Tag Archives: Chavez

English, News, Venezuela

Military Coup in Venezuela Oct 7, 2012

What has been called an election victory for Hugo Chávez was in reality a military coup. The opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles, won the election, but the regime activated a military coup with tanks on the streets of all the major cities in Venezuela, while withdrawing the protection from the presidential palace. They then told Capriles, “accept defeat or else.” Meanwhile they committed election fraud after the polls closed, just so as to be able to make it plausible to the international community that Chávez had won. There was no effective election supervision, and the opposition’s parallel vote counting operations were shut down by force while people were still standing in line to vote.

Make no mistake, this was a military self-coup. Hugo Chávez now is a three-time military coupster. There was a spontaneous protest on Monday evening, but a protest that had been called via social media on Saturday outside the election authority CNE failed to materialize. Many expressed on Facebook that they were afraid to demonstrate, that they feared for their lives.

Updates: An editorial in Venezuela reached me just after publishing this. The title is “Coup d’état against Capriles“.

Here is a declaration made by a number of civil groups that are rejecting the election results unless proof are presented within 48 hours, “Declaración de Caracas“. They mention that although the law says that 54% of the machine results shall be audited, only 2.5% actually were (the voting machine produces a paper printout which the voter then deposits in a ballot box; by counting the papers manually the poll workers are supposed to verify the printout of the machine on 54% of the machines). Since the regime knows which these 2.5% are, they are free to commit voter fraud on the remaining 97.5% of the machines. Still this is just one out of many forms of fraud committed in these elections.

Democracy, News, Svenska, Venezuela

Chávez stal valet

När den ordinarie tiden för röstning var ute, stod det klart för oppositionen att Capriles hade vunnit bekvämt, med ungefär 5%. Lite senare förklarade Chávez att han hade vunnit, och att hans anhängare borde ge sig ut för att fira (det var mot reglementet att han sa det). Och så kom det uppgifter om stridsvagnar på gatorna i Caracas och andra städer runt om i Venezuela. Sen kom chocken, valmyndigheten CNE förklarade att Chávez hade vunnit med 54% mot 45% för Capriles. Lite senare kom förloraren modstulet ut och – tvärt emot vad alla förväntat och vad han själv lovat – sa han inte att han skulle kämpa vidare.

Nu dagen efter kommer det fram vad som hände. Capriles fick ett erbjudande. Ge sig frivilligt eller möta beväpnad milis och militär med stridsvagnar. Den 7 oktober 2012 insåg venezolanerna att demokratin är död. Djungelns lag gäller. Det råder en kollektiv chock nu. Som om någon nära har dött. Aldrig tidigare har nämligen Chávez stulit ett val så uppenbart, så grovt, med så mycket hot om våld, så “in your face”. Vad som kommer att hända härnäst kan ingen veta.

Demokratin i Venezuela, 1958 - 2012
English, News, Venezuela

Sista opinionsundersökningen från Venezuela

Imorgon söndag hålls ödesvalet i Venezuela. Antingen vinner den sittande president Chávez, eller så vinner utmanaren Henrique Capriles. Han har bedrivit en maratonkampanj och besökt 300 orter för att komma runt det faktum att “spelplanen” lutar som en alpsluttning till den sittandes fördel; i princip är allt tillåtet för Chávez och inget för Capriles. Trots detta leder nu Capriles och allt tyder på en seger i morgon, som framgår av denna opinionsundersökning. Opinionsundersökaren drar slutsatsen att det troligaste är att Capriles får 52% av rösterna, men att det näst troligaste är att han på grund av trenden får mer än denna mätning visade, nämligen 54%.

Opinion poll from C21 for presidential election Oct 7 in Venezuela
Opinionsundersökningsfirman bedömer att den troligaste utgången är att Capriles vinner med 52%, men att han kan vinna med så mycket som 54%. Klicka för full upplösning.

Marginalen är visserligen inte större än att det inom 95,5% felmarginal finns en möjlighet att Chávez hamnar någon tiondel över Capriles, men då ska man komma ihåg att mätningen gjordes en vecka före valet, och tendensen är att Capriles ökar kraftigt. Ingenting hände den gångna veckan som skulle kunna ändra den tendensen. Tvärtom höll Capriles ett avslutande valmöte i Caracas som drog den största folkskara som någonsin skådats på Avenida Bolivar, medan Chávez stora avslutning mest blev famös på grund av fotona på tusentals bussar som använts för att köra in folk från varje hörn av landet, för att därigenom lyckas fylla utrymmet. Det sades på Twitter att varje buss i landet hade tagits i anspråk.

Observera att detta resultat inte får publiceras i Venezuela. Det har kommit till mig på samma sätt som WikiLeaks får sina dokument: Genom en läcka.

DN:s huvudledare på söndagen hävdade först att Chávez ledde stort i opinionsundersökningarna, men efter att jag påpekat att majoriteten av opinionsundersökningarna är starkt vinklade till regimens fördel, och att de övriga har Capriles som vinnare, har texten om opinionsundersökningar tagits bort.

Analysis, English, Venezuela

The next military coup in Venezuela?

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October 7, 2012, a presidential election will be held in Venezuela. Or will it? There is a lot that suggests that the process will be interrupted by a military coup. Hugo Chávez is dying in cancer (although he has claims to be recovering), and the politicians are preparing for what happens next.

The opposition in October is Henrique Capriles Radonski, from the unity group, MUD. A poll released the other day reports that Chávez will win by 53%, 19% more than Capriles Radonski. The regime portrays the opposition as desperate, and accuses the “USA-supported right” of planning to carry out a military coup d’état.

To prevent such a coup, an anti-coup command has now been created. It is under the command of the “chairman of PSUV”, which is kind of an interesting way to put it, since PSUV is a political party and not a branch of government. The chairman is Hugo Chávez, but since the anti-coup command is not expected to be called upon until after he dies, the person of interest is the vice chairman, Diosdado Cabello. He would be the one commanding the “anti-coup” forces of the party.

The foreign powers with most interest in Venezuela are Cuba, Iran, Russia, and China. Cuba cannot afford to lose the economic support from Venezuela, and has infiltrated all branches of government, including all parts of the military. They effectively control Venezuela. Iran to a lesser extent also depends on Venezuela for getting around the sanctions, while Russia and China mostly are interested in that the next regime honors the agreements (which are very favorable to those countries; basically Chávez sold Venezuelan resources on the cheap, in return for personal power).

Following the Cuban model, Chávez had already created militias heavily armed with automatic weapons. Their purpose is to “defend the revolution”, and one may presume that their one and only purpose is to render military coups impossible.

As for the poll cited earlier, Henrique Capriles feels confident that he will win, and says that he is “laughing” at the poll result. A campaign coordinator whom I interviewed said that “among the poor, Chávez is already losing”. Knowing that in Venezuela the justice sits in the sharp tip of the spear, the pollster was most likely given an offer he couldn’t refuse for publishing that result. It wouldn’t surprise me if all the figures are accurate, but that they have search-and-replaced Chávez with Capriles in the report, and vice versa. Doing it that way makes it much more difficult to discover the fraud, than if the figures had just been invented.

Planning for a Coup

There are only two handbooks available for how to plan and execute a military coup (“Coup d’État – a practical handbook” and “How to stage a military coup – from planning to execution”). I have read them both, with Venezuela in mind. Let me tell you, the conditions just aren’t there for staging a military coup in Venezuela in 2012. There are several reasons, the most important being that Cuba is effectively ruling Venezuela, meaning that the coup would have to be staged in Havana, Cuba, to be successful. Another deterrent are the militias, which undoubtedly would lead to a species of civil war if a coup was to be carried out.

So why did Diosdado Cabello create the anti-coup command?

To get an idea we have to look closer at the power structure of the regime. Diosdado Cabello is also the speaker of the parliament, and as a former military he was involved in Chávez’s 1992 military coup attempt. He has a lot of actual power, and can count on support by significant parts of the military. He has been rather credibly accused of being deeply involved in the drug-smuggling business, conducted by a number of leading militaries, including the minister of defense Rangel Silva (google Eliado Aponte Aponte and watch the interview, in Spanish of course).

The PSUV aristocracy has been said to also contain ideologues, who are more into socialism than cocaine. The leaders among those are allegedly the foreign minister Nicolás Maduro, and vice president Elias Jaua. Neither of these can count on support from the military, especially not Jaua, according to pundits.

The common wisdom is that the civilian/socialist, and military/narco branches of PSUV will fight for power once Chávez dies. The anti-coup command should probably be seen in this context, the internal power struggle. But how would Cabello benefit from it? Allow me to outline a possible scenario.

The Coup Scenario

Some time after midnight small groups of soldiers, who are part of the conspiracy, receive their “go ahead” order. Traveling in civilian cars they drive to their designated targets: Nicolas Maduro, Elías Jaua, and other key figures in the government and PSUV. One group is deployed to the residence of Diosdado Cabello, but he is not at home. They kidnap (“arrest” in their vocabulary) their targets and whisk them off to a secret location, where they are being held incommunicado for the duration of the active phase of the coup.

At about the same time, saboteurs set out to take out all of the information infrastructure except the main opposition radio and TV stations in the capital. Among the targets is TeleSur, the international satellite TV channel that is controlled by the regime’s minister of information. They don’t destroy it permanently, they just cut some cables to keep it offline a couple of hours.

Other groups deploy in full military gear from Fuerte Tiuna, the military base in the capital, after first locking up all Cubans in their units. They spread out and set up road blocks to prevent enforcements from arriving, and they make sure no runway at the airport can be used. If they can’t take the airport due to heavy defenses, they just park some armored cars on the runway, and deploy some machine guns around to prevent the defenses from reaching the vehicles.

The largest unit moves to the presidential palace, “Miraflores”, with armored vehicles, but are met by a much larger force why they chose not to engage.

At this time the anti-coup command is deployed and moves to undo the damage caused by the saboteurs. Diosdado Cabello goes out on live radio and TV and explains that the “USA-supported right” has attempted to carry out a military coup during the night, but has failed. He declares a state of emergency and curfew, assumes all power since several key persons of the government are missing, cancels the October elections, and arrests all leading opposition persons accusing them of being behind the coup. Finally he explains their desperate act by the fact that they “knew” that they were going to lose the elections in a landslide, as evidenced by the opinion polls.

This is a conceivable scenario. It may well be that something like that will happen. However, it will only appear to happen that way. In reality, the “military coup” will most likely be a false flag operation, staged by Diosdado Cabello himself through trusted intermediaries. To cover his role he will be on the list of persons to arrest, but he will make sure to be in a safe place from which to lead the anti-coup command. This scheme has several nice benefits: He gets rid of the internal competition for power in PSUV, at the same time as he gets rid of the political opposition. He becomes a new Fidel in Latin America. Chess mate.

Constitutional Reform, Editorial, Español, Venezuela

El Golpe de Estado de Chávez 1999

Todo el mundo reconoce que Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías intentó hacer un golpe de estado militar en Venezuela en 1992, pero no es tan bien conocido que llegó a hacer un autogolpe en 1999. Este video muestra claramente como lo hice.

¿Qué significa? Significa que la constitución venezolana de 1961 todavía sigue en vigor, y que el pueblo venezolano legitimamente puede levantarse contra el régimen de Chávez y derrocarlo, ya que la constitución de 1961 no solamente les da el derecho, pero les da el deber de hacerlo.

Por el resto del mundo significa que les sirviera mejor no tratar el régimen de Chávez, ya que no es legítimo. Un nuevo régimen democrático puede censurar a la OEA y la ONU por no haber defendido la democracia en Venezuela. Como sabemos, el único país que ha detenido este tipo de autogolpe del siglo XXI es Honduras, pero siempre hay la esperanza de que los pueblos en las democracias caídas se levanten. Ahora cuando el pueblo en Cuba está despertando, dejando el miedo atrás, solo es una cuestión de tiempo hasta que todos estas dictaduras en America Latina caen.

Además, la salud de Chávez puede acabar con su vida y su régimen golpista en cualquier momento. El hombre propone pero Dios dispone.

Analysis, English, Venezuela

Chávez is a Global Threat to Peace

The chavistas have claimed that it was a coup d’état in Honduras in 2009, and that the new elected president, Porfirio Lobo Sosa, is a “golpista,” a coupster. However, a recent Venezuelan diplomatic cable reveals that the democrats in Honduras were right all along in being suspicious against Lobo, whose name means Wolf. It turns out he really is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a communist elected president in the right-wing Nationalist Party. He has now entered a pact with Chávez to do exactly that for which Zelaya was deposed by the Congress and Supreme Court: Help Chávez add Honduras to his sphere of influence, and introduce “21st Century Socialism”, a euphemism for communism. See El Nuevo Herald and El Heraldo, the two newspapers who have a copy of the telegram. UPDATE: This blog now also has a copy, Acuerdo Lobo-Chávez.

It would be a full time job to maintain a blog record of all the violations of the Constitution, of Democracy, of Human Rights, and not at least of Decency, that Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chávez is doing nowadays. Yet, if it does not get documented, there are naïve people who will refuse to believe that he is a dictator, just because he was elected in a democracy. Never mind that it is far from the first time a democratically elected leader has made himself dictator.

Venezuela is already far away from democracy. The damage to the economy is already vast. It seems apparent that the regime has been lying about oil reserves in order to borrow money, and that the country is basically broke, having sold the skin (i.e., the oil) before the bear was shot (i.e., having proven that the oil reserves actually exist). It is a plundering of catastrophic proportions that Cuba has carried out in the South American nation, with Hugo Chávez as Fidel’s quisling.

In 2007, Chávez himself said that he is a Trotskyist, a follower of the strategy of Leon Trotsky. He was the chairman of the soviet in Saint Petersburg during the (failed) Russian Revolution of 1905. When the White in Finland, the democrats, got their demands satisfied and the old Swedish-era democratic Constitution was reinstated in Finland, the Red took out their revenge and murdered all the “capitalists”, e.g. white collar workers, they could lay their hands on. That included my grandfather’s house, but he survived through a miracle, saved by their own workers who stopped the communists. Make no mistake, Trotskyists are no less bloodthirsty than Leninists or Stalinists, they just have a different strategy: First take absolute power in all major countries (so that there is nobody left with the necessary power to stop them), and only thereafter put their plans for total communism into action. One part of the Trotsky strategy calls for entering other parties in order to gain power through deceit – exactly what Lobo has done.

When Chávez said he is a Trotskyist, he thus said, “I plan to take absolute power on a continental scale, and when nobody is left to stop me I will eliminate all capitalists and introduce pure communism.”

Communism is not defeated. It just changed plan. It seems like they realized that “if you can’t beat them, join them.” By making the West believe that communism was defeated in 1989, the guard was let down. But also in 1989 the first steps were taken by Fidel Castro to take over Venezuela through a fifth colon rather than by guerilla war. It resulted in the Caracazo, and then the failed military coup by Chávez in 1992. In 1998 they managed to get Chávez elected, and in 1999 he illegally changed the Constitution. From there it has been downhill for Venezuela. China went into business with USA and now owns a significant part of USA’s foreign debt. Russia allegedly went democratic but is now back to its old authoritarian ways.

The biggest change is, however, in Latin America. Armed struggle has been replaced by a strategy of taking over through the use of civil society groups, which is not a bad thing in and of itself. In fact, it is the preferred method in a democracy. The problem is, however, that these groups are being used, or rather misused, for the benefit of an anti-democratic force that is acting under false flag: 21st Century Socialism. Hugo Chávez for years argued that it was democratic, but a new kind of democracy, not liberal democracy with strong and independent institutions but popular democracy, direct democracy. Using another word it can be called “mob rule” and that would be closer to reality. His plan is nothing new; it has been used since antiquity. Already the old Greeks saw many examples of when a strong-man took power from the city council through the support of the masses, those who did not understand the machinations of democracy, the balance of power. They had a name for such a strong-man. They called him “Tyrant.”

Chávez has bought significant amounts of modern war material from Russia and others. Russians have re-created their Caribbean fleet, and are building a military base in Venezuela. USA is allied with and has access to military bases in Colombia to the west of Venezuela, and to a base in the Dutch-administered Curacao just off Venezuela’s north coast. To the south Venezuela has a friendly nation, Brazil, but her neighbor to the east is Guyana, a nation with which Venezuela has a non-resolved border dispute. Venezuela claims that about 2/3 of Guyana really is Venezuelan territory and that the arbitration settlement in 1899 is invalid due to Britain not having acted in good faith, etc. All Venezuelan maps since 1970 show the disputed territory as belonging to Venezuela. Guyana is part of the British Commonwealth. There is a potential conflict that at present is being handled by the Secretary General of the UN. Hopefully it will not become the “Sudetland” of Venezuela.

The financing for Chávez’s plans comes of course from the coffers of the Republic of Venezuela. As a Trotskyist, he prioritizes taking power in other countries to consolidating the revolution in his own. Therefore he is allowing Venezuela to decay, and she is. Widespread electricity outages, lack of food production, and so on. The country is in dire straits, but Chávez pushes forward with supporting Cuba and buying influence in other Latin American countries. Apparently he must count on the final victory being so close so as to be within reach before Venezuela collapses completely. It means that he must count on final victory within a few short years, because that is how close Venezuela is to economical collapse.

What we cannot rule out, however, is that civil war starts in Venezuela sooner than that. If so, his stint is over. He cannot continue to expand his empire while fighting a civil war at home. One way in which a civil war could start is through a popular revolt, in which the military eventually has to pick side, and different parts of the country take different sides. This is just what happened in Libya this year, and similar to what happened in Spain after Franco’s half-failed coup, or in Finland after the November revolution in 1917. Venezuela sees more support for Chávez in some parts of the country, and more opposition in others. The risk for civil war is therefore significant as a result of any kind of revolt, civilian or military. There is a big powder-barrel and the fuse is very short now.

The bottom line is that there is a big and growing threat against peace and security in Latin America, but the threat is not confined to that continent. Chávez sees the enemy as being USA, but also her allies such as Israel and the UK. At the same time he is allied with other enemies of USA and Israel, such as Iran, Syria, Gaddafi’s Libya, Bielarus, etc., and also with drug lords and cocaine smugglers. But USA is ignoring him, not seeing him as a real threat. Is this wise?

Editorial, English, Political crisis 2009

The Danger to World Peace

The other day Honduras was readmitted into OAS, after deposed president Manuel Zelaya returned to his homeland on May 28th. The only detail left to be taken care of from the crisis of 2009 is the presentation of the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, CVR. So is all well now? Hardly.

Hugo Chávez, the guy in Caracas who thinks the Devil is around because he can smell sulfur, not realizing that the stench surely comes from himself, is spending a huge amount of capital and efforts on undermining Honduras’ democracy. He has not given up by any stretch of the imagination. Furthermore, he is getting active assistance from the diplomats of the present U.S. administration. Whether that is due to stupidity or worse I cannot tell. What I can prognosticate, however, is that American security is heading straight towards Hell – and that includes North American as well as Latin American security.

It is fascinating to see how similar the development now is to that in Europe in the 1920’s and 1930’s. In both the economic and the political spheres. The Great Recession has now turned out to be a double-dip recession, just like the Great Depression was. It was not the first dip that made the late 1929 and early 30’s so horrible, it was the fact that when the recovery was supposed to set in a new, much worse recession hit, fueled I’m sure by bad economic policies, like those that the Republicans want to introduce in U.S.A. today. Austerity measures now will guarantee that this develops into “Great Depression 2.0”.

On the political front the similarity is equally scary. Now as then there is a profound polarization, and the middle is all but absent. There are no grown-ups in the room. The debate belongs to ideologues on both extremes, all of whom seem to believe more in the map than in the reality. Furthermore, just like the 1930’s saw a communist regime in Spain, which with its irresponsible ideological actions was destroying the economy of that country, so does the 2010’s see a communist regime in Venezuela, which with its irresponsible ideological actions is destroying the economy of South Americas arguably richest country (being a major oil producer). We know what happened in Spain; a half-failed military coup led to a cruel civil war in the lead-up to WWII; a battle between communists and fascists.

The Cold War ended around 1990 – or did it? The Bolsheviks are violent, they do not recognize ethical rules and moral restrictions. They consider that the goals justify the means, so in the first Russian Revolution of 1905 they went from house to house and murdered people with whose opinions they did not agree. My grandfather’s family was on their list, but he narrowly survived. In 1917 they succeeded in their revolutionary quest, and started eliminating opponents on a grand scale; first Lenin, then Stalin. Stalin’s strategy was to consolidate the revolution in the Soviet Union first, while Trotsky preferred to first spread it to the rest of the world. Trotsky had to flee the country, and ended up in Mexico where he was murdered by Stalin years later. Nevertheless, he was active in Latin America for a while before being eliminated.

It should come as no surprise, thus, that the Latin American communists apparently are following Trotsky’s strategy, not Stalin’s. Fidel Castro has for half a century worked underground to spread communism in Latin America. One of the earliest targets was Venezuela, for her wealth no doubt. At first they tried military intervention with guerillas. When that failed they tried to infiltrate the military and use that Trojan horse to incapacitate the security forces at the time of popular protests in 1989, against then president Carlos Andres Perez (CAP). They also deployed snipers, armed by Castro, to shoot at the military. The bloodbath became known as the “caracazo”, and Hugo Chávez never fails to blame the slaughter on CAP, even though he was in on the whole plan and knows that the architect was Fidel Castro.

When that also failed, the next attempt was to have Hugo Chávez carry out a military coup in 1992, against CAP. Also that failed, and Chávez went to jail. Unfortunately, he was let free after 2 years and allowed to run for president in 1998, an election that he won – presumably with the help of significant funding from Venezuela’s enemies, a modus operandi that Chávez himself has deployed repeatedly once in power, spending billions on propping up Manchurian candidates in countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina. This is the Trotsky plan in full swing: Spread communism to the whole world, by getting access to the resources of a rich state such as Venezuela, and using those resources to subvert democracy in other countries, using the democratic method to gain power, only to immediately dismantle democracy thereafter so that they cement their hold on power.

So is the Cold War over? Yes in the sense that Stalin’s strategy failed. But No in the sense that communism has not been defeated, because Trotsky’s strategy – which survived in Havana, Cuba – has not yet been defeated.

Honduras won a battle against Trotskyism

However, they only won a battle. The war is still going on, and no country has come to the assistance of Honduras. In fact, some of those that ought to have helped Honduras have instead assisted the aggressor, the Trotskyist Republic of Venezuela (Chávez’s name, the “Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela”, is a misnomer since Bolivar was not a communist).

It is imperative to understand what the weapons are of the Trotskyist approach. Apart from using astronomical amounts of money (stolen from the Venezuelan people) to bribe politicians abroad, and to buy positive publicity, they simultaneously sow mayhem and chaos by actively working to help criminal activities in the target countries. This means facilitating for cocaine smugglers, by not interfering, by providing safe haven, and even by providing military weapons (such as the Swedish anti-tank weapon AT-4). Cuba and Venezuela are criminal enterprises, no less. They are mafia states. They should not be accepted in civilized company, or as we say in Sweden, “in rooms with furniture”.

The worst about this dire development is that there appears to be no awareness among groups that are able to do something about it. Within Honduras there is ample awareness, but the Trotskyists have managed to make the rest of the world isolate Honduras and close their ears to their arguments, thus rendering their warnings unable to reach those who need to hear it. Within Venezuela there is also awareness, but they, too, are being attacked and marginalized with the help of false imprisonment (case in point: Alejandro Peña Esclusa), scare tactics, violence, or propaganda campaigns. Sure, there are people that know what is going on, such as former Venezuelan Ambassador to the UN, Diego Arria, but for some reason media seem to dismiss them. Could it be money? Could it be threats? I don’t know, but we cannot allow ourselves to be scared.

When journalists are murdered their colleagues get the message. “If you write about what he or she wrote about, you die.” So they don’t write about it, they don’t even report what it was that he or she wrote about, because if they do they sign their own death sentence. Communists have long used this method. My own grandfather used to travel around Sweden and tell the truth of what he had witnessed during a visit to the Soviet Union, at the height of the killing of farmers in Ukraine. First they tried to poison him in Moscow, then they made at least 3 attempts on his life in Sweden. Eventually he had to keep silent for the sake of his wife and children. So, argumentum ad bacculum does work. That is how the communists win their arguments. Do you want to live in such a world? And do you really want to fight another war against communism? If you don’t, then don’t yield to those bastards. Stand up for freedom Now, before it is too late. Especially You, president Obama. Especially You. The world economy can’t afford a Republican president after the next election, but if you treat Chávez the way Chamberlain treated Hitler, we surely will have one.

Editorial, English, Venezuela

Chávez wakes up to new world order

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This Crisis Group report on Venezuela is an important one, it recommends the use of democratic methods to get rid of Chávez. However, it was written before Chávez abandoned democracy with the Cuban package. It can be argued that the situation now is different than in 2008. Also, we have the precedents of Tunisia, Egypt, and even Libya now, which they didn’t have. These cases say that it is legitimate for a popular revolt to overthrow a dictatorship, and in the case of Libya, that it is OK for the armed forces to join the revolt against the dictator. It represents a sea change.

And of course Fidel Castro, being sharp, understands this, which is why he directed Chávez to use TeleSur to put everything on the line to make sure Libya does not become a success for a democratic revolt. They know they are next.

What it means is that the UN has declared color. Chávez cannot use deadly force to suppress peaceful protests, or there will be military consequences.

It is key to have a good social media communication system, though. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can determine the future of Latin America for decades.

One may wonder why he hasn’t realized the risks earlier. My guess is the coca he is chewing (according to his own admission). Scientists have discovered that it affects the risk evaluation center in the brain, making people less wary of the risks of their actions. This may be an important factor to consider when evaluating his behaviour.

Analysis, Español, Venezuela

Chávez y su guerra por sobrevivir

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El presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, ha tomado algunas posiciones abiertas y encubiertas últimamente que puede haber sorprendido a muchos, como el apoyo a Gaddafi en Libia, y reiniciar la insurrección en Honduras. Sin embargo, pensando un poco más adelante en este juego de ajedrez, su estrategia se hace evidente. Él simplemente está tratando de posicionarse para sofocar un levantamiento popular que se está gestando en Venezuela. Está usando un arsenal de herramientas para hacer esto, desde romper la cadena de revoluciones triunfantes en el mundo árabe, hasta socavar la paz y la seguridad en Honduras.

En diciembre del 2010 en Venezuela hubo fuertes demostraciones anti-gobierno, tanto en provincia como en la capital. Hugo Chávez desplegó las fuerzas de seguridad en contra de ellos ridiculizándolos como irrelevantes y totalmente incapaces de detener su proyecto socialista. Ni siquiera el hecho de que la mayoría de los votantes rechazaron sus políticas lo disuadió. Sus aliados en la nueva Asamblea Nacional que tomo posesión el 5 de enero lo único que demostraron fue contención hacia los que no estaban de acuerdo con ellos, faltándole el respeto a los principios de conducta que son comunes a todos los parlamentos democráticos. El 23 de enero Chávez dijo en un mitin del partido oficialista en las afueras del palacio presidencial que nada detendría la revolución socialista, mientras que los medios de comunicación descartaron como insignificante a la gran concentración al otro lado de la ciudad.

Sin embargo, el 25 de enero, comenzó el levantamiento en Egipto. Túnez pudo ser visto como un evento solitario, pero ahora probaba ser contagioso. La gente también hablaba sobre Libia. Chávez seguramente le avisó a su amigo, como él lo llama, Moammar Gaddafi, sobre cómo él había detenido exitosamente un levantamiento similar tiempo atrás, el 11 de abril, 2002. En Venezuela, esto se conoce como Plan Ávila. Consiste en disparar proyectiles verdaderos a una demostración pacífica. Hugo Chávez tenía al menos 57 personas armadas posicionadas en una emboscada, y en la tarde mataron 19 personas e hirieron 150. Había francotiradores que podían acertar disparos a la cabeza desde techos de edificios, y personal con pistolas disparando sin blanco fijo desde un puente sobre la calle. La propaganda de Chávez luego atribuyó que la masacre había sido orquestada por la oposición para obligarlo a renunciar. No está claro si él renunció voluntariamente o fue forzado a hacerlo, pero luego fue ayudado y fue entonces cuando declaró que había sido un golpe de estado –pasando por alto su propia culpa en la masacre. Mientras se llevaba a cabo la masacre, Chavez estaba “en vivo” por todos los canales de TV después de haberles ordenado transmitir su alocución (la famosa cadena). Sin embargo, varios de los canales dividieron sus pantallas, con Chavez declarando que todo estaba en calma en la mitad de la pantalla, y con imágenes en vivo del baño de sangre fuera del palacio presidencial en la otra mitad.

Uno pudiese sospechar que Chávez le avisó a su amigo en Libia que el Plan Ávila funciona, siempre y cuando se asegure de que no hay medios de comunicación presentes. Tal cual hizo Gaddafi, mientras él y sus esbirros le disparaban a una multitud desarmada con granadas explosivas anti-aéreas. Usando cañones antiaéreos que, según una fuente del gobierno de Chávez que fue citado anónimamente en internet, les fueron entregadas a Libia por Venezuela en el presente mes (Marzo, 2011).

Sin embargo, así como Chávez falló en el 2002, también lo hizo Gaddafi en el 2011. Los medios de comunicación social se convirtieron en su talón de Aquiles. Las imágenes se regaron por todo el mundo y el levantamiento de Libia se intensificó.

Mientras, el éxito de las revoluciones pacíficas en Túnez y especialmente en Egipto le han dado nueva esperanza a los disidentes de Venezuela y Cuba. El régimen de Castro está tan preocupado que salieron en TV acusando a USA de instigar un levantamiento via medios de comunicación social, algo que por supuesto solo contribuyó a que la gente de la Isla este más pendiente de esto. En Venezuela, la Operación Libertad comenzó como una huelga de hambre liderizada por los estudiantes para exigir la liberación de los presos políticos. Al principio muchos dudaban que ellos tuviesen éxito, pero después de varias semanas se las arreglaron para obtener atención del gobierno y ahora han conseguido concesiones significativas y varios liberados de muy alto perfil.

Aunque la semana pasada hubo una reacción violenta de retroceso. Un juez había ordenado la liberación de Carlos Chancellor, pero fue detenido en la puerta con la orden de otro juez, y los activistas y medios que esperaban afuera fueron golpeados y arrestados. Esto llevó a llamadas de ayuda via Twitter y Facebook. En el lapso de una hora los activistas fueron liberados y dentro de las siguientes 12 horas el prisionero fue liberado, esta vez de verdad. Obviamente el régimen está hilando muy cuidadosamente. El cambio, comparado al tiempo previo a la revolución tunicina es asombroso.

¿Significa esto que Chávez se ha vuelto demócrata? No. Desde hace dos semanas ha habido una nueva ola de protestas callejeras, vías obstruidas y actividades anárquicas generalizadas por la que se hace llamar resistencia en Honduras (el FNRP). Hay una razón muy fuerte para creer que Chávez los financia y que estas acciones son cometidas bajo sus órdenes. ¿Que gana él con esto?

Pienso que él necesita algo para distraer. Lo que más quiere es provocar la reacción del gobierno de Porfirio Lobo a la que sus medios de comunicación pueden voltear como violencia de la derecha en contra del pueblo (el ministro de información de Chávez también es el director de TeleSur). El necesita algunas “noticias” que refuercen el prejuicio de que América Latina está llena de militares golpistas y dictadores en potencia a quienes no les importa el pueblo. Si él se las puede arreglar para hacer rodar esa historia, podría entonces justificar la toma de medidas enérgicas en casa culpando a los disidentes de ser aliados de los “golpistas” en Honduras. Esta es la estrategia de su juego.

Fallaría, por supuesto, porque Chávez ha perdido su credibilidad. Lo mismo que TeleSur, después de darle soporte a Gaddafi. Además, Honduras entiende el mapa del juego. Ellos entienden que el enemigo real no es FNRP ni el sindicato de maestros, sino Hugo Chávez y Fidel Castro. Ellos saben que la mejor defensa es el ataque, y el mejor ataque es que salga LA VERDAD y colocarla en Internet y las redes sociales. Ellos están conscientes de los vastos recursos que Castro y Chávez gastan en personal pagado para editar sitios donde la gente colabora con los escritos, como Wikipedia, para promover su versión de la historia (ej., llamando a la masacre del 2002 “golpe de estado”). Todos los demócratas de América Latina están despertando gradualmente a la realidad que la amenaza Trotskyiana de Cuba debe ser enfrentada trabajando e interactuando en las redes de comunicación social, y colaborando mas allá de nuestras fronteras, tal cual lo hacen los comunistas. Está sucediendo mientras usted lee esto.

Analysis, English, Venezuela

Chávez’s War of Survival

Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez has taken some overt and covert positions lately that may have surprised many, such as supporting Gaddafi in Libya, and restarting the insurrection in Honduras. Yet, by thinking a few moves ahead in the game of chess his strategy becomes apparent. He is simply trying to position himself to quell a popular uprising that is brewing within Venezuela, and he is using an array of tools to do this, from breaking the chain of successful revolutions in the Arab world, to undermining peace and security in Honduras.

In December of 2010 there were strong anti-government demonstrations in Venezuela, both on the country-side and in the capital. Hugo Chávez deployed the security forces against them and ridiculed them as being irrelevant and totally unable to stop his socialist project. Not even the fact that a majority of the voters had rejected his policy deterred him. His allies in the new congress that took office on January 5th showed nothing but open contempt at those disagreeing with them, and disregarded the principles of conduct that are commonplace in democratic parliaments. On January 23rd Chávez said in a party rally outside the presidential palace that nothing would stop the socialist revolution, while the media dismissed as insignificant the large opposition rally in the other end of town.

However, on January 25th the uprising in Egypt started. Tunisia could be seen as an isolated event, but now it proved to be contagious. People talked about Libya, too. Chávez surely advised his friend, as he calls him, Moammar Gaddafi, how he had successfully stopped a similar uprising back on April 11, 2002. In Venezuela it is known as Plan Avila. It consists of shooting with live ammo into the peaceful demonstration. Hugo Chávez had at least 57 armed persons positioned in an ambush, and in the afternoon they killed 19 persons and injured some 150. There were both snipers who could deliver head shots from roof tops, and staffers with pistols shooting without aiming from a bridge over the street. Chávez’s propaganda later claimed that this massacre had been orchestrated by the opposition in order to make him resign. It is not clear whether he actually resigned voluntarily or was forced to, but later he was helped to return and then he declared that it had been a coup d’état – while ignoring his own culpability in the massacre. While the massacre took place Chávez was on live TV on all channels, after having ordered them to broadcast his speech (a so-called cadena). However, several of the channels went into a split-screen, with Chávez declaring that all is calm on half the screen, and live images of the bloodbath outside the presidential palace on the other half.

One may suspect that Chávez advised his friend in Libya that Plan Avila works, just as long as he makes sure there is no media present. Which is just what Gaddafi did, as he had his henchmen fire into the unarmed crowd with exploding anti-aircraft grenades. Using guns that, according to a source in Chávez’s government that was quoted anonymously online, were delivered from Venezuela to Libya in the present month (March of 2011).

However, just like Chávez failed in 2002, so did Gaddafi fail in 2011. Social media became his Achilles heel. The images spread over the world and the uprising in Libya intensified.

Meanwhile, the success of the peaceful revolutions in Tunisia and especially Egypt had given new hope to the dissidents in both Venezuela and Cuba. The Castro regime is so concerned that they went out on TV and accused the U.S. of instigating a popular uprising via social media, something that of course just contributed to making more people on the island aware of it. In Venezuela, the Operacion Libertad started as a student-led hunger-strike to demand the release of political prisoners. At first many doubted that they could succeed, but after several weeks they managed to get attention from the government and have now managed to get significant concessions and several high-profile releases.

Last week there was a backlash, though. A judge had ordered the release of Carlos Chancellor, but at the door he was stopped on the order of another judge, and the activists and media waiting outside were beaten and arrested. This let to calls for help via Twitter and Facebook. Within an hour the activists were released again, and within 12 hours the prisoner was released, for real. Obviously the regime is threading very carefully. The change compared to pre-Tunisian revolution is staggering.

Does this mean that Chávez has become democratic? No. Since 2 weeks back there has been a new wave of street protests, road blocks, and general anarchist activities by the so-called resistance in Honduras. There is strong reason to believe that Chávez finances them, and that this action was commenced on his orders. What does he gain by this?

My take is that he needs a distraction. What he wants most of all is to provoke some reaction from the government of Porfirio Lobo that his media can spin into it being right-wing violence against the people (his minister of information is the head of TeleSur). He needs some “news” that enforces the prejudice that Latin America is full of military golpistas and wannabe dictators who don’t care about the people. If he can manage to get such a story running, then he can justify a crackdown at home by blaming the dissidents of being allied with the “golpistas” in Honduras. That is his game plan.

It will of course fail because Chávez has lost his credibility. And so has TeleSur, after backing Gaddafi. Plus Honduras understands the lay of the land. They understand that the real enemy is not FNRP of the teacher’s union, but Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. They know that attack is the best defense, and the best attack is to get the TRUTH out on the internet and in social media. They are aware of the vast resources that Castro and Chávez spend in having paid staff editing collaborative sites such as Wikipedia, to promote their version of history (i.e., calling the 2002 massacre a “coup d’état”). All of democratic Latin America is gradually waking up to the reality that the Trotskyist threat from Cuba has to be fought by networking in social media, and collaborating across borders just like the communists do. It is happening as you read this.

Created 14:17, last updated 16:52.