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Venezuela does not need a battle royal to decide what is right and what is wrong
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=18125
VHeadline.com editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: Let it be known that I often despair of ever being able to give an accurate description of the temporary insanities that have consumed Venezuela and Venezuelans at this time. I say temporary because I do believe there is redemption at the end of the comic tragedy although it is not yet, by any means, in sight.
Friends in the administration and friends in the opposition are consumed with a high level of paranoid schizophrenia that belies the real human identities of previously well-balanced and rational Venezuelans who are today viewing this multi-colored world in irrational shades of black or white where gray simply does not exist. This is Venezuela's current misfortune.
The natural question is to ask why? But the blame game is a useless art considering the chasm that divides alternate sides in what is essentially a domestic debate; or would be if Washington D.C. a.k.a. Charles S. Shapiro didn't keep sticking his nose in where it definitely needs to be amputated.
Without taking into account what Venezuela was before Chavez Frias erupted on the scene, is to condemn Venezuela as just another hick Latino wilderness where corruption blossoms and poverty is rife in a NIMBY relationship with the wealthy North. Let's face it, the United States wouldn't give a damn about what happened in Venezuela if it were not for their addiction to oil and Colombian cocaine.
The fact that Venezuela glitters with perhaps the world's most attractive deposits of gold, emeralds, iron, bauxite and more is part of this nation's history albeit they are resources that are increasingly attractive to international investments as other sources dwindle.
Yes, a very small minority of North Americans give more than a hoot about environmental damage to the Amazonian rainforest, the plight of native indians and the Venezuelan nation's incredibly poor, but the vast majority of Americans and Canadians and the rest are more concerned with their own life patterns to give more than a passing Discovery Channel hoot about it.
What's happening in Venezuela is not atypical of what's happening anywhere else around the world anyway … politicians will be politicians and businessmen will be businessmen while the ordinary Joe Bloggs or Jose Garcia must simply get on with it and seek to survive.
Venezuela's current troubles did not start on February 4th, 1999 … it would be an over-simplification to even attempt to claim they did. What happened then was that a new, more youthful President took over from octogenarian Rafael Caldera whose mandate as President might easily have had some potence first time around, but in the aftermath of Carlos Andres Perez' impeachment and conviction on corruption charges in 1993, was more that of trying unsuccessfully to reign over the fall of the Roman Empire as Banco Latino and almost a score of other commercial banks went to the wall in a US$11 million freefall without counting the pillaging of CAP's and Lusinchi's administrations that had preceded the crash. The RJV administration being but an ugly parenthesis to the whole.
Already then, VHeadline.com (in its infancy) had railed against economic apologies for policies foisted on the nation by Luis Raul Matos Azocar. Very much endangering our own freedom to report, we questioned LRMA's wholesale borrowing on 10-, 15-, 20- repayment schedules, commenting then that it was nothing more than attempting to plug the hole in the wall of the dyke by postponing the inevitable flood of debt-repayments onto future generations and Presidential mandates … all of which happened!
The problem is that if one now seeks to explain current financial problems in Venezuela by outlining the malfeasances of previous administrations, it is immediately seized upon by myopic political party partisans as at attack on the current opposition which, admittedly, was largely to blame for the Punto Fijo corruption that have permeated Venezuelan politics over the last forty-odd years.
That Chavez Frias upset many applecarts is more than abundantly clear; and when newly-elected officials suddenly discovered that winds of change were blowing through the Venezuelan political system and that they could not enjoy the perks and privileges of former years … well, of course, that was the inevitable grow-ground for angry opposition and all sorts of filibustering attempts to delay the inevitable rout of their personal ambitions.
The fact that Chavez Frias was elected by a majority of the electorate in 1998 and then again in 2000 should have been sufficient for the opposition to accept the democratic will of the people and quietly bide their time for another opportunity at the ballot box, but the new Constitution (ratified in a national referendum in December 1999) uniquely allowed for an elected official (including the President) to be subjected to recall by referendum provided a series of preconditions were fulfilled. Well and good!
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Venezuela has for decades been rife with impunity; old habits die hard and it was perhaps to be expected that certain sectors should forge ahead with their own ideas of a democratic solution without regard for any rules and/or regulations; and then get extremely agitated when their best laid plans were thwarted every bit as succinctly as they themselves had sought to thwart the elected government's every move.
A stalemate? No! A coup d'etat and national labor stoppage had not achieved the required result of an immediate destitution of much-hated Hugo Chavez Frias and so it was back to the boards with gerrymandering under the not-so-watchful eye of international observers who could, patently, not see anything wrong in certain aspects of a process by which opposition rebels sought to garner enough signatures to launch an official referendum.
Aside from the fact that Venezuelan identity cards are generally forged (estimates are that as many as 75% are fraudulent) and that Venezuelan passports do not often stand up to what is normally accepted as scrutiny, it was a foregone conclusion that the leopard had not changed its spots when the opposition began its signature drive last November. Had, indeed, they been as quick to pick holes in their own systematic failures as they have been at picking holes in the government's, perhaps the nation would have been spared the agony of the last 5-6 months indecisiveness. Clearly the National Elections Council (CNE) has found insufficient verified signatures to allow a revocatory referendum to go ahead; and uniquely again, they have begun a process whereby those whose signatures are in dispute may double-check and verify them in person at more than 2,700 "repair" centers across the country in a 5-day process next month. Clearly, also, if there are enough signatures repaired to add to those already verified, the referendum can and must indeed go forward.
Yet all we hear, day in, day out, is bleating from the one side or the other about political manipulations being brought to bear in the CNE or at the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) and elsewhere. Although the political composition of the various authorities is already out in the open and well-known, the fact remains that individual officers of the CNE and the various chambers of the TSJ are sworn to uphold what is right, irrespective of political persuasion … and therein lies the rub!
Venezuelan institutions, today, are political minefields where those in favor of good governance find themselves torn hither and thither, but always further away from the institutional ideal of political neutrality. It is said that the Electoral Chamber of the TSJ is heavily biased in favor of the opposition and that the Constitutional Chamber is heavily biased in favor of President Hugo Chavez Frias … but why should they not be simply biased in favor of what is right, irrespective of political inclinations … that's where Venezuela's awful reality smashes in with the full weight of building site's demolition ball!
Any pretense of unbiased governance is thrown to the winds and it now looks like the only way to achieve some semblance of a lack of bias is in the convening of the full assembly of TSJ magistrates where the political balance is more or less 50/50. What will that noble body succeed to do? It must first sort out the twist between the Electoral and Constitutional Chambers … and then?
Happily, events may overtake any decision the TSJ decided eventually to hand down since once the "repair" process has been completed, the true number of signatures should be known and the direction of any revocatory referendum decided for a definitive date at the ballot box.
But will it end there?
VHeadline.com commentarist Elio Cequea believes that there will only be a violent solution to the current crisis and perhaps in my wildest dreams I hope it will not turn out that way.
Venezuela does not need a battle royal to decide what is right and what is wrong … it needs to find a pathway where those who seek to do the best job they can for their country and their countrymen can and should be able to rely on the support and assistance of any other true-blooded Venezuelan whose ambitions lie not in what their country can do to feather their private nests but to see what they can achieve for their fellow men and women and the future that Venezuela must strive to attain.
www.vheadline.com/yaremi_rivero.asp VHeadline.com remains 100% independent of all political factions in Venezuela — our aim is to report what's happening without submitting to lawlessness
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VHeadline.com Venezuela is a wholly independent e-publication promoting democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference. We seek to shed light on nefarious practices and the corruption which for decades has strangled this South American nation's development and progress. Our declared editorial bias is most definitely pro-Constitutional, pro-Democracy and pro-VENEZUELA. — Roy S. Carson, Editor/Publisher <mailto:Editor@VHeadline.com
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