Larissa
2nd January 2003, 05:47
I got this message from a translators' professional forum and it was posted by a colleague who lives in Venezuela. I am pasting it here because it gives a close look to what's going on in Venezuela in a Venezuelan's own words.
"Hello everybody.
This is the first time I participate in a discussion here; the reason for this is that this activity is much time-consuming for me, in no case due to lack of interest.
I have dared to participate today because I would like to give you, my colleagues, my humble opinion about some facts of the current crisis in my country:
THE MEDIA
There are five (5) private TV stations in Venezuela with a variety+news programming [RCTV, channel 2; Venevisión, channel 4; Televen, channel 10;
CMT, channel 51], and one (1) only-news station [Globovisión, channel 33].
VTV, channel 8 is the state-owned TV station; its technical and personnel resources are very limited, its programming is variety+news; they present
the positive side of the government and normally express its point of view.
According to the opinion of the private media’s owners, stated by Marcel Granier, speaker and shareholder of RCTV, only one per cent (1%) of the tv-audience watches VTV.
During the so-called “paro cívico”, instead of their normal programming, they have broadcasted exclusively news against the government and its supporters, and instead of their commercial advertisements (which are many indeed), they have broadcasted only political propaganda in favor of the opposition.
El Nacional and El Universal are the two biggest *newspapers in the country, with nationwide circulation, as well as abroad. Their position has been very
similar to that of the TV stations.
According to Granier’s opinion, the adoption of this position by the media “has been a necessary measure because the opposition had no way or opportunity to express its opinions” (!!!!).
ONE LIE, out of many: On a Friday evening some weeks ago, several persons out of the civilians who support and accompany the military at Plaza Altamira were murdered. Immediately and without any proof, the military and the Coordinadora Democrática declared that the murderer was under Chávez orders; four (4) hours later, Globovisión broadcasted an editorial where the confessed murderer, a Venezuelan citizen of Portuguese origin named Gouveia, appeared in a demonstration in favor of Chávez, by the side of Freddy
Bernal, the mayor of Libertador Municipality (the western side of the city), who is one of Chávez’ men; they also said that Gouveia was a neighbour and
close friend of Diosdado Cabello, the Minister of Justice. The demonstration took place on Wednesday, about 44 hours BEFORE the assassination.
Globovisión demanded an immediate explanation of the government. A few days later, police investigations proved that neither Bernal nor Cabello knew Gouveia, who had arrived in Venezuela the Thursday before the murders, some 14 hours AFTER his alleged participation in the demonstration, according to Globovisión. Globovisión gave no explanation of these facts.
COORDINADORA DEMOCRÁTICA
A very mixed coalition that comprises all the opposition against Chávez, and ranges from the ultra-leftist Maoist mini-party Bandera Roja to the right wing represented by Fedecámaras (Federation of Chambers of *Commerce), CTV (Confederation of Workers Unions) and “Gente de Petróleo” (PDVSA managers in strike), passing through Acción Democrática and Copei (the two parties who governed the country since 1958 until 1998), and the new parties (Proyecto Venezuela, Primero Justicia, Bravo Pueblo) that have appeared during the last three years as offspring of these two big parties.
PDVSA, THE VENEZUELAN CONSTITUTION
PDVSA is the state-owned oil company, one of the biggest in the world, incorporated in 1976 by the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez (Acción Democrática) through the nationalization of foreign concessionaires.
The aim of nationalization was to convert the nation in the owner of its petroleum and to use the resources produced by the oil industry to improve the health, education and living standards of the population, and in
general, for the integral development of the country.
Twenty-six years later, the results are not very good, to say the least:
According to what has been disclosed in December (PDVSA has always been a mystery for the average citizen in Venezuela), we have the following
figures:
* Operational Costs: 1976 = 17% of incomes; 2000 = 67% of incomes;
* Contribution to the Country’s Finances: 1976 = 80% of incomes; 2000 = 20% of incomes;
* Percentage of Profits retained by PDVSA for itself: 1976 = 20% of incomes;
2000 = 80% of incomes;
* Employees’ Performance: profits produced by employee by year, compared to that of foreign oil companies: PDVSA: $770,000/ employee/year; foreign oil
companies: abut $1,400,000/ employee/year, as average;
* Ownership structure: All shares of PDVSA belong to the Republic; Gente de Petróleo says that the company should privatized, which is expressly prohibited by the 1999 Constitution [what a coincidence: the first measure
taken by the government of Pedro Carmona “the Brief” was to derogate the Constitution and to dissolve the Congress];
Results at December 31, 2002: According to Alí Rodríguez, PDVSA President, the company has lost 2 Billion Dollars during the “paro”, and, which is
worst, has lost its reputation as a secure and reliable oil supplier; in addition, Siderúrgica del Orinoco, the state-owned steel company, has suffered comparable losses due to shortages in the gas supply caused by sabotage. As a result, the country will begin the year 2003 with a deficit of 870 Billion Bolivars (about 622 Million Dollars). The Coordinadora Democrática and Gente de Petróleo say that this is a great victory for their goals of liberty and democracy.
Salaries: The salary of Juan Fernández (the Gente de Petróleo’s leader, speaker of the Coordinadora Democrática) is said to be Bs. 960 million ($690,000) per annum; this equals 800 times the legal minimum salary in Venezuela, and 80 times the President of the Republic’s salary.
CHÁVEZ
According to the Coordinadora Democrática, he is a ferocious dictator; however:
1 – Until last year, the opposition complained that Chávez could not govern due to so many elections: seven (7) in three (3) years, all of which won by
Chávez and/or his supporters;
2 – The 1958-1998 period was ruled by Acción Democrática (Social Democrat party) and Copei (Christian Democrat party), both members of the
Coordinadora Democrática); all and every of those administrations were formally democratic. However, the Copei government closed the Central University of Venezuela for years; they all censored the press, closed radio and TV stations, newspapers and magazines, prohibited books, films, songs and singers; had political prisoners (many of them were assassinated in
prison, e.g.: Alberto Lovera and Jorge Rodríguez), any liberal person may be accused of communist, and as a result, may be arrested without judicial order (many “disappeared” after being arrested); demonstrations against the government were repressed with firearms, and they “normally” ended with some demonstrators dead. Nothing of this kind has happened during the Chávez administration. But Chávez is a tyrant and they are the champions of liberty
and democracy.
THE SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE (TSJ)
The Coordinadora Democrática says that all members of the TSJ are Chávez’ puppets; however:
In April, the TSJ adjudged that there had not been any coup, that what occurred was a “power vacuousness” (“vacío de poder”, a legal concept that did not exist before April 2002). Therefore, no crime had been committed and there was no cause or reason to prosecute the military who overthrew Chavez
and installed Carmona in the Presidency.
After that, the military settled at Plaza Altamira [a square at the east of Caracas, in a (high) middle class neighborhood], and declared that they were
in “lawful and legitimate disobedience”: they do not recognize Chavez’ as the legitimate President of Venezuela; they are still there.
The Coordinadora Democrática was very pleased with this decision of the TSJ, praised the judges and said: “justice has been made”.
CHÁVEZ’ SUPPORTERS
According to an editorial of El Nacional published some weeks ago, and repeated by a lot of people in the opposition, Chávez’ supporters are the
“lumpenproletariat” (these people hate communists, but like their language), “huelepegas” (people who drug themselves smelling glue, a method used by
poorest drug addicts), who are provided with Bs. 50,000 (some $37), food and alcohol for them to attend to demonstrations in favor of Chávez.
I can answer only for my family, my friends and myself:
We (my family and I) belong to the low-middle class; my elder son and I are translators; my wife is a teacher and lawyer; my wife and my son are evangelical Christians; I am a non-practising believer, baptized under the Catholic rituals. All of us are abstemious and non-smokers; none of us belongs to any political party.
We have been in a couple of demonstrations in favor of Chávez, including that of April 13, when Chávez recovered the power, but only because we believe that this government represents a real possibility to carry out the changes needed by our country; we have received nothing in exchange and we don’t know of anyone who has received any payment for going to
demonstrations.
THE ROLE OF THE USA
I have found an illustrative speech on the Web regarding the Bush administration’s role in what the Coordinadora Democrática euphemistically calls “the April events”:
An abstract:
“Among the reasons that I began with the attempted coup in Venezuela two weeks ago is that the coup was planned with help from Oliver North’s old friends. George Bush Jr. has not only recycled to the highest positions in his government the hard-core hawks of his father's administration -- people like Dick Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld -- but he has reached back to the
Reagan era and reemployed North’s fellow terrorists of the 1980s to once again run Latin American foreign policy.
(…) two internationally respected British papers, The Guardian and The Observer, have demonstrated the close ties of the Venezuelan coup leaders to senior Bush officials. Elliot Abrams, who was convicted along with Oliver North for misleading Congress about Reagan’s infamous Iran-Contra arms deal,
has been revived as a foreign policy insider. He gave the nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup. Officials at the OAS, the Organization of American States, told The Observer that the US administration was not only
aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success.”
The complete speech:
http://www.dailypost.com/~sdpjc/north.html
TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN PATIENT enough to read up to here: MANY THANKS.
FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED in information other than the opposition’s propaganda published by the media: you may visit the following sites:
Venezuela en Positivo:
http://www.rctv.net/observador/venezuelapo...verese%F1a1.asp (http://www.rctv.net/observador/venezuelapositivo/breverese%F1a1.asp)
Clase Media en Positivo:
http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/reina...da/poliedro.asp (http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/reinaldo_quijada/poliedro.asp)
Asamblea Popular Revolucionaria: http://www.aporrea.org/english.php
PARA TODOS: FELIZ Y PRÓSPERO AÑO 2003.
Manuel Cedeño Berrueta
Legal Translator
Caracas, Venezuela
[email protected]
[email protected]
"Hello everybody.
This is the first time I participate in a discussion here; the reason for this is that this activity is much time-consuming for me, in no case due to lack of interest.
I have dared to participate today because I would like to give you, my colleagues, my humble opinion about some facts of the current crisis in my country:
THE MEDIA
There are five (5) private TV stations in Venezuela with a variety+news programming [RCTV, channel 2; Venevisión, channel 4; Televen, channel 10;
CMT, channel 51], and one (1) only-news station [Globovisión, channel 33].
VTV, channel 8 is the state-owned TV station; its technical and personnel resources are very limited, its programming is variety+news; they present
the positive side of the government and normally express its point of view.
According to the opinion of the private media’s owners, stated by Marcel Granier, speaker and shareholder of RCTV, only one per cent (1%) of the tv-audience watches VTV.
During the so-called “paro cívico”, instead of their normal programming, they have broadcasted exclusively news against the government and its supporters, and instead of their commercial advertisements (which are many indeed), they have broadcasted only political propaganda in favor of the opposition.
El Nacional and El Universal are the two biggest *newspapers in the country, with nationwide circulation, as well as abroad. Their position has been very
similar to that of the TV stations.
According to Granier’s opinion, the adoption of this position by the media “has been a necessary measure because the opposition had no way or opportunity to express its opinions” (!!!!).
ONE LIE, out of many: On a Friday evening some weeks ago, several persons out of the civilians who support and accompany the military at Plaza Altamira were murdered. Immediately and without any proof, the military and the Coordinadora Democrática declared that the murderer was under Chávez orders; four (4) hours later, Globovisión broadcasted an editorial where the confessed murderer, a Venezuelan citizen of Portuguese origin named Gouveia, appeared in a demonstration in favor of Chávez, by the side of Freddy
Bernal, the mayor of Libertador Municipality (the western side of the city), who is one of Chávez’ men; they also said that Gouveia was a neighbour and
close friend of Diosdado Cabello, the Minister of Justice. The demonstration took place on Wednesday, about 44 hours BEFORE the assassination.
Globovisión demanded an immediate explanation of the government. A few days later, police investigations proved that neither Bernal nor Cabello knew Gouveia, who had arrived in Venezuela the Thursday before the murders, some 14 hours AFTER his alleged participation in the demonstration, according to Globovisión. Globovisión gave no explanation of these facts.
COORDINADORA DEMOCRÁTICA
A very mixed coalition that comprises all the opposition against Chávez, and ranges from the ultra-leftist Maoist mini-party Bandera Roja to the right wing represented by Fedecámaras (Federation of Chambers of *Commerce), CTV (Confederation of Workers Unions) and “Gente de Petróleo” (PDVSA managers in strike), passing through Acción Democrática and Copei (the two parties who governed the country since 1958 until 1998), and the new parties (Proyecto Venezuela, Primero Justicia, Bravo Pueblo) that have appeared during the last three years as offspring of these two big parties.
PDVSA, THE VENEZUELAN CONSTITUTION
PDVSA is the state-owned oil company, one of the biggest in the world, incorporated in 1976 by the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez (Acción Democrática) through the nationalization of foreign concessionaires.
The aim of nationalization was to convert the nation in the owner of its petroleum and to use the resources produced by the oil industry to improve the health, education and living standards of the population, and in
general, for the integral development of the country.
Twenty-six years later, the results are not very good, to say the least:
According to what has been disclosed in December (PDVSA has always been a mystery for the average citizen in Venezuela), we have the following
figures:
* Operational Costs: 1976 = 17% of incomes; 2000 = 67% of incomes;
* Contribution to the Country’s Finances: 1976 = 80% of incomes; 2000 = 20% of incomes;
* Percentage of Profits retained by PDVSA for itself: 1976 = 20% of incomes;
2000 = 80% of incomes;
* Employees’ Performance: profits produced by employee by year, compared to that of foreign oil companies: PDVSA: $770,000/ employee/year; foreign oil
companies: abut $1,400,000/ employee/year, as average;
* Ownership structure: All shares of PDVSA belong to the Republic; Gente de Petróleo says that the company should privatized, which is expressly prohibited by the 1999 Constitution [what a coincidence: the first measure
taken by the government of Pedro Carmona “the Brief” was to derogate the Constitution and to dissolve the Congress];
Results at December 31, 2002: According to Alí Rodríguez, PDVSA President, the company has lost 2 Billion Dollars during the “paro”, and, which is
worst, has lost its reputation as a secure and reliable oil supplier; in addition, Siderúrgica del Orinoco, the state-owned steel company, has suffered comparable losses due to shortages in the gas supply caused by sabotage. As a result, the country will begin the year 2003 with a deficit of 870 Billion Bolivars (about 622 Million Dollars). The Coordinadora Democrática and Gente de Petróleo say that this is a great victory for their goals of liberty and democracy.
Salaries: The salary of Juan Fernández (the Gente de Petróleo’s leader, speaker of the Coordinadora Democrática) is said to be Bs. 960 million ($690,000) per annum; this equals 800 times the legal minimum salary in Venezuela, and 80 times the President of the Republic’s salary.
CHÁVEZ
According to the Coordinadora Democrática, he is a ferocious dictator; however:
1 – Until last year, the opposition complained that Chávez could not govern due to so many elections: seven (7) in three (3) years, all of which won by
Chávez and/or his supporters;
2 – The 1958-1998 period was ruled by Acción Democrática (Social Democrat party) and Copei (Christian Democrat party), both members of the
Coordinadora Democrática); all and every of those administrations were formally democratic. However, the Copei government closed the Central University of Venezuela for years; they all censored the press, closed radio and TV stations, newspapers and magazines, prohibited books, films, songs and singers; had political prisoners (many of them were assassinated in
prison, e.g.: Alberto Lovera and Jorge Rodríguez), any liberal person may be accused of communist, and as a result, may be arrested without judicial order (many “disappeared” after being arrested); demonstrations against the government were repressed with firearms, and they “normally” ended with some demonstrators dead. Nothing of this kind has happened during the Chávez administration. But Chávez is a tyrant and they are the champions of liberty
and democracy.
THE SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE (TSJ)
The Coordinadora Democrática says that all members of the TSJ are Chávez’ puppets; however:
In April, the TSJ adjudged that there had not been any coup, that what occurred was a “power vacuousness” (“vacío de poder”, a legal concept that did not exist before April 2002). Therefore, no crime had been committed and there was no cause or reason to prosecute the military who overthrew Chavez
and installed Carmona in the Presidency.
After that, the military settled at Plaza Altamira [a square at the east of Caracas, in a (high) middle class neighborhood], and declared that they were
in “lawful and legitimate disobedience”: they do not recognize Chavez’ as the legitimate President of Venezuela; they are still there.
The Coordinadora Democrática was very pleased with this decision of the TSJ, praised the judges and said: “justice has been made”.
CHÁVEZ’ SUPPORTERS
According to an editorial of El Nacional published some weeks ago, and repeated by a lot of people in the opposition, Chávez’ supporters are the
“lumpenproletariat” (these people hate communists, but like their language), “huelepegas” (people who drug themselves smelling glue, a method used by
poorest drug addicts), who are provided with Bs. 50,000 (some $37), food and alcohol for them to attend to demonstrations in favor of Chávez.
I can answer only for my family, my friends and myself:
We (my family and I) belong to the low-middle class; my elder son and I are translators; my wife is a teacher and lawyer; my wife and my son are evangelical Christians; I am a non-practising believer, baptized under the Catholic rituals. All of us are abstemious and non-smokers; none of us belongs to any political party.
We have been in a couple of demonstrations in favor of Chávez, including that of April 13, when Chávez recovered the power, but only because we believe that this government represents a real possibility to carry out the changes needed by our country; we have received nothing in exchange and we don’t know of anyone who has received any payment for going to
demonstrations.
THE ROLE OF THE USA
I have found an illustrative speech on the Web regarding the Bush administration’s role in what the Coordinadora Democrática euphemistically calls “the April events”:
An abstract:
“Among the reasons that I began with the attempted coup in Venezuela two weeks ago is that the coup was planned with help from Oliver North’s old friends. George Bush Jr. has not only recycled to the highest positions in his government the hard-core hawks of his father's administration -- people like Dick Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld -- but he has reached back to the
Reagan era and reemployed North’s fellow terrorists of the 1980s to once again run Latin American foreign policy.
(…) two internationally respected British papers, The Guardian and The Observer, have demonstrated the close ties of the Venezuelan coup leaders to senior Bush officials. Elliot Abrams, who was convicted along with Oliver North for misleading Congress about Reagan’s infamous Iran-Contra arms deal,
has been revived as a foreign policy insider. He gave the nod to the attempted Venezuelan coup. Officials at the OAS, the Organization of American States, told The Observer that the US administration was not only
aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success.”
The complete speech:
http://www.dailypost.com/~sdpjc/north.html
TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN PATIENT enough to read up to here: MANY THANKS.
FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED in information other than the opposition’s propaganda published by the media: you may visit the following sites:
Venezuela en Positivo:
http://www.rctv.net/observador/venezuelapo...verese%F1a1.asp (http://www.rctv.net/observador/venezuelapositivo/breverese%F1a1.asp)
Clase Media en Positivo:
http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/reina...da/poliedro.asp (http://www.analitica.com/bitblioteca/reinaldo_quijada/poliedro.asp)
Asamblea Popular Revolucionaria: http://www.aporrea.org/english.php
PARA TODOS: FELIZ Y PRÓSPERO AÑO 2003.
Manuel Cedeño Berrueta
Legal Translator
Caracas, Venezuela
[email protected]
[email protected]