November 16, 2010

During his weekly radio and TV show, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez declared that recent expropriations of residential complexes were “special” and that developers would not be compensated by the government.

The Chávez government has a poor record of compensating the owners of expropriated properties, and those owners have little legal recourse to challenge the government. According to a May report by prominent Caracas-based economic consulting firm, Ecoanalítica, the costs of the nationalizations executed by President Chávez since 2006 add up to $23.3 billion. Ecoanalítica estimates that of the $23.3 billion owed, $14.65 billion in compensation have yet to be paid by the government. In fact, the Venezuelan government has only paid 38% of what it owes to the expropriated companies.

President Chávez also announced during his Sunday show that General Henry Rangel Silva, blacklisted in the United States for alleged drug trafficking, would be promoted to “General- in-Chief.” The announcement comes shortly after the General stated publicly that he would not accept an opposition victory in 2012.

Wall Street Journal

November 16, 2010

CARACAS, Venezuela—President Hugo Chávez said he will on Tuesday promote to the rank of “General in Chief” a controversial top general who is on a U.S. blacklist for alleged drugs and arms trafficking.

The general, Henry Rangel Silva, recently said the army wouldn’t accept anyone but Mr. Chávez as president even if he were to lose a re-election bid in 2012.

Mr. Chávez, speaking Sunday on his weekly “Hello, President” television show, said it will be his “honor” to promote on Tuesday Gen. Rangel Silva, who is currently operational chief of the armed forces, to a new rank that hadn’t been used prior to Mr. Chávez’s ascension to power.

In an interview with local press, Gen. Rangel Silva said that an opposition victory in the 2012 election wouldn’t and shouldn’t be accepted by the nation’s armed forces. “It would be like selling out the country. The people aren’t going to accept that, not the armed forces and even less the people,” he said. The army, “doesn’t have half loyalty, but rather full loyalty…to the commander in chief,” Gen. Rangel Silva said.

He said that the military wouldn’t accept an opposition victory in 2012 because it is already committed to Mr. Chávez’s “life project” to create socialism in Venezuela.

Those comments drew a storm of criticism from Mr. Chávez’s opponents, who said the general’s comments showed that Mr. Chávez is priming the nation’s military to support him in a bid to stay in power even if he loses the elections two years from now.

The comments also drew fire from the Organization of American States, whose secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, said the remarks were “unacceptable.”

In September, Mr. Chávez, in power for eleven years, suffered a political setback in congressional elections when the opposition won the nation-wide popular vote by a narrow margin, leading analysts to raise the possibility that Mr. Chávez could lose his re-election bid scheduled for 2012. Venezuela has been plunged in recession for the last two years, while being buffeted by 30% inflation and a seemingly unstoppable wave of violent crime.

Since being dealt an electoral setback in September, Mr. Chávez has accelerated his drive to nationalize the country’s industries, taking over feed and glass plants and even real-estate developments. He has also ratcheted up his rhetoric against his opponents, saying an opposition victory in 2012 would likely lead to a “violent revolution” by his supporters that he wouldn’t be able to contain.

Mr. Chávez has lashed out at critics of Gen. Rangel Silva’s remarks, saying that Venezuela’s opposition only wants military leaders who are “traitors” to the socialist movement. Mr. Chávez was briefly removed by his generals from power in 2002 after they refused an order to fire on protesters. But in a quick reversal of fortune, Mr. Chávez was returned to the presidential palace. The Venezuelan leader blames the U.S. for involvement in his removal, a charge the U.S. denies.

“[He] is trying to scare Venezuelans with these type of scenarios so they don’t go and vote,” said Teodoro Petkoff, a former presidential candidate and current editor of the opposition newspaper Tal Cual, said during a television program Sunday. Mr. Petkoff also said Mr. Chávez and Gen. Rangel Silva aim to bully other military officers into thinking they aren’t permitted to accept an opposition victory.

In 2008, Gen. Rangel Silva, then head of the country’s intelligence service, was put on a U.S. Treasury blacklist for aiding drug and arms trafficking by Colombia’s communist FARC guerillas. Another top general as well as Venezuela’s former interior minister were put on the blacklist at the same time. Larry Palmer, the U.S.’s recent ambassador-designate to Venezuela, said earlier this year that Gen. Rangel Silva’s rise within the Chávez government was “troublesome.”

November 12, 2010

In most democracies, when a military leader threatens a coup d’etat more often than not he will find himself in the unemployment line. Not in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.  Witness the events that have led the headlines in Venezuela this week.

Venezuelan General Henry Rangel Silva, head of the National Strategic Operational Command , who has been accused by the United States of helping Colombian guerrillas smuggle cocaine, stated this week that if the Venezuelan opposition candidate where to be victorious in the upcoming presidential elections of 2012,he would take steps to prevent that person from taking power. The General’s infamous words were as follows a “The loyalty of the National Armed Forces is not divided; it is fully devoted to one people, one life project, and one Commander in Chief. We are married to this country project… In a hypothetical opposition government as of 2012 and an effort to dismantle the military, there would be a reaction from the enlisted troops and the people, who would feel that something has been taken away from them.”

These partisan statements have caused anger and concern in large segments of the Venezuelan population and in the international community, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Jose Miguel Insulza criticizes the comments saying “The fact that an army commander threatens with an a priori insubordination is unacceptable. Venezuela’s ruling civilian authority should correct that.”

The reaction from President Chávez did not take long. Not only did Chávez harshly reject Mr. Insulza’s comments, but in what can best be described as the equivalent of sticking one’s finger in someone else’s eye, he announced the promotion of General Rangel Silva to General in Chief of the Armed Forces.