The Sumate Files

The opposition primaries.-Súmate makes a proposal!

2006-04-19T12:51:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

In an unprecedented show of democratic openness, Súmate is proposing to organize the primaries to find the candidate that will represent the opposition in the forthcoming Presidential elections.

Maria Corina Machado and Ricardo Estévez exposed the rules and the logistics envisioned by Súmate to choose the candidate.

I hope that the CNE and the “Aquelarre” of government officials read them so that they can understand what an OPEN, CLEAN, FAIR and DEMOCRATIC process really means.

The presentation in Power Point can be downloaded from Sumate main page.

Here is the main proposal for the election:

1.- All those registered in the REP as of March 2006 can vote in the Primaries

2.- The elected candidate will be the winner by simple majority

3.- The voting will be MANUAL and the scrutiny will be PUBLIC

4.- All the physical logs will be destroyed.

5.- The whole country will be covered with 3000 centers

Note that Súmate is proposing the destruction of the log material to avoid any type of blacklisting like what happened with the signers of the Revocatory Referendum.

Here is the schedule:

REGISTRATION OF CANDIDATES: MAY 8 TO MAY 15, 2006.

CAMPAIGN: MAY 21st to JULY 14, 2006

PRIMARIES: JULY 16, 2006

REGISTRATION TO THE CNE: AUGUST 5 to AUGUST 28, 2006

Súmate is also asking for volunteers for the organization. If you are interested, here are the telephone number and the email:

(0212) 715.28.15

voluntarios at sumate.org

So now, we all know what was the “Aquelarre” Willian Lara was talking about! Súmate was preparing a demonstration of democracy in action, that the government officials are not even able to understand.

Reporting from cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
Democratic Venezuelan and Distinguished Ghost.

Willian Lara and Súmate's "Aquelarre"

2006-04-17T22:51:00.000-04:00

Originally published here by Jorge Arena

Everytime I see the MINCI home page without any picture of Chávez, I get nervous. I cannot help but wonder what the heavy government weights must be concocting when Yo El Supremo is not in their front page. The explanation might be very simple, the President might be resting for a few days, but, noneless, I always wonder what is going on, in particular when neither the Vice President nor Nicolas Maduro appear in their pages.

My ghost experience has taught me that nothing is irrelevant in the Chavista kingdom of Venezuela.

However, I was relieved to see that at least William Lara, the new Minister of Information was there today, in prime space. This time, the object of his speech was Súmate. He accused the organization of starting the “mediatic machine gun” against the committee that is selecting the new members of the CNE. The article specifically says:

“invitó a venezolanos y venezolanas que se oponen al proceso de cambio democrático liderado por el presidente Chávez que no hagan oídos a este aquelarre montado por Súmate, que probablemente tendrá eco mañana en otros portavoces de la política de Bush, y que se mantengan leales a sus convicciones y prácticas democráticas”.

“Invited Venezuelans that oppose the process of democratic change led by President Chávez not to pay attention to the coven that Súmate is putting into place and that will surely have an echo tomorrow in other spokepersons of Bush’s politics and be [the Venezuelans that oppose..] loyal to their convictions and democratic practices..”

So this Venezuelan and curious blogger was pretty curious about what this “aquelarre” was all about. I looked it up first in the Real Academia and found the following definition:

1. m. Junta o reunión nocturna de brujos y brujas, con la supuesta intervención del demonio ordinariamente en figura de macho cabrío, para la práctica de las artes de esta superstición.

So it seems that the aquelarre is a night meeting of witches with the Devil’s intervention….

So what triggered Minister Lara to use such a charming term against Súmate?

Well, the commission in charge of electing the new CNE is about to provide the definite list in a week or two and the rumors around the National Assembly say that three of the current officials will be re-elected: Oscar Battaglini, Tibisay Lucena and Oscar León. Súmate has objected their names because they say that those individuals did not provide an account of their management or the balance of their budget during the years as CNE officials.

Now, this ghost blogger disagrees for the first time this year with Súmate. They are absolutely, totally wrong to be objecting the term of these three officials based on some trifle like lack of transparency and of accountability! I take advantage of this ghost post to make a formal complaint against Súmate’s objections of those candidates.

In fact, this ghost blogger strongly objects the candidacy of those CNE officials as well, but not because of the mild reasons provided by Súmate, but because of their potential responsibility in handing to the government the personal data of millions of Venezuelans that led to the Tascón list, the Maisanta database and the Batalla de Santa Inés software that has created a political apartheid in Venezuela.

I want these guys to be investigated first. Did they approve the handling of the personal data to the Maisanta campaign? Did they know that the data was being used by Tascón in a public web page? Did they know that the Maisanta command had elaborated a database and a program to be used for political profiling and blacklisting of Venezuelan citizens? Did they protest when they knew of the use of the data? Did they order an internal investigation? Did they realize that the rights of millions of Venezuelans were being violated?

I want to get the answers to those questions first before these guys ever get to be nominated again for the CNE, Mr. Lara. So thank you very much for reminding me that I should be loyal to my democratic convictions. I agree with you, Súmate is wrong this time, but because they are being way too mild.

And, BTW, dear Minister, many thanks also for helping me improve my Spanish vocabulary. I now have a new precise word to ask you the following…

What type of Aquelarre are all the President’s man putting in place these days?

Reporting from Cyberspace,

Jorge Arena
The Devil’s Distinguished Ghost.

A glimpse into the Sumate trial

2006-02-11T20:28:00.000-04:00

Originally published here by Miguel Octavio

(Condensed from ZETA 2/10/2006, trial session on 2/07/2006)

-Judge hears the name of defense lawyer of Luis Palacios and orders him to leave the room (Lawyer had recused him)
-Judge opens session and says the trial is beginning, says nothing about three recusations against him.
-Defense lawyer asks to speak and insists, judge also has him removed from room.
-Accused are left without defense lawyers at this stage, obviously illegal.
-Alejandro Plaz' father, a former Justice of the Supreme Court, gets up says this is a nazi trial, he is also kicked out.
-Juan Martin Echevarria Sr., father of one of the defense lawyers kicked out, addresses the prosecutor, arguing the trial can't start under this conditions.
-Judge ignores argumens, refuses to consider recusations, trial begins.
-Prosecutor asks that the accused be tried in prison.
-Judge goes to the bathroom upon his return (who did he go and consult?) says that trial will resume next Tuesday.
-One of the international observers said as he was going out: "If someone told me this happened, I would not believe it"

The beat goes on for revolutionary Justice in both the Sumate and Tal Cual cases

2006-02-10T15:08:00.000-04:00

Originally published here by Miguel Octavio

So, after six failed appeals, the Sixth Appeals Court voids all of the decisions in the case where Sumate is being accused of conspiracy. The reason? That the judge was not using a jury in the case, a decision he made himself in violation of the law. The law says in a case like this the judge has to use at least two jurors and only with the authorization of a higher Court can the trial proceed without jurors. The other six Courts knew the law was being violated but did nothing, for some reason this one did. Now, before you get excited about it, all this really means is that the whole thing is reset and the trial starts again as if the two previous procedures had never taken place..

Then, a couple of hours later the Prosecutor calls the Sumate Board on a new case against them, in which they will also be charged as they are being called to testify as an accused party.. What is it this time around? They are being accused of electoral crimes for abrogating on themslves the representation of the people when they collected the petition in 2003 before there were regulations. Thus, they are basically being investigated because they supposedly had no right to gather or submit signatures requesting a recall referendum. It will be interesting, if I recall correctly, the Supreme Court bypassed the Electoral Hall of that Court on a case related to the referendum once arguing that a referendum was not an "electoral" process. I guess gathering the signatures is even more remote than that, but they simply don't care. The Court can reverse itslef if it suits them.

But the beats go on in the Venezuelan Justice system, as Tal Cual reports that the case files against that newspaper, in which the paper is being prosecuted twice for the same crime, have not been made available to the lawyers of the paper in violation of the law. What else is new?

Sumate under fire Editorial in El Nacional

2006-02-09T15:21:00.000-04:00

Translation published here by Miguel Octavio.

Sumate under fire. El Nacional.

The official persecution of the directors of the civil ONG Sumate is reaching its end.

They are accused of conspiring "to alter the Republican order", as if they had tried to implant a monarchy in Venezuela, no more, no less. As if armed with machine guns, rockets, tanks and bombers, they had placed in danger the soundness and continuity of the supposed Bolivarian revolution.

The Government demonstrates with this that is it is not prepared to accept the smallest discrepancies, not the least dissidence, or the most discreet request that the 2006 elections be presided by a National Electoral Council (CNE) that can be trusted. That is what Sumate always asked for, interpreting the large majority of Venezuelans, nothing different, even, to what has been requested by international organizations such as the OAS. Nothing different from the observations made by the hemispheric organization in its report about the elections of December 4th.

There are a few ways to read the trial against Sumate. One of them is the intransigence and the intolerance of the regime. Another one, the wish of taking advantage of the punishment against the directors so that everybody learns the lesson and the requests for more transparent and fair conditions for all citizens cease.

That people shut up out of fear.

The Electoral year projects itself as a year of persecutions and threats, while the officialist train moves at high speed towards December 3d. As dangerous conspirators, the Prosecutor asked the 7th. Court that Maria Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz be tried separately, since others accused, Luis Enrique Palacios and Ricardo Esteves, are being accused of "complicity". But, on top of that, as conspirators of great danger, they should be tried behind bars. No wonder the defense lawyers warn that at the next hearing both Machado as well as Plaz could be jailed.

The defense has denounced a number of irregularities along the process. The accused were not allowed to speak.

The representative from the Prosecutor's office reiterated the request that they be tried in prison, despite the decision by the Supreme Court that forbids it. Thus, not even these formalitities are taken into consideration.

When lawyer Juan Martin Echeverria jr. insisted on speaking, the judge ordered the constables to remove him from the room. If one wants to have an idea how the trial is being carried out, this detail is sufficient. You can guess what the outcome will be.

As stated above, Machado and Plaz are being accused of the crime of conspiracy to "destroy the form of republican politics that the nation has been given" Among the crimes they have been charged with is receiving money from the organization National Endowment for Democracy of the United States. Palacios and Estevez face the same process for the same crime, but as accomplices.

The Prosecutor Ortega Diaz requested the maximum penalty for the crime of conspiracy, 16 years.

This rigor has no precedent in a country where military conspirators (like our President) were judged only by military judges, never suffered sentences of that magnitude and always ended being benefited from measures of pardon. Even in bloody occasions (like February 4th. 1992) in which the uprisings left hundreds of dead. Now that the coup plotters from the Saman de Guere are in power, they see with horror the specter of subversion. They see conspirators even in organizations like Sumate. But the civilians never threatened anyone.

Sumate has acted openly, has accounted for its income and expenses. To say that the meetings of Sumate did not have as their objective electoral training of the citizens but a subversive end, that of overthrowing the Bolivarian regime, is a valid argument only for idiots. One would have to give the Sumate Board an award for those "conspirators" that respect the law: they would be an exception in the history of Venezuela.

And it is this almighty regime, where the military predominates, the most armed, the one that has had the largest resources, the one that feels threatened. It is like one of those tales of Antonio Arraiz where tio Conejo (Uncle Rabbit) makes tio Tigre (Uncle Tiger) run. Unfortunately the question can not be one for being festive, because what is in danger is the freedom of some citizens worthy of esteem that have believed in the perfectibility of our institutions and have advocated for that. You can not condemn them with coarse lies.

Let's defend now justice and let us all reject this absurd trial.

More (In) Justice from the Revolution

2006-02-08T00:33:00.000-04:00

Originally published here by Miguel Octavio

So, on the same day that Teodoro Petkoff received a second notification of a process being opened against him and his newspaper (same case, two processes!), the Prosecutor General asked for up to 16 years of jail for the leaders of Sumate Maria Corina Machado and Alejandro Plaz, for the crime of receiving $30,000 for electoral education from a foreign source, in this case the bipartisan US Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy.

Curiously, Chavez and his cronies were found innocent of violating any laws in the case of the proven donation of US$ 1.5 million by Spanish bank BBVA to Chavez’ Presidential campaign. And in another case of Bolivarian justice, the Government plans to build a monument to honor the infamous shooters of Puente El LLaguno, who, of course, were declared innocent.

I guess these judges when they drink in private sing in harmony with the President of the Supreme Court “Uh Ah Chavez no se va”. Some (In)Justice!

The Rose That Is a Thorn in Chávez's Side

2005-11-19T23:10:00.000-04:00

The Saturday profile by the NYT

Originally published here by Juan Forero.

Sumate blasts the Electoral Board: Is anybody listening?

2005-11-17T23:10:00.000-04:00

Originally published here by Miguel Octavio

For the past few days Sumate has been blasting the Electoral Board, but it appears as if the whole country has been anesthetized into a stupor as nobody seems to care, either within the political parties or the voters. Essentially, Sumate has found numerous violations of the Electoral Laws of Venezuela, none of which can be explained as simple mistakes, omissions or misinterpretations. In fact, most of them suggest to anyone with any ability to reason, a concerted effort to deceive, manipulate and control the election. While there was some progress yesterday, as the OAS met with the CNE and attempted to convince the Electoral Board to a) count more of the ballots and b) allow political parties to have access to the Electoral Registry, conditions are still iffy as best as Sumate has shown.

Sumate’s criticism is centered on the following issues:

Counting the Ballots: Article 172 of Venezuela’s Suffrage law says that even if electronic means are used in the voting process, all ballots have to be counted manually and their number compared to the total number indicated by the voting machines. According to this all ballot boxes should be opened, their number counted and totals compared. According to the same law, if this total is not in agreement, the votes from that machine are simply not valid. None of these steps were followed in the 2004 recall vote, regional elections in October 2004, and regional elections in August 2005 or is being planned for the upcoming Assembly elections in December. Do I hear Rule of Law from any of my readers?

Now, the law is obviously screwy, but it is the law. This is part of the problem with the autocratic style of this Government, just because the law says you have to count the ballots without reading them, which is non-sensical; it does not mean it should not be done. In fact, do it and once you are there, read the pieces of papers and give the whole process more transparency to do it! Instead, international observers are negotiating to increase the ballots that would be “audited” (not tallied, audited) and the Electoral Board in a magnanimous offer is willing to consider increasing the “audit” from 32% to 47% of all boxes. And we are expected to be grateful!

The Audit: On top of the above, the “audit” that is being planned has been suddenly changed. In the August regional elections, ballot boxes were opened and on the same tally sheet printed by the electronic machines, the manual count was inserted. This time around, the regulations which were approved last week, instead of the six months established by law, say that the tally sheet printed by the machine will be put in an envelope before the manual count begins. The manual count will then proceed and will be written on a separate sheet, put in a different envelope and sent to the CNE, which will have five weeks to compare the results! Yeah, sure, the CNE itself will do the audit and tell us what happened. That looks more like a secret audit and certainly makes no sense.

Electoral Registry: No Electoral Registry was handed over to the political parties as required by law six months before the election. Then, it was handed over a month ago and it has many errors. I already reported on the amazing Gonzalez family of Zulia state, which had 2002 people with that last name born on the same day in 1974. Moreover, many of them only had one last name, illegal according to the law. The President of the CNE dismissed this as “errors” common in all electoral registries in the world which typically have 5% of errors. And we are supposed to believe it

But Sumate has expressed other concerns. There are for example, the “immortals”, those Venezuelans who are one hundred years of older and are still in the electoral registry. They happen to be over 0.1% of the population, outside of actuarial ranges as shown below

Besides this remarkable number of very old people, which should call for a team of experts from the WHO to come and study them, there is the peculiar person born in the XVIII th. Century which should be the subject of investigation on his/her own.

Besides this, there is the growth in the number of people registered to vote as well as migrated from one municipality to the other as seen in the table below:

The number of new voters increased between August 03 and October 05 by 18.3% (and has reached 20% at the time of this writing). The Government explains this by saying that this is the result of a program to include people in the electoral process, however, the “inclusion” is highly non-uniform concentrating in the border states and Caracas. At the same time 21.8% of the voters have moved since August 2003, 13.9% since the recall vote which is quite surprising more so when you find out that an inordinate proportion compared to historical patterns is to a different state (20%) or a different electoral circuit (10%).

Court revokes the prohibition of leaving the country for the Sumate directive

2005-11-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

Sumate leaders charged and prohibited from leaving the country

2005-11-07T23:46:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

Continuing in its attempt to intimidate and block the opposition just prior to the upcoming elections for the National Assembly, a Judge decided tonight to charge four of the Directors of Sumate for conspiracy against the Government. The charge comes form receiving funds from the National Endowment for Democracy for electoral education. Sumate has been a thorn in the Government's shoe as it activities allowed the opposition to gather the signatures to be able to call for the recall of Hugo Chavez. Sumate has unveiled all of the problems with the electoral process in Venezuela and its leaders have been going around the world presenting this document (in English here) about the State of Democracy in Venezuela. In contrast to the Government that uses State funds for party activities without accountability, Sumate has provided all of its financial information on the web, including contracts with funding agencies, as well as its financials.

This is simply another fascist act by the Government: find a way to criminalize the opposition activities in order to stop them and intimidate them. The Prosecutor handling the case is Prosecutor Luisa Ortega, who has taken over most of the responsibilities that Danilo Anderson used to have of handling political cases. Meanwhile, all accusations against the Government, including murders, abuse of power and corruption are simply shelved or "decided" by a Judiciary that is totally controlled by the Government.

Did I forget to say some people claim this is still a democracy?

Sumate presents report on impact of illegalities on Venezuelan regional elections

2005-10-04T20:59:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

Sumate presented today its analysis of the impact of the CNE illegally allowing Chavez' MVR to field "unrelated" parties for the slate and nominal candidates in August's regional elections, the so called "morochas" or twins The full report can be found here.
As a remainder, Venezuelan legislation allows parties to field both nominal and slate candidates, but in order to preserve the rights of minority representation, guaranteed by the Constitution; the number of candidates elected under their own name is subtracted from the number of candidates elected under the slate. In the last election, Chavez' MVR registered an unknown new political party (UVE) to field nominal candidates, using MVR to field the slate, this was used to bypass the law, under the consenting approval of the Electoral Board. Opposition Governor Manuel Rosales of Zulia state did the same sneaky trick. This only works if you have a majority, as it allows you to grab more positions than the law would assign you.

What Sumate did was to assume that MVR and UVE were the same party and recalculate the number of candidates elected. The results are astonishing, not only did Chavez' party rip off the opposition, but it also fraudulently took a large number of positions from the minority parties that support Chavez himself!

Basically, Chavez' party MVR obtained 35.1% of the total vote, which according to the rules would have given them 42.8% of the seats up for grabs. However, the illegal use of the "morochas" or twins allowed Chavez' party to grab a total of 58% of all positions!

According to Sumate's analysis, minority parties that support Chavez obtained 19.4% of the votes, which entitled them to 14.4% of the seats, but because of the illegal and unfair advantage of Chavez' party they only got 9.3% of the total number of seats. The opposition on the other hand got 18.8% of the vote, which should have given them 21.6% of the seats, but because of the "morochas" was reduced to only 14.9%. Finally, local regional parties received 22.2% of the vote, which should have given them 18.6% of the positions, but only gave them 15.2% of the seats.

What is most remarkable about this analysis is that it was actually those that backed Chavez that were affected the most by the treachery. Minority parties that support Chavez saw their votes (19.4%) reduced to half the positions, despite the Constitutional guarantee for proportional representation. Some loyalty, no? In contrast opposition parties had their representation reduced by roughly 30% close to that of small local parties.

The details are remarkable. Basically, the Chavista trick gained them 363 additional positions, out of 584 total positions obtained by this unholy alliance called the "morochas" or twins. The same was true in Zulia state where Governor Rosales' "morochas" gave him 27 additional seats out of only 56 obtained. Shame on him too!

Some parties were absolutely ripped off by the trick. The infamous "Tupamaros" that have supported Chavez unequivocally during the last seven years, lost nine of the twelve seats they should have received, a staggering 75% of the total they would have obtained. With friends like Chavez, who needs enemies?

The analysis goes on in detail to show the level of abuse and illegalities committed by Chavez' majority with the unconditional and biased backing and help of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), which should not have only stopped the "morochas", but even allowed UVE to register past the deadline for registration of new parties and certified the signatures backing that party only six days before the regional elections took place. These guys are professional crooks!

These are the type of abuses that Chavez and his cronies are committing under the eyes of the world, that later allows them to claim this is a democracy. By eliminating the necessary checks and balances of any functional democracy, Chavez can not only use all of the resources of the State for the benefit of his own party, but can turn the rules and the law to his advantage without anyone saying or being capable of doing anything about it or even defending the rights of the "people" that are being violated by his actions as well as those of his party.

El estado de la Democracia en Venezuela

2005-08-19T13:40:00.000-04:00

Originally published here and here

18.08.05 | Este documento presenta los hechos más relevantes relacionados con la evolución de la democracia en Venezuela durante la Presidencia de Hugo Chávez Frías, que comenzó en enero de 1999.

Los hechos están organizados alrededor de las dimensiones que definen una democracia:

1-. Independencia de los Poderes Públicos

2-. Respeto al Estado de Derecho

3-. Transparencia Electoral

4-. Respeto a la Libertad de Expresión

5-. Respeto a los DDHH y otras Libertades Fundamentales

6-. Estado de las Instituciones

Para acceder a la documentación de soporte, solo haga click en el tema de su interés y siga las instrucciones, las cuales en algunos casos lo llevarán a leyes, resoluciones, artículos de prensa, videos u otros documentos relevantes.

Chile: Senate's President meets with Sumate's director

2005-08-11T21:50:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

The President of Chile's Senate Sergio Romero held a protocolar meeting with Alejandro Plaz founder of Sumate, NGO which promotes participatory democracy and defends political rights in Venezuela.

In the meeting, that lasted for about 20 minutes, Romero and Plaz shared impressions vis-a-vis the political situation of their respective countries.

Sumate: No Transparency in Venezuelan Electoral Registry

2005-08-05T20:56:00.000-04:00

Originally published here by Miguel Octavio

Yesterday, Sumate introduced in the Electoral Board (CNE) a request that the Electoral Registry be published as established in the Law of Suffrage and Political Participation. This is one of those subtle points that need to be explained in detail, because it is part of the bag of tricks used by the Government to cheat and manipulate elections.

The law says the Registry has to be made public, In fact, the law says the Electoral Board will give a copy to all political parties "whenever they request it" (Article 95), as well as saying that every month it will have to notify and post publicly any additions or removals to the Registry. (Article 106). Last year, before the recall vote, Sumate also tried to get the registry published, to no avail. You see the registry not only contains the name and ID number of each voter, but also his/her address. Last year and this year, using personnel outside of the Office of Identification, the Government gave out ID cards and registered to vote over a million new voters. This supposedly "democratic" registration drive took place only after the opposition managed to get the required signatures to vote on a possible recall of Hugo Chavez as President.

Incredibly enough, in some municipalities there are now more voters than inhabitants a subject that I have discussed before in this blog more than one time. These type of anomalies and many more have led Sumate to make a number of request to the CNE and even to ask the Supreme Court for an injunction, which was rejected. If you have the patience you can read the decision here. Well, the Court used the old trick of using a critique of formal steps in order to not decide on the substance of the case. What is clear is that the law says the registry has to be published. It hasn't. Why?

The reason is obvious. Now more than ever those people registered last year are needed in the upcoming election. Last year Chavez needed sheer numbers, now his party needs the votes where it matters. We will be electing this Sunday, members for the City Councils of all of Venezuela. Chavistas need the votes where they don't have the Mayors to make the life of opposition Mayors really difficult. And they need to win handily where they have the Mayors to do as they please with municipal Treasuries.

Sumate, once again, is trying to use the law, asking the CNE directly to provide the Registry. This is called an administrative recourse. The CNE will obviously not hand it over, it would reveal what a farse elections are now in Venezuela. Thus, much like last year the CNE did not do the audit that had been agreed on the night of the recall vote, and refused to open all of the ballot boxes to count the votes manually, it will refuse to hand over the registry.

That is why Venezuela is no longer a real democracy. In a real democracy you need to have transparency. In a real democracy you have to follow the laws. There is no transparency in Venezuela with regards to the Electoral Board and its actions. The law was and is being violated on electoral matters. A few simple actions by the CNE would have revealed last year and this year whether there was something funny going on with the votes. The CNE refused, with the support of the Electoral Hall of the Supreme Court, to follow these simple steps. Even the most naive individual could not help but ask: Why? What do they have to hide?

Senator McCain and Madelaine Albright write to Chavez to voice their concern about Sumate case

2005-08-04T17:06:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

Prosecution of Sumate leaders in Venezuela: ABA's observer preliminary report

2005-07-29T00:04:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

The complete report can be found here

By Douglass Cassel | Center for International Human Rights

Editor's note: At the request of Mr. Robert D. Evans, Director of Governmental Affairs of the American Bar Association, I include this disclaimer: "The attached report was prepared by Professor Douglas Cassel for the American Bar Association following his observation of preliminary proceedings in the Sumate case. It has not been approved for release by the American Bar Association and therefore does not represent the views of the Association or any of its entities but only the personal views of Professor Cassel."

This preliminary report is presented by American Bar Association observer Douglass Cassel, following a visit to Venezuela during pretrial proceedings held on July 6 and 7, 2005, in case no. 41-C-4077-04 before the Fourth Court of Control of First Instance in the Criminal Judicial Circuit of the Metropolitan Area of Caracas.

Introduction

Venezuelan prosecutors have charged two leaders of a civic group for soliciting funds from the National Endowment for Democracy (“NED”) in Washington to educate voters about their right to participate in a referendum to recall Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías. Two trainers who led voter education workshops are charged as accomplices. The recall referendum, held in August 2004, was unsuccessful.

The case is brought in a context of political polarization between Venezuela’s government and the opposition, and amid disputes between its government and the government of the United States and NED, a private, non-profit organization with an independent board of directors, but which by law receives annual funding from the US State Department.

As an independent professional organization dedicated to the rule of law, the American Bar Association takes no position on Venezuela’s internal political affairs. Nor does the ABA take a position on policy differences between the governments of Venezuela and the US, or on whether the NED grant in question was advisable as a matter of policy. The ABA’s sole concern is whether the proceedings in this case comport with international standards governing criminal prosecutions and rights of political participation, and the implications of this case for the rule of law and the exercise of internationally protected rights in Venezuela.

The civic group that solicited the NED grant is called Súmate (“Join up”). Venezuelan prosecutors appear to concede that, except for the solicitation of NED funds, Súmate’s educational and promotional activities relating to the referendum were lawful. However, they accuse Súmate’s President, Alejandro Plaz, and Vice President, María Corina Machado, of violating a law that imposes prison terms of 8 to 16 years on any Venezuelan who “solicits foreign intervention in the internal political affairs of Venezuela.”

In the opinion of this observer, both that law as applied in this case and the criminal proceedings to date fail to meet international standards.

First, as applied in a novel way in this case, the law is impermissibly vague. Although it dates from early in the last century, it apparently has never previously been used to prosecute foreign funding of otherwise lawful activity in Venezuela. Its meaning in this context is so unclear as to violate international standards requiring fair notice to defendants of what conduct is deemed criminal. How are Venezuelan citizens to know whether a civic group’s seeking foreign funding for lawful activities equates to soliciting “foreign intervention”?

Second, the ambiguities in the law should be resolved in a manner consistent with Venezuela’s international legal obligations. So interpreted, the law would not criminalize Súmate’s solicitation of NED funds. International law protects both the right to solicit funds to educate citizens about the exercise of fundamental rights, and the right to make effective the exercise of the vote in a referendum.

Third, the case is brought before a Venezuelan judiciary that fails to meet international standards of judicial independence. More than 80% of Venezuelan judges, including the pretrial judge in this case, are “provisional” judges. They have no tenure and can be removed by the Supreme Court at any time without explanation.

The Supreme Court likewise lacks structural independence. During 2004 it was expanded from 20 to 32 justices, and other justices were replaced, so that the overwhelming majority of justices are now considered pro-Chávez. And their appointments may be suspended or annulled based on such subjective standards as omitting “true facts” from their opinions or bringing the judiciary into “disrespect.”

The vulnerability of the judiciary to outside influence is of particular concern in the politicized context of this case. Not only did Súmate promote a referendum to recall the President, but the President publicly accused Súmate leaders of committing crimes by soliciting NED funds. The prosecution began soon thereafter and has continued during public, mutual recriminations between Venezuelan authorities and NED.

Fourth, certain aspects of the pretrial proceedings to date violate due process of law. For example, even though Súmate leaders were the targets of the preliminary criminal inquiry, the prosecutor initially accorded them rights only as witnesses rather than as suspects. However, it is not yet clear whether these violations will ultimately be prejudicial at trial.

On the other hand, Venezuelan courts have protected the rights of the accused to remain at liberty pending trial. The Supreme Court ruled in November 2004 that they should not be incarcerated pending trial. In July 2005 the pretrial judge again refused the prosecutor’s request that they be jailed pending trial.

Despite these laudable rulings, the proceedings overall fail to meet international standards of the rule of law. Súmate leaders are being prosecuted in a highly charged political atmosphere under an impermissibly vague law, interpreted in a manner inconsistent with their internationally protected rights, before a judiciary that lacks independence and has already violated certain of their due process rights.

Moreover, during a pretrial hearing on July 6, 2005, the prosecutor warned that additional persons may be charged, and that further charges may be brought against Súmate leaders. Internationally respected human rights lawyers in Venezuela expressed concern to the observer that the prosecution of Súmate could have a chilling effect on the exercise of political rights, and that it is part of a broader pattern of persecution of groups opposed to President Chávez.

At the conclusion of that hearing on July 7, 2005, the pretrial judge overruled defense motions to dismiss and ordered that the case against all four defendants proceed to trial. Although the timing is uncertain, the trial could begin as early as August 2005.

The European Union has reportedly decided to send an observer if the case is taken to trial. For the reasons discussed in part 10 below, the ABA should likewise send an observer to the trial. An ABA decision on further action, if any, can and should await the observer’s final report.

No more "secret" voting in Venezuela?

2005-07-27T10:54:00.000-04:00

Original for this site

One of the criticism made by the Venezuelan electoral board, CNE, is that additional "electronic automatization" is directly endangering the secret of the vote at the polling station. Indeed, now the CNE pretends us to check in first through a lap top that contains the voter registry. That is, from now on the voter will be electronically registered for name AND ARRIVAL TIME. Since the voter will stand in line right then, in the same sequence as s/he arrived at the polling station, it will be very easy to "arrange" the internal registry of the electronic machines to figure out who voted for who. Sumate has made an active web page which shows clearly how the system would work.

This page is in Spanish but with the explanations given above, the non Spanish reader will figure out clearly how the system functions to detect who casts what vote.

There has been enough of an outcry from the part of Sumate that the CNE has announced that the system will be "tested" in only two states for the coming August 7 election. But it is EXTREMELY clear that the Venezuelan system could be rigged for more important elections, such as the parliamentarian of December 2005 or the presidential of December 2006, the ones that Chavez really cares about.

However what is even worse than any eventual cheating by the CNE is that people will be scared. Afraid of losing any social benefit, afraid of receiving any unjust sanction (see the infamous Tascon list with the names of all those who signed against Chavez in August 2004), many opponents of the regime will prefer either to abstain from voting, or feel forced to vote for Chavez. Even if eventually the system is ditched there will be a significant amount of people that will be dubious for quite a while. But then again this is the intention of the regime, isnÂ´t it?

Thus the much vaunted 1999 constitution, allegedlychockfulll of civil rights, is seeing all these rights taken away one by one. The right to call for a recall election has disappeared when people saw that their name was taken by the government and used against them. The right of secret voting seems on the way out. The right to justice has been taken away last year by packing the High Court by Chavez hacks. Etc, etc...

Delenda Sumate!

2005-07-18T01:41:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

Rome had already won two devastating wars against Carthage and had reached a compromised peace that lasted many years when senator Marcus Cato started a pro-war campaign with one persisting idea:

“Delenda Carthago!”.

It meant, that, no matter what, Rome would never be safe unless the rival phoenician city of Carthage was totally destroyed. For years, with a stubbornness that was noted even after centuries of history, Cato repeated over and over that Carthage had to disappear. He actually finished every intervention about any topic with the famous sentence.

Publicity is always effective. In the end, Cato’s message was heard and Rome decided to go for what was called the third Punic war. Once Carthage had finished paying all the old tributes to Rome, the latest imposed new and tougher conditions to provoke a new conflictive situation. As expected, Carthage’s inhabitants were mad of rage when they knew the new absurd conditions imposed by Rome and the war restarted again.

It was a tough and dirty war, even for those times, Carthage inhabitants resisted as much as they could but the Romans kept the fight. They had just one objective in mind: thoroughly destroy Carthage.

After three bloody years of continuous fights, Rome reached its objective in such an effective way, that there was nobody left from Carthage to formally surrender. Some say that they even throw salt to the defeated city so that it would never be born again. For the first time in their history, the Romans had failed to incorporate the culture of the conquered city, as there was no culture, history or customs left. To this day, we do not know more about Carthage and its inhabitants because of the unusual Roman will to destroy it..

Ironically, Carthage’s destruction did not prevent the decline of Rome, but rather accelerated it. Some historians claim that this was because it gave the Romans a false sense of security. Others say that the destruction of Rome had already started from within, with the decline of the traditional Roman values that were being heavily influenced by the greek ways of life. Some even say that Cato used Carthage as a diversion, consciously knowing that the real menace to the Roman way of life came from Greece.

After reading this fascinating story, I thought of the similarities between the Sumate persecution by the Chavez government and the insistence of Cato to destroy Carthage.

Chavez was a military man and it is still today a military man. In his quest towards absolute power, he has been treating Venezuelan institutions as if they were “the enemy”. An enemy that had to be controlled and beaten.

He has been extremely successful.

His success is due in part to the clumsy and inefficient opposition, in part because nobody believed that he could go that far and still pretend that he was a democratic ruler. Finally and foremost, because Venezuela had weak institutions to start with.

No matter the reason of Chavez’s success, there was a new type of enemy in town that Chavez was not used to fight: Sumate.

The origin of Sumate is, to say the least, unusual. In a country where the civil society was not used to have its voice heard, suddenly there was a civil group that organized itself to literally prevent a civil war in Venezuela. They found the democratic exit to the terrible polarization crisis that was lived in Venezuela.

It was an exit that any democratic leader would have welcome: a recall Referendum, guaranteed in the 1999 Constitution; let the people decide.

But Chavez government was not happy at all about it and did all the possible tricks to avoid going to a Referendum. Sumate organized a signature collection, not once, but three times! (see Daniel’s excellent summary here). They were systematic and efficient and used Chavez’s own weapon: the 1999 Chavista Constitution to lead the fight.

A few months before the Referendum took place, Sumate persecution started. It was Chavez itself who, like Cato in the Senate, initiated it by talking in his Sunday TV program about the NED funding. But the Chavista government is, in matters of political persecution, much more effective than the Roman government. It did not take years to initiate the “Delenda Sumate” campaign. The very next day, the Sumate directive was charged by the government attorneys.

I do not think that the funding was illegal. The money was a small grant to organize courses to promote democratic awareness. However, if the money had indeed been illegal, then the government should have fined Sumate and asked them to reimburse it. End of it.

But, according to Chavez, Sumate delenda est! The government had to put all its weight and influence to discredit Sumate and to take its directive to court for …no less than treason!

They dusted a very old article of the very archaic Venezuelan penal code to state that Sumate was destroying “the Republican form” of the government. Thanks to a convoluted interpretation that nobody in his right mind would accept, receiving the small grant from the NED resulted in being charged for treason and risking up to 16 years in jail.

And, by the way, we are talking about Venezuelan prisons.

The attack was not directed towards the institution. It was personally aimed at the four highest members of Sumate: Maria Corina Machado, Alejandro Plaz, Ricardo Estevez and Luis Enrique Palacios. The four young engineers that had dared to create a new form of resistance in Venezuela. Chavez idea must have been to kill two birds with one stroke: eliminate the head of the enemy and intimidate anyone that would ever attempt to carry out the type of dissension that Sumate was leading.

Delenda Sumate!

Meanwhile, since the Referendum, the mighty Chavez government has been taking over whatever was left of the democratic institutions of the country. In particular, the judiciary system, that has never been a model of independence, has been revamped to have only judges blindly committed to Chavez. I hope that Sumate is cleared, but the hope is closer to wishful thinking.

So, there is a high probability that, in the end, Sumate will be destroyed, and that the Chavez goverment will have thrown salt to the Sumate office created by a small group of unlikely democratic heroes.

Maybe, like some historians suspected, Chavez, like Cato, is using Sumate as a diversion. Maybe he is really committed to attack this new type of enemy that resists his controlling expansion or maybe he just do not know how to govern without having an enemy in front of him. In any case, it is clear that Chavez has not learned the lessons from Rome.The Romans flourished while they incorporated the good features of the foreign cultures into their own. The anhilation of Carthage was the beginning of the end. Conversely, Chavez has not understood that he needs the culture of Sumate to be integrated to the democratic values of his government. He does not understand either that it is good for his government to have a democratic watchdog like Sumate in his backyard.

Chavez has not realized that his enemy is not Sumate. His enemy, like in Rome, comes from within: his own inefficiency and his own message of hatred and division that have transformed the country and led it to the brink of civil war.

He can ask his followers to “Delenda Sumate” as much as he wants and like the Romans, he might win the last Punic war.

Sumate: free and democratic elections impossible in Venezuela

2005-07-15T23:21:00.000-04:00

Originally published here by Gustavo Coronel

To choose government officers by electoral means is one of the essential components of a Democratic State but not the only one. The current conditions prevailing in the Venezuelan electoral system indicate that there is no hope that transparent and honest elections can be held in my country. Therefore, voting would only serve the purpose of validating a fraudulent system and lending the regime of Hugo Chávez an illusory semblance of legitimacy.

In order to document my assertions, let me mention first some background information on the Venezuelan electoral system that shows its illegitimacy and, later, summarize the latest report by Súmate on the current dismal situation of the National Electoral Council (CNE), in preparation for the Venezuelan regional elections of August 7th. I hope these considerations can show, beyond any reasonable doubt, that voting in Venezuela today is not a true expression of democracy but a travesty of this essential democratic right.

1. The existing National Electoral Council was designated in violation of the Venezuelan Constitution.

The Supreme Tribunal of Justice, without the intervention of the proper Nominating Committee stipulated by Article 295 of the Constitution, designated the existing CNE on a provisional basis in August 25, 2003. However, this CNE has been acting as if it was permanent, which is not. In fact, when two of the principal directors, Carrasquero and Zamora, left, they should have been replaced by their official substitutes ("suplentes") but this was not done. Article 296 was violated in the manner this replacement was made, not on the basis of a selection by a Committee of civil society but chosen by the Chávez regime. Originally, in truth, the members of the CNE should have been designated by the vote of the two thirds of the membership of the National Assembly but this was never done. Therefore, all the past and future acts of this CNE are illegal and invalid since the composition of the Board has been structured in violation of the Constitution. Such an irregular CNE cannot preside over a valid election! There cannot be valid elections under the supervision of this illegal Electoral Council. Yet, this is what this regime is attempting to do. And I have to ask: What is the OAS doing there, accepting to monitor elections that are illegal to start with?

2. Current conditions make a free and democratic election impossible.

Súmate, the organization being persecuted by the Chávez regime for treason is denouncing that the elections of August 7th in Venezuela cannot be free and democratic. The issue of the transparency of Venezuelan elections is of the greatest importance for Latin America and the entire Western Hemisphere. What Súmate and the Venezuelan opposition are saying is:

* There is no reliable Electoral Register in Venezuela. Numerous irregularities exist in the number and identity of new voters, in the already registered voters, in the processes of change in the existing lists, in the possibility of doing audits and in the definition of new electoral circuits. As a result, there is no reasonable level of confidence in the transparency of the process. Venezuelans cannot be sure that only those who should vote will vote. For example, the register grew in one month, July 2004, by 12%. This sounds very strange when one sees that this growth is only normally attained in five years. This abrupt increase coincided with the appearance in the register of foreign terrorists such as Rodrigo Granda and the man called "El Chiguiro," both members of the Colombian narco-guerrilla. And Granda voted!

* The audit of the electoral register requested by previous monitoring agencies (The Carter Center and the OAS) has not been done.

* The information on voters posted by the CNE is incomplete, without birth date or addresses. The information has not been given, as the law dictates, to the political parties or posted in the centers for voting. This is a violation of the Law of Suffrage, articles 95 and 106.

* Electoral circuits have been established in an illegal manner. They should have been approved by the National Assembly 13 months before and they were not. They were established without the required approval of the National Assembly. These illegal changes involve 30% of the voters.

* Independent organizations and political parties do not have knowledge of what systems and processes will be utilized in the August elections. This violates article 3 of the Law of Suffrage.

* There are no guarantees that voting will be secret. The article 112 of the Law of Suffrage establishes that there will be a physical record of each voter, together with fingerprint and signature. But the CNE has decided to establish an electronic system that allows the CNE to know how a voter voted. The electronic system violates the Law of Suffrage since this law demands secrecy of the vote and requires that the voter has total trust in that condition of secrecy.

* The CNE will not allow manual counting of all votes. During the last event only a manual counting involving 0.3% of the votes was done, without any monitoring by external observers. This, in spite of a promise to check manually at least 10% of the votes.

* International monitoring is being discouraged. Three days before the deadline for an invitation to monitor, the European Union has not yet received such an invitation. According to the regulations imposed by the current CNE they have the right to publish or not the reports of the observers.

* Proportional representation stipulated in articles 63 and 293 of the Constitution is being violated due to the maneuvers of pro-Chávez parties, before the passive eyes of the electoral council.

In summary:

The current Venezuelan National Electoral Council is an illegitimate body and is acting in an arbitrary fashion to favor the regime. Under these conditions a Venezuelan citizen has no guarantees of impartiality and of the transparency of the process. How can he, she be asked to go to vote? The Venezuelan elections would be a mockery, like the ones that took place in Iraq, with Hussein obtaining 99% of the votes or in Zimbabwe, with Mugabe or in Castro's Cuba. According to a recent report by the Inter-American Dialog, Venezuela is only comparable to Haiti in its level of democratic quality.

Voting in the forthcoming elections would only serve the propaganda purposes of the Chávez political regime.

Sumate: the CNE has not fulfilled audit of the electoral registry, nor has it cleaned up electoral rolls

2005-07-14T23:22:00.000-04:00

From Union Radio.

María Corina Machado, integrante de la organización civil Súmate, reiteró que continúan los esfuerzos que adelantan con la campaña para impugnar el Registro Electoral venezolano. Asimismo recordó que el Consejo Nacional Electoral se habría comprometido a realizar una auditoría pública para depurar el REP y no ha cumplido.

"Los casos de Rodrigo Granda y El Chigüiro (ambos ciudadanos colombianos) fueron los más emblemáticos, pero hay miles de denuncias. Estas son personas de otra nacionalidad pero que están inscritas en el REP y votaron en el referéndum. Esto hizo tanta presión que el CNE se comprometió públicamente hacer una auditoría pública externa y la depuración del mismo (...) y en vez de cumplir su palabra de una auditoría pública pues contrata a Capel para una asistencia técnica al propio CNE".

Según Machado, entre los puntos de acuerdo llegados por el Consejo Nacional Electoral y la empresa Capel, ésta tendría prohibido entregar los resultados de las elecciones a ninguna otra organización que no sea el CNE, "ni siquiera en los términos de referencia está autorizado a dárselos a otro ente, nosotros hemos tenido reuniones y ellos han sido receptivos pero no tenemos idea de lo que efectivamente Capel va a hacer".

Respecto a la decisión del Poder Electoral de utilizar los cuadernos electrónicos sólo en los estados Nueva Esparta y Cojedes, Machado manifestó que es inaceptable, pues en su criterio ello será una excusa para obligar el uso de los mismos en las elecciones de diputados fijadas para el venidero mes de diciembre.

Expresó que durante el encuentro con la delegación de la Organización de Estados Americanos OEA que visita nuestro país, Súmate entregó sus últimos sobre el estado del Registro Electoral así como las violaciones a la ley del sufragio cometidas por parte del CNE.

The SUMATE summary

2005-07-11T21:45:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

The trial of Sumate has started. It is important to summarize why this trial is a travesty of justice, a political vendetta under any angle that one might look at it. And, even if Sumate had committed an electoral crime, that supposed crime would pale in comparison to all the electoral crimes committed by the Chavez administration since the year 2000.

Now that I have given an early conclusion to this post, I can go into the details. First a brief history of Sumate and then a comparative table of the charges brought against Sumate and the government own electoral misdeeds. The reader will be able to decide on its own which one of the two should sit on the accused bench.

Brief Historical

SUMATE is a civil society organization, an NGO, which started as a group of young professionals seeking to help citizens demand their right to clean and fair elections. Already the Carter Center itself declared the 2000 elections flawed (though it seems to have forgotten its own words of 2000 in August 2004). The nature of the political process in Venezuela where the chavista legal steam roller started crushing any opposition attempt at obtaining redress through the ballot box made Sumate associated with the opposition parties, though some of its services could have been used by both sides.

Sumate was established sometime mid 2002 as the organization to manage the first signature gathering petition to take place. This one was the Consultative Referendum who gathered with a speed that surprised both opposition and government more than the 10% necessary for a consultative referendum as to whether Chavez should resign from office. That initiative which was received by the Electoral Board of Venezuela, CNE, under a rain of tear gas in November 2002, never prospered since by a legal trick it was declared non acceptable. However we shall see that the people who signed that supposedly illegal drive would suffer its consequences anyway.

The success of Sumate then made it the one coordinating the effort for the firmazo, that February 2003 signature drive that collected without any problem the 20% needed to ask for a Recall Election on Chavez. Again, thanks to legal tricks and the complacency of the Carter Center and OAS (and myopia of the opposition leadership) that collection was annulled. And again those who signed would still be punished for that exercise of their civil right to petition.

Once the agreement of June 2003 where signed, Sumate was again called to service to coordinate the December final petition drive to call for a Recall Election. But then things had become more complicated as the government had shown its true undemocratic color as it threatened to make good use of the fact that the names of the people that would sign would be known, made public. For example the Significant Other of this blogger, a public employee in a ministry, and fervent anti Chavez, decided not to sign that petition, with the agreement of this blogger who did sign as less subject to prosecution. Thus the beginning of the rendering of families and friends who many times could not understand why some did or did not sign.

But the Chavez administration came up with even more tricks (in spite of the now infamous "no tricks" of ex-president Carter). A large amount of signatures were declared void on shaky grounds and Sumate again had to show its efficiency by organizing a "repair" process that was successful in spite of now an outright frontal attack from the government. By then the people knew that the Chavez administration had established a list of people who had signed in all the previous signature collection. That list, embodied in one of its incarnations as the Tascon list from assemblyman Luis Tascon web page where one could check out anyone's ID number to see if that person had signed "against Chavez" was used to fire public employees and deny services from the state such as passports and ID card emission, or filter who would get a contract or a job for governmental work. Truly, a new apartheid that is still in application today as I write, and which is well documented for the fascist list it is and that is been decried overseas more and more.

But now Sumate was itself under attack as the government claimed that it had illegally received funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, NED. First the accusation is shaky even on Venezuelan legal grounds. Second the NED finances all sorts of NGO, even in Venezuela (curiously Sumate is the only one prosecuted...). And third it does not make any mystery of it, being a congressional organization which is controlled in a bipartisan manner by the US Congress. Sumate has on one of its web page the copy of the NED agreement if anyone cares to read it. As early as November 4th, The Economist was writing that under the manipulated Venezuelan judicial system, a Sumate trial could only be seen as a political prosecution. The Economist is only one of the many folks making the easy connection.

The trial that is opening against 4 of Sumate's directors has been maturing for over a year as it has been difficult for the government to make a case. First, on a public relations front, the hoped for departure to exile of Sumate's leaders has not happened as they have courageously not only stayed in Venezuela, but even left for short trips and came back each time. Second Maria Corina Machado has been received at the White House by President Bush, the only Venezuelan figure that has been received at the White House since Chavez came to office in 1998.

Summary of the charges

What Sumate is, does, represents...	What chavismo is, does, represent...
Is an NGO who organizes efficiently some of the electoral needs of the opposition parties	All rely on chavismo hold on the government levers, such as the CNE and the effect of the executive power to manage any electoral campaign
Has accepted a 51 000 USD grant from the NED	Has accepted millions from foreign companies such as the yet unsolved Bilbao Viscaya Bank 1998 campaign contribution
Has accepted a small grant which was used on voter education as to the agreement with the NED	Since 2000, uses all the power of the state and its monies to finance its electoral campaigns, without any check from any Venezuelan institution
Is efficient	Is a mess, success based slowly on Chavez charisma and the grants he spreads around to buy votes when needed
Stands trial as of last week	Walks freely as all the accusations of electoral fraud are blocked from even the most elemental investigation
Has accepted foreign money	Has accepted so much help from Cuba as to electoral tactics and organization that it is a joke
Maria Corina Machado has been received by George Bush	Chavez is not only received constantly by Castro, who he supports financially, but has been received by Saddam, Qaddafy and the Iranian Mullas (1)
Sumate wants a clear electoral register	The Chavez subservient CNE has Colombian guerillas voting in Venezuelan elections
Sumate wants a clear electoral register	The electoral registry is not only a mess but the CNE does not want to give it to the political parties for them to be able to organize their electoral targets (which chavismo does, by the way)
And much more I could keep writing along these lines, but I am sure the reader is getting the point already

(1) It is fair to note that as an OPEC member Venezuela requires to have relations with Iran, Iraq and Libya. What is also fair to say is that the effusiveness of Chavez when he visited those countries and leaders was excessive, totally uncalled for and unnecessary, in particular the Baghdad junket where the car ride with Saddam driving was just too much.

But even if the charges were valid, let's not forget that the NED money was a drop in the bucket of all what the opposition received for its electoral campaigns, and even less of a drop when it is compared to the floods of public monies used by chavismo to secure the the vote for its leader. Hypocrisy!

Conclusion

There should be no doubt in the reader's mind that the only reason why Sumate is prosecuted is that it is at the heart of any opposition electoral organization. Its efficiency, its unquestionable message of free and fair election in front of the pathetic and shifty figure of the CNE through its most discredited president, Rodriguez, is something that chavismo and Chavez cannot forgive, nor forget. Sumate, in fact, is by contrast the constant reminder of all that is wrong with the Chavez administration, its inefficiency, the lackadaisical attitude of nearly all of its members, its moral corruption.

The reactions to the trial have already been numerous. The Sate Department condemned the prosecution in unambiguous terms. Human Rights Watch writes: “The court has given the government a green light to persecute its opponents,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Prosecuting people for treason when they engage in legitimate electoral activities is utterly absurd.”

There is no need to add anything by this blogger as he is sure that international condemnation will keep coming from all quarters as chavismo takes a gamble on Sumate, a gamble that it will probably pay dearly.

Sumate goes to trial

2005-07-07T21:09:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

The judge reached a decision: SUMATE directive will go to trial (see also here), but they will not be in jail during the trial. According to Alejandro Plaz, the judge accepted all the evidence presented by the goverment and rejected almost all the evidence presented by SUMATE. In particular, some of the recommendations made by the Supreme Court in their November decision were not taken into account. Maria Corina Machado said that this is a form of intimidation to prevent SUMATE from keeping their campaign of education to have clean elections in Venezuela.

I agree with her. The goverment will do whatever it can to intimidate SUMATE, which is currently the only effective opposition movement in Venezuela.

SUMATE, BTW is just asking what in any democratic country is taken for granted. It can be enumerated in five points:

1.- A reliable electoral registry
2.- Overall audits
3.- Secret vote
4.- Manual counting
5.- Effective observers

So, if you are in Venezuela, show that you care about your five fingers.

Sumate preliminary hearing takes place

2005-07-06T16:46:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

After being postponed five times since September, the preliminary hearing to decide whether there will be a trial or not against the Sumate directive took place today. The judge will decide tomorrow if the trial will take place and in which conditions.

Note that despite that the Supreme Court indicated that in the event of a trial, the accused should be free, the Fiscal in charge of the case is asking that the Sumate directive be put in jail during the trial....

Yeah, right, they are such DANGEROUS criminals that the society is in REAL danger having Maria Corina and Alejandro Plaz walking the streets of Caracas!

27 military masked police officers wandering around with machine guns are OK...but Maria Corina! that's a no-no, she is a real threat!

I'll keep you posted.

Anti-Chavez leader under fire

2005-07-05T07:40:00.000-04:00

Originally published in the Christian Science Monitor

Anti-Chávez leader under fire

Maria Corina Machado is due in court Wednesday on treason charges.

By Mike Ceaser | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

CARACAS, VENEZUELA - Maria Corina Machado doesn't hesitate when asked her feelings about the possibility of going to prison for up to 28 years for "treason to the nation" and conspiracy.

"I'm scared, I'm very scared; I have three kids," the political activist says softly, sitting in her small office in the Caracas headquarters of Sumate, the organization that led last year's unsuccessful bid to recall President Hugo Chávez from office.

Mr. Chávez's landslide victory in that vote only added to the troubles of Ms. Machado, Sumate's vice president and the woman who has come to symbolize the anti-Chávez opposition. Machado is facing criminal charges for allegedly endorsing the April 2002 coup which unseated Chávez for 48 hours, and for Sumate's having accepted US government funds. She is due in court Wednesday for a hearing.

Machado has become a cause célèbre for Chávez's opponents and a demon for his supporters. So when Machado met with President Bush in the White House May 31, it raised a firestorm of government criticism back in Caracas. Venezuela's foreign minister called the meeting "a provocation," and the interior minister charged that Machado was a puppet of the CIA, continuing the heated rhetoric that has characterized the relationship between the Bush administration and Venezuela's leftist leader.

The anti-Machado sentiments have even infused rank-and-file Chávez supporters. "She's sold out her country," says Milagros Medina, who sells pro-Chávez books on a central Caracas plaza. Machado "should be in prison."

It's a lot to handle for someone who says she got into the politics by happenstance and that her goal is not to oppose Chávez but to strengthen Venezuela's democracy. The daughter of an affluent Caracas family, Machado worked after college as an industrial engineer before leaving to raise her family. She also founded an organization to help orphans. In 2002, a friend invited her to create a pro-democracy group. "I decided to drop everything else," she recalls.

Soon, Sumate had a list of 40,000 vol- unteers across the country, Machado says.

But Sumate's pro-democracy pretensions are no more than a front for its anti-Chávez goals, say observers. Sumate is "a thoroughly anti-Chávez group," says Larry Birns, director of the liberal Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. During the anti-Chávez recall effort, Sumate "did everything required of a political campaign. They played a coordinated role."

Machado does not hide her disdain for the populist president, who she says has profoundly damaged Venezuela's democratic institutions. Chávez's critics say his government has packed the Supreme Court, used government institutions to retaliate against political opponents, and passed laws restricting media freedoms and the right to protest.

On this particular day, Machado has just returned to Caracas from a trip visiting regional Sumate organizers, and struggles to stave off discouragement. Many volunteers are afraid of government retaliation, she says, and Sumate's warnings that Venezuela's electoral system is being compromised, including the addition of foreigners to voter rolls, have fallen on deaf ears.

"In many other countries where the rule of law is respected, this would have been a real big issue," notes Machado, who says her responsibilities as Sumate's second in command and as a single mother leave her time for only three hours of sleep a night. "We expected a big reaction" to the warning. "But you know what happened? Nothing!"

Her frustration reflects the mood of the opposition, which is still trying to pick itself up from Chávez's victory in last August's referendum. The charismatic and controversial president enjoys 70 percent support in polls and has a campaign chest filled by record world petroleum prices. The disparate opposition, meanwhile, lacks a single candidate or message to rally around. Some say that Machado, articulate and passionate about her ideas, could be the candidate to unite and motivate the opposition. She denies interest.

But that discussion will become moot if Machado goes to prison. She faces a charge of treason for allegedly signing the manifesto which dissolved the nation's democratic institutions during the ephemeral 2002 coup. Machado says she had simply visited the presidential palace and wrote her name on what she believed to be a sign-in sheet. The conspiracy charge against Machado and other Sumate directors stems from $53,000 the organization received from the US Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy. Machado makes no apologies.

"It is legal, it is our right," she says of the foreign funds. "We have to do it, because if we concede, then the government has achieved what it wanted; they have intimidated us." But, Machado says, 95 percent of Sumate's funding comes from Venezuelans.

Machado vows she will see the trial through. Meanwhile, she is trying to continue her work. "If you're going to fight for democracy, this is something which you have to do every day, all day long," she says.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

The Bolivarian foreign policy of Venezuela

2005-06-13T09:23:00.000-04:00

Excerpt of an article originally published here

Slap at the OAS

The last OAS meeting was overall a defeat for Venezuela. It avoided the worst which was a clumsy attempt by the US to modify the OAS charter to "monitor" democracy. Venezuela's communication minister Izarra claims this to be a great success for Venezuela's diplomacy when in fact this initiative failed more by the error of the US, its ill timing (1) and the desire of grown up countries like Brazil not to be exposed to such type of observation. Venezuela in fact had nothing to do with that US failure and should not take credit for it(2); in fact, Venezuela should realize that it is doing Brazil (and other) dirty work.
Actually, one could say that the only country to lose as much or even more than the US in Fort Lauderdale was Venezuela who failed to satisfy its real obsession, to stop NGO like SUMATE from attending the meeting and expose Venezuelan civil rights problems. In fact, the foreign ministry probably helped set up ad hoc NGO out of nothing to send them and counter SUMATE arguments. Seasoned politicians certainly saw through that decoy, in particular when they heard the envoys to Fort Lauderdale use in the same paragraph "democracia participativa y protagonica" twice, as seen on TV. And all of them using that slogan whenever possible, as seen on TV too. This is not obscure diplomatese, this is just garbage, and an insulting one to the intelligence of attendees. Will these "NGOers" get an appointment at the Foreign Office once the new law passes?

Who is afraid of Sumate?

2005-06-04T15:10:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

In a previous post, I wrote that one of the first milestones that took me out of my political lethargy was the persecution of the Sumate directive. It made no sense to me then and it makes no sense to me now that the government would spend precious time and resources persecuting Sumate for receiving a small foreign grant. It makes no sense either that they dusted an old Juan Vicente Gomez article of the Penal Code and kept it there so that the Sumate directive could be put in jail for 8 to 16 years if found guilty. And, finally, it makes no sense that they react in such a visceral manner every time Sumate makes the news and that top government officials, and even the President, get out of their way to publicly voice vicious verbal attacks against the Sumate directive.

The question is why? Why do they pay so much attention to Sumate? Why are they so afraid of Sumate?

The answer is that the people of Sumate are efficient and effective, and the government is not. They are quite different from the old opposition political entities that can be as incompetent as the government. Sumate delivers and the government knows it. Sumate is Chavez’s real threat.

Sumate is composed of a particular generation of people; a generation of prepared, intelligent, dynamic Venezuelans. They represent what did not go wrong in the old Venezuela. It was a class of highly educated people that were quite aware of the social problems created by the previous generations but who had optimism and a drive to make things change. And good change can come only with a very strict respect of rights and freedoms.

When Chavez stepped in, he had all the popularity, all the powers to make use of that wonderful resource that was left from the old Venezuela. The tragic reality is that he has not even realized it yet. In what is probably the worse mistake made by any ruler in the history of Venezuela, he disposed of that class of people as non-entities and has always rejected their skills and their knowledge. His revolution has been only capable of divisions and destruction; it has been incapable to build up from what were the good elements of the old Venezuela.

First, a subtle apartheid system, never before experienced in Venezuela, was slowly put in place. Those against the revolutionary process started to feel that their views made a difference in the workplace. Before long, Chavez divisive style of government induced a head on confrontation with the most important Venezuelan industry. 20000 people were fired from it: not ten, not a hundred, not a thousand. There were twenty thousand people that were not only fired, but also denied their basic labor rights, and who are still today blacklisted from working ever again in their field. From the human side, many lives were shattered while the government managed, overnight, to get rid of millions of man-years of education, training and Venezuelan know-how.

So, a large part of the population realized that the subtle apartheid was not so subtle anymore. That Chavez meant business, and that he would not stop at anything to retain power by any means. The division of the country and the risk of a civil war were not enough reasons for him to step down. Quite the opposite, he kept and still keeps, his divisive inflammatory discourse to put Venezuelans against Venezuelans.

But Venezuelans are fighters. One must not forget that South American independence from the mighty kingdom of Spain started and came from Venezuela. And this new generation of well prepared Venezuelans found their way to fight for their rights and freedoms; they used the law, their organizational skills and their signatures. Sumate was thus born to find a constitutional solution to the political crisis.

It was not easy. The government can claim in the web page of their US propaganda office VIO that the referendum was going to be a wonderful demonstration of democracy at work, but the reality is that they fought every step of the way, by all means, the holding of that referendum. Moreover, they have blacklisted all those that signed the referendum petition and created a de-facto state of Political Apartheid in Venezuela (see What did Chavez know and when did he know it?).

That, of course, does not appear in the cheerful VIO webpage.

But I digress.

So who is afraid of Sumate? Chavez is. Because he knows that they are a mightier enemy than the good old boys of AD or Copei. He knows that Sumate has the potential to expose to the world the undemocratic face of his revolution.

Quick round up: Machado and inflation in Venezuela

2005-06-03T00:05:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

Today hot air kept inflating the news, though there are already encouraging signs that we will come back soon to real topics of discussion.

Maria Corina Machado, super star?

Yes, she kept holding the news. After yesterday stupid declarations from chavista minister-S- that MCM was the presidential candidate that Bush wanted for 2006, MCM had to hit the air waves to deny it. The silliness of the officials claims can only be explained by how distraught is chavismo by the audience granted by Bush to MCM when not even Clinton did receive Chavez (though he would have probably received MCM).

Meanwhile, after having been supported publicly by Wolf at the Venezuelan national assembly yesterday, MCM will be able to pick up yet another award from Cass Ballenger. Republicans seem to love MCM, indeed.

But all was not roses for MCM. Milagros Socorro wrote a very strong criticism of MCM, though so far she is the only one in the opposition raising such criticism. This while MCM is touted as a role model in the fight against machismo, as a likely explanation of chavismo anger (Alo Ciudadano visitors tonight). I must discuss Ms. Socorro article as I am a long time admirer and this time I think she did not get it quite right.

Milagros Socorro premise is that George Bush is such an unsavory character that MCM visit is actually a big mistake. Maybe. But I will ask her who else could she go to? Chirac? Rodriguez Zapatero? Castro? Ms. Socorro says that any intellectual/artist of any significance has taken distance from Bush. True up to a point.

But this is a false debate. It would actually be good that all intellectuals of any significance separate from politics. Politics always end up corrupting genuine intellectuals who play the game close. It is irrelevant, in a sick way, what Bush does as a war lord: he is still the most powerful man on earth and an unavoidable stopover for anyone wanting to play the game. Did Ms. Socorro watch the very same day OAS brand new secretary Insulza visiting the White House and shaking hands with Bush, all smiles? Can ANYONE think for a second that socialist Insulza, sent into exile by Pinochet, would ever vote for Bush if he had the possibility? Would even befriend him?

In the world of politics many concessions must be made, many terrorists end up shaking hands with the powers that be and there are still many hands that even Bush will have to shake against his will. It is in this perspective that the MCM visit must be judged, not on ideals: MCM is no intellectual or artist, she is a politician, she plays the game outside of her likes or dislikes. And on her politics the criticism of Milagros Socorro as to whether her visit was a good move on the long run are more interesting.

At the very least, the final prediction of Socorro seems to be already happening. In a not surprising move the Venezuelan pseudo judiciary moved to rekindle MCM trial for high treason. While of course we are still waiting for the result of Danilo Anderson's murder. More psychotic chavista reaction.

Back to what really matters

Inflation jumped by 2.5% in May! Making it more difficult for the government to fulfill its already high goal of around 15% for 2005. But this is only half the story. That inflation takes place while we are still in a price control scheme of staple food stuff which seem to have driven this month increase! Items that the middle class buys are not controlled, and many are not measured in the inflationary scheme. For example the price of apartments in Caracas has jumped by 30% since the beginning of the year, already trashing any prediction for the year. In other words, if inflation was calculated as it should be, we would be expecting a 30-35 % overall buy the end of the year, trashing the pseudo 26% increase of the minimum wage. The workers keep getting poorer in the bolibanana republic while the rich importers benefit from yet again a overpriced currency scheme to try to control inflation by blocking job creation. They already did the mistake in 2000-2001 and obviously did not learn anything.

PDVSA hearings continue. Chavez won one round when he postponed discussions of his current problems by blaming older agreements. But of course, in a couple of weeks some new scandal will erupt in PDVSA and things again will look somber. With MCM and Posada Carriles gone, what will Chavez will come up this time to distract attention?

The SUMATE/Bush interview: the day after

2005-06-01T21:48:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

In fact, it is too early to still have a complete analysis of the significance of yesterday's meeting which has held public attention today. Besides, I was on the road and still, with all the driving time to think about the events, I could not pull together all the threads. However there is one thing that we can consider tonight, the reactions of folks today as a revealer of our present national psyche.

The opposition: warmly basking in the glow

For the Venezuelan opposition, today was a day of general exhilaration, the first positive day we have had since August 16, 2004. Simply put, the bully has been faced down and the main power in the Americas has recognized that there is something rotten in the Venezuelan electoral system. No solution is offered, no UN coming to hold our elections, no marines landing (not that we want them), but at least our problem is acknowledged (1). If anything the doldrums of the coming elections will be shaken in still unforeseen ways, but shaken they will be. It will take a few weeks to see how this all play out, but it is possible to say without speculation that the political parties will hurriedly be reviewing their strategies.

There are some dissenting voices, though. For example Tal Cual had a discrete coverage and had even its catch line of the day rather negative. Sure enough, Maria Corina Machado, MCM, is not the best representative of the Venezuelan opposition. But, then again, she is not running for office and she is not pretending to speak for all: she is just stating what is obvious for any independent and critical observer of the Venezuelan scene. The real problem with Tal Cual is that it dislikes Bush deeply (which by the way happens with many other folks in the opposition). Now, there are many reasons to hate Bush, but he is still the president of the US, elected this time with a convincing margin. One must be able to separate Bush war role from the –institutional- move of Bush receiving all sorts of people in the interests of HIS country (Insulza, the new OAS secretary was received the same day as Maria Corina Machado and that does not make Insulza the slave of Bush in the news). Certainly being seen with Bush could be counterproductive for MCM on the long run, but where else can SUMATE go to make its case? Havana?

The ruling chavismo: psychotic dissociation

Today's news really comes from that side. In a sentence, all the seams of the chavista ill tailored ideological suit became visible.

The highlight was the reception at the National Assembly of Frank Wolf, congressman from Virginia in a courtesy visit. He had the misfortune (or the direct intention?) to say that if the government keeps pressuring SUMATE on trumped up charges, that would be an incentive for Congress to give even more money to the NED, and through this one to SUMATE. The message was to defend SUMATE; but of course in Venezuela where everything has become so personal the chavista assemblymen went up in hysteria to attack MCM, not getting the advice of Wolf: if you want to get rid of MCM, do not make her a martyr. When Iris Varela rudely interrupted the session to start a long, rude, vulgar, obnoxious and abusive rant (not to mention that she should have been arrested by the Fashion Police lead by Miss Manners) we reached climax. To say that Varela was undone at the hinges is to be charitable. To say that she ridiculed herself and the parliament for letting her say the idiotic things she said is mild. To say that she did not impress Wolf and that she gave him even more reasons to stand by his words is an understatement.

But this was seen everywhere in the chavistas that spoke today, in more or less varying degrees, be it the foreign minister or Varela, through Tascon. And that was very revealing of the frame mind of chavismo. I will not go into the obvious immorality and double standards of chavismo, who frowns that the NED gave 54 000 USD to SUMATE when Chavez spent billions of dollars buying votes (see the running PDVSA stories). No, what is more interesting to observe is that chavismo has repeated to itself the mantra that even after 5 full years in office they were still newcomers, still the victims, still the target of everybody's envy, that we realize today they actually believe all that crap. They actually believe that MCM is a CIA agent receiving millions personally. They have been repeating to themselves so many lies for so long that they have started believing them!!!

Astounding!

There is another much more worrisome thing. We thought that they used character assassination of people like MCM as a strategy to bring down their organizations, the "shoot the messenger" attack. But today we also see that they are unable, UNABLE, to actually differentiate MCM from SUMATE. They have become so obsequious to Chavez, so imbued by him, so servile, that they cannot imagine that everyone at SUMATE is to MCM just as they are to Chavez.

Now, this is very troubling! For example, the Posada Carriles thing is scary as I realize that even deputies to the National Assembly of Venezuela do believe that Bush just needs to say the word to have him sent to Venezuela! They do thing that things overseas are just like at home where Chavez decides on all matters..........

The US ambassador, William Brownfield, was at the meeting where Wolf was all but physically aggressed (and Wolf seemed unflappable through the whole thing, to his credit). I am sure that Brownfield is quite aware on how things work out on Venezuela. But I think I sensed on his diplomatic face that he did not realize how far this had gone, as surprised as I was myself to see chavismo in blatant psychotic collapse!

Justice missing in action

To close this I would like to point out something to any chavista reader that this blog might have left. Let's assume that indeed MCM is a coup monger and that she should be in jail. Why is she not at least on trial by now? How come that if her alleged crimes were made in April 2002 she is still running around 3 years and one month later? Don't you see that in a country where justice sorts of work like in the US, when you only keep accusing people for that long simply makes you lose your credibility?

The slap that Bush sent you yesterday, you have only your inefficiency to blame. You served it to Bush in a silver platter. How many such platters are left in Bush's pantry?

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
1) I have translated the first paragraph of the article of Charito Rojas in Notitarde, just to get the reader a feel for the opposition elation:

María Corina Machado does have an US visa! Yes! I must confess that I was prey of a great joy when I saw the director of SUMATE installed in the Oval Office with Gerge W. Bush himself. Bravo for Sumate! They have been steadfast and they have been able to sit down wher eit matters, with the president of the first country in the World, no matter how disgusting one might find this. But what did you expect? Alter calling the president an alcoholic, in need of a man to the secretary of state, coup monger and terrorist to any bureacrat, sh...y capitalists to all of USA, then they start screaming like a truck full of pigs when they get their US visa revoked. Only then do they remember the "majesty" of their positions and they demand respect.

Maria Corina Machado of SUMATE received by President Bush

2005-05-31T22:38:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

The stunning news of the week, if not the quarter, is the reception today at the White House of Maria Corina Machado, the leader of SUMATE (1).

Poise, class and dignity at the White House
(interview of MCM with audio here)

I learned it on the radio on my way to a dinner engagement. If I could not write about it earlier, I can assure you that the meal was even more delicious than it probably was. This is a stunning coup for SUMATE and some of Venezuela's opposition, and yet another stinging hit for Chavez who is not having a good time at all these recent days.

Analysis of this spectacular move by the State Department will require days. So tonight this humble blogger, just arriving from a delicious meal will be brief in his speculations and analysis.

The message is clear at several levels:

By receiving the leader of SUMATE the US declares that in Venezuela there is a problem with free and fair elections (to Hell with the Carter Center who somehow managed to convince Colin Powell that all was fine and dandy down here).
By receiving SUMATE, the most organized and efficient and democratic component of the Venezuelan opposition, the State Department sends a clear message to the opposition: be democratic, be organized, work hard, and we will help you if needed to make sure that elections are fair.
By receiving Maria Corina Machado, the US looks at the new class of Venezuelan politicians, modern folks, not encumbered by the weight of the corrupted past AND present.
And perhaps most important, by receiving Maria Corina Machado, likely political prisoner of Chavez, Bush goes beyond extending protection: he tells Chavez that all his B.S. of recent weeks is having no effect on the US administration who will chose its friends as it pleases. He also tells that he is really far from receiving chavistas at the White House where we suspect that more than one would love to be seen. Indeed, a few days ago the US suspended its visa to the High Court chief Omar Mora who was greatly upset about it. Today's visitor must be compared to the non-visitor who wanted to go himself to the White House to demand the skin of Posada. In other words, bluntly, the US tells that Chavez better watch out his foul mouth or further humiliations are in stock for him.

And it hurts really bad in the chavista camp as a totally decomposed and hysterical Cilia Flores, a factor in the National Assembly, went out to say that Maria Corina Machado had better stay in the US, that she should be sent to trial for betrayal to the fatherland. The poor and deranged woman did not realize how idiotic, and revealing, her declarations were. And how they could easily be used against her cause in the US. For example such declarations could be used as an excuse not to extradite Posada Cariles since in a country with such deranged legislators justice is clearly impossible (2). Or it could be used to send Eva Golinger to jail under the Patriot Act as Ms. Golinger dealings are certainly not any less guilt free as the alleged ones of SUMATE that she so eagerly denounces. But we know that diplomacy is an alien concept to Chavez and even more to chavismo.

Well, at least there is something good for Chavez there: tomorrow Venezuela will talk less about PDVSA and its corrupt and inefficient management. See Hugo, always a silver lining.

__________________

1) Story speedily translated by El Universal.

2) At a moment, by the way, where Venezuela seems to have the greatest of difficulties to put together a dossier to ask for Posada's extradition. Indeed, the confusion in the Chavez camp is spectacular as some declare that the US is refusing to extradite Posada while the dossier has not even be sent complete to the US.... But rabble rousers seem to be in surnumerary these days.

_________________

Update: for some colorful local rejoicing, and to stress how important is the news of that visit for Venezuela, check the comment section of the Noticiero Digital thread. Venezuela's wit in display, to be compared to witless Cilia Flores and Iris Varela :-)

A new diplomatic set back for Chavez

2005-05-25T13:25:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

In spite of efforts from Venezuela at the OAS to block the invitation of the SUMATE ONG to an OAS meeting, the council went ahead and ratified that SUMATE was invited along a few other Venezuelan ONG. The excuse presented by Venezuela's ambassador to block the invitation of SUMATE because this one was involved in events of 2002 was rather lame as SUMATE in those days barely existed. But of course the real reason is that chavismo cannot forgive that SUMATE organized the successful Recall Election drive in spite of ALL THE ABUSES committed by chavismo to derail the effort (and their own failure at raising a credible recall election for opposition assemblymen).

I think that Valero sensed the exasperation of his colleagues as he decided at the last minute to back down to avoid a full frontal vote second vote that would have established the growing isolation of Venezuela in the OAS.

The good news there is that the problems of the electoral system in Venezuela are now been noticed outside and SUMATE is considered as one of the best defender of the right to vote, and certainly technically the most informed one. Let's hope that this well deserved recognition of Maria Corina Machado and SUMATE's work will boost the growing movement inside Venezuela to put due pressure on the obscenely partial CNE.

Chavez 's milestones

2005-04-14T18:53:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

Up to August 2004, I had followed Chavez revolution from afar. I had not voted for Chavez and I could not understand why anybody would vote for him. I have a very deep social conscience and I believed that something had to be done in Venezuela to improve the standard of living of everybody, but Chavez? A caudillo? A putchist? A populist? A man with no clear vision of how to run a country? At the time, I had just accepted with resignation that the countries deserved the rulers that they elect. Every time I read the newspapers I would get mad about the situation and I decided to just try to forget about it.

Among all the many events that have taken place during Chavez term, there were three that took me out of my political lethargy. They are critical points in my political assessment of Chavez government and, in my view, constitute the three most dangerous milestones in the Venezuela path leading away from democracy. They are:

1. - the persecution of the Sumate directive,

2. - the refusal of the CNE to open the boxes after the Revocatory Referendum,

3. - the changing of the law to pack the Supreme Court and, consequently, the use of the single majority in the National Assembly to elect the judges.

The first event, persecuting the directive of Sumate, showed me the intimidation face of the Chavistas. The government really worked hard to find an obscure article, dating from the time of Dictator Juan Vicente Gomez that could be applied to the only effective opposition organization that was in place in Venezuela. The article (article 132 of the Penal Code) is so archaic that any democratic government would have removed it from its law. Chavez government not only did not remove it, but gave them a convoluted interpretation that could put in prison for 8 to 16 years the directors of Sumate. Their crime? Accepting a small grant from the National Endowment for Democracy. Even if the grant had been illegal, in any democratic country the penalty would be to pay a fine, but not 8 to 16 years in jail!

The second event of importance was the refusal of the CNE to open the boxes after the claims of fraud made by the opposition and after the publication of numerous studies showing inconsistencies in the results. Even though the Carter Center carried out the audit of 1% of the ballot boxes, that audit was considered inadequate and many Venezuelans still believed that there had been a widespread fraud in the Referendum. Under such circumstances, the obligation of any democratic government is to do whatever is necessary to replace people’s confidence in their system. Venezuela CNE refused to take any further steps. This brings two possibilities to my mind: either the government really had something to hide and, therefore, refused to open the boxes or Chavez had won as claimed but was determined to show everybody in Venezuela who was really the boss. Neither possibility is reassuring from the democratic standpoint. One indicates that the results of the RR may not be correct and the other shows an arrogance of power that cannot be accepted in a modern democratic society.

The last event is the latest strike to Venezuela’s fragile democracy. In a country where everything is regulated by law and where there is an abundance of laws to be interpreted, those that have the power to control the interpretation of the laws have, the facto, the absolute power. To get to that control, Chavez strategy was a proposal to increase the number of judges of the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia. The so-called ``Court Packing”, condemned by Human Rights Watch, was followed by a swift election of new chavista judges by a single majority vote in the National Assembly instead of the 2/3 of the votes usually stipulated.

Sadly, we are quickly witnessing the results of the last milestone. The TSJ recently reconsidered its own ruling on the acquittal of the military involved in the events of April 11, 2002 opening a dangerous judicial Pandora Box (see Viaje a la Semilla).

To complete the dark portrait given by those three milestones, there is, of course, the infamous Tascon list according to which those that signed to ask for a referendum to revoke the president are blacklisted. There are also two new laws that have been recently added: the muzzle law, which controls the content in radio and television and the modification of the penal code that imposes tougher jail sentences that may restrict in some cases the freedom of expression. More recently, we have also witnessed the increasing militarization of the country, for instance, the government has proposed that 10% of the Venezuelan population be military reservists! (see here and here).

And, going back to the penal code, you may think that since the government had to change the code, they would have got rid of its anachronisms like the infamous Juan Vicente Gomez article, right? No such luck: article 132 is still there.

I really miss my days of political lethargy!

Hugo Chavez persecutes SUMATE

2004-11-16T23:41:00.000-04:00

Originally written for Petroleumworld.com and reposted here

By Gustavo Coronel

Pettiness and ignorance in the Chavez regime have reached their highest point in the manner they are handling the case of SUMATE, a Venezuelan non-governmental organization that has as its main objective the promotion of electoral transparency and education. In doing its job very well, SUMATE has become a pebble in Chavez left shoes (he has no right shoe) and, therefore, has to be eliminated. What started as insults and threats in Chavez’s national TV hookups has become an official accusation against SUMATE representatives for “treason”. In this case “treason” means having received $53000 from the National Endowment For Democracy, NED, a U.S. non-governmental foundation supported by both political parties and financed by the U.S. Congress. This foundation, in turn, has been accused by the Venezuelan government of financing SUMATE and other Venezuelan organizations in their efforts to overthrow the government of Hugo Chavez. The scandal generated by the accusations made against SUMATE is the product of great ignorance on the part of the Venezuelan regime, combined with the efforts of mercenaries who have supplied the “evidence” of SUMATE’s treason. The basis for the accusation against SUMATE is very shaky indeed, since receiving funds from international organizations to conduct legitimate activities in a country cannot be defined as treason. SUMATE utilized the money received from NED in activities connected with the improvement of electoral mechanisms in Venezuela. They helped Venezuelans to organize a signature collection for a referendum that is a process allowed by the Venezuelan Constitution.

In monitoring the referendum, they disclosed the numerous irregularities committed by the Chavez-controlled National Electoral Council and, as such, they became a prime target for the retaliation of the regime. In all of its activities SUMATE was helping the cause of real democracy. In the accusation against SUMATE the regime has included NED, the U.S. organization granting the money. The Attorney General, who only seems to come alive when he acts against the adversaries of the regime, has enthusiastically denounced NED for trying to overthrow Hugo Chavez. He has been joined by Information Minister Izarra and, even, by Vice-president Rangel. There is no doubt that their accusations represent the official position of the current regime. In doing so, they have relied almost entirely on “secret information” collected by a Mrs. Eva Golinger, who has admitted receiving payment for her services. This information led Izarra to say that SUMATE had received $23 million from NED, a slightly different figure from the $ 53000 actually granted to that organization. What is important in this case is that, while the regime acts in this way, public opinion, both in Venezuela and abroad seems to believe that (1) that SUMATE is not involved in illegal activities related to the overthrow of Chavez and that (2) NED is a respectable organization and not an arm of the CIA.

A recent letter signed by more than 70 personalities from all around the world claims the opposite of what Chavez, Rangel, Rodriguez and Izarra are saying. From Vaclav Havel to Sergio Aguayo, from Madeleine Allbright to Jorge Dominguez, from Peter Eigen to Francis Fukuyama, the list reads like a who is who of the intellectual and humanistic world. They claim that persecuting nongovernmental organizations “for receiving democratic assistance is both a violation of the Inter-American Charter and the Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies”. They add that NED is “a highly reputable and established nongovernmental foundation that promotes democracy in over 80 countries around the world”. So, who is to be believed? Knowing most of the persons on both sides of the controversy I believe that the Chavez regime has made a tragic mistake in this clumsy attempt at persecuting SUMATE and at labeling NED as a promoter of political unrest in Venezuela. The facts do not support these accusations. In doing so the regime has adopted a fascist, totalitarian stance.

The persecution of SUMATE is the most notorious but not the only one this regime is guilty of. The imprisonment of General Alfonzo Martinez, of the Tachira dissidents, of Capriles Radonsky and others are clear examples of the increasingly undemocratic nature of this regime. The idea behind these actions is to harass the adversary because, sooner or later, they let the people go, with the exception of the Army officer condemned to five years in prison by a military court for “insulting” the armed forces, another case which should be repudiated by international public opinion.

In the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez the witch-hunt is on. I have compared it elsewhere with a still mild version of the “terror” during the French revolution. There is a “revolution” going on within the “revolution” and the radicals in power are claiming for the blood of the enemies. Soon, not only the opposition but the Dantons and the Robespierres of this ‘revolution” will be facing political beheading for being moderate. While all this misery, ignorance and fascist attitudes unfold, millions of Venezuelans are going hungry, the streets of our cities are getting filthier, thousands are being murdered all over the country by common criminals and unemployment increases.

What kind of a revolution is this? Can you answer this, Mr. Chavez? When are you going to tell us how the nation is really doing? You have to be accountable to the people of Venezuela. You cannot hope to stay in power indefinitely without reporting to the nation. Only dictators do this. But you claim you are not one. If you are not a dictator, you have to report to the people, both to those who voted for and against you. So far, you have not done it. We need to know what you are doing with all the millions of dollars received by your regime.

Accountability and transparency are the essential components of democracy. Why don’t you abide by these rules?

Answer. Say something with substance for a change!

Harrassment of Sumate noticed by The Economist

2004-11-04T21:30:00.000-04:00

Originally published The Economist,Nov 4th 2004

Having consolidated a near-total grip on power, Hugo Chávez is preparing a set of laws to repress many forms of dissent. JUST last August, after months of unrest and an attempted coup, 4m Venezuelans voted against Hugo Chávez in a recall referendum, more than had voted him in as president in 2000. Yet he won the referendum, and has now completed a stunning turnaround. Local elections on October 31st left his allies controlling 20 of the country's 23 states, plus Caracas, the capital, and they looked likely to bag the state of Carabobo too after the completion of a disputed recount.

No elected leader of the country has ever wielded such power. With a majority in parliament, a tightening grip on the judiciary, the unquestioning loyalty of the military high command and a seemingly endless flow of revenues thanks to high oil prices, the “red tide” that the self-styled revolutionary predicted, referring to his own party colours, is now lapping around the necks of his opponents.

After their referendum defeat, the two dozen anti-Chávez parties could not agree on a common electoral strategy. In some regions they competed against each other, virtually guaranteeing a chavista victory. A commission of experts set up to analyse their allegations of fraud called for voter abstention, compounding the damage. Virtually the only survivors of stature are Manuel Rosales, governor of the far-western state of Zulia, and a couple of young mayors from the fledgling Justice First party, whose base is Caracas and the adjoining state of Miranda.

What will Mr Chávez do with all this power? Part of the answer lies in a set of repressive laws, currently in the legislative pipeline, which critics say will outlaw most forms of dissent and severely restrict freedom of expression. First in line is a radio and TV bill ostensibly aimed at protecting children by curbing violent and sexually explicit content. But its vague wording will, for example, allow the government to suspend transmission or, ultimately, withdraw a licence, for content which is “contrary to the security of the nation”. Already, private TV stations which have been fierce critics of Mr Chávez are showing signs of self-censorship.

Then there is the partial reform of the penal code, which would outlaw virtually every form of protest the opposition has attempted over the past three years. “Intimidating” a senior public official (for example, by banging pots and pans outside his or her house, a popular form of protest) would carry a sentence of three to eight years in jail. Causing panic by spreading “false information”: two to five years. Promoting “disobedience”, even in private: up to six years behind bars.
Article 350 of the 1999 constitution, drafted by the chavistas themselves, enshrines the right to disobey a government that undermines human rights. But a proposed terrorism law would turn many forms of civil disobedience, such as blocking streets, into terrorist acts, with correspondingly severe penalties. And a national police bill would put control of all local police forces, in effect, into the hands of the interior ministry.

The government has already begun to harass dissidents. Leading members of Súmate, an NGO which amounts to an opposition elections unit, face jail terms of up to 16 years. Their alleged crime is to have conspired with a foreign power—the United States—to overthrow the government. Súmate accepted a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded by America's Congress and which, prosecutors allege, is a front for the CIA. A neutral judge might well throw the case out. Unfortunately, judges who defy the government tend to lose their jobs; most have only provisional positions. And the supreme court, already largely pro-Chávez, is to be expanded from 20 to 32 justices, who will be appointed by the pro-Chávez majority in parliament.

An even clearer case of distortion of justice is that of General Francisco Usón, a former finance minister in Mr Chávez's government, who was jailed last month for five-and-a-half years by a military tribunal for allegedly slandering the armed forces. The general had offered a technical opinion on television, as a combat engineer, on the workings of a flame-thrower, in the context of press allegations that one had been used on soldiers in a punishment cell. Two of the soldiers died, but seven months later no one has been charged, much less sentenced, for their deaths; the only person in jail is General Usón. The defence minister, General Jorge Luis García Carneiro, minces no words when asked about the case. Anyone, he says, civilian or military, who insults the armed forces can expect similar treatment. Viva la revolución.

Sumate: the guardian of Venezuela's democracy

2004-10-20T23:44:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

By Aleksander Boyd

London 20 Oct. 04 - This day broke with good news; in spite of being the subject of a very well orquestrated campaign of State prosecution, Sumate -and its 45.000 volunteers- will continue guarding our democracy. That is why the NGO has become such a nuissance for neo fascist Chavez and that is why he will have no qualms in incarcerating its directors come 'deliberation' time. However as the white paper produced by them concludes "Venezuela will continue to be a democracy because that is the will of its people, Súmate will not cease in its struggle to confront any force that seeks to deny Venezuelans their hard earned right to be counted among the free citizens of the world."

With such firmness of convictions one must not entertain any doubts as to the impossibility of success of Chavez' seudo revolution. I will leave readers with a few excerpts of the said paper vis-a-vis the coming regional elections.

Almost immediately after the official result of the RRP was announced and in the mist of growing evidence of improprieties, the CNE, acquiescing to the will of President Chavez, announced the actual date for the previously postponed election of regional authorities (State Governors, mayors and other municipal authorities). In light of the shortcomings of the RRP process described above, it might be useful to look critically at this new electoral event.

1. Voter Registration

Uncertainty on the validity and rigor of the Electoral Registry persists.

• Contrary to law3, it was opened after the RRP and closed on September 8th, purportedly to give electors the chance to update information or to register.

• To date, the updated Registry has not been distributed by CNE to the interested parties as is required by law.

• There will be no time for a comprehensive independent audit of the Electoral and Civil Registers.

• The non-validation of the Registers is a restriction of the political freedom of the electors since there will be no confirmation of the validity of the two registers.

2. Integrity of the Electoral Process

First, the CNE is ignoring the Venezuelan election laws governing the regional elections in favor of improvising norms, rules and regulations arbitrarily, as it did in the RRP. The election schedule, periods and dates for the Regional Elections announced by the CNE are patently illegal.4 If the CNE insists on the date of October 31st, for the Regional Elections there will be, once again, all of the defects and illegalities that were present in the RRP. There is simply not enough time to correct them all.

Second, the CNE has not announced nor evidenced changes in its biased conduct nor in its haphazard electoral process, so any future election appears likely to be as murky, and end up as challenged, as the RRP.

Third, The defective design of the voting process that extends into very late at night (indeed, into the early morning hours) the closing time of the voting centers increases the risk of personal attacks, which is also a limitation of the political right to vote without fear.

Fourth, the CNE has not implemented any norm or standard nor has even expressed its intent to include citizen participation in all the electoral processes before, during and after voting day. The CNE has not invited international observers for the regional elections, nor have any standards for observation been declared that would allow observation of the elections or full audits in the central facilities of the CNE should such observation be granted.

Fifth, there has been no plan announced by the CNE to implement local control of the electoral process, which is required by law; but rather to process the official count and audits in the central facilities of the CNE in secret. In particular, there has been no plan announced by the CNE to count or certify ballots that differs from the counting process in the recall referendum, which was wide open to the possibility of fraud.

V. CONSEQUENCES FOR DEMOCRACY

If the Premises and their Principles are not upheld, the consequences are ominous for the nation:

• The elections will not have integrity.

• Citizen cynicism will rise, and voter participation will fall.

• The belief in democracy as a means for self-government will diminish.

• The elected officials will not be truly legitimate.

• The government will proceed unilaterally without the true consent of the governed.

• Autocracy will progressively replace democracy.

VI. SÚMATE’S ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY

Súmate is dedicated to the preservation of Venezuela’s democratic institutions and practices. In order to do this, we seek to promote and protect voting rights.

Súmate has every intention to honor the trust millions of citizens have deposited in us as “watchdogs” for their rights as voters.

Súmate is committed to the ongoing search for truth concerning the RRP.

Súmate is working to ensure a transparent electoral process in future elections. Súmate will continue to interact with diverse actors in the international arena that share our concern for the state of democracy in Venezuela. From shared experience, we will not only learn to do our job better, but we will develop even more effective mechanisms to monitor and counteract threats to our rights and to our way of life.

With all the above in mind, Súmate wishes to conclude this brief by stating three concrete activities it is currently undertaking that should enhance our rights, as citizens, to exercise control over our own destiny:

• An investigation and discussion of the best practices and standards for:

- voter registration;

- electronic voting;

- citizen monitoring and observation of the public powers;

- international observation.

• An audit process that is already in place to execute the evaluation of the validity of the new Electoral Register as soon as it is distributed by the CNE

• Workshops for its volunteers and other interested citizens so that they may deepen their understanding of the 1999 constitution, the concept of citizen participation, and the electoral systems.

Venezuela will continue to be a democracy because that is the will of its people, Súmate will not cease in its struggle to confront any force that seeks to deny Venezuelans their hard earned right to be counted among the free citizens of the world.

Signing On To Challenge Hugo Chavez

2004-07-09T07:30:00.000-04:00

Originally published in the Washington Post

By Nora Boustany
Friday, July 9, 2004; Page A15

Hers is a heroic fight. Maria Corina Machado smiles bravely but admits she is terrified. They are after her, she explained; the machinery of the state.

Machado is vice president of Sumate, a Venezuelan civic organization that has helped organize the drive for a recall referendum on President Hugo Chavez. She recently found out that she was under investigation for conspiracy and treason because Sumate accepted $53,400 from the National Endowment for Democracy, which receives funding from the U.S. Congress. Chavez has accused Machado, Alejandro Plaz, the president of Sumate, and two other members of the group of treason.

For the uninitiated, democracy is never simple. But the group's slow, systematic collection of signatures has empowered Venezuelans to hold a referendum next month that could force Chavez to step down.

Chavez, a former army lieutenant colonel who led a coup attempt against the government in 1992, was elected in 1998 on a vow to lift up the country's impoverished majority. Many Venezuelans have rejected his populist programs and rhetoric, and critics say his rule is headed toward authoritarianism.

Machado, 36, was invited to the United States by the Council of the Americas to address members in New York and Washington. She said she also plans to meet with U.S.-based human rights organizations and with officials from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

This week, on a recent bright, sunny day at a coffee shop in Bethesda, she explained how a movement was born.

In 2001, during a hurried conversation in the lobby of a hotel in Caracas, Machado and Plaz fretted about the course that was being shaped for Venezuela as they watched from the sideline.

"Something clicked," Machado said about the encounter with Plaz, a former regional director of an American firm. "I had this unsettling feeling that I could not stay at home and watch the country get polarized and collapse. . . . We had to keep the electoral process but change the course, to give Venezuelans the chance to count ourselves, to dissipate tensions before they built up. It was a choice of ballots over bullets."

Sumate, originally composed of professionals, now has 30,000 volunteers nationwide from all walks of life.

When Chavez came to office, he overhauled the constitution. Machado said: "We realized he established tools giving citizens the power to recall officials in midterm by referendum. If 10 percent of all registered voters signed a petition to have a referendum -- 1.2 million signatures out of 12 million by Aug. 19, 2003 -- it was enough to have a recall of any elected official."

There have been several attempts to collect signatures since 2002. A drive completed last November, with international observers -- the Organization of American States, the Carter Center and the United Nations Development Program -- six months after those organizations brokered an agreement between the government and the opposition that the constitution must be upheld.

"Now we have a referendum," she said. Machado, the eldest of four daughters born to a steel entrepreneur and an accomplished psychologist, had a good education. She graduated as an engineer at the top of her class, later earned a master's degree in finance and worked in the auto-parts industry in Valencia before moving to Caracas in 1993.

Politics had never interested her, and she had been indifferent to the economic and social ills plaguing less fortunate families. But one day, she joined her mother on a tour of a center that housed homeless orphans and abandoned youngsters brought in from the streets. The complex was like a prison, she said, and the children often ran away, scaling walls and leaping into a stream leading out, seeking to return to street life. Machado, who was pregnant with her second child, became physically ill from the stench.

The visit transformed her life.

She quit her job and began lobbying to have the management of the facility privatized, ultimately devoting eight years to its betterment.

She then ran an Internet-based services firm for three years before joining Sumate.

"This is God's work," Moises Naim, editor of Foreign Policy magazine, said of Sumate's drive. He was once Venezuela's minister of finance.

Chavez remains charismatic, in control and calling the shots at each twist and turn of the saga. A week before he finally agreed to the referendum, he signed a law packing the Supreme Court with 12 extra justices and giving his coalition's majority in the legislature authority to nullify the terms of sitting justices.

"Yet another example that democracy is not just about voting -- this is a delusion," Naim said. "It is also about checks and balances, independent arbiters and referees supervising the electoral process. It is not just one man, one vote, one time."

Newspapers have run pictures of Machado with headlines calling her the country's Enemy No. 1. Her children cannot understand her predicament. She has learned to steel herself against Blackberry messages urging her to run away and telephone calls pleading with her to hide.

She is trapped between formidable foes and a sea of sympathizers. "It is scary . . . all public powers of the state are stacked against you, but at the same time, people stop to tell you they are relying on you," she said. "I feel greater responsibility and I'm terrified."

María Corina Machado will continue defending democracy in Venezuela

2004-06-17T19:29:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

OAIPress- Caracas June 17, 2004 - “Súmate represents a threat to any person or institution that does not wish for an electoral solution in Venezuela.” Perhaps this is why its representative, María Corina Machado, believes that it is a paradox that an organization formed by citizens is being persecuted, when it is specifically engaged in strengthening the country’s republican political system and defending its democracy "it is quite intimidating to feel all the power of the State against us" said Machado. But this is the case: Machado and Alejandro Plaz, representatives of this civilian association, are being accused of “conspiracy” by the Public Prosecutor’s Office: This crime carries a jail term of 8 to 16 years, and all because they received funds from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) of the United States, for that very same purpose: to strengthen the development of democracy in Venezuela.

Súmate is considered a symbol of reliability and efficiency in an extremely polarized society. Súmate inspires confidence when most institutions in Venezuela lack even the slightest credibility. Furthermore, Súmate has filled an information gap during the citizens’ consultation processes since the institutions responsible for the same never did so. Actually, Súmate came into being at a time in which the awareness of Venezuelan citizens reached its highest peak as to electoral control mechanisms that must be continuously activated, as stated by its representative.

This civilian association, organized in the year 2002 by a group of professionals with no political experience, is now deeply involved in a situation that is far from easy. Its mission: to promote, defend, facilitate and support the full exercise of the political rights that the Constitution grants to all Venezuelans; and it is for playing this role that they are being persecuted. In fact, it is perfectly legal and contemplated in the Venezuelan laws for non-profit organizations to request international cooperation with a view to strengthening their projects.

For this reason, Machado defends such financing, so debated by the regime and “grounds” for the accusation. In this regard, she explained that financing from the NED was requested because of the need to initiate electoral education and training programs, since local financing was very difficult to obtain. Consequently, Súmate presented the project to the National Endowment for Democracy, aimed at guiding citizens in electoral matters and systems. The amount of $53,400 was approved for this project, exclusively for educational and training purposes, intended for community leaders and citizens in general. All these expenses are recorded in our books and are auditable. “Obtaining funds from the NED is far from representing a crime, we are proud of having obtained it. The program, as well as its terms, is available to anyone who wishes to know about them.”

There is something else that Machado wants to make clear: there is no substantive juridical element that leads to suspect of a potential crime. The question is that a persecution is in progress, for political reasons, with no grounds, intended to frighten, intimidate and paralyze Súmate’s work. She observes that public institutions of the country may be successful in pulling some of the persons of the organization out of the game, but Súmate’s mission is not going to stop in seeking a pacific solution for Venezuela. Thousands of devoted and qualified citizens will continue with their volunteer work. “This arbitrariness only makes us more determined to carry on”.

In defense of the citizens

María Corina Machado defines Súmate as a civilian organization, independent of the structures of political parties, seeking to defend all citizens with no differences. “This generates conflicts because pro-government allies –who are against promoting an electoral solution- label the organization as anti-government and we have never thought of ourselves in this way. On the other hand, some democratic forces, whose structures are very party-oriented, feel threatened because they consider that citizens are assuming a kind of representation that is different from the traditional ones of political parties. For this reason, as an organization we are under constant strain when we interact with State agencies and political parties.” Actually, Machado clarifies that what Súmate wants is to claim spaces that eminently belong to the citizens and must be respected by all political parties.

Súmate’s experience resulted in the collection and processing of signatures for the Consultation Referendum and the Constitutional Amendment, as well as in the design, planning and coordination of El Firmazo, El Reafirmazo, Operación Remate and the most recent signature ratification process in Venezuela – the “reparos”- to re-activate the Recall Referendum against President Hugo Chávez's mandate. All these tests have made Súmate come through with flying colors and strengthened. It is recognized as the technical power of pro referendum supporters that is seeking a peaceful solution to Venezuela’s political crisis. And this may just be the reason why Chavez himself has accused its directors of being “traitors and conspirators.”

With the Recall Referendum less than two months away, and after the opposition’s success in overcoming all the obstacles for obtaining the signatures, Machado considers that we are living an absolutely extraordinary process in Venezuela’s history and truly exciting because it is the citizens who are promoting and leading the same. She believes that a turning point has been reached in which the civil society, and particularly its leaders, should not take impulsive and immature actions. “Although all this process that our country is going through has made the differences among Venezuelans stand out, our existing similarities should be highlighted since they are expressed in our passion for peace and democracy, and in that we are remarkably courageous people.”

In fact, Súmate’s representative points out that the polls reveal that 80 percent of the population favors the Recall Referendum as a means of achieving a peaceful and democratic solution, because we are a deeply polarized society. In her opinion, no government can maintain itself with poverty levels like the ones in this country. For this reason, our future’s greatest commitment is to eject poverty from Venezuela, include all citizens, and generate opportunities for all. The country’s true challenge begins after the recall.

Organized Citizens

For María Corina Machado, Súmate’s success is not only a consequence of its organizational work but also because of the excellence of its people. In a very short time it has positioned itself as an objective, efficient, responsible organization and autonomous with respect to political parties. It is integrated entirely by civilians and its greatest merits consist in having more than 30,000 volunteers throughout the country, whose only requirement to enter is to respect the laws, to believe in democracy and to have autonomy and impartiality in handling results. She assures that the commitment of all of Sumate’s volunteers is not to favor any electoral option and not to be involved in any political activity.

Machado also points out that, as opposed to other political organizations, Sumate’s future is precisely not having power aspirations because its role is to continue defending social control from a citizen’s perspective. Now then, if any of our members have political aspirations, they are completely free to pursue the same, but this member must first withdraw from Súmate.”

The Weight of the Persecution

María Corina Machado is an industrial engineer with a Master’s degree in finance and also the mother of three children. She talks about what this feeling of being persecuted and accused of “conspiracy” involves. She reveals that as a citizen she is not afraid of justice, but is very afraid of injustice. “It is really intimidating to feel all the force of the State against me. It causes a great deal of distress. What has been an extremely gratifying work, a once in a lifetime experience, has had a very high cost from a personal point of view. I have had to subject my family to this persecution. And she asks herself: How do you explain to your children that you are being accused of “conspiracy” when you have always inculcated upon them that you are working in the defense of democracy and the law?

In spite of the persecution, Sumate’s directors have received innumerable demonstrations of support, solidarity and confidence from all the country. Thousands of citizens have contacted the association and said “We trust you and you are not alone”. And for María Corina Machado, this support and her commitment with democracy is precisely what impels her to continue ahead in spite of all the obstacles…

FREEDOM IS A UNIVERSAL HUMAN ASPIRATION

* The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a private, nonprofit organization created in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. With funds provided by the United States Congress, NED makes hundreds of grants each year for the support of groups in favor of democracy at worldwide levels, guided by the belief that freedom is a universal human aspiration that can be realized through the development of democratic institutions, procedures, and values.

* In Venezuela, laws are recent in electoral matters and permit financing international cooperation initiatives,such as the support granted by NED. This induced Súmate to request funds for an electoral education campaign related to the Recall Referendum, at national levels. As a result of the NED’s grant, Súmate together with other organizations, trains voters in all Venezuela in all that involves electoral processes while stimulating their participation for the recall through a voting procedure.

* For this reason, the objects described by Súmate in the fund application process to the NED are aimed at: 1) developing a national network of independent volunteers with no political affiliation to work in the Recall Referendum and the elections; 2) strengthening non-government associations to work in different aspects of the referendum process; and 3) promoting popular support for the referenda.

* To pay for all these activities, Súmate received a total amount of $53,400 from the National Endowment for Democracy, discriminated as follows: 1) Travel expenses: $7,200; 2) Contractual Services: $24,760, and 3) other direct expenses: $21,440.

* The NED’s payment schedule for Súmate has progressively developed as follows: 1) $17,800 granted in September, 2003; 2) $13,350 in February, 2004, 3) $13,350 in May, 2004, and 4) the last payment of $8,900 to be paid next August for a total of $53,400.

Venezuela: Sumate en la mira de Hugo Chavez

2004-05-16T19:21:00.000-04:00

Originally published here

Comunicado de Sumate

La Fiscalía General de la República cita a directivos de la Asociación Civil Súmate, a fin de imputarles supuestos delitos. María Corina Machado y Alejandro Plaz, representantes de esta organización, acudieron recientemente a la Fiscalía Sexta Nacional, a cargo de Luisa Ortega Díaz, quien los citó, en calidad de testigos, para rendir declaración sobre el financiamiento del National Endowment for Democracy, NED (Fondo Nacional para la Democracia).

Ahora la Fiscal Luisa Ortega Díaz cita nuevamente a los directivos María Corina Machado y Alejandro Plaz pero en calidad de imputados, por esta misma investigación. Plaz deberá presentarse este viernes 21 y Machado el próximo miércoles 26 de mayo.

La Asociación Civil Súmate hace del conocimiento de la ciudadanía que esta decisión del Ministerio Público tiene la finalidad de ejercer presión con el fin de amedrentar a sus voluntarios y, con ello, dificultar el cumplimiento de su misión de defender y promover los derechos políticos de todos los ciudadanos, establecidos en la Constitución Nacional de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela.

Machado y Plaz explicaron que esta medida judicial obedece a que el Ejecutivo Nacional y representantes del sector oficialista no le perdonan a Súmate el hecho de haber apoyado técnicamente la organización de los procesos de El Firmazo y El Reafirmazo, eventos promovidos con el objetivo de que los ciudadanos expresaran su voluntad para solicitar la activación del Referendo Revocatorio Presidencial, previsto en el artículo 72 de la Constitución Nacional, y así contribuir a una salida pacífica, democrática, constitucional y electoral a la crisis política y económica que atraviesa el país.

Súmate comprometido con los ciudadanos

Los representantes de la organización manifestaron que Súmate garantizará a los ciudadanos y a todos los factores que participan en la lucha por la democracia en este país y aquellos que han brindado su confianza y apoyo incondicional, que no cederá espacios al desánimo y frustración, ni cesará en los esfuerzos por apoyar y defender sus derechos políticos y de participación, sobre todo ahora, cuando solo faltan 10 días para el proceso de los reparos con el fin de activar el Referendo Revocatorio Presidencial.

Los hechos

El Ministerio Público abrió esta investigación luego que el Presidente de la República, Hugo Chávez Frías, en su Programa Aló Presidente del pasado 15 de febrero del año en curso, instruyera a la Procuradora General de la República para adelantar una investigación por el financiamiento del National Endowment for Democracy de Estados Unidos (NED) a Súmate, al señalar que podría haber incurrido en el delito de traición a la patria y conspiración.

Luego de este señalamiento por parte del primer mandatario nacional, estos órganos del Estado venezolano abrieron una investigación a sus espaldas, sin su conocimiento, además de impedir que las personas investigadas de la asociación y sus abogados tengan acceso al expediente. Otra particularidad es que los investigados María Corina Machado y Alejandro Plaz fueron citados a declarar, en primer lugar como testigos, para recabar ilegalmente, y sin presencia de sus abogados, información que probablemente será utilizada en su contra. Pero lo más sorprendente es que ahora el Ministerio Público, a través de la Fiscal Sexta Luisa Ortega Díaz ha citado a María Corina Machado y Alejandro Plaz como imputados por los mismos hechos.

Las verdaderas razones

La Asociación Civil considera como las verdaderas razones de esta persecución: el hecho de que Súmate fue un elemento fundamental en la identificación y denuncia de las irregularidades cometidas en el proceso de El Reafirmazo, antes, durante y después de la fase de verificación de firmas; Súmate en las actuales circunstancias está ofreciendo a los ciudadanos la información indispensable que necesitan los firmantes que están decididos a reparar sus rúbricas; y, por último, Súmate representa un inmenso riesgo para aquellos que planean realizar fraudes electorales en los venideros reparos, previstos desde el viernes 28 al domingo 30 de mayo, porque saben que esta organización ciudadana puede detectarlos, documentarlos y denunciarlos.

Otro hecho que no parece casual es que la citación como imputados a los directivos de la organización civil, María Corina Machado y Alejandro Plaz, se produzca una semana antes de la realización del proceso de Reparos. Sin embargo, no les queda la menor duda que esta asociación seguirá participando, ahora con mayor ánimo, organización y profesionalismo en este y los otros procesos que se avecinan.

El delito de Súmate

Aunque se le acusa de traición a la patria y conspiración, los únicos delitos que ha cometido Súmate, y que no le perdona el sector oficial, son creer en la democracia participativa, prevista en la Constitución Nacional, organizar a los ciudadanos para que ejerzan sus derechos políticos y de participación, defender esos derechos y denunciar las violaciones que se cometen a los mismos. Por eso, sus miembros no entienden que un gobierno que promulga la democracia participativa, enfile sus baterías contra aquellas organizaciones de la sociedad civil, como Súmate, y los ciudadanos que la integran, por creer en ella.

Súmate sigue y seguirá

A pesar de esta persecución, la Asociación Civil Súmate continuará informando y apoyando a los ciudadanos en el ejercicio de sus derechos políticos. El mensaje que envía al país es que por cada uno de los miembros de la organización que saquen del juego, se levantarán miles de voluntarios en diferentes partes del país que han acompañado y quienes tomarán sus banderas de la participación ciudadana. Están convencidos que Súmate sigue y seguirá.

El norte son los reparos

Los directivos de Súmate María Corina Machado y Alejandro Plaz hicieron un llamado a los 3 millones 500 mil ciudadanos que firmaron para solicitar la activación del Referendo Revocatorio Presidencial a participar activamente en el proceso de reparos, previsto desde el viernes 28 al domingo 30 de mayo.

A los dos millones de ciudadanos con firmas válidas, Machado y Plaz le recordaron que sus firmas no tendrán valor a menos que los reparos sean exitosos; por lo cual deben convertirse en agentes activos, motivando y apoyando a los firmantes con derecho a los reparos para que éstos puedan incluir sus firmas. A los 375 mil 241 ciudadanos cuyas firmas fueron consideradas por el CNE “no válidas” y a los 36 mil 871 que le desaparecieron sus firmas, para que también apoyen a los firmantes a reparo y, a través de ellos, rescaten el derecho a participar que el ente comicial les arrebató.

Por último, enviaron un mensaje a los firmantes que deberán ir a reparo para que cumplan con su deber ciudadano y sepan que más de 3 millones 500 mil venezolanos cuentan con ellos. Machado y Plaz les recordaron que el destino de la nación está en sus manos, por lo cual se convertirán en héroes de esta batalla.

Todo este esfuerzo en el que ha venido participando la Asociación Civil Súmate, aseguraron María Corina Machado y Alejandro Plaz, constituye la salida democrática, electoral, constitucional y pacífica a la crisis que afecta a nuestro país.