theobannion

Venezuela: Chavez's Control of Oil and Agriculture

I offer this for what it's worth: In (1998?), the formerly state-owned electric utility was privatized and sold to a foreign company, probably for peanuts, the rest going into the pockets of the politicians. This is pretty much how things work down here. With the end of the terrorist attacks against the grid at various levels shortly thereafter, due to the efforts of the executive branch to physically annihilate the terrorists, service improved enormously. Since then and for the past eight years, we have periodic shutdowns of the grid (usually about once a month) for "maintenance," and irregular patchy blackouts & brownouts due to plain inefficiency. Maybe the foreign-owned monopoly just can't afford the multi-million dollar bonuses to "attract the best people." In 2002, when my wife & I bought a condo in a thirty-year-old building to which, obviously, electricity was already flowing, we were charged by our friendly foreign utility an "installation fee" of about 100+ dollars. Needless to say that here, in one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, far fewer people can now afford electricity.

In response to the fuel price increases, electric bills have gone up. To date, there's been no sign that they might go down, even though petroleum is trading at about $45.00/bbl.

As a result of globalization, food prices began to soar a little more than a year ago and the region in which we lived boomed. At least, there was a boom for the mining and agricultural barons and for the tiny sliver of professionals and trades people who represent the middle class. (While cops and school teachers are considered middle class in the US, down here they earn $150 and $120 per month respectively and consider themselves very fortunate to have a profession; but they are certainly not middle class.)

With the recent collapse of foreign trade, farmers have been burying their crops. My father-in-law buried his entire grape harvest except for what the family could eat. A friend of his, buried his grapes and his asparagus. My wife asked why they couldn't just give the food to the poor. The answer, of course, is that this would depress prices even more.

What I would like to impress upon yourself & your readers is that corruption isn't owned by either Chavez or socialist governments in general. The corruption in this country is so thoroughgoing it's seriously intimidating. And with regard to the Washington-sponsored myth that these are democracies because they have the vote, these presidents can change the constitution at will. So what governs them? To what or whom do they answer? The professional political class serve themselves, big money, and are acutely aware of Washington's desires, because Washington's goals are the same. Sadly, the US government has never met a right-wing dictatorship it didn't like. Here, the lowliest government bureaucrat has no fear whatever either of the law or of the rules governing his own bureaucracy and job description. I have had two appeals of a customs ruling denied by fellow bureaucrats, neither of whom had the authority to pass on an appeal. I appealed a third time. Apparently, they believed that they had nothing to fear. The problem was resolved when an earthquake took down their headquarters.

I personally have been screwed over by (in chronologically order) 1)foreign affairs, 2) police, 3) interior, and 4) customs.

Courts will deliver whatever verdict is politically most advantageous and judges have no problem with bribes. A thousand bucks delivered in an envelope to the judge's secretary and you have an inside track.

One cannot come into a state with an authoritarian culture and superimpose a democracy. The best of intentions will result in an authoritarian regime. My personal interpretation of why Law exists down here at all is to provide "plausibe deniability."

The reality of Latin America and the Caribbean is far different from the view fostered by the TV news.

Overall, a good article, but the bias is obvious. I would suggest a future article on how US foreign aid (taxpayer money) greases the rails for the big oil companies you seem to have so much sympathy for, and what happens to the people who are living on the land the BOC's want to drill on. A friend of the family used to work for one in the Amazon basin. Had to go to work with a gun to defend himself against the "terrorists" (former residents who didn't much like being disposessed). The pay was great!

SOB.