An embattled Chávez seems to be buckling under US pressure to show that he is doing something to allay US concerns on the drugs’ traffic to the US. The blowing up of bridges and halting of trade relations with Colombia, may be a clever ploy to shield Venezuela from its domestic problems and away from the glare of the outside world. The placing of his armed forces on a war footing has also failed to ruffle the Colombians as Chávez seeks refuge in belligerent antics and anti-imperialist tactics. Chávez now seems to be facing a dilemma about what to do next, and it seems this is more about calling upon his friends to stand up and be counted.
Suddenly Guyana was dragged into the picture. Guyana’s security forces are few in number and of no consequence relative to the Venezuelans. They are also poorly equipped, poorly trained and poorly managed. It is the Venezuelans who can make claims about having overwhelming numbers in terms of their well-trained security forces as well as the best of military hardware, modern jet fighters and tactical air transport at their disposal. Guyana is an absolute irrelevance to Venezuela if the real objectives of the Venezuelans are to crush the drugs’ traffic.
A subservient President Jagdeo, dependent on subsidized Venezuelan oil, was however called upon to dance to the tune of Chávez. Earlier this month top Guyanese security officials were hastily dispatched to a call from Caracas for the two countries to cooperate to fight against drugs (‘Guyana, Venezuela to toughen drugs fight’ SN, November 23).
This is against a backdrop of Guyana failing to show any sustained and strong commitment in the fight against drugs. Then there is the recent scuttling of the UK funding of $1.6 billion security and policing project, which resulted in the Guyana police being denied proper training and rendering them incapable of delivering effective and accountable policing. The horror of torture of a minor allegedly by police recently has also created a public outcry.
Would the Caracas initiative finally put an end to the growing drugs’ problem that is spreading across Guyana, or is it another one of Chávez’s smoke-screens to divert attention elsewhere?
Venezuela is unable to deal with its own endemic corruption, as Leocenis Garcia, the investigative journalist had discovered. The journalist had spent his life investigating corruption in Venezuela and had prepared a dossier on 60 cases, which was published in a newspaper, and submitted to the Venezuelan National Assembly for action. It is claimed that one of the cases involved the purchase of drilling equipment from China at $5M a piece, but invoices were submitted for $25M to $30M a piece.
Each of the dossiers on corruption was some 300 pages long and providing all the crucial evidence needed for action to be taken. All 60 dossiers were dismissed by the Venezuelan National Assembly within 24 hours carte blanche, and not a single case was upheld. According to Leocenis Garcia the dossier on PDVSA went missing. Even if the National Assembly had taken action against just one single case, it would have sent a wake-up call to the Venezuelan people and to change the current status quo.
If this is indicative of how the Venezuelans deal with endemic corruption, then what lessons could Guyana learn from them about curbing drug trafficking? It may however play in Chávez’s favour with little to gain for Guyana.
The fact remains that Venezuela has very close ties with the US and Chávez knows he could get away with it. This has not been the same in the past for Guyana. Indeed Cheddi had paid the heavy price for doing just that when he tried.
As his biggest customer, the US is buying half of the Venezuelan people’s oil. Chávez has also recruited Joe Kennedy of the Kennedy clan to ensure his relationship with the US is always alive and well. Further last year he provided heating oil subsidies to poor people in the US to the tune of $100 million through the Venezuelan owned CITCO based in Texas.
The people’s oil money is being used by Chávez to buy him powerful friends across the globe and at the cost of the poor, who are living in squalor and poverty in the shanty towns of Venezuela. They were told recently by Chavez that they must bathe less to save water and to reduce the water shortage.
Further the PDVSA social project was meant to change the face of poverty in Venezuela. However, with the oil revenue from the people’s oil in full flow, little seems to reach the shanty towns and the Venezuelan poor.
Yours faithfully,
Mac Mahase
