The eternal campaign: from North to South, from East to West

The president of Venezuela is famous/notorious for his Aló Presidente programme, a kind of reality show broadcast on Venezuelan state television and radio every Sunday. It lasts for hours, on average about 5 hours but often more. All ministers have to be present during the show. The show takes place most of the time in the interior. I don't know the number of people involved in the whole event but there must be at least 300 and most probably twice as many, with ministers, advisors, camera men, logistics, local honchos and security. Now, imagine the effect of that number of well-paid people arriving for a day, some sleeping over for a night in a very poor municipality like Rómulo Gallegos, with some 24000 inhabitants. The president usually announces in his show a series of new projects, many of which end up becoming new air castles but many that make (or used to make) humble people hope.

A red point moving in the maps below shows the places in Venezuela where Hugo had his Aló Presidente in 2008 and 2009 (until early November).

Aló Pressidente 2008
the greener the municipality, the more densily populated it is.























These trips do not include the trips he does when he is in "formal" campaign mode. He was in such a mode last year for the regional elections and this one for his second referendum on the topic of no term limits (in a presidential system).

Aló Presidente 2009






















His ambassadors and other supporters abroad often claim the opposition in Venezuela controls the airwaves, but in reality Globovisión, a bad but critical TV channel and Venezuelan version of Fox News, is the only real TV channel that really offers a critical view. I agree with Juan from Caracas Chronicles, in thinking Globovisión often does more harm than good to the opposition. I think Globovision is the government's Potemkin village. Almost no one abroad knows that Globo can only be watched in the capital, in Valencia and in those houses elsewhere with cable TV. That makes for some 30% of the population (reliable numbers are hard to get, but it should be about that). Venezuelans read very little and regime-critical newspapers have a total circulation that reaches even less people, mostly in urban areas. VTV and Telesur, though, reach every corner of Venezuela.

The opposition has less and less money at its disposal. The government uses methods to attack the opposition that are anything but kosher. Still, if the opposition is to conquer the rural spaces and it has to, it needs to take into account how the governmental campaign is going on. The opposition must analyze what the government is trying to make and think ahead. It needs to go to those areas, humbly listen time after time to what people there have to say, think intelligently and then propose solutions and plans that let people hope for a change.

It needs to present a new proposal, one that is easy to grasp but not populistic, one that includes and tells Venezuelans it is possible for us to transform Venezuela into a prosperous, developed nation.

PS. My guess for next weeks is that Hugo will now visit one or two rural states in the East and South.
PS2 There are ways the opposition can reach the rural areas with little money: send the students, use flyers, go to the bus stations, distribute the information. But still: an honest study of the needs of every region needs to take place firstly.
PS3 I wrote a post in Spanish here about the same topic, with some other details. There you can see also a map of Venezuela with municipalities, governments and where Aló Presidente has tajeb place in 2009

Venezuela-Mali-Europe: the cocaine connection

A Boeing coming from Venezuela crashed last 5 of November in Gao, Mali, after it had downloaded cocaine in that area and tried to lift off (here in French, here less in Spanish). Interpol is investigating now.

How come? Where did the plane set off in Venezuela? Was it from Maiquetía, the main airport? Is it possible for the Veneezuelan military not to notice up to 10 tones of cocaine in a Boeing setting off for Africa? Did the plane depart from La Esmeralda, the huge military airfield in the middle of the jungle in Amazonas State? Or from somewhere else? From where then? That is a big big plane.

In any case, what the authorities found were the burnt rests of the plane. The drug dealers had set in flame and run away. Still, they found some rests.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the following:

The Venezuelan government has been increasing its ties with West African countries for some years. Here you can read (in French) an article in an official Mali site about Hugo's visit to Mali, about the visit of Mali's president to Venezuela, about how Hugo payed for over 100 social houses, a school and more in Mali, how he promised more and about how Hugo showed a big interest in the geography of Mali, on the Niger Riger and irrigation, about "mining interests" and deals of Venezuela in Mali and more (I will go back to that article later on and translate it).

All possibilities I see:

1. Some mid to high ranking military is using the new Mali-Venezuela links to trade in drugs behind the president's back
2. The top in the government is involved (I don't think so, too crazy)
3. Some drug dealers who have nothing to do with chavismo are involved and who just found a way to get around minor corrupt military in Venezuela
   
4. Someone is trying to pretend the Venezuelan government is involved in the whole thing

So far I go for 1. Too early to tell.
It is an irony they found the plane close to Gao or "GAO"

Update: see my Spanish post for more details

Te necesito, chama, chamo, chamín

I need your help. If you happen to be travelling to or from Venezuela, I want you to take the pictures you can of the arrival process.

Among other things, I would be very grateful if you could send me pictures of

• the president's huge poster at the arrival in Maiquetía airport
• the place where the airport trolleys are taken by the airport mafia
• the private tourist offices in the airport
• the place where people have to pay the extra taxes to use the airport
• a selected set of billboards along the motorway depicting the Supreme Leader
• the nasty X rays used for drug control
• the military controlling people at every step
  
• some other picture you consider worth taking on your route to your place

Thanks!

Hugo the First and Kalashnikov

Our president, Hugo Chávez, has just given a copy of Simón Bolívar's sword as birthday present to AK-47's (in)famous designer, Mikhail Kalashnikov. The sword is supposed to have precious stones.

You can find more information on that in Russian here and in Spanish here.

The Venezuelan government had purchased about 100000 Kalashnikov rifles in 2005.
This year the chavista regime spent some 2.2 billion dollars in more Russian weapons.

The Kalashnikov rifle has killed millions of people in the last decades. There is a huge black market for that device. It is the usual weapon in many civil wars in Africa.

The government should have used the money it gave away for that flashy toy sword to buy books for pupils in poor schools or to pay Venezuela's entrance in the PISA programme, a programme for improving education standards (there is little chance for this to happen as the Venezuelan government rejects any form of transparency).

Venezuela should have spent those 2.2 billion dollars not in weapons but in the construction of a couple of very good hospitals in rural Guárico or still more rural Amazonas. Perhaps we could have had enough to finance a really groovy public library for children in Portuguesa as well.

It should be so obvious. I am sure most people agree. I am so ashamed Venezuela has such a president.


PS. If Hugo wanted to celebrate the birthday of someone, he could have celebrated the birthday of Jacinto Convit, a great Venezuelan scientist who has given so much for science and for our country. Mr Convit's work for better treatments of leprosy and leishmaniasis have saved many lives.

A beautiful red

The Eudocimus Ruber (in Spanish corocoro or garza roja, in English Scarlet Ibis) are gorgeous birds living across the Northern part of South America and some even up to Florida (although now much less). You can see them from time to time when you drive or sail along the Venezuelan coast. They love mangroves, lagoons, swamps. Their beaks are just perfect to catch the worms and crustaceans (specially crabs) as well as insects and seeds found in their habitat. The feather colour comes fro the pigment found in the crustaceans they eat.

When I see these birds they always steal a smile from me.

Chávez runs amok...again

The president of Venezuela, Hugo of Sabaneta, announced yesterday that the nation should prepare for war with Colombia. He ordered 15000 soldiers to be transfered to the border. Our neighbours acted in a more civilized way and asked for a meeting of the United Nations Security council. They want observers on the border to see what is really happening.

Presidential tantrums

When Hugo is in South America, specially in Venezuela, he very often says things like "blood will be shed and civil war break out" if he does not win this or that election or if something else he likes does not happen. He hardly says that in Europe or in the US. There he talks about the US government being the Devil, something that makes some people giggle like children or he praises the beauty of Russian girls or makes jokes with film directors. Northerners love that, "so folkloric". He signs agreements with Spanish ministers that provide billions of easy money to the Spaniards in exchange for some fast cash for Hugo and some political support.

People are used now to Hugo's tantrums in Venezuela and we usually abscribe his behaviour to his need for deflecting attention from the real issues and there are a lot of problems now in Venezuela. The place is still a place where you find posh shopping centres, where you see lots of people using BlackBerries and where the Venezuelan version of FOX News, very unprofessional Globovisión, says day after day that the president is a dictator. Venezuela is getting over 300% more money than 1998 out of higher oil prices. Still: things are getting more difficult.

The problems

Some of the problems:

1. Venezuela is by far the most dangerous country in South America and things keep getting worse. There are no more protests because the poor, those who suffer the most, don't know how bad their situation is compared even to our neighbours to the West or to Brazil, not to talk about Peru or chile.
2. The guerrilla is more present along the border than ever before: in Zulia, in Tachira, in Amazonas, in Barinas. The clumsy attempts by the government to deny their support for the Colombian guerrilla do not work.
3. Pegging the bolivar to the dollar ($2.15) while scaring away local producers and spending billions of petrodollars to sell cheap imported products has led to the highest official inflation in the region and to a much higher distorsion of the economy.
4. Blackouts are becoming more and more frequent.
5. Although it is still easy for the old and new high class to find whiskey, normal people are having more trouble finding sugar, coffee, rice, usual stuff and most poor are having more difficulty making ends meet.
6. Everybody knows chavista officers or friends of theirs who are getting richer by the day while the services for the poor are degrading again very fast

There have been several unexplained murders along the border and the Venezuelan government has declared automatically "it is the fault of right-winged paramilitary". Perhaps. Perhaps some. What about if that is not the case? What about if there is an open investigation? What about if we work together with our neighbours? The Venezuelan government does not want it, it hates transparency of any kind.

More than a tantrum?

There is extra stress in the border because the Venezuelan military are constantly closing the access. That creates a huge disruption in the lives of people on both sides: there is a huge smuggling market and normal trade between Colombia and Venezuela. A gallon of gas in Venezuela is 20 times cheaper than accross the border, a lot of people have a lot to win or lose one way or the other.

I believe the whole situation could worsen very soon if the international community leaves this conflict unattended, if the Moratinos and Lulas keep quite in spite of the belligerant tone used by Hugo time after time.

Reference

On the map: green spots are very vaguely representing the places where the guerrillas get into Venezuela to rest, to hide, to get more resources. The yellow lines refer to the main places were legal and illegal trade take place. The blue regions are municipalities were the opposition was elected in 2008 (although they can hardly do anything now after the actions taken by the regime as described here)

If things are left unattended, more and more shootings could take place, more disruption of normal life in the region. At this stage I still doubt a war could come. Our neighbours don't want one and the vast majority of Venezuelans do not want one either. Hugo, though, is losing more and more the sense of reality.











PS

Meanwhile: in Germany there are celebrations for the Fall of the Berlin Wall. I am happy for them (not that Venezuela has communism, it has a petrodollar dictatorship with a lot of communist talk).

Question to old lefties:

(just in case, I could also ask the same question to "righties" with similar figures)
For how long were you in love with this bloke?














Aye, I know a lot of people were meeting him years ago.




















And do you have now another idol?


Read about Mugabe's life here. If you want to learn a bit about where Venezuela differs and where it is similar to Zimbabwe, look, among other things, at my posts with the labels "ethnicity" and "corruption".

If you want an excellent post about how the gerrymandering in Venezuela will be organized, go to Daniel's blog.