The violations of human rights in PDVSA

By: Gustavo Coronel - The HRW Report: The violations of human rights in PDVSA - Last week HRW, Human Rights Watch made public its report on the situation of human rights in Venezuela under Chavez, http://www.hrw.org/, in a press conference given in Caracas by its representative Jose M. Vivanco. Hours later, a dozen of Venezuelan secret police broke into his hotel room and dragged him to the airport, where he and his colleague were put in a plane that went to Sao Paulo. According to Chavez, who said: “I threw them out”, they had “offended the Venezuelan people and intervened in the internal affairs of the country”. Coming from a man who has financed half a dozen presidential candidates in countries of the Hemisphere this accusation sounded pretty cynical. When the Chilean government expressed surprise at the manner Chilean citizen Vivanco had been expelled, Chavez and his Foreign Minister, former bus driver Nicolas Maduro, directed their invectives against the Chilean government. The report is a formidable indictment of the Hugo Chavez regime. The list of violations of human rights in Venezuela during the last ten years is long. It includes illegal imprisonment, official impunity, abuse of power, high-level corruption, violence against protester and dissidents, blacklists against citizens who are in the opposition, even murder of political opponents, as it happened April 11, 2002, in the street of Caracas. The report dedicates a chapter to the situation of human rights in PDVSA, Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned petroleum company. It describes how thousands of PDVSA's technical staff and managers were summarily dismissed by Chavez during a television program, in which he would name one of the top dissidents, would blow a whistle and exclaim: “Out he/she goes”. Years later most of these employees have not yet received their legal severance payment or, even, their savings, which remain in PDVSA's hands. The report mentions that the ILO, the International Labor Organization, defined the protest of PDVSA's managers and technical staff that was the trigger for Mr. Chavez's outburst as a legitimate labor protest. This protest was used by Chavez as an excuse to trample all over the company. In fact, he described, in a speech given to the National Assembly to an audience that included the diplomatic corps, how “he had engineered the crisis by naming president of PDVSA a man he knew would not be acceptable to the staff. I knew”, he added, “that the staff would rebel and I took advantage of this protest to take control of the company”. This “candid” admission proves that the crime committed by Chavez was premeditated. The report describes how Rafael Ramirez, president of the company and Minister of Energy and Petroleum, one of Chavez unconditional lieutenants, gave a speech (recorded) to company managers in which he said: “PDVSA is red, completely red… whoever disagrees must go… we already expelled 19,500 of them and we are ready to continue doing it”. He added a few expletives for emphasis. The report also mentions how the Minister of Labor, communist Roberto Hernandez, defined the PDVSA opponents as “23,000 criminals”. According to the report the threatening words of Rafael Ramirez became company policy. A black list was prepared to make it impossible for an expelled PDVSA dissident to find work elsewhere. A letter from PDVSA to a contractor company, Cypriot Hanseatic Shipping Co., lists 168 employees either working for that company or applying to the company and orders the contractor not to hire them. Similar letters were sent to many of the contractor working for PDVSA throughout the country and, even, abroad. The report adds that Chavez supported explicitly these human rights violations and, in fact, complimented Ramirez publicly for his actions and words. For some time now hundreds of Venezuelan (including me) have been publicly denouncing the Chavez regime as dictatorial, abusive and corrupt. Perhaps now that HRW has made its report public, international public opinion will listen more carefully. I sincerely believe that in the world of business there is an ethics, just as demanding and exact as in personal and social life. Companies and individuals that do business with the gangsters running PDVSA today are helping them to destroy the company and damage our nation. Unfortunately, money often talks louder than the conscience of some petroleum business managers. I wish they realized that being ethical about their dealings with a corrupt company such as PDVSA is not only morally necessary but, in the longer term, sound business practice as well. Gustavo Coronel is a 28 years oil industry veteran, a member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), author of several books. At the present Coronel is Petroleumworld associate editor and advisor on the opinion and editorial content of the site. Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views. All Coronels' articles can be read at its blog Las Armas de Coronel. Editor's Note: All comments posted and published on Petroleumworld, do not reflect either for or against the opinion expressed in the comment as an endorsement of Petroleumworld. All comments expressed are private comments and do not necessary reflect the view of this website. All comments are posted and published without liability to Petroleumworld. 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