A18 VENEZUELAN CASE - TORONTO, CANADA

The “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela”: A case of destruction of the figure of Nation-State as the basic element of the international political order.

Rómulo Lares Sanchez. Toronto, November 29, 2005.

In 1992 a lieutenant colonel paratrooper attempted a failed coup d’etat leading to two years of imprisonment. He was later exonerated allowing him to turn to the electoral process and be elected President of Venezuela in 1998, despite the support of only 33.6% of eligible voters. The negotiators of this arrangement believed they had prevented the collapse of democracy established in 1958 in Venezuela. However, democracy was not a part of Hugo Chavez’s plans for Venezuela, which were openly declared to Professor Agustin Blanco Munoz (the Pio Tamayo chair) at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, and published in the book “The Commandant Speaks” (“Habla el Comandante”) (Note 1)

The first step in Chavez’s plan was to push the country through a structural reform beginning with a Constitutional Referendum, a Constitutional Assembly election, and a Referendum to approve the new 1999 Constitution (CRBV1999), which even included a proposal for the renaming of the country to the “Bolivarian”. A transition period ensued while interim institutions where appointed to re-elect all 6,276 public servants in service at the time (Note 2). All of this culminated in the suspension of the one-day “mega-election” of May 28th 2000 by the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) (Supreme Court), which decided that “the information to the electoral corpus was insufficient to proceed with such a complex election”.

This national crisis, supposedly due to the incompetence of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE) (the national elections agency), was a cover for the plan disclosed in “Habla el Comandante”, which was to initiate the construction of an electoral system in Venezuela (ESV) designed to serve the regime and establish an “electoral totalitarian state”. The important matters and political authorities were to be decided and elected, respectively, by the vote. This was the greatest fallacy of all that had been advertised nationally and internationally. Votes were defined as the unique tool for the development of their political long term plans for Venezuela, the Americas and the world. A huge effort to convince and sell this product-plan was already simultaneously in place nationally and internationally.

The National Transition Legislative Power (Comision Legislativa Nacional known as “Congresillo” or little Congress) designed the new CNE in June 2000 by unanimity (minus one), including ten (10) members among a list of 25 “well known and distinguished Venezuelans”, including Alfredo Avella and myself. By 2003, the TSJ, assuming against the will and powers which corresponded to the “Asamblea Nacional (AN)” and giving as arguments the incapacity of the AN to comply with its duties, dismissed the last four members of the CNE still legally in office (Avella and myself were in this group as well) and appointed five new ones. The invasion of the autonomy of the CNE went further up to appointing other new staff members. All these decisions were taken in accordance with an agreement described as an “armistice”, between the regime and “the opposition”, because of the imminent risks of a “Civil War”, which forced the American States organization (AEO), the Carter Centre, President James Carter, and the United Nations “National Program for Development” (UNDP) to move to Caracas. The General Secretary of the AEO, Cesar Gaviria, practically fixed residence in Caracas for eight months.

As members of the CNE, we successfully organized the elections of the President and Governors in August 2000 and the Municipal elections in December of the same year. According to the new Constitution, the CNE simultaneously organized the elections of the leaders of political parties, workers’ unions, and professional associations. Only the election of union leaders was performed in December 2000, because of pressure from Hugo Chavez and opposition from the AN, which voted unanimously against the election of the authorities of political parties and professional associations.

Having gained total control of the national executive power, the support of the army, national finances, and the parliament, Hugo Chavez’s next step was to design an appropriate TSJ (Supreme Court). The misuse of all power and means allowed him the control of other institutions, and to pressure the media, forcing and using them to support and disguise his objective towards a “totalitarian electoral system”. The formation of laws at the National Assembly and their interpretation through the TSJ needed the approval of the media to be truly effective, and this was well underway at this point. While not yet there, the future direction for Venezuela in the eyes of Hugo Chavez was becoming clearer by the day.

The first step towards becoming the Socialist Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela involves offering oil and other commodities to the marginalized in an attempt to advance the international socialist movement. This includes traveling around the world, exploring and signing strategic alliances with Libya, Iraq, Russia, North Korea, Spain, France, Brazil, Argentina, Iran, and China to complement the current association with Cuba. A public and international recognition of this has come from the cooperation between Cuba and Venezuela in diverse programs, including, medical, sports, commercial and financial endeavors. From sending oil daily at special prices in quantities superior to Cuba’s needs without public consultation, to current treaties allowing the Cuban police, including G2 (equivalent to KGB but efficient), to capture and transport a Venezuelan citizen to Cuba to be tried under Cuban laws; the present and future course of the country as we know it is in question.

International recognition and sympathy have been obtained by an exquisite and costly media and international relations campaign which assures and vigorously promotes a regime with a democratic face, despite it being in reality a criminal and extremely corrupted one, comparable to any organized crime operation. A reference to the findings of international Human Rights Watch (HRW), local PROVEA, COFAVIC and other human rights defense organizations are more than enough to demonstrate with credibility the brutal dictatorship, the “holocaust” we are living in Venezuela. One need only mention that in the last six (6) years with the “commandant” leading the country there have been five thousand (5,000) assassinations and missing people documented. The suspects of all these crimes are active or retired police and military officers. While these are clearly political crimes, they are referred to as “summary executions”. Venezuelans are living in a state of fear and terror. (Note 3)

It is necessary to explain how the media control was obtained. The first official agency to be taken under control the day after Hugo Chavez won the election was the radio and TV National Agency (CONATEL). As a result of a previous financial crisis, state already owned and controlled about 50% of the hundreds of radio stations that make up a powerful and diverse national radio network. Collapsed banks were obtained by the government for their assets, which included most of the radio stations. The control of national and regional newspapers; as with the control of other economic, industrial and commercial sectors, has been made by passing and enforcing anti-democratic legislations and selective pressure from the Customs, Tax and Revenue Agency (SENIAT) and the Currency Exchange Agency (CADIVI). While 50% of the media was supporting the regime the other half remained against it. However, due to concern for pressure and fear, private media exercised caution and restricted their critique of sensitive subjects, eventually deciding on the closure of some serious critique programs under the pretense of “self censorship”. This has been a way to defend their economic interests, yet conversely has resulted in a major issue: The polarization of the media and the onslaught of social tension as a consequence of the resultant “bi-polar media”. This is an issue not properly studied or explained, however serious its effects on the national crisis may be.

The financing of this costly operation has been made without any control from the National Assembly, the Contraloría General de la República (CGR) or public opinion. An example of this is an operation where 3 billion US dollars were disposed of by the Minister of Finance without compliance with any legal bodies. The money was practically taken from the Nation’s Treasury and administered directly by the responsible managers without any accountability. Financial operations that circumvent the law have become a normal way of administering Venezuelan public finances, thanks to the cooperation of the international finance community which has been a beneficiary of these transactions. All these illegal activities can be characterized as money-laundering operations according to their illegitimate origin and transfer.

A national oil industry strike originated at Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) lasted for 2 months (from December 2002 to January 2003) and concluded with the withdrawal of more than 22,000 technical and administrative personnel (from a total work force of 45,000 including workers at all levels). The heads of the movement were publicly dismissed (scandalously) by Hugo Chavez during his weekly TV show known as “Aló Presidente”. Not only did all of them lose their positions, but also their personal savings and financial assets were confiscated. The case was admitted to the International Workers Organization (IWO) in Geneva, Switzerland, but it has been unable to enforce its decisions due to the misconduct of the Venezuelan authorities.

A turning point came with a TSJ decision affecting the human rights of all Venezuelans: the suspension of the Referendum Consultivo (RC), legally requested and signed by more than 2.1 million Venezuelans. The CNE under our responsibility announced the RC to be done on February 22nd 2003. Suddenly the “legal suspension” came from a decision of the Electoral Court, one of the seven courts which make up the TSJ. The official judges of the Electoral Court decided in favour of the CNE and RC, but through a series of actions, including the integration of a new “accidental special” Electoral Court (incorporating an unknown judge practically called up from the sidewalk), the court changed its previous decision and ended the possibility of Venezuelans expressing their position regarding Hugo Chavez’s chosen direction for public matters and national interest.

We were all removed by the Constitutional Court of the TSJ without any explanation while five (5) new individuals were appointed to the CNE and confirmed by the same court. The new CNE immediately acted to eliminate the right to participate in the constitutional “Referendum Revocatorio” (RR) as well as to eliminate the political and civil human rights of Venezuelans, taking the decision to discard the millions of signatures presented as a condition to have the RR of the President of the Republic. Following the first decision of the new CNE to reject the signatures of people requesting a RR was the imposition of a system for collecting a second time about 4 million of the signatures through a “Kafka mechanism”, accepted by the so-called “opposition parties” yet soundly rejected by the people.

There were three petitions in all, the first for a Referendum Consultivo (RC) and two (2) for a Referendum Revocatorio (RR), both created by the new CRBV1999 and dully signed and supported by the largest demonstrations in Venezuela’s political history. Literally millions of people were walking expressways and streets all around the country. In the case of Caracas, serious estimations coincided in figures over one million people walking in the same expressway at the same time!

One of the dramatic consequences of signing these two initiatives that befell the people who signed them was a systematic harassment by all public offices, including withheld national ID cards, passports, and even health services, removal from other social programs, from placement at a public university, or the loss of a job held for over 20 years, even if just months before having obtaining a permanent pension. This discrimination is still in force today and is reminiscent of the strategy used by Nazi Germany just years before and during the Second World War. This national shame is known as the “Tascón List”, named after Rep. Luis Tascón from the MVR; the main regime’s political party at the Asamblea National, who published it “to identify the enemies”.

The judicial considerations regarding the defence of the Constitutional and humans rights of Venezuelans are clearly expressed in the documents addressed to the TSJ, the CNE, and to the Inter American Commission of Human Rights (IACDDHH) in Washington, DC, by Alfredo Avella and myself, and have been attached herein. These documents contain our arguments to reject the position of the TSJ in both courts (the Electoral and the Constitutional) and finally to address a formal complaint and a request for consideration and intervention in the “Case of Venezuela” by the IACDDHH in Washington, DC.

Law specialists from prestigious Venezuelan universities, privately share the opinion that the CNE authorities and all elected authorities from elections of regional governors on December 2004, municipal elections of August 2005 and those scheduled for next December 4th, 2005 to “elect” the members of the National Assembly are void. These correspond to the “electoral totalitarian system” described above and the necessity for the regime to keep a “level” of complicity with the “opposition parties” that has been attained through the electoral system. According to Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, who was Secretary of the Vatican State and President for the Constitutional Commission of the Vatican (now retired and living in Venezuela), the electoral system has become a pantomime. He has also claimed and invited all citizens to act accordingly to Article number 350 of CRBV1999, which orders all citizens to deny any such authority which acts against the Constitution, which in the case of Venezuela if any and all since 2002. While this position has been spreading vastly all over the country, a new Caracas Archbishop took office last November the 5th. Traditionally this position heads the Vatican Church in Venezuela. Monsignor Jorge Urosa was the fourth candidate presented by the Vatican to Hugo Chavez before he finally accepted. The first media appearance of Mr. Urosa from the Presidential Palace after meeting Hugo Chávez, was to disregard Cardinal Castillo’s proposal claiming the necessity for the impartiality of the Church. While in his official ceremony of assumption at the Caracas Cathedral only his family and government officials attended it. (Note 4)

A major conclusion publicly sustained by myself since February 2003 and repeated on August 18th 2004, before the evidence of a large cumulus of irregularities in the CNE and the ESV, was more than sufficient to demonstrate the illegality of the RR debacle, and the reality that Hugo Chavez lost all legitimacy and is no longer the President of Venezuela. This position has gained more support every day and was confirmed in a forum presentation coordinated and organized by myself on October 27 in the Colegio de Ingenieros de Venezuela (CIV), (a professional association with more than 165,000 engineers, architects, scientist and technicians obliged by law to be members in order to practice their professions). The panel and special guests included the former Rector of the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Caracas, Dr. Engineer Freddy Malpica P., Dr. Engineer Eduardo Roche L., (former head of Contraloria General de la Republica (CGR) and CSE Vice President, (both positions appointed by the national assembly)), Dr. Engineer Alfredo Avella G., (former CNE President), Professor Dr. Agustin Blanco M., (Director of Catedra Pio Tamayo), with the participation of Dr. Manuel R. Rivero, (former President of CSE and head of CGR). Among other things, it has been confirmed that electronic manipulation of electoral computing machines occurred during the day of the RR on August 15th. More than 64% of all voting machines were communicating, transmitting and receiving up to 80 times their needs for electoral purposes and at times not corresponding with their scheduled activities. These facts accompanied by other technical reasons clearly explain and show the manipulation that took place and confirm that the RR was also a fraud on elections day. A second fact was the fragility of the electoral system of Venezuela (ESV) that made us all support the conclusion that it cannot be used again.

There are two issues that need to be known to understand the case of Venezuela today. The first has already been addressed as the “media situation”. The second directly affects the ESV, and it is the incomprehensible condition that makes foreign organizations such as the American States Organization (AEO) and the European Union (EU) participate in such a huge and clear fraud, commissioning “electoral observers” to an electoral act which is clearly impossible to audit, such as that programmed to be held next December the 4th to “elect” the members of the National Assembly (AN).

While the engineer’s forum at the CIV allowed us to make a formal and professional point of view, the SEV is absolutely unable to serve as a “referee”. The SEV has been openly acting during the last four years against the national interest and democratic values. It is also absolutely necessary to present internationally, particularly to the ASO and the EU another opinion of the Venezuelan case. This international official certification provided by ASO and EU is what has allowed the actual regime to present the Venezuelan case to the international community as an active democracy, while in reality it is an advanced laboratory where practices common to organized crime organizations (controlling the assets of the nation, including the life and death of its citizens, accordingly to the interest of the Republic of Cuba, Fidel Castro, and his allies) have gone unpunished. We have transformed Venezuela into a testing facility, which produces services related to an “electoral totalitarian system”, among others that could be used in any state or community around the world.

Our objective is to convince the international community about the need for a change from a position of indifference, cooperation, or complicity (which international governments and international organizations such as the ASO and EU have demonstrated having directly witnessed the electoral reality in Venezuela), to a position of active sympathy, support, and responsibility. The democratic international community must help us to bring about, as per the Democratic Chart of OAE, which in the case of Peru allowed the Peruvians to turn down Fujimori’s regime, a similar return to democracy. Until then the ethical values of several states officially known as active promoters of democracy are in doubt.

There is a reason to make decisive actions to place this subject firmly on the agendas of top decision making of the world. Venezuela is not going to recover its democracy without the comprehension and support of the international community, corporations, and public opinion, independent of the price we will have to pay for our liberty.

Our intention is to fund a serious research of how Venezuela has been transformed into a “live lab” which is already providing guidelines and strategies to apply the same formula for “electoral totalitarianism” in other states and nations around the world.


Attached documents:

a) Acción ante Sala Constitucional del TSJ contra el Comité de Postulaciones de la AN. Rómulo Lares Sanchez. Caracas 7 de abril de 2003.
b) “Denuncia contra el Estado de Venezuela” ante la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en Washington, D.C. 21 de abril de 2003. Alfredo Avella and Rómulo Lares.
c) Reflexiones para los actuales miembros del CNE y a nuestros sustitutos sobre las decisiones No 2073 y No 2341 de la SALA COSNTITUCIONAL DEL TRIBUNAL SUPREMO DE JUSTICIA. Caracas 26 de Agosto de 2003. Alfredo Avella



List of Notes:

Note 1.
Named after Mr. Pío Tamayo, a young politician considered the first martyr of the fight for democracy in Venezuela, belonging to what is called “the generation of 28” imprisoned in 1928 by General Juan V. Gómez, a dictator who also controlled the country from 1900 until his death in 1936.

Note 2.
About 6,276 in total, from the Venezuelan President, to the 165 members of the National Assembly, to the governors of the 23 provinces, to the 337 mayors, up to their corresponding legislative bodies of 219 and 2349 respectively, and 3,184 parish’s councillors.

Note 3.
Refer to cases-examples in the civil and military area.

A. Military. The criminal case refereed to 8 soldiers burnt, presumably by a Cuban officer inside their cell in at a military fort, (Fuerte Mara in Maracaibo). Two of these young persons mysteriously died at the same time in hospital, just after declaring that they were expressly punished and disciplinarily harassed for disciplinary reasons and because of their antipathy towards the regime. The only person detained or sentenced (to a 6 years term in this case) is the retired Army General Francisco Usón, former Chavez Minister of Finance, because of his comments on the air in TV’s popular opinion program equivalent to Larry King’s (run of journalist Professor Marta Colomina, now out of the air without any explanation). Mr. Usón described how a flamethrower is supposed to function in order to incur his sentence.

B. Civilian. The killing of Mr. Antonio Lopez, in Plaza Venezuela, a central place in Caracas, he was an active lawyer and the eldest son of a well known couple, His mother was a Senator and leader of its parliament majority and his father was the president of a local development corporation for the first government of Christian Democratic president Rafael Caldera. Both near 80 years old, were hand cuffed and treated like animals, in a way you do not see even dangerous criminals treated in Venezuela.
Media openly presented the case where witnesses described what looked like a western style shooting and a Mr. Lopez presumably received a “grace shot to his mouth” on the floor, all this in the middle of the day, while Mr. Lopez was arriving to his office direct from his home in another routine work day.
After a year, the public prosecutor team has been unable to receive the necessary forensic information, despite their requests for this data to proceed with their investigation.
Mrs. Lopez declare “that a police officer told us: we killed your son like an animal”, when a team of more than 20 masked police officers infiltrated their home, a few minutes after the shooting.
This team formally presented to the media a C4 bomb planted under the pantry table at their kitchen as evidence.

Note 4.
Cardinal Castillo Lara has been signalled as one of the masterminds behind the killing of Mr. Danilo Anderson, a prosecutor killed with 25grams of C4 under the seat of his truck. The other 4 planers supposedly to be the journalist Mrs. Patricia Poleo, currently in hiding (winner a few years ago of the Principe de Asturias Journalism Prize). Mr. Nelson Mehzerane (bank and media (TV & newspaper) owner). A retired and an active general of the Guardia Nacional, (the military force that co-operated with the USA-DEA and the Department of State cancel some of their visas), and the son of an anti-Castro activist, who was arrested instead of his father (both having the same name and last name) because the police had the name on the capture order but not the ID number.
Twenty minutes (20) after the explosion the Vice President of Venezuela and some ministers visited the explosion site while family members were picking up from his apartment, cash for US $ 300,000 and one billion bolivares (Bs. 1,000,000,000) (US$ 465k). Among other curious and expensive objects found in the prosecutor’s apartment residence was a couple of bill-money paper counting machines.