUELAN PRISONS

The prison crisis has taken up a lot of space in the media in the last months, including some of foreign ones. According to the NOG Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones numbers, 124 people have died in prison during the first quarter of 2011, as a consequence of violence. In 2010, 476 inmates were killed and 598 injured: in the last 12 years some 4,500 have died. One of the main causes of the problem is over-population since these prisons were meant for 14,500 and its population is presently 44,500 and besides, 50% of these inmates have not been tried nor sentenced. In past May, more than 20 guards were held hostage by the inmates demanding better seclusion conditions. The sort of war that presently rocks the country started last Friday in one of the most violent prisons, which resulted in the death two soldiers and one inmate. The inmates of the Rodeo II prison greeted with grenades the 5,000 National Guards that had taken control of the Rodeo I prison nearby. Both penitentiaries were taken over after a riot between rival gangs surged with a balance of 28 dead inmates and 58 injured ones, according to official numbers. The inmates possess war weapons: semi-automatic R15 rifles, light assault rifles, automatic guns, hand grenades, ammunition, all part of weapons of war manufactured or imported by the military industry company CAVIM and acquired by means of briber from the same National Guards or officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Justice in charge of the custody of the prisons. Jose Argenis Sanchez, an ex-convict that now presides of the NOG Liberados en Marcha affirms that inside the prisons it’s a known and notorious fact that an illegal market of arms is carried out and that the heads of the gangs demand from the inmates a weekly contribution of 55 Bolivars (US$12.7) to pay the guards for the supplies.  

A report from the El Universal says that the real prison warrens are ‘’capos’’ called ‘’pranes’’ that have absolute power to decide who lives and who dies, imposing the death penalty to those that disobey their orders or object paying the weekly contribution. They have death squadrons under their command that execute their orders; they also control the drug traffic inside the prison. At Rodeo I, taken over by paratroopers belonging to the navy and the air force, in compliance to the Defense Minister orders, strongly pressured by public opinion, 45 kilos of cocaine were seized, which gives an idea of the magnitude of the hoarding and sale of drugs within the prisons. Other ways of income of the ‘’pranes’’ come from kidnapping menaces to free citizens since they have mobile phones and know the access codes of their victims, as well as having accomplices in the streets who carry out the kidnappings. Usury loans are made from prison to inmates, their families or friends in need of cash with an implicit clause that delay in payment at the due date of no more than one month, is unacceptable. The information was supplied by someone who asked not to be identified and that recommends not falling into such temptation because the collectors act the same as those in gangster movies. Law professor, Dr. Alberto Arteaga Sanchez writes in his press column: ‘’The government seems to be impotent in light of the prisons tragedy and it can be said that prisons enjoys a sort of extra territorial privilege where private vengeance and the death penalty are imposed ’’.

     BAD NEWS FOR THE SICK ONE

The internal conflicts within the ‘’chavismo’’ are now added those of the military sector, as expressed by analysts. There are few public administration offices that don’t have a military at its head, which, despite the magnitude of resources they handle, have produced very poor results. They appear in face of the country as responsible for the regime’s failure and this fact is the source of a sotto voce controversy within the military institution. The specific controversial issues are claims that some high military officers are related to drug trafficking and the public pointing out of the ‘’Cartel de Soles’’ that supposedly traffics with narcotics.  The relevant elements of the controversy are the obligation of having to yell ‘’Homeland. Socialism or Death’’ to demonstrate political loyalty and the presence of military Cubans in barracks. The new composition of the NAF adding the National Reserve and Territory Guard to its classic components is the object of dissention within the armed forces.  

Chavez does not ignore the situation and surely it has become the source of worry. The information coming from the EFE Agency on the last poll performed by IVAD (now pro-regime) must be worrisome, since it says that 59% of Venezuelans do not want to be governed from Cuba, 46% do not want a reelection and 30% think his administration is extremely bad: 56% are of the opinion that the opposition might form a good team to assume power. Another disagreeable news received in Havana is the indefinite national strike of medical doctors demanding better salaries. According to the president of the Federal Medical Association, the basic monthly salary for doctors is only 2,600 bolivars (US$604) to which the shortage of equipment and materials is added, which doesn’t allow them to give the patients an adequate service. Some 20,000 doctors will go on strike, demanding the discussion of a collective bargaining agreement that expired some eight years ago, the improvement of the salary scale and the homologation of retirees and pensioners.  Representatives of the Federation guarantee that during the strike, ORs’, units for the burned, attention to pregnant women and neonatal will be serviced, as well as critical patients. The document arising from the Venezuelan Confederation of Industrialists at their annual conference must also have been disagreeable news; ‘’We have denounced reiteratively the negative impact of the State’s controlling policies on economy; intervention and nationalization of the country’s production apparatus that has not been effective in resolving the serious supply problems the country is suffering. On the contrary, they have made it worse’’.   In Conindustria’s opinion, the economic management of the country is off the way and requires a change. ‘’We are suffering due to a government whose objective is to criminalize ownership and private initiative’’.

The president of PDVSA informed at Havana that a Japanese group would lend US$1,500 million to PDVSA for a period of 15 years, to be paid in oil. Does it worry Chavez that the inheritance he will leave as a ruler is mortgaging our main wealth? Surely no. He sees mortgaging oil as a complying chapter to his objectives: to be the sole owner of the country and world leader undergoing a titanic fight against imperialism. His presence as a ruler is one of the darkest pages of our history. His disappearance will signify the setting up of the way to reach the possible country, one of the potentially best placed in the Latin American scenario.