Marcel Granier and Hugo Chavez

The day had already been filled up with emotion but the best was for tonight, between 8:25 and 8:40 PM (necessary details in the very recent posts)

Alo Ciudadano extended by 30 minutes the time slot of its show. Thus Marcel Granier was all the way for 1.5 hours on TV, at a peak hour. No cadena for a change though we got the unbelievable decision of the TSJ promoting the illegal robbery of propriety.

At 8:30, after one and a half hour of intense TV pressure Granier gave a dignified, gracious, restrained but adequately emotional speech. I was so impressed. And then all the staff working at that time in Globovision, including its director Ravell, came on camera to take turns to hug Granier, to congratulate him for his dignity and his valiant fight against the might of the totalitarian state. A moment of public class if I have ever seen one. Think for a second about the Cisneros or the Cameros of this world, who went as far as forbid their journalists at Venevision or Televen to support RCTV. Not to mention chavistas such as Earle Herrera or Desiree Santos Amaral who went from a life of fighting for freedom of expression to legislate its demise in Venezuela.

Then at 8:30 it was time for the nightly news of CNN en español, and to my great surprise (I cannot follow the news during my day at work) I saw the tanks of the Nazional Guard rolling in Caracas early today.

What is the government afraid of? What could possibly the Venezuelan opposition do to stop Chavez from closing RCTV? What weapons do we have except for the pacific marches that we have done all along? We cannot even go to court as their access to us is closed for all practical purposes.

But that is Chavez style, show of force, bullying the other side even if it is not necessary.

In front of Granier's grace and poise we can oppose Chavez's histrionics and vulgarity.

Chavez gross cadenas where he insults people who cannot reply are easily matched by his display of military force, confirming, astoundingly today, that Venezuela is for all practical purpose a military dictatorship, where the army is there to serve the power in place, not the people, not the nation, but the military leader. It is there, visually for all to see, with that astounding image of CNN where dozens of motorbikes in close formation, rode by armed Nazional Guards, followed by tanks, were rolling through the congested highways of Caracas.

But that is Chavez, the pure product of military low life, of cheap barracks and cheap ideas. A mere "teniente coronel" who did not benefit from the polishing graces of reaching command positions, assuming he could have benefited from that. He is just the latest avatar of the South American XIX century bully, who measures his manliness as to how many soldiers he can place in front of the other guy.

A luminous day for those who have eyes that can really see.

-The end-

Those exquisite revolutionary moments: expedient revolutionary justice or highway robbery?

Oh dear! Those moments succeed each other faster than what I can type.

As I am watching Marcel Granier extraordinary poise on Alo Ciudadano, the talk show host receives a communique just published on the web page of the high court of Venezuela, TSJ. This decision, signed by the head of the judicial power of Venezuela, Luisa Estela Morales, announces that CONATEL has the right to use as needed all the transmission equipments of RCTV. Not an outright expropriation, but basically one since CONATEL can give these equipment to the new TeVes, while eventually some sale negotiation takes place between the government and RCTV. Exactly as if your neighbor were suddenly allowed to use your car in some lawsuit matter before that lawsuit is completely settled in court.

In a way there is nothing that surprising in it: we were expecting some argument to that effect, a forced sale as we saw recently for the Electricidad de Caracas or CANTV or the oil fields of the Orinoco belt.

No, what is astounding is that the TSJ has replied to an unknown judicial petition deposed YESTERDAY in front of the TSJ. YESTERDAY.... meanwhile on the dockets of the TSJ of Venezuela there are dozens and dozens of HUMAN RIGHTS CASES that are not decided, that are not examined, and that since months if not years. But when the government interests are concerned, in 24 hours, Luisa obliges. Luisa, the new harlot of Chavez? Now, is anyone going to come here to try to demonstrate to me, to the readers of this blog that there is a separation of powers in Venezuela? No, this is totalitarianism already in action.

What we have just witnessed almost live on TV is highway robbery by the government with the judge and the police helping.

Added later: the link to the info in Globovision. El Universal also takes it up already.

-The end-

Those exquisite revolutionary moments: shutting up, literally, those who do not agree with you

When I started this series of posts with the suggestive title, I thought that by next week will have rolled through I would have had perhaps three posts. I was wrong, as the government is cornered into a public relations disaster. It is Friday, I have already 4 posts up and there is still three days of direct conflict to go. I am sure that more exquisitely revealing moments will come.

Yesterday I was writing “as it has been usual in such moment of crisis, cadenas start succeeding each other”. Well, today we are into our second cadena (1). This second cadena is particularly disgusting: Chavez is using the “Copa America” for political purposes: the excuse of the cadena is to inaugurate the stadium of Merida. I suppose that the Conmebol might want to look at how come Chavez can say “viva la vino tinto” and “viva la revolucion bolivariana” in the same breath inaugurating a football stadium that should host an international tournament in a few weeks (2). And what could one say about the words of the Merida state governor, Florencio Porras, who supposedly supervised the work? He thanked Chavez saying that nothing would have been possible without him. A sycophantic speech that gives nausea.

But fortunately this cadena was short. It lasted barely 15 minutes. Then again Chavez was probably very tired, he spoke for more than two hours at noon in the first cadena of the day.

That cadena was in front of some military group. I did not have the heart to watch it, I was at home for lunch and I did not want to spoil the rest of the day. But in the few minutes I watched, I could observe how Chavez was twisting Venezuelan history, of course trying to minimize the damage that the EU and US Senate declarations of yesterday meant. Need I say more? Need I go into the inaccuracies? Need I go into the vile stirring up of anti US sentiment?

Why that? Well, as I have already said when the going get tough, Chavez goes cadenas. But the timing is also crucial here. As today, Friday, is that last day of the week as far as talk shows and extensive news report are concerned, it was important that Chavez shut up the noon news services. But tonight of course he could not do yet another 2 hours cadena. The man has his physical limits after all. But right when the audience of Alo Ciudadano starts going up, he stuck in a short cadena hoping to thwart a further rise in ratings as people might think that it is all over for the evening. Chavismo mind works that simply. Last night the cadena blocked the expected apparition of Marcel Granier in Alo Ciduadano. That is OK, he is invited again tonight at 7 PM; announced loudly by Globovision, and we will see if at 7 we have yet another cadena. Maybe Chavez was just saving himself to shut up Granier once more.

So that is the only the pseudo-argument left for Chavez, silence the folks that are opposing him by using his power to enforce simultaneous broadcast. Or insulting his adversaries. He did today, with veiled words but his vice president had no such qualms. Jorge Rodriguez is on record today as saying that all those who oppose RCTV closing, those who support Granier and RCTV right to remain in the air are “cipayos”, that is, mercenaries. That is right, yours truly is now an official enemy of the regime, a mercenary working for the US and other obscure interests. That Rodriguez has no way to prove such words is immaterial, he is a bully and he uses the same power to abuse of his boss to silence any eventual opponent by disqualifying them from the start. The same and only strategy left to chavismo for a long time, a strategy that can be easily observed in the comment section of opposition blogs. These guys are one track mind ideologues.

What to do with the words of Rodriguez? Remind folks that a vice president that speaks like that could not have been possibly a fair umpire when he was directing the Venezuelan board old elections, CNE? Does that give me now the right to insult him by calling him, say, little shit? No point in wasting time on such an inferior human being, someone who has managed to go under the gutter, deep down into the sewer until at some point he will open the concentration camps where people like me will be dumped to rot. He is that type of individual, he is a killer.

So there you have today, in full splendor, chavismo intolerance, obtuseness, abuse, and what not. Two exquisite moments in a single post.

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1) a detailed explanation of what a cadena is can be found here.

2) "la vino tinto" is the national futbol/soccer team of Venezuela, for its burgundy like color. Note: Chavez is not a soccer fan, he is a baseball one. But to close RCTV, he will lower himself to recruit soccer.

-The end-

Those exquisite revolutionary moments: RCTV as the "me, my, mine" moment of the autocrat with the tearing apart of a country

The RCTV closing is now a 99.9% certainty. One always hope that at the end some common sense should prevail, but I, for one, have stopped doubting long ago that Chavez will go ahead and close RCTV next Sunday.

Rather than focus on the legalities, this might be a good moment to think about the real meaning and implications of the near fait accompli, if you forgive me a slight oxymoron.

The closing was never in doubt since the late December announcement by Chavez. Oh, yes, in the months that followed there was some hope that Chavez could not do it. But that was at best wishful thinking since no mechanism seemed to exist to stop such barbarism. And this starting with what should have been the main mechanism of resistance, the political opposition which was vacationing unconsciously all the way through the end of January.

The reality was that Chavez had decreed the closing of RCTV because it was his way to tell us that now he was the master of Venezuela. And that he was angry that we were not accepting it that easily, starting with some of his allies. At the root of all of this I am not afraid to point out to the dysfunctional character of Chavez who complains because he only got 63% last December. That angry “victory” press conference a few days after December 3 should have told everyone what they needed to know: 37% for the opposition was unacceptable and we were going to pay for it. One of the first natural targets had to be RCTV, the network with the highest ratings in Venezuela, and the one that had refused to stop criticizing the government in spite of all the regulations created to neuter television. Chavez simply could not accept that RCTV had been smart enough to find a way to keep pressing on, had found a way not to kneel in front of El Surpemo. Chavez had to show Venezuela was his, that he is the boss.

How can any one doubt it? Did Chavez not say all sorts of “me, my, mine” statements through these past 5 months? Did he not even say that the High Court would never go against a “sovereign” decision of the government (confirming by the way in his own mouth that he was above the courts)? These recent months have been the perfect stage for Chavez to show us that he was above the media, that he was above justice, that he was above international opinion, that he was above decency, ethics and morality. Chavez was going to go all the way through the closing of RCTV because he had to show once and for all that the was the authority in Venezuela, above elections and law.

But the price he will pay is phenomenal. I will pass quickly on the obvious such as the international condemnations raining on him. I can take today’s articles from Spain El Pais which dedicates a stinging editorial with an accompanying note. We can examine the US Senate resolution that might be taken unanimously today, a rather rare event for a cantankerous Senate mired in Iraq problems. Or we could look at the European Parliament resolution (which El Pais complains by the way that only 3 Spaniards participated in the vote). These condemnation started already, from places such as the Chilean Senate creating the first serious warning to Chavez (and weakening further Bachelet). But he went though, weathering a Brazilian minister criticism, a series of international organizations reproaches, and what not, including outright lies from his lackeys and ambassadors..

No, the real price Chavez will pay is in Venezuela. The damage that Chavez will bring on Venezuela next Sunday will be without repair, for him as well as for those who oppose him. As of next Sunday night we will have started on the road to violence and civil conflict again. It will not be helped, and I am certain now that this is what Chavez wants, as the only way he has left to reduce that 37% he cannot stand.

Because what is important in the RCTV closing is that for the first time Chavez “takes away”. Until now a lot of folks turned a blind eye on Chavez as long as they received some benefit. In a country where democracy was taken for granted, and where democracy was looked upon as rather ineffective to solve the country’s problems, that Chavez was a little bit authoritarian was OK as long as money seemed to flow down to the masses.

But the RCTV will change that perception. All of these folks, except, according to polls, the rabid 20% chavista core, are opposed to the RCTV closing because they know exactly what it means. For some it is the end in soap opera choice. There will be only the novelas of Venevision, and those for not too long as many chavistas have said for a long time that novelas should not be shown on TV anymore. For many it will be the end of dissenting information. In all the areas where Globovision does not reach there will be no more air borne information where governmental deficiencies are shown, where the local people can go and denounce governmental abuses or poor services. For others it will be the end of choice in trashy entertainment such as the silly TV games. That announces to them in a unique way the arrival of a puritanical aspect of the revolution that they never believed in.

Now, for the first time all Venezuelans will learn that there is a price to pay for everything and that the “gifts” from Chavez were not so. Cassandras from the newspapers to this modest blogger have said it all along, the Piper will come to cash his due. And the RCTV closing is only the first installment we will have to pay for shoddily supplied Mercal stores and free aspirin at Barrio Adentro. The time of choices is coming and a complaisant country will start realizing what the revolution really meant all along. The consequences are for all to figure out easily.

-The end-

Those exquisite revolutionary moments: media blitz at its worst

As the closing of RCTV nears, the Venezuelan government is not feeling so good about it. So, as it has been usual in such moment of crisis, cadenas start succeeding each other.

Cadenas are the forced simultaneous broadcast on ALL TV networks and ALL Radio stations of Venezuela, at the same time, for as long as the government wishes, for the government to say whatever it wants. There is no right to reply for anyone aggressed during such cadenas. That is, if Chavez decides to make a cadena to attack a Venezuelan political opinion, or propose a given policy without national consulting, the other side does not even get 1 minute of air time on the state TV VTV to refute the Chavez attacks. But Chavez could have spent 5 minutes or a full hour attacking the said political group on ALL broadcast waves of Venezuela simultaneously. Nobody is even allowed him to ask him a question, a precision. Nothing, he speaks as he wishes and no one can counter him except next day on newspaper, or maybe a given talk show of much more limited audience.

It is important to remind folks what a cadena is since sometimes, even after years of reporting on this greatest of media abuses, we still find some Chavez supporters coming to places such as this blog and pretend that they do not know about cadenas, or the extent of the abuse they represent. Amazing!

But back to this topic (all links in English for a change).

The thing for Chavez is that tonight he had some problems. First the US Senate foreign committee approved a resolution to be sent to the floor recommending a unanimity vote. That resolution, it is interesting to note for those supporters of Chavez that think Clinton or Obama are natural allies of Chavez, is supported by the said senators. That is, to make things absolutely clear Liberals such as Clinton or African Americans such as Obama are not buying Chavez line, at least when this one threatens freedom of expression. Of course Chavez cannot understand that because, well, in Venezuela I cannot say certain things about the president of the country, nor can I burn the Venezuelan flag in public. But I can do those things in the US. And to add insult to injury, along the expected Republican names we find Ted Kennedy signing but also Christopher Dodd who has been until now a strong Chavez supporter and now is the co-signer promoter of the bill with Richard Lugar. So much for the millions spent in propaganda in the US through the VIO.

But things did not get much better from Europe where the European parliament voted also such a resolution 2 to 1. Europe also is clear. But Europe being so democratic, that barely 10% of Euro deputies attended the session gives Chavez the opportunity to make lots of fun on Europe where only 10% bother attending. Granted, that 10% of the deputies constitute a working body of the European parliament in Strasbourg is rather embarrassing. But it is also an excellent sign of the democratic vocation of Europe where if such a vote where taken without the necessary clearings, one can be sure that an emergency session would be immediately convoked. Chavez can certainly laugh, but his own monochromatic parliament who surrendered its legislative power to him is infinitely mire pathetic than the EU parliament where its deputies have actually work to do reporting back to their countries of origin.

And to complete the scene, Chavez surely heard of Granier going to Globovision tonight to defend RCTV. Since the RCTV campaign is gaining momentum and polls are not favorable to Chavez on such an arbitrary measure, then the best strategy was to launch yet another cadena tonight, another one this week (after the CANTV launch of two days ago and I am sure other to come before RCTV is closed).

Tonight cadena is rather pathetic, in front of an audience full of red clad “students” sycophantically hoarding the Teresa Carreño, our national theater now the private domain of Chavez. The cadena has no reason to be held. There is no other event this week as important as CANTV going to the state or RCTV going off the air. So Chavez uses some minor event about some “independent“ universities measures to call for a cadena and start attacking the US senate, the European parliament, Marcel Granier and rant, and rant on endless useless subjects. For example, why must we have a cadena to hear about Chavez brother, Adam, girl friends when he was young? Is Adam’s past sexual life a national matter? Must ALL the country be forced to listen to such a trivial topic? And then, after making mockery of real democratic values that Chavez is so busily destructing at home, he starts perorating on PDVSA and what not, including Castro. On occasion though, he comes back to the students, but to tell them to go out against the Venezuelan oligarchy which is “fighting like snakes” in a pit.

Will Granier have the right to reply on VTV? Will Christopher Dodd be allowed to explain on VTV why he decided to sponsor a US Senate resolution? Will the Europe deputies be able to explain why in Europe the closing of RCTV is so odious? Will a historian be allowed to correct the fantastic ideas of Chavez on Latin American independence? No, no cadena except for Chavez.

That is what await us once RCTV is closed. More cadenas, more Chavez on the air, less and less different views until there is no dissent on the air. What awaits us is the ultimate privatization of the media in a country, all at the service of the interests of a single man, Hugo Chavez, the sole owner of Venezuela.

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PS: the cadena is not over and I am done with this post, with dinner, with listening to bits an pieces, expecting that in a few minutes Chavez might announce the end of university autonomy, another long cherished dream of his in addition of closing private media. We'll see. But what I saw tonight is that Chavez does not even know where Strasbourg is. On live TV, reprimanding his staff fro not giving him the right information! But who cares, as of today maybe in all Venezuelan geography books Strasbourg will be erased from French maps or, who knows, perhaps placed ambiguously on the Rhine border. Weirder things have been seen in this glorious bolivarian involution.

-The end-

Those exquisite revolutionary moments: populism at its vilest

The other night Chavez was giving us a 20% rebate on our phone bills. That is right, after wasting millions and millions of dollars in the totally unnecessary purchase of a fairly well functioning telecom business, he knows tells us that thanks to this purchase he will drop our phone bills by 20%.

Let’s do the math.

Chavez bought CANTV for 1,600 million USD (I am rounding numbers).

There are now 28 million in Venezuela.

That is, in our name Chavez spent 57 USD per capita.

My phone bill is roughly 75 USD a month (35USD at the street market of the Bolivar).

20% are either 15 or 7 USD depending which Bolivar value you think is the real value (and assuming that I will get 20% across all the services I subscribe, which remains to be seen).

So it will take 4 months or 8 months for me to “recover” the money Chavez took away from me.

You think that it might be a good deal. But, what do I get from that transaction? What if inflation is 20% by the time I recover “my forced investment” in CANTV? How Chavez will maintain the service of a company which obviously now will not make enough money to maintain its functions considering inflation and transition costs as all the non revolutionary employees will be slowly but surely forced out to be replaced with political appointees, secure in their jobs and totally oblivious to the notion of public service?

Now let’s do THE REAL MATH. Let’s calculate these numbers based on the total numbers of subscribers.

If we include ALL services of CANTV we have roughly 12 million subscribers. So, in other words, the 4 to 8 months to “recover” my investment will be, at the very least, doubled and will definitely be eaten whole by the inflation during that period. 28 million people is more than double of 12 million subscribers, no?

But you know what? I do not care because as soon as possible I will have switched all my services to either Movistar or Digitel. I do not care if I pay twice as much as in CANTV, because in a few moths I know I will get twice as much service. Also, chavismo will not be able to eavesdrop as easily in my communications if it ever wants to do so. Or does anyone think for a second that Jacqueline Faria or Soccorro Hernandez will bar the DISIP or other Chavez agencies from putting all the snoop devices that they want to install without any court order? I mean, until when for Faria to deny phone services because your name appears in the Tascon list? After all, she used said list in her previous positions.

No, no, no… Chavez, listen good. If you thought for a second that in your cadena where you “granted” us a phone bill deduction as if CANTV was for you to play with as you wished, that you were going to buy me, you are wrong. Even the lower classes will not be much affected by your pseudo generous gift. Long ago they have moved away from your primitive, retrograde and even reactionary ideas on how telecommunications should work in the XXI century, socialist or not. They do not want a CANTV company to subsidize a land line that they have no use for when for less than 10 USD a months they can have a cell phone that they can carry wherever they want to, a cell phone that could save their life in the barrio someday when they are trapped in some corner by some gang. They know that in the barrio any land line installation will not work because the cables would be regularly stolen, because service will have a hard time to reach them for repairs, where service trucks will have to go under police or army escort if they do not want to get their tools and wallets ripped off as they work.

And you think that by discounting 2 or 3 USD per month on their phone bill you will buy the lower classes? Hear me: what they want is meat on the shelves, is a real job to be able to pay for it and security in the streets and barrios so they can go to buy the food they like. And they want to digest their evening meal in front of their favorite novella, not the one of Venevision because there is no other novela to watch. That is what they want, not a ridiculous discount of a few bucks.

So, your condescending populism of two nights ago, one of the vilest avatar that you have given us so far, is not going to make us forget that we need to go to several stores to find all what we need, is not going to make us forget that our lives are in danger whenever we go shopping or to the bank, is not going to make us forget that 20% official inflation is eating our incomes, is not going to make us forget about the closing of RCTV.

Please, Hugo, stop insulting our intelligence by giving us alms. Such populism is indecent, humiliating, and even more so when accompanied with your grimacing of self satisfaction and the sycophantic chants of your silly paid for supporters. Never as this week have you shown us how much you despise the Venezuelan people. Do you despise them so much because you think they were stupid enough to believe your rhetoric?

-The end-

Maria Anastasia O'Grady on Venezuela food shortages

As I have said often enough, Ms. O'grady is the foreign journalists that "gets" Venezuela and chavismo the best. On occasion she might miss some critical piece of data, or exaggerate some, but I will forgive her almost anything because she GETS IT, she gets what is really going on in Venezuela. Her recent article (subscriber only, but readers send me such stuff, thanks Al.Ma.) posted below in full, will explain better than anyone has done why is it that at my Central Maderiense I cannot find some of the regular food items that I took for granted a year ago.

But before you read the whole piece, I want to highlight this particular sentence, something that warms my heart to read from a foreign correspondent, something that Miguel or me have been saying for a long time but which was ignored as perhaps too unbelievable (maybe O'Grady reads certain blogs?).

Venezuelan policy makers can't be this dumb. The intention is not to feed the country but to destroy the private sector and any political power it might still have. In this environment survival independent of good relations with Mr. Chavez is nearly impossible.

¡Mas claro no canta un gallo!

(Spanish translation here, hat tip Klaus; full original below after you click)

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A Circus But No Bread
By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY
May 21, 2007;


"The characteristic feature of the market price is that it tends to equalize supply and demand."

--Ludwig von Mises, "Human Action," 1949

The Venezuelan government will seize control of Radio Caracas Television on Sunday, finally making good on a threat to silence one of the country's most important independent news sources. It is no coincidence that this is happening at a time when Venezuelans are suffering a shortage of key foodstuffs.

Free-speech protections in Venezuela have been steadily eroding for the past eight years, and most other television stations already practice self-censorship. With the expropriation of RCTV, there is only one other independent voice -- Globovision -- left standing. This assault on free speech has even provoked criticism by the Organization of American States, which has been silent about President Hugo Chávez's many other offenses against democracy.

Having built his claim to legitimacy on the spurious assertion that he presides over a democracy, you can bet that Mr. Chavez would not have gone after RCTV unless he deemed control of TV news vital to his survival. It may indeed be. The reason is because the economy has been so mismanaged that a crisis now appears unavoidable. How it will end, in rationing and hunger or hyperinflationary madness, is hard to say. But when the whole thing comes a cropper, the last thing the president will want is TV images of popular protests that could be contagious.

From the earliest days of his presidency, Mr. Chavez made it clear that he intended to vastly expand the state's economic power. In 2000 he started politicizing the state-owned oil company PdVSA and hollowing out its professional engineering and marketing staffs. Shortly thereafter he took to expropriating farms, factories and apartments. When Venezuelan money began to flee, he slapped on capital controls. More recently, he has forced international oil companies to hand over Venezuelan operations and surrender majority control. He has nationalized the largest telephone company and the most important electricity utility. He is now threatening to take over the banks.

As government takings always do, these assaults on property rights have badly damaged output and investment. Yet the harm has been greatly compounded by three other pernicious policies: price controls, profligate government spending and inflation of the national currency, the bolivar.

Here's how Chavez economics "works." As petro-dollars pour into state coffers, the government takes them to the central bank to get new bolivars printed, which are then pumped into the economy through government spending. Mr. Chavez has also been regularly increasing wages. The result is a consumption boom. Under free prices, too many bolivars chasing too few goods would produce inflation that would show up at the supermarket checkout counter. But price controls make that impossible. Instead, serious shortages are emerging.

Free prices are to an economy what microchips are to a computer. They carry information. As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises explained in his legendary treatise 60 years ago, it is free prices that ensure that supply will meet demand. When Mr. Chávez imposed price controls, he destroyed the price mechanism.

And so it is that the Venezuelan egg is now a delicacy, the chicken an endangered species, toilet paper a luxury and meat an extravagance. White cheese, milk, tuna, sardines, sugar, corn oil, sunflower oil, carbonated drinks, beans, flour and rice are also in short supply.

The reason is simple: Producers have no incentive to bring goods to market if they are forced to sell them at unprofitable prices. Ranchers hold back their animals from slaughter, fisherman don't cast their nets, food processors don't invest in equipment and farmers don't plant. Those who do produce find it makes more sense to take their goods across the border to Colombia or to seek out unregulated (black) markets.

Importers also have little incentive to work these days even though the country needs food from abroad. Some things like wheat are not grown in Venezuela. Other products like milk, sugar and potatoes are imported to supplement local supplies. But the Chávez government has made it difficult to buy a dollar at the official exchange rate of 2,150 bolivars and if an importer has to buy dollars at the market rate of 4,000 bolivars it is impossible to make a profit under price controls. Even imports not subject to price controls can be difficult to find since import permits and licenses, as well as dollars, are hard to come by.

This is putting a crimp in more than just the food supply. According to local press reports, some 40% of the country's air fleet has been affected by delays in getting spare parts and the automotive industry's supply chain is hampered by a lack of access to dollars. Earlier this year hospitals began complaining that the servicing of medical equipment has been delayed because spare parts are not available. Hospitals are also reporting shortages of medicines for diabetics, antibiotics and hypertension drugs. Price controls on construction materials have damaged the reliability of supply.

To stock the state-owned grocery stores called Mercal, the Chavez government goes shopping abroad with dollar reserves. Of course, Mercal shelves are often bare as well. Moreover, some enterprising government employees seemed to have learned something about market economics: The Venezuelan media is reporting that Mercal supplies are turning up for sale just across the Colombian border, where market prices prevail.

Venezuelan policy makers can't be this dumb. The intention is not to feed the country but to destroy the private sector and any political power it might still have. In this environment survival independent of good relations with Mr. Chavez is nearly impossible. In the revolutionary handbook, capitalist producers and importers who buy things from the imperialists will be replaced by socialists living on cooperatives that will feed the country. The only trouble is that that effort is not going well, as Jose de Cordoba reported on the Journal's front page on Thursday. Lack of knowledge, equipment, incentives and organization have left the co-ops "mostly a bust so far."

To end the shortages all Mr. Chavez would have to do is lift the price controls. But with inflation already running above 20%, he no doubt fears the price jump that would follow. Much safer to seize RCTV and accelerate the consolidation of the military dictatorship. When the crisis comes, the chavistas will be ready.


-The end-