This post is NOT by Moe Lane.
I’m using the administrative account instead of my own identity for reasons which I will hope you will understand after you read. I’m fairly certain that a regular reader could guess who wrote this, but I ask you not to do so in the comments.
The company I work with has some business in Venezuela. Nothing you’d ever read about, but we have contracts with distributors for what are essentially low-tech consumer products. Last week, the president of one of those companies was kidnapped and roughly treated for three days by a group not formally associated with the government (so not the police) but nevertheless intensely interested in his patriotism. He took what happened very seriously–his entire extended family immediately left the country and he has informed us that his company may be unable to fulfill its contracts with us for some time. For immediate payment issues we have been referred to the Venezuelan government.
This is the kind of thing I read about in newspapers, but I never thought I would actually know someone it touched unless I went out of my way to seek them out.
A for what it is worth anecdote.
In addition to the regular posting rules I will be deleting any comments regarding the identity of this poster. If any of the other regulars have a problem with this please email to the group and we can discuss it.
Could you please give me a heads up on the yahoo email (or my personal account). I’m not entirely who this is, and want to ensure security, etc. And we really shouldn’t be using Moe’s name, even with the disclaimer.
I once met the CEO of a major Venezuelan consumer products company (known for their impressive distribution chain), who talked frankly about the risk of kidnap. I’m hoping this was not him.
Moe works for CIA and was outed by Bush himself,or that Dick guy or that other guy or that department at NSA or military intelligence………….?
The money is important!!!
Was this done by one of the Bolivarian Circles?
Wow you learn something new every day. I had never really looked into the Bolivarian Circles until Randy Paul mentioned it here (vaguely heard stuff that didn’t particularly stay in my head).
I googled and I found one of the most schizophrenic reporting situations I’ve ever seen. They are apparently either one of the best developments in the history of democracy in Latin America by engaging the community with social activism, or they they are a front for loosely government affiliated torture and intimidation squads.
Is it a Hamas situation where they do social good, but also use it so that government services can discriminate against political opponents, with torture and intimidation to deal with people who don’t go along?
Randy do you have access to a reliable look at them somewhere?
Our family was friends with Tom Hargrove, who was kidnapped in Columbia years ago. He kept a diary on the back of his chequebook while he was in captivity for months and months.
I can’t imagine the emotions that he went through because of that. Things like this should never ever happen, but they always do. What a sad state of affairs.
Not that the author made the claim, but I don’t think the kidnapping of business figures is particular to Venezuela.
Sebastian. And.
And is this enough caveats for you?
This is better.
Stealing Steel…
Bart, Si! Chavez, No!
I had a friend who married the daughter of a Colombian executive of an American oil company in Colombia, and he never went anywhere without a machine gun, and sent his children to college in the U.S. I am very sorry that this happened and I am glad that he was not grievously harmed.
It looks to me like the Circles function to mix various things under the same label.
Each one has typically less than a dozen members so some of them can do various community work while others can operate as thuggish not-quite-police or revolutionary enforcers. If it weren’t so serious you could almost see it as a macabre Monty Python sketch:
Person is threatened and later kidnapped and tortured by one of the circles, eventually released and complains to human rights officials. They then go investigate the nearby circle which feeds poor people and consists entirely of eighty year old ladies.
Akward interviews commence:
Offical: Are you one of the Bolivarian Circle.
Little Old Lady: Yes.
Official: Did you torture this man?
Little Old Lady: Oh no, the circle is dedicated to feeding the hungry, we would never torture anyone.
Official: How odd.
[later that night]
Other Circle Member to Complainant: I heard you were hassling my grandmother. I’m afraid I’m going to have to make sure you never hassle her again.
Yes, I’d describe this as very much a “for what it’s worth” anecdote. A little thin, murky, and accountability-free to allow anyone to draw political conclusions.
In particular, it’s not so clear why it was necessary to rush into posting — without any communication with other blog owners.
It’s quite dramatic, though. And none of the relevant questions commenters might have can be answered, for reasons of security (although the executive’s entire extended family is now out of Venezuela).
“In particular, it’s not so clear why it was necessary to rush into posting — without any communication with other blog owners.”
Myself, I’d go with the theory that the poster was shaken and upset to have this happen to someone they know, and wanted to talk to/tell other people about it — I would — and yet couldn’t post under their real name — though I agree that it’s pretty obvious who it has to be, by process of simple elimination — and that’s pretty much it, Nell.
I’d be not too hard on someone’s politics while it’s a matter of someone real in their life being affected, for a while, myself.
Fine; if all we’re supposed to take from it is the personal aspect, I agree. Though I think a heads-up in email to any other blog owner would still have been in order.
Please convey our sympathy and best wishes to your business associate.
Abuses like the kidnaping described flourish as long as there is a climate of impunity. This means that victims must risk further unpleasantness or danger in order to provide the information necessary to hold perpetrators accountable. I hope your associate will make the decision to take that risk.
Abuses like the kidnaping described flourish as long as there is a climate of impunity. This means that victims must risk further unpleasantness or danger in order to provide the information necessary to hold perpetrators accountable. I hope your associate will make the decision to take that risk.
Um…what? I can see how that might be true in the US, but is it really true in places like Venezuela? I honestly don’t know, so I’m hoping you can educate me a bit. I would have guessed that a lack of state capacity to go after criminal gangs is a more significant problem than victims failing to report them…I mean, if the state could credibly promise to go after the culprits while providing security to the victims’ family, that would greatly help matters, but as I understand it, in most developing nations, the state is not capable of making such promises credibly.
Can I just point out that if every ObWi regular but one posts on this thread expressing dismay, then it’ll be pretty bloody obvious whodunnit. Just in case you hadn’t thought of that…
Can I just point out that if every ObWi regular but one posts on this thread expressing dismay, then it’ll be pretty bloody obvious whodunnit. Just in case you hadn’t thought of that…
Alternatively, the author could also post on the thread expressing dismay. Just in case you hadn’t thought of that.
I am very dismayed.
I’m dismayed.
“I honestly don’t know, so I’m hoping you can educate me a bit. I would have guessed that a lack of state capacity to go after criminal gangs is a more significant problem than victims failing to report them…I mean, if the state could credibly promise to go after the culprits while providing security to the victims’ family, that would greatly help matters, but as I understand it, in most developing nations, the state is not capable of making such promises credibly.”
Or if the gangs have ties to the state it really can’t credbily promise to do so.
In addition to Sebastian’s comment about ties to the state, which is very much the case a bunch of places where the government’s underwitten by the US as well as places like Venezuela where it’s at odds with the US, there are often alternative patrons that matter more than the state right there and then. The Sicilian Mafia is the archetype here: they’re not the government, but even after multiple decades of heroic effort by a lot of good people to rein them in, they might as well be. Colombia’s not the only place in Latin America with drug cartels who have that kind of power, too. It’s scary and sad and enraging to be reminded so starkly of how rare the chance to feel confident about reporting wrong-doing and expect anything like justice to come of it really is.
FWIW and not wanting to minimize the affected person’s fate in any way:
I remember how I found it quite shocking when it was not uncommon for managers to be shot in Moscow in the 90s – the victims weren’t solely participants in your usual mafia turf wars (though it was hard to impossible doing business there without dealing with the mafia at all), but often regular managers of reputable businesses, both Russian and international, who simply got in somebody’s way. Things seem to have calmed down there but it still happens ever so often.
@Turbulence:
The nature of this post — the threat to delete any comments that name the poster — seems to be driven by a concern that the victim cannot be named, for his own safety or that of his family. The post also hints that the danger comes from the willingness of the government of Venezuela to overlook such crimes.
These are implications that it’s not possible to contest without further information — information that’s not going to be made available to us.
So I wrote the passage you quote as generic advice to victims of human rights violations and as a message to the poster. If there is a genuine problem with government-tolerated repression, then secrecy feeds it. (The information is most usefully provided somewhere other than in a post on Obsidian Wings, however.)
I say, this is really not good enough.
Either you are making a case that Hugo Chavez and everyone who has ever supported him should be put to death, publicly and at once, or else you are completely wasting bandwidth.
In either case you are not serious, and I can prove it. Gather round, everyone: let’s make a list of all — ALL — the nations of Earth in which an occurrence of precisely this kind is NOT unthinkable.
Sebastian,
Obviously the others have provided some context. My larger concern was not to be accusatory, but more wondering out loud.
Both sides in Venezuela are clearly passionate and fiercely partisan. From the initial description it sounded like them.
My feelings about Chavez echo what Adam Isacson wrote here.
This is scarey and sad.
it’s a shock when the bad things in the newspaper happen to someone you know.
Years ago I had a neighbor who was a refugee from Chile. Her husband had been murdered in the aftermath of the over throw of Allende. She had been tortured. She escaped with one of her kids but had to leave two others behind.
I’m glad your business associate and his family escaped.
you are completely wasting bandwidth.
Wow. Haven’t heard that one for a while.
Presumably this demurral ought to be accompanied by an explanation how the comment itself does NOT waste this precious commodity.
Because it obviously matters intensely to point out something that, in one’s own estimation, does not matter.
Rather than just ignoring it.
Sheesh.
I heard the other day that 30% of the internet is taken up with youtube.
anyway, I’m sorry to see this sort of post on this otherwise rigorous website, though I give hilzoy the benefit of the doubt.
I see two things going on: (1) a genuine effort to make an emotional connection, which in cyberspace is tragic at the very least, and/or (2) an insidious effort to bash Venezuela.
I just can’t get outraged that other nations are not spending enough public money to protect foreign executives.
and with Venezuela, one has to remember that the opposition led a coup against a legitimately elected president.
what evidence is there that the opposition is morally above discrediting the government by kidnapping?
let’s be skeptical, and remember McCain has already begun threatening Chavez.
Actually, it is not clear that the exec is a foreign national.
I’m with redwood on this. The problem is that the US has such a bad history of South American policy that any criticism by an American of a South American leader/country comes across like a mafioso saying ‘Nice house you have here’.
Chavez has authoritarian aspects to his policies, like a lot of other democratically elected politicians all over the world. However, as other recent threads have shown, there are still too many Americans (=more than zero) who think that any South American leader being less than perfect justifies him/her being overthrown violently and replaced by a dictator.
A lot of people are therefore going to be very wary about any ostensibly un-political post that doesn’t take account of that. Maybe ‘Moe Lane’ should explain what he/she thought the moral of the anecdote was, if it didn’t have a political aim.
I’m very sorry abour what happened to the friend of “Not by XX.” It certainly fits in with what I know of the regime headed by the Venezuelan dictator, Hugo Chavez.
I’m also very alarmed by how Hugo has been pouring money into the coffers of FARC and showering them with arms. The tyrant is doing his best (or worst) to undermine Colombia. Sincerely, Sean M. Brooks
Redwood:
“I just can’t get outraged that other nations are not spending enough public money to protect foreign executives.”
Why did you assume this was a foreign executive? Would it change your narrative if it was a native executive? I read the post as a native executive because “nevertheless intensely interested in his patriotism” doesn’t make much sense otherwise.
“and with Venezuela, one has to remember that the opposition led a coup against a legitimately elected president.”
That justifies kidnap and torture how?
“what evidence is there that the opposition is morally above discrediting the government by kidnapping?”
What does this question even mean? It sounds like an impossible-to-prove negative. Do you have evidence that the opposition has actually tried to discredit the government by kidnapping and impersonating people who are sympathetic to the government?
There is some evidence that the pro-Chavez Bolivarian Circles Randy mentioned have engaged in such activities. Do you have any particular reason to believe that anti-Chavez groups have been impersonating them?
Sebastian, one of the things that I appreciated about this post was that “Moe Lane” did not attempt to politicize this kidnapping.
We can agree, I think, that kidnapping and murder are bad things, regardless whether done by the US government, the Venezuelan government, the local thugs claiming authority from the government, or the Sicilian Mafia.
And that hearing that this has happened to someone you know is shaking – it is qualitatively different to hear of awful things happening to someone you know personally, than to acknowledge that awful things happen to statistics. (Hence the numerous journalists who have taken a very personal interest in the well-being of Sami Al Haj since he was kidnapped – you may know in theory that that kind of thing can happen to anyone, but for it to happen to a person whom you know makes it no longer theory.)
Whoops – Sorry, Sebastian, I see you’re responding to Redwood.
Redwood, take what I said to Sebastian and apply it to yourself.
Oddly enough, and you might not believe me but it’s true, when I posted yesterday I totally missed the political connotations that any discussion of Venezuela might entail. The associations my brain came up with were “beauty queens” and “jungle”, the synapses responsible for making the “Chavez”, “US” and “oil” connections were not firing at all.
Bolivia was pretty straightforward and I doubt it had much to do with the executive. The government accused a Peace Corps Volunteer of spying and squeezed him to get everyone to say PCVs were spying. The was the foreign minister was working for his intelligence service to set up PC and there was probably a trainer at the PC training facility that worked for Bolivian intelligence and maybe another country too, treason to us.
Anyway, his constitution failed and he can’t help the Indians much more.
FWIW, when I first read this post I did not read anything political into it at all. I know Chavez is a particular obsession of some on the right, but that’s not how I took this. I took it as, “this has shaken me badly and I need to write about it, but if I do it under my own name I’ll put them in danger”.
I’m with Catsy et al. on this.
Calling it an ‘anecdote’ kind of undermines the idea that this was an emotional reaction, rather than an attempt to make a political point, FWIW.
Not that that is definitive evidence of the poster’s state of mind, but it could explain where some of the dismissive and questioning attitude among commenters is coming from.
In either case, dismay.
Publius, have you managed to confirm the site’s security?
but if I do it under my own name I’ll put them in danger
I think can think of another legitimate, if more mundane, reason for posting this anonymously.
“Maybe ‘Moe Lane’ should explain what he/she thought the moral of the anecdote was, if it didn’t have a political aim.”
Or maybe not. I’m unaware that any of the blog-owners owe any of us any explanations as to how they use their own bandwidth, or why they post, or as regards what they want to post about.
Last I looked, it was their blog, not ours.
Regardless of whether it’s Moe, “Moe,” Katherine, Edward, Sebastian, von, Slartibartast, Charles Bird, Hilzoy, Andy, or publius. (Odds on Andy posting from the grave are low, and odds of Moe posting again aren’t, apparently, terribly higher.) (Really, is it that hard to figure out who “Moe” is?)
Kidnappings are fairly common in Latin America and social order and security are crumbling a b it in Caracas right now, but the political side you mention is something that appears to be more common with Chavez’s administration.
Chavez is a dictator wanna-be, not a dictator yet, as he has won practically all elections he has run in, but clearly preparing the way for that.
The biggest problem Chavez has is that he is bent on becoming a new version of Fidel but no one outside Venezuela takes him seriously. ON top of that the economy is growing due to oil revenues but his price controls and other unorthodox policies are creating shortages such that oil is $110 a barrel but you can’t find milk in Caracas. Venezuelans were quite happy to have him redistribute oil wealth but they have little interest in the socialism he seems to want to move to.
It’s a highly unstable situation.
(Really, is it that hard to figure out who “Moe” is?)
Let’s not go that route again, shall we?