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Hi all, im rrojas, I’ve been an active member of esato for a few years visiting it at least once a week. I was born and lived all my life in Venezuela and I always belived that every Venezuelan was lucky to live here or at least I thought that.

This post is about the current status of Venezuela.

Just Some History

As everyone knows the president of Venezuela is Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias. The first time he appeared was in 1992 when he attempted to Coup the Carlos Andres Perez (President of Venezuela at that time) leadership. On February 4, 1992, five army units under Chávez's command barreled into urban Caracas with the mission of assaulting and overwhelming key military and communications installations throughout the city, including the Miraflores presidential palace, the defense ministry, La Carlota military airport, and the Historical Museum. Chávez's ultimate goal was to intercept and take custody of Pérez, who was returning to Miraflores from an overseas trip. Chávez's allies were unable to broadcast their prerecorded tapes on the national airwaves in which Chávez planned to issue a general call for a mass civilian uprising against Pérez. As the coup unfolded, the coup plotters were unable to capture Pérez: fourteen soldiers were killed, and 50 soldiers and some 80 civilians injured in the ensuing violence.

Nevertheless, rebel forces in other parts of Venezuela made advances and were ultimately able to take control of such large cities as Valencia, Maracaibo, and Maracay with the help of spontaneous civilian aid. Chávez's forces, however, had failed to take Caracas. Chávez, alarmed, soon gave himself up to the government announcing the end of that day movement. Chávez was sent to Yare prison. After a two-year imprisonment, Chávez was pardoned by President Rafael Caldera in 1994. Upon his release, Chávez reconstituted the MBR-200 as the Fifth Republic Movement. In December 6, 1998 he became president of Venezuela by “democratic” election.

Something doesn’t sound right

Ok, after reading that, you know that even when he was a prisoner he was able to be a presidential candidate in 1998 and win. How could he do this? There is a big number of reasons but let just say that his father was a very important member of the CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral) at that time.

2002

On April 9, 2002, CTV leader Carlos Ortega called for a two-day general strike. Approximately 500,000 people took to the streets on April 11, 2002 and marched towards the headquarters of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), in defense of its recently-fired management. The organizers decided to redirect the march to Miraflores, the presidential palace, where a pro-Chávez demonstration was taking place. Gunfire and violence erupted between two groups of demonstrators, Caracas' Metropolitan Police (under the control of the oppositionist mayor), and the Venezuelan national guard (under Chávez's command), and snipers were reported from the areas where both opposition and Chávez supporters were concentrated. Domestic and international observers criticized the Government for excessive abuse of its right to call national broadcasts requiring all broadcast media to cease scheduled programming and transmit the broadcasts in their entirety. Between April 9 and 11, the government required all radio and TV stations to transmit numerous speeches by President Chávez, other government officials, and other programming favorable to the Government, even shutting the signals of the stations who refused, in an attempt to block coverage of the demonstrations and ensuing violence.

However, only a few months would pass after the April 2002 coup before the Chávez presidency would enter another crisis. Chávez, outraged by the coup and seeking more funds for his social programs, moved in late 2002 to implement total control over the PDVSA and its revenues. As a result, for two months following December 2, 2002, Chávez faced a strike organized by the resistant PDVSA management who sought to force Chávez out of office by completely removing his access to the all-important government oil revenue. The strike, led by a coalition of labor unions, industrial magnates, and oil workers, sought to halt the activities of the PDVSA. As a result, Venezuela ceased exporting its former daily average of 2,800,000 barrels (450,000 m³) of oil and oil derivatives. Hydrocarbon shortages soon erupted throughout Venezuela, with long lines forming at petrol-filling stations. Gasoline imports were soon required. Alarmed, Chávez responded by firing PDVSA's anti-Chávez upper-echelon management and dismissing 18,000 skilled PDVSA employees. Chávez justified this by alleging their complicity in gross mismanagement and corruption in their handling of oil revenues, while opposition supporters of the fired workers stated that his actions were politically-motivated.

What is happening now? The real facts

o Actually Chavez is trying to convince the world that communism is the way how every country should be administrated (He calls this the “Bolivarian ideal”).
o Cuba is now our principal ally
o Chavez refers to USA as “The Empire” and president G.W .Bush as “The Devil”
o Last year Chavez started to give away Venezuelan money around the globe as a way to convince other people into following his ideals.
o In 2005, Venezuela started to give free oil to Cuba. Today Cuba is still getting free oil from us.
o Laws as the “Ley de Tierras” have been added to the constitution in which in simple words you can’t have more than 3 properties (Houses, apartments, etc) in the same area. If you do, the government is allowed to “buy” those properties from you even if you don’t want to sell them (Real status: the government will take your properties for free).
o If you own a piece of land anywhere on Venezuela without use the government is allowed to “buy” it from you (same as above) and use it to “agriculture” (Real status: anyone connected to the goberment can take that land without any permissions and build a bunch of ranchos [A rancho is a house build by extremely poor people in Venezuela, with any piece of material as a roof or wall, dirt floor and without any kind of drainage. Example [img] " target="_blank" rel="nofollow]http://www.eltiempo.com.ve/im[....]S-JA-20-01-05-180pix.jpg[/img] ])
o There is no law in the streets. A 14 years old kid can buy a box of beers, cigarettes and then drive without a license to anywere. If its stoped by a cop he just has to give him something like 25 U$D and keep driving.
o Hundreds of people are killed every weekend by criminals.
o There is no justice system.


A few months ago, Chavez called Bush “the devil” in a public announcement saying that “The Empire” (USA) was trying to rule Venezuela.

United Nations Controversy

On 20 September 2006 Chávez delivered a highly controversial speech to the United Nations General Assembly.[75] "And the devil came here yesterday," said Chávez, referring to President Bush, who delivered a speech from the same podium the previous day. "And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of." At this point Chavez made the sign of the cross, positioned his hands as if praying, and looked slowly up to the ceiling. He continued: "Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world." Chávez also said that President Bush "... came [to the General Assembly] to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world." Chávez began his talk by recommending Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet." Citing Chomsky's book, Chavez explained, "... the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated." The speech was received with sustained applause in the Assembly.

CITGO

Citgo Petroleum Corporation is a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. After that speech the North American people stopped to use CITGO petrol-filling stations in the same amount as before in a way to protest against Chavez.
Now, does Chavez even cares about this? No. The Venezuelans? Yes. USA its our main client and now Chavez is trying to sabotage that. I have Venezuelan friends living in USA that if you ask them were are they from, they will say Colombia, Ecuador or some other country. Why? I went to Florida for a few days and I was able to notice that after I said to anyone that I was from Venezuela the attitude of that person would change.

Ok ok so, why don’t you leave Venezuela?

To prevent people from leaving Venezuela, on February 6, 2003, the government created CADIVI, a currency control board charged with handling foreign exchange procedures.

If you are in Venezuela you are allowed to get only 4.000 USD in a year. Doesn’t matter if you have $ 10.000.000.000.000 in Bolivares (currency of Venezuela) you can only get $ 4.000 or the same ammount in EUR. If you want more you have to wait another year or buy illegal dollars from the “Black market”.

PS: can anyone sell me a $4.000 house in USA or Europe?

Our last chance

On December 3, the presidential elections will start again. I think that there is a 95% chance of Chavez wining again. In that case, as he stated, he will change the constitution again to make the presidential period undefined.

One last thing

MOST VENEZUELANS ARE NOT LIKE CHAVEZ BUT WE ARE GETTING TREATED LIKE THAT. IN LESS THAN 10 YEARS BEING A VENEZUELAN HAS BECOME BEING THE DREG OF LATIN AMERICA. WE DON’T HATE AMERICA OR ANY OTHER COUNTRY.

If anyone is interested, the following are impartial news web sites from Venezuela without any filters.

http://www.globovision.com

http://www.noticierodigital.com



_________________
= / Nokia =

Foro Venezolano
Owner of www.VeneMovil.es.vg WebSite


[ This Message was edited by: rrojas260 on 2006-09-29 20:49 ]
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Posted: 2006-09-29 21:47:49
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welcome to how it feels to be Muslim
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Posted: 2006-09-29 22:41:47
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oh man, the poor guy, one small incident in the america, and they will wage of terrorism against venezula and soon have the oil under their control as well ?

calling bush as a devil, a bad move
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Posted: 2006-09-29 23:05:12
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well somebody has to stand up to him.

What is this, any country that stands up against Bush has to go down?
Can't wait til the UK stands up against Bush. The UK will take him down. We'll show him how the media system works heh.
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Posted: 2006-09-29 23:11:26
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true true, he will only pick on small countries, cant do so with a major player.
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Posted: 2006-09-29 23:18:30
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@rrojas260: Ok, we all know Chavez is no angel but from what I've read and heard (various news sources) he has done more for the poor than several other governments before him.

Calling Dubya "The Devil" may not be far from the truth but it should never be said on a UN platform...that was a bad move.

There may have been more sympathy for the Venezuelan bourgeois if they had treated their poor better but you can't have a society where all the rich people are white and the majority are black and poor...that creates the space for nutcases like Chavez to take power.

So what would you suggest be done?...Should the US come and invade Venuezula and overthrow Chavez? You know what happened the last time they tried to stage a coup...the US didn't support it and it eventually failed.
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Posted: 2006-09-29 23:38:21
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Everyone may think that chavez helps poor people but thats just a cover, actually there is 3 times more poor people than back in 1998. I've seen this country evolve with chavez and things always go worst.

Its almost imposible to go out to the streets without seeing at least 2 or 3 poor children asking for money.

In fact, do you want to see how much poor people there is in venezuela? Go to google earth and look at caracas, you cant see mountains in some places as they are full of ranchos (definition in the first post).



_________________
= / Nokia =

Foro Venezolano
Owner of www.VeneMovil.es.vg WebSite

[ This Message was edited by: rrojas260 on 2006-09-29 23:27 ]
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Posted: 2006-09-30 00:26:43
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Hola rojas!
I lived in caracas for 5 years (1991-1995) before coming to Sweden. Lived in santarosa de lima . Went to ECA you might know it. Saw quite alot of "ranchitos" on my way to school and th caracas sports club , not a pleasant sight... Corroded rooftops made of tin, lots of garbage. You would get killed for a pair of nikes. Thats how bad it is.

It is a shame that the status of the country has deteriorated like it has, it was dangerous before, but now it is even worse .

[ This Message was edited by: Johnex on 2006-09-30 10:21 ]
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Posted: 2006-09-30 11:12:00
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all of the 7-11s are getting rid of citgo gas, but that is not fully due to the comment made. their 20 year contract just ended, and they were planning to get gas elsewhere anyway. but everyone in america is blowing it way out of proportion. im sorry for the people in venezuela (i know i spelled it wrong, sorry), i know my president is a dumbass.
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Posted: 2006-09-30 11:22:41
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I don't mind a president being a notionalist and having the guts to stand up and defy America, Bush is the dumbest president america has had so far and I'm sorry to say that he is my president, I'm not a resident so I can't vote.

Chavez probably could've been a good president, what we seem to see in Egypt is that he has plenty of supporters, so at least there is a chance he won democratically, we don't have anyone to support in elections

I read an article in the economist on oil in countries that have state owned and from it I understood that Chavez's firing of those 18,000?? skilled workers was disaterous since Venezuelas oil fields need highly skilled workers to maintain them and a few hours of neglect will cause irreversable damge most likely actually losing the field. I do support you because no matter how good a president is or how much support he has from the people, if he's an idiot or takes irrational decisions then he's useless. Firing people that disagree with you is stupid espessially when they now their work and you don't. And one thing for sure is if a president can't deal and live with an opposition then he isn't worthy of being a president. And guess how many presidents fit that statement?
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Posted: 2006-09-30 12:16:57
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