Credibility crunch! Venezuela’s reputation for common decency is on the line with foreign investors…

VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: This will be a decisive week for foreign investors’ perception of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez Frias and the true intent of his “peaceful” Bolivarian Revolution and whether or not the President has the capacity or the willingness to “do the decent thing” in the ever-present glare of the not-uncritical foreign media!

Let’s also acknowledge that the current status of the Las Cristinas gold mine in southeastern Bolivar State barely registers on the radar of Venezuelan grassroots activists anywhere else in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela than in the immediate vicinity of Sifontes Municipality in Bolivar State, very much removed from the mayhem that is the central government administration in Caracas.

But the issue has been brought clearly into the focus of thousands of foreign investors in North America, Canada and across the world following an extremely questionable notification to the Venezuelan Guyana Corporation (CVG) by an official at the Ministry of the Environment & Natural Resources (MinAmb) that a final permit to begin work at the Las Cristinas goldmine would NOT be issued for spurious reasons not necessarily grounded in fact … in fact the whole scenario stank to high heaven of just another attempt by Venezuelan officialdom to extract under-the-table payments to make the problem simply go away.

Before we go any further, perhaps it is best that we make a clarification of the descriptive “Sin Verguenzas” (those without shame!) usually applied to a host of characters within the Venezuelan administration and, indeed, outside of it, who traditionally have feathered their personal bank accounts (usually Stateside) by creating artificial bureaucratic bottlenecks to create the circumstances under which they can elicit such payments as may be considered necessary or imperative for the artificial bureaucratic bottleneck to be removed. It is simply a way-of-life in Venezuela, as perhaps it may also afflict other countries and cultures around the world.

One had hoped … believed … put faith in President Hugo Chavez Frias to implement such legal measures as would be necessary to curb the “Sin Verguenzas” but it only remains to observe that the occurrence is as rife now, perhaps even rifer, than it was under the half-century of unbridled corruption that preceded the Chavez presidency begun in 1999.

Recognizing, though, that it is a virtually impossible task to reverse a culture of “Sin Verguenzas” in the space of eight or nine years … it is a generational reformation anywhere on this earth … it was, however, expected that President Chavez would at the very least have used his basic training in matters military to ensure that his governmental command structure should be seen to be free from “Sin Verguenzas.”

The sad fact is that it has not!

The Chavez administration is polluted to the rafters with “Sin Verguenzas” who believe that they can be emboldened by the pondus of public office to commit atrocities against Venezuela’s democracy, constitutionality and the rule of law simply by having “no shame!”

So where is all of this taking us?

Well, more far than to perdition is impossible to say and quite frankly we do not wish to contemplate the ultimate destiny of such governmental failures to take the “Sin Verguenzas” firmly to task.

Thankfully, despite the obvious corruption and indolence within Venezuela’s Ministry of the Environment & Natural Resources, Mining Minister and CVG president Rodolfo Sanz appears to be a true patriot to everything that the name of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela stands for.

Personally, I have heard nothing but good things and warm recommendations from a host of foreign diplomats in Caracas who have had long-term experience of the man and his character within the diplomatic community.

It was not therefore surprising that Minister Sanz went through the roof on being advised of the Las Cristinas scenario and other decisions dropped from a great height by “Sin Verguenazas” at MinAmb. It was clearly in direct violation of all concepts of governmental decency that a contractor who had already spent $ millions on vital infrastructure and more, should be told, quite frankly, to “go to hell!” in a handbasket!

Sanz has already held an on-site inspection at his CVG-Minerven gold mining subsidiary and top officials there have been given “early retirement” – essentially a euphemism for being “kicked out on their asses” because of the central government’s current firing freeze.

It wasn’t as if there had not been extensive previous consideration of the pros and cons of gold mining in southeastern Bolivar State. It had already been promulgated as an essential motor to Venezuela’s non-oil economy and indications had already been given from more responsible, less-corrupted individuals at MinAmb that it was simply “a procedural issue” that remained after full payment of taxes and bonds had been posted as required under Venezuelan Law.

But that’s where due observance of Venezuelan Law clearly went out the window and it is clearly now for relevant authorities to investigate how and why an irresponsible “Sin Verguenza” at MinAmb took it upon him/herself to deliver such devastating news to the sole proprietor of the Las Cristinas gold mine i.e. the CVG in the name of the Venezuelan people, that caused such massive losses to otherwise supportive investors in Venezuela’s future and the rumored suicides of several people who had put their faith in Venezuela to actually do the decent thing.

QUESTION: How much was the “Sin Verguenza” at the source of all this problem demanding to resolve the issuance of the final Environmental Permit.

QUESTION: How many other “Sin Verguenzas” were involved in the rip-off and what precisely is the Venezuelan government going to do to bring the criminals to book

… or will it traditionally be swept under a convenient carpet to the detriment of all concepts of decency and judicial propriety in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution?

Environment Minister Yubiri Ortega said on Friday evening at the Miraflores Presidential Palace that President Hugo Chavez Frias would himself take the final, final, final decision this coming week.

We wait in expectancy for the President to override his underlings and at the very least to apologize profusely for the criminal actions of his administrational subordinates.

• If he is man enough to do this – and I strongly believe he is capable of such humility – he will do much to restore lost confidence in Venezuela as an object of foreign investment.

If he does NOT … he is immediately instituting a credibility crunch which will send Venezuela back even beyond the 50 years of corrupt pseudo-democracy which preceded him when he came to power in February 1999.

We still choose to have faith in President Hugo Chavez Frias’ good intentions for Venezuela and his people.

...he still faces incredible challenges to deal with indolence and corruption within the ranks of his own administration as well as the concerted efforts of Washington D.C. and the Venezuelan opposition to subvert and overthrow his best intentions.

It is therefore that “this coming week” is the key to determine whether or not Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution is worthy of being described as democratic or whether the “Sin Verguenzas” sickness that infects from within the Chavez administration will prevail.

As one North American investor put it to us this weekend “the world will either see him as useless or a man of great respect and righteous!”

Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com