1001 STEPS TO OBTAINING A BOLIVARIAN DOCUMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CARACAS 001017

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
FOR FRC LAMBERT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/07/2026
TAGS: PGOV VE
SUBJECT: 1001 STEPS TO OBTAINING A BOLIVARIAN DOCUMENT


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Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT R. DOWNES FOR 1.4
(D)

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Summary
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1. (C) Poloff spent days battling Venezuelan bureaucracy
to obtain a Venezuelan birth certificate for his child.
The inefficient and Byzantine processes encountered by
poloff plague Venezuelan government operations and have
become an accepted element of Venezuelan society. Red tape
drives wealthy Venezuelans to hire proxies to pay bribes,
stand in line, and run errands for them. Venezuela's
culture of procedure predates President Hugo Chavez. The
public's low expectations for societal efficiency help
explain why Chavez remains in power.

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Books for the Document for the Document
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2. (U) In order to obtain a Venezuelan birth certificate
for his newborn daughter, poloff spent days battling
Venezuelan bureaucracy. Poloff received one birth
certificate upon leaving the hospital. Informed that he
needed an official Venezuelan government document to obtain
a U.S. Consular Report of Birth Abroad, poloff first took
two trips across town to have a public interpreter
translate and notarize his wedding license, a Venezuelan
requirement for foreigners. Next, poloff went to the mayor
of metropolitan Caracas' registry office soon after the
building opened. After waiting over two hours, officials
began receiving the public. "Your child has not been
introduced," said an official. Asked where to "introduce"
the child, the official brushed off poloff to receive the
next customer. "The books are not here today," a more
helpful official explained. "Come back at the end of the
month before 7:00 AM."

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Sound Advice: Cheat, or Wait All Day
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3. (U) Checking with Venezuelan contacts, poloff tried to
get to the bottom of how he went wrong. The Venezuelans
advised poloff to try another office. One offered to
provide poloff false documentation that would get him in an
office run by anti-Chavez officials. Nonetheless, poloff
decided to try the first office again, as he had since
become familiar with its rules, which did not require his
baby to appear in person.


4. (U) Poloff returned weeks later to the office at 6:50
AM for what would become an over three and a half hour
process. There were only five people waiting in front of
him. When the office opened at 7:00 AM, officials told the
customers to sit against the wall outside in order of
arrival. Later, a guard warned the customers to make sure
they signed up on a list in order of arrival, as well, or
they would not be served. Workers began milling onto the
grounds about an hour later, and eventually an official
came by with the list, on which customers wrote their names
and their time of arrival. (Note: requesting the time of
arrival was clearly not for quality-control purposes.)
Next, another official came by to check the customers'
documentation. This official sent poloff to make copies of
his passport at a neighborhood store. Poloff protested to
no avail that he had the Venezuelan documentation required
by the posted rules. Returning with his copies, poloff
began waiting outside with the other customers for

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officials inside to call his name. Although the process
seemed interminable, none of the other customers--some of
whom appeared to be well dressed professionals--complained
or appeared the least bit put out.

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Human Photocopiers
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5. (U) After the customer arriving after him went inside,
poloff realized he had missed his name-calling. Because
poloff had been listening right by the door, the officials
must have either omitted him or, more likely, pronounced
his Anglo-sounding name unintelligibly. The obliging
officials quickly reestablished poloff's place in line.
Next, poloff sat down at an elementary school-sized desk
and chairs with two red-clad youths in charge of "the
books." "The books" were two huge tomes containing lined
pages, each stamped with a Venezuelan government seal. The
youths copied by hand the vital, professional, and contact
information of poloff, his spouse, and his child into the
books, making two identical copies that filled a page.
When they made a mistake, they would rub furiously at their
penmarks with an eraser, nearly putting holes in the
paper. Once finished, they directed poloff to find two
witnesses from outside, both of whom would sign and copy
their names and identification numbers into each book. One
of the youths then wrote poloff a receipt and directed him
upstairs.

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Let's Start All Over
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6. (U) At the next station, an official copied the same
information required downstairs into a computer. (Note:
another emboff reports he was sent down the street to buy
the registry office more paper at this stage of the
process.) Two of the officials and one customer discussed
whether to use the number from poloff's diplomatic carnet
or his passport. Poloff's assertion that he did not care
which number they used did not speed up the process. Just
as they were sending for the youths downstairs to rewrite
"the books" using the passport number, they seized on the
carnet as the appropriate identification upon seeing its
number on poloff's hospital birth certificate. Poloff did
not disabuse them of their discovery of the official
solution by mentioning he had entered the number onto the
hospital certificate himself. One of the officials then
printed out a certificate and asked poloff to check it for
errors. Once assured it was fine, the official told poloff
to come back in four days between 1:30 and 4:00 to pick up
a copy signed by his boss.

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The Home Stretch
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7. (U) Poloff returned to the office, this time empty of
customers, at the scheduled time and date. He settled down
with his newspaper for a long wait. One of the red youths
scrubbing earnestly at a book with an eraser got up after a
few minutes and handed poloff his signed and stamped
certificate. "Have a nice day, amigo," he said.

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Comment
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8. (C) Poloff never felt like a victim of anti-American
discrimination. Rather, the process was an example of the

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cumbersome bureaucracy that has plagued Venezuela since
well before the rise of President Hugo Chavez. The way
official procedure governs Venezuelan society is apparent
even to visitors. Leaving the country from Caracas'
international airport at Maiquetia requires passing through
up to 12 checkpoints, at which listless officials review
passports and ask travelers to present their tickets for
the ubiquitous rubber stamp that seems to make local
transactions official. Because Venezuela lacks a postal
system and credit cards are not widely accepted, paying
bills or making reservations in most hotels requires
standing in line to make a deposit in businesses' bank
accounts. Over the years, the country has developed novel
ways of dealing with hassles instead of eliminating them.
The country even has its own lexicon for handling
bureaucracy. In Venezuelan parlance, a "gestor" is a
person hired to stand in line, to battle administrative
procedures, and to expedite paperwork by paying bribes.
Rich Venezuelans hire "motorizados," or youths on
motorcycles, to thread through traffic shuttling papers and
requesting rubber stamps for their completed tasks. More
than explaining life under the current administration,
poloff's experience fighting red tape sheds light on why
the Bolivarian President has such staying power. Venezuela
has become a nation of people with low expectations.


BROWNFIELD