The widows of the left crying over Bolsonaro

I was weighing whether I would leave Venezuela for a post. But that election in Brazil had so much of Venezuela in it that I shall not diverge.

Most of the "democratic" left, and of course the whole undemocratic one are in tears tonight. The awful Bolsonaro has been elected.  He did not get the 60% he was threatening to get but with 55% he has, well, a mandate. However, I do not read much self criticism within the left in the rise of Bolsonaro.  I will take for button its lack of condemnation to the Maduro regime. The  losing Haddad never got to condemn as far as I know, costing him a couple of points at least. Bolsonaro did not lose those points.

Time's up

UPDATED: unknown to me as I was typing this overseas, Maduro was in cadena announcing a new emergency decree rendering moot the National Assembly and annuling Recall Election efforts for all practical purposes. In short confirming all that I wrote below.
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I have the feeling that the fall of Dilma in Brazil is going to speed up the conclusion of the Venezuelan farce. For the Narko-Cubano-Colonial regime action is required before the Temer presidency gets a chance to settle in. Not that the odds are with Temer, but Raúl and Maduro simply cannot take the chance.

Chiming on Brazil [file under "famous last words" section]

This one is short.

Dreams of constitutional repression

That ever self serving pseudo panacea of our sub continent, calling for a constitutional assembly to solve problems that politicians have no resolve to deal with directly, is being invoked all around. After all, the brilliant example of Chavez who called for a constitutional assembly to solve Venezuelan problems is there for all: not only he did not solve any of his country problems, but he made them worse, and he certainly did solve the financial future of his relatives and friends, ending himself as a president for life.

These weeks we heard from different points a call for some form of constitutional assembly, and in all cases it comes from a group of people that are unable of unwilling to have their way and thus want to use the mechanism.  Let's not be afraid of words here, what they all want really is a soft, legal repression, that will silence down those that are not allowing them to get their way.

NATO nattering nags Brazil

I could have never wished for a post to be validated so fast, a week later.  Last Saturday I was wondering about what part of the Capriles visit in Bogota may have been linked to Colombia sending a message to UNASUR, and Brazil its puppeteer. This week Colombia added more, much more, by its renewed desire to associate itself with the North Atlantic defense organization, NATO.  This of course sent the Venezuelan regime in an uproar and its associate in Bolivia to call for a UNASUR meeting against the danger of NATO invading our subcontinent I presume. When in fact all of this is further proof of a very deficient Brazilian foreign policy.

Capriles in Bogota, or yet more evidence of a failed Brazilian imperialist policy

There is no need to expand on the diplomatic fiasco that Maduro's "new" team has suffered from Bogota this week. What is more interesting to note is that were Brazilian foreign policy a success, it probably would have never happened. True, there is always some small room left to suspect that the whole thing was a Machiavellian manipulation of Itamaraty to have Santos do the deed, but how unlikely an explanation....

First, a short summary of the events.

Now what? The Venezuela that Chavez inherit

Fortunately this post is short because I just need to redirect you to a great article of Moisés Naím in El País of Spain. Spanish version here and English version there.

This article is remarkable not for its style, it is a list, nor for its writing, it is a list, but for the precision, concision and the "to the point-ness" you sense when you read it. Clearly Mr. Naím is past any illusion as to the future of Venezuela and what is actually scary in his article is that there is nothing that you can nitpick.

What I would like to underline is the last paragraph where Mr. Naím puts clearly part of the blame for the situation on Brazil who had no qualms in letting Venezuela deteriorate as long as it became its bigger provider of everything. I will add that Brazil has behaved towards Venezuela as any imperial colonial power had, using the weakness of the natives for its own selfish benefit. It is remarkable, for me at least, that such a notable intellectual from the center left in all of its modern meaning takes down Lula AND Rousseff the way he does, just after a campaign where Capriles failed even though they tried to embrace Brazil current model if it were the last life jacket available.

Panic at Ayacucho Ranch

Well, as expected the Peruvian stock market crashed.  When it dropped by 8 points, they had to close it.  They reopened it and it went down further to 11 points.  I stopped following after that as some rebound surely must have come, one is a dirty capitalist speculator or one is not....  Sell at 100, buy at 89, resell at 92.....

Lula is still at it, screwing up Venezuelans

What is one to think about the recent trip of Brazil's ex president Lula da Silva to Venezuela and Cuba?

Brazil in Peru (and elsewhere?)

Well, El Pais of Spain details for us that Brazil is quite involved in Peru's business and thus there is really no surprise behind the heavy support they provided to Humala.  If we add to this new intemperate words of Mario Vargas Llosa then Humala's chances are not only improving but he might get less scary.  The question here is to evaluate his real hold on the people behind him.  Lula had that "advantage", the PT had time long enough to develop a few local fiefdoms, powerful enough to have Lula as "their man in Brasilia" rather than the mighty leader having his men in the states....

Political earthquake in Brazil? Lula fails to elect Dilma on the first round

UPDATED. In a tiny little bit of a Colombia syndrome, Dilma Roussef, Lula's handpicked successor will have to fight it out for a second round vote in a few weeks.  In fact, with 70% of the votes counted there is the real possibility that she will reach barely 45%, thus making it possible for Serra to beat her in the second round, though by no more than a point or two even if the surprising Marina Silva scored much better than expected as the third runner.

Concrete vision of the future versus the nutty living in a reactionary past

While I was on the road today on my way to Caracas news came together that made this evening a delightful moment of glee.

On one side the two powerhouses of Latin America decided to start speaking in earnest about free trade and oil cooperation. Mexico and Brazil are now, by far, the two biggest economies south of the Rio Grande. Even if the Mexican one has been battered lately from a larval civil war due to drug captaincies to a flu pandemic, not to mention its unhealthy dependence on exports to the US, it still is varied and large enough to start rebounding any time soon. President Calderon from the right wing PAN is touring Brazil of left wing PT's Lula. Well, I should rather write right of or left of center to describe them but let's hold unto the cliches of that past even though these two man are consummate pragmatists.

During that visit Calderon proposed what should have been proposed long ago, a free trade deal between Brazil and Mexico. Can you imagine what that would mean for Latin America if these two countries could manage such a feat? Their economies are really not complementary but Mexico is an entry to the US and Brazil is an expanding market with a rising technological value. Calderon is certainly aware of that as he is trying still to stir Mexico away of the last two decades of PRI doldrums and he even proposed a cooperation between Pemex and Petrobras.

Let me put it this way, if such a deal is worked out and if it succeeds more or less Latin America could finally once and for all take the path away from underdevelopment. Between them, all the other economies of the sub-continent would have to align their economic policies and the US would need, really need, its FTA to work out full speed with Colombia, Peru and Chile to counter somewhat the new economic colossus that could emerge. Because of course Mercosur would follow Brazil's lead and Mexico would be able to retake its natural area of influence, the Caribbean and Central America.

This is so big that one wonders how come it was not tried out earlier. I suspect that the US recession and a certain protectionist bent of the US since Obama's election must have played a role since Calderon was barely coming out of the North American summit.

I am not sure if Chavez realizes what happened today, what major geological shift suddenly started that could render Venezuela totally insignificant, but he certainly had his head elsewhere, probably up his, well, you know what...

First, the good man took his plane, a tax payer expense, to Cuba just to wish Fidel Castro a happy birthday. No word about the real presents carried to Havana, nor about how many people, all expenses paid, went along with Chavez. Maybe Chavez has accumulated enough frequent flier miles to fly for free to Cuba, including his court?

After this memory trip to a past that is reeking more and more of reactionary if anything because it has already been 50 years of standstill at Havana when the rest of the continent has moved on, Chavez came back to offer yet another old and probably dead idea: whip Obama. I suppose that he got that from Fidel who cannot live without an enemy in Washington. If Obama were a genuine friend of Cuba Fidel would still try to make him an enemy!

So today Chavez said that Obama was lost in space because he called him hypocrite for Chavez wanting him to intervene in Honduras. Note to president Obama: Dear Mr. President, Chavez is like a scorpion, it does not pay to be nice to him because he will always stab you in the back. Though the scorpion has an excuse because of the position of his tail, Chavez has none as he is merely a coward, unable to face the people he insults. In Spanish, on TV, with Chavez grimacing it is much stronger than the Reuters script I link above.

So to make sure what a reactionary throwback Chavez is at heart he went on again on the US having unseated Zelaya, putting the most formal accusation to date. Why so late Hugo? Your other arguments have failed so badly that now you have only leis left to your arsenal? Or is it that you simply cannot abandon the worn out line coming from Fidel? Is there no originality left in you now that your ship of state is having serious leaks? Why not you worry more about the PEMEX-Petrobras bond forming while you have been unable to do a PDVSA-Petrobras bond? I suppose it is because when Petrobras caught whiff of the corrupt set that manages PDVSA even the one at Pemex does not look that bad.

Anyway poor Obama gets hit from all sides, including a Wall Street Journal piece by Maria Anastasia O'Grady that includes the infamous picture of Chavez receiving Raul Castro with a military salute, quite a symbol of how passé, retrograde and reactionary the guerrilla left, the military and the the anti US cheapo rhetoric have become (1). The title, "anti American Amigos", says it all, how much at risk is the US policy in Latin America if some new thinking does not come fast at the White House (I am less concerned about State, I think the short is at the White House). You know guys, if you need help you could do worse than calling me, and I would not charge.

The future is more than ever with Lula and Calderon, not with Castro and Chavez and that accidental clown in the picture, the Kirchner fraud.

1) I cannot imagine ANY Venezuelan president in past history salute military the head of state of ANY country. Such image is enough, in my opinion to impeach Chavez. Not even because he is betraying Venezuela but for being so stupid, so lack of self worth. Bolivar must have rolled in his grave!

-The end-

Brazil's take over of Venezuela is starting, as previously reported here

I have been a little bit busy this week but I cannot resit a quick post to pat myself in the back. Commenting on an interview on Lula by Zakaria I wrote at the end:

...Venezuela is fast becoming a failed state while Brazil is threatening to become a world power. In a way a take over of Venezuela by Brazil would not be such a bad thing, you know.... I wonder how much of that subconscious thinking might have operated in Brazilian ruling class as they contributed to the demise of Venezuela (they will put the blame on Lula but too many went along this complacency toward Venezuela). Meanwhile woe is us in Venezuela because while Chavez squandered our possibly last historical opportunity Colombia and Brazil grew in strength. In a post Chavez Venezuela Bogota and Brasilia will fight over taking Venezuela under their area of influence.

Remember, ten years from now, you read it here first.

Now read what Miguel wrote yesterday about Chavez going hat in hand to ask Brazilian banks to bail him out.

Venezuela will get a loan from Brazil’s development bank Bndes in the amount of US$ 4.3 billion, guaranteed by Venezuela by fields from the Orinoco Oil Belt.

Even more clever for the Brazilians, the money will be used to finance projects (and pay debts!) being built by Brazilian companies in Venezuela and the first beneficiary will be Odebrecht, the Brazilian firm building subways systems around the country and which is owed a lot of money by the Chavez Government.

Right Miguel, you should read my blog with greater attention :) I am kidding of course about Miguel not reading. What I am not kidding about is that Chavez is mortgaging our future to Brazil and to Colombia. Maybe Colombia does not have an Odebrecht to weigh in but it is selling a lot of the ESSENTIAL food for Venezuelans, food we used to produce and do not produce anymore. As such Uribe holds Chavez by the balls, not to mention the content of certain laptops still not all public...... True, as some might argue Colombia could be left without the payment due, but I will still rather be a Colombian to whom money is owed than a Venezuelan looking at empty Mercal shelves.

See, we do not even have to wait for ten years to see it happening: right now, under our own eyes!

PS: Heck, and while I am patting myself on the back, let me also add that Elizabeth Burgos in Zeta said that Brazil and Colombia would split among themselves the left overs of Venezuela. She wrote that about 3 weeks ago. Sorry, no link available.

-The end-

Lula knows he screwed on Venezuela and Chavez

I was watching today an interview of Brazil's president Lula da Silva on CNN, conducted by Fareed Zakaria (1). The interview was very interesting. Lula has answers to everything and rather thoughtful answers (for example his thoughts about expanding the UN security membership and its role). He might be an union worker in origin but that has not stopped him from learning a lot along the way. However all his self assurance was sorely tested when Mr. Zakaria asked him on Chavez. The approximate transcript first, click on pics to enlarge (2).

Zakaria: You are regarded as a great symbol of democracy in the Americas [more flattering comments follow] And yet some people say that you have been quiet as Hugo Chavez has hollowed out and destroyed democracy in Venezuela. You have greeted him as a friend, you have not really criticized the complete reversal of democracy in Venezuela. Why not speak out about it if Brazil wants to take a greater role in the world? Would that not be a part of it, to stand for certain values?

Lula: [during the question it was fascinating to watch Lula's face: from dead serious he put up a laughing grimace without noise, something clearly designed to hide his real thoughts and trying to ridicule the question which coming from that kind of interviewer is simply not possible to do and demeans Lula more than anything he could do to demean Zakaria] Maybe we cannot agree with Venezuela democracy. But no one can say that there is no democracy in Venezuela. [some strange and irrelevant mumblings follow about him having less years than Chavez in office and that Chavez went through so many elections while he himself went through only two]

Zakaria: Wouldn't you like to have had the advantages he has when running with the opposition muzzled, his gangs out in the streets. This is not real democracy.

Lula: We have to respect the local cultures of each country. The political traditions of each country. The political cultures of each country. Brazil has made a lot of investments in Venezuela and I believe that the US needs to get closer to Venezuela. Why so? Because I think that it would be beneficial to the US and to Venezuela.

Zakaria: How we would do that? [reminders of Chavez insults to the US follow]

Lula: [he goes on with a lot of bullshit totally irrelevant to the previous questions. Then there is a talk about generosity] With an economy the size of Brazil we have to make gestures of generosity to our neighbors because otherwise they will have the right to think that Brazil is an imperialist power, that the US is an imperialist power, because there is development in our countries and there is underdevelopment in their countries. I believe the results that we have managed to achieve are good ones, I would say for Brazil, for Latin America and for the rest of the world.

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How can we possibly put a good spin on this section of the interview? Even Zakaria looked surprised, and more than once. After all, the idiocies of Chavez are simply public knowledge and glossing over them would have actually been better for Lula than to try to skip the questions outright as he did.

So this is my story to try to make sense of this rather pathetic moment. Let's start with the salient points.

First, of course, Lula might have learned a lot in his career but not as much as he should have on Venezuela. His demeaning comment on Political Culture (repeated, incredibly, three times) simply tell us that all that he knows about Venezuela comes from Chavez. He might have received accurate reports form his foreign office but clearly, he has been very selective about what he chose to use. And pray, do tell us, when was it Venezuelan political culture to insult the opposition from a position where this one cannot reply to you? This is so offensive that I rather stop now on this part.

Second, there is that mercenary aspect to him: he cites the Brazilian investments as an excuse; which is not and excuse, otherwise we could excuse the US and many other countries of a few crimes because, well, you know, they invested. And this is made even worse when unprompted he excuses himself about Brazilian imperialistic tendencies. Truly Chavez brought the worse in Lula and made him blabber.

And third there are clear escape attempts at not replying at all to Zakaria questions. At some point Lula must have realized that he did not convince Zakaria, and perhaps not even himself. This last picture on the right is a witness about some strange brief pauses taken by Lula then, with shifty, impatient looks, images that we do not get from Lula at any other point in the interview.

I am not going to detail why Lula is so wrong because not only the abuses of Chavez are public knowledge, but this blog is a whole narrative of those abuses and to top it off, the CIDH has just published last Friday a lengthy report where Chavez electoral abuses are detailed, a report by the way that Zakaria did not need to make his statement (3). I rather speculate on what is going on with Lula.

First, Lula comes from the hard left that got educated to reality with time. That is why he had to run three times before he was finally elected. As such he might never have managed to reconcile fully his lefty militant heart to what he knows is the reality that has brought him success and keeps him high in polls. He knows he has betrayed some of his youth tenets but he is not going back because he is smart enough to understand that this way is the one that does bring some success.

As such Lula has always looked at Chavez as the kind of leader he might have wanted to be if he had a smaller country to rule and more means. Federal Brazil does not have the easy riches of Venezuela. Brazil is such a world in itself that a Chavez like clown is simply not possible anymore there (Qadros might have been the last specimen of the sort and Brazilians might have learned their lesson for good then). It is simple quite possible that Lula lives vicariously through Chavez the leftist experience he will never live himself, blinded enough by Chavez charisma and showmanship to overlook the fascist and military tendencies of Chavez that someone like Lula should know better have having suffered for the lengthy Brazilian military regime (other leftists that suffered repression are not fooled by Chavez, for example Chile's Bachelet or Uruguay Vasquez).

But as I have already written in this blog Brazil is an Imperialist country by tradition and perhaps even by vocation (Bandeirantes anyone?). Lula might try to pretend it is not but he fools no one. However we cannot blame him much on him applying imperialism on Venezuela: after all Chavez is serving to him the country on a silver platter and why would not Brazil industrialists benefit from the Venezuelan piñata? If there is one that should be judged harshly by history, and hopefully by judges, on this matter it is Chavez, not Lula who after all behaves as the president of a great country, serving his country interests before he serves his own ones (well, in general at least).

Still, after this interview it should be extremely clear to anyone that Lula has helped Chavez as much as he could, that he has been an active accomplice in the destruction of Venezuelan democracy. In fact we could go as far as to say that Lula has only disdain for the Venezuelan people and that he thinks that Chavez is actually a redeemer that got a bum rap and thus deserved his help. As such when history books will be written Lula will be pointed as having some Venezuelan blood on his hand because at no point we can show a Lula berating Chavez for his abuses, even in private (read again that part where he thinks he has been achieving great things in Latin America!). In fact we can even think of occasions where some of his comments were perceived as indirect criticism of Chavez only to see Lula a few days later backpedal fast and embrace Chavez again. And let's not forget that Lula visited Chavez at least twice in important electoral times endorsing him.

The funny thing for me here is that Venezuela and Brazil are probably the two countries closer ethnically in Latin America, with a similar racial make up and mix, a similar way to conceive of life. And yet Venezuela is fast becoming a failed state while Brazil is threatening to become a world power. In a way a take over of Venezuela by Brazil would not be such a bad thing, you know.... I wonder how much of that subconscious thinking might have operated in Brazilian ruling class as they contributed to the demise of Venezuela (they will put the blame on Lula but too many went along this complacency toward Venezuela). Meanwhile woe is us in Venezuela because while Chavez squandered our possibly last historical opportunity Colombia and Brazil grew in strength. In a post Chavez Venezuela Bogota and Brasilia will fight over taking Venezuela under their area of influence.

Remember, ten years from now, you read it here first.

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1) I get the CNN from London bureau, not the direct one from Atlanta, ask my Cable company why.... Fareed Zakaria GPS. Thanks to my new Direct TV decoder that allows me to record on command and examine such an interview in detail. I shall use it on Chavez in the future!

2) I do not have the transcript, what I quote is what I lifted from replaying the interview. Since Lula spoke in Portuguese, CNN gave us a simultaneous translation, with the risks that this implies on finer points.

3) Not on line yet, sorry. I guess it will come up Monday. CIDH = IACHR, by the way.

-The end-

Press getting tougher on Chavez?

A predicted effect on last week success with of Colombia against the FARC is that there will be less indulgence toward Chavez, now that it is clear that his mediator role was weak at best. Not even mentioning his "past" support for the terrorist group. The surprise is that already today we can read such things form the Wall Street Journal (expected) but also from more circumspect NYT.

Maria Anastasia gloats

The tile of her article, "FARC's 'Human Rights' Friends" sets the tone right there. Maria Anastasia O'Grady went all out in attacking many of the NGO set up for humanitarian reasons but of dubious intentions. The article comes with an embedded video that is amusing to watch. I am not sharing all of her view points on that but when I see the Swiss floundering on the Santos words yesterday, well, she might have more of a point than what I am willing to give her. Indeed, Colombia's defense minister words that the Swiss paid half a million in small bills to the FARC, found in Costa Rica courtesy of the Reyes computer, has finally awakened the Swiss if anything to refute them. But still, I could not find any Swiss major league demanding that RSR explains better its allegation of of the rescue having required 20 millions. In fact that RSR article seemed rather proud of the stir they caused by being the only ones mentioning that "payment", without nay need from their part to strengthen their claim a tad better. Which did not stop them form expecting more explanations from Santos. Ah! The Swiss arrogance! Must be that pure Alp water.

You never know who are really working for

This blogger has long said that Brazil in the long term would be the beneficiary of Chavez follies. Well, in a long article Simon Romero makes that case: "Quietly, Brazil Eclipses an Ally".

Basically as Venezuela under Chavez has been squandering its last opportunity to become an economic power house, Brazil has quietly multiplied by far its trade surplus with the half continent. In fact Simon Romero delicately details how Chavez has been taken for a ride by Lula who while declaring him the best president in 100 years has made sure that none of his initiatives succeeds, while at the same time making Venezuela increasingly dependent on Brazil. If Venezuela had a normal press corps, this article should be major discussion fodder on talk shows. When Chavez is gone, we will have left the US sphere of influence to fall into the Brazilian one. Maybe some can call that progress, but I will be left to wonder what woudl have happened if Venezuela had made better investment decisions and strengthened the Andean Community and its Caribean NON-Cuban links. As Romero sorts of implies, even the Colombia-Brazil relation might be more honest, sincere, true partner like, than the one with Venezuela.

"Cosas veredes, Sancho"

And in Miami, Chavez is a loser

To round up this a worthwhile analysis of Oppenheimer. Well, he has been criticizing Chavez for a long time starting with his now iconic "narcissist-leninist" adjective. For Andres, like for this blogger, the only card left to Chave is the US inability to rein its oil consumption which at 140USD a barrel allows for many costly msitakes by Chavez.



-The end-

Brazil's second Empire

The economic news in the world this end of the year was perhaps the announcement by Petrobras that Brazil has found a new oil field of high quality that could ensure at least a couple decades of Brazil oil consumption. This at a time where biofuels are already a way of life there, where public transportation and small cars are the norm, and when Brazil has already managed to grow self sufficient in oil production.

I remember as a kid listening to Brazil woes: too much jungle, bad agricultural lands, no oil. Today Brazil is minting on its food exports while the world is becoming ready to pay it to preserve its rain forest; this as president Lula did a ceremony about a year ago to bring home the idea that now Brazil was self sufficient in energy. For better or for worse Brazil is now the second power of the Americas. Its natural partner or adversary is the US, not Venezuela or Argentina . Five years of a social democratic Lula administration have yielded the highest trading of its currency, the Real. That is right, Brazil, the joke of hyperinflation and worthless currency is now the country where people are lining up to invest. Lula has quietly applied social reforms he could afford while letting business be. As a result incomes have risen, and not only for the rich.

Oh, it is not over yet, there is still a long road ahead as the Rio favelhas remind any visitor or as the ferocious gang wars threaten to take over cities like Sao Paulo. But New York city was an immigrant dump in the XIX century and the mob controlled Chicago at some point. The fact is that Brazil is becoming a serious country and the discovery of the Tupi oil field is enough to help it boost its growth rate while not being enough to make it come back to the devastating populism it suffered in the past. We can even say that its discovery off shore is a blessing: it will require a lot of work so we are not talking here of quick drilling and instant populism the way it happened in Venezuela. Still, the South Atlantic coast of South America is not the Caribbean hurricane zone, nor the deadly winter Storms of the North Sea. Exploitation will require work and patience but nothing that Brazilians are not already able to manage by themselves.

The future of Latin America is in Brasilia, not in Caracas or Buenos Aires. Though admittedly if Calderon manages his hand well Mexico City might have at least some voice in what is decided in the continent.

This brings the situation of Chavez and the Kirchner's to a rather pathetic level. Now Argentina will be relegated for good to the role of junior partner of Brazil in Mercosur because, just as is the case of the United States, Brazil does not need anymore any multinational association: Brazil is several nations by itself. Brazil will soon become the market where all want to enter and are willing to sign any deal to enter. I suppose that the mercurial Peronists might get the point and make the necessary corrections. Cristina Kirchner will need to fix up a lot of unfinished business of her husband, and even fix some of his mistakes. If she does get around to do it, her more international outlook (Iran is not her friend for example) will bring her to deal with the Brazilian reality in a productive way, leaving behind the eternal populist tirades of Peronism. Or she might not.

As for the wanna-be world leader cum petty tyrant of Venezuela, he will soon be ditched by Brazil as the decreasing production of PDVSA will even limit its ability to buy Brazilian glamor engineering projects, limiting it to buy the food that Chavez policies forbid Venezuela from producing. That oil find might be the last nail in the coffin of the Venezuelan wish to enter Mercosur.

It is interesting to see that some countries have got the Brazilian message long ago. The ones on the periphery of the Brazilian Empire, such as Chile, Peru and Colombia are looking to the open seas for their future, to empires a little bit more distant so as not to pose any real threat to their well being while allowing them to become commercially independent. The ones closer to Brazil are starting to weigh the inevitability of their situation. Bolivia is about to fall apart as Santa Cruz knows that the real power is in Brasilia and not La Paz. Far from the sea, Santa Cruz is looking across the Pantanal from where the only possible source of economic stability is located, for better or for worse. The survival of Evo Morales is tied to how soon he will realize that Brasilia is the way to go, not Caracas. Uruguay has decided to bet on its small size as the only protection it has from Brazil, by turning itself into a knowhow place of services and tourism for whomever is interested, hoping perhaps that a drop of that off shore Brazilian oil is found in Uruguayan waters...

But Caracas and to a less extent Buenos Aires are clueless. Caracas because El Supremo can only think of his personal glory and Buenos Aires, well, because they are Argentineans and they think they are the navel of the world. As Chavez tries to put together his confederation of losers with Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador, the State of Sao Paulo by itself will weigh more than this countries tied together. The final outcome does not require a crystal ball.


-The end-

Believe it or not section: making a fool of oneself in Brasilia

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Brazil is slowly splitting itself from the excesses of Chavez, in spite of the obvious sympathy between Lula and Chavez. First it was the hug between Lula and Bush. Strained hug perhaps but hug nevertheless. And followed a few days after by an official intention to cooperate in developing ethanol as an alternate fuel.

Chavez is on record on suddenly changing his opinion on ethanol and even stopping all the projects that had been launched on that matter with Cuba in Venezuela. Now the Brazilian press is not afraid to print articles with such delicious words who do not request translation:

O presidente da Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, é o arquiinimigo da maior cooperação Brasil-Estados Unidos.

OK, that was already good enough for a laugh but today we went a step further. The communication minister of Brazil was discussing creating a state TV in Brazil and some people are not agreeing on the idea. Well, the Minister, a certain Helio Costa, said that people should not be worry, that the model was certainly not what was seen in Cuba or Venezuela. It would be a public TV but not a state TV (or some sort of equal subtlety). I picked up Recife's Jornal do Comercio transcript, at random in the Brazilian press:

O ministro das Comunicações, Hélio Costa, dice que a TV do Executivo, proposta por ele na semana passada, não é uma TV estatal. “Absolutamente não. TV estatal é o que o Chávez faz”, disse, referindo-se ao presidente da Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, que tem liderado movimento de estatização das redes de TV naquele país.

“TV estatal é o que se faz em Cuba; é o que se fazia na Polônia e na antiga União Soviética. E eu estive em todos esses lugares para saber perfeitamente a diferença entre estatal e pública”, disse o ministro, em entrevista sobre a implantação do rádio digital no País.

My translation (I could not resist posting a little bit of Brazilian Portuguese first which I can understand more or less):

The minister of the Communications, Helio Costa, said that the TV in the government proposal of last week, is not a state TV. “Absolutely not. State TV is what Chavez makes”, he said, mentioning the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, who has led a movement of nationalization of the TV networks in that country. "State TV is what is done in Cuba; it is what was done in Poland and the old Soviet Union. I have been in all these places to know perfectly the difference between state and public TV", said the minister, in an interview on the creation of digital radio in the Country.

Wow!

The Venezuelan ambassador in Brasilia, Garcia Montoya, was so upset that (following instructions from Caracas?) he complained loudly. Though the ambassador declarations were not taken by the Brazilian press at this time, at least not on Google news, which goes to tell you how important the Venezuelan embassy is considered in Brasilia. Thus we are limited to Venezuelan press notes so far. At any rate, the ambassadors words demonstrate again that truth hurts a lot, or where it itches one must scratch- OK, that was to be expected from a military named ambassador and whose main title to glory was to finance a Bolivar float at the Rio carnival of 2006. To justify the title of this post, let me post what the ambassadors added:

The Venezuelan state networks do not belong to president Chavez and in addition in Venezuela the state does not claim exclusivity in telecommunications services, nor does it use them for presidential or personal marketing.

Gasp! I mean, how "cara dura" can one be, or how naive or how uninformed....

I think that the one that has no idea how TV works in Venezuela is the ambassador, unless he is stonewalling us, and the knowledgeable Brazilian public, AND its communication minister that surely knows better. If the ambassador, or any reader, has a doubt I would suggest to visit a recent post where the government lists with great pride on how all the state networks will broadcast SIMULTANEOUSLY a replay of the Barbara Walters interview to Chavez (1).

It is amazing that when the state control of Venezuela of networks is now vox populi and publicly criticized at electoral time by serious international observers, at a time where the Chavez incessant cadenas are meeting more and more reprobation, when international press organizations are increasing pressure against the closing of RCTV considered a crass censorship measure, that the stupid ambassador is willing to volunteer such a lame, and unnecessary declaration. In fact, a perfect opportunity to stay silent was lost. But then again Chavez is mad at Lula and the declaration might simply reflect the wish to put pressure on Lula, to back off from any US deal or any less than vigorous support of Chavez.

We will see.

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1) Apparently the Barbara Walters that went on air in the Us was a shorter version than the Venezuelan one and it did not include all the attacks on Bush that Chavez freely used. Interesting... (hat tip devoted reader who prefers to remain anonymous)