When in a peace process you cannot award both sides a Nobel Prize, you should know you should refrain entirely

Sir, Andres Schipani writes: “coming to Oslo represented a closing chapter for me too. I stood as the victims of the conflict Mr Santos had brought with him received thunderous applause. Oddly, there was no Farc presence. Instead, there was Ingrid Betancourt, a former hostage who has acquired celebrity status” “A Nobel Prize and the struggle for peace in Colombia” December 13. 

Let me be clear. I wish for peace in Colombia as much as anyone else, but the current peace proposal, and this Nobel Prize, represents way too little of a closing chapter for many Colombians than what it could represent for irrelevant outsiders, like Schipani and me.

And since Schipani brings up Dylan, again I must speculate on the possibility of secretarial errors at the Nobel Committees in Oslo and Stockholm. Perhaps Bob Dylan, with his "how many times must a cannon ball fly?" was more worthy of the Peace prize, while Santos of the literature one. The latter because for Santos to have presented to his people a 297 pages long document for referendum, must surely represent an outstanding moment in required reading. Would anyone in Britain have dared to do such thing? I doubt it.

That said, I also do not agree with the Nobel committee’s prize to Santos, for the very simple reason that if in a peace process, if you do not find yourself capable of giving both sides the same prize, then you should know that you should better abstain altogether.

Besides even if one could argue that had he proposal won the referendum, Santos would have been worthy of the prize... now, going "fast-track", over the peoples heads, clearly puts the whole process in a much less favorable light. 

And, if the prize was a sort of domestic consolation for the role Norway played as an observer in the negotiation, then it could have been more transparent to give that prize directly to Norway. Why not? Do observers not very often have to play the most difficult role of total neutrality while utterly disliking one or the other side, or both?

@PerKurowski

Do not odious debts derive directly from odious credits or odious borrowings?

I refer to Jonathan Wheatley’s, Andres Schipani’s and Robin Wigglesworth’s FT: Big Read on the finances of Venezuela “A nation in bondage” November 11. I am taken aback by its distant coolness to what are life and death issues. “revenue-to-payments ratio”?

Sir, I have often asked, and not only in reference to Venezuela: does not what is being financed have anything to do with financing… is it only a matter of risk premiums being right? Let me go extreme to make my case. Should a bond issue that financed some extermination chambers be repaid? And should it then matter whether those chamber use Zyklon B, or the lack of food or medicines. Of course, whether those responsible for any deaths did it with intent, or only because of sheer ineptitude, matters a lot. But for informed financiers? How much “We didn’t know” can you really claim these days?

Sir, the world would be well served by having a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism but, for such a SDRM to also serve We the People well, and not only governments and their financiers, it would have to start to identify very clearly what should be considered odious debt derived from odious credits and odious borrowings.

And it should also define very clearly how much financiers could aspire to have their cake and eat it too. The article quotes Siobhan Morden, a Latin American strategist at Nomura saying “Investors who this year bought a PDVSA bond maturing in April 2017, for example, have made a 70 per cent profit, thanks to coupon payments and a price rise of 50 cents on the dollar as the bond approaches maturity” 

Two questions stand out: The first: should these bondholders be repaid the same as those who purchased the issue originally and held on to it? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. 

The second: Anyone out there thinks this 70% profit over a short period was just a result of a strict financial analysis, or did it contain some inside information that could affect its legal validity.

FT, yes I am Venezuelan, and so I might very well be too much on the crying side on this issue, but what would you in FT say if UK fell into the hands of a totally inept government and this one is kept in place by financiers out for a quick buck?

Sir should only a non-payment cause a default of sovereign bonds? Are there not implicit moral negative covenants that could be called on by the world, such as not letting your people starve only to serve the debt?

PS. Just to make my arguments clearer and therefore hopefully stronger in Venezuela I have been on this issue long before the Chavez/Maduro times.

@PerKurowski

As a Venezuelan, I would sure like to know who those financing those who are destroying my country are

Sir, Elaine Moore and Andres Schipani report “Venezuela keeps paying foreign lenders despite blackouts and food queue riots” May 10.

But, when considering all that is going on in Venezuela, why should its creditors be treated with such neutral anonymity? Who are they? Is it okay for them whatever the nation does, as long as they get their high interest rates?

I am not implying there is something similar horrible going on in Venezuela, but are these investors who could for instance finance cremation ovens in Auschwitz, without blinking their eyes, as long as the price was right?

If you finance someone who is committing human rights violations, does that not make you an accomplice? And don’t tell me these lenders, in today’s globalized world, are innocently unaware of what is happening in Venezuela,

As a Venezuelan I would sure like to know who those financing those who are destroying my land are. I am by no means saying they are all the same. Many of them might have lent money to the revolution when things though bad seemed more normal. But most of all I would like to know if among them are some of the vultures that already had by other means been eating of what soon seems to become a carcass of a nation… and now want to have another last bite.

The world’s governments might urgently need a Sovereign Debt Restructuring Mechanism… but we citizens, we only really need it, if it comes together with a clear definition of what are odious public credits and what are odious public borrowings.

PS. And it is not a new issue for me

@PerKurowski ©

Is the concept of economic crimes against humanity too much for governments to handle?

Sir, Andres Schipani writes that Henrique Capriles, with respect to the government’s actions on the recall referendum says: “they will be blocking the only democratic solution we have now. That will be throwing petrol on to the fire.” “Maduro rival rallies revolt in Venezuela”

But, what about throwing some petrol on the hunger in Venezuela? Even after it was raised a mindboggling 6.000 percent in February this year, petrol is still mindboggling being sold at less than $2 cents per liter.

Luis Almagro, the head of the Organisation of American States finally speaks out on the issue of Venezuela, good for him. The previous decade, under the chair of José Miguel Insulza, OAS’s silence was just too embarrassing.

But Almagro should also ask the Inter-American Commision on Human Rights: Is not the giveaway of petrol in a country where there is lack of food and medicines, an economic crime against humanity?

I formally asked IACHD that in 2015, and in 2009 by means of an Op-Ed in Caracas, but I never received any response. I wonder, is the sole concept of economic crimes against humanity just too much for governments to handle?

In Venezuela I have proposed to increase the locally sold petrol to at least its world price as a commodity, and share out with all citizens the new revenues. In this way most citizens would be a bit better positioned to deal with the de-facto state of emergency that exists. And petrol consumption would go down, and more petrol could be exported.

@PerKurowski ©

Even though there is hunger, could Venezuela be servicing religiously its debt because of who the bondholders are?

Sir, even though Venezuela is suffering lack of food and medicines, it is doing all it can to pay its foreign bondholders. Andres Schipani quotes Bank of America’s Francisco Rodriguez in that “Venezuela could continue paying bondholders for longer than it keeps paying Maduro’s salary”, “Maduro’s Venezuela on the brink of default" February 12.

Could it be that all these bondholders are in fact the same usual local friends of the government and who in these bonds have just found another way to further exploit this poor-rich country? I mean it is hard to visualize any ordinary reasonably responsible investor, no matter how big the spreads, putting money in Venezuelan bonds while knowing without doubt that the resources raised by debt will be wasted just the same way as the greatest oil-boom in history has been wasted.

The world needs a sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM) but, for that to serve us citizens any useful purpose, and not even be counterproductive, it must begin by establishing clearly the differences between bona fide lending and odious credit.

@PerKurowski ©

Surprisingly many of those who could observe it from a distance, still fell for Chavez’ Banana 21st Century Socialism.

Sir, I refer to Andres Schipani’s “FT Big Read: New oil order: We are terrorized by the drop in oil prices”, August 10 2015. It is a good report but I must make two points.

First it sort of supposes that a country, during an incredible oil boom with prices over ten times those which the previous government faced, and where these oil revenues represents over 96 percent of all exports, and these all go into government coffers, is a system that has a chance to function in a sustainable way. It cannot!

Second, it mentions “the world’s cheapest petrol” and it talks about “hundreds of million dollars invested on social programmes. Less than 1 US$ cent per liter is not “cheap”, it is a giveaway… and the cost of that giveaway, when calculated at the international market price of petrol, is higher than all Chavez’ and Maduro’s social programs put together.

When Schipani mentions “The ruling Socialist party”, I hear most European Socialist parties trying to make the case of that brand of socialism having nothing to do with theirs. It would have been more helpful for the Venezuelans, if they had argued so fifteen years ago.

@PerKurowski

When does a subsidy become an outright gift? Hugo Chavez committed an odious economic-policy crime against humanity.

Sir I refer to Andres Schipani’s and John Paul Rathbone’s “Oil’s slide forces Venezuela to rethink subsidies agreed in Chávez glory days” January 15.

The article refers to “About 600,000 bpd of subsidized oil are consumed locally” but, since the local price of gas (petrol) is much less than 1-euro cent per liter, I would consider that to be much more of an outright gift than a subsidy.

The fact that Hugo Chavez gave away more value in gas (petrol) to those who drove cars, than what he spent on all his social programs put together, might be embarrassing for all those on the left for whom Chavez was a hero… but the truth is that, doing so, he committed an odious economic-policy crime against humanity.

“Capitalism for hyenas” might be a more accurate description than “capitalism for friends”

Sir, I refer to Chrystia Freeland’s “Puttin’s populist bluster belies the loneliness of the cynic” December 29.

If for instance Andres Schipani would like to write an up to date report on Venezuela and Maduro, he would have to change almost nothing except for some names and regional references… especially now when even Cuba, as was to be expected, has also turned out to be a fair-weather ally.

But, when referring to the crony capitalists that flock around the leaders, I would perhaps disagree with the term “capitalism for friends”. In Venezuela at least, it is really not friends who are sharing those oil revenues which now represent 97 percent of all this nation's exports… it is much more something like “capitalism for hyenas”

Venezuela: stop press?

Today I was censored in Venezuela

Financial Times

To find a solution to Venezuela, you have to be clear about its problem.

Sir, John Paul Rathbone, Andres Schipani and Mark Frank write “Venezuela: In search of a solution” March 3.

I am sorry, that neither Venezuela nor your reporters can identify the real problem, just shows how hard it is to develop a solution to its problems.

Let me just ask… what would you believe the real problem of the Britain would be, if your government was receiving, as income, to dispose of in any way it liked, over 98 percent of Britain’s exports?