April 2019 – The Pull Of The Land

Simón Bolivar

April 26, 2019April 26, 2019 Richard Barnes

Readers will have noticed something of a reluctance to go much into the mystique of Simón Bolivar (Bolivar) in these posts.

A cursory look at the countless Bolivar-related videos or sites in the internet universe will help explain why this blog has skirted around and about Bolivar. Reactions to Bolivar are often loud if not violent. This does not encourage overall understanding.

Be that as it may, it is simply impossible to consider Venezuela, or South America for that matter, without grappling with Bolivar, one of the most enigmatic figures in history, much more so than Napoleon, in my opinion.

Napoleon at least recognized that a people who could not govern themselves individually could not legitimately seek to be self-governing as a whole. Reading through Bolivar’s voluminous declarations, letters, orders, and musings, one sees that at times he appeared to agree with Napoleon in this regard; at times he disagreed, and vehemently so.

When one reads Bolivar’s denunciations of those who sought to be loyal to Spain, one is perplexed. Perplexed because Spain had devolved greater amounts of self-government to its American colonies than the British crown had devolved to its own. And Spain continued to concede more self-government, while England, a quarter century earlier, was reducing such.

So, where was the beef with Spain?

This is a subject that requires setting aside, or at least tamping down a bit, some anti-Spanish prejudices which Northern Europeans and North Americans have cultivated over five centuries.

It will require questioning the propagandistic reporting of Bartolomé de las Casas, who did far more than the British and the Dutch to besmirch his own country. What he reported was, to put it mildly, highly questionable. And if one takes the time to read through a fraction of his writings, one would see that much of what he said was designed to incite hatred towards Spain.

The British and the Dutch used him to good effect, especially the engravings of the Dutchman, Theodor de Bry. But in so doing, they managed to obfuscate much of South American history for centuries after. And this obfuscation, in turn, facilitates our superficial understanding of Bolivar.

By the way, las Casas’ actions, denunciations, and writings, and the use of such by Spain’s enemies bear a vivid resemblance to today’s use of “narrative” in propaganda and public debate. Nothing new under the sun indeed!

But we need to break away from the mainstream, popular narrative and be as fair as we can in looking back and judging how that narrative has molded our thinking and, where necessary, we need to revise such thinking to be more just. Just thinking will result in just action. To borrow the old Arthur Andersen motto: “Think Straight, Act Straight”.

Did you ever hear that the Spanish colonies in South America enjoyed more political self-government than the North American colonies?

Have you ever wondered why the South American revolutions spilled far more blood than the American? Hint: it’s not because of Spain.

Have you ever questioned why the South Americans rebelled against Spain? Hint: the causes, thought processes, and models they sought to imitate are not a mirror image of those of the North American colonies.

As for Bolivar, at one point he laments the destruction of three centuries of civilization (civilization cultivated by Spain). At another, without so much as a pause for an irony alert, he condemns Spain for having kept the Americas in prehistoric conditions. Well, which is it?

At one point, he condemns Spain for heartlessness; at another, he orders the execution of helpless prisoners.

His military exploits are a wonder. He rivals Hannibal in his crossing of the Andes. Twice.

Some of his writings reach stratospheric heights and are deeply moving and prescient.

But a man is known by his fruits. And it can be argued that the fruits of South American revolution are not a compliment to any man.

I grew up admiring Bolivar. I still admire him because he possessed much that is worthy of admiration and imitation. But we must recognize that he also possessed much that is not. His actions and reactions towards Spain require understanding and mature analysis.

Alexander von Humboldt, the great 18th and 19th century explorer and naturalist, told of an encounter with a savage looking Indian who startled him as he knelt to take some water from a narrow stream deep in the Venezuelan jungle. The Indian stood across the stream. As Humboldt rose, ready to defend himself, the Indian raised his hand and spoke to him in perfect Spanish. He then proceeded to lead the explorers to a mission not far away. The great explorer wrote that he was amazed at finding such a creature speaking a civilized tongue in the middle of nowhere.

As we shall see in future posts, Humboldt was a creature of the Enlightenment; he was no friend of Christianity (though, ironically, he was a product thereof) and this more often than not blinded him to the obvious. For example, he reported that the Waraos lived atop stilts on the shores of the Orinoco in order to keep missionaries from reaching them. This is so preposterous that one marvels how despising Christianity can make intelligent people dumb! However, even Humboldt was complimentary of the work of the Spanish missionaries with the Indians in South America. (The Waraos lived in huts on stilts for protection against the massive Orinoco floods, in case you’re wondering.)

Notwithstanding my comments above, I greatly respect Humboldt, as you shall see in future posts. And I am a fan of the English also, but not uncritically so.

Spain did a phenomenal work in the Americas. Not at all perfect. Sometimes terribly imperfect. But it deserves a more just assessment.

And that assessment will serve to help us better understand Bolivar. And Venezuela.

There will be more posts on Bolivar. And Humboldt. And Spain.

One of the many engravings by Theodor de Bry, a Dutch Protestant who fled Spanish-controlled Netherlands and dedicated his life to denouncing Spain. He never visited the Americas but (gleefully?) took Bartolomé de Las Casas at his word and engraved accordingly. Notice how he and Las Casas have the Spanish doing what the Aztecs did. This is quite a feat of inversion. The Spanish, at great loss of life to themselves, succeeded in stopping the Aztecs’ systematic human sacrificial system and cannibalism. This very well known FACT should have at least caused folks to question the veracity of the reporting and the accompanying engravings. Truly, one believes what he wants to believe.

Waraos on the Orinoco. They now wear clothing, thanks to Spanish and, later, Protestant missionaries.

Alexander von Humboldt at 74 in 1843. He died in 1859

Bolivar at 47, shortly before his death in 1830

Mining II

April 20, 2019April 24, 2019 Richard Barnes

To add to the prior post, I thought it good to tell a bit more about El Pao’s background and impetus as something of a microcosm of the myriad mining and petroleum camps dotting Venezuela in the 1950’s.

As noted in the Time Magazine article cited in the previous post, El Pao was a Bethlehem Steel iron ore mining camp built in the 1940’s in the Venezuelan southeastern interior, within a low and gentle mountain range in an area of dense, seemingly infinite jungles, just beyond the Gran Sabana prairies and plains whose boundaries seemed to melt with the sky.

The company, along with US Steel had negotiated concessions with the government of Marcos Pérez Jimenez, the shortest-lived of the numberless military dictatorships in Venezuela’s history. Actually, these concessions were signed prior to Jimenez’s official assumption of the presidency, but “everybody knew” he was actually in charge a few years before his official ascension in 1952. Perez Jimenez sought to enhance Venezuela’s independence by promoting oil and ore concessions and improving and expanding the transit infrastructure. He insisted, wherever possible, the companies build “open cities” as opposed to closed camps. US Steel did just that, which impelled the phenomenal growth of the thriving metropolis of Puerto Ordaz, at the confluence of the Orinoco and Caroní rivers. As for Caracas, it was modernized with skyscrapers, including the symbolic Humboldt Hotel, overlooking the capital city from atop Mt. Ávila. The hotel was named after the famous naturalist and explorer, Alexander Von Humboldt, who explored and studied much of Venezuela in the late 18th century. We’ll be seeing more of him in later posts. Construction projects were launched to build large public housing projects, bridges, and South America’s finest highway system, most of which would still be in use into the 21^stcentury, including the then spectacular La Guira – Caracas expressway in 1953 and the Tejerías – Caracas expressway in 1954.

Furthermore, his tenure saw the creation, in 1956, of cable car transport to the 6,000 ft., Mt. Avila, which stands like an imposing sentinel over Caracas. He also commissioned the building of the even more remarkable cable car system to the 20,000 ft. Pico Bolivar in the Andes in the western state of Mérida. Both systems were built by Swiss engineers and materiel. Venezuela was transformed into the most modern nation of South America: “modern” defined as excellent infrastructure, breathtaking skylines, and a rapidly growing middle class. Today, some old timers say it was the Dubai of the 1950’s.

A telling but quickly forgotten change imposed by Perez Jimenez was the revision of the official name of the nation. Since 1864 the country’s name was “United States of Venezuela”, reflecting Simón Bolivar’s admiration for the United States, but not his conviction that South America should not seek to emulate a similar type government because, as he put it, “the United States form of government will only work for saints, which is what they are [and what we are not]”; Marcos Pérez Jimenez, apparently understanding Bolivar’s admonition, changed the name to “Republic of Venezuela”, a name which stuck until, in the 21^stcentury, another authoritarian politician changed the name yet again, but left Venezuela’s 20 states intact. El Pao was in the large state of Bolivar, to the southeast of the country, bordering on Brazil to the south and British Guiana to the east.

Marcos Perez Jimenez ruled from December, 1952 to 1958, but his following persisted even after his death five decades later, in 2001.

A plebiscite was held in December, 1957 which Jimenez won by a wide margin, but which opponents insisted was a rigged exercise. He went into self-imposed exile in Miami Beach, in 1959, only to be deported later by the Kennedy administration, which vainly believed it could afford to break the United States’ promise of asylum in exchange for the applause of Venezuelan politicians: honor out; applause, in. But, as often happens with asymmetrical swaps, Kennedy succeeded with the former, weightier matter; and failed with the latter, transitory one.

Unbelievably, Jimenez was, in 1968, elected to the Senate, even though he ran in absentia from Spain; however, the Venezuelan politicians succeeded in overturning his election on technicalities. In 1973 his supporters nominated him for the presidency of Venezuela; however, the political parties amended the constitution, in effect prohibiting him from running for president again.

He never returned to Venezuela. Nevertheless, love him or hate him, his administration’s negotiations with the American steel and petroleum industries brought matchless prosperity to the country. This promise of future increase and liberality was reversed by the overturning of his economic policies, which tended to favor free enterprise locally coupled with pragmatic agreements with foreign companies, within a low tax and regulatory environment.

Amazingly, all major projects undertaken by the Perez Jimenez administration still stand, unsurpassed: either still in use, such as in the case of the magnificent, now barely maintained, and, therefore, in some places dangerous expressways, or as silent, empty monuments of a long past era, such as the Humboldt Hotel, alone and padlocked, alternating between stints as a reflector of countless brilliant sparkles of sunlight or as a lone sentry shrouded in clouds atop Mt. Ávila, reminding all who look and wonder, that historical eras ought not be facilely catalogued as bright or dark, evil or good. Much depends on who tells the story, how it’s told, of whom it is told, and, of course, by whom it is told.

But the foregoing was yet in the future. Most, if not all, Americans who came to Venezuela when Pérez Jimenez was either in power or was the power behind the throne, that is, from the late 1940’s through the 1950’s, were quite apolitical and gave little thought to the country’s civil government. Streets were safe, people were courteous, Americans were respected and admired, and work was abundant for both Americans and Venezuelans. What mattered to them, and to their companies, was that Venezuela became their largest supplier of iron ore, by far – ore ultimately incorporated in America’s magnificent bridges, skyscrapers, monuments, homes, and automobiles.

For those of you interested in Marcos Pérez Jimenez, you might want to check out the series of interviews (in Spanish) he granted not too long before his death. The link below is for the sixth of the series.

For those of you interested in the Humboldt Hotel, you might find the documentary linked below to be worth your while

Photo of construction of highway from The Orinoco River to El Pao

El Pao baseball team, circa 1950. IMCOV stood for Iron Mines Company of Venezuela, the Bethlehem Steel subsidiary which built El Pao. They began as inexperienced rag-tags and rose to be national AA champions.

If you liked to fish, you were in paradise.

Mining

April 12, 2019April 20, 2019 Richard Barnes

Any blog on Venezuela must include posts on mining. In the future, I hope to have a post or two from guests with more expertise on the more technical aspects of the mining industry in Venezuela and their complex engineering facets. Meanwhile, we can certainly post things of interest or of general introduction.

Depending on your sources, Venezuela was one of the world’s largest producers (some sources had it as the largest) of direct-reduced iron (iron ore which is reduced to a smaller form, usually pellets by means of a specially formulated gas). It was in the top ten of the world’s producers of iron ore, aluminum, and bauxite. And it still ranks as possessing one of the world’s largest known reserves of crude oil, second only to Saudi Arabia, although some say the United States has surpassed both.

It holds one of the world’s largest reserves of gold and was second only to South Africa in diamond production. Countless gems and precious stones have been mined there, especially in the interior state of Bolivar and the giant Territorio Amazonas.

The attentive reader will note the use of the past tense in the second and third paragraphs above. The past tense is used because extraction and production have suffered precipitous declines since the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. I would not be surprised by the discovery of vast new deposits and reserves, alongside the return of successful mining and production, once the investment climate improves. (Meanwhile, we should not be surprised by the intense interest focused on Venezuela by China and Russia.)

In 1956, Time Magazine had at least two issues on iron ore mining in Venezuela. The article in its November 19 issue began thusly:

“Inland from Venezuela’s Caribbean coast some 200 miles, the swift, black Caroni River plunges into the chocolate-colored Orinoco. Southward from this junction of two mighty streams lie jungles and sandy scrublands studded with low, reddish mountains. This poor-looking expanse is one of the world’s great storehouses of iron. West of the Caroni looms Cerro Bolivar, blanketed with 500 million tons of high-grade ore. Farther west lies another iron mountain, El Trueno, endowed with 150 million tons. On the other side of the Caroni, Bethlehem Steel Corp. gathers up 3,000,000 tons of ore a year from El Pao….”

Poetically and dramatically, the article captures the vastness of the country’s riches in iron ore alone. The country is “awash” with natural resources, even including coltan. We are told that Venezuela is one of only seven countries in the world that have known coltan reserves in sufficient quantities to export. It is a black mineral that is used in mobile (cell) phones and computer chips.

According to recent publications, metal production is at all-time lows; even oil has suffered catastrophically. Here is a recent headline from a technical publication which will suffice for all: “Venezuela’s Iron Ore Mines Operate At Less Than 10% Of Capacity“.

The iron mines of El Pao, where I was born, had massive structures such as a giant ore crusher which was loaded from trucks carrying about 30 tons of ore from the dynamite sites. The crusher ground the ore down to chunks of about 8 inches. Then its covered conveyer carried the reduced ore to a secondary crusher which crushed it further down to 2 or 3 inches. Finally, that ore was poured into 34-car trains which transported 4,500 tons of crushed ore 35 miles daily to the company port on the Orinoco River from whence it was shipped to a deeper water port on the Caribbean coast, transshipped to larger oceangoing vessels, and delivered to Sparrows Point, Maryland, the world’s largest steel mill at the time.

**Clearing through the jungles from the Orinoco to the camp site. Arduous work, which at times brought mishaps and frights**

**train loaded with ore headed to the company port, Palúa, on the Orinoco**

**Sparrows Point, Maryland. At the time, the largest steel mill in the world**

That accounts for a fraction of the investment required by one company to successfully extract and produce steel. To that, must be added roads, bridges, hundreds of houses for miners and their families, schools, churches, recreational facilities, commissaries, airports, and more. Multiply that by the dozens of American and European companies who came to Venezuela for iron ore, petroleum, and other minerals, and you begin to get an idea of the gargantuan investment made in the country in the first fifty or so years of the 20th century. For example, US Steel’s investment greatly surpassed Bethlehem Steel’s. And so did the oil companies’.

**Some of the home office staff bidding farewell to one of their number who was going on annual leave**

Circa 1958, my beloved aunt visited us from Miami, Florida. Although a busy homemaker, she was of that generation who would, nevertheless, find time to experience and appreciate the natural world that surrounds us. So, naturally, we would go on day excursions to different parts of Guayana. Once, in the interior, as we drove over a small stream she asked my father if he’d stop the car so that we could walk around a bit. We got out and made our way to that stream and my aunt promptly took her shoes off and waded in, carefully stepping on the rocks and smooth stones under the water.

“There are gems in this place,” she said.

I, regrettably, never learned why she thought that, although I do recall spirited conversations between my parents, my godmother, and my aunt about the possibilities. Then, all possibilities having been exhausted in conversation as we wandered around, we embarked and continued on our journey.

A few years later, my father brought a newspaper report noting that a gem mining concession had been granted in that spot, which became a profitable enterprise.

A country might be supremely rich in natural resources; it may have people, like my aunt, who can discern the riches under the surface. But if it discourages investment and healthy incentives, what can we say about all those natural resources other than, “Why cumbereth it the ground?”

Or, “Why bury your talent?”

Coffee

April 5, 2019April 20, 2019 Richard Barnes

This in no way is the opinion of a coffee connoisseur; just an anecdote in the ongoing education of a layman who likes coffee.

I often wondered why coffee tasted so good in Venezuela but so bad in Colombia. The conundrum was a challenge because having brought both Venezuelan and Colombian coffees to our home in Michigan and, later, Texas, preparing and drinking the Colombian was a delight, whereas the Venezuelan was a bitter memory. This neatly inverted my experience when actually drinking coffee in the respective countries: in Venezuela, coffee good; in Colombia, coffee bad.

Why was that? Why was coffee so flavorful in Venezuela, whether in fine restaurants or on street corners or in middle-of-nowhere joints, but so insipid in similar venues in Colombia? And yet, when you took the same coffees out of the country, the experience was exactly the reverse?

During an assignment in South America in the early 1990’s, I was invited for dinner at the home of a European executive and his wife. They served exquisite coffee.

“This coffee is very good. I assume it’s Colombian,” I said.

“Well, no. It’s Venezuelan,” our hostess replied. And then she and her husband laughed. They went on to explain that the reason coffee tasted good in Venezuela is that, although Venezuelan coffee is, in general, really not very good, the country’s bistros, restaurants, street corners, and country kiosks were equipped with the best European coffee makers, whether simple, Italian-made stainless steel stove top expresso makers (not to be confused with made-in-China Bialetti’s, whose coffee soon has the whiff of aluminum) or the marvelously complex, Swiss-or-Italian-made stainless steel commercial barista-operated machines.

“That is not the case in Colombia, for the most part. Yes, their coffee is indeed superior, but they go cheap on the coffee-making equipment and hence their coffee suffers.”

The point they drove home was that, for a tasty cup of coffee, the coffee maker can be more important than the coffee itself. Experts may disagree with their statement, but my own experience, anecdotal and unprofessional as it is, bears it out. And did I mention that the executive was a longtime employee of one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world? He likely knows what he’s talking about.

Once, in my mid teens, during a 24-hour drive from the interior to Maracay (a city to the west of Caracas), my father was not comfortable stopping for the night given that the inns we had inspected were, shall we say, not family friendly. He decided to continue driving but asked me to assist given that my mother was too sleepy to do so. I was excited for my first opportunity to drive on one of our excursions but was just as sleepy as he was. My father knew that the large cattle ranches in the area (known as hatos) would at times have giant kiosks with generators and excellent coffee along some roadsides. Around three in the morning, we saw one, like an oasis bathed in bright lights piercing the stark darkness. It was open air and the cowboys could be seen from the road as they leaned on the massive mahogany counter chatting and sipping their “negritos”, a very strong espresso-like concoction. My father ordered two. It was my first ever and it kept me awake and wired through the rest of the dark hours and into the middle of the morning when we drove into the city.

Three impressions stay with me from that incident: first, the bright lights in the darkest period of the night; second, the vaqueros in their boots and large hats as they leaned and talked and took their coffee; and, third, the intricate and polished espresso machines which, to a boy, seemed to extend the length of the wooden counter. This was an example of the Italian-made coffee makers one would find in the remotest corners of Venezuela, producing a coffee so excellent, that it would make Venezuelans dining in Paris bistros yearn for that homemade brew.

Venezuela once rivalled Colombia in terms of coffee production (not taste, except for rare artesanal coffee). Sadly, Venezuela’s coffee production has been in steep decline, especially since early this century when the effect of state regulations interfered with and disrupted coffee growers’ operations. In this regard, Venezuela has more in common with Cuba than to its neighbor. In Venezuela, power is now officially rationed but we can be grateful that, unlike Cuba, coffee is not.

Well, Colombia and Venezuela were supposed to be one country, not two. Maybe they’ll agree to unite one day, for the perfect cup of coffee.