The People of Venezuela v Hugo Chavez. Part II
By Aleksander Boyd
*In response to one of Vcrisis readers. Forgive me if I sound pessimistic sometimes but given the nature of the leaders of the opposition and general chaos and selfishness reigning in the CD I can see no easy exit for the People. The only feasible way out is indeed the Recall Referendum [RR], however in order to have a sound and transparent RR there must be a coherent policy to reach that end, which needs to be respected by all political actors in Venezuela. Do you see that happening? I don't unfortunately...
On the other hand we have a CNE completely subordinated to Chavez' desires, let us not forget that in a group formed of uneven numbers there can be no draw. Taking into account that the CNE board is composed of 5 members and Carrasquero, Rodriguez and Battaglini are Chavez' puppets, is there any way of breaking that?
The Supreme Court of Justice lacks authority and more importantly its members [those who oppose Chavez] do not have the balls to start any legal action to curb the whimsical desires of the president.
The Attorney General, well I think I don't have to brief you on his characteristics. Curiously he has not moved one finger to accelerate the investigation of April's 2002 massacre or the extra-judicial murders of Aragua State [maybe Amnesty International was not invited to this party] yet he asked recently the Interpol to help the government arrest the military dissidents charged with planting bombs...
When there is no respect for the Rule of Law, no manner of enforcing the Constitution, no punishment for those responsible and no one can be held accountable the panorama looks dull and miserable. Banging pots and marching will do nothing to oust Chavez and he himself will not leave for Castro, the Cuban Revolution, the Colombian drug trade, the Colombian guerrilla and the world's left need him there and they will certainly do the utmost to help him remain and control power ominously as they have done until today.
The International community is composed by a large group of insensible bureaucrats with no other interest than to receive their hefty paychecks on time. They do not care about the struggle of human beings [they never had] and realistically speaking there is absolutely nothing they can do to remove or pressure a democratically elected president, lest of course the cowboy gets pissed... They have not done it in Cuba, nor in Zimbabwe nor in Haiti, nor in other places, in sum they are a bunch of useless parasites. The action in Iraq and its purposes must have us all very much preoccupied.
Only yesterday I was listening a professor saying that in 1988 a select committee of foreign affairs found out about illegal UK arms sells to Sierra Leone attributable to sectors of the Ministry of Defence and private companies contravening the regulations imposed by the UN, do you want to know what happen to those responsible? Nothing for it was in the economic interest of the nation to do so. Should Venezuela start treading in some other nation's feet, then there might be some sort of action but until that moment does not come and while Venezuela keeps sending the entirety of its oil production to the US nothing will ever happen. Chavez is bloody stupid as we all know but he has been clever enough to maintain a behind-the-scenes total subservient attitude towards the US admin and American Oil conglomerates whose production now counts for almost half of the total output of oil from Venezuela.
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