Tag: Venezuela

If It Belongs To All ….

Richard Barnes

After college graduation in 1975, my visits to El Pao were rather irregular yet not infrequent, with visits in 1978 and several times in the ensuing decades when I was able to swing by during business trips. My last visit was in 2005, which, although memorable, had its harrowing moments whose details will have to await retelling.

During my 1978 trip, for which I will be forever grateful, an old family friend and her older children engaged me in lively conversation over coffee and pastries in her home when, pausing and looking at me, which caused me to remain silent, she said, “Nosotros jamás pensamos que el campamento se pondría peor [We never thought the camp would get worse]”.

That was the elephant in the room: surely I had noticed the unkempt open spaces, which as late as 1975 looked like golf course greens but now were overgrown; or the swimming pool which looked like it needed cleaning and maintenance; or the bowling lanes which had clearly seen better days; or the houses, including my family’s, in which we had lived until a few short years prior but which now were almost jungle invaded and “occupied” by surly squatters.

I had noticed, of course; however, I also knew that there was no need to needlessly offend. Prior to and during the “nacionalización” María had been a loud voice extolling the virtues of “public” ownership versus the evils of “Gringo” ownership.

But now she was sincerely looking for a response from someone whom she knew had not been a fan of the jingoistic justifications for theft. Of course, those appeals had been disguised by distortions asserting that the Bethlehem Steel and all such steel and petroleum companies had “stolen” the minerals of Venezuela, had exploited the people of Venezuela, had imposed inhumane conditions on the working class of Venezuela, ad nauseam. 

Carefully, for she sincerely wanted to hear my opinion, I replied, “Bueno, María [not her name], a way to help us understand what we are seeing is to ask a simple question: if something belongs to ‘everyone’, then who, really, is the owner? In other words, who will take the risk to care for the object that is ‘owned’ by all?”

She just nodded, signifying that she understood.

Our conversation rushed back to my mind when, in the late 80s, I visited the even more deteriorated camp. On that visit, I took a photo of the last classroom I attended before leaving for the States (photo below). The ranch style schoolhouse still stood and gave promise of a still bright future if only someone actually owned it. But no one did. María, and many more, had abandoned the camp by then and more recent photos show the pool to be an empty, cracking husk.

A few years after Venezuelan nationalization, Communist Zimbabwe (Rhodesia ceased to exist in 1979) had the presence of mind to keep their elephant preserves in private hands and thereby saved them from ruination for decades. Interestingly, they did not allow their ideological blinders to blind them to the benefit of having their treasured preserves cared for by the actual owners. And they were rewarded with excellent results. Unfortunately, Venezuela opted for the conventional Socialist route with the typical depressing results now well known throughout the world.

María is long gone now but our discussion remains vivid in my mind. 

I had forgotten about that photo until a few days ago when my brother-in-law pulled some envelopes stashed in some corner and old papers and photos, including that of the abandoned classroom, tumbled to the tile below.

And I was reminded that the Bethlehem Steel had built river port facilities about 180 miles from the mouth of the Orinoco River plus about 35 miles of railroad tracks and road inland from there to the site of the ore deposits. Three self-sustaining camps were built: one, Palúa, on the river, the other, El Pao, at the mining site, and a third, Puerto de Hierro, on the Atlantic coast to provide a deep water port for shipment up north. By March, 1951, close to 3,000,000 tons of ore were being mined annually, with most shipped to Sparrows Point, Maryland for processing, with a considerable amount of tonnage stockpiled in Palúa.

In summary, the Bethlehem Steel operations in Venezuela were somewhat complex from a transportation standpoint. Ore was mined and transported from El Pao by rail to Palúa on the Orinoco; then 180 miles down the mighty river by four or five 6,000-ton river steamers, built by a company subsidiary, to Puerto de Hierro on the Atlantic Ocean, from where the ore was transferred to much larger company ships for the 2,000-mile journey to Maryland.

By 1964 US Steel had dredged a 32-foot deep canal down the Orinoco for which other companies, including Bethlehem Steel, paid usage tolls. This allowed deep water shipments directly from Palúa, so Bethlehem shut down the Puerto de Hierro operations and ceded the ports and the camp to the Venezuelan government. All families were transferred to the other two camps.

As the reader can imagine, the capital investment implied in the above cursory descriptions is gargantuan. And that is only one company. In the first half of the 20th Century Venezuela received such investments from many such enterprises in the oil and ore industries.

At the close of 1974, the Venezuelan government nationalized all foreign owned ore properties, agreeing to pay book value, not market value.

And a mere four years later, my friend, María, asked why the camp had deteriorated….

My old classroom. Photo taken circa 1987

Photos of recently-built El Pao mining camp, circa 1953

Doña Tura

Richard Barnes

Doña Tura’s Spanish vocabulary and grammar tutelage over me was not very long, if memory serves: one school year, maybe two, max.

However, her impact was lifelong. 

She lived in the “otro campo” — the labor camp. Her house served as a school for younger children. She had one or two assistants, probably relatives, who helped keep tabs on the young and restless, or, in my case, hyperactive scholars. We may have been restless, however, we also knew that to irritate or otherwise provoke Doña Tura with our inability to sit still for at least a while, would likely result in a stern warning, loud enough to turn us into innocent pussycats.

In one of the classes, I sat next to white curtains which separated two rooms, similar to the flimsy drapes which separate business from economy class in some airplanes. In my infantile and energetic curiosity, I wondered if I could twist those curtains together and began doing so. The more I turned the cloth, the tighter it got and began to take the form of a nice torsion or spiral. Pretty neat, I thought.

Next thing, I heard a deafening voice, seemingly right in my ear, demanding I cease and desist — “¡Deja esa cortina!” I released the object of my curiosity and swung around so fast that the room spun, as the curtains unraveled back to the state intended by Doña Tura.

My age at the time of attendance at her school, was likely 6 or 7. She drilled us with vocabulary and grammar and penmanship. I was too young to question why my parents would take me there when I was already attending school at the Campamento Americano, and while my mother also drilled me at home.

Of course, years later, my parents’ actions became clear to me. The only other Spanish grammar and vocabulary instruction I ever received was by a teacher who came to our camp when I was eleven. He succeeded in tutoring us in the accent and other, more advanced grammar rules. Both his and Doña Tura’s training were instilled in me for life. 

However, had I not had the privilege of Doña Tura’s early guidance, I doubt that the teacher who came later would have made any progress whatsoever with me.

In Gentle Regrets, Roger Scruton wrote, “The purpose of the school was not to flatter the pupils but to rescue the curriculum, by pouring it into heads that might pass it on.” Even as children, we understood that, if only intuitively. We understood there is a real distinction between knowledge and opinion; Doña Tura taught us accordingly. We knew she was doing more than merely “drilling”; she was imparting knowledge unto us, knowledge we would use the rest of our lives.

So, for instance, when she drilled the Spanish alphabet into us … “Aa, Bb, Cc, CHch … Nn, Ññ … ” she did so knowing she was teaching us the basic facts of the beautiful Spanish language. And she hoped — she had faith — that we would use that knowledge and, over a lifetime, gain wisdom.

We may have failed her in that “wisdom” part; if so, that was not her fault, but ours.

I believe the last time I saw Doña Tura was during my three week visit in 1978 — however, it might have been during an earlier visit; I am not entirely sure. What I am sure about is that she still lived in the Otro Campo but in a different section. Of course, she had aged, but was still very energetic. Her hospitality was impeccable and as we sat across from each other, during a quiet moment, I thanked her for having been my teacher. I’m not sure she remembered — she seemed to hesitate, but then replied simply, “Oh, de nada.” 

That is a common reply to a “Thank you” — “For nothing”.

Only it was certainly not for nothing. And now, many years after her departure from this earth, I again say, “Gracias, Doña Tura”. 

Aerial view of the “Otro Campo” (the labor camp) where Doña Tura lived and where she taught me. Unfortunately, I could not find any photos of her.

Evidence of Fascism, Socialism, and Communism — Hurting Your Own People

Richard Barnes

I was recently asked about the usual definition of fascism placing it as a right-wing phenomenon, as if Hitler were a conservative or right wing politician or orthodox Christian(!).

Unfortunately, that is the “popular” understanding of the term; so if you are conservative or traditionalist in your beliefs you are liable to be identified as a fascist. 

Perhaps the best source to consult in this matter is the classic by F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom. In that great work, he makes the obvious observation that the line between fascism and socialism or communism is practically … nil.

The three systems, and their multifarious variants, are undergirded by one constant: total control. 

All else is dressing. Communism seeks total control by having the state own all property, or “means of production”; fascism seeks total control by having the state direct or force or threaten all property, or “means of production” to act as directed. 

The end result in both cases is the same: totalitarian control of the people and their property. In other words, total control of everything. 

In all such cases, Orwell’s definition applies: a boot grinding on our faces forever.

That is the reality.

To attempt to describe fascism as “conservative” or “right wing” is worse than a distraction. It is false and misleading. 

Another aspect of totalitarianism — regardless of its provenance — is its complete disregard for the people under its governance.

Totalitarianism — whether fascistic or communistic or socialistic — acts and rules to retain power.

The conservative temper is totally of another world. It acts and rules as an exercise of love. It governs with an inchoate understanding that we are responsible not only for those living today, but for those who have gone before us — who have bequeathed us a wonderful heritage — and for those who are yet unborn — who will carry on on our behalf long after we are gone.

Conservative temperament sees our time on this earth as a trust. A responsibility to not only preserve what we have inherited, but to improve upon it and to pass it on to our descendants after us.

It is a disinterested temperament — it cares more for those to come in the future than it does for “me”. 

So when we learn of the former self-described socialist president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, commanding his loyalists to block Bolivia’s major roads, starving out the populace, in order to prevent his arrest on charges of pedophilia, we should not care whether he is a leftwing or a rightwing maniac. 

What we should understand is that he is determined to return to power. 

And when we read that the self-described socialist president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is providing the vehicles to ensure those road blockages, we should readily understand that Mr. Maduro is also a man consumed with retaining power. Whether he is a “socialist” or a “fascist” is irrelevant.

He and Morales are totalitarians. 

And the totalitarian temper is not limited by forms of governing. It is found in monarchies, dictatorships, democracies, republics, fill-in-the-blank.

In all such cases, the attitude is: the people be damned.

Both Bolivia and Venezuela are suffering greatly. But this does not concern the powerful in those countries.

Their concern is to retain power.

So the blockades have caused over $1.3 Billion in damages to the economy of Bolivia plus untold deaths and wounded by the violence of the Morales thugs. All the while Venezuela’s ruling elite focuses on assisting an ally more than on liberty for her own people. 

So, instead of asking whether a politician or a pundit is right wing or left wing or fascist or socialist or communist, a better question or analysis is: does that person promote or pursue more liberty for the people or does he or she promote more regulations and controls. 

That is the litmus test: liberty or tyranny.

Ah. One more thing: an irreligious people cannot govern itself. Therefore, such a people will confuse “more liberty” with “more libertinage”, which always results in more tyranny.

Pray for the people of Venezuela. And Bolivia.

At a wholesale market in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba, farmer Damaris Masias watches through tears as 10 tonnes of tomatoes that she spent over a week trying to get through roadblocks are tossed into a bin (Barron’s)

Men of El Pao

Richard Barnes

David Quintana kindly sent me the below photographs, for which I am most grateful. (If David reads this, I hope he emails me again as I had not checked my emails for months and only saw his emails recently — months after he sent them — and am unable to contact him now although I have tried.)

The gentleman in the center of both photos is the late Herb Ashe, the father of Mike, who has written a number of posts published on this blog, beginning with Mining Camp Memories.

The gentleman on the left in the first photo, is Sam Wright (I’m borrowing from Mike’s memory here as I did not remember him off the bat). The gentleman on the right in the second photo is Mr. Elmo Belfonti. The gentleman on the right in the first photo and the left in the second photo is the late Ted Heron, whom Mike mentions in his posts and who was a close, lifelong friend of Herb Ashe, Mike’s father.

I remember these men and am a better man for having known them. 

How can that be when I certainly did not interact with them other than in social events and interactions? 

Well, as I put it in Part 5 of Mining Camp Memories: 

“I was reminded that no one comes into this world a “blank slate”; we all bring a heritage of the previous generations and much more. Sitting at the club bar as a kid in a time and place where that was not frowned upon, I heard the men there talk about mining accidents and lessons learned before coming to El Pao and how they applied such lessons to their current employment, not to mention their own parents or grandparents, and even politics and religion, at a time and place where such topics could be discussed without ending in blood and warfare.

“Many years later, I realized that, listening to those men, I was developing an inchoate understanding that no one comes into this world with nothing. We are born into homes we did not build, eat food we did not grow, learn languages we did not invent, and much, much more.

“El Pao welcomed men and women and children with manifold exciting backgrounds and experiences. Those of us whose childhood was nurtured there were very fortunate.”

Photos are circa 1960

Echo

Richard Barnes

The terrible events of the recent elections in Venezuela are now not even a dim memory in the mainstream media. The dictatorship as well as the hoity-toity across the Americas and Europe have been patiently waiting for the memories of the flagrant fraud and bloody suppression to be fully extirpated from the public consciousness.

However, there is a group in Venezuela who refuses to remain silent, although this requires them to be more than creative to make their voices heard.

And that brings us to the “Echo” organization where actors and actresses voice the true stories of very real Venezuelans or family members who are either in hiding, imprisoned, and/or tortured and beat. 

The link below should take you to just one exemplar which will also direct you to more, in case you are inclined to hear more or to help in some way.

Pray for the people of Venezuela.

​​Efecto Eco | “they threatened us and I’m incredibly scared” – Actor @thefaria ECHOES the story of a 19 years young man in Venezuela, while being… | Instagram