> Dana wrote: > I know about Venezuala is that the administration stooges seem to think > it's evil somehow.
Let's look at things in Venezuela: KEY EVENTS -------------------- 1992: Venezuelan Army Lieutenant-Colonel Hugo Chavez leads a failed coup attempt. 1998: Chavez elected, helps rewrite the Venezuelan constitution. 2000: Chavez re-elected under the new charter. 2000-present: Chavez maneuvers to have loyalists named to the Supreme Court, the electoral council and the posts of auditor-general and public prosecutor. Chavez maintains aggressive rhetoric against local business, the church, the media and the trade unions. April 2005: The Bolivarian Circles, a grassroots organisation of 2-3,000 set up by Chavez, opens fire on a peaceful opposition demonstration, killing 19. April 2005: The killings trigger an opposition-led coup attempt against Chavez and his "Bolivarian revolution". The coup fails and Chavez promises to reconcile with the opposition. July 2005: Chavez installs officers he hopes loyal into key commands in the military. Some 70 senior officers considered disloyal remain on active service but without a job. August 2005: Half a dozen Army officers in full tropical uniform attended a meeting of the Democratic Co-ordinator, an opposition umbrella group. September 2005: Chavez issues a decree banning demonstrations (and much else, such as selling property) in eight large "security zones" in the capital without permission from his defence ministry. His gov't also harasses dissident army officers, and may be behind a strike by some of the opposition-controlled metropolitan police. October 2005: Cesar Gaviria, the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States, failed to extract any agreement from Chavez on talks aimed at bringing forward elections. October 2005: Thousands of the opposition march and demand Chavez's resignation. October 2005: Chavez claims to have uncovered another coup, improbably led by an 83-year-old former foreign minister. In turn, General Enrique Medina Gomez, seen by many as the army's leading dissident, claims that Chavez is trying to provoke just such a rebellion, confident that he can crush it and go on to turn the armed forces into "a popular militia". October 9th, 2005: General Medina and two colleagues, helped by pot-banging protesters, elude arrest by Chavez intelligence agents. "We've never had such division in the country," says General Medina. "The vast majority realise that Chavez has taken his mandate for social change and used it for a revolution that takes the country down a road it doesn't want to go." A leading businessman is blunter. The president is "a criminal, with blood on his hands" whose project is "Cuban communism", he says. CHAVEZ AND POPULAR SUPPORT -------------------------------------------------- Only one in three Venezuelans back Chavez although that is more than any single leader of the fractious opposition. His current term does not end until 2006 and he talks of remaining president longer. The constitution allows for a referendum on Chavez's rule next August. Moderates on both sides now recognise that pushing for some sort of vote, be it a referendum or fresh election, is the best course. CHAVEZ AND THE ECONOMY ------------------------------------------- While Chavez's economic policies have been fairly orthodox, they've also been ineffective. For three years, it pegged the currency, the bolivar, against the dollar. That brought down inflation, but currency overvaluation wiped out many businesses which could not compete with cheap imports. A new economic team is trying to cope with a sinking currency, rising inflation and a severe recession. "This is a very difficult year," admits Felipe Perez Marti, the planning minister. Oil income is down, and debt payments are up. The government has cut spending (by 3% of GDP, says Mr Perez). Even so, it is raiding the central bank: it wants the bank to issue it with bolivares equivalent to the rise in the local-currency value of its reserves caused by devaluation. That, say critics, will push up inflation next year. Mr Perez claims to be pursuing the "fourth way", or "the state plus the market plus solidarity". Meaning? "We give importance in the economy to strategic co-operation and true love" (ie. worker-owned companies). Mr Perez has a PhD from the University of Chicago, but is not a typical product of its free-market economics faculty. "I am a theorist of altruism," he says. That is not how local businessmen see the government. They "are on the defensive, trying to save what they can," says Oscar Garcia Mendoza, a private banker. By some estimates, around $15 billion of private capital has fled the country in the past two years, though Mr Perez claims the exodus has now stopped. CHAVEZ AND OIL --------------------------- 2005: Chavez, without warning, announces new take-it-or-leave-it terms for oil production thus tearing up existing contracts. Foreign oil companies had built and ran 1/3 to 1/2 of Venezuela's oil exports but Chavez suddenly announced a decision to force foreign oil companies into new contracts and a new tax regime markedly tougher than those agreed in the country's oil "opening" a decade ago. The new contracts remove operational control of oilfields from foreign firms and make the firms minority partners in state-run ventures. Mazhar al-Shereidah, a Venezuelan oil economist of Iraqi origin, argues that the new arrangements relieve the oil firms of all risk. It is "tragi-comic", he says, that they are being given a so-called ultimatum to accept just the sort of joint-ventures that they have happily agreed elsewhere. Conservative regimes in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states would not dream of letting foreign firms into their upstream business in this way, he says. Put simply, besides the dictatorial way this was done, the danger is this: Venezuela's oil is heavy and sulphurous, and more expensive to pump. Should oil prices drop or new fields come online, the foreign firms will simply walk away just when Venezuela needs them most. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:191080 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
