Chavez Down, Not Out
by John R. Thomson *
It has not been a happy few weeks for Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez. First, he was roundly chastised by the King of Spain in front of his Latin American peers and, later, the world. A few days later, the red-shirted dictator was dealt a major verbal blow by his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe.

Then, most embarrassing of all, his countrymen defeated Chavez' proposed constitutional changes, which he had assured one and all, would be overwhelmingly approved. And the defeat was not by the purported slimmest of margins, 50.7 percent, as announced by Venezuela's electoral commission: highly reliable sources put the opposition's majority at 53, perhaps as high as 55, percent. Of course, we will never know the actual vote, as the commission has the ability to change the automatic voting machine tallies at will.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela George Landau notes, "Venezuelans, even the poor, do not want a Cuban-Communist regime. What killed Chavez were the abstentions of his own people … unhappy that, while they live in misery, Chavez subsidizes vast parts of the world, even including the Bronx…. Food shortages were a big reason for massive abstentions. Student involvement was a major factor that goes back to Chavez closing the popular RC-TV, his biggest mistake so far because people realized he was an absolute dictator."

And there were numerous other reasons, not the least the turning against Chavez of longtime ally and former Defense Minister Raul Baduel. Capping his personal campaign to vote "No", Baduel essentially told Venezuelans the day before the referendum to defeat the referendum and his former army colleagues to let the results stand. Among other once close Chavez confidants, it was even reported his hand-picked President of the Supreme Court, Luisa Estella Morales Lamuño, voted "No".

Although Hugo Chavez controlled virtually all government forces, much of the media remained opposed, as did the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Perhaps most telling, Chavez lost the support of much of his longtime power base, the poor. Some 44% abstained, a sharp reversal from 2006 when he gained a crushing re-election victory.

Indeed, one former senior government official cited "the unusual and undocumented growth of the official voting roles during the last few years, which increased from less than 11 million voters to more than 16 million … and this still couldn't save the day.

"With scarcity of basic staple products like milk, eggs and rice, plus a rising personal insecurity crisis, citizens felt abandoned by a government which has not fulfilled its promises, even more unacceptable when the country is earning the highest petroleum income ever.

"Venezuelans had enough moral reserves to reject a totalitarian proposal intended to convert the country into yet another socialist fiasco," he concluded. "The Chavez revolution has been fatally trapped in its own rhetoric."

In less than three weeks, three stinging reversals, but unfortunately, the contest in question is not baseball, Venezuela's favorite sport. It is deadly serious politics -- not only domestic, but regional – and Hugo Chavez cannot be counted out.

The former army colonel is a survivor. In the 1992 failed coup attempt, he was the only one of six rebel officers who failed to obtain his objective [instead of capturing Miraflores, the presidential palace, Chavez took shelter in a nearby military museum during the fighting] leading to the coup's failure. Nevertheless, following capture and conviction, he received a pardon and was free to mount his successful 1998 bid for the presidency.

Chavez has committed to effect the changes he needs to achieve one man rule and dictate as long as he wishes; moreover, he remains fully committed to strengthen and extend his Bolivarian Revolution throughout Latin America.

With five countries – Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela – effectively within his orbit, the next targets are Peru and Colombia. Fortunately, Peru has been supported by the recently approved free trade agreement with the United States.

Colombia is more gravely threatened for two reasons: proximity to Venezuela and Congressional opposition to its own free trade pact. Bowing to opposition by the AFL-CIO, purportedly because of "human rights concerns", Democratic congressional leadership has so far refused to schedule a vote for the agreement, playing directly into Chavez' and Colombian leftists' claims that Washington is no friend of Colombia.

Almost since coming to power, Chavez has curried relations with FARC, the murderous Colombian communist guerilla and narcotics trafficking organization. FARC troops maintain bases in the Venezuelan jungle bordering Colombia and their leaders have safe haven homes in Caracas [FARC "Foreign Minister" Rodrigo Granda carries Venezuelan identification and is a registered voter].

Chavez functionaries have developed a plan to give some two million permanent resident visas to Colombian illegal immigrants in return for voting their way in 2010, and Venezuelan medical vans, manned by Cuban doctors, offer free care to Colombians across the border.

In addition, the would-be Venezuelan president-for-life has close relations with leaders of Colombia's far left Polo Democratico party, which finished second in last year's presidential elections and in October elected it second successive mayor of the country's capital, Bogota.

Chavez has boasted of spending as much five billion dollars – more if necessary – to have his favored candidate win Colombian presidential elections in 2010, and everything suggests that between his FARC and Polo Democratico allies he has a powerful supporting infrastructure.

President Alvao Uribe has waged an all-out war on narcotics and terrorism – even sending specialist army troops to aid in Afghanistan's war on drugs – ranking his government as the United States' closest Latin American ally. Failure to approve the U.S.-Colombian free trade agreement will hurt democracy gravely, not just in Colombia but throughout the entire region.

Hugo Chavez has declared war, but not between imperialism and revolution, as he claims. The fight is between democracy and autocracy, between civil liberty and militarism, between the free market and socialism.

The people of Venezuela clearly understood and rejected the Chavez alternative on December 2. It is up to freedom's friends to do everything possible to roll his Bolivarian Revolution into the dustbin of history.

* John R. Thomson is an international businessman and former diplomat and writes frequently on developing world issues. He welcomes comments at Thomson.john.r@gmail.com

Source: Washington Times

12/06/2007
Philosopher, poet and friend
Jürgen Habermas writes an obiturary for American philosopher Richard Rorty
The American philosopher Richard Rorty passed away on Friday. Rorty, whose work ranges over an unusually broad intellectual terrain, was the author of many works, including "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979), "Consequences of Pragmatism" (1982), and "Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity" (1989).

I received the news in an email almost exactly a year ago. As so often in recent years, Rorty voiced his resignation at the "war president" Bush, whose policies deeply aggrieved him, the patriot who had always sought to "achieve" his country. After three or four paragraphs of sarcastic analysis came the unexpected sentence: " Alas, I have come down with the same disease that killed Derrida." As if to attenuate es much to the unforgettable rhetorical skill and flawless prose of a writer who was always ready to shock readers with unaccustomed strategies of representation, unexpected oppositional concepts and new vocabularies - one of Rorty's favourite terms. Rorty's talent as an essayist spanned the range from Friedrich Schlegel to Surrealism.

The irony and passion, the playful and polemical tone of an intellectual who revolutionised our modes of thinking and influenced people throughout the world point to a robust temperament. But this impression doesn't do justice to the gentle nature of a man who was often shy and withdrawn - and always sensitive to others.

One small autobiographical piece by Rorty bears the title 'Wild Orchids and Trotsky.' In it, Rorty describes how as a youth he ambled around the blooming hillside in north-west New Jersey, and breathed in the stunning odour of the orchids. Around the same time he discovered a fascinating book at the home of his leftist parents, defending Leon Trotsky against Stalin. This was the origin of the vision that the young Rorty took with him to college: philosophy is there to reconcile the celestial beauty of orchids with Trotsky's dream of justice on earth. Nothing is sacred to Rorty the ironist. Asked at the end of his life about the "holy", the strict atheist answered with words reminiscent of the young Hegel: "My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law."

*

The article originally appeared in German in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on June 11, 2007.

Jürgen Habermas, born in 1929, is one of Germany's foremost intellectual figures. A philosopher and sociologist, he is professor emeritus at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and the leading representative of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. His works include "Legitimation Crisis", "Knowledge and Human Interests", "Theory of Communicative Action" and "The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity."

Translation: jab.
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How to Lose an Ally
By Robert Novak


Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe returned to Bogota this week in a state of
shock. His three-day visit to Capitol Hill in Washington to win over
Democrats in Congress was described by one American supporter as
"catastrophic." Colombian sources said Uribe was stunned by the ferocity of
his Democratic opponents, and Vice President Francisco Santos publicly
talked about cutting U.S.-Colombian ties.

Uribe got nothing from his meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other
Democratic leaders. Military aid remains stalled, overall assistance is
reduced, and the vital U.S.-Colombian trade bill looks dead. The first
Colombian president to crack down on his country's corrupt army officer
hierarchy, and to assault both right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing
guerrillas, last week confronted Democrats wedded to out-of-date claims of
civil rights abuses and to rigidly protectionist dogma.

This is remarkable U.S. treatment for a rare friend on the South American
continent, where Venezuela's leftist dictator Hugo Chavez can only exult in
Uribe's embarrassment as he builds an anti-American bloc of nations. A
former congressional staffer, who in 1999 helped author Plan Colombia
against narco-guerrillas, told me: "President Uribe may be the odd man out,
and that's no way to treat our best ally in South America."

Uribe has not given up on the Yankees. When he returned to Colombia, he
issued boilerplate about his visit being "very important in opening a
dialogue with American leaders." This week he publicly urged the sluggish
army to "rescue the hostages" held by narco-guerrillas and "go after the
ringleaders," while privately chewing out the generals for inactivity. At
the same time, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, whose Foreign
Service career includes Latin American duty, was in Bogota Tuesday insisting
that the United States remains a great friend of Colombia.

A truer portent of the Colombian reaction to the rebuff in Washington last
week was Vice President Santos's television interview Tuesday. Santos, a
University of Texas graduate and former editor of the influential El Tiempo
newspaper, said failure to ratify the free-trade agreement would "send a
message to the external enemies of the United States" (meaning Venezuela's
Chavez) that "this is how America treats its allies." He added that Colombia
might "have to re-evaluate its relationship with the United States." A U.S.
diplomat called that "a cream pie in the face" of the visiting Negroponte.

Hopes that the Democratic majority in Congress might perceive the importance
of supporting Colombia were dashed April 20 when Al Gore canceled a joint
appearance with Uribe at an environmental event in Miami. Gore cited
allegations of Uribe's association with paramilitary forces a decade ago,
charges denied by the Colombian president.

Gore's snub legitimized what the new congressional majority is intent on
doing anyway. Democrats follow both left-wing human rights lobbyists and
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's protectionist campaign against the
Colombian free-trade agreement. Rep. Sander Levin, chairman of the Ways and
Means subcommittee on trade, as usual echoes labor's line against the bill.

In the wake of Uribe's visit to Washington, two prominent House Republicans
-- former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ranking
minority member of the Foreign Affairs Committee -- made a quick trip to
Colombia. Visiting there for the first time in many years, they were struck
by the progress. They met with Colombian national police who had just
returned from Afghanistan, where they advised NATO forces in techniques for
dealing with narco-terrorists.

Democrats in Congress seem oblivious to such help or such progress. Sen.
Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee dealing with
foreign aid, last month held up $55.2 million in military aid to Colombia
because of "human rights" concerns. While Pelosi and her colleagues could
not find a kind word for Uribe, Leahy insisted that he "supports" the
Colombian president. As Lenin once put it, he supports him as a rope
supports a hanged man.

President George W. Bush at least gave lip service to Uribe last week, but
his concentration is on Iraq as the U.S. position in its own backyard
deteriorates. Passivity is the best description of the administration's
posture, while Democrats follow human rights activists, environmentalists
and labor leaders on the road to losing an important ally.

CARTA DE FERNANDO VALLEJO

"A México llegué el 25 de febrero de 1971, vale decir hace 36 años largos, más de la mitad de mi vida, a los que hay que sumarles un año que viví antes en Nueva York. ¿Y por qué no estaba en Colombia durante todo ese tiempo? Porque Colombia me cerró las puertas para que me ganara la vida de una forma decente que no fuera en el gobierno ni en la política a los que desprecio y me puso a dormir en la calle tapándome con periódicos y junto a los desarrapados de la Carrera Séptima y a los perros abandonados, que desde entonces considero mis hermanos. Me fui a Nueva York a tratar de hacer cine, que es lo que había estudiado, y de allá me vine a México y en pocos años conseguí que Conacite 2, una de las tres compañías cinematográficas del Estado mexicano, me financiara mi primera película, Crónica Roja, de tema colombiano. Entonces regresé a Bogotá a tratar de filmarla con el dinero mexicano.

¡Imposible! Ahí estaba el Incomex para impedirme importar el negativo y los equipos; la Dirección de Tránsito para no darme los permisos que necesitaba para filmar en las calles; el Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores para no darme las visas de los técnicos que tenía que traer de México; la Policía para no darme su protección durante el rodaje y el permiso de que mis actores usaran uniformes como los suyos y pistolas de utilería pues había policías en mi historia...

Y así, un largo etcétera de cuando menos veinte dependencias burocráticas con que tuve que tratar y que lo más que me dieron fue un tinto después de ponerme a hacer antesalas durante horas.

Entonces resolví filmarla en México reconstruyendo a Colombia. En Jalapa, la capital del Estado de Veracruz, por ejemplo, encontré calles que se parecían a las de los barrios de Belén y de la Candelaria de Bogotá y allí filmé algunas secuencias. Con actores y técnicos mexicanos, con dinero mexicano e infinidad de tropiezos, logré hacer en México mi película colombiana a la que Colombia se oponía, soñando que la iban a ver mis paisanos en los teatros colombianos.

¿Saben entonces qué pasó? Que mi mezquina patria la prohibió aduciendo que era una apología al delito. Una apología al delito que se basaba en hechos reales que en su momento la opinión pública conoció y que salió en todos los periódicos, la del final de los dos hermanos Barragán, unos muchachitos a los que la policía masacró en un barrio del sur de Bogotá.

A cuantas instancias burocráticas apelé, empezando por la Junta de Censura y acabando en el Consejo de Estado, la prohibieron. Nadie en Colombia, ni una sola persona, levantó su voz para protestar por el atropello, que no era sólo a mí sino al sueño de todos los cineastas colombianos, quienes por lo demás, sea dicho de paso, también guardaron silencio.

Como yo soy muy terco volví a repetir el intento con mi segunda película colombiana, En la tormenta, sobre el enfrentamiento criminal entre conservadores y liberales en el campo cuando la época llamada de la Violencia con mayúscula, y con igual resultado: no me la dejaron filmar, la tuve que hacer en México y me la prohibieron, aduciendo que el momento era muy delicado para permitir una película así.

Como yo sólo quería hacer cine colombiano y no mexicano, ni italiano, ni japonés, ni marciano, desistí del intento. En alguno de mis libros, aunque ya no me acuerdo en cuál, conté todo esto pero con más detalle: los camiones de escalera y los pueblitos colombianos que tuve que construir, los platanares y cafetales que tuve que sembrar en las afueras de la Ciudad de México, los ríos quietos como el Papaloapan que tuve que mover para que arrastraran los cadáveres de los asesinados con la ira del río Cauca, la utilería que tuve que mandar a hacer o traer de Colombia a México, como las placas de los carros y las botellas de cerveza... Nunca acabaría de contar esas cosas.

Lo resumo en una sola frase: Colombia, la mala patria que me cupo en suerte, acabó con mis sueños de cineasta.

Entonces me puse a escribir y durante diez años investigué, día tras día tras día, en un país o en otro o en otro, en bibliotecas y hemerotecas de muchos lados, sobre la vida de Barba Jacob, mi paisano, el poeta de Antioquia, que durante tantos años vivió en México y que aquí murió, y acabada mi investigación de diez años en uno más la escribí y me puse a buscar quién la editara.

Se acercaba el año 1983, el del centenario del nacimiento de Barba Jacob, y el Congreso colombiano se interesaba en ello. No creían lo que yo les contaba del poeta ni los años que llevaba siguiéndole sus huellas. Me pidieron que les mandara pruebas y les mandé entonces fotos e infinidad de documentos. Nada de eso me devolvieron, con todo se quedaron y el libro lo pensaban publicar en mimeógrafo. Les contesté que eso no sólo no era digno de Barba Jacob, un gran poeta, sino de ellos mismos, unos aprovechadores públicos que se designaban como el Honorable Congreso de la República. Que se respetaran.

Entonces publiqué mi biografía Barba Jacob el mensajero en México con dinero de amigos mexicanos. Cuantas veces me ha podido atropellar Colombia me ha atropellado. Hace un año me quería meter preso por un artículo que escribí en la revista Soho señalando las contradicciones y las ridiculeces de los Evangelios.

Eso dizque era un agravio a la religión y me demandaron. ¡Agravios a la religión en el país de la impunidad! En que los asesinos y genocidas andan libres por las calles, como es el caso de los paramilitares, con la bendición de su cómplice el sinvergüenza de Álvaro Uribe que han reelegido en la Presidencia.

Desde niño sabía que Colombia era un país asesino, el más asesino de la tierra, encabezando año tras año, imbatible, las estadísticas de la infamia.

Después, por experiencia propia, fui entendiendo que además de asesino era atropellador y mezquino. Y cuando reeligieron a Uribe descubrí que era un país imbécil.

Entonces solicité mi nacionalización en México, que me dieron la semana pasada. Así que quede claro: esa mala patria de Colombia ya no es la mía y no quiero volver a saber de ella.

Lo que me reste de vida lo quiero vivir en México y aquí me pienso morir".

washigton post
Assault on an Ally
Why are Democrats so 'deeply troubled' by Colombia's Álvaro Uribe?

Sunday, May 6, 2007; Page B06

COLOMBIAN President Álvaro Uribe may be the most popular democratic leader in the world. Last week, as he visited Washington, a poll showed his approval rating at 80.4 percent -- extraordinary for a politician who has been in office nearly five years. Colombians can easily explain this: Since his first election in 2002, Mr. Uribe has rescued their country from near-failed-state status, doubling the size of the army and extending the government's control to large areas that for decades were ruled by guerrillas and drug traffickers. The murder rate has dropped by nearly half and kidnappings by 75 percent. For the first time thugs guilty of massacres and other human rights crimes are being brought to justice, and the political system is being purged of their allies. With more secure conditions for investment, the free-market economy is booming.

In a region where populist demagogues are on the offensive, Mr. Uribe stands out as a defender of liberal democracy, not to mention a staunch ally of the United States. So it was remarkable to see the treatment that the Colombian president received in Washington. After a meeting with the Democratic congressional leadership, Mr. Uribe was publicly scolded by House Majority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whose statement made no mention of the "friendship" she recently offered Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. Human Rights Watch, which has joined the Democratic campaign against Mr. Uribe, claimed that "today Colombia presents the worst human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere" -- never mind Venezuela or Cuba or Haiti. Former vice president Al Gore, who has advocated direct U.S. negotiations with the regimes of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, recently canceled a meeting with Mr. Uribe because, Mr. Gore said, he found the Colombian's record "deeply troubling."

What could explain this backlash? Democrats claim to be concerned -- far more so than Colombians, apparently -- with "revelations" that the influence of right-wing paramilitary groups extended deep into the military and Congress. In fact this has been well-known for years; what's new is that investigations by Colombia's Supreme Court and attorney general have resulted in the jailing and prosecution of politicians and security officials. Many of those implicated come from Mr. Uribe's Conservative Party, and his former intelligence chief is under investigation. But the president himself has not been charged with wrongdoing. On the contrary: His initiative to demobilize 30,000 right-wing paramilitary fighters last year paved the way for the current investigations, which he and his government have supported and funded.

In fact, most of those who attack Mr. Uribe for the "parapolitics" affair have opposed him all along, and for very different reasons. Some, like Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), reflexively resist U.S. military aid to Latin America. Colombia has received more than $5 billion in economic and military aid from the Clinton and Bush administrations to fight drug traffickers and the guerrillas, and it hopes to receive $3.9 billion more in the next six years. Some, like Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), are eager to torpedo Colombia's pending free-trade agreement with the United States. Now that the Bush administration has conceded almost everything that House Democrats asked for in order to pass pending trade deals, protectionist hard-liners have seized on the supposed human rights "crisis" as a pretext to blackball Colombia.

Perhaps Mr. Uribe is being punished by Democrats, too, because he has remained an ally of George W. Bush even as his neighbor, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, portrays the U.S. president as "the devil." Whatever the reasons, the Democratic campaign is badly misguided. If the Democrats succeed in wounding Mr. Uribe or thwarting his attempt to consolidate a democracy that builds its economy through free trade, the United States may have to live without any Latin American allies.

Entrevista al Canciller Fernando Araujo

Entrevista al Canciller Fernando Araujo

ENTREVISTA AL CANCILLER FERNANDO ARAÚJO PERDOMO EN RADIO SUPER

Bogotá, 6 mar (MRE). El Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores, Fernando Araújo Perdomo, estuvo en La hora de la verdad, programa de Radio Super.

Radio Super, Fernando Londoño: Paloma Valencia quiere hacerle una pregunta, con su venia Canciller.

Paloma Valencia: Señor Canciller, si hay algo en lo que los colombianos nos regocijamos con su nombramiento, es el hecho de que la cara internacional de Colombia sea una persona que ha sufrido el flagelo del secuestro, que en mi opinión es el mayor mal que tiene esta sociedad, y en ese sentido le sorprende a uno que las familias de los secuestrados vayan a la comunidad internacional es a ponerle trabas al Gobierno, en vez de exigir que la guerrilla suspenda los actos de secuestro, irreductiblemente en el país. ¿Qué va a hacer usted en el tema del secuestro y cuáles son los planes de la Cancillería en este tema?

Canciller Fernando Araújo Perdomo: Yo les he venido insistiendo a los familiares de los secuestrados en la importancia de tener total y absoluta claridad de la responsabilidad política del secuestro. Ha habido un mensaje equívoco ante la comunidad nacional e internacional, en el sentido de trasladar la responsabilidad del secuestro al Gobierno, descargándola de las Farc. En la medida en que esa actitud se mantenga, las Farc van a pensar que están manteniendo un beneficio político del secuestro y van a poner todo tipo de trabas para que se den los acuerdos que permitan el regreso de los secuestrados a sus hogares.

He sostenido, que la política correcta es señalar claramente la responsabilidad de las Farc frente al tema del secuestro y exigirles de inmediato la liberación de todos los secuestrados, sin ningún tipo de contraprestación.

En la medida en que los familiares de los secuestrados, la ciudadanía, la sociedad civil, la comunidad internacional, señalemos claramente esa responsabilidad de las Farc, en esa medida vamos a lograr que las Farc comiencen a pagar un costo político y realmente sea insostenible para ellos mantener el negocio del secuestro y mantener la explotación política del secuestro como un tema principalísimo de su agenda.

ACHIEVING SUSTAINABILITY IN BOGOTÁ-COLOMBIA
THROUGH CIVIC CULTURE

This article presents the pedagogical strategy of change that the past city’s Mayors used in Bogotá to achieve a more sustainable city. Bogotá is a complex city: has more than seven million inhabitants that were not committed or interested in the city issues, financial resources are scare and always insufficient to solve the principal problems; local authorities were considered not reliable or accountable and citizens and industries did not obey the law. These barriers acted against any possibility of achieving sustainability, therefore the first step of the city was an strategy that reinforce local authorities, create breaking point situations, which interrupted the inertial movement of the citizens and the city; and establish and rebuild civic culture. These strategies helped sustainability. The paper presents the campaign to save water, the carrot party to reduce car accidents, traffic reduction that includes: Transmilenio (new public transportation system), clycloways (streets on Sunday are for pedestrians and bikes), bikeways, peak and plaque (restriction of car using by hours and plaque numbers), free car day and better walkways for pedestrians. It also addresses the way in which theater and mimes were use to change the behavior of pedestrians and drivers. All these cases show that the pedagogical effort to change behaviors were crucial to build a more sustainable city, that could change the way citizens related with the city. However, the effort is experimenting some failures because the lack of continuity of the cities new administration.

Otro Drácula que está en la búsqueda de más dinero


Chávez ayudó a Kirchner comprando $4,7 millardos en bonos (Reuters)




TRADUCCIÓN: SERVIO VILORIA, Publicado en El Universal, 12 de agosto de 2007

THE ECONOMIST

Las perspectivas económicas de Argentina parecen un tanto difíciles para el presidente Néstor Kirchner. El racionamiento de gas y electricidad es rutinario. Los inversionistas ya no confían en las cifras de la inflación y los mercados son presa del nerviosismo. Mientras que el rendimiento de los bonos brasileños subió 53 centésimas de un punto porcentual entre el 6 de julio y el 6 de agosto, el de los papeles argentinos aumentó 166 puntos.

No obstante, Kirchner parece tener un salvador, su homólogo venezolano Hugo Chávez, cuyo gobierno maneja petróleo y dinero de sobra. En su más reciente visita a Buenos Aires, Chávez ofreció comprar $500 millones en bonos (y otro tanto posteriormente). "Siempre ha estado allí cuando lo hemos necesitado", declaró Alberto Fernández, jefe de Gabinete del gobierno de Kirchner.

Esta relación es indignante para los argentinos que creen que su país se beneficiaría más si estrechara vínculos con EEUU y Europa, y para los venezolanos que ven cómo despilfarran su dinero. Sin embargo, esta alianza no es lo que parece: Kirchner obtiene ventajas políticas y el gobierno de Venezuela ganancias.

Todo comenzó hace más de tres años, cuando los dos países suscribieron un acuerdo mediante el cual Pdvsa se comprometía a venderle fuel oil a Argentina. Las ganancias, que hasta la fecha suman $560 millones, son depositadas en un fondo de inversiones que Venezuela utiliza para venderle productos derivados al Gobierno argentino. Después que Argentina decidió diversificar sus fuentes de financiamiento tras incumplir con el pago de su deuda en 2001, Chávez salió al rescate: le compró $4,7 millardos de dólares. Gracias a esta ayuda, "Argentina se está liberando de Drácula, está rompiendo las cadenas (que lo atan) al FMI", dijo Chávez.

Sin embargo, Chávez también hizo su agosto. Los bonos que acaba de comprar generan un interés de casi 11%. El Gobierno los vende a un precio con descuento a un grupo de bancos favorecidos. Además, Argentina ha pagado cerca de 20% más por el fuel oil que le compra a Pdvsa. Entretanto, el fondo de Pdvsa ha adjudicado jugosos contratos sin licitación a empresas argentinas bien conectadas.

La conspicua alianza no ha hecho nada para tranquilizar a los inversionistas extranjeros que son necesarios.