VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: In February 2003, the government of Hugo Chavez Frias set up exchange controls in Venezuela. On the basis of these controls, all normal foreign exchange transactions were interrupted and Venezuelan companies or individuals could no longer freely buy or sell dollars or any other foreign currency, use their credit cards abroad or bring into the country their own foreign currency if they wanted.  Suddenly the country went back to the 19th century. All foreign currency transactions had to be done trough a government agency which was slow, inept (and inevitably corrupt), while all exchanges had to be made at the official, illusory, rate of Bs.1,600 per dollar (the exchange in the also inevitable black market is closer to Bs.3,000 per dollar).

The government agency in charge of supplying official dollars to Venezuelans during 2003 only managed to disburse less than 30% of the requests made ... these requests were already far smaller than normal demand, since the complexity of the paperwork and the ineptness of government bureaucrats dissuaded most Venezuelans from going through the “legal” steps and it drove them to buy or sell foreign currency on the black market.

As a result of this merciless strangling process put in motion by the Chavez government, the economic activity in the country came to a virtual standstill. Hundreds of companies closed their doors. The shelves of most stores and food markets in Venezuela are today as empty as those in Zimbabwe or Haiti, with the exception of those catering to the military and to the new rich (Chavez followers).

What happens to your canteen in the desert if you do not drink water? It remains full, although at the expense of your water needs. You are liable to be found dead, dehydrated, with a canteen full of water at your side. This is what is going on in Venezuela right now. The country's international reserves have grown to about $22 billion and the vaults at the Venezuelan Central bank are bulging like the money vault of Uncle Scrooge, threatening to burst.

This is happening in a year in which inept President Chavez is being threatened with a referendum that would most probably oust him . unless he delivers what he has been promising to to the Venezuelan people for five years without any concrete results.

Today, the Venezuelan people are poorer and more frustrated than ever before. Chavez has already wasted about $140 billion during the last five years, in crazy projects and corrupt social programs. Now, all of a sudden, he feels that he needs to flood the country with new money if he is to cling to power. And he needs new money desperately. So he has ordered Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA): “sell whatever you can and get me some cash”… and, of course, in his total ignorance of Venezuelan Laws & Regulations, he has asked the Central Bank to fork over ... to start with ... one billion dollars ... what he calls in his TV show, “un millardito.”  His argument is simple (as in simpleton): “This bank is ours and has a lot of money in its possession. I need and want part of that money. I am the President. Give me the money or else.”

There are several problems to this grotesque request. One is that the Central Bank of Venezuela does not belong to the Venezuelan government but to the Venezuelan nation. Another is that the laws and regulations which control the activity of this bank do not allow the use of the money by the government for current expenditures but restrict it to the backing of the Venezuelan currency, to the guarantee of international commitments and to back our national debt ... the same basic duties that any Central Bank has in any civilized country.

Only the late Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe or Hugo Chavez would pretend that this type of money could be at their disposal for their personal, crazy projects.

The third problem related to the request is that Chavez obviously needs the money to throw it around in yet another show of paternalistic generosity, in order to buy the votes he will need to continue his systematic efforts of national destruction and his regional political messianic dreams. No matter how we look at this attempt by Chavez to lay his paws on the money (which belongs to all of us, Venezuelans) there is no doubt that he has to be stopped.

The Board of the Venezuelan Central Bank includes several Chavez followers, but even they are shocked at the arrogance of the ultimatum they have been delivered by this insensitive and ignorant man: “Fork over the money or you will be intervened,” he has told the Board. All members of the Board with red blood flowing through their veins are probably thinking: “F*** you. Man!”

• There is a moment in the life of every person where he has to live up to his creed ... for the members of the Board of the Venezuelan Central Bank that moment seems to have arrived.

Personally, I think Hugo Chavez is in for a big surprise ... he does not longer seem to scare anyone ... he is starting to look like the echo of a shadow of a shade, in the words of the great science fiction writer Dan Simmons.