NATIONAL ASSEMBLY APPOINTS LOYALISTS AS NEW HUMAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CARACAS 002367

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HQSOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
DEPT PASS TO AID/OTI RPORTER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/18/2017
TAGS: PHUM PGOV VE
SUBJECT: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY APPOINTS LOYALISTS AS NEW HUMAN
RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN, ATTORNEY GENERAL, COMPTROLLER

REF: CARACAS 02269

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


1. (C) Summary. The National Assembly (NA) appointed new
members to the "Public Power" branch of government on
December 13. Gabriela Ramirez will serve as Human Rights
Ombudsman, Luisa Ortega Diaz as Attorney General, and
Clobosbaldo Russian will serve a second seven-year term as
Comptroller. Opposition political party Un Nuevo Tiempo
(UNT) and the judicial NGO Foro Penal plan to appeal the NA's
appointments, citing irregularities in the selection process.
Other human rights organizations including PROVEA and the
Venezuelan Prison Observatory (OVP) also criticized the
process, but announced their intention to work with the
appointed officials. Ramirez, Ortega, and Russian are widely
considered to be loyal, partisan supporters of President
Chavez. End Summary.

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Loyalists Make Up Moral Council
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2. (SBU) The National Assembly (NA) appointed new members to
the "Public Power" branch of government, also known as the
Moral Republican Council (CMR),for seven-year terms on
December 13. Gabriela Ramirez will serve as Human Rights
Ombudsman, Luisa Ortega Diaz as Attorney General, and
Clobosbaldo Russian will serve a second term as Comptroller.
A selection committee submitted the names of three potential
candidates for each position to the NA on November 27
(Reftel). Deputies then had 30 days to make their final
selections.


3. (SBU) Gabriela Ramirez, the new Human Rights Ombudsman, is
a NA deputy and president of the NA's Committee on Families,
Women, and Youth. She has a degree in social work from the
Central University of Venezuela. She served as national
coordinator for the Positive Middle Class Movement (Clase
Media en Positivo),a pro-Chavez civil society organization.
As a deputy, she led the process to reform the Law for the
Protection of Children and Adolescents and the Law for the
Promotion and Protection of Breast Feeding, both of which are
pending approval by the Venezuelan president.


4. (SBU) Human rights organizations and opposition political
parties have criticized her nomination, saying she lacks
experience to assume such a high-level position within the
government. PROVEA and the Venezuelan Prison Observatory
(OVP) questioned her independence, citing her recent
involvement in the "Zamora Command," the organization tasked
with getting out the "Yes" vote during Chavez' failed attempt
to reform the constitution, and her membership in Chavez'
United Social Party of Venezuela (PSUV).


5. (SBU) Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz replaces outgoing
Isaias Rodriguez, rumored to be her cousin. Ortega received
a degree in Criminal Law from the University of Carabobo.
She was the legal advisor for the state-owned television
station Venezolana de Television (VTV) and the Ministry of
Interior and Justice. She currently works as a public
prosecutor at the Attorney General's office. Following the
death of public prosecutor Danilo Anderson, Ortega assumed
his pending cases. She has also presided over several high
profile cases, including the so-called Yumare massacre where
nine activists were killed by state security forces, the case
against those who signed the Carmona Decree during the
short-lived coup against President Chavez in April 2002, and
the pending, but inactive case against the electoral NGO
Sumate for receiving foreign funding.


6. (SBU) Monica Fernandez, former judge and director of the
judicial NGO Foro Penal, has harshly criticized the
disproportionate amount of high profile cases assigned to
Ortega. According to Foro Penal, the Attorney General's
office has over 1200 judges but only 10 judges preside over
the majority of the cases; Ortega is one of them.


7. (SBU) Clobosbaldo Russian will serve a second term as
Comptroller. Russian was first selected for the position in

1999. He previously served as comptroller for the Libertador
Burough of Caracas and the Federal District of Caracas.
Mercedes De Freitas, director of the international NGO
Transparency International, questioned the NA's decision to
renew Russian's mandate. De Freitas argued that Russian has

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done little to curb rampant corruption within the government.
She argued that Russian's re-election demonstrates that the
NA lacks the "political will" to combat corruption.

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Podemos, Communist Party Dissent
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8. (SBU) Podemos and Communist Party (PCV) deputies expressed
their dissatisfaction with the selection process during the
December 13 vote. Podemos, the small pro-government party
that registered with the "No" bloc during the referendum
campaign, walked out on the vote, calling the selection
process unconstitutional. The PCV did not oppose the
measure, but publicly noted its disappointment with the NA's
selection of Russian to a second term of office.

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Opposition and NGOs Split on How to Respond
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9. (SBU) Opposition political parties and NGOs differed in
their response to the NA's appointments. Opposition party Un
Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) and the judicial NGO Foro Penal told the
media they plan to appeal the appointments early next year.
Alfredo Romero, spokesperson for Foro Penal, and VIVE, a
victims of state-sponsored violence advocacy network, filed a
complaint with the Supreme Court in order to impede the
appointees from assuming their positions in January 2008.
Romero, who ran unsuccessfully for Human Rights Ombudsman,
argued that the selection process lacked transparency. He
noted that the nomination committee was headed by the NA's
Second Vice President Robert Hernandez even though the law
stipulates that the NA is only supposed to intervene in the
process after the committee completes its review process.
Romero also argued that civil society organizations were
largely marginalized from the selection process. Similarly
Gerardo Blye, Secretary General of Un Nuevo Tiempo, announced
that his party will petition the NA to declare its
appointments null and void because the candidates do not meet
the professional qualifications specified in the
Constitution.


10. (C) Other human rights organizations, however, have opted
to approach the matter differently. PROVEA and the OVP, for
instance, have also decried the selection process, but
announced December 15 that they plan to reach out to the
appointed officials in order to establish working
relationships. During a press conference to announce the
release on PROVEA's annual report on human rights December
10, Marino Alvardo, president of PROVEA, noted that in the
seven years Mundarain has served as Ombudsman he has
repeatedly declined requests to meet with PROVEA, one of the
country's leading human rights organizations.

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Comment
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11. (C) The National Assembly's decision to appoint Ramirez,
Ortega, and Russian to the Moral Council is a source of
concern primarily because of candidates' close, pre-existing
partisan ties to the BRV. Interestingly, human rights
organizations, which generally assume a common position, have
publicly expressed divergent responses. While PROVEA and
OVP's reaction is meant as a sign of openness, it is highly
unlikely that the new members of the Moral Council will show
a corresponding willingness to work with human rights
organizations.

DUDDY