CHAVEZ TO U.S.: "GO TO HELL"

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CARACAS 000135 SIPDIS SIPDIS HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD DEPT ALSO FOR AID/OTI (RPORTER) E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/22/2017 TAGS: PREL PGOV ECON VE SUBJECT: CHAVEZ TO U.S.: "GO TO HELL" CARACAS 00000135 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT DOWNES, REASON 1.4 (D) ¶1. (C) Summary. An extremely confident President Chavez resumed his weekly "Alo Presidente" television broadcast January 21 after a four-month campaign/inauguration hiatus. During the nearly six-hour broadcast, Chavez lashed out against a USG expression of concern about a pending Enabling Law, as well as the Secretary's efforts to advance peace in the Middle East. Attacking the USG is a favorite Chavez pastime, but the Venezuelan president had made others, including OAS SecGen Insulza and the Catholic Church, his favorite bogeymen in recent weeks. Chavez also ordered his telecommunication minister to immediately install a BRV-controlled board of directors at CANTV and defer decisions on compensation. He also declared he would raise local prices at the gas pumps by an unspecified amount, the first hike in over eight years. Moreover, Chavez announced plans to dissolve the Caracas mayoralty and convert the capital back into a Federal District, as well as to impose ceilings on government salaries. With each successive speech since the January 8 cabinet ceremony, the Venezuelan president continues to reinforce his untethered determination to advance the "socialist" phase of his "Bolivarian revolution" and to brook no opposition or criticism. End Summary. -------------- He's Ba-a-a-ck -------------- ¶2. (SBU) President Chavez relaunched his televised Sunday talk program "Alo, Presidente" January 21. Chavez, dressed in his open-collar "revolutionary" red sports shirt, dedicated his broadcast to his deceased grandmother. Chavez had dropped the weekly broadcasts in September 2006 when he took to the campaign trail in the run-up to the December 3 presidential election. The Venezuelan president convoked his 27-member cabinet to be part of his studio audience. New Vice President Jorge Rodriguez also traveled to the Amazonian state of Delta Amacuro and participated in the broadcast from there. Consistent with the tradition he established over the previous 262 weekly broadcasts, Chavez made a number of significant announcements over the course of his five hour and fifty-minute telecast from Caracas. He also lashed out against the United States. -------------- Gringos Go Home -------------- ¶3. (U) Responding to Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey's January 19 comment that the Enabling Law that President Chavez has requested is "odd" in a democracy, Chavez said the United States could "go to Hell" (a charitable translation of the vulgar phrase "Vayanse al cipote, gringos"). The National Assembly passed the first draft of the Enabling Law on January 18 and is expected to give it final approval this week. The Enabling Law will give Chavez the authority to issue executive decrees in 10 broad areas for 18 months; the decrees will have the force of law. Noting that he shook hands with HHS Secretary Leavitt and WHA A/S Shannon at Nicaraguan President Ortega's recent inauguration, Chavez reiterated that he hoped bilateral relations would improve, but the USG must "understand what is happening here in Latin America and respect this continent." ¶4. (U) Chavez also used the broadcast to criticize the Secretary's efforts to advance peace in the Middle East, SIPDIS alleging that the U.S. is rying to remove "our brother Bashar al-Asad." Chvez also criticized the hanging of Saddam Hussei and pledged that if the United States wr to invade Venezuela, "we would be on the front lines" fighting to the end. The Venezuelan president subsequently chatted with visiting Syrian Information Minister Dr. Moshen Bilal and Syrian Ambassador Mohammed Khafif on the program. Bilal conveyed President Assad's personal greetings between "companions in the fight against the same enemy" and announced that the Syrian President would visit Venezuela in the second half of 2007. ¶5. (U) Chavez's blasts against the United States came on the heels of the National Assembly's passing of a resolution also attacking the Deputy Spokesman's January 19 comment. The one-page resolution calls his statement "an unacceptable intervention in the internal affairs of our nation." It also CARACAS 00000135 002.2 OF 003 urges the USG to pay more attention to "its own internal affairs, the needs and suffering of the American people and the American soldiers killed because of a genocidal war launched unilaterally by the government against Iraq and in contravention of the United Nations (sic)." The penultimate paragraph of the resolution states, "the only thing really rare in this world is that the government that says it is defending democracy has transformed into one of the horseman of the Apocalypse, of death." -------------- CANTV/Oil -------------- ¶6. (U) Chavez criticized newly named Telecommunications Minister Jessie Chacon for not moving faster with the "nationalization" of CANTV, Venezuela's largest telecommunications firm, in which Verizon is a 28 percent owner. He ordered Chacon to install a BRV-governed board of directors, asserting that investors were practically "given" shares of CANTV when privatized in the 1990's. He told Chacon not to buy into "that old story" that the Venezuelan government has to pay the fair international market value to expropriate CANTV, and that investors would be compensated when the BRV decided. "This is an order," Chavez told Chacon, "you have to act." ¶7. (SBU) The Venezuelan President also announced during the broadcast plans to increase the price of gasoline sold in Venezuela (currently at less than 20 cents a gallon). He asked Energy and Petroleum Minister Rafael Ramirez to implement an unspecified increase in such a way that it not affect inflation or the price of transporting food (sic). Chavez asserted that cheap gas prices primarily benefit wealthy persons "who fill up their BMW's" and not most citizens who ride buses or take the Caracas subway. Chavez has never raised local gas prices during his first eight years in power. One commentator said the price hike may just be a subterfuge, which he will use to distract public attention from other changes, but not implement. -------------- Redistricting/RCTV -------------- ¶8. (U) Chavez also announced his intention to dissolve the capital mayorship of Caracas and to convert the Venezuelan capital back into a Federal District. Referring to Juan Barreto, the Metropolitan Mayor and a hard-line Chavez supporter, Chavez said, "Juan, you are dissolved." Two prominent opposition politicians are also mayors of two of Caracas' five boroughs, so converting the current structure would presumably eliminate their job. Picking up on comments he made about excessive government salaries during his inauguration and state-of-the-union addresses, the Venezuelan President said he intends to approve salary caps. If any senior government officials disagree with this proposal, Chavez said, they should resign. ¶9. (SBU) The Venezuelan president yet again reaffirmed his intention to close the independent broadcast station RCTV. Counting the months until the May on his fingers until the BR's "non-renewal" of the broadcaster's license, Chaez urged Telecommunications Minister Chacon to "speed up the process." Chavez dismissed RCTV (and others') criticism that he has become a "tyrant," and huffed that RCTV "is finished." -------------- Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) Chavez's first "Alo Presidente" broadcast in some four months both reflected and reinforced the Venezuelan President's firm determination to accelerate his plans to institute "Socialism in the 21st Century." His new Vice President Jorge Rodriguez is readily amplifying and implementing the instructions Chavez has given him to move forward with executive decrees. In addition, Chavez and Rodriguez continue to try to accelerate separate, but simultaneous, efforts to make significant changes to the 1999 constitution and form a United Socialist Party of Venezuela. ¶11. (C) In the wake of his re-election and in control of all branches of government, an extremely confident Chavez appears to believe he can now take draconian "revolutionary" measures CARACAS 00000135 003.2 OF 003 without paying a political price. He stands determined to move ahead even though a number of his proposed measures are going to have a negative impact on core supporters. Massively subsidized domestic gasoline prices have traditionally been the third rail in domestic politics, but Chavez is now proposing his first price hike. The 25% price hike in local gas prices in 1989 was the spark that caused major riots, looting, and deaths in Caracas (the "Caracazo"). According to Chavista lore, this was the precipitating event for Chavez' unsuccessful 1992 coup. Moreover, numerous loyal Chavistas would be adversely affected by government salary caps and redistricting, but Chavez' merely is telling them up front "that they can leave." ¶12. (C) After leveling personal insults against OAS Secretary General Insulza and Catholic Church leaders during his January 8 cabinet ceremony and January 10 inauguration speeches, Chavez has also returned to his favorite bogeyman: the United States. The vehemence of Chavez' and the National Assembly's response to the Deputy Spokesman's comment on the Enabling Law is consistent with Chavez' increasingly thin-skinned and hot-headed response to any criticism, no matter from whom it emanates. BROWNFIELD