Robert Rolf wrote:

> A good friend of mine was posted for several months
> to an oil refinery upgrade project in Caracus??

  Caracas, the capital of the country, Venezuela.


> back in theearly '80s. That is what he told me. He had pictures of the
armed
> soldiers on every street corner, so I took him at his word.

 Those soldiers could be there for anything imaginable.

> I did think it a bit extreme, but given the way some other
> regimes operated (Kadafy, Mugaby, Sadam), it wouldn't have surprised me
> that it actually happened.

   Venezuela have been in a democratic system since 1958, when the last
dictator Marcos P=E9rez Jimenez was kicked out of the country. Since then=
 we
have elected our presidents without any major flaws in the continuity of
democracy*. Regimes like the ones "operated" from Kadaffi, Mugabe and
S.Hussein have not been installed here at any time since those days **. I=
n
fact we have been the most solid democracy in Latin America for a while (=
40+
years)(Look that I wrote "solid", not "best" or "most efficient")

> Maybe is was just the refinery's way of keeping the 'foreigners'
> from getting into trouble and causing headaches for the HR department.
> If so, it DID work.

  I dont think that they werent doing anything that any "Prevention and
Control" team from any industrial area would have not done.

> I do know that for westerners posted to Saudi Arabia, having
> any alcohol outside the company compound would get you thrown in jail.
> (brother in law was there in the mid 1990's).

  Even taking into account that we are the fith major oil suplier in the
world, Venezuela is very far from having any style of living that could
reassemble any eastern country, Saudi Arabia included. In fact, to my
displeasure, we have been a very "relaxed" country, sort of "tropical" wi=
ch
has leaded us to a corrupt society but not to an abusive or oppresive
regime, yet.

> I figured that someone on this list would correct my
> mis?information.

  I know how hard can be to have real details from our countries.

Regards,

*Carlos Marcano*
-Guri, Venezuela-

* In 1992 there was a failed try from some militar people to grab power
through the use of arms.

** Since 1998, the people elected a populist, left winged (please dont st=
art
a flame war on this, is just the way himself positionates), ex-military,
former failed copu d'etat leader as the president. We have been transitin=
g
since then major disturbing days as the government have turned into a
"mildly" but constantly oppresive one. The last sign of this have showed =
in
the big possibilites of a possible fraud played by the government in a
recent recall to determine if the president had to leave his job.
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