Tall & Rich

A Yanqui’s View of Latin American Politics

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Joe-4-Oil shut down

Posted by Jonn Lilyea on January 7, 2009

I get lots of email and comments criticizing my last post on Joe-4-oil, a program that Chavez used as a weapon against George W Bush and stole from Venezuelan poor to give free, or at least cheaper, heating oil to the relatively rich Americans.Now that Bush is on his way out, Chavez is shutting the program down.

Venezuela’s state oil company is suspending a much-promoted program that provided free heating oil to hundreds of thousands of poor people throughout the United States, the company announced Monday.

The program has been a public relations bonanza for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a socialist who frequently attacks capitalism and the US. President Chávez repeatedly has tweaked the noses of US policymakers by saying the program shows that he’s a good friend of America’s poor.

Venezuela is halting the program at least temporarily because the sharp drop in oil prices is forcing the country to reduce government spending, the firm said in a statement from Citizens Energy Corp., a Boston-based nonprofit that’s managed the program in the US.

Monday’s announcement was among the first of many measures that are expected in the coming months as Chávez’s oil-dependent government tries to eliminate programs that don’t benefit Venezuela’s poor, following a global price drop from $147 a barrel in July to nearly $50 now.

“Venezuelan government officials would rather cut social programs abroad – such as in the United States, Ecuador, and Nicaragua – than affect social programs in Venezuela,” said Pietro Pitts, a Caracas-based oil analyst who publishes Latin Petroleum magazine.

Well, isn’t it funny that, in the middle of winter, and days before the Obama inauguration, Chavez shuts down the program? Don’t you people see the correlation? It was pure propaganda and you Leftist Chavez-hugging suckers, who’ve been criticizing me, fell for it. Oh, and why is Chavez shutting down the program? Because when he spent all of his vast oil profits on rifles and submarines, he spent the money he could have been using to feed the Venezuelan people and if he doesn’t start taking care of them, he’s going to have torch-bearing visitors at the gates of Miraflores Palace.

Stupid socialists.

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Happy Independence Day, Panama

Posted by Jonn Lilyea on November 4, 2008

Today is Panama’scelebration of their Independence from Colombia. We’re usually there for the big party, but this year we’re putting it off. Although I’m very proud to be an American and very grateful for everything this country has given me and my family (including my two daughters who were born in Panama), a piece of my heart still lives in Panama. So excuse me for not talking about the election for one minute.

My wife’s family legend is that her grandfather came with the Colombian Army to put down the rebellion in 1903 and after a brief skirmish and brief imprisonment, he elected to stay in Panama instead of return to Colombia. Her other grandfather was a Chinese laborer who came to build the Canal and he also stayed. Take it from us, Panama is a real hard place to leave.

There are videos crossposted at This Ain’t Hell

Oh, and did I mention that John McCain was born in Panama?

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Venezuela/FARC deny connections

Posted by Jonn Lilyea on May 10, 2008

Hugo Chavez

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reported that the US has accepted the information found on Raul Reyes’ computer to be genuine;

“There is complete agreement in the intelligence community that these documents are what they purport to be,” a senior U.S. official said. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has been sharing its assessments with the White House, this official said.

And of course, the Venezuelan government and FARC deny it, charging “The Empire”, “the oligarchs”, and any other boogeyman they could think of with fabricating the evidence;

Mr. Chávez has repeatedly said the files were faked by Colombia. “We don’t recognize the validity of any of these documents,” Bernardo Álvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S., said in a Wednesday interview. “They are false, and an attempt to discredit the Venezuelan government.”

To prove there’s no connection between FARC and Venezuela, the Venezuelan Information Ministry published a letter from FARC on their website;

The FARC itself has suggested the files are fake. A FARC statement published on the Web site of Venezuela’s Information Ministry ridiculed Colombia’s claims about the computer files, saying computers couldn’t have survived the Colombian army attack “even if they had been bullet-proof.”

There. That ought to show ‘em. Who could accuse them of a connection when they publish each other’s statements? And I don’t think FARC has any actual witnesses to whether the laptops were destroyed or not. Well, none that they’ve spoken to lately anyway.

The Washington Times summarized the Wall Street Journal report;

The newspaper said the files recovered from the computer indicate Venezuela has offered to arm the rebels, possibly with rocket-propelled grenades and ground-to-air missiles, and offered FARC the use of a port to receive arms shipments.

The U.S. intelligence official said it was “entirely possible” that the Venezuelan government has already transferred weapons to the rebels, who seek to overthrow the Columbian government.

“The documents also reveal that the Venezuelan government has attempted to assist the FARC in acquiring arms and munitions,” the official said. “The extent of that flow of arms is unclear at this time, but it’s entirely possible some of those shipments have made their way to the FARC.”

Of course, the WSJ isn’t telling Colombians anything they don’t already know according to El Universal;

Colombian intelligence agencies found that a chief of the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) is present in Venezuelan territory and despite having conveyed “many times” that information to President Hugo Chávez’ government “nothing happens,” said Colombian Minister of Defense Juan Manuel Santos.

Rebel chief Iván Márquez, the successor of FARC second-in-command Raúl Reyes -who was killed by Colombian troops during a raid in Ecuador last March 1st- “is in Venezuela. Many times have we provided the coordinates and the information (to the Venezuelan government) and nothing happens,” Santos lamented.

The US has enough problems in the world, we certainly don’t need to needlessly cause problems with Chavez, who up until this point has merely been a pain. But, this clearly puts him in the “with the terrorists” category of nations.

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Report: Reyes’ laptops

Posted by Jonn Lilyea on May 5, 2008

El Universal writes briefly on the report from Interpol regarding FARC’s Raul Reyes’ laptops;

The information found in the computers of the deceased leader of the rebel Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), Raúl Reyes, was not manipulated by Colombian authorities, according to an Interpol’s report to be released next May 15, as disclosed by Bogota El Tiempo daily newspaper.

The report stated that a committee comprising computer science experts from Korea, Australia, and Singapore working for the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) completed last May 2 the investigation into the three computers found in Reyes’ camp in Ecuador, Efe reported.

Of course, Chavez and Correa will blame the CIA and call the report a fabrication of the Empire.

The report from El Tiempo in Spanish;

¿Ha intervenido Estados Unidos en los computadores de ‘Reyes’?

Sobre eso no tengo conocimiento directo, pero si hay conocimiento de las autoridades judiciales norteamericanas, eso debe haber tenido un procedimiento legal para que llegue a sus manos. Aquí los únicos que son competentes para tener esa información, son las autoridades que en este momento manejan la cadena de custodia. Y allí va la Policía Judicial, la Fiscalía y la Interpol, que avala técnicamente el procedimiento. Es decir, la Interpol acompañaba para dar un aval en cuanto a que esa información es fidedigna, que no ha sido alterada, aplicando procedimientos de informática forense de muy alta calidad. Pero eso básicamente es necesario para que esas pruebas judiciales tengan el suficiente valor ante otros países o ante tribunales internacionales. Fue una decisión de las autoridades colombianas, de pedir ese acompañamiento a la Interpol, que es usual en muchos otros procedimientos.

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