Comment by Jim Campbell, Citizen Journalist and Patriot.
Ah yes, communism and communists!
Hugo Chavez has metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that has entered the end stage. Be looking for the ” Miss Me Yet?” poster the day his death is announced.
If it weren’t for the love affair of the media with the corpulent Michael Moore, the communist Sean Penn, and the bowing and scraping to this tin pot dictator would we even give this country a second thought? Think about it.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, I’m J.C. and I approve this message.

Stratfor Global Intelligence
Fires at northwestern Venezuela’s Amuay refinery, which had been burning since Aug. 25 went out Aug. 28, destroyed nearby houses and killed more than 40 people. Coming just five weeks ahead of Venezuela’s Oct. 7 presidential election, the refinery fire is a blow to President Hugo Chavez’s government. The fire, along with a number of other challenges facing the Venezuelan government, will help the opposition at the polls in October.
Summary
Venezuelan Amuay oil refinery in Paranagua on Aug. 28
JUAN BARRETO/AFP/GettyImages
Analysis
The Amuay refinery fire is not an isolated incident. Venezuela’s refining sector has been slowly declining for years as cost-cutting measures enacted by Petroleos de Venezuela’s management have had adverse effects on operations. A similar, albeit smaller, event occurred Nov. 5, 2011, when a storage tank at the same refinery caught fire. The same month, blackouts left the Cardon refinery without power. In January 2012, a valve failure caused a five-day outage at the catalytic cracker of El Palito refinery in Carabobo state. These and an overall high rate of incidents are outside the norm for refinery operations and have periodically caused shortages of refined fuels in Venezuela.
The chronic challenges Venezuela’s once state-of-the-art refineries are experiencing are in part a result of changes in the frequency of maintenance procedures at Petroleos de Venezuela refineries. The company’s employees heavily supported the 2002 coup attempt on Chavez.
When the attempt failed, many of the company’s technically experienced employees were fired. Since then, efficiency has plummeted at Petroleos de Venezuela. The number of employees has skyrocketed at the same time that output has fallen. Among other shifts, this dynamic produced a change in how the refineries are maintained. Whereas prior to 2002 maintenance procedures were carried out every three years at a maximum, that period has expanded to four to five years.
For Chavez, the Amuay fire is only the latest political blow to occur despite efforts to secure support for the election. In the first place, prison riots have become a frequent occurrence. In the past several months there have been major incidents at prisons in Caracas, Miranda and Merida, underlining the problems the government is having managing extreme overcrowding in prisons, where heavily armed gangs compete for control with each other and with prison officials.
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