"Talk of reprisals" in the corridors of Venezuela's Federal Legislative as the National Assembly signs-off on isolated sanctions!

In an article published in Friday's El Universal, reporter Pedro Pablo Penaloza writes that Venezuela's National Asembly (AN) has just ratified a sentence handed down by the AN Comptroller Committee on March 26 finding Governor of Yaracuy State, Carlos Gimenez to be responsible for more than 200 billion bolivares in damage caused to public patrimony.

Penaloza says that the speed with which the case was ratified by the National Assembly is in stark contrast with how the Legislature has dealt with upwards of 50 other cases. In 2007, the Comptroller Commission finalized some 23 investigations and decided to levy political sanctions on 48 officials, including eight mayors ... "but up to now the Committee has not referred these sentences upwards and the Legislature has not yet endorsed any penalties."

According to the El Universal reporter the Legislative Secretariat is "sitting on" incriminating files against General Victor Cruz Weffer (the ex-president of the Agriculture, Fishin and Forestry Development Fund), Allied Workers (Fondafa) executive Colonel Abelardo Fernandez, the ex-Minister of Housing Development Luis Carlos Figueroa and Emil Calles Paz, dean of the Caracas National Experimental University of the National Aremed Forces, among others.

• The Mayor of Bocono, Marcos Ojeda -- who is on a PSUV ticket as candidate for the governorship of Trujillo, also appears on a list of those cited by thew Comptroller Commission during 2007 but the Legislature has not taken the time to initial the official sanction stipulated in Venezuelan Law.

As will be readily understood there is much disquiet amond deputies (representatives) in the National Assembly who complain that the same yardstick is not being applied across the board.

Barinas deputy Wilmer Azuaje revealed that in the corridors of the Federal Legislative there has been "talk of reprisals" against the governor of Yaracuy and that he himself was censured by the Speaker, Cilia Flores, when he used his own speech to criticize members of President Hugo Chavez Frias' family who are accused of corruption. For his part, Yaracuy Governor Gimenez is claiming that he is the victim of a politically motivated vendetta on claims that between 2004 an d 2005 he had issued 15 emergency decrees deemed illegal under the 1999 Constitution.

Meanwhile the debate was interrupted by deputy Pastora Medina who claimed that the Governor of Bolivar State (Francisco Rangel Gomez) had issued no less than 36 questionable emergency decrees for which he has not been censured in any way.

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Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future.

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