Independence day in Venezuela
Independence from Spain maybe, but not from human folly and cheap patriotic posturing

Monday 5, July 2004

Well, we did celebrate another anniversary of July 5 1811 when we signed our Independence proclamation, the first South American country to do so.

What should normally be a day of Patriotic fervor was used by Chavez and his minions for campaigning purpose, to portray the opposition as "vende patrias" (sellers of the fatherland). And the electoral campaign is just starting. I wonder if the Electoral Board is going to be true to its word and start slapping a few fines on the president. I am not holding my breath.

Let's see a few samples.

Chavez started the day with the announcement that the Venezuelan people is "ready to resist". In a ceremony in front of the diplomatic corps in Venezuela he sounded as if the marines were about to land in Venezuela. Well, maybe a few in civil in the Margarita resorts. Apparently "some want to give Venezuela to foreign interests". Or what is left of it since Cuba already got quite a nice stash of our cash and foreign oil companies are getting scandalous concessions from the hands of the more than likely corrupt Ramirez at the oil ministry. At least according to representative Rondon. Which, by the way did not stop Chavez to say a few days ago that they could accuse him of corruption as they pleased, he did not care as they were the corrupt ones. Translation: you did before, now it is my turn to steal the public coffers.

The honored speaker at the solemn session of the National Assembly went on with a panegyric of Chavez that reminded those declaimed once upon a time of the leaders of Eastern Europe, or of today Fidel. The speaker was OAS ambassador Valero who has been doing its best to try to brain wash his colleagues at the OAS. Well, at least we know that his own brain has been quite washed out.

Then the stage moved on to Los Proceres, our monumental avenue built by our one before last dictator, Perez Jimenez, for military parades. Our wanna-be dictator seems to find the setting to his liking. The Army paraded today under posters that were rather political, calling for the union between the army and its people. The media was not allowed to cover the parade and we had to rely on the "cadena" that the official VTV sent us hours and hours. No important sporting event, mercifully as the Euro Cup ended yesterday and the South American one starts tomorrow.

The parade started with the reconstruction of the "batalla de Santa Ines" a rather dubious success of our mid XIX century civil wars. But it has been decided that the name of the battle would be the catch name of the present electoral campaign now that the "comando Ayacucho" floundered so badly during the Recall Election drive. So much for an impartial parade.

As a new development we saw for the first time lots of buses parked along the way, ferrying in a reliable public. Once upon a time whoever wanted to attend the July 5th parade could do so. Now, it seems that times have changed and only the blessed few can attend. An amateur video, by the way, did catch up what seemed to be students of the new Bolivarian University trained as some type of militia and made to take some buses to go to Los Proceres.

The opposition? Well, already eliminated from any National ceremony, it decided not to show up to the National Assembly solemn session. To begin with chavista supporters would have booed them if they had tried to get inside the building. But since the opposition is treated as second class citizenry and barred from any other ceremony, why bother to attend the session?

And so it goes in Venezuela where Chavez preaches suddenly a language of love and reconciliation but were the crude facts everyday contradict his discourse. Do the foreign media see these things? I think that the diplomatic corps is not fooled but sometimes I wonder about the other guys at CNN and BBC...