Transforming a mistake into a revamped tool of repression: the Delcy Rodriguez scandal

For all my intentions (not resolutions, never) to take a soft approach to blogging the Delcy Rodriguez scandal that started the year forces me to write a second note, this time in English.  Yesterday I wrote in Spanish that Rodriguez, minister of communication which in Venezuela is a mere ministry of propaganda with an annex for censorship, posted a list on her Twitter as to opposition leaders leaving the country for the holidays. In front of the outcry the regime went in a counter attacks though it took a few hours to launch it. In short, they were surprised by the intensity of the reaction, they realized it was a blunder and thus, as fascism always does, they decided to dig the hole deeper, if anything hoping for a shock value to silence the other people. Not to mention that if they succeed, from now on it will be routine to publish lists of "undesirables" on any excuse or political need.

In praise of "escrache"

There are so many things to write about that as usual I freeze. That is, until I come across something that summarizes the situation so well that it goes beyond belief.




It was Jorge Rodriguez turn to get insulted in public while in Mexico city.  Let me see if I can have the non-Venezuelan reader understand how momentous that silly video is. And it is momentous, trust me.

The 2005 Venezuela News Awards

OK, so it is this time of the year and if it seems that anyone can give awards, why not this blog? Of course there is absolutely no objectivity form the owner of this page, sole juror in the decision making process. Any complaint can be addressed to Chavez himself as all awards revolve around how these winners behaved vis-à-vis of El Supremo. However I trust that some might agree with my decisions.

Man of the year

Hugo Chavez Frias of course. Were Chavez to have left office, this blog would have ceased as its raison d’être is to narrate what a budding tyrant Chavez is. He is already a tyrant for his own people, and day by day the ones differing with him feel more and more the brunt of his ire.

Chavista of the year

This award is for the chavista that has done more to ensure the power of his overlord, in as destructive a manner as possible. If the contest was tough, the winner emerged triumphantly on December 4th, when at least 75% of the country announced its repudiation to the way things were run, if not of their repudiation of Chavez himself. The winner thus could be no one else but Jorge Rodriguez, the electoral board CNE head.

Mr. Rodriguez has indeed accumulated many merits. If the CNE cannot be accused of outright electoral fraud, now even international observers are keen on the way this one favors the chavista side, in particular by turning a consistent blind eye to the presidential politics and interferences in the election campaign, from cadenas to indiscriminate use of public funds to support its candidates.

Along the way Rodriguez has become the hero of a sector of chavismo who think it is right to cheat to have their leader on top. Reception of Rodriguez at any chavista meeting is nearly an apotheosis. Rodriguez only receives opposition leaders behind closed doors, briefly, rarely, and always ends up criticizing them. It is difficult to imagine a more partial umpire as Rodriguez, who adding insult to injury, presides the public position which requires the most impartial person of the country, even more perhaps than the High Court. No wonder the CNE is now routinely termed “the electoral ministry” as it receives its orders straight from the boss, and obeys them better than any other ministry in the chavista administration.

Sleazy bureaucrat of the year (female)

This was a surprise late minute winner. She is Delcy Rodriguez, sister of the chavista of the year award winner. Her role is vice minister for European affairs. Her performance has been lackluster at best. She is rumored to have been more preoccupied in purging staff at the foreign ministry and promoting “Bolivarian” activities in Europe than getting better ties and investments from European countries. She outraced on the final sprint any other bureaucrat when she went out of her way to criticize the EU and OAS preliminary reports, a function that to begin with was not for her to do, and which was carried in a rather inadmissible fashion anyway for the diplomatic world. Thus she proved that she united in herself all the qualities that make a perfect chavista bureaucrat: fidelity against all reason to her boss; general incompetence and lack of imagination; desire of revenge at all costs from true or imaginary offenses (she is the daughter of an assassinated political leader who probably was more democratic than his brood and might not have approved of the way they have been betraying Venezuelan democracy).

Sleazy bureaucrat of the year (male)

Isaias Rodriguez, the general prosecutor. It is hard to imagine anyone more servile, lackluster, manipulator, liar, betrayer, etc, etc… In the annals of chavismo he will shine in his own light such as people like Goebbels or Beria or Pedro Estrada are still mentioned as human rejects.

Fascist of the year (female)

Again, the winner in an extremely contested field comes at the last minute. Iris Varela, announcing on December 4 that public servants that did not go to vote should be fired on the 5th, has demonstrated how fascist the regime is. With this award she can be the pin up girl of the fascist chavista wing. She will have a great future organizing the personnel to monitor the concentration camps that she would be building as we speak if she were allowed to. But that is OK Iris, soon they might start listening to you.

Fascist of the year (male)

This award has been well earned through an impeccable track record through the year, even if in December the winner has added several brownie points to consolidate what was already an insurmountable lead. The winner has managed in a single year to muzzle the organization he presided, to transform it in a rubber stamp parliament starting January 2006. He has insulted any person that ever dared to oppose chavismo in terms that even Chavez would paused before using. Outright lies, manipulations are his routine tools of the trade. The winner is of course Nicolas Maduro, who in addition had the nerve to travel to India in the middle of the electoral campaign, demonstrating that the CNE was making sure he would be reelected no matter what, and demonstrating at the same time that Maduro was already operating as if Venezuela were already a fascist state where elections did not matter.

Leech of the year

For the six year in a row, Fidel Castro. Though this year Argentina’s Kirchner gave him a good run.

Survivor of the year

Ramos Allup has managed to come from leading an agonizing party to come back to the forefront of the opposition political scene by jumping first off the electoral ship. This dazzling maneuver allowed him to lead the abstentions party while never proposing abstention, allowed him to send its leading rival Primero Justicia in a tail spin where this one might start a series of divisions just as AD has been doing for decades, and has allowed him to become again a valid partner for chavismo if this one decides to create an “official opposition”.

Loser of the year

Julio Borges. For failing to see where the wind blew from, he jeopardized his hard work at trying to promote his candidacy and might have provoked a division of his party, Primero Justicia.

Street walker of the year

Roberto Smith who walked for nothing from Tachira to Caracas. The little bit of notoriety he might have obtained only allowed observers to see what a wishy-washy character he is, pretending at this moment not to be in the opposition or with chavismo instead coming across as a used car salesman.

Opposition leader of the year

This award actually had only one contestant who nevertheless managed to deserve his award. Teodoro Petkoff has managed to avoid the pitfalls of a fragmented opposition, then even though he opposed the abstention movement that lead to December 4, was able to understand it and to try to make the best of its consequences without crass manipulation and posturing. Even if the polls do not favor him right now, he seems definitely as the only valid option in 2006 as his potential opponents have done their best to sabotage themselves, including Chavez.

Newspaper of the year (tie)

For Tal Cual for having raised the political debate and for El Universal for its consistency in opposition since 1998 and for still being the only one with a free access English section.

Rag of the year

VEA, the chavista newspaper who cannot raise above its condition of propaganda and directions relay to the hard core chavista base. A true rag if any in Venezuela, who cannot get even some inspiration from Ultimas Noticias or Panorama.

TV station of the year

Globovision for insisting bravely in reporting the news in spite of Chavez threats and for receiving now an astounding numbers of chavistas callers complaining against the poor performance of public servants, complaints from people who often claimed that they are not allowed access to chavista media (in spite of the creation of ANTV, VIVE TV, TeleSur and some regional variations: apparently the more chavista TV we get, the less the spontaneity in people airing their claims).

Media show of the year

The Danilo Anderson investigation. Hollywood would be hard pressed to write such a B category screen play.

Conspiracy theory of the year

The CIA who seems even to be behind the lousy trash collection in Caracas streets. Who would have thought that the CIA arm reached that far?

Most perceptive political analyst of the year

One woman in Boston (Linda Kelly?) who said receiving cheap oil from Citgo that Venezuelan oil belonged to Chavez and he could do as he pleased with it.

Media personality of the year

Leopoldo Castillo of Globovision’s Alo Ciudadano who seems to have become the darling of the downtrodden masses, be they chavista or opposition. Rumored to be the one Chavez hates the most, not a small feat considering all the hatred emanating from that side.

Blogs of the year (multi tie)

Many opposition blogs who have accumulated notice, from newspaper citation to radio interviews and awards. OK, so I am including myself in the list, otherwise what is the point of writing such a list? :-)

2015 has already started in Venezuela

And no, it is not that we have an obscure date line that we cross on our own. It is that the obscure power struggle inside chavismo is already in full swing, not waiting to be a 2015 crisis fall out.

Today Rafael Ramirez, once upon a time under Chavez the tsar of the wallet, has been demoted once more. A very few months ago having been pushed from holder of the oil purse to Foreign Minister, he is now mere ambassador to the UN. This confirms that a second group inside chavismo has lost its position and that the battle among the remaining surviving factions to occupy that space is in full swing. And the substitute to Ramirez indicates which are the factions on the rise: the lunatic left.

Genocidal

It is very hard to avoid those major labels that sear History.  When I started using the word "dictatorship" I was criticized; yet, proven right in the end. Fascism came in slowly, almost behind totalitarian even though it should precede it in the processes. But Fascism is a tainted label whereas totalitarianism is a generic drug.  Nazi I refuse to use it to qualify the Venezuelan  regime because, well, that horror goes beyond all horrors and thus it is to be expected today that no one could try to pull such a stint again. Though I indulged into the term Nazional Guard because that guard has clear thuggish attitudes and actions that are deserving of the brown shirts.

Communism is also a word that is used freely although now that the crimes of Stalin and Mao are well established Communism should be as taboo as Nazism.  But the intellectual appeal of Communism has been too strong and the petering of the USSR too long to effect this wished for change. Thus we have plenty of intellectuals still defending the Castro murderous regime under the flimsiest of excuses.

Genocide I drew a line, until today.

Electoral paranoia (YV-8)

The regime is not helping its cause (albeit hopeless, but that is another story).

The Bolivarian foreign policy of Venezuela

It is greatly amusing to observe how Venezuela is attempting to forge a Foreign Policy for the glorious revolution. Not that its aim is unclear: the goals of the foreign service are now to promote the glory of the revolutionary leader, and plant wherever possible the seeds for future bolivarian movements: "bolivarian circles" are sponsored wherever they can find a few souls willing to deal with the hodgepodge of chavismo ideas whose only common denominator is "death to the US", more or less virulently expressed. These circles are incredibly useful to make up quickly a claque whenever a stupendous bolivarian leader is in town. And, if needed, the embassy or consulate personnel is required to go fast make bulk. Oh yes! There is talk of social justice, redistribution, "democracia participativa and protagonica" which at this hour nobody is really quite sure how this work except that so far we see only a few participate and only one protagonist. But I digress.

A few days ago we were treated to a El Nacional article describing us how a training program at the foreign ministry was supposed to prepare new diplomatic leaders in three weeks. I kid you not. Interestingly this program was lead by Izarra senior, the father of Izarra the communication minister, who after a love in, love out relationship with Chavez has found a way back on the payroll by becoming the ideological lead of the foreign ministry: vice minister for the areas of the world where Venezuela has the least business to do. This seems to leave him with plenty of time on his hands which he uses to create and promote the new image of the foreign service personnel whose main attribute must be devotion to El Supremo. We assume that they will still require them to be able to write at least in Spanish.

But the foreign ministry is going further. A new law is going to pass soon to allow the bolivarian leadership to bypass the career vocation of the foreign service which normally should be removed from the political fray, at the service of Venezuela only. The days where Venezuela interests were first are gone. The problem is that they cannot fire career public servants who do their job just because at a personal level they do not think El Supremo is hot stuff. So, in the purest populist and demagogic manner, it seems that the numbers of public servants will be increased as much as needed. The older ones? Well, they can shuffle papers waiting for their retirement as their experience cannot be trusted even to translate information to the new ones coming in who in some cases barely can put two sentences together. Meritocracy? Not!

For the reader that thinks this blogger has lost it, a quote from declarations of Delcy Rodriguez, vice minister for Europe (and interestingly the sister of infamous Rodriguez of the CNE)

"This is a foreign office that is going to grow and it will do so proportionately with its restructuring. If we have 5 vice ministers, well, I suppose that we will grow fivefold"

Just like her big brother growing chavismo votes? The cynicism of some chavistas is quite something to behold!

Now, the reader might wonder whether Venezuela is getting something out of a naked attempt at close political control of the foreign service when the rule of civilized countries is to make it bipartisan. The reader might even want to know if El Supremo is getting something, really. Well, so far it does not seem so.

Slap at the OAS

The last OAS meeting was overall a defeat for Venezuela. It avoided the worst which was a clumsy attempt by the US to modify the OAS charter to "monitor" democracy. Venezuela's communication minister Izarra claims this to be a great success for Venezuela's diplomacy when in fact this initiative failed more by the error of the US, its ill timing (1) and the desire of grown up countries like Brazil not to be exposed to such type of observation. Venezuela in fact had nothing to do with that US failure and should not take credit for it(2); in fact, Venezuela should realize that it is doing Brazil (and other) dirty work.

Actually, one could say that the only country to lose as much or even more than the US in Fort Lauderdale was Venezuela who failed to satisfy its real obsession, to stop NGO like SUMATE from attending the meeting and expose Venezuelan civil rights problems. In fact, the foreign ministry probably helped set up ad hoc NGO out of nothing to send them and counter SUMATE arguments. Seasoned politicians certainly saw through that decoy, in particular when they heard the envoys to Fort Lauderdale use in the same paragraph "democracia participativa y protagonica" twice, as seen on TV. And all of them using that slogan whenever possible, as seen on TV too. This is not obscure diplomatese, this is just garbage, and an insulting one to the intelligence of attendees. Will these "NGOers" get an appointment at the Foreign Office once the new law passes?

Insult in Ecuador

A surprising hit came from Ecuador new government. Herreria, the government secretary declared:

The Bolivarian project of Hugo Chavez is a horrible project which comes lose from Venezuela, goes through Colombia, through Ecuador where it destabilized the country's institutions,[...], reaches Peru and peaks in Bolivia which can be the fuse to set on fire the region

Quite clear, isn't it? Venezuela was not amused and protested irately (and not very diplomatically, by the way). But what would Caracas expect? Alberto Garrido had yesterday an extremely comprehensive review of Venezuela, or rather Chavez foreign policy goals. And reading it, for those who can read Spanish, cannot be good news for anyone holding office in Latin America these days, not even Lula. And forget about Foggy Bottom smiling on that!

Bolivian accusations

So, trying to counter attack himself, perhaps considering the failures of the foreign ministry to prop his world leader status up, Chavez decided yesterday to blame all of Bolivia's trouble on the US, the BBC dutifully reporting it. Even this fearless blogger acknowledges that the complexity of Bolivia should bring anyone to discuss this topic with the outmost care. But Chavez forges ahead, irresponsibly. After all Bolivia is in the news so Chavez gets to shine some and distract from problems at home such as PDVSA corruption or OAS failures.

There is no pretending that Evo Morales does not get support from Venezuela: he has traveled too often to Havana and Caracas; he has been vaunted publicly too often; it is commonly assumed that financial help has been sent to his movement. However, what is a fatal flaw of Chavez there is to put all of his eggs with Morales, apparently even asking him to accept the recent truce. Evo Morales is far from being the one and only leader in Bolivia indigenous movements. Felipe Quispe has not been invited too often to Caracas. This is a very dangerous leader who is on record as not been afraid to enter civil war in Bolivia, who despises Morales even as he must make common front with him and grants interviews under a Chavez portrait. This is a petard that can blow on Chavez face real bad. Bolivia is not a one leader country like Venezuela, and a good foreign service could point out that to El Supremo, if this one were inclined to listen, of course......

It is a complex world and Chavez needs a professional foreign office. But he is building a militant one that will only ensure more and more trouble and less and less efficiency on the international front. But after all, the only thing that Chavez wants is for people to talk of him all the time. He has learned long ago that there is no such thing as bad publicity in show business.

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1) this rather worthy initiative by the US to make adherence to democracy more than lip service to elections should have been undertaken as a long term project and not as an obvious anti Chavez measure. In the best of times it would have required at least a couple of years to work its way through the intricacies of relationships within the Americas. But the State Department is suffering of years of neglect as to Latin America and Secretary Rice cannot be expected to change all of this in a few months. As chavismo is becoming more of a concern, some at State thought that trying to rush such an initiative would put pressure on Chavez. It did, but perhaps at the cost of delaying discussion of the initiative for a while. It is quite possible that Secretary Rice, whose own role at the OAS meeting was more stellar than her employees in spite of her "I must return to the United States", might use their blunders there to look for more qualified personnel for Latin America affairs. Which of course could be further bad news for Chavez.

2) some examples of the silly spin that Venezuela is trying to put on the OAS meeting, with cartoon, and with the Foreign minister declarations, very unbecoming if his goal is to improve US Venezuela relations. And this from the magazine that pretends to offer impartial analysis from the chavista side, Temas. And then some complain of bloggers...

Masochist Felipe Gonzalez goes to Venezuela (and he has followers)

And he certainly found all the sadist he can wish for inside chavismo. Since Gonzalez announced he will volunteer to be in the defense team of Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma the improprieties thrown at him, live on television preferably, can only be matched by the constant character assassination on these two prisoners.

With Europe behind?

It is indeed rather horrendous to watch on Venezuelan state TV how these people are excoriated, without any right to reply, not even with the courtesy of having a journalist exposing distortedly their point of view. In fact it is going to the point that RT (Russia Today) and TeleSur make joint "documentaries" on the world aggression against Venezuela and Russia. Forget Glasnost, welcome back Der schwarze Kanal.

The source of all that anger is that ex premier Gonzalez of Spain, the one that did the most to bring Spain tot he XXI century standards has decided to join the defense team of Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma (and by implication of all political prisoners). And he has been joined by other heavy weights already: former Brazil president Cardoso, former Peru president Garcia, former Mandela's lawyer and Canadian justice minister Colter. I suspect the list will grow.

Fantasy Thursday

So we are here Thursday night and as expected the regime still has not published the decrees and their application rules. That is, people had to either fire every body and close shop, or cross themselves and wait for the worse.  In other words, severance packages as of next Monday may become as high as 35 fold more than they are today, something quite impossible to meet.

Or is it so?

A vision of 2017

While Diosdado Cabello was scheming to dismiss once and for all the National Assembly, on January 3 while on a flight to Punto Fijo a plane mechanical problem forced him into emergency landing in Curaçao. During the protocolar routine registry of the plane weapons and money were found, forcing Curaçao gouvernement to hold Cabello in the island and giving time to the US to officially demand extradition on January 5, with a duly request to the Netherlands. On December 6 the Venezuelan Navy decided to blockade Curaçao but as the first ship arrived in view of Willemstad a US fighter dropped a charge a few hundred meters ahead showing that they were determined to get their man this time around. This coupled, of course, with the US Navy receiving orders to protect the shipping lanes to and from Curaçao. On December 10 Cabello was flown to the US as relations were totally severed between Venezuela and Canada, USA and the Netherlands.

Meanwhile in Caracas the MUD opposition broke over supporting Diosdado Cabello since the US had released evidence against Cabello and by a one vote majority installed as a new chair to the National Assembly that refused to support Cabello. The regime declared the National Assembly in treason to the fatherland and on December 19 the TSJ high court dissolved it while the army seized the National Assembly at night.

Fortunately for Lilian Tintori, her enemies are mean but stupid

As a follow up of Friday's entry.

Saturday Lilian Tintori, wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, tried to leave the country on a well announced and scheduled tour that included meetings with Macron, May, Merkel, and Rajoy, that I know of. So, instead of letting her go and within the hour announce that she fled the country, they confiscated her passport and forbade her to leave the country.

Week 1 of the dictatorship: protests are mounting in spite of brutal repression

UPDATED THROUGH THE DAY (Now complete)

11:40

Today the opposition is taken the streets again, and this time around there is national move for that. The regime replies in the only way it knows, unable to update its modus operandi. For example they blocked early all access to Caracas, and closed 16 subway stations for good measure. That way protest marchers will not be able to make it to Caracas or to the rallying points. That workers cannot do so is of no concern, even though Caracas will look like a dead city today.

But the regime is cornered so here anything is good to stop the opposition.

The shoe dropeth

As I was expecting the decree about the new minimum wage was officially published today when it should have been published last week, at the latest. This way no one could make adequate preparation and many lost their jobs, many a store closed. And as I am typing it is not clear yet whether and how will the regime effectively subsidize the bulk of the new wages for 3 months.

But if you thought that going 35 times up minimal wage and hence putting the whole country on minimal wage was not bad enough, we got a few more choice items for you.