VHeadline.com en Español editor Jesus Nery Barrios writes: Regarding Jesus D. Romero's letter to the editor: "Bottom line: the lack of housing for the poor is the result of poor leadership" and his very particular way to respond and "refute," there are a few things I would like to say, since as a Venezuelan living in the country since I was born 39 years ago ... and given the fact I've never left ... I know the facts that Mr. Romero is writing about very well and it gives me "witness authority" to refresh his memory and the chance to help VHeadline.com readers become aware of "other" facts he "forgot" to mention...

The housing problem in Venezuela did NOT begin with the Chavez administration.

It has been there for a very long time ...

When US oil companies started to exploit Venezuela's black gold back in the 1920s and the people from the rural areas began an exodus to the oil fields in the state of Zulia, the consequence of oil revenues led the State to begin to build up a bureaucratic infrastructure (ministries, state companies) concentrated in Caracas with enough financial resources to develop the country's infrastructure (roads, schools, hospitals) mainly in the biggest states capitals ... progressively abandoning rural areas, the haciendas and the people living and working there.

This migration ... giving birth in Venezuela to an economic mono-productive model ... produced overcrowding in the nation's capital, Caracas, because the State became the main employer after oil industry nationalization in 1975 and the need for administrative employers in the burgeoning State apparatus both in Caracas and the main western cities (Maracay, Valencia, Barquisimeto, Maracaibo).

From 1920 to 1975, foreign oil companies (mainly Creole, a subsidiary of Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and Royal Dutch Shell) only built fenced "oil camps" (private dwellings) for their employees (American managers and a few Venezuelan mid-range aides), with American-style houses fully-equipped with all basic services (drinking water, electric power, cooking gas) and in some cases "comisariatos" (supermarkets), schools, and medical centers for the employees' children, while the rest of the population (manual laborers working in the oil fields) lacked all these and had to live in the mud in precarious houses on very low wages.

From 1975, living in the golden age of high oil prices because of the OPEC oil embargo, the so-called Fourth Pepublic was unable to manage the housing crisis, in fact intensifying it ... and a greater part of the current problem comes from the fact that the private building industry (like most of the so-called private sector in Venezuela), was unable/unwilling to self-invest enough in housing because of a very particular phenomenon that affects all businessmen in Latin America, specially in mono-producing countries like Venezuela: i.e. their parasitic mind-set.

Indeed, given the fact the State had all the financial resources (and had many institutions like Banco Obrero-Workers Bank, INAVI-Housing National Institute, with their respective incompetent and corrupt bureaucracy) and played a dynamic role in the nation's economy, the few private national investors and entepreneurs could keep up with the pace of the State and rather depended on it to survive as a class ... a growing dependency only on State contracts to build houses.

What Mr. Romero does NOT tell our readers is that most of those building sector entrepeneurs filled their pockets with the award of State contracts to build public works (hospitals, houses, roads, stadiums) and that many of those works were not finished or were poorly built ... indeed, many of the contracts were awarded through political lobbying and bribery.

If you ask why those felonies were not punished, it is because the construction company owners were also part of the corrupt and ineffective political class.

* To make you aware just how it was ... take a look at this list that shows the names of the former presidents of the Camara Venezolana de la Construccion (Builders Venezuelan Chamber), and you will see the years they were chairing the Chamber and the positions they had in the fourth republic administrations:

Alfredo Rodriguez Amengual (1958-1960-1962): former Minister of State of Rafael Caldera (1969-1974). Alfredo Lafee (1962-1964): former president of CONAVI (Housing National Committee); former member of the Consejo de Economia Nacional (National Economy Committee); former member of the CORDIPLAN Directory (Development and Planification Coordinate); former president of Banco Central de Venezuela-BCV (Venezuela Central Bank); in the 1960's and 1970's.Enrique Pardo Morales (1966-1968): former member of BCV in the 1960's.David Dario Brillembourg (1976-1977): former president of the Colegio de Ingenieros de Venezuela (Venezuela Engineers Association); former member of FUNVISIS (Venezuelan Foundation of Seismic Research); graduated in M.I.T.Hugo Fonseca Viso (1982-1984): former Director of the Presidential Committee for Selective Migration during the Carlos Andres Perez administration (1989-1993).

As you can see, all these people had the economic power and the political influence to solve the housing problem in Venezuela over the previous peaceful and oil-rich 40 years ... but in turn they now criticize Chavez because in just 7 years (of opposition economic and political sabotage) they claim he has shown "poor leadership" (as Mr. Romero states in his letter) in resolving this inherited problem.

Another fact that Mr. Romero curiously does NOT mention is cement production which was privatized and now with most of it in the hands of a foreign company (CEMEX). The Chavez administration had to negotiate a plan with this Mexican company to increase cement production for house-building and even to import cement from other countries (including Cuba) because Venezuela is currently is building so many houses that it has run out of cement!.

Over the seven years of troubled government, Hugo Chavez has organized Comites de Tierras Urbanas (Urban Lands Committee) to help people to detect, assess and determine which lands are suitable for building houses within their communities ... and then to supply them with the financial aid and technical support to allow them build houses themselves, saving costs and adjusting housing complexes to their real needs and natural environment.

That is the truth about the housing problem in Venezuela ... and this is the way to criticize something or someone, Mr. Romero ... not by making empty statements without any historical reference or logical argument.

Of course our readers at VHeadline.com already know, after reading your propaganda letter, the kind of fallacies and lies that people like you try to spread to discredit Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution... such as saying Chavez is building "free" houses for Cuba, when it's well known that this is part of the Cuba-Venezuela Solidarity Exchange Agreement that covers a wide range of products and medical and educational services that Cuba provides to Venezuela in exchange for oil.

Of course, I don't expect you to understand what solidarity and human integration means, since people like you and the your "leaders" only talk and understand "macro-economy," "profits," "open markets," "capitals transference," "free trade" and "money."

To help Cuba and the rest of Latin America nations is an act of human solidarity ... just as it is to help all poor Venezuelans have a roof over their heads.

Jesus Nery Barrios
jes...@vheadline.com