New York Times

World Business Section

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/07/business/worldbusiness/07art.html

July 7, 2004

Art Is the Darling of Anxious Investors in Venezuela

By JUAN FORERO

David Rochkind/Polaris, for The New York Times

Leyzer Topel and his mother, Cora Páez, with some of the art they own on display at their home in Valencia, Venezuela.

David Rochkind/Polaris, for The New York Times

Alirio Palacios, one of Venezuela's most famous artists, in his studio outside Caracas.

David Rochkind/Polaris, for The New York Times

Antonio Ascaso at his son's art gallery in Caracas. Economic instability has driven up the value of art.

CARACAS, Venezuela - The economy shrank sharply for two years, the country's president keeps Venezuelans in a state of constant agitation and businesses struggle to remain open.

But at the sleek new Ascaso Art Gallery, with its four spacious floors, hundreds of art buyers sipped wine and nibbled on hors d'oeuvres as they studied the works of such famed Venezuelan artists as Alirio Palacios and Carmelo Niño.

And they did not just look during a recent art show. They bought, even though some of the sculptures and paintings sold for tens of thousands of dollars - high prices in an economically unstable country whose president is facing a recall referendum in August that augurs more economic turmoil.

"When you have money, buying art is like putting money in the bank," said Vicente Espino, a retired textile factory owner, moments after studying the richly textured paintings of peppers and fruits by José Antonio Dávila. "Venezuela is a country of miracles, and one is its artists. There's not just one, but many, many good ones."

Juan Korody, 26, a lawyer, added, as he eyed a $20,000 engraving by Mr. Palacios: "A lot of people do not buy because they like art. They buy because its a good investment."

Indeed, in a country hit hard by economically devastating antigovernment strikes, a 2002 failed coup and capital flight that has amounted to billions of dollars, a curious phenomenon is unfolding: The affluent are seeking to shelter their fast-depreciating currency, the bolívar, in art, demonstrating once again that art can flourish in times of crisis, whether in Nazi-occupied Europe 60 years ago, in Communist Cuba in the 1990's or in this politically charged South American country.

No one knows how much art is being bought and sold. But signs of a spirited commercialization in paintings, engravings, sketches and sculptures abound in Caracas, long admired across Latin America for its rich museum collections and trend-setting artists. Art stores thrive in Caracas's malls and affluent districts.

Art festivals attract hordes of buyers. Large museumlike galleries are popping up, like a vast gallery under construction here by Alejandro Freites, Venezuela's best-known art dealer, to house the works of some of the country's marquee names.

"It is amazing, the growth of galleries, the spaces restaurants give to artists, the malls that sell, the art in public spaces," said Sofía Imber, the Russia-born founder of the Caracas Museum of Contemporary Art. "They just put stuff up and it sells."

And artists like Mr. Palacios, 65, who creates elaborate 8-foot-high engraving of horses and paints with natural pigments made from plants that grow on his hacienda, said he was busier than ever.

Turning to look over at a large, colorful depiction of a horse propped against a table in his studio, Mr. Palacios said, "This work may cost $20,000, but they will buy it. They may buy it with bolívars, but they'll buy it."

Wearing a paint-spattered white smock and sipping a strong Venezuelan coffee, Mr. Palacios explained that art sales were as brisk as he could recall. "It really has been extraordinary," said Mr. Palacios, whose 50-year career has included long stays in China, Poland and New York.

The trend has come as President Hugo Chávez, a firebrand populist, embarked on a political revolution aimed at purging the elites from government and remaking Venezuelan society. The art world was not spared the country's political and social convulsions. Mr. Chávez's so-called Bolivarian cultural revolution refocused the cultural emphasis from fine arts toward crafts, leading to an artistic upheaval that cost museum directors their jobs and prompted prominent artists to square off into opposing camps, some supportive of the country's determined opposition, others siding with the president's left-wing government.

Commercial art has not been directly affected by the politics, but Mr. Chávez's economic policies have reverberated in Caracas's art galleries.

Following a failed strike aimed at uprooting him from power, Mr. Chávez last year slashed the value of the bolívar to close a growing fiscal deficit and put in place strict exchange controls to stanch capital flight.

Coupled with high inflation and a budding market in black market dollars, the new economic realities have prompted those with cash to purchase everything from luxury cars to apartments to high-priced art to protect their money from devaluation. With art, say dealers, the collector does not just ensure a valuable possession retains value. The owner can be assured that it will, in fact, appreciate with time.

"The best investment in the world is art," said Martha Baluzzo, an economist and art dealer at the Ascaso gallery. "It may take longer than other things to sell, maybe five years," she said, "but you take this painting, which cost $20,000, and it could sell for $60,000."

Some of the biggest buyers of art include bankers and the country's booming banks, which have seen profits soar as they turned in recent months to securities investments, practically all bonds and other government-issued paper. They are now purchasing art from artists considered the best, the brightest and the most expensive - like Jesús Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez, who also sell well in New York and Paris.

But it is not just the very wealthy who are buying.

As he studied three works by Mr. Palacios at the Ascaso gallery, Mr. Korody explained his love of an artist known for engravings evocative of art as divergent as that of China and Renaissance-era Europe. But he also recognized that purchasing one of the three large engravings prominently displayed in the gallery would be a smart investment.

"I'm looking," he said with a smile. "I would like to take this Alirio Palacios right now. I'd have to think about it, though. Spending $28,000 to $30,000 - that's a lot of money."

Leyzer Topel and his mother, Cora Páez, were among the more serious buyers. Their homes, in the city of Valencia, are full of paintings and sculptures that span Venezuelan art history, from the colonial art of the 18th century to the abstract artists of today. They have so much art, in fact, that they plan to open a museum that they say will cover all Venezuelan artists and styles.

At Ascaso, they studied works by Cornelis Zitman, a Dutch-born sculptor, and the painter Luis Guevara Moreno, as well as others whose art already graces their homes. But with Venezuela's uncertain economic situation, they said, they would not mind buying more.

"You see it, you like it, you know it, it has value - so it's easy to buy," Mr. Topel said. "These artists have trajectory. They are very good artists. Their art has good value. They will not lose value."

The boom has not helped every artist. Some of the younger, struggling ones are struggling more than ever, since their works are unproven, at least in economic terms.

But established artists have seen demand for their work spike like never before, said Wladimir Zabaleta, who is known for big, complex surrealistic works that incorporate images of Diego Velásquez's visually complex painting, "Las Meninas."

"The art market is the only market in Venezuela that hasn't defrauded the consumer," said Mr. Zabaleta, whose paintings go for $25,000 and sell well here in Caracas, as well as in Miami. "People use art as credit, here and abroad. That's why the market is so active, why there's so much movement."

Antonio Ascaso, owner of the Ascaso gallery, does not talk about art in economic terms. Touring his gallery, which opened in 2002, he lovingly explained the intricacies of Mr. Zitman's life-size sculptures of Caribbean women; Mr. Guevara Moreno's haunting, Impressionist-like paintings of horses; and the whimsical works of Oswaldo Vigas, which are a cross between Picasso and Miró.

"In times of crisis, people find refuge in whatever they can, and one of them is art," he said.

Still, the artists at Mr. Ascaso's show do not harbor illusions that their paintings are selling just for their beauty. "A collector knows what he wants," said Alexis Mujica, a sculptor, "and what they want is a work that, in time, is going to have greater value."

From a pro-Chavez site

----------------------------------------------

Venezuela Opposition Plan Promises Return to Free Market and Elimination of Referenda

Project received $300,000 from National Endowment for Democracy

Martin Sanchez | Caracas | July 13

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/print.php?newsno=1308

(Venezuelanalysis.com).- The organized opposition to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez unveiled its government plan for a post-Chavez administration last Friday, a month before Venezuelans are to decide if the President will remain in office via a constitutionally-allowed recall referendum to be held Aug 15.

An opposition government would privatize part of the state-owned electric companies, acording to opposition leader Diego Bautista Urbaneja

Multinational-friendly constitutional amendments

The opposition plan titled "Consensus Country", promises a return to free market economic policies, a change that would be welcomed by international financial leaders and institutions, including the International Monetary Fund. The IMF had offered support for the dictatorial government of business leader Pedro Carmona, who made the same promise after briefly ousting Chavez thought a coup d' etat in April of 2002. Diego Bautista Urbaneja a leader of the opposition coalition Coordinadora Democratica denied that the opposition would seek IMF support.

The plan also contemplates reforms to the Constitution and several laws approved during the Chavez administration. The Hydrocarbons Law will be reformed in order to allow greater opening of Venezuela's economy to foreign investment in the oil and gas sectors.

The current Hydrocarbons Law allows foreign involvement in the oil and gas sectors mostly through partnerships with local private and state enterprises. The current new law also significantly increased the royalties paid by foreign multinationals for oil and gas extraction, a measure that has negatively affected foreign investment in that sector, according to opposition experts.

 Those royalties will be "flexibilized". Part of the profits generated by the increased royalties and from the state oil company PDVSA, are being used to finance social programs fro the poor.

An increase in oil production will also be enacted through "a redirection of OPEC policies according to the modern oil market." An increase in oil production would help the opposition's plan of "restoring good relations" with the United States, as the Bush administration has been pressuring OPEC for an increase in output in order to bring down prices. Chavez is credited with helping rebuild OPEC and restoring oil prices after he took office, a move that was not well welcomed by Washington.

Under the economic flexibility policies to be implemented, currency exchange controls will also be lifted. The currency controls were enacted after capital flight reached unprecedented levels during the opposition-sponsored oil industry sabotage, lock-out and strike of 2002-2003, aimed at ousting Chavez, and which caused a historical quarterly GDP drop of 28%.

The plan calls for private sector investment in state electric companies. "Privatizations may be necessary due to the large investments needed," admitted opposition leader Diego Bautista Urbaneja, who coordinated the program. The plan proposes combining privatization with subsidies for the poor, which already exist.

The Land Law, Chavez's mild version of land reform, will also be derogated during a post-Chavez administration.

Although the Law has only been applied to transfer state-owned land to farmers organized in cooperatives, it is one of the most controversial measures enacted by the Chavez administration. The Land Law has been used as an example of Chavez's alleged threats to private property of the means of production.

Some NED grants have been specifically directed to opposition groups such as Accion Campesina, which has offered to monitor possible conflicts generated by the implementation of the Law.

 Unlike previous land reforms implemented in the past by parties which are now part of the opposition, the current Land Law forces the government to pay market prices for land that remains unused for years instead of expropriating without pay. It also gives owners a two-year grace period to initiate production in order to avoid being forced to sell their land.

 However, rancher and agri-business associations see it as a threat to property rights.

Continuity of social programs "not guaranteed"

The opposition proposal vaguely hints at maintaining some of Chavez's social programs or "missions". However, Diego Bautista Urbaneja admitted during an interview with Venezuela's state TV station late Monday that the continuity of the missions will not be guaranteed. Polls show widespread support for the social programs of literacy, access to secondary and higher education, health care, and endogenous development, enacted by Chavez in favor of the poor.

A program of micro-credits and of promotion of small businesses will also be implemented. The proposal avoids mentioning Chavez's current micro-financing programs currently implemented through several government-financed banks.

The opposition programs calls for a campaign to confiscate illegally owned firearms. The Chavez government currently has a program for the exchange of firearms for scholarships through the Ministries of Defense and of Education.

Recall Referenda to be eliminated

The plan calls for a Constitutional amendment which would eliminate the recall referenda of elected officials, a tool currently used by the opposition to try to oust Chavez, after other methods such as a coup d'etat, lock-outs, strikes and oil industry shutdowns had failed.

"Recall referenda must be eliminated because it brings too much instability," opposition leader Henry Ramos Allup was quoted as saying in a AFP news wire. Ramos Allup is the Secretary General of Accion Democratica (AD), the opposition's biggest party.

Elimination of voting rights for military

The right of members of the military to vote, granted by the new Constitution approved by referendum during Chavez's first years in office, will also be eliminated. The number of years that a president can serve in office will be changed from six to four years.

Articles 333 and 350 of Venezuela's Constitution, which justify rebelling against an autocratic or dictatorial government, would also be eliminated if the opposition comes to power.

Those articles have been used by the opposition to justify anti-Chavez militant actions such as the "legitimate disobedience" camp that rebel military officers set up in 2002 at the Altamira square in eastern Caracas to demand Chavez's resignation. The opposition also invoked those articles to justify the "Plan Guarimba" activated earlier this year, which consisted of setting up roadblocks and the destruction of property.

Opposition leader Elias Santana invoked article 350 when calling for "tax law disobedience" during the oil industry shutdown and business lock-out at the end of 2002.

With regard to foreign policy, the opposition proposal contemplates "defining a clear and active opposition to narcotrafficking and terrorism.

Although more illegal drugs have been intercepted by the Chavez government than any previous government, the opposition and Colombian right wing politicians claim that Chavez cooperates with drug traffickers to finance Colombian guerrillas. Under Chavez, Venezuela has signed and ratified all the international legal instruments against terrorism.

"Bush's consensus"

On Sunday, during his weekly live television show, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez described the opposition's new plan as "Bush's consensus". Chavez cited documents obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which describe financing of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for the development of the opposition government plan.

According to FOIA documents published at www.VenezuelaFOIA.info, the U.S. government-financed NED awarded a grant of approximately $300,000 in early 2003 to the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), a U.S. based entity and one of four core NED grantees, together with the Center for Dissemination of Economic Information (CEDICE), a Venezuelan organization, for a project titled "Project Consensus to Build a National Agenda".

Chavez accused those who drafted the plan of being "coup plotters". CEDICE's president Rocio Guijarro was one of the initial signors of the a decree enacted during the brief April 2002 opposition dictatorship which dissolved all of Venezuela's democratic institutions, including the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Constitution, the General Attorney and the Public Defender's office. Several of the individuals and institutions mentioned in the grant as supporters of the project, also supported the brief dictatorial government of April 2002.

The CEDICE project describes the Chavez government as "a dictatorship", and compares Chavez to Hitler by stating that "The one thing separating the country from full revolutionary control is the fact that the Chavez government was the result of free elections (as was the Nazi regime in its inception)..."

Coordinadora Democratica representative Diego Bautista Urbaneja dismissed Chavez's comments on the opposition plan saying that "he wasted his time" by dedicating part of his show to it. "Nothing of what he showed has to do with the Consensus Country [plan]," said Urbaneja to a local radio station.

An NED grant was provided for the development of the oppositions government plan.  

Urbaneja's arguments seem to be disputed by the NED grant documents which reveal CEDICE's links to the Coordinadora Democratica coalition and its close collaboration with the mainstream media: "CEDICE'S Consensus project is being monitored by the committee in the Coordinadora Democratica (Democratic Coordinator) `Consensus Country' responsible for preparing a `transition program' that will be offered to the electorate, and this is scheduled to be ready and approved by all elements of the Coordinadora by mid June."

The opposition plan presented last Friday is dated Sep 3rd, 2003.

Media and poll company president involved in project

The CEDICE project's advisory committee included leaders from many of the same groups -banks, media, Catholic Church- that supported the coup efforts in April 2002 and the illegal strike in December 2003-February 2004.

Among them are William Echeverria from TV network Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), Mikel De Viana, SJ a Catholic Church representative, Hugo Fonseca Viso, of the Chamber of Commerce FEDECAMARAS, and Jesus Urbieta from the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) union federation.

The mainstream media is mentioned as collaborators in the promotion of the opposition's initiative.

Among scholars who would participate in forums to promote the plan is Prof. Luis Vicente Leon, the president of the polling company Datanalisis. Datanalisis' current polls show Chavez losing the upcoming recall referendum by a margin of 15%, in contrast with four other polls that show Chavez winning with a lead as big as 16% over the opposition. Datanalisis has consistently given Chavez unfavorable numbers in its polls, even before he was elected.

Datanalisis president Luis Vicente Leon, was mentioned as a featured speaker at forums to develop and obtain support for the project.

The impact of the presentation of the opposition's plan will likely be reflected in new polls to be released in upcoming weeks. The lack of a government plan has been cited by experts as the opposition's biggest weakness when confronting Chavez.

The plan presented would not necessarily reflect what the particular party that comes to power in an eventual post-Chavez period may want to implement.

The Coordinadora Democratica opposition coalition is made up an heterogeneous mix of parties, business organizations, NGOs and political personalities. "The Consensus Country plan was developed within the course of two and a half years, and it went as far as consensus could reach," said Urbaneja at a press conference when presenting the plan.

This, understandably, is driving the Opposition crazy

-----------------------------------------------------

Rincon: Nothing to prevent President Chavez from running in elections if he loses the referendum

Caracas | July 12

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=21978

(Diario La Jornada / AFP, REUTERS and DPA):  Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) president Ivan Rincon said Saturday that there are no Constitutional barriers to President Hugo Chavez Frias running as a candidate in new elections if his mandate is revoked in the August 15 presidential recall referendum.

In an interview published in the newspaper El Nacional, Rincon explained that the court is preparing a ruling on whether Chavez can participate in elections following the referendum, a topic that has provoked a lively debate between the president's sympathizers and opponents.

"There are no restrictions, if they are not in the Constitution, and not in the law. Now we have to rule whether Hugo Chavez Frias can participate (in elections) if his mandate is revoked." If Chavez is defeated in the August 15 referendum, the Vice President will replace him until a new president is elected within the following 30 days. The new president will govern until January, 2007.

In an interview published Saturday in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, President Chavez said that if he loses the referendum, he will leave "without any problems, because the following month, I'll be fighting again for the presidency."

Rincon recalled that the Constitution "expressly establishes that assemblymen whose mandates have been revoked cannot run for elective office during the following term, but it says nothing about mayors, governors, and the President."

Chavez says that he will win the August referendum "by a majority," which will obligate the United States to give up its campaign to remove him from power.

Translated by Philip Stinard

Caracas July 14

(AP) -- Venezuela and 14 Caribbean countries will meet in August to discuss the creation of a new company which will sell oil at cheaper prices in the region, Venezuela's Energy Minister said.

The decision follows a weekend meeting during which Venezuela proposed to its Caribbean neighbors the establishment of PetroCaribe, a company that would distribute crude and refined oil products to the Caribbean at lower prices than other dealers in the area.

Venezuela's Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez discussed the agreement with representatives from Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

A follow-up meeting has been scheduled for Aug. 26-27 in Jamaica to discuss the details of the new agreement, Ramirez said in a statement issued late Tuesday.

The countries have signed previous deals with Venezuela for preferential oil prices. However, Ramirez says that the dealers who distribute oil in the Caribbean place unfair profit margins on the products.

Officials said Saturday that Venezuela will also aid some countries in the development of their own oil industries.

Venezuela, the world's No.5 oil exporter, says it produces more than 3 million barrels of oil a day. Some analysts say the amount is closer to 2.5 million. Venezuela's quota as a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is 2.9 million barrels a day.

Not a new worry, but  surfacing again.....

-------------------------------------------

Alexandra Olson | Caracas| July 12

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/world/2004-07-12-venezuela-evote_x.htm

(AP)-- Despite an electronic voting fiasco in 2000 and the furor over e-voting in the United States, Venezuela is using untested touchscreen computers for its recall referendum on Hugo Chavez's presidency.

Critics fear touchscreen voting machines in the Aug. 15 vote could fail spectacularly, exacerbating a crisis over Chavez's rule that has polarized the world's No. 5 oil exporter and killed dozens in sporadic political violence.

The touchscreen machines on which a third of the U.S. electorate will vote in November are dangerously vulnerable to hackers, rigging and mechanical failure, computer scientists generally agree.

That didn't deter the Chavez-dominated Venezuelan Elections Council from choosing Smartmatic, a little-known Boca Raton, Fla.-based company, to provide similar technology -- albeit with a printed record of each vote -- for the referendum.

Smartmatic has never tested its machines in an election. And there has been no independent analysis or certification of its touchscreen system, although the council says the system will be audited before the vote.

In the United States, touchscreen computers are partly an attempt to eliminate hanging chads and other problems associated with the disputed U.S. presidential election results in Florida in 2000. Chavez often cites the Florida debacle to question George W. Bush's presidential credentials.

Yet in Venezuela, an electronic voting system produced that very same year what is widely known as the "mega-flop."

The biggest election in Venezuela's history was supposed to take place on May 28, 2000. More than 6,000 public offices were up for grabs, and Chavez, elected in 1998, was seeking re-election.

But two days before the vote, the Supreme Court postponed the election because of problems with computer software needed to tabulate votes and register more than 36,000 candidates. It was humiliating for election officials who had insisted things were going smoothly.

The Omaha-based software provider, Election Systems & Software, blamed constant changes by election authorities in posting thousands of candidates.

E-voting did take place in July 2000 with few problems. But the postponement prompted authorities to reject any new deal with ES&S and to retire machines from the Spanish company Indra.

This year, a pro-Chavez majority on the five-member elections council voted to sign a $91 million contract with Smartmatic and its two partners, Venezuelan software company Bitza, and CANTV, Venezuela's publicly held telephone company.

Council president Francisco Carrasquero said Smartmatic won based on three factors: security, cost, and technology transfer.

In the past Venezuela depended on Indra or other foreign firms to run its elections, Carrasquero said, while Smartmatic is providing Venezuela licenses for its systems.

"Now it's in the council's hands, and we'll have autonomy designing automated elections," he said.

Carrasquero also argued that e-voting is the best way to avoid ballot-stuffing he said marred elections before Chavez came to power.

The Smartmatic deal includes 20,000 touchscreen voting machines and plans to run regional elections in September. Another $24 million contract for the referendum is in the works.

Two elections council members abstained from the Smartmatic vote. One of them, Ezequiel Zamora, declared: "I thought a process as simple as a referendum should be done manually. An untried system is always going to create doubt."

Chavez, whose term runs to 2007, can be recalled if the opposition gets more votes than the nearly 3.8 million he received in 2000. Elections would be held within 30 days to choose someone to serve out his term.

Chavez says the recall is an effort by a corrupt Venezuelan elite, backed by Washington, to end his leftist revolution on behalf of the poor. Venezuela's opposition accuses Chavez of gradually imposing an authoritarian regime.

Opponents initially objected to the e-voting plans, then asked for a simultaneous audit using a small sampling of the machines.

"Smartmatic is a company that hasn't tested its system anywhere in the world -- and it's going to test it here in Venezuela in a process as important as the recall referendum," complained Luis Planas, a member of the opposition COPEI party.

Suspicion deepened after The Miami Herald reported in May that a Venezuelan state industrial development fund had invested in Bitza, whose role is to integrate manual votes into the electronic system. Some 10% of voters, mostly in rural areas, will cast manual ballots.

Bitza quickly announced it would buy back the government's 28% stake.

Smartmatic President Antonio Mugica, who also co-founded Bitza, insists his firm is apolitical, and he brushed aside concerns about Smartmatic's inexperience.

"There is no voting system more secure than this one," Mugica boasted, tapping a machine's screen during a demonstration in his sleekly furnished Caracas office.

A square piece of paper popped out of the computer, a physical record of his vote. That, Mugica insists, is the system's primary safeguard against fraud: A paper trail that allows for a recount of any contested election.

Voters must deposit the slip into a ballot box before they can retrieve their IDs from polling officials.

The paper trail theoretically spares Smartmatic from a key complaint about touchscreen machines in the United States. Those machines won't have paper records in November, although a growing number of U.S. states will mandate them in future elections.

Mugica, an engineering graduate from Caracas' Simon Bolivar University, founded Smartmatic in 2000 with three other Venezuelans. The software firm handles its finance and sales in Boca Raton but does most research and development in Venezuela. It reported sales of $1.47 million for the six months ending June 30, 2003, according to Dun & Bradstreet.

Mugica said the firm began developing its electronic voting system in 2001, inspired partly by Venezuela's 2000 elections. He said the data storage and transmission will be encrypted, which should frustrate tampering.

But U.S. computer experts have found numerous security flaws in touchscreen machines, including incorrect use of cryptography, said Aviel D. Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University.

"Computers can be made to produce any outcome that you want without anybody really knowing that's what was done," Rubin said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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New York Times

Letters to the Editor

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/19/opinion/L19VENE.html

July 19, 2004

Venezuelan Referendum

To the Editor:

Re "Moved by Homeland's Political Strife, Venezuelans Sign Up to Vote" (news article, July 12):

The Aug. 15 presidential referendum should be understood as a vote on whether to go back to the past -- when Venezuela's oil wealth benefited a small number of well-connected individuals -- or whether it should be invested in health care and education for everyone.

President Hugo Chávez has twice been elected president of Venezuela by large majorities in multiparty elections. Both elections were judged free and fair by international observers. Mr. Chávez's opposition has been determined to overthrow him by whatever means necessary.

Mr. Chávez survived a military coup in 2002 and an illegal, management-led work stoppage at our state oil company in 2003.

Despite all of this, both government and opposition polls show the president well positioned to win the August recall vote.

BERNARDO ÁLVAREZ

Ambassador of Venezuela

Washington, July 13, 2004

New York Times

World Business

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/business/worldbusiness/24venez.html

July 24, 2004

Oil, Venezuela's Lifeblood, Is Now Its Social Currency, Too

By JUAN FORERO

Chart: Price Support

Jorge Silva/Reuters

Venezuela is moving cautiously on signing new deals with foreign companies so that it gets the best terms.

David Rochkind/Polaris

In recent months a large part of the earnings from the Venezuelan oil company have been channeled to pay for a social revolution, including adult education classes, left, long promised by President Hugo Chávez.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Seventeen months after an antigovernment strike crippled production, Venezuela's state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, has made what analysts call a Herculean return.

Though energy experts say production remains below prestrike levels, the oil-and-gas monolith is, once again, one of the world's great producers of crude. Its giant refining arm is talking of adding two refineries to the three already operating in the United States. The company says it is embarking on a strategy, heavily dependent on foreign oil companies, to nearly double production by 2009.

All this is part of a grand design made possible largely by sky-high oil prices, which have nearly doubled the expected revenue of Pdvsa (pronounced peh-deh-VEH-sah), as the company is known.

But while Pdvsa's talk of foreign investment and ramped-up production is welcome in the boardrooms of the world's biggest oil companies, in recent months much of the new earnings have been siphoned from exploration and production projects that some energy analysts say Pdvsa needs to recover fully from the strike. Instead, the windfall is financing a social revolution long promised by President Hugo Chávez's 5½-year-old government to extricate the country from its malaise and ease life for the poor, an effort that had been hobbled by the strike and a 2002 coup that temporarily ousted the firebrand leader.

And with the Aug. 15 recall referendum that could end Mr. Chávez's presidency drawing ever nearer, the spending spree - on everything from housing to railroads, health clinics and literacy programs - is an increasingly important, and successful, tool for solidifying support for Mr. Chávez. Recent polls show he could squeak to victory.

Pdvsa's new role has raised eyebrows among oil executives and in Washington, which has long counted on Venezuela as one of the four big exporters of oil to the United States and which has been hoping Pdvsa will help curtail the reliance on Middle Eastern crude.

The company that has emerged from the ashes of the strike that ended in February 2003 is nothing like the button-down, corporate-style company that in the 1990's was often the No. 1 provider of foreign oil to the United States.

Gone is the by-the-book giant, which had $42 billion in sales, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission last October. Gone is the multinational whose managers once proudly compared Pdvsa to Exxon Mobil. Gone, too, are 18,000 experienced executives and managers who were fired for their role in the strike.

So is the autonomy the company once wielded, replaced by a highly centralized management controlled by the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

The new Pdvsa seems to be in no rush to pump more oil to ease the supply squeeze that helped contribute to a price of $42 a barrel in early June and caused so much consternation for American energy officials.

Nor is it moving fast toward deals with foreign oil companies, though Pdvsa officials insist they want private investment as long as the terms are beneficial to Venezuela.

"We do not need them at any price," said Bernard Mommer, an executive at Pdvsa who has advised the company and the Ministry of Energy and Mines on how to realign the company. "Some of them believe they can carry on as they did in the past. No way."

For now, Pdvsa is awash in cash. Its oil revenue in 2004 will top $7 billion, according to an estimate by LatinSource, a network of economists based in New York.

The government recently announced that $2 billion in Pdvsa revenue would bypass the central bank and form a special development fund to pay for public projects like a hydroelectric plant and a new state airline. Another $1.7 billion - taken from Pdvsa's $5 billion capitalization budget - is going to social programs, Rafael Ramírez, the minister of energy and mines, announced.

Some oil experts warn that huge expenditures like these will permanently damage a company that needs to spend up to $3 billion annually just to keep production stable.

"What they're doing is just maintaining output," said Ramón Espinasa, a former chief economist at Pdvsa who is now an oil consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank. "They stopped the fall, but there's no growth in production."

Still, many oil analysts and executives of large oil companies doing business here are taking a wait-and-see attitude, saying that with the big influx of revenue, Mr. Chávez's government may be able to spend big and still run the company.

"These things don't ever come easily, but the steps they've taken are generally correct," said Peter Hill, chief executive of Harvest Natural Resources of Houston, a small oil concern that has invested $1 billion here since 1992. "I believe in the concept of what they're trying to achieve. I think we can contribute to that."

To fulfill its social goals, Pdvsa needs foreign companies to play a crucial role in developing new oil fields, drawing more crude from old ones and developing natural gas fields, which contain the largest deposits in Latin America.

The company said late in 2003 that it needed to invest $36 billion by 2008, capital that oil experts said would have to come largely from private companies. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East, and interest is high among some of the world's biggest companies, energy experts say.

"The private sector is literally lining up at the ministry's door," said David Voght, managing director of IPD Latin America, an oil company consultancy in Caracas. "Now it's up to the government to effectively manage these offers."

The future lies in developing the oil deposits under the vast grasslands of north central Venezuela, the so-called Orinoco Belt, which oil executives believe may contain more oil than all of Saudi Arabia. In the mid-1990's, when Venezuela was opening up to foreign investment, companies like Exxon Mobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Total of France and Statoil of Norway came to the Faja, as the belt is known in Spanish.

Half a million barrels a day are produced there now, under an old law requiring companies to pay a 1 percent royalty on the first nine years of 35-year contracts; it is part of an old royalty structure intended to lure investors who might have been put off by the Faja's tar-like oil, which is expensive to extract and refine.

Though any new projects in the Faja will fall under a 2001 hydrocarbons law that raises royalty rates to at least 20 percent and, for the first time, makes Pdvsa a majority partner, companies remain eager, hoping that they can negotiate lower royalty rates and features in the contracts that reduce Pdvsa's role, industry representatives said.

"We have decided to be in Venezuela, with the patience required," said Tor Espedal, president of Statoil's Venezuela division.

Yet, despite terms generally more favorable to Pdvsa, negotiations with the company, over the Faja and beyond, often go grindingly slow.

Even at companies like Total that are moving toward a deal, executives describe tough negotiations that leave them wondering how committed Pdvsa really is to expanding the role of private companies.

"We are proposing to invest in a $4 billion project immediately, and we agree to work in terms of the new law," said Jean-Marie Guillermou of Total's Venezuela operations. "Normally, a country would want to jump on this. They don't do it. Why?"

Mr. Mommer, the Pdvsa adviser who also counsels the Energy Ministry, said the company wanted to be cautious and avoid giving out the sweetheart deals he said Pdvsa executives handed out before Mr. Chávez became president.

"This will not be repeated," he said.

Some oil executives and analysts say Pdvsa has become a more secretive company, unwilling to release the same kind of financial and production information that it would readily provide in the past.

Independent energy experts also discount assertions by company officials that Pdvsa is fully recovered from the 2003 strike. Oil executives who work with Pdvsa say that the previously nimble company can take three times as long as a private company to drill a well and that its managers, though capable, lack the knowledge of the fired executives.

And they question Pdvsa's claims that it is producing more than three million barrels of oil a day. Analysts relying on import-export data and public rig-count records say it is producing 2.5 million a day, or a little more, at most.

"Coming back after the strike to reach 2.5 to 2.7 million barrels is pretty heroic," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, an industry-supported analysis group in New York. "They should get credit for that, but we do not believe their numbers."

Mr. Chávez's public pronouncements have done little to assuage industry concerns. He has railed against the Bush administration, accusing it of coveting Venezuela's resources, and in March he even threatened to withhold oil if the Bush administration tried an invasion.

Yet, days after the threat, he warmly greeted ChevronTexaco executives at a ceremony at the presidential palace to celebrate the granting of a gas exploration license.

Analysts said that with Venezuelan oil providing billions more dollars than expected, Mr. Chávez probably feels he has the freedom to move slowly on signing contracts while focusing instead on social spending.

"Right now, Pdvsa is not a mercantile entity," said Antonio Szabó, a former executive at Pdvsa who left long before Mr. Chávez came to power and who is now chief executive of Stone Bond Technologies, a Houston software and energy consulting firm. "Right now, it's an instrument of the Venezuelan government."

Another week, another poll

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Tue Jul 27, 2004 07:57 PM ET

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5791071

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will likely win an August recall referendum, according to a poll released on Tuesday that found a majority of registered voters believe he is doing a good job.

The survey, commissioned by a unit of Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA, found 49 percent of registered voters against recalling the left-wing former army officer and 41 percent of voters in favor of him leaving office.

The poll, conducted by U.S. pollster Evans/McDonough Co. and local company Varianzas Opinion, is the latest in a series of conflicting surveys before the Aug. 15 vote on whether Chavez should step down as head of the oil-rich nation.

Most polls have projected Chavez would lose the referendum, but more recent surveys have revealed a tight race as the populist leader spends heavily on health and education programs that have bolstered his support among the poor.

Among registered voters who told the EMC pollsters they were definitely going to vote, Chavez' support rose to 51 percent while his opponents got 43 percent. The poll was conducted July 16-22 in 2,000 homes with an error margin of 2.2 percentage points.

To win the referendum, the opposition must receive more votes than Chavez and also equal or beat the 3.8 million votes the president received in his 2000 re-election. More than 13.9 million people are registered to vote.

A June poll by Washington-based Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research said 49 percent of registered Venezuelan voters would oppose his recall against 44 percent who would vote for him to leave office.

That poll, commissioned by a major opposition-aligned TV channel, put "core voters" tied at 48 percent on whether to recall Chavez.

Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and survived a coup in 2002, has vowed to defeat the referendum challenge by foes he dismisses as rich elites opposed to his social reforms.

His critics fought a year-long campaign to hold a vote against a president they accuse of failing to address poverty and unemployment and increasing state control over institutions such as the electoral council in an attempt to stay in power.

Chavez has enjoyed a windfall from high oil prices and has pumped millions of dollars into social programs. But opposition leaders, who have struggled to preserve their unity, are confident they can muster the votes they need to oust him.

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© Copyright Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.  

A Chavista interview with the British leftist Tariq Ali

_________________



Interview with Tariq Ali

Venezuela: Changing the World by Taking Power

Claudia Jardim and Jonah Gindin - Venezuelanalysis.com

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1223

Tariq Ali is a veteran political activist, filmmaker, and author of numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and now lives and works London, England where he is an editor of the British journal New Left Review. His most recent political texts include The Clash of Fundamentalisms (Verso, 2002) and Bush in Babylon: Recolonizing Iraq (Verso, 2003).

Claudia Jardim and Jonah Gindin talked with him during a recent trip of his to Caracas, where he participated in the presentation of a statement of solidarity from numerous Brazilian intellectuals

How do you explain the explosion in social movements against neoliberalism in Latin America?

I think the reason for this is that Latin America was used as a laboratory by the United States for a long, long time. Everything the US wanted was experimented in Latin America first. When they wanted military--on the political level--when they wanted to crush popular movements by unleashing military dictatorships they did it in Latin America first: Brazil, Argentina, Chile; three of the most brutal dictatorships we have seen.

 Then, after the collapse of the communist enemy, they relaxed on the political front but they got Latin America in a grip economically, and they said `this is the only way forward.' We can summarize it like this: the laboratory of the American Empire is the first to rebel against the Empire. So many many different and interesting processes are happening in Latin America and I think where the left is weak is in its inability to bring these together and to refound the Latin American left.

What began to happen in Latin America is a process of de-industrialization; foreign investments coming in. In the most classic examples were Chile under Pinochet, then Brazil under Cardoso and Argentina under successive governments. They de-industrialized the country, they thought that the country could function in a bubble--an economic bubble created by a false boom, a boom which was largely fuelled by foreign investment, foreign moneys coming into banks where there were low interest rates.

So people used to use this to invest, but whenever the investments got risky they used to take them out--international capital. They had absolutely no motivation for building Brazil or Argentina so you gradually began to have the rise of a new social movement which arose from below: peasant movements, landless peasant movements, unemployed working class movements which began to challenge this initially on a micro-level, in villages, in one town, in one locality, in one region. And then gradually it began to spread.

The result was continent wide protests...

You had an uprising in Cochabamba in Bolivia against the privatization of water. You had a struggle of the peasants of Cuzco in Peru, against the privatization of electricity. On both struggles the government made repression first and then they had to retreat. Then you had an unbelievable collapse in Argentina, where within three weeks I think 4 or 5 presidents came and fell. That began to demonstrate very graphically the crisis of neoliberal capitalism.

 Then you had Brazil. In Brazil you had a situation where Cardoso had de-industrialized the country completely. There was no national bourgeoisie left, there were no national traditions within the capitalist sphere left, and the country began to suffer.

Do you see the US Empire absorbing this energy by trying to propose a softer version of neoliberalism?

I don't think they are, at the moment, prepared to do that. They will only do that if they feel threatened. And they don't feel threatened at the moment. And one reason--I have to be very blunt here--they don't feel threatened is because there is an idealistic slogan within the social movements, which goes like this: `We can change the world without taking power.'

This slogan doesn't threaten anyone; it's a moral slogan. The Zapatistas--who I admire--you know, when they marched from Chiapas to Mexico City, what did they think was going to happen? Nothing happened. It was a moral symbol, it was not even a moral victory because nothing happened. So I think that phase was understandable in Latin American politics, people were very burnt by recent experiences: the defeat of the Sandinistas, the defeat of the armed struggle movements, the victory of the military, etc., so people were nervous.

But I think, from that point of view, the Venezuelan example is the most interesting one. It says: `in order to change the world you have to take power, and you have to begin to implement change--in small doses if necessary--but you have to do it. Without it nothing will change.' So, it's an interesting situation and I think at Porto Alegre next year all these things will be debated and discussed--I hope.

Without adequately addressing state power, what alternative to neoliberalism is the Global Social Justice movement offering?

No, they have no alternative! They think that it is an advantage not to have an alternative. But, in my view that's a sign of political bankruptcy. If you have no alternative, what do you say to the people you mobilize? The MST[1] in Brazil has an alternative, they say `take the land and give it to the poor peasants, let them work it.'

 But the Holloway[2] thesis of the Zapatistas, it's--if you like--a virtual thesis, it's a thesis for cyber space: let's imagine. But we live in the real world, and in the real world this thesis isn't going to work. Therefore, the model for me of the MST in Brazil is much much more interesting than the model of the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Much more interesting.

Brazil's Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) has been pressuring the Workers Party (PT) to deliver on its promises of delivering land to Brazil's poor.

What do you make of the impasse that has been reached between the grassroots and the government in Brazil?

I think the problem in Brazil is the following: the PT[3] captured the aspirations of the people, especially the poor. They captured them, but they couldn't deliver anything--so far, they have delivered nothing. In fact, the repression against the MST in the first year of Lula has been much higher than in any single year of the Cardoso government. The farmers and the police have victimized and killed far more MST militants. Now, this will end badly.

 Why has it happened? It's happened because, in my opinion, the PT had not prepared itself in a serious way to even think about any real alternatives. Publicly they said, `yes we'll give land to the landless, yes will do this, yes we will do that,' but they had not made any real preparation.

And Lula, I'm afraid, is a weak leader. A weak leader who is so excited at being in power, that he forgets why he is. The same thing happened to Lech Walesa in Poland when the big mass movement Solidarnosc threw him up and he finally was elected. What did he deliver? Nothing. And he was voted out by the people, and that will happen to Lula.

Refounding the Brazilian left...

I think that, in my opinion, what we need in Brazil is a movement to refound the Brazilian left. And this movement must include, broadly speaking, those people inside the PT including many members of parliament and senators and grassroots members, a very key component that should include the MST and it should include that layer of Brazilian socialist intellectuals who are now very disillusioned. These three components are very important to refound the Brazilian left, it's foolish to do it by just a few people walking out and declaring `we're a new party.'

 You need a new different sort of a movement and a different sort of a party than the PT. In these conditions the bulk of the Brazilian working class is now an informal working class--it's not the case as it was when the PT was founded. And so you have different priorities. You have to refound a Brazilian left which is in accord with these new priorities and realities of Brazil today, not some mythological picture of the past.

Before the elections in Brazil, I was in Ribeirao Preto at a festival, and they asked me `if you were a Brazilian, who would you vote for?' And I said I would vote for Lula with the majority of the poor of Brazil.

But I said my big worry was that Lula will forget who has voted him into power and he will cater to the policies of those who did not vote for him--the IMF and the World Bank and the international financial institutions. They did not vote for Lula, but they're the people who's policies are being carried out.

And I said that would be a tragedy, and people gasped but that's exactly what's happened. And for me the relation between Lula and Cardoso is the relation between Thatcher and Blair. Blair followed Thatcher, Lula is following Cardoso. It's intertwined, and this is the tragedy of Brazil and in four or five years time there will massive disillusionment; the right will probably win again and we will have to start the fight from the beginning.

In Colombia, for example, there has been a huge militarization that is very similar to cold war U.S strategy in Latin America. Where does this fit in with a new strategy that, as you have pointed out, is largely economic?

Colombia is exceptional at the moment, and of course Venezuela where they tried to push through a new coup d'état which failed. They will do that if nothing else succeeds. Where they feel democracy doesn't serve their interests they will return to the military--that's obvious. But at the moment the problem is: how to devise a society in which you can push through projects, social-democratic projects for the poor. That's the key in my opinion, that's why Venezuela is very important.

Before Lula was elected a possibility emerged, an image emerged of the following: Argentina had collapsed, in Venezuela there was Chávez that if you had a Bolivarian federation, of Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela and Cuba, together you could produce a completely different way of looking at the world and a different form of society, which would not be repressive, which would not be vicious, which would transform the everyday lives of the poor.

That has not happened because...Kirchner, in my opinion, is better than Lula; he's trying to resist on some levels. The big disappointment has been the Brazilian PT, big disappointment. But that doesn't mean we stop thinking like that because in a small way it's what I said at the press conference today: 10,000 Cuban doctors, thousands of poor Venezuelan kids going to Cuba to learn to be doctors.

Here you take advantage of each other's strengths, not each other's weaknesses. So it's very good that Venezuela and Chávez are taking advantage of the strengths of Cuba, rather than their weaknesses. The social structure they have created, health, education that's something that Brazil could do as well, but they don't do it.

In the wake of strong opposition to the Free Trade Area of the Americas might the US use bilateral trade agreements to achieve its economic goals in Latin America?

I think the United States, you have to understand, always acts in its own interests, and its own interests are to stop a regional force from emerging in Latin America without the presence of the United States; to stop a regional force emerging in the far east--China, Japan, Korea, without the presence of the United States; to stop Europe from becoming a strong political economic power.

 So, the United States will permit concessions where it suits their interests, as long as they feel that this doesn't threaten them politically or economically. They can make many concessions, but by and large they prefer bilateral deals. `Deal with us. Don't deal with us as a collective, deal with us one-to-one. That's what suits us.' That's always been their policy.

.The Global Justice Movement is wary of Chávez' populism, his military background, and what they fear may become a top-down `revolution' that excludes the grassroots. How do you think the GJM and Chávez can be reconciled?

As long as the poor in Venezuela support this government it will survive, when they withdraw their support it will fall. But I think it will be useful if the Global Justice movement--and there are many different strands in it--came and saw what's going on here.

What's the problem? Go into the shantytowns, see what the lives of the people are, see what their lives were before this regime came into power. And don't go on the basis of stereotypes.

 You cannot change the world without taking power, that is the example of Venezuela. Chávez is improving the lives of ordinary people, and that's why it's difficult to topple him--otherwise he would be toppled. So it's something that people in the Global Justice movement have to understand, this is serious politics. It's pointless just chanting slogans, because for the ordinary people on whose behalf you claim to be fighting getting an education, free medicine, cheap food is much much more important than all the slogans put together.

What do you think of the Venezuelan example of participatory democracy?

I think it needs to be strengthened. I think it's weak, I think the movement here needs to institutionalize on every level--the level of small pueblos, the level of the towns, the level of different quarters--organizations, which can be very broad: Bolivarian Circles, whatever you want to call them, which meet regularly, which talk with each other, which discuss their problems, which aren't simply a response to calls from above.

It's very very important, because you know, Chávez is an unusual guy in Latin America--very special--and he is young and long may he live, but he has to create institutions which outlast him for the future of this country.

What is at stake in Venezuela? Whose interests? And can Venezuela survive alone? What does Venezuela mean to the US?

Venezuela is an example which the Americans wish to wipe out. Because if this example exists, and gets stronger and stronger and stronger, then people in Brazil, in Argentina, in Ecuador, in Chile, in Bolivia will say `if Venezuelans can do it, we can do it.'

So Venezuela, from that point of view, is a very important example. That's why they're so worked up. That's why the Americans pour in millions of dollars to help this stupid opposition in this counry; an opposition which is incapable of offering any real alternative to the people, except what used to exist before: a corrupt, a servile oligarchy.

That's what Venezuela means, and I think that one weakness, till recently, of the Bolivarian revolution has been that it has not done more towards the rest of Latin America, because it's been under siege at home. But I think, once Chávez wins the referendum, and then the local elections I hope, and the mayoralty of Caracas in September,

I hope then a big offensive is made for the rest of Latin America too. From that point of view, the model of the Cuban doctors is a very good one. I mean, a Venezuelan doctor--in five years Venezuelans will come back [from Cuba] as doctors, they can help both their own country, and they can go to other countries to work in the shantytowns.

 They are small things, but in the world in which we live they are very big things. Fifty years ago they would have been small, today they are very big. And that's why we have to preserve and nurture them

The mainstream private media plays an important political role in Venezuela. How can this disinformation be combated?

What we lack in Latin America is means of communication, we need a satellite channel like Al Jazeera, and I said we'll call it `Al Bolivar' if you want. But you need one which reports regularly--what the right is saying, what the left movements are saying, which gives an account of what it is the MST wants, which challenges Lula, but which does it quite independently, without being attached to any state.

And I think this satellite channel could be very important for the whole of Latin America, to challenge the BBC World, and CNN and have a Latin American channel. And the Venezuelans, and the Argentineans, etc. it's in their own interests to do it.

What do you think opposition and US strategy will be in the event of a Chávez victory come A-15?

Well, I think the only strategy left then is to try and overthrow him by a military coup. So the fact that the military seems to be supporting him, and after the previous coup it was a warning to him as well: you can't simply rely on the military without educating people. I think without the military in Venezuela, they can't do anything--they cannot topple him.

I think the opposition, quite honestly, if they lose this referendum--which was their big demand for years, `oh, he's not allowing a referendum,' forgetting that he has given you a constitution according which you want this referendum, without this constitution you couldn't have had this referendum--so if he wins this referendum the opposition will be fractured, I think they will be completely demoralized, it's foolish.

Do you think opposition strategy might be to claim there was fraud in order to deligitmize Chavez´victory?

Well, look: we have to fight that when it happens, but I think this is why the process should be transparent, and I think lots of observers will be coming. And if that happens, the government has to go immediately on the offensive, and say `this was a clear victory, you want you go into the whole country and talk to every single voter.' One hasn't got to be defensive about that. Go completely on the offensive and say, `this isn't Florida.'

In any case, one shouldn't worry permanently, be paranoid, you know one should depend on the strength of the people. If the people vote him in, and he wins the referendum they will be big celebrations all over the country. And it will be obvious, what has happened.

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[1] Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Tera--Landless Rural Workers Movement, Brazil.

[2] John Holloway, Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today, Pluto Press: 2002.

[3] Partido dos Trabalhadores--Workers Party, Brazil.

The second worthwhile article this week in this Chavista site! -such a contrast with most of the pedestrian slop they run-  a good if dry read(more than you ever wanted to know about oil).

What this article and the previous one have in common is the idea of building Latin America into something more than a name of a collection of countries,but an EU equivalent balancing US power in the region.

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The Main Obstacle Is the Administrative Structure of the Venezuelan State

Interview with Ali Rodriguez

Gregory Wilpert | Caracas | July 24

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1224

Ali Rodriguez is the president of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, PDVSA. He is one of the Venezuelan Left's main oil industry experts, having served for many years as member of the congressional committee that oversees oil issues, representing the party "La Causa R" (The Radical Cause) and later "Patria Para Todos" (Fatherland for All, which split off of Causa R in 1997).

 With Chavez' election he served as Minister for Energy and Mines, then as President of OPEC, and since mid 2002 as President of PDVSA. The interview was conducted in Rodriguez' office in mid July 2004.

Oil Industry Sabotage and PDVSA today

Gregory Wilpert: I would like to begin with the oil industry sabotage that happened last year. I had heard in another interview that you gave recently, that one and a half years after the sabotage there still are some weaknesses within PDVSA. Perhaps you could say what specifically are the strengths and weaknesses of PDVSA right now, one and a half years after the sabotage?

Ali Rodriguez: The weaknesses are easy to deduce. Almost 19,000 people left PDVSA and among these were a majority of those who managed all of the operations of the corporation: exploration, production, transport, refining, commerce, supply, finances, and this obviously implied a problem in the reconstruction of all these systems, which, while reestablished, in many cases, such as finances, still suffer certain weaknesses.

We are progressively overcoming these. In the sector of production, all of the storage managers had left, who were qualified employees. Of course, this was unavoidable because they abandoned their employment obligations for 62 consecutive days. There was no other option than to apply the legal norms, specifically article 102 of the Organic Labor Law.

The main strength was and is that despite the loss of all of these employees, among which are people who were highly specialized and with a long trajectory of experience within the corporation, who abandoned their obligations, workers of the company were able to substitute them, primarily due to their enormous effort.

 A fundamental part of the effort depended upon the massive incorporation of workers who substituted those who left. Of course, we also counted upon the reincorporation of retired employees.

 A characteristic of the oil industry has been that in many cases people retire in their prime and go to work for other companies within and outside the country, often as consultants and other times as employees. This was the main strength that the corporation and the country demonstrated.

GW: About a year ago there still were occasional reports of sabotage. What is the situation like now in this regard?

AR: There is a variety of actions against the company, from the incessant activity, via the media, both within in and outside of the country, which try to present the corporation as one that is virtually bankrupt.

 These are affirmations that are completely contradicted by the facts. Last year, PDVSA paid $2.2 billion of debt very punctually, of which $800 million was amortization of debt. Today, we are closing a repurchasing of bonds, of $2.5 billion. This shows our financial strength.

 Some people say that this does not mean much because it is the result of an increase in the price of oil. But the price would not be worth anything of there weren't the barrels of oil behind it. After all, our income is the result of volume times price. The fact that we have complied with our financial obligations, and not just fulfilled them, but have over-fulfilled them, are evident symptoms of the strength of the corporation.

The current debt of PDVSA has been reduced to $3.5 billion, which, in relation to the assets, is a miniscule debt. We are going to continue to reduce the debt, not because we believe that it is something malignant, but simply because it should be reduced in conditions that do not present any danger to the corporation.

Today the operations are completely normalized. PDVSA's production is above 3.1 million barrels per day. Our refining capacity, including the island of Curaçao, is at 1.17 million barrels per day. We have already begun exporting "ecological" gasoline to the United States. Two loads have left and two more will be leaving soon, of 250,000 barrels each. The refineries are functioning normally.

GW: And what about the El Palito refinery? It was closed for a while recently.

AR: El Palito was closed for maintenance because this was a refinery that was neglected for quite a while, for some important repairs. Also, there was an arbitrariness with the person in charge of one of the processes, who has been submitted to the authorities and is being investigated. In general, except for this incident, things are going quite well.

To return to your original question, there are all of these campaigns against the corporation. This is a continuation of all of the actions that began in December 2002, until March 2003. Of course, with much less effect than what happened then. For example, in secondary offers, which the OPEC monitoring uses, we appear as having a production of 2.6 million barrels per day.

However, PDVSA's own production is 2.6 million barrels per day, to which one must also add the production of the strategic associations, which are 500,000 barrels per day more, which add up to 3.1 million barrels. And sometimes we exceed this production level, even though our OPEC quota is 2.97 million barrels per day, according to the last decisions of the organization.

Now, with regard to acts of sabotage, there have been some actions we have discovered that are obviously acts of sabotage, but that do not have larger consequences, thanks to all of the measures that department of Prevention and Control of Losses has undertaken, of the security measures of the Armed Forces, the National Guard, in particular, and of the workers at PDVSA.

 Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between acts of sabotage and acts of common crime, such as, for example, the removal of cables or of motors, valves, etcetera.

PetroSur

GW: Venezuela and Argentina just signed an agreement to form Petrosur. I would like to know exactly what kind of company this will be. What does this mean for PDVSA?

AR: President Chavez proposed already a few years ago the idea of forming what he called PetroAmerica. This is an idea that takes the energetic reality and the opportunities that Latin America has into account. Various countries have important energy reserves, hydro-electric as well as fossil, particularly the latter. Especially the Andean countries, and Brazil, Mexico, and parts of Argentina have not to be discounted resources.

 Since we have talked about the economic integration of Latin America for many years, there is no doubt that the energy sector of a modern economy can be the backbone of the continental integration. I was member of the Latin American parliament and we discussed this possibility a lot.

But there is a second aspect that is very important to highlight, which is the base upon which the integration is to take place. There is the base of the so-called neo-liberal model, of free competition, of the opening of markets or on the basis of the complementarity of economies.

The first always leads to the displacement of certain economic factors from the scene, from the markets. The second, in contrast, implies the inclusion of factors that are often restricted, often by transnationals.

Venezuela has abundant oil and gas reserves. Argentina, which, while it also has especially gas and some oil reserves, does not have them in sufficient quantities at the present moment. Perhaps in the near future.

However, Argentina has abundant agricultural and livestock resources, which Venezuela will need for a while - we don't know for how long. In this case the economic complementarity works perfectly. We are bringing from Argentina seeds, agricultural products, meat. We are exporting fuel oil and gas, in order to cover urgent needs in Argentina.

One must add to this that, as a result of neo-liberal policies, particularly the ones that Carlos Menem brought about, the Argentinean state is left with practically no energy resources. President Kirchner's decision is to reconstruct the national enterprise and for this he asked for our support, which we, with pleasure, are providing, within the limits of our capabilities.

 The decision was to create a business, which was submitted to the Argentinean parliament, with the idea that this enterprise establishes an association with PDVSA. We opened up a branch in Argentina, so that the association can be brought about. Probably other enterprises of other countries will become part of this. This all being analyzed.

GW: So Petrosur would be a company that belongs to PDVSA but enters into an alliance with an Argentinean state enterprise? That is, it would be something separate from PDVSA more or less? So we're not talking about PDVSA actually merging with other companies?

AR: It would be a subsidiary of PDVSA. The idea that we have discussed with Argentina is that this would not be just a state-owned enterprise, but that there would also be private sector participation, both from Argentina and Venezuela.

GW: And this would eventually also involve other state-owned enterprises, such as Petrobras of Brazil?

AR: Probably, yes. This would also depend on the decision of the Argentinean government.

GW: So there is no timeline as to when other companies might join?

AR: No, since this decision depends upon the Argentinean government. This is not our matter, even in terms of giving an opinion.

Oil for Euros?

GW: About a year ago there were rumors that some countries might switch to selling oil in Euros instead of Dollars. Is there any discussion of this still going on or has this idea been dismissed?

AR: A while ago I had the opportunity to participate in a conference in Brussels, where this possibility was analyzed. I recall that one of the conclusions was that currently the most important energy market is the United States.

Many other markets conduct all their transacti

ons in Dollars. However, with the disparity that has been happening in the past few years between the Dollar and the Euro, and the circumstance that a good proportion of OPEC countries do their main business with Europe, this creates some problems.

It has created a new impetus for the debate about whether to make transactions in Dollars or in Euros. Some countries, such as Iraq, prior to the invasion, its transactions were primarily in Euros. This is an issue that will depend on the specific weight of each currency. In any case, it is a bit early to reach a conclusion with respect to that.

GW: But PDVSA is investigating trade with China now. Wouldn't sales to China provide a good opportunity to use Euros?

AR: China is a market that has been expanding for several decades. For a long time it was growing around 13% and now is around 7% or 8% growth per year. Together with India it represents a growing market. These are the countries that most contribute to the growth of world demand.

In the case of Venezuela, they are interested in Venezuelan oil, which is perfectly reasonable. A country with a high level of consumption will want to diversify its supply sources. And we, as a provider of energy, are interested in diversifying our markets.

Some have commented that we intend to replace our U.S. market with that of China. That is absurd. Our principal client is the United States, but this does not prevent that we would be interested in selling to countries in the Caribbean, in Europe, in Latin America, and of course to Asia - not just China, but also to India, Singapur, Korea, Japan.

 To the extent that we develop transport systems, the prices will allow us to reach more markets, no matter how far away they are. Also, we are exploring "swap" exchanges with other countries, so that we might take advantage of certain markets. Perhaps, and I am speculating now, some of these exchanges could take place in Euros.

OPEC

GW: At the last OPEC meeting Saudi Arabia was able to convince the member countries to increase OPEC production quotas. Some say that this was the result of an agreement Saudi Arabia had with the United States to lower the price of oil. What is Venezuela's position on this decision?

AR: These are things that are the responsibility of the Ministry of Energy and Mines. But, taking into account what the Venezuelan government has said, which is internationally well known, Venezuela's policy has been in favor of the stabilization of the oil markets and to contribute to the strengthening of OPEC, via the mechanism of the regulation of production.

The worst thing to happen for producers is the volatility of prices, which makes economic planning extremely difficult.

Currently, in the past year, what has most influenced prices is not the relation between supply and demand. There is plenty if evidence that the market has been sufficiently supplied with oil. What have been more influential are other factors.

 First of all, non-economic factors, such as the situation in Iraq and the impact that this situation generates not just in the Arabian Peninsula, but also on an international level. No one can predict what will happen in Iraq.

Secondly, an internal problem in the United States, but which projects itself towards the Atlantic, which is the insufficient refining capacity. For a little over two years, when we first realized this problem in OPEC, the conclusion we reached was that the United States needed to expand its refining capacity by 2.7 million barrels per day.

For over 25 years the United States has not constructed any new refineries. This obliges the United States to constantly import gasoline and this, in turn, raises the price on the market, which has an impact on prices on all of the Atlantic. When the price of gasoline rises, this impacts the price of oil between 60% and 80%. This is another factor that plays a role.

Another factor that distorts prices a lot is the speculation on the futures markets. On the NYMEX large paper volumes of oil, of contracts, are negotiated.

When speculators perceive that there could be an increase in demand or of prices, they buy significant numbers of contracts that could represent 160, 180 thousand barrels of paper, while in the physical market 80 to 82 thousand barrels are being negotiated.

 These are the markers, NYMEX, IPE, that can artificially increase the price of a barrel. And all this might have nothing to do with OPEC's actions.

The position of the government of President Chavez has been consistent, of working for the stability of the market when the market suffers an insufficiency, production is increased and when there is an oversupply that could provoke a strong drop in prices, we want to reduce the supply, in order to maintain this relation between these market fundamentals.

PDVSA and Social Programs

GW: The opposition has been saying recently that the expenditures for social programs that PDVSA is supporting are not sustainable because right now there is a lot of income, but who knows what will happen a year from now, which could require cutting back all of these programs. What is your response to this, that this is unsustainable?

AR: These people are discovering lukewarm water. For countries that have such a high dependency on oil, not only for social spending, but for spending in general, are very conditioned on the fluctuations of the prices and of the oil income.

 This is nothing new. It does not require any genius to reach this conclusion. But as long as there are resources, it is normal that these should contribute to the extremely important problem of poverty in Venezuela. This would be more sustainable to the extent that the resources are oriented towards increasing our productive capacity and that they diversify these.

We are investing in the most important capital of the oil industry, which is the development of knowledge of our citizens. The point of departure for this development of knowledge is that there are no illiterate persons in the country. This is why PDVSA has joined the battle against illiteracy.

It is a national shame that such a phenomenon should still exist in this country. It is an indicator for a country's backwardness. It is elemental for the productivity of a country that one attacks the problems that affect the health and particularly if it affects a majority who are poor, who do not have access to health care.

15 million cases have been attended by the "Barrio Adentro" program,[1] which PDVSA supports quite a bit. The problems of housing... We could be accused of building thousands upon thousands of homes - but these will remain.

 This is independent of a drop in prices. The houses will not collapse just because the price of oil drops. Or that a literate person becomes illiterate again just because the prices drop. Or that a healthy person becomes sick just because prices fall.

The social vision that existed in PDVSA previously was a philanthropic one. It involved occasional contributions in order to deal with an occasional problem, but did not attack structural problems, such as poverty and the phenomena that poverty generates.

Our strategy is clearly defined. The principal effort of the enterprise as enterprise is the valorization of our oil resources and all processes are being re-aligned so that in every phase of this process value will be added to the natural resource.

This means a larger contribution to the state, which would allow it, in turn, to attend to the problems just mentioned, in addition to many others. After all, we are part of the state, even while being a corporation. That is, our effort is not just to add value to natural resources, not just to increase contributions to the state, not just to increase the income of the corporation, but to also valorize the human being.

Self-Management at PDVSA

GW: Recently there have been efforts to create "steering committees" (comités de guía) within PDVSA, which would contribute to the self-management of the company. How do you perceive such efforts, efforts of workers to participate in the management of PDVSA?

AR: The main obstacle for advancing towards the objectives that are proposed in the Bolivarian constitution of Venezuela is the administrative structure of the state.

 This structure is of no use for any project, neither for a revolutionary project nor for a conservative project - for many years already. I recall a book by a neo-liberal, Pedro Tinoco, who wrote about "the efficient state." Twenty years ago he criticized the structure of the state.

There are embryonic structures that are emerging, of a new institutionality. What is the CTV[2] today, if not an empty drum? There is a search for new forms of organization, for a new institutionality and within this are also the oil workers.  

The steering committees for a part of this search- Here in the board of directors there are two workers, among the eleven members. In some areas of the country there have been some first experiences of co-management, but these are still very new experiences, embryonic. They still are not fixed into an institutional form. Within these are the steering committees that have emerged as a new experience.

Orimulsion

GW: There have been many controversies surrounding Orimulsion.[3] PDVSA is currently phasing out its production and is working towards applying other techniques for processing extra-heavy crude, which it says are more profitable for PDVSA. Does this mean that there is no future for Orimulsion in PDVSA?

There are many people who are adamantly opposed to the abandonment of Orimulsion and it is not clear to me why there should be so much controversy around something that really seems to be a technical issue more than anything else.

AR: It really is quite simple. Orimulsion is a mixture of 70% extra-heavy crude and 30% water, to which a surfactant is added in order form a stable emulsion. Originally this technique came about in order to solve a transportation problem.

 Later it was found that it was possible to burn it directly, so that it could be used for the generation of electricity. This is the origin of Orimulsion. Since it was very polluting, research was conducted and the sulfur content was reduced and many filters had to be used.

I was a defender of Orimulsion when I was a member of congress. Also, I was the one who had proposed a tax reduction from 66.7% to 34% because this business would not have been viable otherwise.

But later, with a better understanding of this business, we concluded that the barrel of extra-heavy crude that is mixed into Orimulsion sells at $4.25 per barrel, while this same barrel mixed with an oil of 30º API, generates a mixture, a "Merey" of 26 º API, which now sells for $26 per barrel.

This is a simple matter of business, very pragmatic.

So, why should we continue to sell a barrel that is several times below the value of the same barrel that is mixed with another crude? In addition, there is the transportation cost.

 When you take one million barrels of Orimulsion from Venezuela to China, in those one million barrels there are 300,000 barrels of water. You are basically taking water from the Orinoco to the Yangtze. This is a transportation cost.

 If you instead of the water take a crude of 30º, you save a lot in transportation costs. This is just one of many reasons that led us to make the decision to close this business.

Of course, we still have some obligations, which we are negotiating with clients, so that we do not violate the contracts that were signed in the past.

The point of departure is to do good business, not just to do business for business sake. Today, when technology allows us to improve the crude we have, from one of 7º with a high sulfur content to produce one of 32º API with a very low sulfur content, which sells at a very good price, then it is absurd to continue with a technology that had its indisputable virtues at the time. But, as happens with all technology, one will substitute the other.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] A program which provides free health care in the country's poorest neighborhoods.

[2] The old union federation, which was founded by the former governing party and now an important part of the opposition.

[3] Orimulsion is a Venezuelan process for processing extra-heavy crude, of which Venezuela has one of the largest reserves in the world, 35 billion barrels.

b

Note:for details on CNE's history  see the Bulletin Board Compilation thread on Venezuela

Francisco, who posts "The Caracas Chronicles" has a few worries about what's ahead....

-------------------------------------------------

"El 28, el 28, el 28...

The real threat to the integrity of the referendum is not the possibility of fraud. It's not ballot stuffing or triple voting or voting from beyond the grave. The real threat is that, like in May 2000, CNE just won't be ready to hold the vote in time.

2.5 weeks to go, and the voter registry has just now been finalized, including huge numbers of questionable address-changes and millions of somewhat mysterious new voters.

The SBC people have still not been given the REP information they need to program the voting machines. The thumbprint readers may or may not be able to cope with the pressure put on them. Francisco Carrasquero rejects the possibility of manual voting if the automated systems fail.

Paranoia, as we all know, is free. But this type of strategy of systematic delay has become a bit of a trademark for this CNE.

Ever since August 2003, every obstacle imaginable has been trotted out to delay the effective activation of people's rights under the constitution's Article 72.

This is the CNE that turned a simple signature drive into a 8-month long telenovela, the same CNE that sat on the electoral registry for a year before suddenly "discovering" thousands of dead people on the rolls and stood by passively as dozens of reparos tables instituted an operacion morrocoy, that has never really tried to hide its disdain for the possibility of a presidential recall.

It escapes no one's attention that, if the election system fails catastrophically on Aug. 15th, Chavez will have to hold out less than a week before his grip on power is extended until 2006.

It would be the mother of all political crises. But then, as you see Jorge Rodriguez's determination to deploy a fingerprint-logging system that CNE's own tests show will not work, it's impossible not to wonder about hidden agendas.

http://caracaschronicles.blogspot.com/

From El Universal,Opposition newspaper

---------------------------------------

EUGENIO MARTINEZ |  August 3

http://www.eluniversal.com/2004/08/03/en_pol_art_03A480537.shtml

The National Electoral Council had estimated that 700 people were to vote in each of the 19,200 balloting machines that are to be enabled for August 15 revoking referendum on President Hugo Chávez. By virtue of such calculation, 13,440,000 Venezuelans were expected to cast their vote. Nevertheless, the updated Electoral Registry includes 14,037,900 people

EUGENIO MARTINEZ

EL UNIVERSAL

An unusual increase in the number of voters registered with the Electoral Registry has faced the directors of the National Electoral Council (CNE) with a new disruption in the preparations for August 15 recall vote on President Hugo Chávez.

To date, there are neither legal nor technical provisions to guarantee the right to vote to the people in excess of the operational capability of the balloting machines provided by Smartmatic. Originally, the CNE estimated that 700 people were to vote at each one of the 19,200 SAES-3000 balloting machines. Therefore, 13,440,000 voters were to cast their vote.

Last week, the top electoral body announced that the new number of people registered with the Electoral Registry up to July 10 and who could participate in the presidential revoking referendum amounted to 14,037,900.

Electoral technicians fear that, in the event that abstention is low, people willing to vote may exceed the operational capacity of the balloting machines and a number of voters could not have access to vote.

In this case, there is a dilemma: should the CNE purchase more balloting machines or design other mechanisms for the people to vote manually, in the event the automated system denies them access to vote.

The board of directors is to discuss and approve one of three draft regulations for contingency, but none of them sets forth the rules that are to be followed if the quota of voters in each balloting machine is completed and there are still people waiting in line for casting their vote.

The three work papers, prepared separately by the CNE vice president, Ezequiel Zamora; the CNE legal advisor, Andrés Brito; and the CNE president, Francisco Carrasquero, only establish the procedures in case the balloting machines fail.

In this sense, Zamora proposes resorting to manual vote; Brito recommends the National Electoral Board (JNE) to decide on-site how to overcome the problems, while Carrasquero proposes to suspend the vote, and resume the process -in the following days- only if it has a meaningful incidence on the final results.

The CNE directors have reached no agreement on the number of paper ballots that should be printed for the people to vote manually in the event the machines fail. While Zamora demands a number of paper ballots sufficient for all of the voters registered with the Electoral Registry, Jorge Rodríguez, president of the JNE, claims that the CNE is to imprint a number of paper ballots equivalent, at the most, to 30 percent of the number of people registered with the Electoral Registry.

In the meantime, according to a preliminary study the opposition alliance Democratic Coordinator conducted on the new and updated Electoral Registry, 500,000 unrequested domicile changes have been implemented in the database of voters. Simultaneously, the representatives of the pro-Chávez electoral campaign taskforce Comando Maisanta ensured they detected 65,000 irregular domicile changes in the Electoral Registry that the CNE Legal Advisory Office has neither documented nor justified.

Translated by Maryflor Suárez

1.from the Chavista side:

Exiled labor boss returns to Venezuela; vows from hiding to oust the President

http://www.vheadline.com/printer_news.asp?id=22286

Carlos Ortega, the fugitive leader of the corrupt Confederation of Venezuelan Trade Unions (CTV ) has been smuggled back into Venezuela and says he will join opposition efforts to depose democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias by whatever means it takes...

Ortega, who had headed the CTV ... once the largest and most powerful labor union in Venezuela ... had fled into exile in Costa Rica rather than face criminal prosecution for incitement to rebellion, sedition and a string of other charges in both the April 2002 coup d'etat and a 2-month national "strike" orchestrated the same year in failed attempts to oust the President.

Despite the fact that he had refused to submit the CTV to democratic internal elections in accord with the 1999 Constitution, Ortega now claims his return is motivated "a serious and strong threat against democracy that exists in our nation."

In a covert telephone interview from where he is still in hiding from Venezuelan justice, Ortega told AP that he is supporting "democratic groups" ... and is "willing to continue fighting this regime by any means necessary."

Ortega says he will not turn himself in since he claims that the Chavez administration controls the country's judicial system ... however, only four months ago the government of Costa Rica asked Ortega to leave after he said he would return clandestinely to Venezuela to work to overthrow the Chavez government ... he had been granted asylum there a year earlier on spurious claims that he faced persecution by the government for his political and union activities.

Ortega has accused Chavez of steering Venezuela toward a Cuba-style dictatorship and dividing the nation along class lines ... but Chavez describes Ortega as a simple criminal, who conspired to overthrow the government with the help of radical opposition groups and the nation's wealthy elite.

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2. from the Voice of America ( a decent source albeit with a POV, whose funding is getting cut drastically by the current administration)

Exiled Union Leader Returns to Venezuela

VOA News

04 Aug 2004, 17:05 UTC

 http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=845E2014-BA19-44C4-AF5285ADA2EBD278

Leaders of the Venezuelan Workers Confederation say union president Carlos Ortega has returned to the country more than a year after seeking exile in Costa Rica.

Union officials say Mr. Ortega returned over the weekend, but could not confirm his location.

Mr. Ortega told the Associated Press in a telephone interview that he planned to join opposition efforts to oust President Hugo Chavez.

He said he returned to support democratic groups in the nation and was willing to fight the Chavez regime by any means necessary.

Last year, the union boss fled to Costa Rica to escape a trial over his role in a two-month general strike.

Earlier this year, Costa Rica asked Mr. Ortega to leave the country due to his plans to work against Mr. Chavez's government.

A counterintuitive view from the North American Left

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In Venezuelan Referendum, U.S. May Root for Chavez

Commentary, Francisco Jose Moreno,

Pacific News Service, Aug 10

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=dcb9e8a99509077e82e1ec28a7946c2d

Editor's Note: America's thirst for oil and its fear that unrest in Venezuela could spread to strategic Colombia mean that, behind a war of words, Washington is ready to make a shaky peace with Venezuela's radical president.

President Hugo Chávez seems almost certain to win the recall referendum called for this coming Sunday in Venezuela.

Chávez's lead in nonpartisan polls is increasing; his government is awash in oil money that is being put into social projects; more than a million new voters from traditionally marginalized segments of the population have been registered; and, most important, the U.S. government has begun to soften its public stance toward Chavez.

A telling sign of the situation is the meeting that Venezuela's media magnate Gustavo Cisneros and President Chávez held last month. Cisneros has been the main power behind the relentless communications campaign against the president; the conspirators that deposed Chávez for two days in April 2002 met at Cisneros' home before going over to overthrow the government. He has been the embodiment of anti-government feelings in Venezuela. His meeting with Chávez, brokered by Jimmy Carter, was an acknowledgment of failure and an effort to protect his vast interests in the country. It was a psychological blow to the opposition.

Carlos Andrés Pérez, the former Venezuelan president who was removed from office for corruption in 1993 and convicted of mismanaging $17 million of government money, has just issued a statement in Miami accepting that Chávez will win the recall vote on August 15, and calling for his assassination. "He must be killed like a dog," Pérez said of the Venezuela president. Perez, like Cisneros, knows which way the wind is blowing.

The softening of the American position toward Chávez was reported in detail recently by the Financial Times of London. It requires explanation, however, because Washington's policy for Venezuela has been running on two tracks, not one.

The United States has two primary interests in Venezuela: oil, and the containment of the war in next-door Colombia.

Venezuela supplies the United States with approximately 1.5 million barrels of oil a day. It is the fourth largest foreign supplier of the American energy market after Saudi Arabia, Canada and Mexico. In May 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney authored a report of the National Energy Policy Group on U.S. oil needs in the next 25 years and identified Venezuela as a critical energy source. Since then, the uncertainties of the available oil supply, for political as well as technical reasons, have only risen.

Washington's second concern is to contain the Colombian conflict, where guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug dealers and a beleaguered and corrupt army compete for land, money and power. Political instability in Venezuela, which shares a long and open border with Colombia, has the potential to significantly increase the intensity and scope of the struggle in its neighbor's territory. Political necessity mandates that American administrations be able to claim success in the war against drugs while avoiding direct military entanglement. A deterioration of the situation in Colombia would force the United States to pour more money and political capital, even troops, into that country.

Oil and Colombia underlie the American desire for stability in Venezuela. The Chávez administration has not been oblivious to this. The supply of oil to America has never been threatened; the agent representing the Venezuelan government in the sale of oil to the U.S. strategic reserve is Jack Kemp, 1996 vice-presidential running mate of Bob Dole and distinguished member of the Republican Party's conservative leadership. In addition, the Venezuela government has kept its hands out of the Colombian conflict.

Washington has been faced with two less-than-ideal options concerning Venezuela: 1) live with a rhetorical enemy who guarantees the supply of oil and keeps clear of Colombian involvement; or 2) encourage the return to power of the divided and corrupt politicians who made the present situation possible and who, having forced Chávez out of office, would in all probability have to deal with an unstable internal situation that in turn could jeopardize the oil supply and spill into Colombia.

The ambivalence of the U.S. position with regard to Venezuela has been manifest in the anti-Chavez pronouncements of Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, former and present assistant secretaries of state for inter-American affairs, and of Secretary of State Colin Powell. On the other hand, the work of Jack Kemp and the assessment of Venezuela's oil importance by Dick Cheney represent a pragmatic willingness within the present administration to accept Chávez as the lesser of two evils.

The present softening of the formal Washington position on Chávez is the reconciliation of what has been a double track approach. Ironically, a Chávez victory may be beneficial to American policymakers, who may then enjoy more freedom to pursue U.S. interests without being tied down to the defense of an inept and potentially troublesome local Venezuelan opposition.

----------------------------------------

PNS contributor Francisco Jose Moreno is president of Strategic Assessments Institute, a Los Angeles-based consulting firm, and former vice president of Philip Morris International for Iberia and Latin America.

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Copyright © 2004 Pacific News Service

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VENEZUELA FLORIDATED

Will The Gang That Fixed Florida Fix the Vote in Caracas this Sunday?

Greg Palast  | August 10

Hugo Chavez drives George Bush crazy. Maybe it's jealousy: Unlike Mr. Bush, Chavez, in Venezuela, won his Presidency by a majority of the vote.

Or maybe it's the oil: Venezuela sits atop a reserve rivaling Iraq's. And Hugo thinks the US and British oil companies that pump the crude ought to pay more than a 16% royalty to his nation for the stuff. Hey, sixteen percent isn't even acceptable as a tip at a New York diner.

Whatever it is, OUR President has decided that THEIR president has to go. This is none too easy given that Chavez is backed by Venezuela's poor. And the US oil industry, joined with local oligarchs, has made sure a vast majority of Venezuelans remain poor.

Therefore, Chavez is expected to win this coming Sunday's recall vote. That is, if the elections are free and fair.

They won't be. Some months ago, a little birdie faxed to me what appeared to be confidential pages from a contract between John Ashcroft's Justice Department and a company called ChoicePoint, Inc., of Atlanta. The deal is part of the War on Terror.

Justice offered up to $67 million, of our taxpayer money, to ChoicePoint in a no-bid deal, for computer profiles with private information on every citizen of half a dozen nations. The choice of which nation's citizens to spy on caught my eye. While the September 11th highjackers came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the Arab Emirates, ChoicePoint's menu offered records on Venezuelans, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, Mexicans and Argentines. How odd. Had the CIA uncovered a Latin plot to sneak suicide tango dancers across the border with exploding enchiladas?

What do these nations have in common besides a lack of involvement in the September 11th attacks? Coincidentally, each is in the throes of major electoral contests in which the leading candidates -- presidents Lula Ignacio da Silva of Brazil, Nestor Kirschner of Argentina, Mexico City mayor Andres Lopez Obrador and Venezuela's Chavez -- have the nerve to challenge the globalization demands of George W. Bush.

The last time ChoicePoint sold voter files to our government it was to help Governor Jeb Bush locate and purge felons on Florida voter rolls. Turns out ChoicePoint's felons were merely Democrats guilty only of V.W.B., Voting While Black. That little 'error' cost Al Gore the White House.

It looks like the Bush Administration is taking the Florida show for a tour south of the border.

However, when Mexico discovered ChoicePoint had its citizen files, the nation threatened company executives with criminal charges. ChoicePoint protested its innocence and offered to destroy the files of any nation that requests it.

But ChoicePoint, apparently, presented no such offer to the government of Venezuela's Chavez.

In Caracas, I showed Congressman Nicolas Maduro the ChoicePoint-Ashcroft agreement. Maduro, a leader of Chavez' political party, was unaware that his nation's citizen files were for sale to U.S. intelligence. But he understood their value to make mischief.

If the lists somehow fell into the hands of the Venezuelan opposition, it could immeasurably help their computer-aided drive to recall and remove Chavez. A ChoicePoint flak said the Bush administration told the company they haven't used the lists that way. The PR man didn't say if the Bush spooks laughed when they said it.

Our team located a $53,000 payment from our government to Chavez' recall organizers, who claim to be armed with computer lists of the registered. How did they get those lists? The fix that was practiced in Florida, with ChoicePoint's help, deliberate or not, appears to be retooled for Venezuela, then Brazil, Mexico and who knows where else.

Here's what it comes down to: The Justice Department averts it's gaze from Saudi Arabia but shoplifts voter records in Venezuela. So it's only fair to ask: Is Mr. Bush fighting a war on terror -- or a war on democracy?

 

_{Aug 9: Chavez loyalists pack Caracas' Avenida Bolivar(Venpres)}

__________________________________
________________

 

<sub>Aug 12: a river of people in Caracas Opposition march

(Reuters via El Universal)</sub>

Forget WaPo, the Guardian, and all the other Anglo talking heads. It's all over but the (EVM)voting - and the count.....and then... the reaction

-------------------------------------------------

Observers caution Venezuelan opposition

http://www.falkland-malvinas.com/Detalle.asp?NUM=4096  (Merco Press)

The Carter Center which will act as observer of this Sunday's presidential recall referendum in Venezuela urged the opposition to desist from plans to release incomplete electoral results before the voting is over.

 "We are in complete agreement with the rules set forth by National Electoral Council (CNE). Everyone should wait for the CNE to release the figures in its first bulletin. No one may disclose results before that" Carter Center spokeswoman Jennifer McCoy said after meeting with the CNE board of directors.

Ms. McCoy was accompanied to the meeting by former Presidents Raul Alfonsin of Argentina and Rodrigo Carazo of Costa Rica, and by the Carter Center's Venezuela delegate Francisco Diez.

Enrique Mendoza, leader of the opposition movement Democratic Coordinator, announced several times throughout the week that his coalition would release exit poll results before the CNE makes the official ones public.

Mr. Mendoza said preliminary ballot counts might be released up to four hours before the polls officially close at 18:00 hours Caracas.

Anyone in line to vote at closing time will still be allowed to cast his or her ballot, so any number of polling stations may remain open beyond the scheduled time. Ms. McCoy said referendum observers will meet with the Democratic Coordinator to "touch on these issues".

The Democratic Coordinator's position was criticized not only by the Carter Center but by the Organization of American States (OAS), the CNE, the Venezuelan Attorney General's Office and other groups monitoring the referendum.

Ms. McCoy also announced the upcoming arrival of former Colombian President Belisario Betancourt and former U.S. President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jimmy Carter, as well as a press conference on Monday at which Carter and OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria will evaluate the referendum.

Ms. McCoy called on everyone to accept the outcome of the plebiscite "calmly and confidently".

This Thursday all electoral campaigning ended in accordance with the 48 hours ban rule before voting begins next Sunday.

especially if evm loses some votes......

-----------------------------------------

Venezuela May Delay Results in a Close Vote, Nacional Says

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aO4NcVHUJZHg&refer=latin_america#

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's National Electoral Council, which is overseeing this Sunday's recall vote on President Hugo Chavez, said it may delay releasing results if the race is close, [the newspaper]El Nacional said.

Council Board Member Jorge Rodriguez said that if there is no clear tendency and the margin between the yes and no votes is slight, the agency may wait to begin releasing tallies, the newspaper reported.

The agency has as long as 96 hours to release the results according to the law, the newspaper said.

For Chavez to be recalled, the opposition must not only gain a majority in the ballot but also take more than the 3.76 million votes Chavez garnered when he was reelected in 2000. A Chavez defeat would lead to a new election to be called next month, with the winner serving as president until January 2007. Chavez has said he will run if he loses this weekend's vote.

Last Updated: August 13, 2004 08:13 EDT

Jason Webb | Aug 14

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=5976615

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela, starkly divided by class and politics, was unified by anxiety on Saturday as opponents and supporters of leftist President Hugo Chavez feared possible violence following Sunday's referendum on his rule.

"Whichever side wins, the other won't accept the result," said 46-year-old office worker Rosalba Reto as she lined up to buy food in a government-subsidized supermarket, one of many programs set up by the populist president to help the poor.

"We're lining up here because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow," she said, explaining she was stocking up on food because her family went hungry for several days during unrest that followed a failed coup against Chavez in 2002.

Venezuelans will vote on Sunday in a referendum on whether to recall the president before his term ends in early 2007. The vote was triggered after the opposition, a disparate coalition united largely by distaste for Chavez, gained 2.4 million signatures in a petition.

Chavez, a former paratrooper who tried to take power by force in 1992 and won elections in 1998 promising "revolution," has poured money into subsidized health, food and housing. Most of Venezuela's 25 million people are poor, despite the country's oil exports, the world's fifth-largest.

The opposition says Chavez wants to become a dictator modeled after his friend, Fidel Castro of Cuba. It says he is squandering oil wealth and has purged opponents from government and the armed forces.

Chavez's followers hail the president as a champion of the poor.

Opinion polls are inconclusive about the referendum.

Chavez says he will accept the result if he is voted out but has fanned fears of violence by saying the poor, the armed forces and oil workers would not.

Oil markets, already fretting over events in Iraq and Russia, have been spooked. Oil futures hit record highs over $46 a barrel on Friday.

"No one should get carried away and we should all accept the result, like someone playing a game of baseball," said Chavez on Saturday, after meeting former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, in Venezuela to coordinate international electoral observers.

FEAR OF CHAOS

But Venezuelans of all social classes feared chaos once results are announced, probably late Sunday.

"Something serious could happen here in Venezuela," said Jonathan Jose Lopez, a 24-year-old shoeshiner who said he was able to buy a house thanks to Chavez.

"People are terrible here when they rise up," he said, showing off a fresh gash in his wrist where he had been slashed in a fight.

Executive Marco Tulio Agudelo said his company had a contingency plan for the weekend if violence broke out. Parking his expensive motor scooter outside a cafe, he said there was a "60 or 70 percent" chance of unrest.

To recall Chavez, the opposition must equal or beat the 3.76 million votes he received when he was re-elected in 2000. But if the "No" vote is bigger, he stays in office.

If Chavez loses, a presidential election will be held within 30 days. The Supreme Court must rule on whether he could stand in that poll.

One group of hard-core Chavez supporters said they had weapons and were ready to use them if the opposition won by "fraud."

"We oil them, we clean them and we've got them ready so the people's movement can take the streets," said Tonio Olivero, a member of a pro-Chavez militia calling itself the Venezuelan People's Unit.

© Copyright Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/12/content_1765208.htm

_{A peddler selling flags which show slogans supporting or opposing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez(Xinhua Photo)}

CARACAS, Aug. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- The Venezuelan opposition has said it will only accept the weekend recall referendum results if ternational organizations acting as observers approve them.

If the Organization of American States (OAS), non-government organization Carter Center and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) approve the results of the referendum, then the opposition will do the same, said opposition leader Asdrubal Aguiar.

    "We will abide by the electoral results as long as they are approved" by the three organizations, Aguiar, leader of opposition alliance Democratic Coordination (CD), said Tuesday night after meeting with representatives of the OAS and the Carter Center.

The referendum was scheduled to take place from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., local time, on Aug. 15. Some 14 million Venezuelans are expectedto vote on President Hugo Chavez's rule.

    The OAS will assess the transparency of the recall referendum at the end of the process, Valter Moreira, chief of the OAS observers mission, said on Wednesday.

    The OAS believes its evaluation of the referendum will "exactly coincide" with the results to be released by the National ElectionCouncil (CNE) of Venezuela, Moreira said.

    the OAS will not release the results "but we will be allowed to indicate whether or not they reflect the will of the Venezuelan citizens," he added.

    The OAS mission chief said that previous tests indicated that the voting systems are reliable, so he is confident on the transparency of the process.

    Former presidents of Argentina, Raul Alfonsin, and Costa Rica, Rodrigo Carazzo, on Wednesday expressed their wish for the recall referendum to be peaceful and lead to a cordial coexistence.

    Alfonsin and Carazzo are among the international observers in Venezuela to witness the referendum process.

    What matters is that "a dialogue between the parties in conflict starts, regardless of who wins, because we have to live in peace, for without it there is no politics nor democracy," said the former Argentine president.

    "You will agree with me that procuring peace is a task of everyone, and through it common denominators in fundamental state policies have to be sought," added Alfonsin.

    Carazzo expressed his "solidarity" with the Venezuelan people and said that "the observation will take place in accordance with what the events indicate."

    "At this moment we rule out every speculation because we are neither participants nor commentators on the process, yet, we could still wish the process to be peaceful, democratic and successful," Carazzo said.

    Also on Wednesday, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant leaders of Venezuela called on people to participate with responsibility and in peace during the recall referendum.

    They expressed confidence in the transparency of the process and the results, the impartial performance of the CNE, and the perspective of the international observers.

    To ensure the order of the voting process, some 118,000 military personnel will be deployed to guard the voting centers asof Thursday, Defense Minister Jose Garcia said on Wednesday.

    He said vigilance will be reinforced at every border points of the country during the referendum.

    The armed forces have plans to prevent riots, while ruling-party leaders fear the opposition may plan acts of violence on Sunday afternoon, should the results not in their favor, said Garcia.

    Garcia warned that those attempting to break the order will receive a "response" from the armed forces and other security organizations.

    Under the Venezuelan Constitution, in order to oust Chavez, the opposition has to collect a number of votes equal to or more than that obtained by the president in the 2000 election, which is at least 3.7 million votes.

    Chavez, who was elected in 1998 and reelected to a six-year term in 2000, has experienced two general strikes, a 48-hour military coup in April 2002 and a strike at the beginning of last year.

    If the opposition succeeds, a new election would be held within 30 days and the winner would serve out Chavez's term, which ends in January 2007.  

See Aronson's bio. at bottom

New York Times

August 14, 2004

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Venezuela's Fake Democrat

By BERNARD ARONSON

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/opinion/14aronson.html

The most important struggle for democracy in the Western Hemisphere is now playing out in Venezuela, one of Latin America's oldest continuing democracies, and a leading supplier of oil to the United States.

The immediate forum for this struggle is a referendum tomorrow on whether to recall President Hugo Chávez. Mr. Chávez - a former army colonel who led a failed coup attempt in 1992 - was elected on a populist platform in 1998, and, after rewriting Venezuela's Constitution, again in 2000.

In an interesting twist, the referendum that could unseat Mr. Chávez, is, itself, part of the populist restructuring of Venezuela's democratic institutions that he has carried out- including creating a unicameral legislature and renaming the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Nevertheless, when citizen groups petitioned to hold a referendum, the Chávez-dominated courts and National Electoral Commission forced them to collect millions more signatures than necessary - and then to recertify many of those signatures. While the process dragged on, public employees who signed the referendum petition were fired, demoted and denied national identity cards and passports. Only after pressure from the Organization of American States and former President Jimmy Carter did the commission agree to let the referendum proceed.

There is no question that the struggle in Venezuela is rooted in the country's past. The corruption, crime, poverty and inequality under 40 years of rule by two political parties fueled a wave of popular disgust with traditional politics and a deep desire for change that carried Mr. Chávez to the presidency. But the struggle also marks a shift of sorts, one that highlights disturbing trends across Latin America.

Like former President Alberto Fujimori of Peru, Mr. Chávez represents a new breed of Latin autocrat - a leader who is legitimately elected but then uses his office to undermine democratic checks and balances and intimidate political opponents.

Two months ago, for example, the Chávez-controlled National Assembly added 11 justices to the Supreme Court, and changed the requirement for confirmation from two-thirds of legislators to a simple majority, guaranteeing Mr. Chávez control of the judiciary. As a result, should Mr. Chávez lose the referendum, the court is likely to ratify his stated intention to run for president in the election to fill his vacancy, even though a disinterested reading of the Venezuelan Constitution suggests that he would be ineligible.

Mr. Chávez's record of subverting democracy doesn't stop there. Though much of the Venezuelan media remains in private hands and is clearly allied with the opposition, it is slowly being strangled by regulations that deny it access to hard currency. And, whenever Mr. Chávez wishes, he decrees that all private television and radio stations, along with the state-owned news media, carry his speeches live.

What's more, his government has manipulated the criminal justice system to thwart political opponents. Henrique Capriles Radonski, a leader of Justice First, a reformist political party, and the elected mayor of the Baruta district of Caracas, languishes in jail on a clearly fraudulent charge of fomenting a riot. María Corina Machado, a director of Súmate, a civic group allied with the opposition, is being prosecuted on charges equivalent to treason because her organization accepted a grant of more than $50,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is financed in part by Congress, to educate Venezuelans about their voting rights. Yet only one Venezuelan has been arrested in the killings of more than 25 opposition demonstrators in clashes with supporters of Mr. Chávez over the last three years.

The outcome of the referendum remains in doubt because Mr. Chávez has been spending state oil revenues freely and registering new citizens and voters en masse. (At the same time, signers of the recall petition have found their customary voting places moved at the last minute.) Moreover, Mr. Chávez retains passionate support among Venezuela's poor.

The strength of populist appeal in Venezuela reflects another shift in Latin America, particularly in the Andean nations: Dispossessed populations, long locked out of their nation's economic and political life by class, economic or racial barriers, are now demanding a political voice. In Bolivia, last year, violent protests by Aymara Indians, angry over efforts to export gas through Chile, a longtime enemy, claimed more than 80 lives and subsided only after President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada fled the country.

Like the Bolivian demonstrators, Mr. Chávez's core supporters barely subsist in the informal economy. They have been convinced by their would-be leaders, and, often, by their own experience, that the reforms needed to compete in the global economy represent a new form of exploitation.

A new agenda is needed that offers upward mobility and political empowerment to the hemisphere's poor. This would require not only a deepening of structural economic reforms and fiscal discipline, but a new focus on giving the poor title to their land, credits for microenterprise, easing the transition for small enterprises from the informal to the formal economy, cracking down on tax evasion and official corruption, and ending the subsidization of higher education at the expense of primary and secondary schooling.

Sadly, the hemisphere's political leaders, north and south, have not found a language of political and economic reform that speaks to the region's impoverished masses - particularly the indigenous populations - to counteract the siren song of populism and demagoguery. Nor have they developed the political tools or the will to confront the slow strangulation of democratic liberties by elected leaders such as is now under way in Venezuela. If they don't do so soon, expect more leaders like Hugo Chávez: men who campaign to consolidate their power and inveigh against the oligarchs while their people descend deeper into poverty.

Bernard Aronson, assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs from 1989 to 1993, works for a private equity firm that manages investments in Venezuela and elsewhere.

IMHO somewhat fake history on fake democracy.

but some interesting details. Opinion pieces are opinion pieces, after all! I was pretty sure it would catch your eye. :-)

(Bloomberg IMO usually has the most current info)



<sub>pro-Chavez "shrine" in Caracas

(Christian Science Monitor)</sub>  

------------------------------------------

Bloomberg(Last Updated: Aug 15 13:50 EDT)

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=a1URcL8NxP0Y&refer=latin_america

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela's National Election Council, which is overseeing today's recall vote on President Hugo Chavez, extended voting hours because of heavy turnout.

National Election Council Vice President Jorge Rodriguez said in a televised news conference in Caracas that the closing hour at the polls would be extended to 8 p.m. from 4 p.m. He said abstention was ``low.''

--------------------------------------------------

Miami Herald

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/9409302.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

CARACAS - Venezuelan voters turned out in huge numbers Sunday, many even lining up before daybreak to cast their ballots in an unprecedented recall referendum on President Hugo Chávez.

Long waiting lines outside polling stations were evident across the country, a sign that voters want to end a three-year old crisis that has bitterly polarized Venezuela's population, crippled its economy and unleashed several outbreaks of deadly violence.

More than 98 percent of the voting centers were open by mid-morning, election officials said, and there were no early reports of disturbances despite tensions fueled by fears of vote fraud.

To recall Chávez, his opponents must get a majority of the votes cast and at least one more vote than the total the president received in his last election in 2000, some 3.8 million votes. If he loses, a new election must be held within 30 days.

Both sides have raised the specter of possible fraud, and Chavez government officials have warned that his defeat could upset Venezuela's oil industry, the largest in the Western Hemisphere and supplier of about 13 percent of U.S. oil imports.

In poorer neighborhoods viewed at Chávez strongholds, voters were roused out of bed by the sounds of bugles, the signal that it was time to head to the polling stations to vote against the referendum.

In Petare, a neighborhood in the eastern side of Caracas considered to be pro-Chávez, the line at one poll station stretched for at least half a mile.

''I'll wait as long as I have to,'' said Ana Karina Gómez, 29.

The voters' mood appeared relatively calm throughout the morning, even as some polling stations opened late and lines moved slowly.

Still, there was some apprehension about possible violent reaction once the results were tallied. ''I'm not afraid to vote. I'm afraid of what might happen after the results come out,'' Gómez said.

Many voters said they were impressed with the efficiency of new electronic voting and fingerprint-checking machines, never before used for elections. Voters also were pleased with the discipline of voters and professionalism of security forces. Some 120,000 soldiers, national guardsmen and police have been deployed to provide security at polling stations.

''We've always had a lot of civic maturity in spite of the poverty and lack of education in our county,'' said Guillermo Morón, 78.

In the working-class suburb of El Valle, in central Caracas, the voting line stretched to more than 1,300 by 8:30 a.m. Although considered to be a Chávez stronghold, many waiting to cast their votes said they would YES to recall the president.

''In this line, we're all Si, Si, Si until death,'' he said as those around him cheered and clapped. The man said he could not give his name because he was an employee of the National Electoral Council, on forced leave for having signed the petitions seeking a referendum.

''We're clandestine,'' said Angel David Leon, 34, a former employee of the state-owned PDVSA oil company fired for taking part in a national strike in December 2002-January 2003 to try to force Chávez to resign.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, here as an independent observer of the vote, said at mid-morning that he was pleased with the process up to that time.

''In general, everything is going quite well,'' Carter said.

---------------------------------------------------reuters

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=565587&section=news

<snip> Huge lines of eager voters besieged ballot centers guarded by troops in what local officials said was the biggest turnout they could remember.

As they waited on Sunday, the droves of voters used umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun, sipped drinks from thermos flasks, read newspapers and books or played chess.

-------------------------------------------------

BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3566970.stm

<snip>

Activists on both sides set off huge firecrackers and played recorded bugle songs to wake people before dawn and get them to the polling stations early.

Lines of people formed in the capital, Caracas, as each voter was asked to deposit an electronic thumb-print to verify their identity and prevent people voting twice.

Crude Oil May Rise as One Killed During Voting in Venezuela

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aV5h9x6q9.3M&refer=latin_america

Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil futures may rise further above $46 a barrel on speculation a referendum in Venezuela on Hugo Chavez's presidency may disrupt shipments from the fourth- largest supplier to the U.S.

A gunman in Venezuela's capital of Caracas killed one person and injured 12 as they stood in line to vote Sunday on whether to recall Chavez.

Petroleos de Venezuela, the state oil company, doubled security at its fields refineries and storage tanks ahead of the vote.

``If there's more problems there, the market, being fairly nervous, will probably trade it up a bit more,'' said David Thurtell, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

On Friday, crude oil for September delivery rose $1.08, or 2.4 percent, to close at $46.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since oil began trading in New York in 1983. Prices reached $46.65, an intraday record. Electronic after-hours trading resumes 9 a.m. Sydney time.

Oil prices rose 6 percent last week and are up 51 percent from a year ago. Fifty-seven percent of traders and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News Thursday expected prices to rise this week. Twenty-eight of the 49 survey respondents predicted the rally would continue this week. Ten expected prices to fall and 11 said oil futures would be little changed.

Fighting in Iraq and a legal battle between Russia and OAO Yukos Oil Co. also threaten supplies. Previous attempts to oust the 50-year-old Chavez, including a military coup and a national strike, sparked deadly protests.

``There is a fear factor that something may go wrong after the referendum,'' said Gal Luft, Executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington-based think-tank specializing in energy security. ``Either way, it's going to be very unpredictable and no one wants to see the boat rocked,'' Luft said before voting started yesterday.

Venezuela was the fourth-biggest source of U.S. crude-oil imports during the first five months of the year, according to the Energy Department. Oil Minster Rafael Ramirez said Friday that oil workers won't accept a Chavez defeat.

``If Venezuela enters into a period of instability, I don't see a ceiling to prices,'' Ramirez said.

Bullets sprayed from a vehicle passing near a line of voters in the eastern Petare neighborhood of Caracas at about 5 p.m. in Caracas, Fire Chief Rodolfo Briceno said in an interview.

Polls will close at 8 p.m. local time Sunday, four hours later than originally planned, because of a high turnout, National Electoral Council Vice President Jorge Rodriguez said in a televised press conference in Caracas.

To contact the reporter on the this story:

Gavin Evans in Wellington, New Zealand at  gavinevans@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:

Tony Jordan at  tjordan3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 15, 2004 18:48 EDT  

(he's in Venezuela, but not Caracas, and is ever suspicious of fraud)

This one will be brief. I am going to take a short nap. Why? The CNE has announced that voting goes on until 8 PM, and centers with lines will keep working until all have voted. In other words, no official results until at least 10 PM!!!! It is going to be a long night and I might as well recoup some.

Lines keep going on everywhere. Confusion reigns. The CNE is showing signs of losing its temple, well, the pro Chavez folks at any rate. The communications minister, Jesse Chacon, has came on TV to say that he never lied and that all that he announced is happening. Yeah, right, he never lied....

I have left my camera in Caracas so I will not post any pics of the day. But Ricardo has some on Valencia. I hope that Miguel is done soon so he can take a few pics and post them too. The lines are just unbelievable, and the will of the people even more incredible!

But as I am napping if something happens I have people that will call me to post news!

PS: if after 4 hours I feel like s**t I cannot imagine how are people that have been in line for 8 hours already!!!! Let's keep them in our thoughts! By the way, the line in front of my window has never stopped. And I remind you what I wrote early on today: I have never seen that school with a line of more than a dozen people!!!!!!!! And briefly at that....<snip>

Well, I do not know what the result will be in the country (though I got some info that the results so far were going in favor of the SI) but if chavez wins in my voting center, then there is electoral fraud.

And speaking of electoral fraud. Next door city, La Independencia, in chavista hands, apparently many people that punch the SI get a NO ballot. I know that because the local TV was visiting our center and one of the journalist told us that they were making a report on that question. Interestignly nobody has come to complain that their NO button gave a SI ballot... Coincidence? Naahhhh....<snip>

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/

(wish we ould get that turnout in the US!)

----------------------------------------------

Massive turnout as Venezuela goes to polls

Fate of president mired in delays and alleged foul play

Dan Glaister | August 16 | The Guardian | Caracas

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4993827-111259,00.html

Venezuela's election authorities struggled to retain control of the country's controversial recall poll yesterday in the face of a massive turnout and delays caused by new technology and absent polling staff.

Around 80% of the country's 14 million registered voters took part in the referendum to decide whether to recall the president, Hugo Chávez.

By midday both sides were privately claiming victory, but a decision to keep polling stations open for an extra four hours meant an official announcement was not expected until the morning.

Mr Chávez will step down immediately and new elections will be held within 30 days if those who answer yes in the referendum gain more votes than he won when he was elected in 1998, and also win a majority on the day.

If the no votes gain the majority, Mr Chávez has promised he will invite his opponents to lunch at the presidential palace.

Shortly before 3pm the president of the national election council, Francisco Carrasquero, appeared on television to play a faked recording of his own voice announcing that Mr Chávez had been defeated and was stepping down with immediate effect.

Calling the recording a "flagrant crime" which "pretends to make fun of the will of the people", he announced the launch of an investigation.

The investigation did not take long: it emerged that the recording is a popular spoof sold at street markets. The discovery did little for the credibility of the electoral council.

Earlier, as it became clear that the average voter had to stand in line for seven hours to vote, Mr Carrasquero absolved his organisation of the blame for the delays.

"Those who are responsible are the [polling station machine] operators who did not turn up. It seems that some of them were paid not to go," he said.

Opposition groups pointed to the hi-tech machinery - including electronic voting machines and a more advanced version of the fingerprint recognition system used by US immigration authorities - as being responsible for the delay.

The massive turnout was spurred by campaigners on both sides waking their supporters at 3am yesterday with electric horns, bugles and firecrackers.

At noon Mr Chávez voted in a working-class Caracas neighbourhood.

"We are very happy," he said. "Today is a very happy day. This is a people in peace giving an example to the rest of the world. The rumours of violence and fraud have been carried away by the winds of reality."

He dismissed fears that a victory for him might provoke a coup. "That is now impossible in Venezuela," he said. "The people are too awake. We now have a democracy that is reactivated and full of life."

By 5am many polling stations in the capital had queues of several hundred people waiting patiently outside.

Inside the Colegio Las Acacias, one of 26 polling stations serving the 54,000 residents of the middle-class neighbourhood of San Pedro, observers from the two sides struggled with a roll of sticky tape as they attempted to assemble flat-pack ballot boxes to hold the paper votes.

Olivia Gúzman, standing outside in the line reserved for pensioners, said: "You have to be patient. We can do this little by little. I'm not really political but this government has forced me to take more interest.

We're in a pit. I've never seen this country in such a bad state. The politicians know that this is a time for reflection and a time for change, for them as much as for anyone."

In one of the city's com-mercial areas, La Candelaria, hundreds waited to vote at the Colegio Andrés Bello.

Raúl Urquia, bearing a purple stain from having his fingerprint taken, was impressed with the system.

"This is much better than anything we've seen before," he said. "This referendum marks a defeat for the coup plotters and for those who think that oil is more important than people."

Unlike the rest of the tense and acrimonious campaign, the early stages of election day in Caracas were marked by good humour and tolerance.

There was a sense among voters that the referendum was an opportunity to give expression to the belief that, far from being a focus for civil unrest and intolerance, the country could reassert itself as a modern, mature democracy.

"All we want is for today to pass peacefully, in complete calm," said Carmen Hernandez, queuing outside the polling station at the Asociación de Mujeres in San Pedro as dawn broke.

"We're not political fanatics, we're responsible citizens. This is a time for change, but within a spirit of reconciliation, a time for Venezuelans to win democracy."

When former US president Jimmy Carter and former Colombian president César Gaviria visited La Candelaria in their capacities as heads of the Carter Center and the Organisation of American States respectively, voters burst out in applause.

Speaking above the din, Mr Gaviria said: "We've been across the country and we have not come across any incidents that cause us concern. People are coming in massive numbers to vote, many more than we expected.

 Finally, this country is going to find what it has been looking for - the political conflicts can be solved through electoral means."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Ah those exit polls  Chavistas were worried about, that were not supposed to be published.....

--------------------------------------------------

Venezuela's Chavez on brink of referendum defeat

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=551867

 Hannah Baldock

16 August 2004

The Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, looked to be losing his grip on power last night as exit polls showed him to be trailing the opposition by almost a million votes.

The figures were early indications that, for the first time in the country's history, the President may have his term in office cut short by a referendum.

The mid-morning results showed that the opposition, already boasting an enormous 1,758,000 votes to Chavez's 798,000, is well on its way to reaching the target of 3.76 million votes it needs to oust the authoritarian, left-wing President. Turn-out for the referendum was high, with millions of Venezuelans queuing from the early hours at polling stations all over the oil-rich country to decide the political fate of the firebrand Mr Chavez.

The Venezuelan people are tensely awaiting a close-run and disputed result. In the capital, Caracas, government vans equipped with speakers drove through the poor residential districts in the east of the city at 5am, playing a military wake-up call before piping out popular pro-Chavez songs to voters, some of whom had in any case been up all night letting off fireworks, anticipating victory.

"Our commandante has already won," said Eric Caldera, a student queuing to vote against Mr Chavez's recall. "The rich people and TV stations are the only ones who say the opposition is going to win. They want to regain the power and privilege they had before, and loot the country. You can count the rich people on your hand, the poor you can't. They are too many. And they are with Chavez."

A clamorous cluster of opposition voters in Parroquia El Recreo voting station, central Caracas, rejected the pro-Chavez voters' arguments against them. "If Chavez wins we will paint the walls with 'No Future'. As no one will have a future, not us nor our children. We don't want a Cuba here," added Elsie Billar, 54, an accountant.

If, as looked likely last night, Mr Chavez loses, Vice-President Jose Rangel will take over until general elections are held in a month's time.

   14 August 2004 18:58

Opposition bloggers claim it's tactic just to delay outcome annoucement....

-----------------------------------------------

Venezuela Extends Voting on Chavez Referendum Into Second Day

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aOdggFyq1YpI&refer=news_index

Aug. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuela extended a recall referendum on President Hugo Chavez into a second day, after a record turnout and malfunctioning ballot machines kept voters in line for as long as 10 hours.

Chavez, a 50-year-old former paratrooper who survived both a military coup and two-month strike by oil workers, said after voting yesterday that he would respect the outcome. In a televised speech, Miranda State Governor Enrique Mendoza, a leader of the opposition, urged Venezuelans to endure the wait and vote. <snip>

Mon August 16, 2004 01:24 AM ET

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=565696&section=news

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - A top Venezuelan opposition leader says he has already had figures indicating the result of a referendum on whether to recall President Hugo Chavez and, with a smile, adds that people can tell what it is from his expression.

"From the expression on my face, people can tell what's happening," said a smug-looking Enrique Mendoza, a leader of the opposition coalition which forced Sunday's referendum on the populist president.

"We already have enough information," he said on Monday.

Venezuelan law prohibits anyone from announcing electoral results until the country's election authorities do so.

Voting was still continuing at many polling booths at 1 a.m. (6 a.m. British time) Monday, meaning no official result was likely for several hours.

But, while opposition leaders were all smiles, hundreds of Chavez supporters gathered outside the Miraflores presidential palace had already begun to celebrate what they believed was their victory.

The National Electoral Council is expected to announce preliminary results at 2:30AM.

        -venezuelanalysis.com

 It's going to be a rocky next few days, as I assume the Opposition's exit polls don't match the EVM count I'm sure the blogs are churning right now.......

------------------------------------------------

Patrick Markey | August 16

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a populist who survived a coup two years ago, appears to have weathered the latest challenge to what he calls his revolution to help the poor as he declared victory in a historic recall referendum.

With 94 percent of electoral rolls counted, 58 percent of voters cast ballots against removing Chavez from office, said National Electoral Council President Francisco Carrasquero.

Chavez, dressed in a red shirt, appeared on the balcony of his Miraflores presidential palace in downtown Caracas on Monday and led hundreds of supporters in singing the national anthem before dawn.

"The Venezuelan people have spoken and the people's voice is the voice of God!" roared Chavez, who has diverted wealth from oil sales to housing, food and medical care for the poor majority.

But opposition leaders claimed the same margin of victory as Chavez, saying the official results were a fraud engineered through the use of electronic voting machines.

"We firmly and categorically reject the result. ... We're going to collect the evidence to prove to Venezuela and the world the gigantic fraud which has been committed against the will of the people," said opposition leader Henry Ramos Allup.

The judgement of international observers, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, could be key to stability in the world's No. 5 oil exporter. They praised the voting Sunday but have still to give their final verdict on the referendum.

"With the sides now so polarised, a decision either way could trigger unrest," Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Jan Dehn said in a research note Monday.

TWO YEARS OF CONFRONTATION

The recall was the latest chapter in more than two years of often violent confrontation between Chavez and his critics who brand him a dangerous tyrant bent on reshaping his oil-rich nation into a Cuba-style communist state.

The vote had stoked fears of renewed violence, especially if the results were close. But the opposition had not called any protests as of early Monday. Oil markets worried that a Chavez defeat could trigger unrest in the military and the state oil firm PDVSA.

Oil prices sat near record highs over $46 (24.96 pounds) a barrel even though news Chavez had won and would serve out his term until 2007 calmed jitters over disruptions to shipments from Venezuela, a key supplier to the U.S. market.

A loose coalition of disparate political parties, labour unions and civilian groups, the opposition is often united only by its hatred of Chavez. They had struggled to present a clear alternative to his left-wing reforms.

A clear victory for Chavez could leave his critics with few options but to regroup before congressional elections next year and a presidential election in 2006.

In a rare conciliatory gesture, Chavez called during his speech for applause for his opponents. But he vowed to intensify his social reforms.

<snip>  

<snip from Juan Forero's NYT article>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/16/international/americas/16CND-VENE.html

...The Organization of American States and the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which monitored the election and conducted their own highly accurate voting samples, had not commented on the dispute as of 8:30 a.m.....

A chronology of recent events leading up to Sunday's recall referendum in Venezuela

- The Associated Press

Monday, August 16, 2004

(08-16) 09:25 PDT (AP) --

Events in Venezuela that led to the referendum on whether President Hugo Chavez should step down:

• Feb. 4, 1992: Hugo Chavez, an army lieutenant-colonel, leads an attempted overthrow of President Carlos Andres Perez but fails and is imprisoned for two years.
• Dec. 6, 1998: Chavez is elected to the presidency with a landslide victory on an anti-corruption, antiestablishment platform.
• Dec. 15, 1999: Venezuelans approve a new constitution, which was drafted by a special assembly filled with Chavez allies and legally established the presidential recall.
• July 30, 2000: Chavez is re-elected to a six-year term.
• April 11, 2002: Nineteen people killed during opposition march on the presidential palace, prompting dissident military generals to rebel against Chavez.
• April 12, 2002: Amid short-lived coup, an interim government throws out the constitution, dissolves the Congress and Supreme Court and promises elections within one year.
• April 14, 2002: Loyalists in military restore Chavez to power as throngs of civilians protest actions by interim government.
• Dec. 2, 2002: Venezuela's largest labor union and business chamber join government foes at the state-run oil company in calling a strike aimed at ousting Chavez.
• Feb. 2, 2003: The strike fizzles after two-months with Chavez firmly in power.
• Nov. 28, 2003: Opposition groups organize a four-day petition drive to collect 2.4 million signatures required to trigger recall.
• Dec. 19, 2002: Venezuela's opposition turns in 3.4 million signatures for recall.
• Feb. 25, 2004: Venezuela's election council decides thousands of petitions for recall rule can't be validated until citizens come forward to confirm their signatures.
• March 2, 2004: Elections council accepts signatures presented by Chavez opponents.
• July 8: Elections council selects Aug. 15 as date for recall.
• Aug. 15, 2004: Venezuelans turn out in record numbers to vote in the referendum, swamping polling stations and forcing authorities to keep them open at least eight hours longer than scheduled.
• Aug. 16, 2004: The president of the National Elections Council announces that with 94 percent of the ballots counted, 58 percent of voters had said "no" to Chavez's recall and 42 percent voted "yes." Chavez tells a crowd of supporters he has prevailed. The political opposition claims the vote was fraudulent.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/08/16/international1225EDT0523.DTL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

©2004 Associated Press

Pity Venezuela: if Chavez had to pick a private company, why was it SmartMatic?

London http://journal.lnreview.co.uk/diebold.gif| August 16

http://www.lnreview.co.uk/news/003337.php

There's been a lot of talk recently about what "democracy" is. If Iraq is to become a democracy, does that mean it has to have American-style corporations? (The answer, it seems is "oh, yes".) Is it democratic to tinker with a constitution ad hoc, removing right to trial here and admitting torture evidence there? (Again, of course it is.)

But this is all talk. Democracy is government chosen by the citizenry. If you're not confident that your president has been fairly elected, the whole system is damaged. Policing, courts, new laws, taxes: you have to be happy that the people in charge were chosen by the electors.

And it's this most trivial aspect of democracy which is the one in greatest danger in the last few years.

After dodgy chads in Florida, anyone who loses an election has a great precedent for challenging the president. Add into that the recent e-voting fiascos which have rendered more votes cast than there are electors, and you can see that there's little of that essential confidence in electronic voting.

However, some of the criticisms of e-voting miss the point somewhat. It's not especially useful to assume that computers aren't to be trusted: the "my VCR doesn't even work properly" approach. Closer to the issue is the need for any electronic voting machine to produce a physical paper trail: any election has to make room for a recount, and just clicking on "Display Result" doesn't cut it.

But most important of all is this: there is a difference between technology which anyone can inspect and technology based around trade secrets. An analogy from the world of servers might be useful here. If you're running a Unix server (the choice of most of the web), and something goes wrong, there's allsorts of help available, because anyone with the right kind of skills can look at Unix and see how it works. Which is why it's so good in the first place. Compare Microsoft, and you can probably see where this is going.

Any voting system must be able to withstand scrutiny. However, there are only some environments where ideas develop in this kind of open, co-operative way. One is academia. The other is the kind of open-sourced technology mentioned in the paragraph above.

Any politician worth their salt now knows it's probably worth a punt to say that an electronic election went wrong somehow. And when they do, we need an answer. This won't come if you use private companies, whose technology will be a commercial secret. It's especially iffy when the company is a donor to one or more political parties, as we've seen in America.

And sure enough, as you read this, both sides in the Venezuelan referendum are claiming victory, with Chavez's corporate opponents certain to discredit the voting process if they're declared the losers. And who will the beleaguered Venezuelan people turn to for assurance that the system works?

SmartMatic.

You've probably never heard of SmartMatic, since they've never done a job like this. It's an insane choice on Chavez's part: there are plenty of people with an interest in developing technology which does work for democracy -- or you can go to SmartMatic. SmartMatic: the name alone is your guarantee.

bb

© The London News Review 2001-2004 - All Rights Reserved

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Monday, August 16, 2004 ·

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer/ap.asp?category=1102&slug=Venezuela%20Recall%20Carter

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Former President Jimmy Carter, who helped monitor Venezuela's recall referendum, endorsed on Monday returns showing that that President Hugo Chavez won the vote.

"Our findings coincided with the partial returns announced today by the National Elections Council," Carter told a news conference.

The announcement appeared to deflate opposition claims of widespread fraud in the voting. The National Elections Council earlier announced its tally with 94 percent of the vote counted, showing Chavez surviving by a wide margin the opposition's effort to unseat him.

According to the results, 58 percent of voters voted "no" to the question of whether Chavez should immediately end his term in office, and 42 percent voted "yes."

OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria, speaking at a press conference with Carter, said observers "have not found any element of fraud in the process."

"Until elements of fraud emerge we are not going put the results in doubt," Gaviria said. "If the opposition has a serious concern, we are willing to work with them, but not to put the results in doubt."

Directing his remarks at opposition figures, Carter called on all Venezuelans to accept the results.

"Now it's the responsibility of all Venezuelans to accept the results and work together for the future," said Carter.

Time is GMT + 8 hours

Posted: 17 August 2004 0544 hrs

US won't endorse Chavez victory yet, wants fraud claims probed

WASHINGTON - The United States on Monday declined to join international monitors in backing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's apparent victory in a weekend recall election and called for a prompt, thorough and transparent probe into opposition claims of massive fraud.

excuse while I laugh my ass off!

Chavez Win In Venezuela Does Not End Violence, Controversy

AFP: 8/16/2004

by Patrick Moser

http://www.turkishpress.com/turkishpress/news.asp?ID=24680

CARACAS, Aug 15 (AFP) - A woman was killed and at least four others wounded Monday as backers of President Hugo Chavez fired on opposition protesters of vote results that will allow Chavez to finish his term.

Chavez won Sunday's referendum with more than 57 percent of the official results, which observers with former US president Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States deemed fair.

"This is a case unique in the world where the leaders of the opposition do not accept election results," Chavez told reporters.

He called for national reconciliation and promised to "respect the 40 percent of electors who voted yes" to his ouster.

Chavez and the opposition agreed, in a deal brokered by Carter and the OAS, to abide by the results of the recall as a way of putting an end to the previous two years of street protests, general strikes and an April 2002 coup, which removed Chavez for two days.

However, Martiza Ron, 61, was killed Monday after gunmen on motorcycles and cars opened fire on a group of anti-Chavez protesters, according to neighborhood police chief Leonardo Peruta. Four wounded were treated at El Avila clinic near the scene, one of them legislator Ernesto Alvarenga, who had been shot in the chest, doctor Luis Chirinos said.

On Altamira Square, a few dozen demonstrators remained at the scene of the shootings, standing around a Venezuelan flag soaked with the blood of one of the wounded and shouted "Murderers! Murderers!" in reference to the Chavez supporters and "Fraud!" at the president's victory.

Altamira Square has been emblematic of the opposition and the spot occupied by several high-ranking military officers who dramatically declared themselves "in rebellion" against Chavez's government.

Opposition groups in and around the hotel occupied by Carter and OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria carried posters saying "We do not accept fraud," referring to the election results and one, "Carter how much did they pay you?" written in English.

"We are obliged to say that the results of (Venezuela's) National Electoral Commission and our count agree," Gaviria said.

"It is everyone's responsibility to abide by the results," Carter said, while admitting that the rapid count he and Gaviria leaned on showed the vote was closer, 55-45 percent. Fourteen million Venezuelans were eligible to vote, and so many did that officials left polls open until midnight Sunday.

US and Canadian officials said they would withhold judgement on the fairness of the vote, however.

"The National Electoral Council hasn't come out with its final results yet either, so I don't think we're in a position of declaring it over," said State Department Spokesman Tom Casey in Washington.

"If the opposition feels that they have credible evidence of fraud, they need to present it," the official said. "It needs to be reviewed and looked at. Once that happens, then you theoretically have something that everyone can agree to and live with."

The vote in the world's fifth-largest oil exporter was closely watched. Venezuela, the only Latin American member of OPEC, supplies more crude to the United States than does Saudi Arabia, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

Wall Street analysts hoped that Chavez's victory would bring stability to world oil prices, after the cost of a barrel reached new highs of 46.91 in London and New York. Chavez vowed Monday to guarantee stability on world markets.

Chavez, a former paratrooper colonel, failed in 1992 to take Venezuela in a coup. He became a folk hero during his two years in prison, claiming to have launched the coup to rid Venezuela of its "corrupt oligarchy."

He won the presidency in 1998, campaigned for a constitutional convention, and was reelected under the new constitution in 2000.

The opposition has chafed under what it calls Chavez's autocratic style of governing in a country that for decades was known for its deal-making.

Copyright 2004 Agence France Presse.

at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3569674.stm

Viewpoints: Venezuela's future

International observers in Venezuela have confirmed President Hugo Chavez's victory in a referendum on whether he should be removed from office.

His opponents, however, have insisted the result is a "gigantic fraud" and called for a recount.

BBC News Online asked eight commentators for their views on the result and their thoughts on the future of Venezuela after the vote. Click on the quotes below and use the form at the bottom of the page to tell us what you think.

"This result will destroy the corporate media lie"

Samuel Moncada, Chavez campaign team

"I find it ominous and depressing"

Ricardo Hausmann, Venezuelan former minister

"Calmness and tranquillity must be maintained"

Markus Schultze-Kraft, Ecuador-based conflict analyst

"Life will be tough for a lot of people"

Marco Vicenzino, US analyst   "The opposition just offered the unknown to Venezuelans"

Julia Buxton, UK academic

"Chavez and the Bush administration need each other"

Justine Thody, UK regional analyst

"This is the direction in which Latin America is going"

Mark Weisbrot, US analyst

"Chavez needs to think carefully about his own foreign policy"

Paul Doran, UK business risk analyst  

------------------------------------------------

full,long article with thorough analysis by each of these experts is at link above.

 

And he used to be "their savior" ....

1.From Alexanda Beech's new Venezuelan blog,

"The Sixth Republic" (She used to write for Vcrisis)

http://www.sixthrepublic.com/pages/1/index.htm

<snip>

 A friend who works for a multilateral lending institution told me that Carter simply fell in line with US and regional interests concerning oil.

Venezuela´s instability and high oil prices have the potential to create regional instability, and rather than prolonging the process, Carter took the first opportunity to take a stand and close the case.

When he went so far as to say that the Carter Center had been inside the tallying room, Cesar Gaviria [OAS representative] quickly contradicted him, saying that no international observers had been allowed inside the room where the votes were counted.

 Gaviria, according to experts, was more hesitant in his statements, sending the opposition an important message when he encouraged the opposition to submit any evidence of fraud to the OAS.

-------------------------------------------------

2. from Daniel, in

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/

<snip>

Live reporting again!

Apparently Carter and the OAS have realized that their hurried declarations of yesterday has been a mistake and they have requested an additional audit, the missing one, painted in red in the graph I posted yesterday. [ see http://scoop.agonist.org/comments/2004/7/5/42913/99946/54#54 ]

There are still a few questions as to how this will take place, and, for me, if the boxes have been kept safe from any tampering. But at least that audit will be made.

In another significant development a lot of evidence have surfaced today of electoral fraud. I do not know, nor can I state, whether this new stuff is enough to change the result, and Carter said neither that audit nor the new evidence would greatly change the result.

But then again Carter said yesterday that there was no need for him to stay and that he was going home for his wife birthday. Looks like he will have more time to shop for a birthday present for Rosalyn in the artisan shops of Caracas.

This ons interesting, are they claiming all the no's were yes's and the yes's were no's?

O'Donoghue's a straight shooter- but it's a bit strange  that in these two articles he simply  reports verbatim without any analysis of his own...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--

Patrick J. O'Donoghue  | August 17

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=22477

Opposition Sumate claims electronic switch of final results to favor government

Sumate, the Venezuelan opposition electoral company has questioned results in the August 15 recall referendum (RR) against President Hugo Chavez Frias.

At a press conference in Caracas, Sumate directors Alejandro Plaz and Maria Corina Machado have announced mechanisms to be implemented aimed at detailing alleged massive electoral fraud with the help of adequately trained volunteers.

Plaz divides the electoral process into two stages. The first is when an elector registers until he puts the paper into the ballot box and the second is the mechanization of data and that, they claim, is precisely where the doubt lies.

Sumate claims that msjority votes were modified in the second stage of the process.

The transmission and audit of votes are trustworthy, but the machines are claimed to be "dodgy ... it has never been proved that the machines are reliable in registering a Yes vote as a Yes vote."

Sumate directors confirm that they employed the exit polls system on Sunday to analyze results and came up with the conclusion that the  government's NO vote totaled 40.6% against the opposition's YES vote of 59.4%.

The polls were undertaken three times on Sunday (9:00 a.m., 5:00 p.m., and 11:00 p.m.).

While admitting that exit polls aren't perfect, Plaz and Machado contend that the differences between their exit polls and National Elections Council (CNE) figures is so great that they want an investigation.

  They agree with Carter and Gaviria regarding the results, but the doubt lies in which side got the highest percentage.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Patrick J. O'Donoghue    | August 17

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=22475

b

Mendoza[Opposition leader] seeks support from the OAS General Secretary for new referendum

Miranda State Governor and Coordinadora Democratica (CD) leader, Enrique Mendoza has latched on to a declaration made by Organization of American States (OAS) president, Cesar Gaviria about presenting proof of fraud.

"We will not rest until we prove that the will of Venezuelans has been ignored and penalize those responsible ... we want them to know that neither time nor effort are obstacles ... justice will be done."

Enrique Mendoza

Replying to criticism from opposition sectors, Mendoza has offered apologies for not being combatant and vociferous minutes after the National Elections Council (CNE) announced the first bulletin of results on Monday morning in the early hours ... "I feel the same rage, the same annoyance, the same pain as all of you but one must continue  fighting for what one believes in, for what we want ... they may have ridden us of our signatures but they can't rid us of justice ... they may have robbed us of the elections but they cannot rob us of our country."

The CD's leading presidential candidate to date says the opposition is collecting documents to present concrete and detailed complaints of fraud. "We accept the OAS general secretary's position and as Venezuelan democrats we will present international organs with evidence that will leave them no alternative but to accompany us in questioning the electoral process and to request a repeation of elections in conditions that guarantee transparency."

Reports have been coming in that top opposition leaders have ignored advice from international bodies to accept the results, undertake a detailed analyses of performance and prepare for regional elections this year and presidential elections in 2006 ... however, it has been learned that some leaders are prepared to push that line.

Venezuela, America's anti-universe / compare Bush & Chavez lol

http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2004/8/18/6279/28739

Venezuela Opposition Leaders Boycott Audit

Alexandra Olson | AP  | August 18

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Opposition leaders refused Wednesday to participate in an audit of a referendum that failed to oust Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, dealing a setback to international efforts to dispel allegations of vote-rigging and prevent more upheaval in the politically divided country.

Opposition leaders claimed they had unearthed new evidence of fraud, which they insisted the audit - proposed by former President Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States - would fail se conditions, we won't accept this audit,'' said anti-Chavez lawmaker Nelson Rampersad after a meeting between opposition leaders, Carter and OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria.

There was no immediate comment from Carter and Gaviria, who had planned to be witnesses Wednesday as local election officials checked a random sampling of results from 150 voting stations - a rare follow-up move to an election they have already said looked clean.

``We have no reason to doubt the integrity of the electoral process nor the accuracy of the referendum results,'' Carter asserted at a news conference Tuesday.

Carter and Gaviria have been working for two years to find a solution to the often bloody political crisis that has gripped Venezuela, the world's fifth-largest oil exporting nation.

Rampersad claimed touch-screen voting machines in at least 500 polling sites produced the exact same number of ``yes'' votes in favor of ousting Chavez, a result he said was statistically impossible. He said the supposed finding indicated the machines were rigged to impose a ceiling on ``yes'' votes.

The audit intended to compare electronic and paper ballots. But Rampersad said opponents were concerned the paper ballots - which have been under the care of Venezuela's military - may have been tampered with since Sunday's votes. He said the opposition wanted the audit to include an examination of the internal workings of the machines' software.

The referendum was carried out on touch-screen voting machines, which produced a paper receipt of each vote, much like an ATM. Voters then deposited the receipts into a ballot box.

Chavez is praised by supporters for giving the poor majority better services and a voice in politics, while some critics fear he intends to install a Cuban-style dictatorship. Almost 58 percent voted Sunday to keep the leftist firebrand in office.

Leaders of an opposition coalition immediately cried fraud. Gunmen fired on an opposition demonstration later Monday, wounding seven people, including a woman who later died. Dozens died in a failed coup against Chavez in April 2002 and in political riots over several years.

Carter made clear that the opposition would look foolish if it keeps crying foul after the audit, which he said should be completed by Thursday.

``It should be sufficient to address the remaining concerns that have been expressed by the opposition,'' Carter said.

In Washington, the State Department said the referendum should end this South American nation's political crisis.

``The people of Venezuela have spoken,'' spokesman Adam Ereli said. It was a conciliatory comment from the U.S. government, which often has harsh words for Chavez, a blunt critic of U.S. foreign policy.

<snip>

Associated Press reporters Andrew Selsky and Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report.

Don't know whether "observers" here are still Carter and the OAS

---------------------------------------------

Chavez foes maintain "fraud"

Wed August 18, 2004 05:58 PM ET

Patrick Markey

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=567654&section=news

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition leaders say they have given observers evidence of electronic vote tampering that helped President Hugo Chavez win Sunday's referendum, but are rejecting an audit meant to clear up their fraud charges.

Observers, led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Organisation of American States, say they have seen no evidence of vote manipulation so far. But they have agreed to additional checks on a sample of the results.

Opposition leaders on Wednesday refused to take part in the audit because they said it could not properly investigate the referendum which gave victory to Chavez, a left-wing former army paratrooper first elected in 1998.

They charged at least 500 polling stations out of 12,000 nationwide used voting machines pre-programmed with an artificial cap to limit the number of votes cast in favour of recalling Chavez.

"We are not going to accept the results until all of these doubts have been cleared up," said opposition leader Enrique Mendoza. "It doesn't matter how long it takes, we will keep denouncing this every day."

The international community had hoped a clear vote on whether Chavez should step down would end the bitter struggle over the populist leader's presidency, but the fresh dispute could inflame tensions in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

National Electoral Council official Jorge Rodriguez on Wednesday rejected the tampering accusations as "irresponsible" and "criminal" fabrications. "The machines were never reprogrammed," he said.

Even without opposition support, observers on Thursday will begin an audit on 150 polling stations to check electronic vote tallies against printed confirmation ballots. The checks should end at the latest Friday, officials said.

Firebrand nationalist Chavez has declared his 58 percent victory as a reconfirmation of his "revolutionary" reforms to improve the lives of the poor. Government officials have also dismissed the fraud charges.

BITTER OUTCOME FOR SOME

Venezuelans turned out in huge numbers for the referendum with around 10 million of nearly 14 million registered voters going to the polls. The recall effort was led by critics who accuse Chavez of authoritarian rule and manipulating key institutions such as the courts and the electoral council.

But the outcome left opposition supporters bitter that they failed to oust a president who has already survived a brief coup, a gruelling oil strike and months of street protests.

Opposition protesters sprayed "fraud", "dirty rats" and "thieves" on the walls of the Caracas office of Smartmatic, the company that made the electronic voting machines. Military police later arrived to guard the building.

The country has remained generally calm after the vote.

Observers on Wednesday stood by their earlier support of the results, which gave the opposition 42 percent of the referendum votes.

"The mission established that the majority of the voters chose not to revoke the mandate of President Hugo Chavez," the OAS said in a statement.

The United States, a chief customer for Venezuelan oil, has also urged authorities to clear up the fraud charges to allow Venezuelans to heal the deep divisions caused by more than two years of confrontation over Chavez's presidency.

© Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.  

 

 August 18 | Patrick J. O'Donoghue

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=22492

P<snip>

Opposition guns have been turned on Jimmy Carter and he is being called the defender of deposed Haiti President Jean Bertrand Aristide, meaning that Carter ratified an allegedly rigged election.

Talks between international observers and Coordinadora Democratica (CD) leaders on acceptance of the results have failed.

Analysts indicate signs of and discontent division inside the opposition as traditional political parties attempt to maintain their control on the CD seriously questioned by radical groups and moderates alike.

The fact that dinosaur Christian Socialist (COPEI) leader, "Tiger" Eduardo Fernandez is hitting the headlines campaigning against alleged massive electoral fraud and presidential legitimacy shows, observers suggest, that political opportunism is paralyzing opposition attempts to seek an outlet from the corner it has built for itself.

Opposition Resistencia Civil group leader, former Accion Democratica (AD) leader, Domingo Alberto Rangel has accepted the recall results and says the opposition is gaining ground on the President with a record 41% of the vote.

<snip>

A chavista site response

-------------------------------------------

Venezuelan's Opposition Rejects Audit of Referendum Vote

Jonah Gindin  Aug 19 Venezuelanalysis.com

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/print.php?newsno=1345

Opposition allegations of fraud have so far been based on the suggestion that there was a `ceiling' on `Yes' votes, resulting in all `Yes' votes beyond the ceiling being changed to `No' votes by some internal mechanism in the voting machines.  This suggestion has been contested by the CNE and international observers on several grounds.

According to Carter, the possibility of fraud using ceilings can be addressed by comparing the ballots printed out upon each vote, thus, his suggestion that an audit be conducted at 150 voting centers across the country.

In a press conference this afternoon, electoral council board member Jorge Rodriguez contested the oppositions' `proof' of the existence of ceilings.  Rodriguez pointed out that similarities in results between voting machines in the same voting center are not only statistically possible, but highly probably. It also occurred with `Yes' votes. The explanation, according to Rodriguez, is a simple matter of statistics, in that each voting machine registered a random sample of voters at that particular voting center, so that each machine should reflect the general voting trend at the center as a whole.

As an example, Rodriguez compared results from two voting tables at a voting center in the wealthy Caracas neighbourhood of Cafetal.  Both voting tables provided almost the exact same results: table 1 resulted in No: 8.3%, Si: ,91.7%; and table 2 in No: 8.5%, Si: 91.5%.

While Jorge Rodriguez was making these comments, Enrique Mendoza, spokesman for the opposition umbrella-group the Democratic Coordinator, held a press conference in which he called on "all representatives of the opposition not to participate in the audit."  His justification was the charge that the National Guard who have been guarding the paper ballots may have conspired with the government (and the CNE, and the Carter Center, and the OAS) to alter or replace ballots.

Rodriguez responded to the suggestion that the opposition would not participate in the audit saying, "we are not conducting this audit for any political actors, but for the peace and tranquility of the Venezuelan people."

"We are also doing this for the employees of the CNE," he continued, "who merit much better treatment than they have received from the private media."  Rodriguez stated plainly that if the opposition does not wish to participate in the audit, the CNE, along with the Carter Center and OAS will conduct the audit without them.

<snip>

Daniel -of daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com, has a lengthy post of how he believes referendum fraud was managed.It's a very interesting theory, though at the end he goes off on his Chavista-hate rant. It's probably the one circulating around the opposition now to be unveiled Thursday.

O have posted the whole thing as it is very slow to get to his blog.

-------------------------------------------------

How the Venezuelan Electoral Fraud took place

daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com posted by Daniel 10:21 PM

As the hours go by, it is becoming clearer that something went really wrong in the voting system. Many charges have already been advanced, some silly, some serious. The serious charges have actually been considered serious enough that the Coordinadora Democratica, CD, has refused to go to the verification act that was hastily obtained today from the CNE by the Carter Center and the OAS, a CNE which until now was adamant in refusing it. Why is the CD refusing now to go along?

One reason, we are already on Wednesday night and who knows how the ballot boxes were preserved. Unless all the witness and workers of the voting stations can be gathered to verify that the security checks that exist on the boxes are the ones they put themselves, there is no security that "someone" has not played foul.

Another reason is that the nature of the fraud makes a random selection of tables almost irrelevant. To explain this point I have made yet another very simplified graph.

Below we can see an imaginary electoral district with five schools that served as voting centers. Schools B and E were assumed to be more likely to be in favor of the opposition. Thus, the voting program was given a "top" for the SI. I have written below what the real SI was. In school B one machine had less SI than planned and hence its 119 score instead of the 122 ceiling.

 Schools A, C and D were esteemed safer and thus not tampered with. The SI number is the real number in these schools. The decision to which machines to tamper with could be easily made depending on the signature collection pattern of the November 2003 petition against Chavez, for example. Or on local polls. Or local party activists info as to the mood in the neighborhood.

Now, what does happen when the "quick count" is made by the Carter Center? With a green star I indicate which would be the randomly selected MACHINES. The results would be for example 104 (A), 122(B), 132 (C) and 114(E).

 Obviously this distribution seems normal and ANYONE doing such a sampling would find the same distribution even picking up a different machine in each center. However, if my sampling takes all the machines in a center and compares it with all the machines of another center, quickly some strange distribution would become apparent.

 For example if luck has that the draw is for the three machines of school E, someone should raise an eyebrow when seeing 114, 114 and 114. But if the draw was for school C, nothing strange would have been observed and the fraud in schools B and E would pass unnoticed!

That is why the Coordinadora Democratica insists on selecting machines from specific areas as a random selection would without a doubt attenuate the apparent fraud.

To end this I want to explain why the fraud was actually discovered. I think it was well planned and with normal results, that is, a clear NO victory, it would have probably gone undetected and would have just improved the margin of victory. But chavismo committed two, and perhaps three crucial mistakes.

Mistake 1: their calculations were probably based on polls favoring them in June. In July the situation had tightened.

Mistake 2: they really believe their own fairy tale that the signatures collected were fraudulent and that at any rate they represented ALL of the opposition.

Mistake 3: this mistake is probably due to Chavez arrogance itself. He probably insisted that the SI be no more than the signatures collected. After all, he had to accept the referendum and the fact that he was ridiculed by not being able to prove any fraud. Glory and/or revenge are in his mind, as the good narcissistic personality he is.

Unfortunately the SI were more than planned. This is why so many machines reached the set TOP and the fraud became apparent.

Now, I must stress one thing. This does not prove by itself that the SI won. There is no way to know the truth unless there is a guarantee that the ballot boxes have all been kept safe and are all counted. Just as if we had started with a manual ballot. Back to square one.

posted by Daniel 10:21 PM

This is both funny and sad, because of the ombination of politeness and arrogance with which he writes, and because even the smallest action has political meaning in the mindset that has taken over Venezuela.

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Aug 19 3:58pm

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com

Open letter to President Carter

Nobel Peace Prize

Director of the Carter Center

Dear President Carter

I am writing to you through this venue as I know through my Internet tracker that at least somebody reads this blog from the Carter Center. Surely these persons will be kind enough to forward you this message.

Let me assure you, before I do object some of your recent actions, that I have been a long time admirer of you.

You have had a truly admirable career after your stay in the White House, and I was delighted when you received the award that you so richly deserved. You may read in this blog instances where I have praised your actions, and even defended you against some critics that did not share your vision.

Unfortunately your recent undertakings in Venezuela seem to have lacked the acumen shown in other visits. The highly embarrassing moment that you experienced yesterday in a Caracas restaurant when you were "caceroleado" (people hitting repeatedly their glasses with their knives to create quite a lot of noise) should give us all pause.

Before we go into examining how could you, and us, reach such an embarrassing moment, I will like to add that I do understand your basic motivations.

Right now your country, and the future of your grand children, is greatly endangered by the events quickly spinning out of control in Iraq and elsewhere.

I do understand that your priorities are

to secure a stable supply of oil for your country and if in the process you must sacrifice the basic rights of the Venezuelan people, I understand.

I do not accept and even less approve such a sell out, but I understand your priorities. I deem them very detrimental to the long term interests of the United States of America, a country where I have lived for 15 years and that I truly love.

But now I am speaking as a Venezuelan and I cannot approve your actions. The leadership of your country should have seen the future in Latin America and not in the Middle East.

Which were these actions which have changed the very positive image that you had in Venezuela?

It is fair to say that the decisive point came with the private visit that you did with your friend Mr. Cisneros to President Chavez. The lack of clear explanations on such a strange meeting has led to quite a few rumors.

 It does not help that Mr. Cisneros, publicly reviled by President Chavez, is not particularly loved by the opposition. It all looked very suspicious for the lay man and already some stated that you came here to sell us out and protect your friends interests.

Still, your sterling rescue of the "reparo" process was in all's mind and we pretended that this visit did not happen.

But now, on August 16 at 1 PM, as we know now that you had been warned not to rush and emit an opinion on the Recall Election, you still went ahead and pretty much certified the election.

bEven as Secretary Gaviria publicly contradicted[that is Daniel's explnation,Gavira was certainly more cautious than Carter] some of your statements. [/b]

And you mentioned your obligations to your wife to a country on the verge of a civil war.

That night serious elements of a possible electoral fraud at some polling stations started appearing. These elements seem today worthy of close examination. Still you went ahead and stated that you did not expect the results to change.

 How could you be so sure? How could you say that so fast even if you were that certain? You knew full well that such a statement would induce newspapers like the New York Times to endorse the election without question. And yet some countries still edged their bets while Secretary Gaviria looked ill at ease.

You offered your imprimatur on an audit system that was immediately rejected by the opposition. There were clear questions as to the worthiness of standard methods of auditing for a possible fraud falling outside of standard frauds.

Did I detect some of the arrogance that cost your office, and should cause the same consequence on your present successor?

[b]Very humbly I would like to remind you of the Florida mess and how the greatest nation on earth took a month to figure out who had won the most powerful seat on earth. [/b]

Surely this sobering experience should allow you to entertain with your intellectual abilities the possibility of a fraud in Venezuela, one that should be examined adequately.

Would a week be too much before making such sweeping statements certifying an electoral system managed by people that the Carter Center knows very well have cheated at every possible step during the signature and "reparo" processes?

Allow me to suggest greater prudence.

 Venezuela is ruled by people who have shown their mettle and determination to get what they want, the means being irrelevant.

Validating them a little bit fast and leaving the country to its sad fate could come back to haunt your cherished memory. And the people that so devoutly serve the Carter Center could end up looking for another line of work. Peace makers need only to fail once to have all their track record erased mercilessly.

Please, do think at what has happened to us when even such a great spirit as you gets "caceroleado".

[b]If you want to dump us and keep the oil, please do it with more delicacy or you will not be any better than President Chavez.[/b]

Sincerely, your devoted admirer until recently.

Daniel Duquenal

El Universal is a large center-right Opposition newspaper(if that makes any sense)with some articles also published in English.

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Paper ballots to be matched with recall tallies

Audit on recall results starts

CNE legal advisor Andrés Brito says results to be published Saturday morning.

http://www.eluniversal.com/2004/08/19/en_revo_art_19A485323.shtml

         

_{Jennifer McCoy, representative of the Carter Center in Venezuela, regretted the absence of the Democratic Coordinator at the revision (Photo: Archive)}

Without the representatives of the opposition Democratic Coordinator, Thursday started an audit on 150 voting stations as convened by the National Electoral Council (CNE), and the missions of foreign electoral observers of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Carter Center. Witnesses from pro-government electoral Maisanta command did attend the event.

Jennifer McCoy, a representative of the Carter Center, claimed that experts are currently at the warehouses of the CNE in Filas de Mariche, in the outskirts of Caracas. Under the audit, the experts are to match paper ballots (or the receipts the voting machines printed when every voter cast his/her ballot) that were deposited in ballot boxes with the recall tallies completed at voting stations and submitted to the CNE authorities.

The audit will be conducted on a randomly selected sample of 150 voting tables, "which amounts to some 400 voting machines," McCoy explained.

The representative of the U.S. NGO regretted the absence of the Democratic Coordinator during the process, saying she believes the results of the audit are expected to help, not only the international observers, but also the opposition, to have a more comprehensive assessment of the automated electoral system.

"This audit is going to show whether there is a meaningful patter in the country (¿) If there is a meaningful patter of anything, including the so-called caps (on the number of ballots for recalling Chávez)," she added.

Besides, concerning doubts cast over the security of the electoral materials, McCoy indicated that "it would be very difficult to change all of the little papers in each machine. It would be a very difficult thing to do from the physical point of view."  Nevertheless, she warned that the international observers are not giving guarantees on the security of ballot boxes and voting machines, as they are under the custody of the Unified Command of the National Armed Force (Cufan).

McCoy added that the Carter Center proposed this audit in order to have another element supporting their evaluation on the recall vote. "If anything meaningful is detected, I am sure that somebody is going to file some sort of legal action."

Meanwhile, the CNE legal advisor Andrés Brito said the audit is to take 48 hours. They are going to publish the results of the revision Saturday morning.

He insisted that, even though this is a vote recount, the process is not binding, because a challenge action has to be filed with the relevant authorities first.

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Translated by by Maryflor Suárez  

Copyright @ Diario El Universal C.A. 2004  

   

U.S. Poll Firm in Hot Water in Venezuela

    The Associated Press

    Thursday 19 August 2004

    CARACAS, Venezuela Aug. 19, 2004 -- A U.S. firm's exit poll that said President Hugo Chavez would lose a recall referendum has landed in the center of a controversy following his resounding victory.

    "Exit Poll Results Show Major Defeat for Chavez," the survey, conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, asserted even as Sunday's voting was still on. But in fact, the opposite was true Chavez ended up trouncing his enemies and capturing 59 percent of the vote.

    Any casual observer of the 2000 U.S. presidential elections knows exit polls can at times be unreliable. But the poll has become an issue here because the opposition, which mounted the drive to force the leftist leader from office, insists it shows the results from the vote itself were fraudulent. The opposition also claims electronic voting machines were rigged, but has provided no evidence.

    Election officials banned publication or broadcast of any exit polls during the historic vote on whether to oust Chavez, a populist who has sought to help the poor and is reviled by the wealthy, who accuse him of stoking class divisions.

    But results of the Penn, Schoen & Berland survey were sent out by fax and e-mail to media outlets and opposition offices more than four hours before polls closed. It predicted just the opposite of what happened, saying 59 percent had voted in favor of recalling Chavez.

    Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States who monitored the referendum, said the poll must have had a tremendous impact on Chavez's opponents, who felt they were about to complete their two-year drive to oust him.

    "They were told they had a lead of 20 points and then when the results came, they lost by 20 points," Gaviria said. "It's very difficult to deal with that."

    Both Gaviria and former President Jimmy Carter, another election monitor, endorsed the vote, saying the results coincided with their own independent samplings.

    Mark Penn, of Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, said Wednesday he has limited knowledge of the exit poll. He said his partner, Doug Schoen, "believes there were more problems with the voting than with the exit poll."

    Schoen could not immediately be reached, and another employee familiar with the poll declined to comment.

    "We have to let the authorities do their investigation of the election," said Marcela Berland, with the firm. "It would be irresponsible to interfere with that."

    Critics of the exit poll have questioned how it was conducted because officials have said Penn, Schoen & Berland worked with a U.S.-funded Venezuela group that the Chavez government considers hostile.

    Penn, Schoen & Berland had members of Sumate, a Venezuelan group that helped organize the recall initiative, do the fieldwork for the poll, election observers said.

    Roberto Abdul, a Sumate official, acknowledged in a telephone interview that the firm "supervised" an exit poll carried out by Sumate. Abdul added that at least five exit polls were completed for the opposition, with all pointing to a Chavez victory.

    Abdul said Sumate which has received a $53,400 grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, which in turn receives funds from the U.S. Congress did not use any of those funds to pay for the surveys.

    The issue is potentially explosive because even before the referendum, Chavez himself cited Washington's funding of Sumate as evidence that the Bush administration was financing efforts to oust him an allegation U.S. officials deny.

    Venezuelan Minister of Communications Jesse Chacon said it was a mistake for Sumate to be involved in the exit poll because it might have skewed the results.

    "If you use an activist as a pollster, he will eventually begin to act like an activist," Chacon told The Associated Press.

    Chris Sabatini, senior program officer for the National Endowment for Democracy, defended Sumate as "independent and impartial."

    "Exit polls are notoriously unreliable," Sabatini said by telephone from Washington. "Just because they're off doesn't mean that the group that conducted them is partial to one side."

    AP reporters Juan Pablo Toro in Caracas and Will Lester in Washington contributed to this report.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082004W.shtml

Headline at the pro-Opposition news portal "VeneNews"- which also points to a lot of Chavez stuff.BTW it now lists Carter as a Chavista :-)

http://www.venenews.net/

NO PAPER TRAIL AND NO PLAN B

GAME OVER FOR THE OPPOSITION

(YES THERE WAS FRAUD)