Weil and the national Assembly

Last Friday Tal Cual sharp cartoonist Weil, reminded us with his sharp crayon of what was really the Granier-Ravell hearings at the National Assembly (OK, so I read Friday's Tal Cual this Monday morning, so sue me!). This cartoon is exquisite. The doubles, but very lonely, of Granier and Ravell are able to lob back any ball that the silly troops of unskilled National Assembly representatives try to throw at them. Observe the details: red berets, and even one T-shirt with the Uh! Ah! Chavez no se va. The perfect representation of the monochromatic, 15% elected National Assembly: partisan and deficient, only good enough to add speedy stars to flags.

Estrellado: a new star for the Venezuelan flag

Apparently there are a few people that worry about whether the Venezuelan flag should get a new star. I could not care less.

I think it is a red flag (speaking of flags) that Chavez has thrown our way and it has worked beautifully for him. Some sectors of the opposition are simply too stupid to learn to control their knee jerk reactions.

Today was the launching of the new flag and sure enough, instead of letting Chavez enjoy his new insignificant and “patriotero” show, hot heads in the opposition (namely Oscar Perez) had to call for a protest march. That march ended in Chacao where the chavistas had put up the new flag as a provocation, and sure enough a street brawl started. All the benefit going for the chavista side, no matter how wrong that eighth star addition might be. As we say in Venezuela, “se estrellaron”, they crashed, and never was this more appropriate to say than today. As long as the opposition allows itself to be led by people such as Oscar Perez, we are going nowhere.

But this blog is also a cultural blog and as such I feel compelled to explain the foreign audience that this 8th star business is actually a matter of some interest. But before I do that, let me reassure the reader: the addition of the 8th star, and the change in the national coat of arms, is strictly a Chavez caprice. What is sad is that his sycophantic followers were so prompt in abiding by the will of El Supremo and run to do all the changes he requested with barely a simulacrum of discussion, a discussion where no serious historian was convoked.

Venezuela has experimented with many flags, a couple of dozen almost, one per any major dictator we had it seems. Never, that I can find of, was there a true national debate as to which the Venezuelan flag should be. Thus El Universal today can present a total of 20 flags through Venezuelan history, ranging from 0 stars to 20 (not in the web page but I have a digital camera for the pic below).

In my little art work you can see that officially Venezuela had 8 stars between 1817 and 1821. Even better, the first time 7 stars appeared was in May 1817, for the seven provinces who signed the independence declaration (kind as for the US 13 colonies). The 7 stars were out from 1821 until 1859 when they came back in 1859 for 4 months only to be jacked up to 20 stars according to a new turn of the federalist civil wars. 7 stars only made it once and for all in 1863 until Chavez megalomania pushed them up to 8 again. And still the design changed through the years.

Why 8 stars?

It is important to remember that only 7 provinces signed the independence declaration. Coro and Maracaibo did not want to and remained loyalist to Spain until the battle of Carabobo. Guyana, a very backward area then, apparently could not get its act up together and was not represented in Caracas in 1811 (all of this if memory serves me well and if I stand corrected I will add it in a post script to this post acknowledging the kind reader willing to do the research work). Thus really, there were only 7 signatories that august day of July 5 1811.

But during the independence wars Bolivar run into lot of troubles. To make a long story short, at some point he made his way to Angostura (today’s Ciudad Bolivar) where to secure the support of the Guyana folks (pretty much all of the area Bolivar was barely able to control then) he came up with the 8th star scheme. Further governments wisely removed it as soon as possible. After all, what to do with Zulia and Coro once they joined in? Treat them as wayward parents? Kiss and make up adding a ninth and tenth star? I suspect that some in Zulia, under some autonomist stirrings never too far below the surface, are going to address this 8th star issue some day.

This, however, is yet again another sad spectacle. Nobody in Chavez entourage has reminded him that in Eastern Europe a lot of flags had gaping hopes in them a few hours after the regimes fell (Think of the Rumanian flag in particular). If national symbols become important it is because they are made as a consensus, not because Chavez in his delirium has decided to do one better than Bolivar (who I do not recall having lost sleep when the 8th star was removed in 1821). In fact, he has managed to make the event yet another divisive moment in Venezuela. Now, having 7 stars will become an opposition symbol. Eight stars was a foul way for Chavez to recover the flag, or a flag at least, that he lost in the million folks marches of the opposition in through 2002-2004.

And while we are at it, in the spirit of cooperation that characterizes this blogger, I have taken upon myself to add the eight star to the Carabobo State government billboard to thank Chavez from allowing Venezuela to win the Caribbean series. As if he had anything to do with it. This particularly tasteless sycophantic display can be found, road dirt and all (click for details), arriving in Valencia (Quico already posted another one of those tacky displays, one from Caracas I believe). And no, I will not discuss the cost of all of these new flags, after all the US goes through this anytime a state joins in (Puerto Rico soon?). Let's just say that the businesses getting the flag and stationery printing are certainly not from the opposition.

The coat of arms gets a face lift too

I do not know, but perhaps from my king guillotining ancestors I have never developed much of a love or care for coat of arms. So I really cannot comment much on the changes made by Chavez. I will criticize them strictly on aesthetic grounds. I have put together the old and new coat of arms. As you will see, there are only cosmetics changes that one must scan hard to detect (there is now a machete somewhere I was told). However the horse is different, and this really is a Chavez whim (though there is strangely a very similar coat of arms in Merida that was made 70 something years ago). There is some hot air emitted as to the horse running to the left being the symbol of the new Venezuela or some such nonsense. The only thing I can say is that the old horse had, artistically, much more personality than the new horse stubbornly running who knows where, and probably hitting a lot of walls. Did they not consult some designer somewhere to lighten up that horse?


But I will stop here. Contrary to the US where true civil rights and democratic values allow you to burn the US flag, just poking gentle fun on these cosmetic changes in Venezuela could cause me some legal problems. After all, a flag is a flag and people only put as much of their heart in it as they want, or are fool enough to do. I am proud of my old flag, it is the one that was always there for me, in particular when I lived for so many years out of my country. Chavez can do as he pleases, the flag of my heart is the one above, to the right of this blog, the flag of the people that marched against Chavez in 2002 and 2003, trying to stop him from taking away our liberties and do such things as what he did today, to change the flag and the coat of arms just because he said so. Nothing else needs to be added.

David Duquenal, mysterious man of mystery in the Anglo Venezuelan conspiracy

After a long day of work I was greeted with the news that I was listed in a paid add in Ultimas Noticias, the semi pro Chavez tabloid which is referred as serious read by chavismo. I suppose that indeed, compared to VEA, Ultimas Noticas is a good read.

The reason of the add? Well, there is some business exposing of a few of chavismo shady deals by Gustavo Coronel and Alek Boyd here and there, and some people are not amused. I will not bother the reader with the details, the two pages add with Alek explanations are posted at Vcrisis, and it is more than enough.

I prefer to notice that if the whole add (ill written but craftily structured) was an accusation against Alek and Gustavo, somehow they managed to post a list of other figures and coin the words "Anglo-Venezuelan-Conspiracy". I have extracted the below paragraph (click to enlarge) where the delirium reaches some paroxysm as one is led to believe that Gustavo and Alek are one and only, and that in addition David [sic] Duquenal, Miguel Octavio, Francisco Toro and Alex Beech are just but pen names used by that one character that, henceforth, we shall name Gustalek.


I do not know whether I should feel my intelligence insulted by such a hash, or personally insulted as not even having my name correctly written.

But make no mistake, if the add is ill written as I said above (plenty of mistakes, and not only on my name, incoherent style only too often) it is still a craftily written add. Why do I think that there is a lot of craft behind? It is written by someone who makes all these mistakes to hide his personality. It is written by someone (or a group) who carefully follow all of the opposition blogs in English. It is written by someone (or a group) that see the effect that all of these blogs are having, and a bigger effect than the paltry results of the pro Chavez pages, supported at huge expense but with low yields. It is also a compendium of most of the accusations routinely made by chavismo, trying to pin all of them on us when none of them would stick in any court of law. But of course this is not about law, this is a first warning to try to scare us away from the web, wholesale. These tactics are not casual, no one completely out of his mind will pay Ultimas Noticias good money for a double page without a plan, or at least an intention. This, of course, reminds us of Berlin circa 1930-something.

So, I have decided to cooperate by revealing that last Tuesday I had an interview with the Voice of America, that infamous propaganda channel from the empire that makes Cuba’s Granma and Chavez’ VTV look like paragons of objectivity and truth (and Ultimas Noticias as a modern Gospel of sorts). Thus the ones writing the add will have further evidence of my betrayal of Venezuela, errh, of Chavez, its beloved leader (sorry for the slip-up!). If you want to hear the voice of Gustalek, a.k.a. David/Daniel Duquenal you can go there and in the table that opens you click on your favorite format (mp3, Real, Winmedia) for the show titled “hablemos” (one hour, in Spanish, with an interesting Bolivian blogger as co-guest, up until next Tuesday only, so hurry up).

And before anyone from the loony chavismo screams that I accepted to go to the Voice of America (where there is much more balance there than some would like us to believe, and certainly infinitely more than at VTV or RNV), I want to state that if RNV calls me I will talk to them; that is, as long as they treat me as well as US Boston public radio Open Source, the BBC or the VOA treated me (or, for that matter, as well as Miguel or other oppo bloggers that were interviewed by these media). But somewhat I doubt that they will ever get la Golinger seating across Alek/Gustalek. I wonder why........

PS: Added next day. I decided to read a little bit more about the charges of that infamous add. Usually when something is so ill written, such a hack, but dedicated, job I do not think it is worth further consideration or rebuttal. But my fellow conspirators at AngloVenCon have been digging some, or explaining some of these details. From Quico and Alek exchanges we get the scope on NAOR (you might want also to read the comment section of that Quico post and perhaps even the thread on the adds in Noticiero Digital note not to mention the Herald article). It seems, among other gems, that even the alleged web page of NAOR was quickly set up when doubts as to its authenticity emerged, and that the US offices are mythological. NAOR was B.S. from the start.

Another one from the multiple personality disorder of Gustalek posted his entry. Miguel coins TAC, for "The Anglovenezuelan Connection". For rebuttal to a tacky accusation you cannot beat it! I have not heard of other entries yet, but I am sure that Gustalek is at work somewhere else. Heck, for all what I know Instapundit might be yet another outlet of Gustalek!

Damn! That Gustalek works around the clock, around the world! He's goooood!

PS2: There is also, it seems, a Spanish version of Gustalek who translated quite well this article. Actually I migth even prefer the Spanish version. Go and read Klaus Meyer.

Now that I think of it, I understand better that famous Holywood quip: "there is no such a thing as bad publicity". Thanks Ultimas!

Chavez, Iraq, Bush and International Women’s day

Yours truly was again on the road but gets the opportunity to come back with a bang, a title with so many incendiary keywords that surely the insults rate should rise dramatically again. But such is the ungrateful job of a blogger.

But before I get to the details, it is useful to remind the gentle reader that all of these words actually belong to the same thread, the only real one that matters, to make the Venezuelan people forget about the real problems through all sorts of ringside circus shows. Why? To allow the reelection one way of the other of El Supremo (preferably with 10 million votes, even printing the ballots if needed). Thus the bolibananarian revolution is always rich in not too memorable but depressing moments in servility.

Today was International Women’s Day and chavismo could not think of anything better but to organize a women’s protest march to the US embassy in Caracas. Apparently the Iraq war is more important for chavista women than the crumbling infrastructure and deficient hospitals and what not. Never mind that proportionately as many people die from crime violence in the Venezuelan barrios than from bombs in Iraq: we do not need an official war to die in Venezuela.

So up went the marchers. Since the embassy is on a Caracas promontory, the elite marchers were duly ferried in buses to the point, collapsing traffic in the Prados del Este area (an opposition area anyway so why care, no?). But of course, to make it look more “popular” the few remaining yards were dutifully walked uphill, or so my sources say (but they are such gossips!). The objective was to give the US embassy a list of the “millions” of people opposed to the US intervention in Iraq.

No big news there, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in Venezuela supporting the Iraq adventure (but you would find plenty of supporters for the Afghanistan intervention). The interesting and funny part is that as usual the sense of ridicule always eludes chavismo. They claim almost as many, if not more, "signatures" as people who voted in last December elections... All of them collected in very few days we are told, less than what it took the opposition to ask for the Recall Election. Who do they think they are fooling? Not me. Not the ambassador. Probably not themselves I dare say.

However there was news, believe it or not. One can be found in the delightful montage from Aporrea which, and I wonder if the author realizes it, showed the rather not very “spontaneous” aspect of the march: too many cleanly printed slogans, too many coordinated t-shirts, too Cuban like…

The other piece of news is that this petition was circulated among all of public employees who were made to understand that they had better sing it. I even saw when one minister was interviewed in the morning VTV program “en confianza” and “casually” gave reams of petition sheets so that the workers of VTV “around the set” could sign. Of course, of their free will one supposes, even if it is the official Chavez propaganda channel. We are more than a few who think that this is one way the government found to keep updating the Maisanta list, in order to refine further which are the real “patriots”. I am not aware of any effort to collect signatures in opposition areas and I am sure that if the petition is well written Petkoff, for one, would have no problem singing it. But there is no interest in finding out as Manichaean chavismo prefers to assume that all opponents support the Iraq war.

There was a rather pathetic moment during all this “bon enfant” scene. Silly Flowers (at the mic) and Bilis Varela, erh, I mean, assemblywomen Cilia Flores and Iris Varela were of the party, screaming as loud as possible. Desiree Santos Amaral was also there and working very hard at compensating for her very poor performance at the National Assembly hearings against Granier and Ravell the other day. Rudely she did not allow the cultural attaché of the embassy to talk when she tried to engage her. Apparently Desiree is learning fast that her ignorance and partisanship can be easily revealed if she lets the other side speak. Fascists learn this lesson one day or the other, she is just late. There was another marquee guest, our very own ineffable Eva Golinger who used to haunt these blogs but who knows works directly in Caracas for Chavez. That as an American citizen she was bitching against Iraq is fair. But in another country openly opposed to her government? Did she not say things of the sort about Sumate? Ah, the double standards and hypocrisy of dear Eva will never cease to surprise us… But it does pay off for her, it seems as she looked quite glamorous on the picture (the one with the single red ribbon). After all I am still waiting for a check from the CIA which surely got lost in the mail. Or maybe Bush found out what Chavez did not figure out yet: that me and Teodoro agree on Iraq.

Meanwhile how did the US replied to this ridiculous display? After all, since American Embassies have faced much worse than Desiree it was enough that the Department of State wrote in its 2005 country report:

"Politicization of the judiciary, restrictions on the media, and harassment of the political opposition continued to characterize the human rights situation during the year"

Back to the real world Eva, Desiree, Silly and Bilis, erh, Cilia and Iris. There are still too many babies suffering of malnutrition in Venezuela, whose mothers are desperate, to waste money on such a useless show. How many pounds of scarce powder milk could have been bought with the pamphlets, the leather cover book of Cilia, the made to order T-shirts? I bet you the NED funds would not be enough to cover this Evita.

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PS: speaking of the Ravell–Granier hearings. There is a follow up. Judging from the intensity of the attacks on Granier, he definitely scored big time. Heck, infamous and utterly vile La Hojilla did an additional show on Granier with the participation of Tascon who got awarded an “oscar” for best performance by Tal Cual. After all, it does take some chutzpah to even try to pass as a democrat when one has done what Tascon has done. No wonder that he and Desiree today are foaming at the mouth: on TV for all to see, including chavismo, their mediocrity was clearly exposed. Fascists hate that.

Media hearings in Venezuela

Friday we had a most unusual and enlightening show in Venezuela: the heads of the two major opposition networks were at the National Assembly for a grilling. Well, the grilled fish turned out not to be the expected one.

The Anderson case has been a suppurating sore in Venezuela as the General Prosecutor has proven totally unable to deal with it in a way that could come across as semi-convincing. Thus the media had to step in to try to put things together since Isaias Rodriguez is obviously unable (unwilling?) to figure out who the heck put that bomb under the seat of Anderson. But that initiative, which turned wildly successful as the Prosecution star witness turned out to be a fraud, has not amused the powers that be. Indeed, earlier in the Anderson case investigations some fingers pointed at some sectors within the government as maybe having something to do (an extortion ring seems to have floated around the cases that Anderson was investigating). It was thus not too hard to think this as a possible reason to mire the investigation in a swamp of delays.

Not amused at the media uncovering the disaster of his workings, Isaias could come up with only one idea: to accuse the media of violating the secret of the case instruction, of discrediting the star witness and what not in order to defend “obscure interests” (conveniently never specified). The media of course was only doing its duty but that did not stop some judge, Florencio Silano, to issue an order restricting, directly, for the first time under Chavez, freedom of expression: the press and the media are banned from publishing official acts and other items of the case. Appeals of course are been made.

As a result of all of this mess the director of Globovision, Alberto Federico Ravell, and one of the owners of RCTV, Marcel Granier, were convoked to the National Assembly for an hearing. I have no way to know if the representatives holding the hearings were hoping to set a trap, but it did not work. Not only it did not work but in addition we had a direct confirmation of the low quality of that monochromatic batch that made it to the National Assembly last December.

There is no point in detailing all what was said. Globovision of course lovingly lingered on all the replies of its boos who left the representatives speechless and pitiful. Ravell among other things, brought to stacks of videos made by Globovision to show that even today, the stack before Mezerhane “indictment” was still higher than the post indictment stack (Mezerhane is one of the owners of Globovision). To top it off Ravell even allowed himself to tell Tascon of the famous list, one of the panel, that since he knew about lists he certainly would appreciate some of the stuff presented by Globovision. Tascon did not reply but interestingly seemed to be the most “professional” of the lot of representatives, no wonder he was the one of the list idea…

The crowning moment came when the committee tried to detour the hearing as an indictment on Ravell for a possible association of this one with the April 2002 coup. Ravell’s reply? Words in, words out: “I have nothing to do with April 2002. I am a professional. Had I been running that coup d’etat it would have been a success”.

I did not get as many details on the Granier intervention. After all Globovision is going to highlight its boss rather than the one from RCTV which is not a news channel. However la Hojilla, the infamous VTV program, did spend an inordinate amount of time on Granier. La Hojila is supposedly a comic talk show which was created to counterweight the successful Alo Ciudadano. It failed of course. Though for the hard core chavismo it has become the daily gospel as it manages to concentrate all the resentment “resentimiento social” which is the only drive of some chavista sector bent on humiliation and revenge above any other consideration.. At any rate, they devoted a lot of time on Granier, including mocking his hair. But what was the counter arguments to the solid case that Granier presented? That he had been associated with the Lusinchi administration, including kissing the hand of Blanca Ibañez, the most infamous official from those corrupt days.

Note that this might all be true, Granier might have cavorted a lot with these unsavory folks then (as did, by the way, many who today wear a red beret). But in what does this distract from the very pertinent remarks he made Friday, on how freedom of expression is increasingly threatened in Venezuela? On how Isaias failed in his duties as the Nation's provider of justice? Nothing much of course. Even Ravell acknowledged it when he said he did not care whether the star witness of Isaias, the fake psychiatrist Giovanni Vasquez, was a petty thief as long as his statements could be verified. What these string of mediocre folks interrogating or mocking Ravell and Granier are doing, agents who only made there because Chavez put them there, is the same strategy that all the failed players use when they run on empty: shoot the messenger.

Note: the videos of the hearings are, at this typing, still free to consult on Globovision video page.

Venezuela crazy round up of news

Yours truly is back from a very nice break, but is about to leave on business until next week again. Thus I am limiting myself to a brief round up of the hilarious to sad news that keep besotting Venezuela. In no particular order of importance.

Bolivar wins in Rio

I am not sure as to how embarrassed I should get by this piece of trivia. The PDVSA funded scola da samba, Vila Isabel has won the sambodromo competition. The second time only it does, the first time being in 1988. It seems that this rather obscure and underachieving school benefited greatly from PDVSA money (certainly more than the 40 to 50 Venezuelan families that could have been resettled with a fully equipped house if that money had stayed home, assuming that PDVSA only spent 1 million).

At least I have the satisfaction to have read last Sunday that Manuel Caballero (not to be missed op-ed) found the representation of Bolivar in Rio rather strange and against historical evidence, and the ever so to the point barb against Chavez megalomania (and let's not speak about the rotating heart shown...). Me thinks that in fact Brazilians, wise as I have discovered them to be, found a sucker in Chavez and had no problem voting for Vila Isabel to keep these petrodollars flowing into Rio.

A new star for the flag

To keep in that vein of ridicule, as if there were not anymore pressing issue in Venezuela (and I suppose waiting for the right time to discuss Chavez reelection ad infinitum) Cilia Flores has announced from the National Assembly where she must be truly bored now that there is no opposition to bash in the hallways, that the very august Venezuelan rubber stamping bolivarian boudoir that an eight star will be added to the Venezuelan flag no later than March 12 (Ides of March anyone?).

Oh! and Bolivar's horse will be facing the future now.

That reelection thing

And while we mention reelection. Argelia Rios writes a lucid article on the consequences of the in vita aeternam relection fo Chavez. Not for the opposition but for chavistas themselves such as Diosdado Cabello who sees himself as 2012 presidentiable (I do not think so but some people seem to believe he has presidential material). It is worth translating the last paragraph:

Do not forget [Diosdado] that when the old regime sunk in the troubled waters if failure and resentment, no a live bone remained. Even its younger faces were disfigured, without being able to reply. There was nothing to do: they too were dragged by the real responsible of the wreck.

February 27 1988

Onto more serious stuff.

So we reach another anniversary of that social combustion of February 27 when rich and poor alike found their way to pillaging stores and malls. Chavez has used that, dubiously, as an excuse for his coup in 1992 (we know now that Chavez will make fodder of ANY excuse he can find). Interestingly, after 7 years in office Chavez has only managed after many years to start paying some compensations to the victims of the repression, BUT TO DATE no one is in jail for that (or for the corruption of the pre Chavez area, or for the corruption for the Chavez era, etc,...)

And even more interesting, brave and admirable Human Rights defensor, COFAVIC leader Liliana Ortega is actually on the dog house of chavismo as she has pursued human rights defense equally strongly under Chavez as she did before Chavez. No comments are needed for the smart reader.

The Vice comes out of his fascist closet

(well, he was out but since Brokeback Mountain seems on its way to the Oscar win...)

There were yet some declarations from the US State Department as to Venezuela doing or not doing this or that. But the news here is the reply from Jose Vicente Rangel, the vice President of the so ever aptly named bolibanana republic:

In this fascist-like policy advanced in the United States there are serious restrictions to civil rights and democratic freedoms. There is a rebirth of McCarthyism on the excuse now for the fight against terrorism

I kid you not! My head still reels on the vice saying so! Hey JVR! It takes one to know one!

Inflation is negative!

This was precious; the February price index variation was a NEGATIVE ! 0.4%!!! Now I will stop believing the Venezuelan Central Banks measures altogether. For review: there was a 15% mandatory minimal wage increase this month. No effect on a measure that increases production costs by at least 5%? Is this going to appear in March? Could you not have cooked up a, say, 0.1% INCREASE and maintain some credibility? And how come that "my inflation" is DEFINITELY positive? Does the BCV only measure price variation at price controlled, heavily subsidized Mercal and the like? Do they check "buhoneros" who have all that is missing at Mercal shelves for 2 to 4 times the "official" price? When are we going to start paying for the REAL inflation that is kept in check with such measures as gasoline price at now a ridiculous 18 USD cents a gallon?

Because, dear BCV, the Piper always gets paid.

Meanwhile back at the DC ranch

To close this post I must recommend Gustavo Coronel article about the less than august gathering these days in DC where a whole bunch of silly US haters/Chavez supporters will glorify Chavez and perpetrate some "lobbying" action or other which will be of very little significance in DC but that will give great footage for Chavez campaign on VTV and assorted sycophantic media.

By the way, is there any other way to describe people that will forgive ANYTHING TO AYNONE as long as it is perceived as going against Bush? Because by know it seems that this is the real question. Do they not realize that Bush is out in not even three years but that Chavez is trying to stay in office forever? I mean, how much of an useful idiot one can be?

PS: And do not forget to read the previous post from Jorge Arena. I cannot believe that Bruni has found her way in my blog again..... and also, please pass along the post on "la Lista". I will have some news on that soon, I hope.

Batalla de Santa Inés II.- Chavez's battle for 10 million votes

For the celebration of his 7 years in office, Chavez asked his followers to start a campaign to get 10 million votes in the presidential elections of December 2006. BTW, CNE President Jorge Rodríguez was among those that attended the gathering. The story appeared in El Nacional (you can access the information here).

Since the remarkable level of abstention obtained in the National Assembly elections of December 2005, the 10 million votes have been a motif of Chavez’s speeches. The Venezuelan President knows that, given the disorganized opposition, he has a high probability of winning the presidential election. However, he is not happy with just winning. He wants to show to the world that he has the overwhelming support of the Venezuelan people, which he has not.

The 10 million figure is absolutely laughable if one reviews historic data, recent polls and the Referendum and National Assembly election results (unless there is some creative counting from the CNE). Nevertheless, Chavez likes battling and he already defined the reelection campaign as the battle for 10 million votes. He called the campaign “Batalla de Santa Inés II”.

The name gives shivers to those that are aware of the consequences of the first Batalla de Santa Inés and its relationship with the fascist discriminatory list.

A few days ago, Daniel discussed a film about the list in this post and Bruni, a devoted reader, mentioned her short story about her experience with the Batalla de Santa Inés program. I asked her to translate the story to include it in my post, which she graciously did. Her essay mixes her storytelling abilities with the harsh political reality created by the program. It explains the relationship between the Batalla de Santa Inés with the Maisanta campaign and the Tascón list and it shows why the whole thing is a clear violation of the Venezuelan Constitution. The original Spanish version is here. Hope you like it. I did!

Jorge Arena.
Favorite ghost editor.

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The Battle of Santa Inés. (*)

by Brunilde Sansò.

Article 60. Every person has the right to the protection of her honor, private life, intimacy, image, confidentiality and reputation.

The law will limit the use of informatics to guarantee the honor and the personal and family intimacy of its citizens and the full enjoyment of their rights.

Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

This story is dedicated to millions of Venezuelans of all origins and political tendencies that are enclosed in thousands of unknown computers and whose privacy has been forever violated.

After several years of protests and a sturdy opposition, a signature collection was carried out to call for a Referendum to revoke the mandate of President Hugo Chavez Frias. The Referendum took place on August 2004. The “No”camp, that supported the President, created a command called “Maisanta” in honor of a gomecist general that became an anti-Gomez guerrilla, called Pedro Perez Delgado, nicknamed “Maisanta”, that happened to be the great grandfather of President Chavez Frias.

It is said that the President has a supersticious predilection for his rebellious ancestor and that he thinks that Maisanta brings him luck [1]. Wether true or not, the Maisanta Command had the objective of doing whatever was necessary to avoid that President Chavez Frias be revoked. This political crusade was baptized by the government as the “Batalla de Santa Inés”. It is within that frame that a computer search program coupled with the personal data of all Venezuelan voters, also called “Batalla de Santa Inés”, was created. The name recalls the Santa Inés Battle won by the “llanero” Ezequiel Zamora. The two caudillos, Zamora and Maisanta are also related since Maisanta was the son of a Zamora’s colonel. Moreover, both are fetish figures for the President. Thus, it is not by chance that the two characters are associated with one of the most important battles that Chavez would have to fight.

In order to create the Batalla de Santa Inés program, the database containing the information of all Venezuelan voters must have been extracted from the database of the CNE (National Electoral Council), that is the entity in charge of Venezuelan elections. If such was indeed the case, then it would be a flagrant violation of the Venezuelan Constitution that guarantees the right to privacy and that explicitly limits the use of informatics (see article 60 above).

In the following months, the program was used to catalog Venezuelan citizens and, in some cases, to prevent them access to jobs and civil documents [3,4]. I was told that the program with the database could be bought freely in the streets of Caracas.

Wanting to verify by myself the length of the violation of the privacy of millions of Venezuelans and in order to understand the program functionality, I installed one copy in my computer and searched for my name, curious to know what information would appear. Later, I started playing with my Venezuelan ID number. Two, three, four, five numbers below, two, three, four, ten numbers ahead…

There they were: Renato, Salvatore, Silvana and Rosetta, those that had been lost in a hidden place of my memory and now, thanks to this powerful program, came back to my recollection of a nine year old girl that is getting her ID card for the first time.

It was a special day. We were transported by bus to the roofed yard of a large school or ID center. I think that it was located in Los Ruices or Los Dos Caminos. We were then seated on long banks, side by side, waiting for our turn. One of our school teachers, Miss Camacho, tried in vain to get us to be quiet. I wanted to seat next to Renato, but Rosetta was between us. That is why his ID number does not follow mine. Renato was in love with Rosetta and all the other girls from the Venezuelan-Italian school I attended were in love with Renato.

It was not the first time that Rosetta got between Renato and me. One or two years before, I should have entered the church with Renato the day of our First Communion. But, because of my or Rosetta’s dress, it did not happen that way.

I wore a white empire dress with a long bridal veil, and Renato was very handsome in a blue suit. He was holding a cream color candle, a silver rosary, a mother-of-pearl missal and white velvety gloves. Rosetta, on the other hand, was wearing an ugly cream color nun’s gown with a wood rosary attached to her waist. That was the gown proposed by the school that I had categorically refused to wear. Then, probably because of the gown, the same professor Bianchi that had always preferred me, decided to put this time Renato with Rosetta as the first couple and left me, with my magnificent bride dress made by my grandma and Salvatore, wearing his brother’s brown suit that was too tight for him, as the last couple to enter the church. That is why in my First Communion picture I am with Salvatore whereas Rosetta was with Renato.

But life is really something. Even though I learned later that Rosetta and Renato had been engaged, they did not end up being together. At least, that is what was indicated by the program. Renato now lives in Colinas de la Trinidad whereas Rosetta still lives in La Carlota. Rosetta must have married a Mr. Añez because the program changes, in the American way, the second family name by the husband’s family name. I also noticed that the program must have been made by people that do not know the letter “ñ” because Añez was written with the numeral symbol, A#ez.

After studying more deeply the program, I got to the conclusion that the union between Renato and Rosetta was not to be, it was impossible, at least politically speaking. They seemed to be real Capuletos and Montescos from Venezuela. In fact, the program classifies Renato as a “Patriot” and there is a red field that appears on the side of his name, the political tendency field. From what I learned “Patriots” are those that not only did not sign against the President but even signed to revoke the opposition National Assembly members. It seems that after the signature collection to revoke the Presidential mandate, there was a counter-offensive prepared by the goverment to revoke opposition deputies. Interesting, the petition did not seem to target particular deputies but to target them all at large, there are in fact “Patriots” in all the voting districts.

Thus, although Renato is a Patriot, Rosetta is not. She actually signed against the President because when I access her name, a blue light appears indicating just that.

I wonder when was that Renato and Rosetta started moving away from each other. The program does not explain it but it is very clear that they do not live together.

On the other hand, Salvatore, my First Communion companion ,ended up being a very particular type of Patriot because despite being classified as so, there is a warning sign that pops up when I access his name. It indicates that he also signed against the President. I guess that those that wrote the program must consider that Salvatore is not politically trustworthy, that must be the reason for the pop-up. I am not sure I agree with that statement: Salvatore used to not change his mind at all when we played as kids during class breaks. Quite the opposite, he was of a stellar stubbornness.

I started shuffling possibilities. Maybe Salvatore thought that the best way to finish with political instability was to sign to ask for referendums. Then, he must have signed for the first one, to revoke the President, but since he was favorable to the government, decided later to sign the second one as well. However, it is difficult for me to imagine my friend Salvatore using his civil right in such a strategic manner. Maybe he signed first but then he was forced to sign the second petition. The program created doubts in my mind, maybe, maybe, maybe.

Silvana used to live somehow close to my house. But, according to the program, she moved so close that if I lived now in Venezuela, we would be voting in the same center. When I clicked the center button, I could get the list of every person voting in my center. There was not only Silvana, but also several other known names. There was Maritza, the neighbour from the corner house. I was able to learn her real age, that she had always hidden from us. Then I tried to search for Alberto, her husband, but could not find him in the center. But since his family name was quite unusual, it was easily found using the general name searching feature. To my surprise, I learned that Alberto is much younger than Maritza and that he is a “Patriot” even though Maritza signed against the President. My Capuleto theory does not hold any longer. A Patriot and a revoker living together? What type of fights would they have? Or maybe, maybe it was made on purpose so that all the eggs were not put in the same basket. After all, as they used to say, the vote was secret but the signature was not…maybe, maybe, maybe.

Thus, if I had wanted it, I could have reviewed all my memories, all my friends, all my neighbours, all the members of my family. I could have learned their ID numbers, their age, their personal address, their voting center, and their political tendencies. I could have guessed their fears and presupposed their hesitations.

More than fourteen million fears and hesitations!

There are fourteen million people that are now everywhere and that will never be able to recover the tranquility of their anonymity. A collective and permanent violation!

Then, overwhelmed by feelings of astonishment, disgust, displeasure, revulsion, I deleted the program. I tried to get back to the old idea that Rosetta was with Renato and that Maritza was indeed the age she looks. But, it did not work. It was like unlearning how to read after having read.

Then I decided to fired up my computer again and started typing.

And I am still here fighting, in my way, my own Battle of Santa Inés.

In the story above, I have changed the names and sequence of the ID numbers of all my memories. I have also exagerated my curiosity in the search for personal details. I just wanted to demonstrate the potential for meddling in private lives that the program has created. Some of those having ID numbers close to mine happen to be old classmates, but they are not the characters of this story. However, the program is such that it could have been used to search for all my friends’ personal details, had I wanted to.

In fact, and unfortunately for those of us that are listed inside, all the described features of the program are absolutely real.

References:

[1] Marcano, C. and Barrera, A. “Chávez sin Uniforme.-Una Historia Personal”. Colección Actualidad. Random House Mondadori, 2004.
[2] Constitución de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Artícle 60. http://comunidad.vlex.com/pantin/constve.html
[3] Octavio, M. « Tascón Fascist List ». The Devil’s Excrement blog. http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/categories/tasconSFascistList
[4] Duquenal, D. “La Lista.-The Story of Venezuela McCarhtyism.”
Venezuela News and Views blog.
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2006/02/la-lista-story-of-venezuela.html.

(*) This short story originally appeared in Spanish in Cuentos Intrascendentes