CHAVEZ CALLS FOR END TO BLACK LISTING: OPPOSITION

C O N F I D E N T I A L CARACAS 001355

SIPDIS


NSC FOR CBARTON
USCINCSO ALSO FOR POLAD

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/25/2014
TAGS: PGOV PHUM VE
SUBJECT: CHAVEZ CALLS FOR END TO BLACK LISTING: OPPOSITION
DOESN'T BUY IT

Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ABELARDO A. ARIAS FOR REASONS 1.4 (d
)

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Summary
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1. (U) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on officials
to stop using the so-called Tascon List to discriminate
against opponents April 15. The list contains the names of
all the Venezuelans who signed petitions calling for the
presidential recall referendum, and has been used by
officials to deny services and employment to many
Venezuelans. Some opponents called the list McCarthyism,
while some officials rebutted accusations alleging that
opponents, too, discriminated against Chavez supporters with
their own lists. Some Chavez opponents threatened to take
the issue to the international courts, while the Attorney
General's Office and the Ombudsman's office promise to
investigate, though with little enthusiasm. End Summary.

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Bury the Tascon List!
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2. (U) Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on officials
to "bury the Luis Tascon list", during a televised cabinet
meeting on April 15. Chavez said he received constant
complaints from people claiming to have been denied jobs
because they appeared on the Tascon list. He said the
"famous list undoubtedly played an important role at one
specific moment, but it has passed." He also called on
governors and mayors to work with small and medium
businessmen, regardless of whether their names appeared on
the list. Miranda Governor Diosdado Cabello told reporters
Chavez's order put in their place those "who think they are
more Chavista then Chavez."

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What List?
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3. (C) The Tascon list came to be in February 2003, when
Movimiento Quinta Republica (MVR) Deputy Luis Tascon put a
search engine on his web-site purportedly to allow people to
see if they were among those who signed petitions calling for
a consultative referendum in November 2002. It was thus
possible for anyone to enter a Venezuelan identity number and
find out if that person had signed the referendum petitions.
Tascon claimed to have gotten the first list by combing the
state National Electoral Council (CNE) offices' information.
After the Supreme Court rejected the consultative referendum,
the NGO Sumate carried out a second signature drive for a
recall referendum. Tascon again put the names on his
web-site. Tascon alleges that he acquired the second list
from a member of Sumate, two weeks before obtaining another
compilation of the signatures through the CNE. Leaders of
Sumate and the opposition deny this, and maintain that the
CNE violated the spirit of the law by giving the names to
Tascon, who was the representative of the pro-Chavez Comando
Maisanta to the CNE. The list of people who signed
eventually became publicly available on CD ROM.

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Discrimination
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4. (C) Reports that government officials were using the
list to discriminate against signers began to surface soon
after Tascon put the search engine on his web site. The
Consular section of the Embassy receive numerous complaints
from visa applicants that they could not get new passports or
ID cards if they had signed. In early 2004 Health Minister
Roger Capella publicly defended the firing public sector
workers who had signed the petitions.


5. (U) Antonio Suarez, President of the United National
Federation of Public Employees told reporters on April 19
that the organization believed 5,000 public employees had
been victims of discrimination as a result of signing the
petitions, and that they had documented 780 cases. 200 of
these people were fired, including 42 by FOGADE (akin to the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.),20 by the Ministry of
Interior and Justice, 11 by the Caracas subway system, and 12


from Hidrocapital (the Caracas water company). Suarez
complained to the Attorney General's Office, the Ombudsman's
Office, the CNE, the Supreme Court, the OAS, and the UNDP in
July 2004, without result. In October 2004, he raised the
issue with a visiting OIT mission. Additionally, since early
2004, there have been purges of judges and prosecutors, and
GOV pressure on private companies to fire workers who appear
on the list to maintain government contracts, including
foreign oil companies.

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Tascon Unapologetic
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6. (C) Tascon aide Fernando Avila admitted to poloff that
the Chavistas would use the lists to vet future applicants
for work in the public administration. Avila later told
poloff that using the list to discriminate against job
applicants was "fascist". Tascon told poloff April 5 that he
had suggested to Chavez that he order GOV officials to stop
using the list. He then announced a national crusade on
April 20 to "persecute the persecutors", and invited people
who felt they had been victims of discrimination to write in
to his web page.

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GOV Confusion
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5. (U) Following Chavez's announcement, on April 19,
Ombudsman German Mundarain admitted his office had received
many complaints about public sector firings, adding that he
"had the conviction that in the private sector, as in the
public" people's rights had been violated. CNE President
Jorge Rodriguez repeated the argument that the opposition had
been equally guilty of firing Chavistas who signed the GOV
sponsored recall campaign against opposition deputies on
April 22. Labor Minister Cristina Iglesias took the argument
one step further on April 28, stating that most of the
complaints her office had received were of opposition
discrimination against GOV supporters. Solicitor General
Marisol Plaza denied that any discrimination had taken place,
calling Chavez's statement a political maneuver to win over
opposition supporters.

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Opposition Strikes Back
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6. (C) The blacklist became a hot public issue on April 5,
when the tabloid "TalCual" began a series of articles
detailing cases of discrimination and comparing the Tascon
list to the McCarthy-era blacklist. At the same time, Ana
Julia Jatar, who is tracking the blacklisting for Sumate,
wrote a column comparing the GOV policy to South African
apartheid. Following Chavez's statement, on April 18,
Venezuelan Workers' Confederation Secretary General Manuel
Cova called on the GOV to prove its sincerity by rehiring the
fired state oil company workers and all other fired public
employees. Others announced they would request the
International Criminal Court try Chavez for crimes against
humanity (unlikely to prosper),while Primero Justicia Deputy
Julio Borges called on the Attorney General to open an
investigation of Tascon on April 22.

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Buried How Deep?
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7. (U) Despite Chavez's call to cease using the Tascon
list, reports of discrimination continued. Caracas daily "El
Nacional" reported that the Supreme Court had withdrawn its
offer to appoint a lawyer as an alternate judge on April 22,
because he had signed the referendum petition. On April 29
"El Universal" reported that 200 teachers had taken over an
educational office in Miranda State, to protest the
harassment of the 10,000 teachers who had signed the
petition.

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Comment
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8. (C) Rather than declining in importance with the passing


of the recall referendum, Tascon's list has become a central
issue. Affecting from 3.5 million to 5 million Venezuelans,
political discrimination based on Tascon's list continues to
exacerbate the political divide. The portrayal of the Tascon
list in right wing terms (black list, apartheid) has put
Chavez in an uncomfortable position. Admitting that the list
has been used to discriminate against his opponents, and
formally calling for an end to the practice may be enough to
ease the consciences of some Chavez supporters, but nobody in
the opposition believes Chavez was sincere, or that the
discrimination will end. In fact, there are reports that
persons vying for government contracts can be stricken from
"the list" by paying a fee.
McFarland


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2005CARACA01355 - CONFIDENTIAL