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By Pablo Roldan
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Wednesday, 09 August 2006 |
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Hands Off Venezuela joined in the 100,000 strong march that
last Saturday, August 5, filled the streets of London with angry demonstrators who,
disgusted at the murdering brutality of the Israeli government, demanded an
immediate ceasefire.
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By the Iranian Hand Off Venezuela Campaign
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Monday, 24 July 2006 |
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About a year and a half ago, a group of Iranian youth began co-operating with the international
Hands Off Venezuela Campaign. At that time the internet page of the
Farsi section of the campaign was started and articles in defence of
the Venezuelan revolution were translated. Now with the planned trip of the President of
Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, to Iran, the time has come to make
the campaign official.
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By Patrick J. O'Donoghue - www.vheadline.com
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Sunday, 23 July 2006 |
We reproduce an article from VHeadline on the assassination attempt against the MVR deputy and leader of the National Agrarian Coordination Ezequiel Zamora, Braulio Alvarez. The attempt on Alvarez's life took place in the early hours of Saturday, July 22nd. |
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By José Pertierra - www.counterpunch.com
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Monday, 17 July 2006 |
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Cuba calls the shots; and Venezuela
pays the bills. That is the major premise underlying the Report
made public last Monday by the U.S. State Department concerning
Cuba. Its findings are as much about the Bush Administration's
plans for regime change in Cuba, as they are about the alleged
threat that Venezuela poses to U.S. national security interests.
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By Venezuelan Solidarity Network
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Friday, 07 July 2006 |
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U2's Bono, well-recognized for his campaigns to reduce poverty and treat AIDS in Africa is backing a videogame which promotes the invasion and destruction of Venezuela in order to check "a power hungry tyrant" who has "seized control of Venezuela and her oil supply." Bono has failed to respond to concerns raised by the Venezuelan Solidarity Network about his funding of this project. |
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By Greg Palast
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Thursday, 29 June 2006 |
Here is an extract from
Greg Palast's new book Armed Madhouse, to be published in Britain on
July 1 2006. Get Armed Madhouse at www.GregPalast.com
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By Media Lens - www.medialens.org
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Thursday, 29 June 2006 |
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The British media is moving up a gear in support of Washington and London's
agenda of demonising the next potential victims of western power, whether
in Iran or Latin America. We publish here an interesting analysis by Media Lens and urge our readers to write to the journalists of the Independent.
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By Jose Antonio Hernandez
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Friday, 23 June 2006 |
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Here we publish the speech by Jose Antonio Hernandez, the
Venezuelan activist from Caracas who was in Scotland for a speaking tour. Jose Antonio looks at the roots of the Bolivarian Revolution and its development, illustrated by his personal account of the revolutionary events.
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By Charley Allan - www.handsoffvenezuela.org
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Friday, 09 June 2006 |
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Charley Allan of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign wrote a letter to The Independent complaining about their article Garcia claims Peru win spells end of regional takeover by Chavez, which falsely portrays Hugo Chavez as a dictator. We republish the letter as it was published in the paper.
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By Michael Fox - Venezuelanalysis.com
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Tuesday, 06 June 2006 |
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Classes at the University of the Andes
(ULA) were suspended again last week, as disturbances and protests continued in
Merida. In
response to the violence, various government representatives announced that
behind the disturbances is a conspiracy to “destabilize” the country.
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By Hands Off Venezuela
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Tuesday, 06 June 2006 |
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Hands Off Venezuela received an interesting letter on the recent
violence in the city of Merida, which gives a good insight in the right
wing terrorism that is increasing in Venezuela. We publish it here
together with a public statement (in English and Spanish) by the
student movement.
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By Hands Off Venezuela
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Wednesday, 24 May 2006 |
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Following the hugely successful visit to London by
Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, where he addressed audiences of hundreds,
the Hands Off Venezuela campaign is to be launched in Scotland with a press conference
at the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday, 31st May.
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By Jeremy Corbyn
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Friday, 05 May 2006 |
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Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn moved an Early Day Motion in support of the nationalisation of the gas in Bolivia. We encourage our readers to email their MPs to ask them to sign this motion.
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By Hands Off Venezuela
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Tuesday, 25 April 2006 |
May Day sees the launch of
the new HOV magazine. The campaign is launching this quarterly colour
magazine to promote news and information about what is happening
inside Venezuela today. The magazine will be an essential weapon to counteract the
misinformation and lies emanating from Washington and elsewhere – a
real must for all those involved in the solidarity movement.
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By Hands Off Venezuela
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Thursday, 13 April 2006 |
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Arab supporters of the Venezuelan
revolution have launched a new website at http://arabic.handsoffvenezuela.org. Its aim is to build the Hands Off Venezuela campaign in the Arabic speaking
countries and help in the work of developing the revolutionary
movement in the Arab world.
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By Hilary Wainwright - www.redpepper.org.uk
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Monday, 10 April 2006 |
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We publish an an interview with Venezuelan General Raul Baduel by Red Pepper
editor Hilary Wainwright, who visited Caracas earlier this year for the
2006 World Social Forum. The article appears in the April edition of Red Pepper.
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By BBC
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Monday, 03 April 2006 |
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Newsnight is to broadcast a series of films, interviews and cultural
performances in a specially commissioned Inside Latin America week
starting on April 3rd.
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By Maarten Vanheuverswyn – www.handsoffvenezuela.org
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Friday, 31 March 2006 |
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On Monday March 27, the British Channel
4 screened a documentary on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez that can only be described as scandalous.
Unfortunately this is not just an isolated
incident, but part of a more general and concerted effort to spread
half-truths and open lies about Chavez with the aim of preparing
world public opinion for “regime change” in Venezuela.
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By Jorge Martin (Hands Off Venezuela – www.handsoffvenezuela.org)
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Thursday, 30 March 2006 |
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The US Navy will be sending four ships, one of them carrying 60 fighter
planes, and a total of 6,500 soldiers on a major military exercise in
the Caribbean starting in the next few weeks. This can only be interpreted as a threat and as a concrete preparation for
future military intervention against the Venezuelan relvolution.
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By Jorge Martín - www.handsoffvenezuela.org
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Friday, 10 March 2006 |
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On March 8, the British Parliament held a debate on Venezuela, proposed by Labour MP Colin Burgon, who sparked off Blair’s attack on Hugo Chavez by posing a question to him on Venezuela. “Indeed, some people in Latin America found [the answer] more than disappointing, and it created a minor political tsunami.”
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By Venezuelanalysis.com
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Thursday, 09 March 2006 |
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Chavez accused Manuel Rosales, the
governor of the Venezuelan state of Zulia, of seeking secession for his
state, with support from the U.S., in an effort to destabilize the
country. Rosales, though, strongly denied the accusations.
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By Jorge Martin
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Monday, 06 March 2006 |
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The Bush administration and its allies have launched yet another campaign designed to demonise Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The latest example is an article in The Washington Times by Stephen Johnson. Jorge Martin takes a look at who Stephen Johnson is, and the dangers of the campaign. |
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By Colin Burgon
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Monday, 20 February 2006 |
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Colin Burgon is the MP who sparked off Blair’s attack on Hugo Chavez by posing a question to him on Venezuela. Following this, an Early Day Motion, number 1644, on "Developments in Venezuela" has been put down and so far signed by 78 MPs. We reproduce here an article Burgon wrote in last Friday's Guardian. "Blair shows a worrying disregard for democracy by parroting the US line on Chávez's legitimacy." |
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By Rob Sewell, member of the national Steering Committee of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign
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Thursday, 09 February 2006 |
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Blair has made it very clear where he stands on Venezuela. He is with the oligarchy of the rich parasites who for decades have oppressed the people of Venezuela. He is with US imperialism. We must make sure the workers of Venezuela hear another voice, that of British workers, youth, trade union activists who wholeheartedly support the Venezuelan revolution. |
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By Hands Off Venezuela
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Thursday, 09 February 2006 |
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Last year Orlando Chirino, national coordinator of the UNT, was in Britain hosted by the Hands Off Venezuela campaign. He also attended the TUC congress where a historical resolution in support of the Venezuelan revolution was passed. Due to a technical hitch translation of the interview was delayed, but we are publishing it now as it gives a clear idea of the high level of debate within the Venezuerlan labour movements on such issues as workers’ control and socialism. |
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By Corriente Marxista Revolucionaria Caracas
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Wednesday, 08 February 2006 |
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On Saturday, February 4, a truly gigantic demonstration in support of the Bolivarian Revolution marched through Caracas. The march was at least 12 kilometres long and revealed that the revolutionary élan of the masses is still alive and kicking. Chavez called for the arming of the people to face up to the danger of imperialist intervention. The coming year will be a crucial one if the revolution is to go forward and be completed. |
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By El Universal
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Wednesday, 18 January 2006 |
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Workers of six plants property of European aeronautical trust EADS-CASA in Spain stopped working Monday for five minutes to protest a US ruling. Last week, the US Government issued a decision to prevent Spain from using US technology in the aircraft sold to Venezuela. |
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By David Sugar - www.venezuelanalysis.com
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Thursday, 12 January 2006 |
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Venezuelan socialism to appears not to be about socialism by decree, nor driven by state or any single party ideology. It is rather socialism by experimentation and education. Venezuelan socialists instead appear deeply tied to the basic principles of social justice, solidarity, and equality. |
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By Andy Goodall - Venezuela Solidarity UK
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Friday, 16 December 2005 |
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The emphasis on the abstention figure to delegitimise the parliamentary elections and the new National Assembly is a political ploy to discredit the CNE and the elected representatives of the Venezuelans, and destabilize the country. This has been going on since December 10th 2001, when the first general strike was called. |
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By Gregory Wilpert - Venezuelanalysis.com
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Tuesday, 06 December 2005 |
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According to preliminary results released a few hours after voting centers closed, pro-Chavez parties won all seats in the National Assembly and Chavez's own MVR party won 114 out of the 167 seats. Opposition leaders argued that low turnout made the new National Assembly illegitimate. |
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By Richard Gott - The Guardian
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Tuesday, 06 December 2005 |
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The people of Venezuela have gone to the polls 11 times in seven years. Almost a superfluity of democracy, some might think, and signs of electoral fatigue could be detected in Sunday's elections for the National Assembly when only 30% of the electorate bothered to vote. The rest perceived the result as a foregone conclusion since in earlier elections President Hugo Chávez, or the candidates he backed, had stacked up substantial majorities. Sunday's poll followed the trend, and the Chávez list wiped the board. |
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By Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com
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Tuesday, 06 December 2005 |
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For the fourth time, Venezuela’s opposition parties are undergoing a bizarre process implosion. One can only hope that this presumably last error (because they will be practically gone after that) will mean the rebirth of a responsible and constitutional opposition in Venezuela. |
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By Hands Off Venezuela
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Friday, 02 December 2005 |
Movements like those in Venezuela force everybody to take a stand - and the “progressive” liberal press is no exception. Simon Tisdall, in his Guardian column titled “Chavez the Bush baiter” (November 25), reveals the bias of the mainstream media towards the Venezuelan Revolution. Here we include a link to Tisdall’s column and to the letters that some readers sent to the Guardian in rejection of this biased piece of capitalist propaganda. |
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By Juan Gonzalez - New York Daily News
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Tuesday, 29 November 2005 |
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The Chavez government is already directing hundreds of millions of dollars from its windfall petroleum profits to expand social programs for Venezuela's own poor, and it has begun providing cheap oil to more than a dozen poor Caribbean nations. To the people at the Bush White House and their buddies at the Big Oil companies, sharing the wealth with those less fortunate is a dangerous idea. |
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By John Pilger - New Statesman
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Saturday, 12 November 2005 |
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Leaked internal Pentagon documents have identified Venezuela as a "post-Iraq threat" requiring "full spectrum" planning. The old-young man in the jeep, Beatrice and her healthy children, and Celedonia with her "new esteem", are indeed a threat - the threat of an alternative, decent world that some lament is no longer possible. Well, it is, and it deserves our support. John Pilger on Venezuela. |
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By Gregory Wilpert – Venezuelanalysis.com
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Tuesday, 08 November 2005 |
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With the Summit of the Americas final declaration, in which five of the continent's largest countries refused to endorse the FTAA, Chavez argued that a significant victory had been won. At the Summit Chavez also spoke to Colombia's president about reports of Colombian secret police activity in Venezuela. |
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By Cort Greene - US Hands Off Venezuela
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Tuesday, 08 November 2005 |
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This December marks the anniversaries of two of the most important documents of the United States ruling class’ imperialist policy. These documents epitomize the American imperialists’ paternalistic worldview, which they use to maintain their political and economic interests, and to expropriate the markets, raw materials and labor of the peoples of not only the western hemisphere but of the world. That is why the US Hands Off Venezuela Campaign is working with the Latin American Solidarity Coalition to get organizations and individuals to take up the call for a series of events around the anniversary. |
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By Greg Oxley
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Wednesday, 26 October 2005 |
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A report on the Speech Chavez gave recently in Paris. Asked by the local mayor what was the “secret” behind his political success and resilience, Chavez explained that his power emanates from the mass movement, of the involvement of the mass of the people in the struggle for change. During his speech he also praised the work of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign and underlined the need for such international solidarity. |
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By Hands Off Venezuela
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Tuesday, 18 October 2005 |
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In a previous article taken from AFP and reproduced in the Pakistani newspaper, The Dawn, it was stated that "Hugo Chavez blamed global capitalism for Saturday’s earthquake in South Asia". Unfortunately this slipped through without being checked. It is not really what Chavez said. |
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By Venezuelanalysis.com
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Monday, 17 October 2005 |
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According to Venezuela's National Institute of Statistics, unemployment and poverty have both been dropping significantly in 2005. Unemployment is now at 11.5% and income poverty at 38.5%. These figures are said to be a direct result of the consistent economic growth for the past two years. |
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Wednesday, 12 October 2005 |
The following AFP article appeared in all the English language newspapers across Pakistan today. We republish here with a picture of the article from the Dawn, one of the most widely read English papers in Pakistan. |
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Monday, 03 October 2005 |
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President Chavez's recent visit to the United Nations on September 15th caused a major commotion in the United States. The Bush administration tried to block and delay the visit, so that Chavez’s appearance would not coincide with Bush’s at the United Nations. |
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By Federico Fuentes - Green Left Weekly
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Thursday, 29 September 2005 |
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Speaking of the nine-month-long struggle against the Aseven (KR) soft-drink company, one of the company’s workers Luis Flugo told Green Left Weekly, “we have been on the streets, we have been the victims of so many acts of corruption. Many trade unions have gone through the same experience. But the workers have supported us in forming a new [trade union] leadership, because they want change — a radical change — so that we are the new administrators of the collective contract that is coming up, because the one we have now is useless. And the trade union we had was useless.” Many other workers present at the meeting space of the National Union of Workers, Carabobo regional section (UNT-Carabobo) for a monthly meeting in August had similar stories. Barreto Nestor, a worker at Rudaveca, described their struggle to form a new union. “I have only been involved in the trade union movement for a few months but it has been a grand experience”, he said, adding that “there wasn’t a union in the factory when we formed this union”. Nestor explained that “we say we are living in a real democracy, but there are still parts of the old democracy that remain. To form the union, we have to do it clandestinely and together, under the eye of the firm, hiding from the bosses because if they find us, although they are not [legally] able to fire us, they do. This is part of the reality we live in in Venezuela.” The day after they formed the union, the workers were out on the street after the boss refused to negotiate with them. The workers organised a picket-line, which was attacked by armed gangs organised by the bosses. Together with the UNT and other unions, the workers responded with peaceful tactics and won their demands and back pay within one-and-a-half days. New confidence Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution has created a resurgence in the confidence of workers to fight back and reclaim what is theirs. Previously, the trade union movement in Venezuela was dominated by the corrupt bureaucratic leadership of the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV). As many of the workers explained, the CTV has worked shoulder to shoulder with the bosses, treading on the rights of the workers. Two important events helped to reshape the terrain of working-class struggle. Flugo explained, “If you do a survey of all the companies, in all of them are new groups of [unionists] that have sprouted, because they have won referendums, because the new laws [introduced by President Hugo Chavez’s government] protect them. That is what has helped take the blindfold off and see that [workers] can win their rights.” The new laws, which enable workers to hold referendums in their workplace to decide who will oversee their collective contract, has opened the space for a new layer of militants to rise up from the ranks. All the unionists present at the UNT-Carabobo meeting space said they are very new to the trade union movement. Nestor said that the changes have meant that “a light has appeared in front of the workers”. In many areas of private industry, there are problems with the functioning of the new laws. Many of the bosses and the old unions are not accustomed to having to deal with workers wanting to negotiate a better deal, and in many cases they have refused to talk to union representatives. Workers in this situation have been forced to strike for the right to bargain their collective contract. In the case of Aseven (KR), the old unions illegally held referendums that didn’t comply with the laws and constitution. “They would give workers a sheet to sign, pretending it was something different and when [the workers] were not careful, they would put a stamp on it saying they had voted and use that to relegitimise themselves”, said Rafael Gutierrez. Nestor explained, “We still don’t say that everything is perfect. There are many of the old structures that have not been destroyed, because as we know, a revolution does not happen from one day to the next ... look at the nine-month struggle [at Aseven (KR)]. If we look at the law it shouldn’t last that long. There are things we need to improve but that is where we are at, and we continue to struggle.” The second change has come from the experiences of the workers themselves in these struggles. A decisive turning point was the bosses’ lock-out, which began in December 2002. Many of the bosses shut down factories, including the state-owned company that controls Venezuela’s oil reserves (PDVSA), in order to create an economic crisis that could bring down the Chavez government. In response, workers moved in and began to take control of their factories, including restarting the oil and electrical sectors, which were crucial to breaking the back of the bosses’ lockout. After the CTV-backed lockout was defeated, militant unionists formed the UNT as a new federation. Co-management Through battle, many workers began to realise their power and their ability to play a role in running companies. With the initiation of co-management in a number of state-owned enterprises, as well as some closed down factories that have been taken over by workers and then expropriated under workers’ control, a discussion about co-management is beginning among workers. “We got together so that the workers themselves will have benefits; we had five years without benefits, working Monday to Monday. Now we have advanced in terms of [understanding] the laws, and the workers want to take over the factory for themselves, and I have to talk to them, holding them back so that all of us do it democratically and legally so that there are not mass firings and so that it is planned”, said Flugo. According to Barreto Nestor, “Unless this capitalist system is transcended, the workers, regardless of the best collective contract signed, will not achieve our goals. We need to transcend capitalism, and co-management is part of that. It is giving power to the workers, power to us.” Challenges Despite some of the issues faced, the UNT has been able to make many advances against the bosses and the corrupt CTV in a short period of time. The struggle has taught workers many lessons, particular those new to the trade union arena. However, internally the UNT still faces some challenges. At an Andean regional meeting of the UNT in early July to prepare for the UNT national conference, national coordinator Marcela Maspeiro noted one key problem they face: There are still many unions not in the UNT and even more workers not in the unions. An even bigger challenge is how to relate to the over 50% of workers who are in the informal sector, and how the UNT can help to organise this sector. Part of the problem of drawing in more unions is the fact that since the UNT’s inception, there have been battles against some bureaucratic tendencies within the UNT itself — union leaders who got involved in the UNT when they realised that the CTV was a sinking ship. One front for this battle is in SUTISS, the union that covers the strategic state-owned steel plant SIDOR. The current leadership of SUTISS, some of whom have positions in the national leadership of the UNT, are holding back internal elections for their own union. Workers in the PDVSA have also talked of bureaucratic practices once again taking hold within the three different unions that cover this important sector. The fact that there are three unions, and talk of a fourth, within PDVSA also shows another issue that the workers’ movement faces. At the August regional meeting of the UNT in Carabobo, it was clear that there were a number of very intense disputes for coverage within workplaces between unions who are all affiliated to the UNT. In general, a big challenge is to break the influence of some of the old culture of bureaucratism and squabbling for positions. The other problem is the connection of the workers’ movement, particularly the UNT, with other sectors of Venezuelan society. It was noticeable that the only discussions that took place at the regional meeting involved current industrial disputes and the internal functions of the UNT. No mention was made of any broader struggles or events in the community. Another example is the lack of UNT presence at marches organised by other sectors, such as the march of campesinos from the countryside to the presidential palace on July 11. The march was directed against imperialism and the assassination of peasant leaders and for agrarian revolution — the war against the latifundista (large landowners), for unity from below, and for socialism, but the campesinos marched alone. This problem has also been reflected in some of the issues faced with co-management. How to ensure that co-management does not simply become a change from private to collective control of the company wealth, but rather is socialised and put to the use of the entire community is something that has to be seriously debated in the movement. Already issues such as the disbanding of the union in INVEPAL, the paper factory that was expropriated and placed under workers’ control and is being run as a joint state-workers cooperative, has raised some questions as to the real aim of co-management. As more and more factories begin the process of co-management, the challenge will be to expand the focus of the movement and begin to integrate the community in these matters. Taken rom Green Left Weekly, September 28, 2005 |
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Monday, 26 September 2005 |
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Two weeks earlier, soldiers and representatives from the National Land Institute (INTI), which is in charge of administering the land reform, occupied the 8,490 hectare (21,000 acre) ranch in Chavez’s home state of Barinas. Chavez explained, during his 4-6 hour TV program, in which he usually explains government policy and has various guests, that his government is dedicated to the eradication of latifundios, the large idle landed estates that exist throughout Venezuela. “The latifundio is one of the most powerful obstacles for the development of the country and as long as it exists, it is impossible to begin the foundations of progress,” said Chavez. Opposition critics of the government’s drive to redistribute land argue that the reform violates the right to private property. Chavez responded to this charge by saying, “There is no violation of private property; we are restituting law and order.” Venezuela’s 1999 constitution, in articles 306-308, explicitly outlaws the existence of latifundios. The precise definition of these has varied, but it is generally considered to be a landed estate of over 1,000 hectares that is idle. According to Chavez, the Azupurua family cannot prove ownership and so the land actually belongs to the state. In an effort to avoid disputes over the land, Chavez called a member of the Azupura family and told him that the government could offer the family 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres). Carlos Azupurua said that his family would take the offer under consideration, but “this is not just my decision, but that of [the ranch’s] shareholders and we will also listen to the opinions of the workers.” According to Azupurua, the land is legally owned private property that is being used for agriculture, except for a portion of the land, which is under ecological protection and under the regulation of the Ministry of the Environment. His family will provide additional documents to the government soon to prove its legal title in a chain of documentation that reaches back over 100 years. For land titles to be legal in Venezuela, the documentation has to reach back to 1848. According to Venezuela’s land reform law, only unproductive land over a certain size may be expropriated, with full compensation at the land’s current market value. If the legal title is not in order, though, the government may confiscate the land without compensation. Azupurua also said that he will maintain a dialogue with the government, “because this is the position that will most benefit the country and I believe that the country needs dialogue.” A government press release stated that the land would be divided up among 80 families and the 60 current workers of the ranch. Chavez issued a presidential decree in January of this year, which would accelerate the land reform process. Until the end of 2004, most of the land that had been redistributed was undisputed state-owned. With the January decree, though, Chavez hopes to redistribute 21 latifundios with a total of 612,000 hectares. (article from Venezuelanalysis.com) |
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By Alan Woods
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Tuesday, 20 September 2005 |
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After yesterday’s letter from the Venezuelan Ambassador, Alan Woods replies by stressing the contribution of the many comrades who have worked for several years to build up the Hands Off Venezuela within the British and international labour movement. To Alfredo Toro Hardy, Ambassador of the Bolivarian Republic in the UK. Dear Ambassador, Many thanks for your letter, which I received yesterday. Please convey my best wishes to President Chavez and my gratitude for his support. This message will undoubtedly encourage the supporters of the Hands off Venezuela Campaign and everybody who is fighting to support the Venezuelan Revolution against the monstrous aggression of US and world imperialism. However, I consider that the President’s thanks should not be taken as a personal recognition of myself, or any other individual. I believe it is the elementary duty of every member of the international labour movement to do everything in their power to defend the Venezuelan Revolution and to defeat the plans of imperialism to isolate and undermine it. If I have been able to play a modest role in the necessary work of international solidarity, I consider that I have fulfilled my duty. The passing of Resolution 79 at the TUC congress was achieved by the tireless work of many supporters of Hands off Venezuela over the last months and years. In the past few months, as you know, we have intervened with resolutions and meetings in practically every trade union congress in Britain, consistently raising the question of Venezuela, with excellent results. The vote at the TUC was the culmination of this work. There are far too many people to mention individually. But I cannot fail to mention the important part played by outstanding trade union leaders like Jeremy Dear (NUJ) and NATFHE President John Wilkin, who presented Motion 79 at the TUC congress. Both unions have consistently supported HOV for a long time. I must also mention the vital role played by John MacDonnell MP and Jeremy Corbyn MP, the leading figures in the left wing Labour Representation Committee, both of whom have shown themselves to be dedicated supporters of the Venezuelan Revolution and have given tremendous support to HOV. My own contribution has been mainly in the field of international contacts. As you know, this year alone, I have visited Venezuela twice and maintained regular contacts with the revolutionary forces, and in particular with the leaders of the main trade union federation, the UNT. But all the credit for organizing the campaign’s work in Britain must go to the very able team of comrades organized by Jorge Martin and Rob Sewell, who have worked tirelessly for the cause. I could mention many others, but they are too numerous. Finally, I cannot fail to mention my friend and comrade Orlando Chirino, a veteran of the Venezuelan workers movement and in my opinion the most outstanding trade union leader in Venezuela today, who came to the TUC at the invitation of the Hands off Venezuela campaign, defying a ferocious behind-the-scenes operation designed to prevent him from coming to the congress at all costs. The Hands off Venezuela campaign was established almost three years ago, in response to the bosses’ lockout, when the counter-revolutionary oligarchy was preparing to overthrow the elected government of Hugo Chavez, which they had failed to do in the April 2002 coup. At that time, HOV was only a small group of people in London. The great majority of the Left was not yet aware of what was really happening in Venezuela. We had very little support and very sparse resources. On the other hand, the reactionary forces of imperialism and the oligarchy had at their disposal colossal resources, including the might of the mass media. At the present time, I am happy to say, the situation has varied substantially. More and more people are becoming aware of the real situation in Venezuela. The campaign against imperialist interference and bullying in Venezuela is gathering strength. And Hands off Venezuela has grown from very modest beginnings to a powerful campaign that is now active in more than 30 countries in five continents. The work of HOV in Britain has put a lot of time and effort into the Labour and trade union movement because we have always believed that the international workers’ movement is the natural ally of the Bolivarian Revolution, and its best defence against imperialist aggression. Our work has been constantly opposed, not only by the imperialists, but by the right wing of the movement, which does not want to have anything to do with socialism or revolutionary tendencies anywhere in the world. Backed by the state and the powerful mass media, they have been supporting the reactionary CTV “trade union” and doing their utmost to prevent the truth about the Bolivarian Revolution being known. These right wing elements have attempted by every coneivable means to block the advance of HOV and to split the solidarity movement. In order to sow confusion, they have organized a campaign of disinformation that tries to present HOV as an “ultra-left” and “sectarian” campaign. This is entirely false. Although the original initiative for setting up the HOV campaign came from the Marxists like myself, I should like to make it clear to you that, as a solidarity campaign, it is open to any individual or organization that is prepared to defend the Bolivarian Revolution and fight against imperialism. As a Marxist, I have never concealed my own political views and have always advocated the position that the Bolivarian Revolution can only achieve final victory through workers’ power and socialism. That is my firm conviction, which I will always defend with all the energy I can summon. But HOV is a broad solidarity campaign, in which people of different political persuasions participate freely and defend their views with equal conviction. All are welcome to participate – Marxists and Social Democrats, atheists and Christians, anarchists and flat-earthists. There is only one condition: that we must combine in action to defend the Venezuelan Revolution. Socialism is democratic or it is nothing. A passionate debate on socialism and the future of the Bolivarian Revolution is taking place in Venezuela. That is very positive, and we are participating in this debate. The same debate will necessarily be reproduced in the international solidarity movement. That is a healthy development. Only reactionaries and bureaucrats fear such debate. Only through a free and democratic debate on policies and ideas can the workers’ movement advance and raise itself to the level of the tasks posed by history. As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the attitude of various tendencies to the Bolivarian Revolution is becoming the touchstone that determines the nature of every tendency in the world labour movement. The right wing reactionary forces and the bureaucracy are naturally hostile to it. The left wing and the working class rank and file are instinctively sympathetic. The passing of a resolution unanimously by the TUC in support of Venezuela and opposing imperialism represents, as you say, a step forward of great significance in the struggle against the media misinformation campaign regarding Venezuela and the actions of its government. It represents a victory for the truth against the avalanche of lies, distortions and misinformation, which has been orchestrated in Washington, but which has been replicated by the reactionary forces in London and every other capital city in Europe. But it is also something more than this. It is a great victory for the Left in Britain and a defeat for the reactionary forces. Therefore, Mr. Ambassador, in defending the Bolivarian Revolution, we are defending our own class interests. In fighting imperialism’s aggressive actions against Venezuela, we are also fighting imperialism and reaction everywhere else in the world. And in fighting those forces within the labour movement that are hostile to Venezuela and, either openly or secretly, support US imperialism, we are fighting to transform it from top to bottom and to return it to the path of socialism. When President Chavez calls for world socialism as the only alternative to the nightmare of capitalist barbarism, he is expressing the fervent wishes of millions of working people, not only in Venezuela, but in Britain and in every other country in the world. This is a message that is far too important to be confined to the frontiers of any state. It is a message that corresponds to the actual needs of the world in which we live. It is a call to action that echoes through every continent and country. John Wilkin said at the TUC “We need a bit of Bolivarianism in Britain”. But that is only another way of saying: the British Labour movement must return to its original aims. It must break with Blairism, capitalism and imperialism. It must reject privatisation and so-called market reforms and inscribe on its banner the socialist transformation of society. Therefore, in expressing our solidarity with the Venezuelan Revolution, we are defending our own class interests. We are advancing the fight for socialism in Britain and internationally. We do not see these things as separate aims, but as one single, indissoluble struggle that is taking place on a world scale. I thank you again for your kind interest in our work and wish you every success in your efforts to defend the Bolivarian Revolution. Yours fraternally, Alan Woods London, 19 September 2005. |
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By Venezuelanalysis.com
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Friday, 16 September 2005 |
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Venezuela’s President Chavez, in a fiery 22 minute speech at the opening of the 60th UN General Assembly, called for a revolution in the UN, proposing four immediate changes for the transformation of the UN. “The 21st century demands changes that are only possible with a refounding of this organization,” said Chavez. “Mere reforms are not enough…” |
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By Charley Allan - Morning Star
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Tuesday, 06 September 2005 |
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So, US televangelist Pat Robertson has ordered his million-strong "brownshirt" army to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. This powerful Bush ally, who sells "miracles" on live TV to people who really believe that he has a hot-line to God, may just be protecting his turf - after all, the Venezuelan president has just announced on his own television show that he, too, will be helping the blind see again, only for free. Mission Miracle is a new social programme which sends poor Venezuelans to Cuba for sight-restoring eye operations. It has been tremendously successful and Chavez recently announced that it will be extended to countries across the hemisphere, including the US. What this means is that poor north Americans without health care will be able to fly, at Venezuela’s expense, to Cuba - probably via Venezuela, as the Bush regime has drastically increased the penalties for US citizens who visit Cuba - where they will receive surgery from Cuban doctors. They can be accompanied by a relative or friend, also for free. More proof that the Venezuelan administration genuinely believes in global revolution comes in the form of his offer to provide cheap oil to poor US communities, primarily for heating fuel during the winter. Up to half of the skyrocketing price of oil goes to profit-hungry middle men, according to Chavez, and he wants to deal directly with the consumer. Venezuela already owns a chain of petrol stations and refineries across the US, called CITGO, which could be used to implement such a scheme. Chavez has even offered to sell cheap oil directly to progressive groups in the US, such as the Black Caucus. Venezuela was the first country to offer aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, though Chavez criticised US evacuation plans as far worse than those in Cuba. CITGO pledged $1 million and gave food and shelter to 2,000 residents of Louisiana in one of its refineries there. Two mobile hospital units have also been promised by Venezuela, as well as rescue specialists, generators, water purifiers and 50 tonnes of canned food. The US government hasn’t yet accepted this generous offer, instead telling people to give money to the Red Cross, as well as to a charity named Operation Blessing via the website of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Tellingly enough, Operation Blessing is run by Pat Robertson and is being investigated for allegedly transporting diamond-mining equipment to Africa instead of medical supplies, which was what it fundraised millions of dollars for. While the rich in Venezuela complain that Chavez is wasting "their" money on foreigners, supporters of this country’s peaceful and democratic revolution - especially those living in poor neighbourhoods (barrios) - see this as an essential element of foreign policy, building solidarity with primarily poor people deep inside the US empire. The problems of poverty and lack of health care, education, social security and dignified employment affect people all over the world and the solutions have to be global also. Bolivarian socialism, the new political philosophy of the Venezuelan masses, may hold some of the answers. At its heart, Bolivarian socialism aims to redistribute power to the poor people and to include them in the decision-making of their own country. Free universal education and health-care are crucial to achieving this, but they are not enough on their own to bring about true equality. In some ways, the most revolutionary aspect of the political process here has been the rapid growth of the co-operative movement and the establishment of hundreds of "endogenous nuclei" across the country. Mission Vuelvan Caras, another of the numerous new social programmes in Venezuela, is responsible for co-ordinating and developing this movement of workers’ power. An endogenous nucleus is a community in which there exist several co-ops working together, making products or offering services that complement and co-operate with each other. For example, when farming, trucking and kitchen co-ops establish links like this, they become a secondary co-op. These can then provide products, services and education to the community, strengthening their democratic and inclusive nature and unlocking the potential of the people, the community, the country and even the hemisphere itself. Economic liberation is only a part of this - more important, according to one Vuelvan Caras worker, is "changing the way we see ourselves and other people." Co-ops are revolutionary because they allow workers to own and manage the means of production. The government provides start-up microcredits to enable the purchase of equipment or office space, gives training and education if necessary and helps to find markets and customers for the co-op to sell to. As the movement grows stronger, government resources should become less necessary and an entirely new, self-sufficient economic system will co-exist with and then eventually replace the capitalist, profit-driven machine which currently dominates the world. The fact that the co-operative model can be exported to any other country makes it a credible threat to the corporate empire, as workers across the planet realise that they can run their businesses better than their bosses did and take inspiration from the self-empowerment of the Venezuelan people. Another key element of Bolivarian socialism is the nationalisation of failed and bankrupt corporate industry. Paper and oil-valve factories are two examples of this and Chavez has said that any more companies that go under will be taken over and run by the workers themselves. Another popular concept being implemented is that of co-management, whereby workers have the right to be part of the decision-making process and are given real powers - for example, to set some of their own budgets. Although not as radical as the entirely worker-owned and managed model, this is a big step towards a democratic economy and far more logical than the government expropriation of productive private industry. One of the most profound aspects of all this is how the Venezuelan people are now debating what socialism really means and the ways in which their vision differs from previous interpretations in countries such as Russia, China and even their close ally Cuba. The constitution establishes that the state should be "decentralised." This is important in respect to decisions being taken at a local level, rather than by privileged cliques at the top of hierarchical political power structures. The Bolivarian movement’s grass-roots activists are very conscious of this ongoing struggle and protests against their own elected representatives - even Bolivarian ones - are not uncommon, as is the sense that their only defence against corruption is popular participation and pressure from below. There is also a debate between the "libertarian" and "authoritarian" tendencies within socialism. Venezuela is, in fact, quite a libertarian country. For example, driving without seatbelts or crash-helmets, through red lights and even under the influence of alcohol, is not particularly frowned upon, though they are all illegal. Graffiti and murals are everywhere and protesters will often bring out a spray-can during demos to scrawl spontaneous slogans on street walls. The government even came close to decriminalising personal-use quantities of drugs, though this legislation was stalled and then defeated at the national assembly. There are currently very harsh penalties for any kind of drug use and the police generally see this as a way of extorting money from careless and unlucky tourists. Although it is easy money for the cops, there seems to be a rather half-hearted aspect to their shake-downs, perhaps because of the contradiction between this and their job of fighting - often very serious - crime. It is openly and commonly said that many policemen here are extremely corrupt and, since the US-backed coup of 2002 they are seen by many Venezuelans simply as puppets of Uncle Sam. Soldiers, however, are much more respected and are genuinely regarded as being on the side of the people. The collaboration with the communities of the military rank-and-file against the coup and bosses’ lockout later the same year, as well as their role in facilitating many of the social programmes throughout the barrios, has brought about a new civil-military alliance that will make any further coup or sabotage attempt much more difficult. The rich and powerful opposition to Chavez, however, are not giving up without a fight. From provoking conflict in the streets, to their leaders meeting with Bush in the White House, they are planning something big, probably around the next general election in December 2006. Many of the middle class have completely bought into the idea of Chavez-the-demon, a madman who is hell-bent on taking their homes and cars away from them. This is exactly the line that the private media have been selling since he was first elected and the irrational hatred is part of what is stopping Venezuela from healing itself. On the Bolivarian side, there is still deep resentment of the coup-massacre and lockout-sabotage that the middle-class helped to facilitate, perhaps unwittingly. If there is ever to be any kind of reconciliation - although that might take a miracle - it is crucial that both sides re-evaluate what they have been taught to think about the other, change the way that they see themselves and society and make the ever-present government slogan "Venezuela: ahora es de todos (now is for all)" a reality. |
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By Bernardo Delgado - Venezuelanalysis.com
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Tuesday, 06 September 2005 |
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Venezuela’s President Chavez charged that the U.S. government, under President Bush, is more interested in expanding its empire than in helping its own people. The U.S. “attempts to dominate the world and does not attend to the needs of its people,” said Chavez during his weekly Sunday television program Aló Presidente. Chavez particularly lambasted the Bush administration’s lack of effort to help the poor in New Orleans to evacuate from the city before Hurricane Katrina hit. “How many children died there that could have been evacuated by land, by air, by water? Not one helicopter was moved before the hurricane came. Not one public use vehicle was moved. No bus nor military truck. Nothing,” said Chavez angrily. “And Mr. Bush is on vacation in Crawford, on horse,” he added in his rough English. Chavez went on to discuss how much money the U.S. had spent on its war in Iraq and that it appears to be preparing for wars against Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. “They are preparing to dominate the world,” said Chavez. Despite his strong criticisms of how the Bush administration handled the emergency caused by hurricane Katrina, Chavez reiterated Venezuela’s solidarity with the people of the United States and his condolences for the hurricane victims. “Before anything else we gather the sentiment, the solidarity, the love of the people of Venezuela and send it to New Orleans, Louisiana, and to the entire coast of the Gulf of Mexico. We are, prior to anything else, moved by this tragedy,” emphasized Chavez. Chavez drew a comparison to the tragedy that Venezuela suffered in December 1999, when torrential rains caused mudslides, killed an estimated 15,000 people, and made over 150,000 homeless. “It is the same face, drama, and pain, whether in English, Spanish, Chinese, or Guarao [an indigenous language], it is the same soul.” In the course of the program, Chavez also spoke via phone to Felix Rodriguez, the CEO of CITGO, which is a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA. In the course of the phone conversation Chavez informed viewers that Venezuela would increase its total aid package for the victims of the hurricane to $5 million, which would be distributed via CITGO. Also, Venezuela is sending a tanker with 1.3-1.5 million barrels of gasoline to alleviate the gasoline shortage that the hurricane-struck area is currently suffering, where gasoline prices are nearing $7 per gallon. While numerous refineries in Louisiana and the Gulf coast area were forced to shut down because of the hurricane, CITGO’s Lake Charles, Louisiana refinery is operating normally. CITGO even managed to increase its total refining capacity from 810,000 barrels of crude oil per day to 843,000 barrels per day, explained Rodriguez to Chavez. |
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By Jorge Martin
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Friday, 02 September 2005 |
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Venezuela was the first country to offer help to the United States in dealing with the effects of Hurricane Katrina. On Wednesday, August 31st, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that Venezuelan state-owned CITGO Petroleum Corporation had already pledged US$1 million for hurricane aid. "It's a terrible tragedy that our North American brothers are living through," Chavez said. "We have a battalion from our Simon Bolivar humanitarian team ready in case they authorize it for us to go there, if they give us the green light." He offered humanitarian workers and fuel to help. "We are willing to donate fuel for hospitals, for public transport, everything we can do," Chavez said. But at the same time Hugo Chavez sharply criticised US president G W Bush for his handling of the Hurricane crisis. "As more information comes out now, a terrible truth is becoming evident: That government doesn't have evacuation plans," Chavez said. Putting words to what many in the US must be thinking, he added that Bush, "there at his ranch, said nothing more than 'you need to flee'; he didn't even say how - in cowboy style." He also pointed out that the lack of a clear strategy on the part of the government hit the poorest sections of the population hardest. "We all saw the long lines of desperate people leaving that city in vehicles, those who had vehicles," he said, noting that the areas worst affected are amongst "some of the poorest in the United States, most of them black." In contrast with the lack of action on the part of the US government, the Venezuelan government was able to help hundreds of Lousiana residents. CITGO, a company in the US owned by the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, has a network of refineries and gas stations in the United States. One of these is based in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and was opened to give shelter and aid to some 2,000 residents of the area. Felix Rodriguez, the president of both PDVSA and CITGO who was visiting the Lake Charles refinery, said that the funds from their donation would be directed to aid organizations in affected areas. According to Venezuelanalaysis.com, sources at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington DC said that "apart from the million dollars in monetary assistance, Venezuela is offering two mobile hospital units, each capable of assisting 150 people, 120 specialists in rescue operations, 10 water purifying plants, 18 electricity generators of 850 KW each, 20 tons of bottled water, and 50 tons of canned food." In his statement Chavez also noted the contrast between the way Cuba and the US deal with these kinds of natural catastrophes. Here we can see again the advantages of a system where the private profit motive was abolished after the 1959 revolution. While there are very few victims of hurricanes in Cuba, and the contingency plans are properly organised, in the most powerful capitalist nation on earth, thousands die, most of whom could be alive today if the necessary measures had been taken. Chavez further made the link between the fierceness and frequency of recent hurricanes and global warming, for which he blamed capitalism and criticised the US for refusing to sign the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases. Not surprisingly, coverage of this offer for help from Venezuela was very scarce or non existent in the US media. The only reaction from the US administration was from an unnamed "senior State official" quoted in the Washington Times as saying that “he was not aware of Caracas' proposal” but noted that “unsolicited offers can be counterproductive." The Bush administration cannot really accept this offer for help which would destroy the image they are trying to create of Chavez as an evil dictator. Venezuela's offer comes a week after the statements by right wing fundamentalist preacher Pat Robertson, who said on his TV station that Chavez should be assassinated. The Bush administration has so far not condemned this statement and not taken any legal measures against Pat Robertson. The furthest they went was when Rumsfeld said that he did not agree with the declarations of Robertson, but that any private individual is free to say whatever he wants. In the last week, Venezuela has also offered cheap gas and fuel to poor communities in the US, the hardest hit by the recent increases in the price of oil. "We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States". Chavez explained that the exorbitant price of oil is mainly caused by speculation on the part of the multinationals and intermediaries, and that if these were cut out, prices would be much cheaper. He explained how in Venezuela gas is even cheaper than bottled water and that Venezuelans can fill their tank for about $2. According to the Venezuelan Embassy in the US, more than 1400 organisations (churches, charities, counties, hospitals) have already contacted them to enquire about the details of the offer. This is not the only offer that revolutionary Venezuela has made to the United States people. When Chavez attended the graduation of the first promotion of the Latin American School of Medicine in Cuba (ELAM), he also offered to bring tens of thousands of US citizens to Cuba to be operated on their cataracts, extending the "Mision Milagro", which has been dealing with Venezuelan patients, to a 150,000 poor US-Americans a year. The offer was also to train thousands of doctors at this ELAM school. "We are deeply concerned about the poverty which is increasing in the United States," Chavez said. The attitude of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez towards the US is thus very clear and has been so from the very beginning of the Bolivarian revolution: opposition to imperialism and the attempts of the US administration to overthrow the democratically elected government in Venezuela, while at the same time solidarity and links with ordinary working people in the United States. These offers of help also expose the inability of capitalism in the US to provide the basics for their own population: health care for all, relief in case of emergency, cheap fuel for heating in the winter, etc. This is a further argument against those who say that the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela must proceed cautiously, not to provoke imperialism, etc. In fact the best defence against imperialism is taking measures like these which will show ordinary working people in the United States what can be done and will make them think what kind of government they would rather have: one that puts war and private profit before peoples' basic needs, or one that invests the country's natural resources to improve peoples' lives. This example would be even more powerful if the Venezuelan revolution were completed and the whole of the economy put under the democratic control of the workers, the only way in which the Bolivarian revolution can succeed. |
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By Bernardo Delgado - Venezuelanalysis.com
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Wednesday, 31 August 2005 |
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Venezuela’s Chavez said to visiting Rev. Jesse Jackson today that he would like Jackson to help with finding a way to provide discounted heating oil and free eye operations to poor communities in the U.S. Pointing out that Venezuela provides 1.5 million barrels of oil per day to the U.S., Chavez said, “we would like to provide a part of this 1.5 million barrels of oil to poor communities.” Chavez made these comments during his weekly television program today, which Jackson briefly attended to speak to Chavez and the audience. Jackson is on a three-day visit to Venezuela, during which he will meet with local religious leaders, Afro-Venezuelan groups, the president of the state oil company PDVSA, President Hugo Chavez, and visit poor-neighborhoods to see Venezuela's social programs at work. Chavez had first mentioned the plan to supply discounted oil to poor communities in the U.S. last week, while in Cuba, but did not provide any details beyond that. Today he specified that it was heating oil that the Venezuelan government was looking into because this seemed the most feasible and most necessary approach. Given the high price of oil this year, heating oil is expected to reach very high levels this winter, which will be unaffordable for many poor families in the U.S. “There is a lot of poverty in the U.S. and don’t believe that everything reflects the . Many people die of cold in the winter. Many die of heat in the summer,” said Chavez in explaining why Venezuela was interested in providing discounted heating oil to the U.S. poor. “We could have an impact on seven to eight million persons,” he added. Chavez said that he was interested in talking to Jackson about this plan, so that his organization and other U.S.-based groups might help with it. Chavez mentioned the groups TransAfrica Forum, Global Exchange, and Global Women’s Strike that could also help implement the plan. Part of the plan was for the U.S.-based and Venezuelan state-owned oil company Citgo to provide heating oil directly to poor households. Chavez said this would not present a loss to Venezuela because the idea would be to offer the oil at a lower rate because intermediaries would not be involved. Up to 30% to 40% of the cost could be saved said Chavez. Citgo licenses 14,000 gas station franchises and 8 refineries in the U.S. Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez, had told Chavez that the embassy has already received over 140 requests about the plan, even though it has not been formally announced yet. Free Eye Operations Chavez spent a large part of his Sunday talk show discussing new healthcare plans for Venezuela. Part of this discussion also involved the provision of free eye operations to people in all of the American continents, north and south. The operations Cuba would provide the bulk of the operations, with Venezuela providing the transportation. Chavez said that of the six million operations that Cuba and Venezuela would want to organize over the next ten years, there would be slots for 150,000 U.S.-Americans per year. Each country will receive a quota. Chavez gave some examples, explaining that there would be 100,000 for Brazilians, 60,000 for Colombians, 12,000 for Panamanians, 30,000 for Ecuadorians, 20,000 for Bolivians, and 20,000 for inhabitants of the Caribbean. Chavez said that those interested in the eye operations should turn to the Venezuelan embassies in their respective countries. The plan to provide free eye operations is part of the “Mission Miracle,” which is one of the many new social programs that Chavez government has instituted in the past two years in Venezuela. By the end of December, 150,000 Venezuelans will have received eye operations. These operations involved operations for cataracts, myopia, pigmentary retinosis, and many others. |
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By Cleto Sojo - VenezuelAnalysis.com
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Wednesday, 31 August 2005 |
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Rafael Ramirez, president of Venezuela's oil company PDVSA, offered some details of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's offer to provide cheaper gasoline and heating oil to U.S. poor communities. Speaking shortly after a press conference held by President Chavez and U.S. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ramirez said that CITGO Petroleum Corp., the wholly owned subsidiary of PDVSA, is currently refining up to 664.000 barrels of oil through the refineries it owns and operates in the United States. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and the fourth largest supplier of oil to the United States. Venezuelan oil accounted for 12% of U.S. oil imports. Ramirez said that under the Venezuelan government plan, CITGO will set aside up to 10% of its refined oil products to be sold directly to organized poor communities, and institutions in the U.S. without intermediaries. The plan calls for the sale of heating oil and gasoline to hospitals, nursing homes, schools and organized poor communities in U.S. soil, according to Ramirez. Other Venezuelan government officials, who asked not to be named, said that Venezuela will not lose any money with this program because the idea is to "cut the middle-man", the intermediaries. Ramirez said the beneficiaries will see a price reduction of about 30%. Ramirez, who is also Venezuela's Minister of Oil and Energy, denied that Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition would be the recipient of the cheaper oil. The Minister said Reverend Jackson's organization could help Venezuela identify those who are in need, but that they will not be the recipients of the products. Ramirez was confident the program will be implemented before the U.S. winter begins. CITGO Petroleum Corp. owns and operates eight refineries in the United States. It is unclear how the CITGO gas will reach the consumers, as CITGO does not own any of the 14.000 CITGO-branded gas stations operating in U.S. territory through franchising. "Impact on seven to eight million persons" “There is a lot of poverty in the U.S. and I don’t believe that reflects the American Way of Life. Many people die of cold in the winter. Many die of heat in the summer,” said Chavez on Sunday during his weekly TV show, explaining why Venezuela was interested in providing discounted heating oil to the U.S. poor. “We could have an impact on seven to eight million persons,” Chavez added. Venezuela’s ambassador to the U.S. Bernardo Alvarez, had told Chavez that the embassy in Washington DC has already received over 140 requests about the plan, even though it has not been formally announced yet. Venezuela also plans to provide free surgery for certain eye conditions for U.S. poor. |
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By Jonah Gindin Venezuelanalysis.com
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Wednesday, 13 July 2005 |
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Campesinos marched on Venezuela's National Assembly, demanding justice and an end to impunity for assassins of peasant leaders. Credit: ABN |
“Zamora took Caracas” on Monday,
as agrarian workers affiliated with the National Agrarian Coordinator
Ezequiel Zamora (CANEZ)—named after the 19th Century hero of Venezuelan
peasants—marched through the city demanding an end to the assassination
of land reform leaders. Over 6,000 Venezuelan campesinos
congregated outside the National Assembly, and later, outside of the
Attorney General’s office to demand an end to impunity for those
responsible for over 130 assassinations.
Since the Venezuelan government passed a controversial land reform
law in 2001, conflicts between land reform activists and land-owners
have resulted in at least 150 assassinations of campesinos, and
possibly more. Since January, 2005 when the land reform initiative was
given a new push by President Hugo Chávez, violence in the countryside
has escalated further.
Claudia Jardim, a journalist who produces a special bi-monthly
documentary on the country’s land reform process says the political
murder-rate in the countryside has jumped to an estimated one peasant
leader per week since January.
Campesinos marching on the National Assembly and Attorney
General’s office submitted a document listing a series of demands to
secure government protection for those on the frontlines of the land
reform and to seek an end to impunity for the material and intellectual
authors of the assassinations.
Specifically, their demands included the establishment of a series
of special prosecutors to be assigned to the states that have witnessed
the most serious levels of violence over the past few years.
The CANEZ also submitted a document to the Attorney General complete with evidence linking specific latifundistas—landowners—to
the violence. Campesino leader and recent victim of an attempted
assassination, Braulio Alvarez, was on hand during the protest and
afterwards, where he was interviewed on state television channel 8.
According to Alvarez, some of the richest landowning families in Zulia,
Cojedes and Yaracuy (see map) are responsible for contracting killers
to rid them of bothersome peasant leaders.
A Worrisome Trend
But according to peasant activists, every agricultural state has seen the use of hired-killers, known as sicarios,
against peasant leaders pushing for land reform. In addition to the
three states mentioned above, Lara, Guarico, Barinas, and Portuguesa
have also seen violence directed against campesino movements, including the use of sicarios.
Marino Alvarado, Defense Coordinator for Venezuelan human rights group Provea told Venezuelanalysis.com
that “Campesinos have been the targets of assassination in Venezuela
for decades.” Nor is the problem of hired-killers, the “sicariato,” anything new in Venezuela, according to Alvarado. “Perhaps what is new
is that the phenomenon has increased considerably,” he says. “Since
2000, the number of campesinos assassinated has increased rapidly,
under specific conditions suggesting the involvement of sicarios, hired-assassins… Today, the sicariato is a problem nationwide, though it remains very much concentrated in the frontier.”
“What has changed of late,” explains Alvarado, “is that sicarios have been increasing the number of victims, and they have been widening their reach. In the past, sicarios
tended to kill those linked to illicit activities, drugs, corruption,
and so forth. Later this was extended to incorporate political
activists, whether related to land reform, human rights, or community
politics.” Over the past five years the sicario has been “diversifying his victims, and he has become more sophisticated in his methods.”
The state launched an ambitious land reform, argues journalist
Jardim, without sufficiently advancing a strategy for protecting
peasant leaders from the entirely predictable violent reaction of the
landowning class.
From the Military to the Hired Assassin
For Alvarado, the sicariato represents another important
development, and that is in the transition from the use of state
sponsored repression, to the use of private killers. Since the Chávez
government came to power in 1998, says Alvarado, repression in the
countryside has largely been at the hands of private forces, forces
outside the state police and military apparatus. 2005 may become the
exception, he warns, noting that two peasant activists have already
been killed by the Armed Forces.
In the past, the Venezuelan Army, the National Guard, as well as
regional police forces were regularly implicated in killings of peasant
activists and leaders. One infamous example was the 1988 Amaparo
massacre, in which 14 “guerillas” were killed “in battle” by the
Venezuelan military. As it turned out, the alleged ELN Colombian
guerillas were in fact Venezuelan peasants on a fishing expedition.
The military planted weapons on them and ELN insignia, then hastily
buried the bodies without the required autopsy.
Since the Chávez government has redefined the role of the Venezuelan
military, and radically challenged existing power relations in the
Venezuelan countryside, landowners looking for retribution against
peasant groups have turned to the sicario, the hired-killer to play the repressive role in rural areas that the military has largely abandoned.
Looking for Justice
The problem, says Ezequiel Zamora Front leader Domingo Santana, is
the “situation of abandonment that peasants inhabiting frontier
zones—especially in Apure—are currently living.”
“The most worrisome aspect of this entire issue,” says Provea Defense director Marino Alvarado, “is that the sicariato continues killing unpunished.” “That is not to say that sicarios
enjoy special protection or impunity,” says Alvarado. In fact, they
enjoy the same benefits of everyday murderers: a Justice system that is
incapable or unwilling to adequately investigate these crimes and bring
killers to justice.
With this impunity, warns Alvarado, the sicariato has been
evolving into a truly developed class of professional killers, no
longer restricted to operating in the frontier regions, but now
essentially free to operate throughout the country, including Caracas.
Alvarado suspects that the car-bomb assassination of Public Prosecutor
Danilo Anderson in November, 2004 was at the hands of sicarios—perhaps the same ones operating in the countryside.
CANEZ and other land reform groups have repeatedly suspected
specific landowners in the assassinations of their leaders. Often, the
links appear clear, at least to the campesino groups in
question: land reform activists occupy land for which they have legal
title; they come into conflict with neighboring landowners who have
illegal claim to the land; masked killers surprise the group’s leaders
and kill them.
As a human rights group, Provea cannot say that landowners are
clearly responsible for the killings of peasant leaders, says
Alvarado. “We do not have the proof that unquestionably links these
landowners to the killings of peasants…It is not for us to accuse, that
is the job of the Attorney General’s office…Nonetheless, it is presumed
that in at least some of the cases, some of the people involved were
contracted by landowners.”
This view has been widely corroborated by other human rights groups
in the country. Last April a group calling itself the Forum for Life,
which brought together the most active and widely respected human
rights groups in the country, issued a communiqué to the Venezuelan
government, demanding that the state take a clear proactive role in
protecting the lives of peasant leaders against assassination.
“The frequency with which in the past few years, activists and leaders of the campesino
movement have been assassinated represents a grave situation that
obligates the national government to present a prompt and fitting
response,” reads the opening sentence of the report. “The occurrences
of violent acts in the Venezuelan countryside reflect the inadequacy of
current security policies and evidence the state’s responsibility, due
to omission. Though high-level government officials have expressed
their preoccupation with these events, mere declarations have proven
insufficient. What is required is a policy that facilitates
investigations, guarantees the protection of campesinos and their leaders and, in general, the improvement of citizens’ security in the countryside.”
A Quick Response
Peasant leaders and activists marching on the capital on Monday were
met by an impressive array of high-level government leaders. At the
National Assembly (AN), First Vice-President Ricardo Gutiérrez spoke to
the crowd overflowing into the AN’s gardens and the streets outside,
announcing the establishment of a special commission to discuss and
respond to the principal problems of Venezuelan peasants. Gutiérrez is
currently leading a commission investigating the assassinations of and
aggressions against peasant and indigenous leaders and activists.
Peasant movements will select 15 representatives to join the commission, which will visit the states in which sicarios
have threatened to halt the land reform process now fully underway.
“We know you are here calling for justice,” Gutiérrez told the crowd of
around 6,000. “We will pressure the public institutions to do justice.”
Minister of Agriculture and Land, Antonio Albarrán, also addressed
the crowd that came to Caracas from all over the country. Albarrán
announced the creation of a sub-commission to be presided by Alcides
Rondón, Vice-Minister of Citizen Security of the Ministry of Justice
and the Interior. The sub-commission led by Rondón will also
investigate the assassinations as well as formulate preventative
policies designed to improve security in the Venezuelan countryside.
Albarrán added that representatives from peasant groups and from the
Attorney General’s office would be incorporated into Regional Councils
previously established to address rural and land reform issues.
CANEZ leaders were also received by representatives of the
Venezuelan executive at the Presidential Palace Miraflores. In a
Monday night press conference Information Minister Andrés Izarra said
the issue is of the utmost interest to the President, and should
involve the cooperation and dedication of all relevant ministries.
Whether these responses will have the desired effect remains to be
seen. Organizers of the march stated that the “in the face of repeated
assassinations, the alternative is to deepen the agrarian revolution,
continue the expropriations according to the Land Law, mobilize the
masses of campesinos, and secure decisive action by the Armed Forces against the guilty parties.”
But a resolution to the crisis in the countryside is likely far
away. The power struggle unleashed with the 2001 Land Law was widely
considered to be a major motivation for the anti-Chávez opposition’s
coup attempt in April, 2002, and it continues to be violently contested
by landed interests in rural Venezuela.
As evidenced by recent events, most notably the extra-judicial
killings of an estimated 200 people over the past several years in the
state of Guarico in which the Governor has been implicated, and the
similar killings of three students two weeks ago in a Caracas
neighborhood, the Venezuelan security apparatus is in need of complete
overhaul. While such an overhaul has recently begun, it will have to
prove to be sufficiently profound for it to make a difference. There
is a culture of violence intrinsic in Venezuela’s police institutions
in particular, but also including the military, which is by no means
specific to Venezuela. Police and military in Brazil, Colombia, and
Argentina have all been implicated in horrible massacres over the past
few years. According to New York University historian Greg Grandin,
this culture of violence is a legacy of Cold War state terrorism, one
that many critics charge was bred by the infamous U.S. School of the
Americas to which Latin America’s most notorious dictators sent their
officers for training in “interrogation techniques,” among other
hallmarks of “modern counterinsurgency.” Replacing such a culture of
violence with a mission to protect Venezuelan citizens goes further
than merely neutering the military and police’s repressive capacity; it
also means ending the impunity of Venezuelan criminals, whether their
crimes are politically motivated or not. |
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By David Raby, Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool
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Wednesday, 06 July 2005 |
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David Raby wrote a review on Alan Woods' book The Venezuelan Revolution: a Marxist Perspective
for Hands Off Venezuela. David Raby is an Honourary Research Fellow at
the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Liverpool.
Although many Marxists and
progressive activists in general are still reluctant to recognise it, a real
social revolution is under way in Venezuela, and this places the country at the
centre of the international political struggle between capitalist globalisation
(or imperialism, as it used to be called) and popular movements throughout the
world. Moreover the unquestioned leader of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution”,
President Hugo Chávez, is already (and deservedly) an international figure of
comparable stature to Fidel Castro or Che Guevara.
The great virtue of this book, and
of Alan Woods as a leader of the Revolutionary Marxist Tendency, is to have
recognised this fact at an early stage and to have acted accordingly by
promoting the Hands Off Venezuela (HOV) campaign. Like this reviewer, but
unlike legions of sectarian dogmatists and wishful idealists, Woods understood
that revolutions do not develop according to a preconceived formula, and that
the people (or the working class) cannot sit around for ever waiting for a
perfect Marxist-Leninist party to appear, any more than they can make
revolution as a spontaneous and unorganised mass (as some dreamers in the
international anti-globalisation movement seem to believe). From my perspective
Woods is still hampered by a somewhat doctrinaire view of the revolutionary
party and the nature of revolution and socialism in our times, but any
deficiencies in this respect are more than compensated for by his understanding
of and support for the Venezuelan revolution.
In Venezuela, at least since the time of Chávez’
first election in December 1998, and more especially since the failed coup of
April 2002, the masses have burst on to the scene and become leading
protagonists of the political process. Indeed, as argued by retired General
Jacinto Pérez Arcay, in a sense the people took to the streets during the Caracazo riots of 27 February-5 March
1989 (against an IMF deflationary package imposed by the social-democratic
President Carlos Andrés Pérez), and have never looked back (Rosa Miriam
Elizalde & Luis Báez, Chávez Nuestro,
Havana 2004, p. 84). But the people involved in this spontaneous and
directionless popular revolt (brutally put down on orders from Pérez with
hundreds, indeed possibly thousands, of dead) found the leadership they lacked
with the unsuccessful military-civilian uprising led by Lt-Col. Hugo Chávez on 4
February 1992.
In the absence of an effective revolutionary party, it was Chávez and his
Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement (MBR-200) who became in effect the vanguard
of a popular revolutionary process which is still continuing, and the crucial
point is that this vanguard role is recognised and accepted by the masses. It
is no use lamenting that this is not the type of vanguard party conceived by
Marx, Lenin or Trotsky; as Woods points out, what many self-proclaimed Marxists
have failed to understand is ‘the dialectical relation between Chávez and the
masses’. They mumble about ‘populism’, but ‘show their complete inability to
connect with the real movement of the masses’ (p. 69).
It is this same blindness to the
real dynamics of popular movements which leads many sectarians to condemn
participation in the Bolivarian Movement and call for building a revolutionary
party outside it; as Woods comments ironically, ‘So three men and a dog (or a
drunken parrot) gather in a café in Caracas and proclaim the Revolutionary
Party’ (p. 83). This is precisely what many dogmatists in Venezuela were doing for years before the
Bolivarian movement developed, and some of them like Bandera Roja (Red Flag) have ended up as counter-revolutionary
provocateurs, which is the logical conclusion of such arrogance.
Woods and the Revolutionary Marxist
Tendency are taken seriously in Venezuela, including by President Chávez
himself, precisely because they have shown an understanding of the real
situation in the country and of the practical leadership provided by Chávez and
the Bolivarian Movement. Woods also correctly stresses throughout the need for
the revolution to be further radicalised and to take more decisive measures against
the bourgeois oligarchy and imperialism. But where I part company with Woods is
in his assessment of Chávez as a representative of ‘petty-bourgeois
revolutionary democracy’ who, while being supported in his progressive actions,
must be pushed to the left by building ‘an independent revolutionary
proletarian current’ (p. 93). This in my view is to underestimate the political
capacity of Chávez and his intimate bond with the popular classes; it is this
bond which is the real motive force of the Venezuelan revolution and which is
driving it forward to take ever more radical actions. Just as with Fidel Castro
and the 26th July Movement in Cuba in 1959-61, so in Venezuela it is Chávez and the Bolivarian
Movement who are leading the process forward together with the people. It was
after all Chávez who surprised everyone in December 2004 by declaring, in his
closing speech at the World Congress of Intellectuals and Artists in Defence of
Humanity, that ‘we have to reclaim the legacy of socialism’ and ‘find the way
forward to build the socialism of the twenty-first century’. Since then he has
repeatedly returned to the theme of socialism, while taking measures such as
the expropriation of the Venepal and National Valve factories and their
conversion to a combination of state management and workers’ control, the
acceleration of the agrarian reform and the signing of the ALBA agreement with
Cuba which strengthens ties between the public sectors of the two economies. Of
course popular pressure was also involved in these decisions - Chávez cannot do
things alone - but this popular pressure takes place primarily within and
through the Bolivarian Movement, which is as Chávez has explained nothing else
than the organised expression of the social movements themselves: the Circles,
the Urban Land Committees, the Local Public Planning Committees, the UBEs
(Units of Electoral Battle, now converted into Units of Endogenous Battle, i.e.
grass-roots committees for the promotion of self-sufficient development). The
people in the barrios have made it
abundantly clear that they believe in Chávez and the MBR-200, but not in
political parties of any kind. In Cuba, the old Communist Party and the Directorio Revolucionario ended up
uniting with the 26th July Movement under the leadership of Fidel
Castro, and other parties and organisations disappeared or became irrelevant; I
predict that something similar will happen in Venezuela. Unlike Cuba, however, Venezuela will not be subject to the
geopolitical pressures which led Cuba to adopt the Soviet model of
socialism, leading to distortions of the Cuban process.
But these disagreements are part of
the ongoing debate in Venezuela and outside about the future path
of the first triumphant revolution of the twenty-first century. What is most
important about this book is its contribution to the understanding and defence
of the Bolivarian Revolution. As Woods himself recognises, ‘The greatest danger
for the Venezuelan Marxists is impatience, sectarian and ultraleft moods. The
revolutionary Marxist current is at present a minority of the mass movement. We
cannot impose our solutions on it...’ (p. 132). And outside Venezuela, while being analytical and
critical, our main duty is to build solidarity with the process through HOV and
other organisations. |
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By Charley Allan - www.handsoffvenezuela.org
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Thursday, 16 June 2005 |
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"We are going to hit a Cuban airplane," said Luis Posada in Caracas,
Venezuela, according to a recently declassified CIA document. On
October 6 1976, just days later, Cubana Airline flight 455 exploded
off the coast of Barbados, killing all 73 passengers.
Posada, who is 77 and has dual Venezuelan and Cuban citizenship, was
arrested in Miami on May 17 for illegal entry into the US. He is
claiming asylum and, so far, the Bush administration has refused to
extradite him to Venezuela, where he is wanted for the terrorist
bombing.
Until 1974, the ex-CIA agent, who specialised in explosives at
Fort Benning, Georgia (later home to the infamous School of the
Americas), was head of the Venezuelan political police — DISIP — from
where he, reportedly, oversaw the assassination of prominent leftists.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to sever diplomatic
links if Posada is not turned over, which the US is obliged to do
under bilateral treaties. He has accused the US of harbouring a known
international terrorist, making a mockery of its “war on terror.”
“We demand that the US government stop its hypocrisy and its two-faced
attitude and send this terrorist, this bandit, to Venezuela,” Chavez
insisted last month. “The world is watching.”
This case has become a major headache for George Bush, who is loth to
give up such a loyal veteran of the right-wing cause.
Posada is hailed as a hero among Miami’s rich, Castro-hating Cuban
exiles, who form a key component of his base of support, as well as
that of Bush’s brother Jeb, the governor of Florida.
A policeman in the Batista dictatorship, Posada also participated in
the Bay of Pigs invasion as part of “Operation 40.” Their mission was
simply to assassinate Castro.
He also freelanced for the Las Vegas mafia, at one point, supplying
mob boss Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal with detonators and fuses for
car-bombs, according to the FBI.
Two Argentinian founders of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, a movement
which supports parents of missing or tortured people in south America,
are also demanding Posada’s extradition. They accuse him of
involvement in Operation Condor, the US military plan which
co-ordinated the bloodthirsty dictatorships of the 1970s in the region.
After bribing his way out of Venezuelan jail in 1985, he worked for
Oliver North, directing terror against the people of Nicaragua,
supplying the US-backed Contras with weapons in an illegal war against
the Sandinista government.
The main focus throughout his life, however, seems to be an obsession
with overthrowing Fidel Castro.
Posada masterminded a string of bombings in Havana during an
international youth and student festival in 1997, resulting in the
death of an Italian tourist at the Copacabana hotel.
“We didn’t want to hurt anybody,” he claimed in an interview with the
New York Times the following year. “We just wanted to make a big
scandal so that the tourists don’t come any more.”
“I sleep like a baby,” he famously boasted, showing little remorse for
the misery he caused. “That Italian was sitting in the wrong place at
the wrong time.”
In 2000, he was caught red-handed in Panama, preparing to assassinate
Castro by blowing up a packed auditorium of over 3,000 students with
33 pounds of C-4 explosives. Although found guilty, he was pardoned in
2004 by outgoing President Mireya Moscoso, who promptly moved to Miami.
Reports that he was back in the US began surfacing earlier this year,
but the government denied any knowledge of his whereabouts. However,
after Posada held a press conference in Miami, this illusion was
impossible to sustain and it was forced to act.
Appearing in an El Paso, Texas, courtroom last Monday, dressed in a
red prison suit and bullet-proof vest, Posada renewed his request for
asylum. His lawyer argued that his green card is still valid and
requested that the case be moved to Miami.
The judge set an August 29 trial date and will decide next Friday
whether to grant the self-confessed terrorist bail. The immigration
trial is seen by Venezuela as a stalling tactic to obstruct the far
more serious issue of extradition.
“The US government should not believe that, because it is delaying the
process, the people are going to give in,” said Nicolas Maduro,
president of the Venezuelan parliament. This week, Maduro announced
that a parliamentary delegation had been sent to Washington to demand
Posada’s extradition.
That message was echoed by protesters around the world, with millions
taking to the streets in Cuba and Venezuela. Outside the El Paso
courtroom on Monday and in 13 other cities across the US,
demonstrations were held by anti-war coalition ANSWER.
On the same day, solidarity activists from Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia
and Bolivia campaigns picketed the US embassy in London. Protests have
also been held in Mexico, Spain, Portugal and the Philippines.
The problem for Bush is that, if he backs down, it will be seen as a
major propaganda victory for Chavez and Castro, whom he views as
deadly enemies. Both are left-wing charismatic leaders who give their
people hope instead of fear and invest their nations’ resources in
health care and education rather than weapons and the stock-market.
The US backed a failed coup against Chavez in 2002 and it has
consistently labeled him a “negative force.” As well as providing an
energy lifeline to Cuba by bartering oil for doctors, he has
successfully torpedoed the neoliberal FTAA agreement, promoting his
own “Bolivarian” alternative based on co-operation not competition
between countries. The US imports 15 per cent of its oil from
Venezuela.
Luis Posada is an old man who has dedicated his life to terrorising
progressive movements in Latin America on behalf of the US. But one of
the most dramatic allegations against him centres around some
terrorism a little closer to home. Compelling evidence exists
suggesting that Posada was part of the team that assassinated John F
Kennedy, on whom he blamed the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
“Who, in 1963, had the resources to assassinate Kennedy? Who had the
means and who had the motives to kill the US president?” asks Fabian
Escalante, former head of Cuban counter-intelligence. “CIA agents from
Operation 40 who were rabidly anti-Kennedy.”
Maria Lorenz was briefly Castro’s lover before being recruited by the
CIA. In 1985, she testified under oath that, the week before the JFK
assassination, she travelled from Miami to Dallas with members of
Operation 40 in two cars carrying weapons in the boots.
In a videotaped interview made shortly before he died, Chauncy Holt, a
self-confessed CIA asset and mobster, identified Posada as one of the
Cuban exiles who were in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination.
Whether he was involved or not, it is clear that Luis Posada is a
dangerous, vicious psychopath who should not be able to freely wander
the streets no matter who he works for. As Chavez puts it, “The US has
no choice, either send him to Venezuela or be seen by the world as
protecting terrorism.”
The US corporate elite, who are no fans of Chavez themselves, seem to
agree that Posada must be sent to Venezuela or US credibility in the
“war on terror” will be completely lost. All major newspapers support
the extradition, even the right-wing Miami Herald — aka the
“Coup-plotters’ Journal.”
Bush himself put it best when he said bluntly, shortly after September
11, “If you harbour terrorists, you are terrorists.” But will the CIA
ever let someone as knowledgeable as Posada spill the beans on all
their dirty tricks over these last four decades in Latin America? |
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By Roland Schmidt, Co-Chair, New Democratic Youth of Alberta
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Wednesday, 15 June 2005 |
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The country of Venezuela
is a startling paradox of immense suffering and extreme wealth. According to a
private Caracas-based polling company, Datanalisis, over 58% of the 25 million
people in Venezuela live on less than $253 (Cdn) a month. The level of poverty
becomes all the more damning when factoring in that Venezuela
is also the world’s fourth largest oil exporter. This glaring contradiction
remained unchallenged until the election of Hugo Chavez as Venezuelan
President.
In 1998, Hugo Chavez was elected Venezuelan President with
an approval of 56%. His electoral success came about because if elected he
promised to immediately instigate land reform and to put the countries oil
revenues back into public services like education and health care. Since his
Presidential victory Chavez has made good on his promises. The government under
his leadership has:
a) built
657 new schools, created four universities, hired 36,000 teachers and given the
opportunity for a formal education to three million new people
b) distributed
5.5 million acres of land to 116,000 families organized in cooperatives
c) traded
oil to Cuba in
exchange for 13,000 doctors in an effort to expand health care to 1.2 million
more people
These are just some of the many things President Chavez has
done in order to combat poverty in Venezuela.
Unfortunately for Venezuelans these social programs aimed at giving the 15
million previously neglected people a decent standard of living comes into
direct conflict with national and international business interests.
Before the election of Chavez,
Venezuela was just
another waypoint for the United States
to get below market-value oil without having to give anything significant back.
According to the Energy Information Administration of the US
governmental department, in 1997, approximately 17.4% (1.773 million barrels a
day) of all American oil imports came from Venezuela,
making it the largest and most reliable oil source for the US
in the world. This also accounts for over half of all Venezuelan oil exports.
By Chavez’s second year in power in 2000, Venezuela
dropped from being the largest oil exporter to the United
States to being their 3rd largest, sending
over approximately 400,000 less barrels a day. Chavez, by actually enforcing
OPEC quotas through decreasing oil production while maintaining the same level
of profitability meant financial benefits for Venezuela
at the expense of cheap oil prices. This was not a conscious effort by the
Chavez government to undermine the United States
but a means for Venezuela
to redistribute oil revenue into social spending. In addition to this and
putting heavier regulations on the public oil sector, Chavez raised taxation on
the private oil sector to an average of 25% from the previous average of
7% as well as giving the state oil company, the PDVSA, a 51%
stake in all new private oil developments. Once again, all the extra revenue
generated by the Venezuelan State
went back into social spending instead of private business subsidies. Under
previous US-friendly governments this would have been unheard-of.
The wealth had always been in Venezuela,
and now, under a more planned out economy, it was genuinely being used to
benefit the whole of Venezuelan society instead of just acting as corporate
welfare or private sector investment. All of these accomplishments were done
through legal means and without violating the sovereignty of any other
countries. Regardless of this, Chavez became the victim of imperialist
manoeuvring and domestic sabotage.
It is no secret that in April 2002 a coup was orchestrated
by the CIA to be carried out by the Venezuelan business congress and right-wing
elements within the Venezuelan military. Chavez was kidnapped and many of his
cabinet ministers were put under arrest. The head of the business congress,
Pedro Carmona, was named President, the Constitutional Assembly was dissolved
and the Supreme Court was virtually fired. The next day, the New York Times and
Washington Post ran articles claiming that popular mass anti-government
protests forced Chavez from power. No mention of a coup was made.
Meanwhile, private media outlets, which make up 90% of all
Venezuelan media, were hailing the coup as a “triumph for democracy” and the
“defeat of the dictator”. The majority of the Venezuelan populace had no idea
what was going on because the one state-owned television station and all state
run radio was ‘mysteriously’ cut. Long story short, within a couple of days the
word spread throughout Venezuela
and millions marched on the Presidential palace in opposition to the new
illegitimate government. At that moment, palace guards sympathetic to Chavez
stormed the palace and placed under arrest any members of the new government
who had not yet fled. By the end of the day Chavez was returned safely and sworn
back in as President.
The political intrigue did not end there. Less than 8 months
later a lockout was organized by anti-Chavez high-level government bureaucrats
to shut down the national oil company, the PDVSA. The concept was that if the
economy was sabotaged Chavez would be forced from power. What the lockout
organizers didn’t take into account was just how much the workers supported
Chavez -- so much so, that they actually broke the lockout and ran the
facilities themselves, without management, to keep the economy alive.
The list goes on.
Later still in August 2004 a national referendum was held on
Chavez’s Presidency. The Carter Center,
who helped monitor the vote, reported that over 90% of the eligible voting
public voted, of which approximately 60% were in favour of keeping Chavez in
power. This was yet another example of how the people of Venezuela
have never failed to defend Chavez with their mass support whenever he has come
under attack, legal or otherwise.
Despite his continual victories over local capitalists and US
imperialism, the struggle is far from over for the President and people of Venezuela.
The CIA is still, to this day, going on record making completely unfounded
claims that Chavez is a threat to stability in South America
and that Chavez is “aiding and abiding” terrorists and the drug trade in Columbia.
The US state
department has even invented a new set of terms just for Chavez by referring to
his government as an “elected dictatorship” or an “authoritarian democracy”.
Anyone following the political situation in Venezuela
should not be tricked by the unfounded rhetoric of the United
States. Interested parties should also be
aware that the anti-Chavez forces will not rest until he is defeated by
whatever means necessary; the US
conducted assassination of the democratically elected leftist President of
Chile, Allende, in 1973 is just an example of how far the US
has been willing to go in the past to enforce their agenda. It is for this
reason as well as others that supporters of the reforms being made in Venezuela
must be diligent in helping build international solidarity to support Chavez
and the Venezuelan people against foreign intervention and to make any extreme
actions on the part of the United States
government an impossibility.
The New Democratic Youth of Canada is doing its part by
endorsing the “Hands off Venezuela!”
campaign, which is organized in almost 50 countries. The campaign is endorsed
by Chavez himself and is so far operating in Vancouver,
Edmonton, Winnipeg,
Peterborough, Waterloo,
Toronto and Montreal.
The campaign aims to educate people on the history of Venezuela
and the current political situation. Raising awareness on the plight of Venezuela
acts as a means to expose the not-so-hidden agenda of the US,
the corruption of the Venezuelan oligarchy as well as provides a forum by which
to promote the legitimacy of the struggle for participatory democracy in Venezuela.
Against imperialist intervention in Venezuela!
For the defence of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela!
For the victory of democratic socialism in Latin America!
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By Bolivia Solidarity Campaign UK
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Friday, 10 June 2005 |
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For the last four weeks, Bolivian workers and peasants have been
mobilising demanding the nationalisation of the country's oil and gas
reserves. This movement represents the will of the majority of
Bolivians to win control over their natural resources. The oil and gas
multinationals have been benefiting from the country’s natural
resources through illegal contracts for years, while the majority of
Bolivians live under the poverty line.
Far from being a “radical minority” as president Mesa said, those who
demand nationalisation of gas are the majority, as was shown by the
open mass meeting that took place on June 6th in La Paz, with half a
million people present, and the continued strength of the general
strike, road blockades, mass marches and demonstrations.
We wholeheartedly support the legitimate demands of Bolivian workers
and peasants and give support to their movement and organisations and
the decisions they take about how to conduct their struggle.
We reject any attempt of the government or sections of parliament to
impose a military solution or the use of repression to put an end to
the protests. We also reject the attempts of the so-called “Civic
Committees” in Santa Cruz and other regions to use paramilitary gangs
against the peasant mobilisation.
We reject any foreign intervention. The solution to the problems facing
the Bolivian people must be in the hands of the people themselves,
without any interference from the Organisation of American States, the
United States, etc.
We appeal to the labour and trade union movement worldwide and to all
progressive people to show solidarity with the Bolivian workers and
peasants in these crucial moments, send solidarity resolutions, pass
motions, organise pickets of the embassies and oil multinationals, and
in general support our Bolivian brothers and sisters.
Further details from
Bolivia Solidarity Campaign
53 Fladgate Road
London
E11 1LX |
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By Hands Off Venezuela London
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Monday, 06 June 2005 |
Protest Outside the US Embassy
(Grosvenor Sq, London) Monday 13th June 4-7pm
BUSH - GIVE UP THE TERRORISTS!
"America has a message for the nations of the world: If you harbor
terrorists, you are terrorists. If you train or arm a terrorist, you
are a terrorist. If you feed a terrorist or fund a terrorist, you're a
terrorist, and you will be held accountable." George W. Bush, 21st
November 2001
Cuban-Venezuelan Luis Posada is wanted for blowing up an airliner in
1976, killing 73 people. He was arrested last month in the US, which
is refusing to hand him over to Venezuela, where he escaped from jail.
His partner in crime, Orlando Bosch, was given a presidential pardon
by Bush the Elder and now lives in Miami, where they have named a
street after him.
In Colombia this year a total of seven US soldiers (including a
colonel) have been arrested for, between them, selling ammunition to
right-wing paramilitaries and attempting to smuggle cocaine into the
US. Before the Colombian judiciary could blink, they were whisked out
of the country to prevent further embarrassment and have not yet been
charged with any crime.
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada used to be President of Bolivia, before he
ordered the massacre of peaceful protesters in 2003 and fled to Miami
to escape the furious backlash. Bolivians want him tried for crimes
against humanity, but that doesn't seem likely while he's protected by
the US government, who immediately granted him political asylum.
Notice a pattern?
The problem for Bush is that these cases all reveal the ugly underside
of US foreign policy in Latin America. Declassified FBI documents
prove Posada was a CIA agent (specialising in explosives) while also
freelancing for the Las Vegas mafia. After escaping Venezuelan jail in
1985 he worked for Oliver North supplying arms to the US-backed
Contras in their war against the left-wing Sandinista government in
Nicaragua. His terrorist career continues in Cuba (where he had been a
policeman under the Batista dictatorship) with a string of hotel
bombings during an international youth festival in 1997, resulting in
several injuries and the death of an Italian tourist. In an interview
with the New York Times the following year Posada practically boasted
about this terrorism. He was part of the infamous Operation Condor,
which co-ordinated right-wing military dicatorships in the region for
the US government, and has tried to assassinate Castro at least twice:
once in Caracas in 1971 (while head of DISIP, the Venezuelan political
police) and again in 2000 in Panama, where he served four years in
jail before being pardoned by the outgoing president (who now lives in
Florida).
On Monday 13th June, there will be an immigration hearing in El Paso,
Texas, to decide Posada's fate. The case has become a major headache
for George Bush, as Posada is hailed as a hero amongst the rich
right-wing Castro-hating Miami Cubans who form a key component of his
(and especially his brother's) base of support. However, refusal to
extradite Posada will clearly make a mockery of the whole "War on
Terror". Posada is a 77-year-old man who has lead a lifetime of
terrorism directed against progressive movements in Latin America. The
embarrassing fact that this terror was in line with US foreign policy
and supported by the US government doesn't make harbouring him any
less hypocritical. Join the international outrage over these
double-standards and protest outside the US embassy in London on this
day from 4pm to 7pm. Music, food and an open-mic, with speakers from
Hands Off Venezuela, Bolivia Solidarity Campaign, Colombia Solidarity
Campaign and others. Pass it on!
www.handsoffvenezuela.org
www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk
www.boliviasc.org.uk
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By Jonah Gindin Venezuelanalysis.com
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Monday, 06 June 2005 |
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL, June 5, 2005—The representative of the host
state, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, spoke at the 35th
General Assembly of the OAS this Sunday night.
Referring to Secretary General Insulza, Rice said she and US
President George W. Bush looked forward to working with Insulza towards
making the OAS a “very effective organization for the promotion of
democracy and prosperity in our hemisphere.”
Rice cast the US conflict with Venezuela as a divide between
“nations that promote democracy, good governance and free trade, and
those that do not. Washington is eager to have good relations with all
nations…provided that they agree on those core concepts.” Her paring
of democracy with free-markets provides a particular contrast to
Venezuela, given that perhaps the most fundamental conflict between the
US and Venezuela is over the neoliberal model.
"The last time the OAS met in the US in 1974," noted Rice, "10 of 23
members were dictators." "For seven days leaders of non-democratic
countries waxed hypocritically on the ideals of 'democracy,'" she said,
criticizing the 'old OAS' for being “long on talk and short on action.”
At the time, many of the military dictators Rice referred to were
the US government’s closest allies in the region. The meeting in 1976,
when the OAS held its 5th General Assembly in Santiago, Chile, was home
of the US-supported Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Rice also reiterated a now common statement, generally understood as
a reference to Venezuela, saying, “Governments that are elected
democratically, must govern democratically. And as
Secretary-General Insulza has rightly declared: governments that fail
to reach this crucial standard must be accountable to the OAS.” When
Insulza made this statement, it was, according to an aide to Secretary
Rice, insisted upon word-for-word by Secretary Rice as the condition
for US support for Insulza’s leadership bid at the OAS.
"We at the OAS must be impatient, we must replace excessive talk
with action,” said Rice. “We must never accept that democracy is
merely an ideal to be admired instead of a purpose to be realized.”
OAS Interventionism
In a press briefing given on the plane to Florida this morning,
Secretary Rice did not mince words on what she sees as the necessary
teeth the OAS must develop. Rice responded to a question regarding the
adverse reaction of a number of Latin American ambassadors to US
proposals to create a mechanism for OAS intervention, saying “let me
say again the OAS has intervened in the past…this is not a matter of
intervening to punish; it is a matter of intervening to try and sustain
the development of democratic institutions across the region.” For
his part, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said “if any
member-government of the OAS should be monitored, it’s the government
of the United States.” “A government that supports terrorists, invades
countries, that tramples its own people, that is trying to impose a
global dictatorship,” said the Venezuelan President, “is the government
that should be monitored for human rights violations.” |
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By Sarah Wagner and Gregory Wilpert Venezuelanalysis.com
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Thursday, 26 May 2005 |
 | According to PdVSA president Ramírez, 90% of the transnationals participating in operating agreements, have committed tax evasion, cheating the Venezuelan state out of $3 billion in taxes and $1 billion in royalties. Credit: Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias (ABN | Venezuela’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Rafael Ramírez, appeared before the Venezuelan National Assembly today in order to expose the abuses committed by transnational corporations in Venezuela's oil sector and to inform the Venezuelan people that with the opening of the petroleum industry to foreign companies, during the 1990’s, "a true assault was carried out against Venezuelan petroleum." Ramírez explained that over the course of the past decade and a half, foreign investment amounted to an assault "coordinated by international institutions of oil consuming nations and the large transnationals, who in complicity of the oligarchy and their political representatives conspired against the Venezuelan state, causing their subsequent economic and social crisis." Ramírez, who is also the President of Venezuela's state owned petroleum company, PdVSA, offered his testimony before a Special Commission that has been formed to investigate the irregularities detected by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum in the drawing up and the execution of service agreements. These service agreements, signed between the former management of PdVSA and transnational oil companies, such as Chevron Texaco, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, and Repsol, were signed between 1992 and 1997, the years of years of the so-called "petroleum opening." Currently transnational oil companies produce about 500,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) via these service agreements and another 600,000 bpd of extra-heavy oil as part of joint ventures with PdVSA, in the Orinoco Oil Belt. According to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, PdVSA produces the remaining 2 million bpd, for a Venezuelan total of about 3.2 million bpd. However, analysts opposed to the government and its oil policy, contend that PdVSA produces only 1.4 million bpd or 600,000 less than the government claims. In the course of renegotiating the 32 service agreements, it has come to light that, according to Ramírez, 90% of the transnationals have committed tax evasion, cheating the Venezuelan state out of $3 billion in taxes and $1 billion in royalties. “Some of these companies haven't paid taxes for years,” said Ramirez, adding, “They are mocking our laws. This is an unacceptable situation. We can't permit this.” “As we will see, this is not about isolated or fortuitous incidents,” Ramírez assured, affirming that on the contrary, “this is a strategy that unfolded since the nationalization of PdVSA in 1976 and is oriented towards taking control over PdVSA for transnational interests.” Ramirez summarized the essence of the "well planned and designed," petroleum opening as a "Trojan Horse." In October of last year, the Chavez government announced that transnational oil companies that had service agreements with PdVSA that were signed in the 1990’s, must now be converted into joint ventures, in which foreign companies are limited to a 49% stake in any project, reserving the majority share for PdVSA. Also, in April of this year, the Venezuelan government raised the royalties that companies in the Orinoco Oil Belt must pay, from 1% to 16%. So far all oil companies operating in Venezuela, except for ExxonMobil, have accepted the new terms. Ramírez asserted that "with the petroleum opening, the transnational capital tried to expropriate the handling and the sovereign use of our main natural resource: petroleum," converting it from a natural resource of the Venezuelan state into a natural resource at the disposal of the consumer countries of the world. According to the PdVSA president, the collapse of Venezuela’s oil revenue in the 1990’s is attributable to earlier government efforts to sweep away state control over the oil industry. “They were prepared to turn over our energy resources to transnational capital and to yield it to privatization and those who wanted to impose their version of globalization on Venezuela,” he said. New attacks In reference to the recent opposition media’s reporting of supposed problems in the oil industry, Ramírez testified that Venezuela's oil industry is now being attacked by the same people who initiated the economic sabotage of December 2002 to February 2003, which effectively shutdown the oil industry for that time and caused losses of over $14 billion. Ramirez said that the former oil industry managers are resisting the control Venezuela’s government is exerting over its own industry by engaging in a disinformation campaign. Ramírez requested that an investigation be carried out in order to determine who is responsible for undermining PdVSA's independence and recommended that the National Assembly adopt a firm and united position with respect to the scandal. “The game is over with the 32 contracts and now the truth will be made known," said Ramirez. He left the revising of the 32 service agreements and the actions of the transnational companies in the hands of the National Assembly, stating that "this is an affair that the National Assembly must rule on and propose pertinent actions to take." He also recommended that other state entities such as the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) and Venezuela's tax agency Seniat should be involved in the evaluation. According to Ramirez, half of the 32 service agreements are money losing ventures for Venezuela, where PdVSA pays more to transnationals for oil production than it can recoup from the sales of that oil. Ramirez also highlighted irregularities in the extra-heavy oil production joint ventures, saying that Sincor, which is a joint venture with France’s Total, has violated its contract repeatedly, exploiting a far larger area than it is supposed to. Currently there are five extra-heavy oil joint ventures, about which Ramirez said, “We have found irregularities in all.” The other four companies involved in the joint ventures are Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron, British Petroleum, and ConocoPhillips. Ramirez also pointed out that Citgo Corp, the subsidiary of PdVSA operating in the United States, had overpaid taxes in that country, and that PdVSA would work to recuperate these taxes in accordance with the U.S.-Venezuelan Double Taxation Treaty. |
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By Sarah Wagner - Venezuelanalysis.com
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Tuesday, 24 May 2005 |
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If Washington refuses to extradite Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles Venezuela could severe diplomatic ties between the two nations, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez yesterday. “We can't rush things, but if the United States does not extradite [Posada] we will be forced to reconsider our diplomatic ties,” affirmed Chávez during his weekly Sunday television address Aló Presidente. Last week Caracas invoked a 1922 US-Venezuela extradition treaty to request that the US deport Posada—who has dual Cuban-Venezuelan citizenship—to Venezuela to stand trial for masterminding the 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner that killed all 73 people on board.  | Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez shows the audience documented evidence of Posada's terrorist activities and of the CIA's knowledge during last Sunday's "Alo Presidente."
| Although Posada, a former CIA agent, illegally entered the US through the Mexican border in mid-March, US officials repeatedly denied that they were able to verify his whereabouts. But Posada, a self-described “freedom fighter,” forced Washington's hand last week by holding a press conference outside Miami. Shortly after Posada affirmed that he would "not denounce violence," he was arrested by US immigration officials. Facing charges of illegal entry rather than terrorism, Posada is being detained in a federal detention center in El Paso, Texas without bail until his June 13th trial. “If they don't extradite him in the time allowed in our agreement,” warned Chávez, “we will have to consider whether it's worth having an embassy there, and whether it's worth the United States having an embassy here.” Until Chávez came to power in 1998, Venezuela and the US had a cozy relationship. Posada and the CIA cooperated regularly in the oil-rich nation until Posada’s arrest in 1976 for the airplane bombing. After he escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985, Posada surfaced in Central America where he worked with Oliver North’s illegal mission to supply the Contras with weapons in Nicaragua’s US-fueled civil war. But with Chávez’s election, US-Venezuelan relations have gone from close to hostile. The Venezuelan government has aggressively pursued a path of sovereignty and social justice, fiercely attacking what Chávez describes as the US’ economic and political exploitation of Latin American countries. For their part, the Bush administration refers to Chávez as a "negative force in the region" and a "democratically elected leader who governs in an illiberal way,”—just a few of the more vaguely-worded, recycled "concerns" about Chávez emitted by US spokespeople on an almost daily basis. Chávez' statements on Sunday eluded that already poor bilateral relations might very well take a sharp turn for the worse if Washington decides to blatantly and hypocritically ignore its own "war on terror" rhetoric. After emphasizing that "now there is proof that the US protects terrorism because in there territory is one of the greatest terrorists in the history of America and of the world," Chávez put the option of taking the dispute to an international tribunal on the table.  | Luis Posada Carriles is wanted in Venezuela and Cuba for his involvement in a 1976 bombing that killed 73. The US has so far refused Venezuela's extradition request.
| "We have sufficient material to go to an international tribunal and accuse the US government of protecting a terrorist; we will go to the United Nations, we will invite all of the people to denounce this,” said Chávez. “[This is] a government that invades a country using terrorism as an excuse, that attacks Iraq only to take out one man in that government…now they have him in prison and they publish a photo of him in his underwear. At the US Army prison in Guantanamo Bay, “they have been so disrespectful to the Koran that they have provoked a dignified response from the Islamic people of the world," added the Venezuelan President. Chávez went on to add that the Venezuelan government has evidence that Posada, along with his contacts in Venezuela and Central America, "participated in preparations for the April, 2002 coup" that abolished all democratic institutions in Venezuela before being reversed 48 hours later. “It is difficult, very difficult, to maintain ties with a government that so shamelessly hides and protects international terrorism,” said Chávez. The decision to charge Posada with illegal entry and ignore his resume of terrorist activities has enraged the majority of Venezuelans. Thousands of Venezuelans signed a petition in favor of the extradition request on Friday and then marched on Saturday in the squares of major cities in protest. This observation has also been noted by several US politicians. "While I'm glad that the Department of Homeland Security finally arrested Posada, it's amazing that he almost had to goad them into doing it," stated José Serrano (D-NY) adding that, "Here is a guy who has admitted to committing terrorist attacks who escaped justice by bribing his guards and hightailing it out of prison, and we're not willing to extradite him to face justice. 73 people died in that airliner, many of them children. How can we with any credibility ask other nations to help us out with our global struggle against terror when we won't cooperate with others' anti-terror proceedings? There is a two-way street here…Posada was a wanted man in Venezuela long before Hugo Chávez was elected President there.” Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and a group of twenty legislators sent a letter to President Bush recommending that international laws be followed and Posada be turned over to Venezuela. And in a letter to the US Congress, Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) called upon her colleagues to "uphold the principles we espouse, refrain from keeping double standards," and "extradite [Posada] to the governments with jurisdiction." McKinney argued that "for the Department of Homeland Security to say it would not deport Posada to Cuba or Venezuela is counterproductive to our efforts in the War on Terror." |
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By John Olmsted - zmag.org
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Thursday, 19 May 2005 |
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April 13th marked the third anniversary of the defeat of a coup against the democratically elected presidency of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. In honor of the event there were massive local celebrations and an international solidarity conference: “Encuentro Mundial de Solidaridad con la Revolution Bolivariana”. Solidarity activists came from over 20 countries. The majority were from other Latin American countries. Canada had a strong delegation. The delegation from the U.S was quite small; A few from California, a strong delegation from Boston, some from Florida and Chicago. It is not clear if this small turnout is due to lack of publicity or lack of awareness of the importance of the Venezuelan revolution in the U.S. Participants chose one of eight workshops: Agrarian reform, housing, worker management, citizen participation, alternative media, indigenous people, women or education. Each workshop was held in a different part of the country. There were also hundreds of Venezuelan activists participating in the conference who were able to use the conference for a discussion of their current challenges. The following observations are mainly a reflection of the citizen participation workshop which I attended. The revolution that is unfolding in Venezuela today is the leading edge of a massive social and political shift to the left that is happening throughout Latin America from Chile right up through Mexico. The past decade of globalization (what they call “neoliberalism”) has brought increased poverty and economic decline throughout the region. The result has been a shift away from governments beholden to the free market towards leaders and parties representing the poor and working people who are the overwhelming majority. This process has gone the furthest in Venezuela. In the early years of his presidency Chavez was a supporter of the “third way”, a reference to attempts to build an alternative to both the capitalist and the old Stalinist economic models. He and others in the leadership now speak openly and often about their conclusion that the capitalist model is a dead end (sometimes quoting the pope) with no future in Latin America and that socialism is the only road forward. How this new direction towards socialism will unfold remains to be seen but there are some indications that it will be a dynamic new road that may be a model for all of the Americas. What is most often discussed is desire to build a socialist society marked by a massive increase in popular democratic involvement. The forms of this new democracy are still being worked out. There has been a massive increase in local community councils and cooperatives to address economic and social organization at the local level. The conference was a forum for activists throughout Latin America who are involved in similar efforts to increase democratic participation under more difficult circumstances. Education is a primary weapon in raising the cultural and political awareness in the poorest communities. There is a literacy campaign along with a series of “missions” aimed at enabling people to return to school and finish high school. A whole new university; “Universidad Simon Bolivar” has been built to massively expand college opportunities for students who had no access to the privileged university system before the revolution. Local democratic participation is woven through the new national constitution that was enacted in the wake of Chavez’s election in 1999. In order to get many new services a local community has to organize itself, discuss and vote on its priorities and often form local cooperatives to carry out the work. They speak openly about the limitations of classic representative democracy where one can only hope that an elected official remains honest and does the work for the people. As another local leader put it, “Sometimes laws are not the answer, we have to empower people”. This is in contrast to the historical culture of Venezuela that was marked by passive complaining and demanding the government do something for you. Part of the impetus for this massive expansion of democratic institutions is the fact that when Chavez was elected in 1999 he did it with a weak newly created party called the MVR- Movement for the Fifth Republic. While popular, the party is underdeveloped. Some fear it is used by many to get elected or to get jobs. The old state apparatus, with thousands of functionaries used to the old ways of doing little is still intact and a major obstacle to social change. As one activist put it, “We have won the government but not the state”. Rather than a purge, the strategy has been to set up a parallel government that provides direct social services to the poor (social service “missions”, clinics, food distribution, schools, microcredits, etc.). Community councils that provide organization and representation down to the level of block committees are being set up to take over aspects of local administration. Through this process two very important things are taking place: Whole new layers of the population are learning what it means to be active empowered citizens and a new layer of leaders in the government and the economy is being trained. In addition, there are now increasing efforts to turn major workplaces over to workers management. This effort began in some industries that had gone bankrupt (a major paper mill). It is now spreading to major state owned industries. In addition to nationalized oil the country has major aluminum, mining and iron ore industries owned by the state. These industries were run poorly and often corruptly even during the past 6 years of the Chavez presidency. A “revolution within the revolution” is now underway to eat away at the old corrupt modes of management and turn these industries into dynamic producers of wealth, jobs and resources that can profit the whole society. The road chosen has not been to simply choose better managers or better bureaucrats. In the major aluminum factory - Venalum there has been discussion, debate and elections to choose a new leadership of the plant from the ranks of the workers in the past month. The goal is for a workers management that will revive production, efficiency and integrity in the plant. Most importantly a new model of plant management and new layer of leadership from the shop floor has a chance to emerge. This process is complex, difficult and being done with few healthy precedents. There will be many mistakes along the way. The key is to have the time needed for such a major transformation to develop. Che Guevara spoke often about the problems of a bureaucratically planned economy in the model of the old Soviet Union. He advocated the development of a conscious and politically active population. Through the conference discussion and in projects around Venezuela you can see this process unfolding. Often the major players are women. Chavez makes it a point to highlight the development of women as leaders when he speaks. The Venezuelans do not feel they are reinventing the wheel. They are openly looking to the experience of others for examples. When the mayor of the mountain city of Merida was discussing the multiple problems they were facing he stated “If we have a problem, it has probably been solved somewhere else in Latin America”. In his opening speech to the conference, Chavez called the Bolivarian revolution, “A humble daughter of the great revolutions of the world.” When talking of deeper cultural change you often heard of the need to change from a mentality of “me” to one of “we”. The issue of how the leadership of this revolution is organized and how it is developing a coherent theory to lead is complex and challenging. It is clear that the role of Chavez is significant. His popularity is rising. His image is seen often. He has a regular 5 hour television variety show called “Alo Presidente” that is used to educate the country about the challenges and prospects of the political process. This is not just a cult of personality around a strong man/caudillo in the model of Juan Peron. There are thousands of dedicated politically revolutionary activists who are advancing the ideas and organization of the revolution throughout all sectors of society (except the wealthy). The organizational forms are diverse. There are “Bolivarian Circles” which are loose groupings of activist with modest organizational success. There are activists in the missions doing community organizing day in and day out. There are students who have their organizations. There are two other left parties that support Chavez that do not appear to have much of a mass base. There are activists in the workplace, the best of which have built a whole new pro-revolutionary national union federation. So when one asks, where do people go for political organization and discussion, the answer is most often that they go to work organizing. The opposition held a rally to commemorate the coup on April 13th. There were fewer than a thousand present. By all reports the opposition appears demoralized. They have played their strongest cards and lost. Chavez predicts they will attempt to distort next years’ election. For that reason he is campaigning for 10 million votes as a goal to gain a mandate to continue the revolution. There are a number of features of the revolution in Venezuela that can work to enhance the potential for this revolution to survive both internally and against what will be rising pressure from the United States: 1) This is a deep thorough ongoing revolution that is in progress. This is not simply the election of another left populist government. There is a mobilization of a significant part of the population to fight for its class interest. It could be defined as a “Workers and Farmers Government”. 2) The Chavez leadership is a break from the models of Social Democracy and Stalinism that could set an example of a revolutionary direction for the rest of the continent. It is typical to see posters of Chavez flanked by Bolivar on one side and Che on the other. Because of the position of Venezuela geographically and economically Chavez can play a role in the region that is more significant that that of Fidel and the Cubans. 3) The presence of oil at such a price has resulted in the immediate rise in living standards. The size of the nationalized industries inherited by the revolution means that they have the economic base to fund social programs and build broader support for the revolution. This power allowed them to withstand a massive capitalist strike in 2002 (similar to the strike that sank Allende in Chile). The government can also set up parallel economic institutions that undercut the capitalists such as the state owned food stores. 4) This economic base means that there is the potential to buy time desperately needed to develop a new revolutionary layer of society capable of administration of the state. There is less of a need to prematurely nationalize industries or collectivize land that outpaces the ability of the new society to effectively build a new administration of the economy. 5) The defeat of the coup provided the opportunity to purge the army of a substantial amount of its counterrevolutionary currents. The fact that the army can now be expanded to defend the revolution and at the same time help in social and economic development makes this a radically different road than Chile where the army led the counterrevolution. Plans are to increase the reserves from 200,000 to 500,000. 6) This revolution is embedded in a rising tide of left political movement from Chile to the Rio Grande. This is its most powerful defense and major impediment to imperialist intervention as the Bush administration openly bemoans. 7) This revolution has happened without a bloodbath, without mass public executions, without the need for a repressive state that curbs civil liberties and with massive democratic election victories. This robs the opposition and the Bush administration of cannon fodder in the propaganda war against the revolution. Many spurious charges have and will be invented by the opposition of course. 8) There are sectors that want to push the revolution forward at a faster pace. This is true among farmers wanting land frustrated by the slow pace of land reform. It is true among workers in the fight for workers control in a variety of industries. But the frustration appears to be correctly focused on the obstacles of the old state apparatus and the rich. This avoids the problem of a rise of ultra-left pressure that can then provoke a crack down from the new state. 9) The popularity of Chavez within the unique history of the Venezuelan left appears to be a gravitational force for political unity that is holding down splits and sectarian battles that can hamper leadership development (as in Nicaragua). 10) The oil wealth is allowing Venezuela to do what Che advocated which is trade based on human need rather than the market. Chavez has signed a trade agreement favorable to Cuba. He is trading oil for pregnant cows with Argentina, etc. This along with efforts to build a Pan-American trading bloc is building a regional political and economic bulwark against future U.S. intervention. 11) For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union a new model of socialism is emerging that has the potential to be an example and an inspiration for all of the Americas. For further analysis of the Bolivarian revolution the Monthly Review articles by Marta Harnecker and others are excellent. Richard Gott’s “In the Shadow of the Liberator” is an extensive history of Chavez’s political development. He is soon to come out with a new history of the revolution. www.Venezuelanalysis.com and www.Handsoffvenezuela.org provide current news and analysis from the perspective of defenders of the revolutionary process.. |
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Wednesday, 27 April 2005 |
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After two long years of struggle at long last the expropriation of
the CNV was put into practice. The CNV had been taken over by the
workers throughout this time.
The Constructora Nacional de
Valvulas is a factory which was owned by the coup plotter Andres Sosa
Pietri, a former president of PDVSA. After the coup he refused to
restart the operations and the workers decided to take over the
installations.
Jorge Paredes, one of the main leaders of the
factory said: "this is a new experience for the workers, a new model of
development which will be at the service of the workers and the
community. This process of co-management that we now start must be
taken to other companies and other workers."
The company at
one point supplied 22% of the national market for valves. It is
calculated that this year PDVSA has to invest 148 million Bolivars in
valves.
The workers estimate that in three months they will have the company ready to start producing.
See also:
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By Jorge Martin and Alan Woods - www.handsoffvenezuela.org
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Wednesday, 27 April 2005 |
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On the eve of Condoleeza Rice's tour of Latin America, an extremely
provocative article appeared yesterday in The New York Times. Under
the title of "U.S. Considers Toughening Stance Toward Venezuela" and
signed by Juan Forero, the article quotes a number of unnamed "American
officials" basically saying that "the Bush administration is weighing
a tougher approach, including funnelling more money to foundations and business
and political groups opposed to his leftist government".
Forero claims in his article that a "multiagency task force in
Washington has been working on shaping a new approach, one that high-ranking
American policy makers say would most likely veer toward a harder line".
The article quotes another unnamed American official as saying: "The
conclusion that is increasingly being drawn in Washington is that a realistic,
pragmatic relationship, in which we can agree to disagree on some issues but
make progress on others, does not seem to be in the cards (...) We offered them
a more pragmatic relationship, but obviously if they do not want it, we can
move to a more confrontational approach."
Another "high-ranking Republican aide on Capitol Hill who works on
Latin America policy" (also unnamed) explains: "What's happening here
is they realize this thing is deteriorating rapidly and it's going to require
some more attention (...) The current look-the-other-way policy is not working."
The truth of the matter, however, is that the US administration has
always had a "tough" stance towards Venezuela. High-ranking United States officials met with
Venezuelan opposition leaders in the weeks and days before the military coup
that ousted Chavez for 47 hours on April 11,
2002. There is now hard evidence that the CIA knew that the coup was being
plotted, and Washington was the first capital in
the world to recognise the illegitimate government of Pedro Carmona which was
installed by the coup.
The Bush administration supplied funds to opposition groups that
organised the coup in 2002. It also funded the sabotage of the oil industry in
December 2002 and January 2003, which cost the country's economy some 10,000
million dollars. It financed the attempt to remove Chavez through a recall
referendum. It is difficult to see how Washington's stance towards the
democratically elected government of Venezuela could actually get
"tougher" - short of direct military intervention.
Since the beginning of this year the barrage of
accusations
against the Venezuelan government by US officials has certainly
increased in
volume and intensity. The US has actively tried to stop the sale of
weapons to Venezuela by Spain, Brazil and Russia (after the US itself
refused
to supply spare parts for Venezuela's ageing fleet
of F16s), and has accused Venezuela of being a
"negative force in the region" (Condoleeza Rice). The US administration
and media have stepped up a belligerent campaign against Venezuela.
The democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez has been accused of
everything from linking up with North Korea, supplying arms to the
Colombian FARC guerrillas and funding the "subversive" MAS in Bolivia, to forming an axis of
evil with Cuba's Castro, starting an arms
race in Latin America, and harbouring Al-Qaeda terrorists. A recent article in
the National Review (which appeared on April 11, the day of the third
anniversary of the coup in Venezuela), carried the title
"Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez constitute an axis of evil". In
this extremely belligerent article, Otto Reich, until recently Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, openly advocated a policy of
"confronting" the "emerging axis of subversion".
There is no
substance to any of these accusations, for which not the slightest shred of
proof is offered. They are just meant to create an impression – the kind of
impression that can be used to justify an act of aggression. As we learned long
ago from Josef Goebbels, even the most blatant lie, if it is repeated often
enough, is taken to be the truth. In the same way, the lie that Saddam Hussein
possessed weapons of mass destruction was used as an excuse for the criminal
invasion of Iraq. Everybody now knows
that it was a lie, but at the time enough people believed it to permit a naked
act of aggression to be presented as an act of national self-defence. Now
history is being repeated.
When pressed
for more details on the allegations about "Venezuelan shortcomings with
respect to the counter narcotics issue", Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman for
the US Department of State, on March 30th, could not think of anything coherent
to say. He merely mumbled: "Not really. I'll look and see what we've said
on the past, but off the top of my head I can't give you a detailed
answer." On such flimsy “evidence” is the case for armed aggression
against Venezuela being constructed in Washington.
There is no
doubt that all these newspaper articles and statements do not appear just by
chance. One has the feeling that they are part of an orchestrated propaganda
campaign aimed not only at isolating Venezuela, but also at preparing US public opinion for more
direct forms of intervention against the Bolivarian Revolution. The self-same
methods were used in the past to justify US interventions against the Cuban
Revolution, the Arbenz government in Guatemala, the government of
Salvador Allende in Chile, and more recently in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada and Haiti. The hired press pours
out a stream of abuse and calumnies in order to soften up public opinion. Then
the heavy squad moves in. In some circles, this is known as the “freedom of the
press”.
Otto Reich
would know about this. In the 1980s he was at the head of the State
Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean (OPD).
This was nothing less than a propaganda outfit, which amongst other tasks
coordinated the planting of editorial articles in newspapers openly backing the
Contras and attacking those who criticised Washington's support for the
murderous cut-throat gangs of thugs of the Contras in Nicaragua. The Iran-Contra
investigation found that Reich, a Cuban exile, had carried out "prohibited,
covert propaganda” on behalf of the Contras (the full declassified record
of Otto Reich while involved in the OPD can be found at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/).
But let's go
back to Juan Forero's article. The only "sources" he gives for this
toughening of US policy towards Venezuela are all "unnamed
officials". The day after the article was published in The New York
Times, Washington issued a denial of its contents,
but in fact it was a “denial” that denied nothing. He said "“those are not
reports that reflect any reality in terms of decisions by the United States to change its policy.”
So, in fact what he means is that there is no change in the US policy, which was
already very confrontational before Forero was briefed by his famous “unnamed
officials".
Forero's
journalistic record in relation to Venezuela is at best shaky. On the
day after the military coup in Venezuela he wrote an article for The New
York Times which did not mention the word "coup" once and had the
amazing headline "Venezuela Chief Forced to Resign; Civilian
Installed". This sounds like a well-rehearsed pantomime and it works like
this: Washington leaks some disinformation it would
like published to a friendly journalist. The material is published but no
sources are quoted. Once the "news" is already in the public domain
and has been picked up by the major news agencies and outlets, then the State
Department issues a "denial" which is not reported anywhere. The
damage has already been done.
It is clear that the US administration is
increasingly hostile towards the Bolivarian revolution, which is standing firm against
US imperialism. George Bush
is frustrated because all the attempts to smash it have failed. But the
strategy of isolating Venezuela from other Latin
American governments has also failed so far. Donald Rumsfeld's recent tour of
the region was not at all successful in this respect. But these failures do not
mean that Washington will abandon its aggressive stance
towards Venezuela. On the contrary, it
means that its aggression will be stepped up and acquire dangerous proportions
if it is not halted by a massive movement of protest from below.
This renewed campaign against the Venezuelan revolution represents a
serious threat, which the world labour movement will neglect at its peril. In
all previous occasions in which this kind of language has been used, it has
always been the preparation for military intervention. Such interventions do
not necessarily take the form of an actual invasion. The fact that the US army is bogged down in
an unwinnable war in Iraq makes this a
problematical option at this stage. But the examples of Chile and Nicaragua indicate that there are
other options: a dirty war of terrorism and subversion, the assassination of
President Chavez, provocations leading to war with Colombia, which the Pentagon has
already turned into an armed camp. These and many other weapons are at the
disposal of Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice.
All the warnings are present. The only force that can defeat the planned
aggression against the Venezuelan Revolution is the international Labour
Movement and the workers and the youth of the United States. It is time to sound the
alarm! Venezuela is in danger! It is
imperative that the workers, trade unionists, youth and students, intellectuals
and artists, black and white, should unite to organize a protest movement so powerful
that George Bush and the right wing gang in the White House are compelled to
think again.
Let us not wait until it is too late. Let us act now to forestall this
act of naked aggression of a powerful imperialist state against a South
American country that is fighting for its most elementary rights: the right to
national self-determination, the right to live its life in peace and to
determine its own future without foreign interference, the right to build a
society based on the principles of freedom, justice and equality.
This is the real reason why the most reactionary circles in the USA wish to destroy the
Venezuelan Revolution: because it sets an example to the millions of poor and
exploited people in the whole of Latin America. Furthermore, this is
the path that the Venezuelan people have democratically chosen. Chavez and his
policies have been ratified in more than 7 electoral contests and referenda
since he was first elected in 1998. This example is dangerous, not to the
ordinary citizens of the United States, the workers and the
poor, but to Wall Street, to the banks, the big corporations and the oil barons
who are the real constituents of George W. Bush.
This right wing administration, which is trying to depict Venezuela as a “danger to peace” because
it is purchasing some rifles from Russia, is spending a
staggering $500,000 million on arms every year. It is spending at least $6,000
million every month on the occupation of Iraq while slashing public
expenditure on pensions and Medicare.
Let us act now! Reproduce this article, translate it and pass it on to
as many people as possible. Pass resolutions of protest in your local trade
union branch. Organize pickets, lobbies, rallies and demonstrations. The Hands
Off Venezuela Campaign is preparing a major initiative for the First of May.
Contact us now and join our fight against these criminal actions of the
imperialists. |
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By Jorge Martin - www.handsoffvenezuela.org
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Monday, 25 April 2005 |
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During his weekly Alo Presidente
broadcast Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave an explanation of the
reasons
for the suspension of the bilateral military exchange programme with
the United States. According to Chavez, US military advisors "were
carrying out
their own campaign within the military institution and this cannot be
allowed". He added that they were "talking ill of the [Venezuelan]
president to our boys", which is something that goes against the
country's
stability and sovereignty.
Hugo Chavez argued that this
measure was also taken in order to protect the physical integrity of US military
personnel. He reminded the audience that in the build up to the US invasion of Panama, a number of US military personnel were
attacked in the streets. It was later found out that these attacks had been
carried out by the US intelligence services in order to prepare a
"justification" for the invasion.
Last year, Venezuela had also suspended the military mission that
the US had kept within Fuerte Tiuna, the main
military garrison in the capital. Chavez accused the US officers of being CIA agents and there is
suspicion that they participated in the failed military coup against Chavez on April
11, 2002. The first
place Chavez was taken after being deposed by reactionary military officers was
precisely the Fuerte Tiuna barracks.
In the same programme Chavez explained
that the desperation of the US in relation to Venezuela is because of its oil. The "United
States want to continue to get hold of that oil, but it is now ours (...) and
it is being used for the welfare of all Venezuelans, and not of a privileged minority"
he added.
A video of the US organised Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961 was shown during the weekly
programme. President Chavez said that a similar strategy had been planned in
relation to the 100 Colombian paramilitaries arrested on a ranch in El Hatillo,
near the capital Caracas, in May 2004. Chavez also announced that a US military officer had
been found taking pictures of the Command of the Armoured Army Brigade in
Maracay, and a number of US citizens, who later identified themselves as journalists,
had been found taking pictures of the El Palito refinery in Moron. He warned
that "if any officer of the US military repeats these kind of activities
again, they are going to be arrested and tried in Venezuela."
To combat these threats, Chavez argued,
it is necessary to organise the reserve forces of the army, which he wants to
increase to 2 million people, and to "strengthen the mobilisation of the
people ... to defend the country in any circumstance"
Since the beginning of the year, the
US administration and media have stepped up a
belligerent campaign against Venezuela. The democratically elected
government of
Hugo Chavez has been accused of everything from linking up with North
Korea, supplying arms to the Colombian FARC
guerrillas, funding the "subversive" MAS in Bolivia, forming an axis of
evil with Cuba's Castro, starting an arms race in Latin America, to
harbouring Al-Qaeda terrorists.
On March 13, an article in the
Financial Times quoted US Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Pardo-Maurer, who accused Chavez of
"picking on the countries whose social fabric is the weakest. In some
cases, it’s downright subversion." This is in fact the key to the
belligerent attitude of the US. Translated into plain English, what Roger
Pardo-Maurer is saying is that the Venezuelan revolution is seen as an example
by the workers and peasants throughout Latin America. The policies of privatisation,
de-regulation, the opening up of markets, and the free trade agreements pursued
by Washington in the whole of Latin America for the last two decades have plunged these
countries into deep economic crises. The number of poor and unemployed have
gone up, while multinational companies have plundered these countries' natural
resources.
The policies of the Chavez
government of opposing privatization, using large amounts of the
country's oil
revenues, his stance against the policies of US imperialism and the
Free Trade Area of the Americas, are obviously seen as an alternative.
Furthermore the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela has proven that the
diktats of Washington can be defied and that the attempts of the
oligarchy and imperialism to put an end to this defiance can be
overcome
through mass mobilisation. Venezuela is indeed a very "dangerous"
example
from the point of view of the White House. For them, anything that
threatens
the rule of big business is "downright subversion".
Many in the current US administration know a lot about
“subversion”. Rogelio “Roger” Pardo-Maurer himself was the political officer in
the Washington office of the Nicaraguan contras from 1986
to 1989. Other prominent figures in the US administration are also well versed
in “subversion”, having been involved in the counter-insurgency operations in Central America in the 1980s
(Elliot
Abrams, Otto Reich, John Negroponte, Roger Noriega, etc). Several of them also met the
Venezuelan April 2002 coup organizers in Washington in the weeks prior to the “subversive”
ousting of Chavez. As for “picking on weak countries” Roger Pardo-Maurer, Otto
Reich, and other US officials, intervened directly in El Salvador last year to prevent a victory of the
left-wing FMLN in the elections. They hinted that this would put at risk the
remittances of Salvadorian immigrants in the US (one of the country’s main sources of
income). The FMLN lost the election by a very small margin.
President Chavez and the Bolivarian revolutionary movement are right to take
measures to defend themselves from the threat of intervention by the US.
To act in any other way, taking into account the long history of US
participating in the crushing of revolutionary movements in Latin
America, would be downright irresponsible.
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By Venezuelanalysis.com
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Wednesday, 20 April 2005 |
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Three of the five Colombian paramilitary fighters that were captured in Venezuela.
Credit: VTV |
Sunday morning Venezuelan
security forces captured five Colombians in Venezuela’s Amazon state,
who presumably belong to the United Self-Defense of Colombia (AUC).
Commissar Victor Bolivar, of Venezuela’s national police, the DISIP,
reported that the presumed paramilitary soldiers were apparently
extorting local indigenous people of the Amazon, who they were forcing
to mine for gold. The fighters were captured in a national forest
preserve, where mining is prohibited.
The captured fighters were carrying seven AK-47s and over 2,400
rounds of ammunition, among other military equipment. They were
detained without resistance.
“The first investigations and declarations of the captured indicate
that these individuals were safe-guarding the area for the subsequent
smuggling of drugs,” said Bolivar.
Minister of the Interior and Justice, Jesse Chacon, said today that
Venezuelan police are now in the process of identifying the captured
irregular fighters. Chacon explained that there is a growing problem of
illegal mining in Amazonas state, which borders both Brazil and
Colombia.
This incident coincided with separate incident, a day earlier, when
eight soldiers of Colombia’s regular military force were captured, who
were dressed in civilian clothes. According to Colombian officials, it
is common that Colombian soldiers temporarily cross the border with
Venezuela, only to take a shortcut to another location in Colombia.
However, Colombia’s ambassador to Venezuela, Enrique Vargas Ramirez,
said that these soldiers had no permission to enter into Venezuela.
Venezuela's foreign minister Ali Rodriguez, said that the Colombian
soldiers would probably be soon released to Colombia.
Border incursions of Colombian soldiers, paramilitary fighters, and
rebels into Venezuela have been a relatively common occurrence over the
years. On various occasions fights have broken out between Venezuelan
military forces and armed fighters coming from Colombia. U.S.
government officials have repeatedly claimed that Venezuela allows
Colombian rebels to camp out on Venezuelan territory, but Venezuelan
officials deny this. |
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By Humberto Mrquez - IPS
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Wednesday, 20 April 2005 |
Although we do not agree with the slant of this article published by
the Inter Press Service News Agency, we think it is worthwhile to
republish Humberto Márquez's piece as it shows the increased support for
president Chavez and the weakness of the Opposition.
President Hugo Chavez is governing
Venezuela today virtually without any effective, united opposition, as
shown by the third anniversary of the events of April 11-14, 2002, when
massive opposition protests preceded a short-lived civil-military coup
d'etat, and huge groups of Chavez supporters and loyal troops
reinstated the President.
Hundreds of thousands of anti-Chavez protesters marched on the
government palace on April 11, 2002, prior to the President's brief
overthrow, and similar shows of the strength of the opposition movement
continued to occur up until the August 2004 recall referendum in which
the opposition unsuccessfully attempted to remove the President.
But only a few hundred demonstrators came out for Monday's anniversary march in a middle-class district of Caracas.
"People are discouraged, because the (opposition) leaders have gone
from one failure to another. I used to march, but I don't anymore, and
I won't until new leaders crop up,” Daisy Torcatt, an employee in a
cafeteria along the route taken by the protesters, commented to IPS.
By contrast, a pro-government rally in the center of the capital
drew tens of thousands of Chavez supporters Wednesday, including people
from poor Caracas neighbourhoods as well as civil servants from the
central administration and local governments of nearby cities and
regions.
"We came here three years ago to demand that they give us back 'el
comandante' (Chavez). That is what we are celebrating, and we have
learned a lot. We will not be taken by surprise again by another coup,”
said Luis Martinez, a motorcycle taxi driver standing in a group of 100
other motorcyclists, 200 meters from the government palace.
Chavez, a former paratroop lieutenant-colonel, led a failed armed
uprising in 1992 against then President Carlos Andres Perez (1974-1979
and 1989-1993), who was later removed from office and convicted on
corruption charges.
In 1998, Chavez was elected President, and under a new constitution
that was approved by voters in a 1999 referendum, he won a six-year
term in 2000.
After the 2002 coup staged by dissident high-ranking officers in
alliance with business and other opposition sectors, tens of thousands
of Chavez followers along with troops that supported the constitutional
order brought the President back to Caracas from where he was being
held under arrest.
The intense political polarisation continued for two years after the
ouster, with the opposition holding huge protest rallies as well as a
December 2002-January 2003 general strike, all of which failed in the
aim to topple Chavez.
But the opposition began to run out of steam after 59% of voters backed Chavez in the 2004 Presidential recall referendum.
Another blow to the anti-Chavez movement occurred when the
president's allies won 22 of the 24 regional governments and 75% of the
335 city governments in the October 2004 elections.
Political analysts also predict victories for the governing party
and allied forces in the elections for city councillors in August, the
December legislative elections, and the 2006 Presidential poll.
The enormous street demonstrations have disappeared for now, and
Chavez is forging ahead with his self-styled ”social revolution,”
including agrarian reform, a spate of social programmes that have
benefited the poor majority, and the creation of citizen reserves aimed
at deterring aggression against Venezuela.
On Wednesday, 20,000 reservists wearing olive-green fatigues paraded
before the President at a military academy in Caracas, as part of the
formal creation of the popular defence units as a fifth branch of the
armed forces, along with the army, the navy, the air force and the
national guard. The reserves will answer directly to the Head of State.
The government's foreign policy, meanwhile, has focused on the
ongoing war of words with Washington, oil industry cooperation with
Venezuela's neighbours in South America and the Caribbean, and the
strengthening of political and trade alliances with countries like
China, India, Iran, Russia and Spain.
A survey of 1,500 people in seven Venezuelan cities, by the polling
firm Hinterlaces, found that 53% of respondents supported Chavez and
38% were opposed to him.
Meanwhile, only 10% of those surveyed said they backed the opposition movement ... which was rejected by 83%.
"There is a new political panorama in the country,” Hinterlaces
director Oscar Schemel remarked to IPS. "The people see the opposition
as a class of politicians stuck in the past, who want to maintain their
privileges and who are neither working for the interests of the people
nor coming up with a viable alternative to Chavez' programme.”
In focus groups with respondents, Schemel said he had found that
"more than 60% of those polled would like to be able to compare Chavez
to some alternative.”
Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel called for this year's
anniversary of the coup to serve as an opportunity for the opposition
to "renew itself, issue a mea culpa on the maneuvers it has used in its
attempts to get rid of Chavez, and rebuild its forces in benefit of
democracy. Governing without opposition is very boring.”
The opposition parties linked by the Democratic Coordinator
coalition that sought to topple Chavez have been severely weakened
since the 2004 Presidential recall referendum and the October 2004
regional elections, and have failed to reach agreement on a united
platform for taking part in the August 7 local elections. |
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By Gregory Wilpert - Venezuelanalysis.com
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Friday, 15 April 2005 |
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Minister of Energy and Petroleum and PdVSA President Rafael Ramirez
Credit: ABN |
According to Venezuela’s minister
of Energy and Petroleum, Rafael Ramirez, the operating agreements that
exist between the state oil company PDVSA and various transnational oil
companies caused $260 million of losses for PDVSA and will thus be
revised. During a press conference yesterday, Ramirez said that the
goal would be to change the operating agreements into joint ventures
with PDVSA, where PDVSA would have a majority stake.
Ramirez, who also serves as president PDVSA, explained that there
are 32 operating agreements with companies such as ChevronTexaco, Royal
Dutch Shell, France’s Total, and Spain’s Repsol, which produce about
500,000 barrels of oil per day, mostly from marginal oil fields. The
contracts were signed in the between 1992 and 1997, when the price of
oil was very low and the government at the time was interested in
opening up the country’s oil industry to foreign investors.
The operating agreements are service agreements, in which the
Venezuelan state pays a fee for the production of the oil. According to
Ramirez, in many cases the fees the state paid for this extraction
service cost more than could be earned by the sale of the oil, thus
leading to losses in many cases for the state-owned oil company.
Ramirez says that it costs $14 per barrel to extract oil under the
service agreements, while in other oil fields the PDVSA operates it
costs only $4 per barrel.
The Energy Ministry’s new requirement is to have all operating
agreements changed into joint ventures in the next six months, under
which they would pay 30% royalties, as well as taxes of 50%. A royalty
is the percentage of the extracted oil’s market value that an oil
company must pay directly to the government, before it subtracts any of
its expenses. The taxes are then applied to the profits that the oil
company makes on the sale of the remaining oil (i.e., after subtracting
its expenses).
According to the new law on hydrocarbons, which went into effect in
late 2001, international investment project in the oil sector would
take the form of joint ventures, with PDVSA maintaining a 51% stake in
these ventures. The new law also raised royalties from 16.6% to 30% and
lowered taxes from 67% to 50%.
A day earlier, on Wednesday, President Chavez had said during a
speech that many of these oil companies declared losses in Venezuela
and were thus not paying any taxes at all. Chavez announced that the
state’s tax collection agency, SENIAT, would investigate these
companies. “In some cases, and we already have the proof, that there
are transnational companies that have not paid the taxes that they
should have paid, so we will charge them,” said Chavez. “A country
cannot allow itself to be looted in this way,” he added. Ramirez said
that the back taxes could amount to as much as $2 billion.
The oil companies affected by this move have yet to comment on it.
Industry analysts, however, say that it is unlikely that the companies
will challenge the changes, since the oil price is expected to remain
high and profits can still be made.
Last year, in a surprise announcement, the Chavez government had
increased royalties that extra-heavy crude production projects pay in
the Orinoco oil belt, from 1% to 16.6%. These extra-heavy crude
production projects contribute another 500,000 barrels per day to
Venezuela’s overall output. The extraction of extra-heavy crude is
particularly difficult because the oil is so thick and thus needs to be
processed with lighter forms of crude so it can be transported. The
royalty rate for these projects was kept so low because when the
contracts were signed, the price of oil was very low. However, the
Chavez government says that the oil companies can afford to pay more,
now that the price has reached new highs.
When the announcement of the royalty increase in the extra-heavy
crude projects was made, all companies except for ExxonMobil accepted
the change. ExxonMobil is currently engaging in negotiations over the
increased royalties. |
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By Pedro F. Frisneda - UPI
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Thursday, 14 April 2005 |
Lawyer Venezuelan-American Eva
Golinger spoke in an interview from New York about her controversial
book "The Chavez Code: Deciphering the Intervention of the United
States in Venezuela," before its publication in the United States and a
few days before its official presentation in Venezuela.
Q. How conclusive are the documents you published in your book on Washington's harassment of President Hugo Chavez?
A. The important thing is that the information that I have been able
to declassify and access, like internal documents unavailable to the
public of the National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, and of the
United States Agency for International Development, or USAID support
for anti-Chavez groups that today in 2005 continue to be financed by
the U.S. government, which has as its final mission the overthrow of
the Venezuelan government. These documents are very important to let
the world know what is happening and in order to possibly help prevent
the U.S. government intervention against Venezuela's sovereignty from
succeeding.
Q. Did the documentary proof of North American harassment helped Chavez win the recall referendum?
A. He already had substantial support, but after I concretely proved
with documentary evidence covert U.S. financing of opposition groups
like Sumate and Plan Consensus Country -- which represented the
opposition in June 2004 with a political platform for a government
after Chavez shortly before the referendum -- the president's
popularity rose and the opposition's went down. There are a lot of
people in Venezuela who are not on Chavez's side, but who do not like
the idea of an opposition that receives financing and orders from a
foreign government either. The top-secret CIA documents that I managed
to get declassified demonstrate that the U.S. government had previous
knowledge and even detailed plans of how the coup d'etat was going to
be organized, from provoking violence during an opposition march in
early April, two months before the referendum. I do not know the exact
date because they are crossed out in the documents, but the plans
included taking President Chavez prisoner.
Q. What prompted you to undertake this investigation?
A. I am American and Venezuelan. I have been a person who has spent
many years from my youth in the fight for social justice, which is why
I became a lawyer. Since 1998, I have been writing about Venezuela for
the alternative media because I am not a well-known journalist. What
interested me most about the government was Venezuela's new
constitution -- which focused particularly in human rights, my area of
specialization -- and when the coup happened, it touched me personally
because I have family there. Being from the United States, I felt I had
the duty to find out if the American government had participated in a
coup d'etat to overthrow a democratic and legitimate government. Many
can debate on whether Chavez is democratic or not, but it cannot be
denied that he was elected in democratic and transparent elections. And
it seemed to me unusual that the United States was again intervening as
it had done during the 1970s and 1980s in Central and Latin America.
The American government had a major role in an illegal action, and
as a lawyer it was my duty to unmask the injustice if a foreign
government intervenes in the internal affairs of another country, much
less when it tries to overthrow a democratic government. That is why I
did it, but I did not think that it was going to have the repercussions
that it has.
Q. It is true that you have received death threats?
A. Yes, it is true.
Q. From whom?
A. All the threats have been via e-mail. I don't know if the names I
have are true because anyone can open an account in Yahoo and write
whatever he wants. I believe they are Venezuelans or Cubans related to
Venezuelans, but I do not know if they are in Venezuela or other parts
of the world.
Q. You are being accused of being a Venezuelan spy in the United
States and there are allegations that Chavez's government has paid you
a large sum of dollars. What do you say to that?
A. I had not seen that (she laughs). The question of me being a spy
is absurd speculation and it has no legal foundations. The information
I am uncovering and making public is information that the U.S.
government itself is giving me and it knows who I am because we have
been corresponding. In order to be a spy, you have to obtain data and
documents secretly and then present them to a foreign government. I do
not have any secret links with the American government and the
documents that I publish in my Web page (venezuelafoia.info) are
available to anybody who visits the Web site, not only to Chavez. As
far as the money goes, I have just paid my taxes and the U.S.
government has that information, of how much I have made last year and
what my sources of income are, who my clients are. I am a lawyer, I
have my own office. I am not going to break laws to receive money
illegally or hide my finances either. Chavez's government did not
finance my investigation and paid me nothing for the book. I had great
difficulty finding a publisher as happens to any author with his first
book.
Q. Then you financed it from your own pocket?
A. Yes. Chavez did not know of the book until somebody gave it to
him; he then talked about it in his program 'Hello President.'"
Q. Chavez has referred to the book on numerous opportunities.
Has anybody from the U.S. government, the CIA or the State Department
contacted you?
A. No. Never.
Q. The fact that the first time the book was presented to the
public was in Cuba has created much suspicion, taking into account the
relations between Chavez and Fidel Castro. What about that?
A. Cuba has a vast and hungry readership. They are fanatical about
books; the country has great publishing houses and the ability to
satisfy public demand. In addition, they have some of the best
translation teams in the world. I succeeded in getting them to help me
translate the book into Spanish. Then they requested my permission to
publish an edition for the book fair that took place in Santiago de
Cuba last month on March 5.
Q. Cuba's Granma newspaper reported that this book is only your
first step and says that you have more than 4,000 documents that show
the participation of the United States not only in the coup d'etat, but
also in the oil strike and the recall referendum.
A. That is true. Much of that information is in the book.
Q. What is going to be your next step?
A. After finishing the book, I received 50 percent of the document
requests that I filed under the Freedom of Information Act, and I still
need a lot of information. I have not yet reviewed at least 1,000 of
the 4,000 documents I've received so far. They include State Department
and Defense Department documents, and now with everything that is going
on between Venezuela and the United States, and with the situation
being so tense, these issues will continue to develop still further.
Q. But will we be getting continuing installments of your investigation?
A. Certainly, because the investigation continues.
Q. What is your true relationship with the Venezuelan government? Many have labeled you as being pro-Chavez.
A. I don't like political labeling of any type, but I share the
desire for social reform, the social changes which are being
implemented to achieve a fairer system, which would really take into
account the majority of citizens. If to be pro-Chavez is to support a
political system and a government that is looking for a way to meet the
needs of its people, then yes, I share that political view.
Q. Do you admire Chavez as a leader?
A. Chavez is a person with an extraordinary manner of speaking and
articulating his thoughts. It is very rare to see a person who spends
so many hours speaking without losing the thread of the issue he is
talking about. He is very charismatic; I have talked to him, and it
seems to me, although many would say that it is not true, that he is a
very sincere person, with the best intentions for the country, for
Venezuela.
Q. Many people mentioned that after you published the
declassified documents Chavez's verbal attacks on the United States
increased.
A. They say that it was my fault?
Q. No, but that you indirectly helped to increase the number of Chavez's attacks.
A. If to know the truth somehow can help somebody to express himself
better, in that sense they are right. But that argument is absurd
because based on that logic then it would be better to leave everything
hidden because otherwise people would know what is happening, and they
are going to complain and to protest. To give somebody proof and the
truth about a situation does not mean that one is increasing tensions.
Sometimes, the truth hurts and the end result is not necessarily what
everybody wants.
Q. Aside from these documents, do you think that there really is a plot to assassinate Chavez?
A. I do not rule it out. Very simply, it is necessary to look at
history to see that that strategy has been implemented in other
countries. Are Bush and his close officials are discussing Chavez's
murder on a daily basis? I don't think so, and I hope that that is not
the case. There are people who, of course, have publicly spoken
publicly in favor of Chavez's assassination. For example, there are the
declarations of Felix Rodriguez, a former CIA agent who was involved in
killing Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia; he appeared on television in
Miami speaking on the subject of assassinating Chavez. This is only
circumstantial evidence; as lawyer I do not have solid proof.
(Pedro F. Frisneda is a writer with Tiempos del Mundo) |
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By Venezuelanalysis.com
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Thursday, 14 April 2005 |
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Venezuela formally asked U.S.
authorities to extradite an escaped prisoner who was responsible for
the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976, in which 73 persons were
killed. The former prisoner, Luis Posada Carriles, is a Cuban exile who
had escaped a Venezuelan prison in 1985. For a while he lived in
Panama, where he was also captured for planning an assassination of
Cuba’s President Fidel Castro in 2000. He was then pardoned in Panama,
though, and entered the U.S. about a month ago.
Venezuela’s Vice-President, José Vicente Rangel, said, “We going to
step up our demands for extradition.” “I hope Mr. Bush will take note
of his own anti-terrorism policies and hand over Posada Carriles,”
added Rangel.
Posada Carriles’ attorney says that the U.S. should deny the
extradition request because he was acquitted in Venezuela of the
bombing of the Cuban airliner. Also, if deported to Cuba, he would face
possible execution.
Rangel pointed out that it is no wonder that Posada Carriles is
requesting asylum in the U.S., “because during all of the acts that he
participated in he did so while he was an employee of the CIA.”
On Monday, Cuba’s Castro said that if the U.S. denies the
extradition request, then it would effectively be backing international
terrorism. He also noted that Bush once said that whoever harbors a
terrorist is as guilty of terrorism as the terrorist himself.
According to Associated Press, an unidentified U.S. official said
that Posada is “excludable” from the U.S. because of his involvement in
the plane bombing.
Carriles Posada, who is 77 years old and dual Venezuelan-Cuban
citizenship, is a veteran of the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 and has
also been connected to a string of bombings in Cuban tourist locations
in 1997. He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985, disguised as a
priest, while prosecutors appealed his acquittal.
The extradition request is one of several that Venezuela has pending
in the U.S. Two other requests involve Venezuelan citizens who are
wanted for the bombing of the Colombian and Spanish consulates in
Venezuela in February 2003. |
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By Jorge Martin - www.handsoffvenezuela.org
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Thursday, 07 April 2005 |
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The decree of expropriation of Venepal in
January this year was a major turning point in the Venezuelan revolution. When
Chavez announced the decree, in the Ayacucho room of the presidential palace,
the same place where the coup organisers swore in their “president” Pedro
Carmona on April
12th, 2002, he made an appeal to
"workers' leaders to follow this path". He added, “any factories
closed or abandoned, we are going to take them over. All of them.”
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CNV workers in struggle, August 2003
Photo : Frédéric Lévêque |
The decision to nationalise Venepal and put
it under the administration of the workers, and the very high profile way in
which the decision was taken, was bound to have an impact amongst other groups
of workers in the same situation. As part of the relentless campaign of the
Venezuelan capitalists against the Chavez government they became engaged in a
campaign of economic sabotage. This campaign reached its peak during the bosses’
lockout in December 2002 and January 2003. Some factories were closed for up to
two months. After the failure of the lockout, soundly defeated by the action of
the workers and the massive Bolivarian demonstration on January 23, the bosses
tried to make the workers pay the price for the lockout, by not paying their
wages, delaying their payment, etc. Some factories were declared bankrupt. In
some cases the bankruptcy was genuine (the companies having been ruined by the
reckless two month long lockout), in some other cases it was a tool of the
economic sabotage against the government.
This created a situation in the spring and
summer of 2003 of heightened class struggle. In many factories workers
organised democratic unions and fought for recognition. The bosses replied with
repression, making union organisers redundant, etc. In a number of cases the
bosses just declared bankruptcy and abandoned the premises, forcing the workers
to occupy them and take them over in order to demand payment of their wages and
to defend their jobs and livelihoods. Venepal was the highest profile case,
where the workers were better organised. They occupied the factory in July 2003
and ran Venepal under workers’ control for 77 days. After an uneasy truce, the
bosses abandoned production again in September 2004. The workers occupied again
and after more than 4 months of struggle Chavez decreed the expropriation of
Venepal under joint management of the workers' and the state (in which the
workers' have a majority of representatives in the company's board).
But at the time of the occupation of
Venepal in the summer of 2003 there were a number of other factories that were
also occupied: Industrial de Perfumes, a perfume making company in Caracas; the
textile plant Fenix in Guarico; and the Constructora Nacional de Valvulas in
Los Teques, Miranda, a factory that used to produce valves for the state owned
oil company PDVSA. There were other similar conflicts at the time, but the
workers in these three, together with the Venepal workers, achieved a degree of
unity. There were joint meetings and declarations, and two joint demonstrations
in Caracas in October 1. Unfortunately, by the time a certain amount of coordination
between these different struggles was reached, the conflict in Venepal, which
had the largest number of workers, had already been settled. The movement, in
some cases after 4 months of occupation, progressively fizzled out. Tiredness,
the need to look for other sources of income, the lack of a clear perspective
of a way out of the struggle – with all these factors combined, the number of
workers effectively occupying these factories declined, and the struggle
basically died out. The leadership of the newly created UNT trade union
confederation never put forward a clear plan of struggle. Though solidarity was
forthcoming from other unions to the strike fund, there was never a
well-organised national campaign in support of the occupied factories.
The nationalisation of Venepal in January
this year had the effect of reviving some of these struggles. The first group
of workers to re-occupy their factories again was at the CNV in the working
class city of Los Teques, in the state of Miranda, right next to Caracas. On
February 17, a group of 63 CNV workers decided to take over the installation,
and unlike in 2003, when they just set up a picket line outside the
installation, this time they occupied the premises (against the advice of a
representative of the Ministry of Labour present).
The Constructora Nacional de Valvulas has
been producing high-pressure valves for the state owned oil company PDVSA for
more than 30 years. The CNV had a monopoly in the sector and was selling
overpriced valves to PDVSA, sometimes in unnecessary amounts. This was possible
because of the close relationship between the owner of the CNV, Andres Sosa
Pietri and the managers and directors in PDVSA. In fact the relationship was so
close (and corrupt) that Sosa Pietri himself in the 1990s became a director of
PDVSA. From his position he was awarding his company PDVSA exclusive contracts
for the making and maintenance of the industry's high pressure valves.
Sosa Pietri belongs to one of the
traditional families of the Venezuelan oligarchy, popularly known as "Los
Amos del Valle" ("The Owners of the Valley"). His policy advice
for the oil industry was clear. He advocated PDVSA to become a private company,
to adopt a "market friendly strategy, withdraw from OPEC, and ally
ourselves with our main commercial partners [i.e. the oil
multinationals]". It is therefore no surprise that he actively campaigned
against the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, because one of his main promises
was to maintain the state owned character of the oil industry and to pursue a
policy of strengthening of OPEC in order to achieve higher oil prices. At the
head of his own right wing Liberal Party he joined the Democratic Coordinator,
the umbrella group of the Venezuelan opposition which went on to organise the
coup against Chavez in April 2002, which he wholeheartedly supported.
After the defeat of the coup, he formed yet
another political party, called Alliance for Freedom. On December 9th, 2002, as part of
the bosses’ lockout to overthrow Chavez, he closed down the installations of
the CNV, leaving more than 100 working class families without any income. After
the failure of the bosses’ lockout he refused to pay wages to the workers.
After months of struggle and negotiations, in May 2003 a group of workers
decided to occupy the entrance to the factory in order to prevent any finished
products or machinery from being taken out of the premises. Sosa Pietri went to
the tribunals which ruled in his favour. In August 2003 there was an attempt to
remove the workers, but thanks to the solidarity of the labour movement and
community organisations from the town this was prevented.
The workers have now set up a solidarity
committee, and a meeting took place in Los Teques in order
to organise solidarity with the struggle. The CNV workers are pointing out that
CNV has a strategic importance from the point of view of the oil industry and
that therefore it should be expropriated and put under workers' control and
management, so that it can produce valves for PDVSA. The case is clear, the
owner of the factory is a participant in the coup in 2002, he closed down the factory
during the bosses lockout and has consistently refused to pay the workers the
wages they are owed. As with many other workers' struggles taking place in
Venezuela today, this is not only a matter of a fight between the workers and
the bosses, but it has also a clear political character, of a struggle between
the Bolivarian Revolution and the oligarchy, the owners of industry, the land
and the banks, that use all possible means at their disposal to sabotage it.
Following the example of Venepal, the CNV
should be expropriated under workers' control and management. This is the way
forward towards the socialism of the 21st century of which Chavez has been
talking about.
We appeal to the trade union movement of
the world and all those who support the Bolivarian revolution to show their
solidarity with the workers of the CNV (in struggle for nearly 2 years now),
and to ask the Venezuelan authorities to act decisively to fulfil the just
demands of the workers.
Send messages of solidarity to:
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,
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and messages to the Venezuelan President
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, and the Ministry of Labour
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(you can use the model resolution proposed by the
workers themselves: http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/support_cnv_workers.htm )
If you can make a financial donation to the
strike fund, please send it to the following account 0039-01-0100309746 Banco
Industrial de Venezuela under the name of Jorge Paredes y Rosalio Castro for
the Resistance Fund, or contact the Hands Off Venezuela campaign for more
details.
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Tuesday, 05 April 2005 |
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Since we already know that this letter will not be published by the Miami Herald, we have decided to send it as an open letter, so that the public in general get to know about it, as well as relevant authorities and human rights organizations. Translated by Carlos Herrera 1 We are defenders and sympathizers of a political cause and we are not committing any crime in manifesting our support for the Bolivarian Revolution, which is peaceful and promotes understanding and union amongst the Peoples of Latin America. 2 We are citizens of this country, we pay taxes, we vote in elections, we elect those who represent us, we exercise our right to democracy, we have the same rights as any other US citizen; we obey the law and no one has the right to demonize us for being Bolivarians. 3 Above all, we exercise our right to manifest our ideas and defend them, such as is established in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. No one can take away our right to think and we promote the fact that our ideas are totally alien to all forms of violence and respect the laws. The want to emphasize that they foster understanding and benefit the peoples from whence we came, since it is there where our family roots lie. 4 Our actions are transparent and public, we are transparent before the law, we act on our own initiative, we have ideals. Everyone who wants to come and expound their ideas is welcome, providing they respect the liberty of others who think differently, and in the same way they will receive respect and tolerance on our part. We do not impose ourselves, we debate and reason, and for this reason the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has triumphed and it will begin to do so in all of Latin America. We want and promote a peaceful revolution, of understanding, leading to more well being for the majority of the population of America. We promote its diffusion because that is how we feel and that is what we want. We are agents of no one, we do not receive funds or money from anyone, we are idealists, democrats and representatives of our own feelings and thoughts. 5 We invite the media and public opinion in general to share, to debate, to cause controversy, always in the framework of mutual respect, not imposing or demonizing, but by reasoning. With intelligence, which is all we possess. We suggest to the Miami Herald and the relevant authorities to concern themselves with those making threats on TV channels calling for the assassination of President Chavez and inciting violence and terror. 6 We will now close our clarification and invitation to debate with a thought of the Liberator of the Gran Colombia, who, for being the Liberator of five countries, deserves our admiration and respect, as does Washington and the founding fathers of our Homeland who liberated this nation from the British. "The veil is open and we have seen the light, and they want to cast us back into the darkness. The chains have been broken, we have already been free and our enemies want to enslave us again" Simon Bolivar To be Bolivarian is an honor, just as it is an honor to be Christian, or Protestant, as it is to be honored; but above all, to be Bolivarian is to possess humanity. To be Bolivarian is to be American, since we were all born in America, in Our America. Pedro Rojas
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Circulo Bolivariano de Miami
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By Eva Golinger - Venezuelanalysis.com
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Monday, 04 April 2005 |
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Washington’s efforts to discredit the
Venezuelan Government have increased over the past few weeks. Tactics
and strategies applied in prior years attempting to overthrow the
Chávez administration through a coup d’etat, an illegal oil industry
strike that crippled the Venezuelan economy and a constitutional recall
referendum on Chávez’s mandate infused with illegal campaign
contributions by the U.S. government to the Venezuelan opposition, all
failed miserably. After a brief period of reevaluation, the Bush
Administration has recently launched a new strategy intended to isolate
and eventually topple the Venezuelan Government. The new aggression
towards Venezuela is direct, open, public and hostile. The Bush
Administration, through its Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and
her spokesmen, its Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his
spokesmen, and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
Porter Goss, has made clear that Venezuela is a target for Washington
this year.
This time around, the strategy is clear: turn President Chávez into
an international pariah in the world media and justify an intervention
to save democracy. Even more transparent are the mechanisms utilized to
implement the strategy. Since early January 2005, major U.S.
publications and television stations, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald,
Fox News Network and CSNBC, to name a few, have published or broadcast
well over 60 articles and programs regurgitating State Department
accusations that President Chávez presents a “negative force in the
region,”[1]
is a “threat to democracy,” a “semi-dictator,” or that the Venezuela
Government provides refuge and collaborates with “terrorist” groups,
such as the Colombian FARC and ELN. Such accusations are dangerous in
today’s world, where the Bush Administration is omnipotent to act
preemptively to “spread liberty” and implement “regime change” where
and when it sees fit.
The new strategy applied towards Venezuela represents a major policy
shift for the Bush Administration. While prior actions were more
subtle, clandestine and low profile, the revised plan is
confrontational. Washington is now trying to openly
intervene in Venezuela to remove Chávez from power, but attempts to
excuse such actions by branding Chávez as a dictator and a major threat
to U.S. national security. Several recent articles in U.S. media have
demonstrated such objectives.
The April 11, 2005 edition of The National Review, an
ultraconservative magazine representing right-wing views similar to
those of Washington’s ultraconservative right-wing government, presents
a cover image of President Chávez, in military fatigues, a red beret
and a face ten years younger, alongside President Fidel Castro of Cuba,
with the byline, “The Axis of Evil…Western Hemisphere Version”. The
feature article, by rabidly anti-Castro Cuban-American Otto Reich,
former Special Advisor to George W. Bush on Latin American Affairs and
former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs,
along with a list of other top positions in the Reagan, Bush I and II
administrations, presents an attempt to terrorize readers into
believing Venezuela has become the primary threat to U.S. national
security in the region. Reich also claims that the U.S.’s most
“pressing specific challenge is neutralizing or defeating the
Cuba-Venezuela axis.”[2]
The terms “neutralizing” and “defeating” are not friendly. They
imply hostility, violence and dominance. These are not terms used
within the sphere of diplomacy, they are expressions used in the
context of armed conflict. Such statements by Reich, who now works in
the private sector as a U.S. Government Consultant, may seem laughable
to many, but in the context of an administration that shares Reich’s
extremist views on Latin America and in light of the recent augment in
public aggression towards the Venezuelan Government by high-level Bush
officials, these remarks may not be far off. In fact, Reich’s recent
article falls perfectly in line with the onslaught of Chávez-bashing
commentaries and “news stories” published in U.S. papers since January.
Over the past two weeks, the Spanish-language version of the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald,
has run a three-part series on the growing threat of organizations and
individuals that support the Venezuelan Government from within the
United States.[3]
The articles, written by right-wing Cuban-American journalist Casto
Ocando, who has written dozens of fervently anti-Chávez articles for
that same paper, pretend to expose a network of Chávez supporters in
universities and progressive groups that, at the appeal of the
journalist, should be considered “foreign agents” or almost “terrorist”
by the U.S. Government and public. One of the articles even includes a
map of where such pro-Chávez groups are located in the U.S., with a
large image of President Chávez in military fatigues imposed on top, as
though the author were exposing some clandestine terrorist network
secretly operating within the United States.
The groups and institutions mentioned by the Herald that form
part of the “sinister” pro-Chávez network in the U.S. include Harvard
University, New York University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), Global Exchange, Global Women’s Strike, San Romero de las
Americas Church in New York and its Pastor, Luis Barrios, the catholic
missionary Maryknoll group, the author of this article (yes, me), and
several Bolivarian Circles, small community-based organizations that
support Chávez modeled from the Venezuelan grassroots organizations
that carry the same name. Sounds like a scary group!
I am sure that thoughts of Maryknoll missioners, prestigious
university professors, Harlem-based Pastors and the
environmentally-friendly Global Exchange all lauding a foreign
government that is investing its oil wealth in improving health care,
education, housing and raising salaries, has driven fear into the
hearts and minds of ordinary Americans.[4]
Media-CIA Relationship Exposed
But maybe the author’s intent and not the content of the article
should cause alarm. During the publishing of the three-part series on
the growing threat of pro-Chávez supporters in the U.S., journalist
Casto Ocando appeared on a local Miami television show on Channel 22,
discussing such “threats” in detail alongside fellow Cuban-American
Félix Rodríguez, ex-CIA Officer responsible for the assassination of
Ernesto “Che” Guevara and who was also an Iran-Contra operative.[5]
Just days earlier, this expert in CIA assassination techniques used
against foreign leaders, Félix Rodríguez, was interviewed on that same
program, “Maria Elvira Confronta” (Maria Elvira Confronts), providing
details about an assassination plot in motion against President Hugo
Chávez.[6]
Ocando and Rodríguez’s association merely points to a collaborative
effort between CIA and news media, a relationship established decades
ago by the United States Government.
On that same Miami program in October 2004, the anti-Chávez
Venezuelan actor, and coup participant, Orlando Urdaneta, appeared
ordering the assassination of President Chávez and other “top figures”
in the Venezuelan Government.[7]
Just weeks later, on November 18, 2004, lead government Prosecutor
Danilo Anderson was assassinated by a powerful car bomb. At that time,
Anderson was in charge of several high profile cases, including the
prosecution of coup leaders and participants. His death marked the
first political assassination in recent Venezuelan history.
The Venezuelan Government has repeatedly requested the State
Department investigate these threats of violence against President
Chávez coming from within the United States, yet no formal response has
been issued and no actions have been taken.
Despite initial denials from State Department spokesmen regarding
accusations from the Venezuelan Government that Washington was engaging
in a coordinated effort with the media to discredit President Chávez,
facilitate expressions of violence against the Venezuelan head of state
and spread unsubstantiated rumors about terrorist connections and human
rights violations, in early March 2005, Assistant Secretary of State
for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Roger Noriega, confirmed to the press
that the United States had launched a “campaign” to raise consciousness
in the region about “the growing threat of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez.”[8] And what better way to publicize a campaign than through the mass media?
The Office of Public Diplomacy Revived
In 1983, the United States Government, by direct order of President
Ronald Reagan’s White House, established the Office of Public Diplomacy
for Latin America and the Caribbean (LPD) under the authority of the
Department of State. The LPD was staffed by personnel from the United
States military, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), the government’s
primary propaganda office, and the Agency for International Development
(USAID). Its primary advisor was the National Security Council, the
most elite intelligence advisory committee in the U.S., reporting
directly to the President. The notorious Otto Reich was chosen to
direct the Office of Public Diplomacy, in order to spearhead the
campaign to oust the Sandinista Government of Nicaragua.
Declassified documents from the U.S. Government, obtained by the
National Security Archives, evidence the covert and illegal use of news
media to promote U.S. foreign policy.[9]
Reich employed the personnel from U.S. military “Psyops” (Psychological
Operations Group) to produce different kinds of propaganda and
information for the LPD Office. “Psyop” job duties included preparing
“daily summaries of exploitable information”, “analyzing media trends
and highlighting areas of concern” and “suggesting themes and media for
use” by the Office of Public Diplomacy.[10] The media used by the Office of Public Diplomacy to promulgate U.S. foreign policy on Nicaragua included The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, CBS News, NBC News and Newsweek Magazine, amongst others.
The types of messages disseminated through Reich’s office, as
developed by the National Security Council and the Psyops, were
intended to encourage the perception that U.S. aid to the contras,
labeled “freedom fighters” by the U.S., was a vital national interest
of the United States. To achieve that goal, Reich’s office was to
convince the U.S. public that the contras were fighters for freedom in
the American tradition of democracy and the Sandinistas were “evil”.
The themes invoked in the psychological propaganda attempted to
convince the public that the Sandinistas were engaging in a “military
build-up”, had a “communist connection” and were “human rights
violators” repressing “freedom of the press”, “right of assembly”,
“freedom of speech”, responsible for the “destruction of the economy”
and were “linked to worldwide terrorism.”
In 1987, the United States General Accounting Office (GAO)
determined that the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and
the Caribbean had engaged in illegal and unethical practices and had
violated government regulations.[11]
GAO and the Congress subsequently shut down the Office permanently. But
Otto Reich, instead of receiving punishment for his illegal actions
throughout the years he headed the LPD was promoted to the position of
U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela and stationed in Caracas. During that
period, he helped liberate Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch, responsible
for blowing up a Cubana de Aviación airplane flying from Barbados,
killing all of the more than 65 people aboard the flight. Reich later
helped facilitate the entry of Bosch into the United States, where he
roams free today.[12]
Otto Reich’s Misinformation Campaign
Otto Reich was the Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs, the position Roger Noriega holds today, during the
April 2002 coup d’état against President Chávez. This author has
disclosed numerous documents from the Department of State and the CIA
that evidence U.S. involvement in that coup.[13]
Amongst these documents is a heavily censured cable marked
“confidential”, drafted by Otto Reich, laying out the State
Department’s position on the coup. Despite the fact that the U.S.
Government was well aware of the detailed coup plans, as revealed in a
CIA Senior Executive Intelligence Brief dated April 6, 2002[14],
Reich, the master of mis-information, told all diplomatic
representatives of the U.S. that they were to promote this false
version of events:
“On April 11, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans gathered to seek
redress of their grievances. Chávez supporters fired on anti-government
protestors resulting in more than 100 wounded or killed….The government
prevented five independent television stations from reporting on
events. After meeting with senior military officers, Chávez allegedly
resigned the presidency. A provisional civilian government, led by
Pedro Carmona, assumed power and promised early elections.”[15]
The intent of the U.S. Government was to misinform the world of the
events giving rise to the illegal coup d’état that briefly overthrew
President Chávez, therefore justifying its own participation in such
actions and reinforcing its strategy to “legitimately” remove Chávez
from power. The fact that the U.S. Government had clear knowledge of
the coup plans and actors in the weeks before the coup provides
undisputed evidence of this fact. The CIA intelligence brief of April
6, 2002 unmistakably informed top level U.S. Government officials that,
“Dissident military factions…are stepping up efforts to organize a coup
against President Chávez…the level of detail in the reported
plans…targets Chávez and 10 other senior officials for arrest…To
provoke military action, the plotters may try to exploit unrest
stemming from opposition demonstrations…”
The CIA briefs from the weeks before also claimed knowledge of the
coup’s organizers: “…the private sector, the media, the Catholic Church
and opposition political parties…. [along with] disgruntled military
officers…still planning a coup, possibly early this month…”[16]
Reich’s efforts at the time of the coup against President Chávez in
Venezuela were merely to continue what he was best at, disseminating
false information – propaganda – intended to promote U.S. foreign
policy, just as he had done fifteen years early in Nicaragua.
Today’s campaign against Venezuela starkly parallels those tactics
used back in the eighties by the Office of Public Diplomacy. Though
Reich no longer maintains an official position within the Bush
Administration, his capacity as a private sector U.S. Government
Consultant on International Affairs clearly shows his ties and
influence remain. And others in powerful positions within the U.S.
Government are his colleagues from the low intensity conflict years in
Central America during the Reagan-Bush administrations. John
Negroponte, former U.S. Ambassador in Honduras during the eighties is
soon-to-be the new Director of National Intelligence, the highest
capacity in the intelligence community, Charles Shapiro, ex-Ambassador
to Venezuela during the coup who previously was a State Department
diplomat in Central America during the eighties is now Under-Secretary
of State for the Andean Region (covering Venezuela), Reich’s old buddy
Roger Noriega took his place as Assistant Secretary of State for
Western Hemisphere Affairs and Porter Goss, ex-CIA Official and member
of the Operation 40 assassination squad in the 1960s, alongside Cuban
terrorist Orlando Bosch, is now Director of the CIA.
Such relationships and backgrounds make it no surprise to see that
today’s campaign against Venezuela employs the same themes used,
successfully, against the Sandinistas in the eighties. In addition to
the similar use of the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID to
funnel millions into Venezuelan opposition parties and NGOs, the U.S.
Government attempts to portray Chávez in the same exact light as the
Sandinistas. Repeated declarations from the State and Defense
Departments, recycled in major U.S. media, claim the Chávez Government
is engaging in a “military build-up” or “arms race” with its recent
purchase of new weaponry from Russia (note that the U.S. Government is
the ONLY government to express such concerns. None of Venezuela’s
neighbors have even raised an eyebrow. And Brazil has publicly stated
they have no concerns whatsoever with Venezuela’s recent arms
purchase); that Chávez is a “communist” in the likes of Fidel Castro;
that his government “violates human rights” including “freedom of the
press”, the “right to assembly”, “freedom of speech”, “persecution of
opposition groups and actors” and that his administration is
responsible for the “poverty” and “economic devastation” that has
affected the country in recent years.
If you read a few paragraphs above in this commentary, you will find
the same identical themes were used to discredit the Nicaraguan
government by Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy. Note that all of
these claims against President Chávez and the Venezuelan Government are
false. There is more freedom of the press and freedom of speech in
Venezuela than under any prior government. The Chávez administration
has never suspended any constitutional rights and in fact has expanded
human rights under the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution that was promoted
by President Chávez himself and ratified by an unprecedented national
referendum.
In The Us, Telling the President He “Sucks” Can Land You in Jail
Recently, The Washington Post, published yet another article
attempting to reinforce the false accusations repeated over and over
again by State Department officials. The Post has been the
media most frequently utilized to reiterate U.S. foreign policy towards
Venezuela and its editorial board is unquestionably anti-Chávez.
Remember, The Post figured prominently on the list of media
utilized by Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy to disseminate “black
propaganda” attempting to smear the Nicaraguan Government’s reputation
in the 1980s. It appears as though such efforts have been revived in
the case of Venezuela.
An article by Jackson Diehl, “Chávez’s Censorship: Where Disrespect
Can Land You in Jail” (Washington Post, Monday, March 28, 2005, p.A17),
attempts to convince readers that a reformed Penal Code in Venezuela is
somehow a repressive tool of an authoritarian regime. Diehl references
Article 147: "Anyone who offends with his words or in writing or in any
other way disrespects the President of the Republic or whomever is
fulfilling his duties will be punished with prison of 6 to 30 months if
the offense is serious and half of that if it is light." Yet this
journalist fails to mention U.S. laws on the same subject matter, which
are actually much stricter and truly repressive. Title 18 of the U.S.
Code, Section 871, “Threats Against the President or his Successors”
provides for up to five years of prison for any kind of “threat”
against a U.S. President, Vice-President, his spouse or any one in the
succession line who could become President, which includes a grand
portion of Congress. Section 871 has been used to jail individuals for
telling a U.S. President he “sucks”[17], informing a President that, "God will hold you to account, Mr. President”[18] or for wearing “anti-war” or “anti-Bush” t-shirts.[19]
And lest we forget the more than 1800 protestors jailed during the
August 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City for the
crime of…protesting the president.
Moreover, by an Executive Order of the President of the United
States and under the Patriot Act, a highly repressive law passed after
September 11, 2001 by the U.S. Congress, any non-U.S. citizen “ who has
been deemed by the president to have been or have harbored a member of
the al Qaeda organization, or anyone who has engaged in, aided,
abetted, or conspired to commit acts of international terrorism, or
acts that “threaten to cause, or have as their aim to cause injury to
or adverse effects on the United States,” is subject to trial in a
military tribunal in accordance with rules and procedures to be
established by the secretary of defense.”[20]
This means that the more than 18 million immigrants living in the
United States, many of them legally, can be deemed by the President of
the United States to have “aided and abetted” or somehow collaborated
with “terrorists”, which is under the sole discretion of the President,
and detained indefinitely with no rights and subject to a military
tribunal. Military tribunals do not respect rights to due process or
even minimal civil or human rights.
So, basically, telling a U.S. President he “sucks” could end you in Guantánamo, dressed in orange, with no rights.
But remember, the U.S. holds a double standard when it comes to
threatening the President. The laws only apply to the U.S. President,
and close allies of course. Discussing in detail plans to assassinate
the Venezuelan President on U.S. television carry no consequence. Even
maintaining armed militia training camps in Miami led by ex-Venezuelan
military officers who claim to be preparing to overthrow Chávez is
encouraged by the U.S. Government.[21] Such terrorists operate and live freely within U.S. territory, and some even receive financing from the U.S. Government.[22]
Attacks against Venezuela Continue
The attacks against the Venezuelan Government have only increased
since January, and there is no expectation that they will cease at this
point. Just days ago, the State Department released a report entitled “Supporting
Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2004 - 2005", lauding its
own efforts to promote democracy around the world, including efforts to
invoke regime changes in some cases. The report condemns Venezuela as a
human rights abuser, detrimental to democracy in the region. Its
presenter, Michael Kozak, gave an ultimatum to the Venezuelan
Government in his press conference, stating “If you wish to have a
decent relationship with us, you will have to reorient aspects of your
governance towards the right direction.”[23]
Sounds like a threat, one that surely will not be heeded by the
Venezuelan Government. But what is clear is that the bully tactics
continue and finally, after the calls of many anti-Chávez groups in the
U.S. and Venezuela combined with the powerful lobby of the anti-Castro
Cuban-American community in Miami, the Bush Administration has finally
decided to look south. Venezuela, one of the top exporters of oil to
the United States, may become the next target of a unilateral,
preemptive strike. Hopefully, the country will be able to fend off U.S.
aggression, as it has successfully done in the past. Venezuela has
regional support from Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Cuba
and even neighboring Colombia, despite the heavy U.S. influence and
military presence in that nation. Any type of conflict provoked by the
Bush Administration against Venezuela would not be looked at favorably
in the region, and surely would force a multilateral defense.
South America is more united today than ever before in history, and
that is the true threat to the United States. As the Venezuelan Vice
President, José Vicente Rangel, confirmed recently, “Latin America is
no longer the backyard of the United States.”
Eva Golinger, a Venezuelan-American attorney, is the author of
“The Chávez Code: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela”, soon to be
available through Amazon.com or directly through the author.
[1]
See Declarations made by incoming Secretary of State Rice before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 18, 2005; See also Dow
Jones Newswire, January 18, 2005, “Rice: Venezuela’s Chávez ‘Negative
Force’ in the Region”, "I think that we have to view at this point the government of Venezuela
as a negative force in the region," Rice told the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on Tuesday during her confirmation hearing. "We
can, I think, work with others to expose that, and say to President
Chavez that this kind of behavior is really not acceptable in this
Hemisphere that is trying to make its way toward a stable democratic
future," Rice said.
[2] National Review, April 11, 2005 Edition
[4] This is a satirical comment.
[5] http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB5/ See CIA Debriefing of Félix Rodríguez, June 3, 1975. When
Che Guevara was executed in La Higuera, one CIA official was present--a
Cuban-American operative named Félix Rodríguez. Rodríguez, who used the
codename "Félix Ramos" in Bolivia and posed as a Bolivian military
officer, was secretly debriefed on his role by the CIA's office of the
Inspector General in June, 1975. (At the time the CIA was the focus of
a major Congressional investigation into its assassination operations
against foreign leaders.) In this debriefing--discovered in a
declassified file marked 'Félix Rodríguez' by journalist David
Corn--Rodríguez recounts the details of his mission to Bolivia where
the CIA sent him, and another Cuban-American agent, Gustavo Villoldo,
to assist the capture of Guevara and destruction of his guerrilla band.
[6] See “Former CIA Agent Affirms Possibility of Chávez’s Assassination in Venezuela”, by Gregory Wilpert, http://venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1549; and The Washington Post,
“Venezuela’s Anti-Bush Fears Assassination”, by Jefferson Morely, March
16, 2005, found at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41572-2005Mar16.html
[7]
On the program, Orlando Urdaneta stated, “Of the 150,000 men in uniform
in Venezuela, there must be a high percentage of honest people who, in
the right moment, will rise up…But this will only happen with the
physical disappearance of the “top dog” and a significant part of his
pack. There is no room for doubt: there is no other way out. Physical
disappearance, definitely.” When prompted by the program host as to how
this would happen, Urdaneta replied, “This happens with a few men with
long guns that have telescopic views, that won’t fail…It’s an order
that I am giving right at this moment, let’s go, hurry up…” See:
“Orlando Urdaneta llama al magnicidio desde Miami”, 02 Noviembre 2004,
Temas http://www.temas.com.ve/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=9
[10] Ibid, United States Department of State Memorandum from Otto Reich to Department of Defense Officer Ray Warren, March 5, 1985.
[11]
See Ibid, United States General Accounting Office Report Otober 1987,
State’s Administration of Certain Public Diplomacy Contracts.
[12]
See “El Código Chávez: Descifrando la Intervención de los EEUU en
Venezuela”, por Eva Golinger, p.193, Editorial Ciencias Sociales, Cuba
2005.
[14] Top Secret CIA SIEB brief available on www.venezuelafoia.info, revealing US government knowledge of and involvement in the coup against President Chávez.
[15]
Confidential document from the Secretary of State’s office in
Washington to Western Hemisphere Affairs Diplomatic Posts, the National
Security Council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Pentagon, the
Secretary of Defense, Southern Command Unit, and the U.S. Embassies in
the Vatican, Madrid, London, Geneva and its Mission before the United
Nations, dated April 14, 2002 and classified through April 14, 2012.
Obtained by the author under the Freedom of Information Act.
[16] CIA Top Secret Senior Intelligence Brief, April 1, 2002, available on www.venezuelafoia.info
[17]
(Excerpt from an AP wire story dated October 30, 1996) "CHICAGO (AP) --
... (two people) were arrested July 2 at the Taste of Chicago fair
after President Clinton approached them and ... responded with a rude
remark. She said the remark was, ' "You suck and those boys died,'' '
in reference to the June 25 attack of a U.S. installation in Saudi
Arabia that left 19 American airmen dead. Secret Service agents
initially said they heard something else that could have been taken as
a threat against the president. Police said the (couple) were arrested
for persisting to shout profanities while being questioned.
[18]
(From the Washington Times, 12/27/96, page A5.)"God will hold you to
account, Mr. President." "--Rev. Rob Shenck, to President Clinton
during a Christmas Eve church service at the Washington National
Cathedral, referring to the president's veto of a ban on partial-birth
abortion. After the service, Rev. Shenck was detained by Secret Service
agents who accused him of threatening the President's life.
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By Franz J. T. Lee - Vheadline.com
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Monday, 04 April 2005 |
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In
historical retrospective, very often it is sane and healing for us
revolutionaries to recollect, to re-assess, to deepen that what we have
done, what we have said, and to see whether our actions and thoughts
were within the main stream of human emancipation.
In many commentaries, over the past
six years, we have followed the revolutionary sparks and trails of the
Bolivarian Revolution toward a still possible Socialism, towards real
Human Emancipation.
In fact, since 25 years already, here in
Venezuela, as university professor of political science and philosophy,
having taught numerous active Bolivarians today in key positions, I am
doing precisely this in revolutionary deed and emancipatory word. Already
in 1986, at the University of The Andes, Mérida, Venezuela, in my
text-book, Teoría-Práxis de la Revolución-Emancipación, I taught my
students about the socialist basics of the coming Bolivarian Revolution.
(See: http://www.geocities.com/juschmi/teopind.html )
To demonstrate how near we are to the audacious
drums of the Bolivarian Revolution, allow me just to quote some
encouraging thoughts that already haunted many a counter-revolutionary
in Venezuela, on Internet and elsewhere. On August 15, 2003, I
explained:
"Exactly because of the desperation of the
national 'golpistas', of the urgency for the USA to have "regime
change" here, and officially trying to connect Chávez to 'terrorists',
to the guerrilla forces in Colombia, and even to 'Arab terrorists', and
probably having supplied the golpistas with all the necessary funds,
arms and technological equipment, this time, the correlation of forces
spells a fierce, violent confrontation, that will verge on civil war,
exactly what the USA and the 'opposition' need for foreign military
intervention."
Already then sensing the historic current of the Bolivarian Revolution, I continued:
"Until now, the government intelligently has
evaded this scenario, this trap, however, when full spectrum dominance
is hell bent on annihilating a most dangerous opponent, a paradigm for
the oppressed world, then, the enemy himself chooses the weapons of
"peace", the forms of violence, and the only thing left for Venezuela
is full spectrum self-defense, with its democratic constitution in the
hands of millions of people. Thus,
friends, beware, we are entering a decisive era of Venezuelan and Latin
American history. Jacta alea est, the fascist dice are cast. "
( http://www.aporrea.org/dameletra.php?docid=4277)
Already a few months before, on Labor Day, May
1, 2003, in "A specter is haunting the Fourth Reich -- the specter of
Chávez!", I urged that we should "learn to act and think the
revolution", in other words that we should develop our own
revolutionary praxis and theory:
"Creatively,
the Bolivarian Revolution has to be acted, be thought, be formulated
transhistorically, it needs a Práxis-Theory, that considers political
economy, social class differences, the labor struggle, its internal,
intensive "class struggle", a philosophy that surpasses all forms of
global lies, ideology and mind control". http://www.trinicenter.com/selfnews/arc4-2003.html
That the USA has planned long ago to intervene
in Venezuela and Latin America, with military power, should it be
necessary for its own economic, imperialist survival and struggle to
retain world hegemony, is scientifically sure, there should not be any
doubts about this issue. Within the very Bolivarian movement, it is
counter-revolutionary to use this threat as an instrument to brake the
deepening of the revolutionary process.
As Simon Bolivar had warned
already, this Yankee plague is simply there, it is our daily bread; as
long as the Bolivarian Revolution exists, and is advancing towards
global emancipation, so long the Damocles Sword of North American
Fascism will hover over our revolutionary heads.
On August 8, 2004, in a VHeadline commentary, I
explained this reality, that is, "The Emancipatory Quintessence of the
Bolivarian Revolution", as follows:
"In the short
term, before the total world economic collapse, the brutal conquest of
the remaining reserves of oil, water, oxygen and biodiversity is a top
priority for the well-being of the Super Power, for the USA; also this
is relevant with reference to its possible competitors for world
hegemony, Europe, China, India, etc."
We explained that all these,
reflected in Bush's current global economic and military "new wars",
directly accelerate the Bolivarian Revolution toward higher dimensions
of armed self-defense and popular resistance:
"All these affect the Bolivarian Revolution,
are globalizing its revolutionary efforts, make it an emancipatory
paradigm for the world. Its praxis becomes the totality of global
workers' resistance, its theory is permanent revolution.
This can be verified in its educational,
political, economical and social projects, can be seen in the ferocious
attacks of the global mass media, in the conspiracies, in the danger of
violent US intervention."
Logically, I concluded:
"However,
global fascism will have to annihilate the whole iceberg, in order to
stop its "NO" on August 15, 2004 .... and all that what will follow
thereafter: the still possible Emancipation of Humanity." (http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=22333)
In his new book, "The Venezuelan Revolution: A
Marxist Perspective". Alan Woods, introduced by Rob Sewell, confirms
the above analyses, indicating that currently the Bolivarian Revolution
finds itself at the crossroads.
He writes: “Right from the beginning we have
pointed out that the Venezuelan revolution has begun, but it is not
finished, and it cannot be finished until the power of the Venezuelan
oligarchy is broken”, states Alan Woods. “This
means the expropriation of the land, banks and big industry under
workers’ control and management. It means the arming of the people. It
means the setting up of action committees linked up on a local,
regional and national basis. It means that the working class must
organize independently and strive to place itself at the head of the
nation. And it means that the Marxist tendency must strive to win over
the majority of the revolutionary movement.”
(See: http://www.marxist.com/Latinam/venezuela_revolution_book.htm )
Rob Sewell describes that what we have called the Bolivarian tip of the global ice-berg of permanent revolution, as follows:
"However,
without doubt Latin America is currently in the vanguard of world
revolution, and within the Latin American continent, Venezuela stands
out sharply as the country most affected by this process. It would be
no exaggeration to say that Venezuela is now the key to the
international situation and the developing world revolution."
Yes, indeed, in agreement with Woods and
Sewell, we are crossing the bourgeois, national, democratic
revolutionary Rubicon, as vanguard of the exodus out of capitalism and
imperialism, via our own socialism, toward global, human emancipation.
However, this path does not exist as yet, as we
near our emancipatory goal, the path is being created, gradually our
socialism comes into being and existence.
This President Hugo Chavez Frias formulated as follows: “I
am convinced, and I think that this conviction will be for the rest of
my life, that the path to a new, better and possible world, is not
capitalism, the path is socialism, that is the path: socialism,
socialism.” (Also see:
http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/german_easter_marches_venezuela.htm )
However, there is no easy walk to freedom, the
serpentine path toward Socialism, how to make and think the revolution,
how to get rid of private property of the means of production and of
communication, how to realize world socialism, Marx and Engels already
have explained to us in 1850:
“... it is our
interest and our task to make the revolution permanent, until all more
or less possessing classes have been forced out of their position of
dominance, until the proletariat has conquered state power, and the
association of proletarians, not only in one country but in all the
dominant countries of the world, has advanced so far that competition
among the proletarians of these countries has ceased and that at least
the decisive productive forces are concentrated in the hands of the
proletarians. For us the issue cannot be the alteration of private
property but only its annihilation, not the smoothing over of class
antagonisms but the abolition of classes, not the improvement of
existing society but the foundation of a new one.”
(Address to the Central Committee to the Communist League, March 1850).
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Friday, 25 March 2005 |
Carta Abierta al Señor Casto Ocando Periodista del Miami Herald Miami, Florida. USA. Como de antemano sabemos que esta respuesta no la publica el Miami Herald, optamos por enviarla como carta abierta , para que sea del conocimiento del público en general, de las autoridades pertinentes y de las organizaciones de derechos humanos. 1 - Nosotros somos simpatizantes y defensores de una causa política y no estamos cometiendo ningún delito en manifestar nuestro apoyo a la Revolución Bolivariana, Revolución que es pacífica y promueve el entendimiento y la unión de los pueblos de América Latina. 2 - Nosotros somos ciudadanos de este país, pagamos impuestos, votamos en la elecciones, elegimos quien nos represente, ejercemos el derecho a la democracia ; tenemos los mismos derechos que tiene cualquier otro ciudadano estadounidense, estamos cumpliendo con la ley y no tiene derecho nadie a satanizarnos por ser bolivarianos. 3 - Ante todo, ejercemos nuestro derecho a manifestar nuestras ideas y a defenderlas, tal como está establecido en la primera enmienda de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos, nadie nos puede quitar el derecho a pensar, y promovemos que nuestras ideas sean totalmente apartadas de la violencia y respetuosas de las leyes, y enfatizamos que procuren el entendimiento y beneficio entre nuestros pueblos de origen, pues son en ellos donde permanecen nuestras raices de familia. 4 - Nuestra actuación es transparente y pública, somos transparentes ante la ley, actuamos por nuestra propia iniciativa, tenemos ideales. Todo el que quiera y tenga el deseo de exponer sus ideas es bienvenido, siempre y cuando respete la libertad de los demás a pensar diferente, que del mismo modo recibirá de nuestra parte, respeto y tolerancia. Nosotros no imponemos , nosotros debatimos y razonamos, es por eso que ha triunfando la revolución bolivariana en Venezuela y empieza a triunfar en toda la América Latina. Nosotros queremos y promulgamos, una revolución pacífica, de entendimiento y que cause el mayor bienestar para la mayoría de la población de América. Promovemos su difusión por que así lo sentimos y deseamos , no somos agentes de nadie, ni recibimos fondos o dineros de nadie, somos idealistas, demócratas, representamos nuestro sentir y nuestro pensamiento. 5 - Invitamos a los medios y a la opinión en general , a compartir, a debatir, a controvertir, siempre en el marco del respeto mutuo, no imponiendo ni satanizando, sino razonando. Con inteligencia, que es la única que tenemos. Le sugerimos al Miami Herald y a las autoridades pertinentes preocuparse de quienes amenazan en las emisoras de televisión de magnicidios e incitan a la violencia y al terror. 6 - Cerramos nuestra aclaración e invitación al debate, con un pensamiento del libertador de la Gran Colombia, que por ser el libertador de 5 naciones, merece nuestra admiración y respeto, como también lo merece Washington, y los padres la la patria que libertaron esta nación de los ingleses. "El velo se ha rasgado, ya hemos visto la luz, y se nos quiere volver a las tinieblas. se han roto las cadenas, ya hemos sido libres y nuestros enemigos pretenden esclavizarnos." - Simón Bolivar Ser Bolivariano es un honor, como es un honor ser Cristiano, o Protestante, como es ser honrado; pero ante todo ser Bolivariano, es tener humanidad. Ser Bolivariano es ser americano, porque todos nacimos en América, en nuestra América. |
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By the Peasant Front Ezequiel Zamora
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Thursday, 24 March 2005 |
No more impunity. They have to give us guns to defend ourselves. Another peasant is murdered in Venezuela!
On Saturday March 19, in Barinas State in Santa Barbara Luis Enrique
Perez was murdered with machete blows. This companero was member of the
"Agualinda 6" Cooperative that was expecting this week a final decree
which would give legalitiy to lands they have been fighting for years
to get.
The lands requested from the Agrarian Reform institute are in the
"Agualinda" ranch of 18 thousand hectacres owned by the murderer,
Aramando Javier Mogollon. He has changed the name from "Agualinda" to
"Becerras" to confuse the land that is in production with the land that
is idle and in that way ignore the law.
Hired hands of the landlord killed Luis Enrique Perez while he was
working on the edge of the Caparo River. A few minutes afer comrades
found the body, a plane with paramilitaries left the ranch. This
landlord is known for his connections with the drug cartels and the
Colombian paramilitaries.
Venezuelan peasants are living in a critical situation which has
worsened since the Law on Land was promulgated. There has been a wave
of murders, threats, and persecution which the Law has opened up given
the absence of protection from the State.
The peasantry form an integral part of the Venezuelan people in
building the revolutionary process. It is impossible for us to
accept being abandoned or accept impunity when faced with those which
are attempting to prevent carrying out the Law on Land.
How many Venezuelan peasants have to die before before the Venezuelan
State does something really? Unfortunately, the Venezuelan National
Guard has not acted as it should and is covering up the real murderer:
Armando Javier Mogollon.
We wish to thank VIVETV, which was the only means of communication
present in this place until now. We call on the peoples organizations,
alternative media, and all those who will spread information and search
for solidarity for the peasant men and women of Venezuela.
The funeral of Luis Enrique Perez, member of the Peasant Front Ezequiel
Zamora, will take place today in Capitanejo. Because of the history of
impunity in our country, the peasants will be blocking the principal
roads in the zone.
It is shameful to speak of a revolutionary process where no one is
protected nor is there any attempt to assure there is justice for the
revolutionary people. |
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Wednesday, 23 March 2005 |
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My Dear Mr. Ocando: Really - we had a jolly good laugh here in
Canada over your article which describes our Bolivarian Circles as
engaging in '"intelligence gathering". We were left puzzling over where
we would find "intelligence" data and then how or to whom we would be
giving it to! Now, let us be completely honest. You are against
Hugo Chávez and we are for him. That is fine in any democratic country,
to freely support or not political positions. I do not quarrel with you
on that account, you have every right as so do we. That is not the
reason I am writing to you. I am writing on the issue of ethical and
quality standards in journalism. You are out of your league when
writing about Canada and the Bolivarian Circles that operate here and
by engaging in "armchair" journalism you have misled your reader and
spread an ugly untruth about us. I will not talk about the
Bolivarian Circles in the USA, because they can assuredly defend
themselves from your innuendos. But I do think I must speak up for
Canadian Bolivarian Circles. It may be hard for you, as an
American, to understand that in Canada we have a very free and dynamic
political system that includes ironclad guarantees of our civil,
political, and social rights. At election time, you can see political
parties of all stripes competing for votes: Liberal, Conservative, New
Democratic, Green, Communists, Marxists, Anarchists, and we even have a
Marijuana party. The Canadian government and the RCMP have
the greatest respect for the peaceful non-governmental organizations
that operate here, of which the Bolivarian Circles form part.
Bolivarian Circles here have never, never had any kind of a quarrel or
run-in with any authority in this country. Canada has the most
cordial relationship with Venezuela. Canada has never broken
relationships with Cuba or China for that matter and there are many
organizations here in this multicultural country that have been created
to foster the friendship between Canada and other countries, such as
Cuba, China, Italy, France, Russia, Germany, Jamaica, etc, etc. At
the Bolivarian Circles, we are all proud Canadian citizens who believe
that the government of Hugo Chávez is trying its best to give to the
Venezuelan people some of the rights that we hold dear: the rule of
law, a public health system, quality public education and public
housing. You may not quite share these values, but none the less, I
assure you that groups such as ours do not give our government any
cause at all for concern or worry, nor are we under any kind of
surveillance. So, I would like to invite you, quite seriously, to
come to Toronto, where you could do some real investigative journalism
for a change, and inspect our Bolivarian Circle. I can assure you that
you will be treated with respect and courtesy. You may come to our
meetings, see our plan of action, and meet all the members whom you can
interview. Furthermore, I will undertake to put in a good word for you
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa so you may speak with them
and be assured personally by them that we are in no way in their bad
books. This is a serious invitation. We demand a
retraction from you over an unfair and untruthful article and we feel
that by coming to meet us you will be able to write an ethical and
quality piece that would meet journalistic standards. Of course, you may decline, this invitation, which would clearly indicate, sadly, that you are not up to the challenge. Most sincerely, Dr. Maria Páez Victor Member of the Canadian Bolivarian Circle Louis Riel Toronto, Canada
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By Jonah Gindin Venezuelanalysis.com
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Wednesday, 23 March 2005 |
Philip Agee is a former CIA operative
who left the agency in 1967 after becoming disillusioned by the CIA’s
support for the status quo in the region. Says Agee, “I began to
realize that what I and my colleagues had been doing in Latin America
in the CIA was no more than a continuation of nearly five-hundred years
of this, exploitation and genocide and so forth. And I began to think
about what, until then would have been unthinkable, which was to write
a book on how it all works.” The book, Inside the Company: CIA Diary,
was an instant best-seller and was eventually published in over thirty
languages. In 1978, three years after the publication of CIA Diary, Agee and a group of like-minded journalists began publishing the Covert Operations Information Bulletin (now Covert Action Quarterly), as part of a strategy of “guerilla journalism” aimed at destabilizing the CIA and exposing their operations.
Not surprisingly, the response of the US government and the CIA in
particular to Agee’s work has been somewhat aggressive, and he has been
forced to divide his time since the 1970s between Germany and Cuba. He
currently represents a Canadian petroleum technology firm in Latin
America.
Despite the recent rash of anti-Chávez editorials in the US media,
and threatening statements made by a whole slew of senior US government
officials at both the Departments of State and Defense, Agee sees a
more cynical US strategy in Venezuela. Building on the work of scholar
William I. Robinson on US intervention in Nicaragua throughout the
1980s, and recently published documents detailing CIA and US government
activity in Venezuela, Agee suggests that the CIA’s strategy of
“democracy promotion” is in full-force in Venezuela.
As with Nicaragua in the 1980s, a series of foundations are
providing millions of dollars of funding to opposition forces in
Venezuela, meted out by a private consulting firm contracted by the
United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Assistant
Secretary of State, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega
recently reaffirmed the State Departments commitment to this strategy,
telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd, 2005, “we
will support democratic elements in Venezuela so that they can continue
to maintain the political space to which they are entitled.” The
funding of these “democratic elements” has as its ultimate goal the
unification of Venezuela’s splintered opposition (formerly loosely
grouped into the Coordinadora Democratica) for the upcoming
Presidential elections in 2006. But failing a victory in 2006,
cautions Agee, the CIA et al. will remain, their eyes set on the 2012
elections, and the 2018 elections, ad infinitum, “because what’s at
stake is the stability of the political system in the United States,
and the security of the political class in the United States.”
How do you view recent developments in Venezuela?
When Chávez was first elected and I began following events here, I
could see the writing on the wall, as I could see it in Chile in 1970,
as I could see it in Nicaragua in 1979-80. There was no doubt in my
mind that the United States would try to change the course of events in
Venezuela as they had in Chile and in Nicaragua, and before that in
various other countries. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to
really follow events day to day, but I did try to follow them from a
distance, and eventually when Eva Golinger started her website it came
to my attention and I began reading some of the documents on the
website and I could see the application here of the same mechanisms
that were used in Nicaragua in the 1980s in the penetration of civil
society and the efforts to influence the political process and the
electoral process here in Venezuela. In Nicaragua I had in 1979 I
think, just after the Sandinistas took over, written an analysis of
what I believed would be the US program there and practically
everything I wrote about happened, because these techniques, through
the CIA, through AID, through the State Department, and since 1984
through the National Endowment for Democracy, all follow a certain
pattern. In Nicaragua the program for influencing the outcome of the
1990 elections began about a year and a half before the elections, for
uniting the opposition, for creating a civic movement, all these things
seem to be happening again in Venezuela. So this is my interest
politically in Venezuela, is to see these things happening and to write
from time to time about them.
What was the most prominent strategy of US intelligence when you
were at the CIA, for protecting US ‘strategic interests’ in Latin
America?
When I was in the agency from the late 1950s on through to the late
1960s, the agency had operations going internationally, regionally, and
nationally, attempting to penetrate and manipulate the institutions of
power in countries around the world, and these were things that I did
in the CIA—the penetration and manipulation of political parties, trade
unions, youth and student movements, intellectual, professional and
cultural societies, religious groups and women’s groups and especially
of the public information media. We, for example, paid journalists to
publish our information as if it were the journalists’ own
information. The propaganda operations were continuous. We also spent
large amounts of money intervening in elections to favor our candidates
over others. The CIA took a Manichean view of the world, that is to
say there were the people on our side, and there were people who were
against us. And the agency’s job was to penetrate, weaken, divide, and
destroy those political forces that were seen to be the enemy, which
are those to the left of social democrats, normally, and to support and
strengthen the political forces that were seen to be friendly to US
interests in all these institutions I just mentioned a few minutes ago.
One of the constant problems that the CIA had from the beginning of
these types of operations, that is 1947, was the difficulty that the
people and organizations that received their money had in covering it
up, because when you get large amounts of money coming in it can be
difficult to conceal. So the agency, early on, established a series of
foundations, or worked out arrangements with established foundations.
Sometimes the foundations of the agency were simply ‘paper foundations’
run by a lawyer in Washington on contract to the CIA. From the early
1950s the international program of the National Students Association of
the United States—this is the University association that is on
practically every campus—was run in fact by the CIA, the whole
international program of the National Students Association was a CIA
operation. And as each President of the NSA would come into office
over the years they were briefed on how this international program
worked under CIA direction. But the man who came into the Presidency
of NSA in 1966—and this is the time of the Vietnam war and the protest
movement—he refused to go along, and he told the whole story to
Ramparts Magazine in California, a magazine that had connections with
the Catholic church. And Ramparts published the story creating an
enormous scandal. Well, it didn’t stop there, because every news media
picked up on the Ramparts story and in February 1967 the Washington Post
published a lengthy exposé of the CIA’s international funding network.
In other words they named foundations, and quite a few of the foreign
recipient organizations of CIA money in these different institutions
that I mentioned earlier—political parties, trade unions, student
movements, and so forth—and it was a disaster for the agency. I
happened to be at headquarters in between assignments in Ecuador and
Uruguay when this happened, and it was a huge disaster for the CIA.
Within less than two months, after the collapse of this
international funding mechanism, Dante Fascell—a member of the House of
Representatives for Miami, with close ties to the CIA and to the
right-wing Cuban-Americans in Miami—proposed in Congress the
establishment of a non-governmental foundation that would receive
funding from Congress and would in turn pass the money out openly to
the different organizations that until that time would have been funded
by the CIA secretly, under the table. But this was 1967 and
bi-partisan consensus on foreign policy had, to a point, broken down
and so Fascell’s proposal went nowhere.
For that reason the CIA continued, even after the collapse of its
international funding mechanism, to be the action agency for the US
government in these activities known as ‘covert operations.’ For
example, the CIA was responsible for undermining the Salvador Allende
government in Chile from 1970 on. It happens that Allende was nearly
elected in 1958. Elections came every 6 years in Chile and in 1964,
the next election year, the CIA began early on, more than a year ahead
of time, working to prevent his election in 1964. The money was spent
in part to discredit Allende and the Socialist party and his coalition
known as Unidad Popular and to finance Eduardo Frei’s
campaign—the Christian Democratic campaign. Frei won that election,
but when the next elections came around in 1970 Allende was finally
elected. It’s documented that the CIA tried to prevent his
ratification by Congress following the election by provoking a military
coup, which failed. Allende took power and the CIA was then the action
agency for fomenting popular discontent, for continuous propaganda
against Allende and his government, for fomenting the very damaging
strikes that occurred, the most important of which was the truckers,
which stopped the delivery of goods and services over a period of
months, and which eventually provoked the Pinochet coup against Allende
in September 1973.
Have there been significant changes in CIA strategy since you left the agency in 1968?
Yes, absolutely. In the 1970s there were brutal military dictatorships in all of the Cono Sur
[Southern Cone]—Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and of course, in
Chile with Pinochet. And these were all supported by the CIA, by the
way. It was during this period that a process of new thinking began in
the upper echelons of the makers of US foreign policy, the new thinking
being that these military dictatorships, with all the repression and
the disappearances and death squads and so forth, might not be the best
way to preserve US interests in Latin America, or other areas for that
matter. The new thinking was that the preservation of US interests
could better be achieved through the election of democratic governments
formed by political elites who identify with the political class in the
United States. Here I mean not the popular forces, but the traditional
political classes in Latin America, to speak of one area, known as the
‘Oligarchies.’ And so the new American program, which became known as
“Project Democracy,” was adopted and United States policy would seek to
promote free, fair, transparent democratic elections but in such a way
that it would assure that power went to the elites and not to the
people.
A foundation was established called the “American Political
Foundation” in 1979 with major participation from the main labor center
in the United States the AFL-CIO, with the United States Chamber of
Commerce and with the Democratic and Republican parties, four main
organizations, and the financing for this foundation came both from the
government and from private sources. Their job was to study how the
United States could best apply this new thinking in promoting
democracy. The solution was the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
and its four associated foundations: the International Republican
Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party, the National Democratic
Institute (NDI) of the Democratic Party, the American Center of
International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) of the AFL-CIO, and the Center
for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) of the United States
Chamber of Commerce. Where the AFL-CIO foundation is concerned, they
took an existing organization which had worked hand-in-glove with the
CIA for many years called the American Institute for Free Labor
Development (AIFLD), they simply changed the name.[1]
How exactly does the NED work with the CIA?
The mechanism would be that the Congress would give millions of
dollars to the National Endowment for Democracy and the National
Endowment would then pass the money to what they call the “core
foundations” which were these four associated foundations, who in turn
would then hand out the money to foreign recipients. This all began in
1984, and one of the first recipients of money from the NED was the
Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), which was then the focal
point of the most extremist of the anti-Castro individuals and
organizations in the United States. But the real test for this new
system came in Nicaragua. In Nicaragua since 1979-1980 the CIA had
this program of organizing counter-revolutionary military forces or
paramilitary forces that became known as the Contras, with the
logistics and the organization and backup all coming from places in
Honduras. They infiltrated eventually something like 15,000 guerillas,
whom the Sandinista army defeated. By 1987 they had terrorized the
country-side, they had caused around 3,000 deaths, and many others were
maimed for life. It was a strictly terrorist operation in the
countryside, they were not able during all those years to take a single
hamlet and hold it. So they were defeated militarily.
By 1987, Central America was war weary: El Salvador, Guatemala,
Nicaragua. And there was a meeting of the Presidents of these
countries in a Guatemalan town called Esquipulas and they
worked out a series of agreements by themselves—the United States was
not a party to this—which included the disarming of the Contras and ceasefires in the various countries. So in Nicaragua there was a ceasefire, but the CIA did not disarm the Contras because they knew that elections were coming up in 1990 and they wanted to maintain the Contras as a threat. Although the Contras
had been defeated military by 1987 they had caused enormous economic
problems and Nicaraguans were suffering very badly from the destruction.
Following these accords of Esquipulas, US policy changed.
More emphasis was placed on the penetration of civil society and the
strengthening of the opposition forces to the Sandinista Liberation
Front (FSLN), and one of the mechanisms was to the strengthen what was
known as the Coordinadora Democratica Nicaraguense, which was
comprised of the private sector business-leaders, of certain trade
unions that were anti-Sandinista, anti-Sandinista political parties,
and anti-Sandinista civil associations. A private consulting firm
known as the Delphi International Group was contracted to run
operations to influence the elections coming up in 1990. And they
turned out to receive the most money of all, and they played the key
role in the run-up to the elections in 1990. NED had been active also
in Nicaragua from 1984 on, and NED and its associated foundations—all
four of them—were also quite active in penetrating and trying to
influence the political electoral process in Nicaragua which begins in
about 1988, but really gets going in 1989. In order to get the
anti-Sandinista vote out and to monitor the elections to create an
anti-Sandinista political front the CIA and NED established a civic
front called Via Civica and their ostensible job was political
education and activism, civic action, non-partisan civic action. When
in actual fact all their activities were designed to strengthen the
anti-Sandinista side. So first there was the Coordinadora, then Via Civica,
and finally the unification of the opposition, and they didn’t achieve
this until about August of 1989, about 6 months before the lections,
quite late, but they’d been working on it for a long time, and of the
twenty opposition political parties, they unified—many simply through
bribes—fourteen of these parties and they called it the United
Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO). And UNO ran a single candidate for all
the different positions, and the United States selected Violetta
Chamoro to run as President.
In September of 1989 there was a very strange agreement between the
US government and the Sandinistas, wherein the Sandinistas would allow
the United States to bring in US$9 million to support the opposition,
if the United States promised that the CIA would not bring in any other
money to invest against the Sandinistas. And strangely enough the
Sandinistas agreed to it, and the first thing that happened was that
the CIA brought in millions of dollars more, of course. The man who
wrote the book on Nicaragua in the 1980s and about this election in
1990 is Bill Robinson, an academic, who lived for quite a bit of the
1980s in Nicaragua, and his book is called A Faustian Bargain.
It’s an excellent book, very well documented, very well written. He
estimated that the United States spent something in excess of US$20
million for the 1990 elections. And as everyone knows, the Sandinistas
lost; the UNO coalition won something like 56% of the vote, and the
Sandinistas 40% or something like that. And these operations that were
started in order to ensure the defeat of the Sandinistas in the 1990
elections, they continued in order to assure that the Sandinistas would
not come into power in the next elections, and that has been the case.
How has this model been applied to Venezuela?
In Venezuela, there is something rather similar: you have the Coordinadora Democratica
here, comprised of the same sectors of the same organizations as in
Nicaragua, although from what I’ve read it has more or less collapsed
at this point. But they’ll revive it I’m sure. You have an
organization here that is supposedly non-partisan and dedicated to
getting out the vote and making sure the elections are clean which is Súmate. You have the private US consulting group here which is called Development Alternatives Incorporated, that is fulfilling the same role that the Delphi International Group fulfilled in Nicaragua, and both the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute
also have offices in Caracas, so you have three offices here that are
handing out tens of millions of dollars, private offices that in actual
fact are under the control of the US embassy and of the Department of
State in Washington and of the Agency for International Development (AID).[2] The first contract that was given to Development Alternatives was by AID, while the NED programs continued at a rate of about US$1 million per year.[3]
In the wake of the failed coup in April, 2002, the decision was taken
in Washington to do the same thing they’d done in Nicaragua, which was
to hire a consulting firm to act as a front for AID money which would
be much larger than the NED money, and the first contract was signed on
August 30th, 2002, which granted a little more than US$10 million over
the next two years for political activities in Venezuela. And they
opened in August, 2002 and sent five people down from Washington—five
people that were named by AID. Get that: they hire this consulting
firm, but they name the people. And for any Venezuelan that is hired
by Development Alternatives, the contract requires that they be
approved by AID in Washington. So there’s no other way to look upon
these three offices here, than as mechanisms of the US embassy, and
consider that behind the scenes of these three organizations is the
CIA. And what is useful in having these foundations and the consulting
firm giving out money is that it provides a way for the CIA to give a
lot more money to organizations that are already receiving money
somewhat openly, so it makes it easier for these recipient
organizations in Venezuela to cover it up. So if the AID money to
Development Alternatives is about US$5 million, of which US$3.5 million
was for grants to Venezuelan organizations, with another US$1 million +
from NED, you have about US$6 or 7 million of open money. All of this
comes, by the way, from documentation that Eva Golinger has obtained.
She’s done a marvelous job. In any case the CIA can add quite a lot of
additional money to the US$6 or 7 million, and the evidence is there in
the documentation of support for the oil strike, the national strike,
from December of 2002 to February 2003, and then for the recall
referendum campaign. All of these things they lost, so now they have
to be focusing on the 2006 elections.
Venezuela is certainly not the only country in which these
operations to strengthen civil society, promote democracy, to educate
people in election processes, but which is only a cover, the real
purpose is to favor certain political forces over others, Venezuela is
by no means the only place this is happening. There is a need a real
need for research in this area because DAI if you look at their website,
they’re all over the world. It’s not that all their programs are
financed by the US government—they’re financed by the World Bank and I
can’t remember how many other sources—one can look at their programs
and see which ones are similar to what’s happening in Venezuela. The
same thing with the National Democratic Institute and the three other
foundations associated with NED, and one can see where they’re focusing
this political penetration with the CIA, of course, in tandem. I think
that there is a great need to expose this and to denounce it for what
it is, which is fundamentally a lie, to promote democracy but in fact
to overthrow governments, to achieve regime change, or to strengthen
favorable governments that are already in power.
Former-CIA agent Felix Rodríguez recently told Miami television
that the US was looking for a change in Venezuela, possibly one brought
about by violence. He gave the Reagan administration’s assassination
attempt against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi as an example. Is this a
likely scenario for US intervention in Venezuela?
Well, remember that where Qaddafi is concerned, the United States
believed that Qaddafi had organized the bombing of this discothéque in
Berlin, and the raid on Tripoli was in retaliation. Now Chávez has
made no provocation like that, so there is no justification for a
military strike and I cannot believe that the United States has come to
the point where they would so blatantly seek to assassinate the
President of another country. I mean, things are bad enough in the
United States—worse than they’ve ever been—but I don’t think we’ve
quite come to that. One thing that is very important for the Chávez
movement, the Bolivarian movement here, to keep in mind always, is that
the United States will never stop trying to turn the clock back. US
interests are defined as the unfettered access to natural resources, to
labor, and to the markets of foreign countries. It is countries like
the Latin American countries that assure prosperity in the United
States. The more governments with their own agendas, with an element
of nationalism, and that oppose US policies such as the neoliberal
agenda come to power, the more of a threat these movement are seen to
be in Washington, because what’s at stake is the stability of the
political system in the United States, and the security of the
political class in the United States. So the Venezuelans are going to
have to fight for their survival just like the Cubans have had to fight
for forty-five years, forty-five years from now the United States will
still be trying to subvert the political process in Venezuela if it is
still on the road that it is on today, just like they are still
continuing to try to destroy the Cuban revolution. A President will
come and a President will go, there are nine Presidents now that Fidel
has survived, so I think it’s very important for Venezuelans to
understand that this is going to be permanent, and that vigilance,
organization, keeping unified, all that is key to avoiding these US
programs, feeding these US programs which essentially are divide and
conquer.
Links:
Government Funds Color Press Group’s Objectivity on Venezuela and Others
[1]
In 1997, President of the AFL-CIO John Sweeney disbanded the AIFLD,
replacing it with the ACILS, better known as the “Solidarity Center.”
[3]
For original documents received under the Freedom of Information Act
detailing NED and AID funding to Venezuela’s opposition, see www.venezuelafoia.info. |
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Wednesday, 23 March 2005 |
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An earlier version of this letter was sent to the editors of El Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald in response to an article by Casto Ocando entitled “Redes chavistas penetran en EEUU”. So far, that letter has not been printed. Since then, they have published 2 more articles by the same author on the same topic. We have therefore decided to make this an open letter, have updated it to reflect the new articles, and have also added more examples of anti-Venezuelan activities taking place in the U.S. We object to the tone and intention of this series of articles, which is clearly part of the intensifying effort to demonize the Bolivarian revolutionary process and isolate the various solidarity groups active in the U.S. and Canada. Now more than ever, those who oppose U.S. intervention in Venezuela must stand together to reject these provocations. Hands Off Venezuela! An injury to one is an injury to all! Please publicize this widely and join the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign in saying “No!” to U.S. intervention in Venezuela and around the world! The email for El Nuevo Herald is:
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All letters require the name, address, and phone number of the sender. Send a copy to the Miami Herald at:
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Open letter to El Nuevo Herald and The Miami Herald:
We, the U.S. Hands Off Venezuela Campaign condemn and deplore your March 20 article, “Redes chavistas penetran en EEUU”, the subsequent two articles, and .pdf file illustrating pro-Chavez organizations in the U.S. This is nothing but yellow journalism in an effort to undermine the U.S. and Canadian Bolivarian Circles, the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign, and others who support the Venezuelan revolutionary process. (See also: Redes chavistas chocan con leyes de EEUU, Chavistas cautivan a académicos de Estados Unidos, Gráfico de las organizaciones Chavistas en Estados Unidos (PDF))
Your so-called investigation is nothing more than a witch-hunt intended to scare and intimidate supporters of the Venezuelan revolutionary process. Your effort to “expose” these groups, which mixes publicly available facts with half-truths, and journalistic hyperbole, is a transparent effort to discredit the Venezuelan solidarity movement being built in the U.S., Canada, and internationally. Attacks such as these are reminiscent of the days of McCarthyism, when people and organizations were accused without evidence in order to suppress opposition to U.S. government policies.
In addition, it is the height of hypocrisy that your paper supports the “War on Terror” while terrorist acts are being planned and discussed right under your noses without a word of condemnation.
As reported in the Wall Street Journal on January 29, 2003, right-wing Cuban groups based in Florida are planning the overthrow of Venezuela’s democratically-elected government. According to the Journal and Vheadline.com, Capt. Luis Eduardo García, the leader of the Venezuelan Patriotic Junta, is providing military training for some 50 members of the “F-4 Commandos”, 30 of them Cuban-Americans, the rest Venezuelans, in a shooting range close to the Everglades. He was reported as saying, “We are preparing for war.” This is surely in violation of U.S. and International laws.
Other leaders of the U.S.-backed April 2002 coup against Chavez have taken refuge in Miami.* Many of them have openly called for the violent overthrow of Chavez. Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, who is wanted by Venezuelan authorities in connection with the massacre of Venezuelan civilians in 1989, spends much of his time in Miami. In past interviews he has declared that he is “working to remove Chavez [from power]… “Violence will allow us to remove him… [Chavez] must die like a dog, because he deserves it.”
Local Miami TV stations Canal 22 and Channel 41 have on various occasions shown individuals calling for the violent overthrow of the Bolivarian government and assassination of President Chavez. As reported by Inter Press Service, Venezuelan actor and host Orlando Urdaneta said the following last year in relation to Venezuelan President Chavez on a local Miami station: “Venezuela's biggest problem can be solved with a rifle with a telescopic sight.” When asked who would give the order, his reply was, “The order has already been given.” Most recently, ex-CIA agent, Felix Rodriguez, speaking to channel 22 in Miami, confirmed that Washington would take economic and military actions against Venezuela, including assassination. Rodriguez said that he expected to participate in a CIA command to end with the life of the Venezuelan president. According to Rodriguez, U.S. military forces could launch a pre-emptive air strike to assassinate Chavez. (Reported on www.Venezuelanalysis.com) As far as we know, all of this goes against FCC regulations to say the least.
Instead, your paper focuses on “exposing” those active in the broad-based Venezuelan solidarity movement. Perhaps your writers’ time would be better spent investigating terroristic comments made on local television. Or perhaps they should investigate the legality of U.S. funding of opposition and terrorist groups within Venezuela, and the destabilization program currently being carried out in that country by groups such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the American Center of International Labor Solidarity (ACILS) of the AFL-CIO, and the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).** Cort Greene for the U.S. Hands Off Venezuela Campaign * Documents incontrovertibly proving U.S. involvement in the April 2002 coup have been made public through the Freedom of Information Act and are available at: http://www.venezuelafoia.info/
** The role played by these and other groups is outlined in the following interview with Philip Agee, formerly of the CIA: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1403 |
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By Gregory Wilpert Venezuelanalysis.com
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Thursday, 17 March 2005 |
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Former CIA agent Felix
Rodriguez talked about Venezuela on the talk show "Maria Elvira
Confronta." Credit: Channel 22, Miami |
In an interview on Miami’s
Spanish-language channel 22, the former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez said that the
U.S. government has plans to “bring about a change in Venezuela.” When pressed
as to what type of plans these might be, Rodriguez responded that the Bush
administration “could do it with a military strike, with a plane.”
The former CIA agent’s comments were made last week, on Thursday, during the
talk show of a well-known supporter of the anti-Castro movement, Maria Elvira
Salazar. Rodriguez affirmed during the program, “According to information I have
about what is happening in Venezuela, it is possible that at some moment they
[the Bush administration] will see itself obliged, for national security reasons
and because of problems they have in Colombia, to implement a series of measures
that will bring about a change in Venezuela.”
The moderator, not satisfied with his vague answer, asked Rodriguez what kind
of measures these might be and he responded, “They could be economic
measures and at some point they could be military measures.” He then added, “If
at some point they are going to do it, they will do it openly.” As an example,
Rodriguez gave the Reagan administration’s strike against Khadafi, whose
residence was bombed and whose adoptive daughter was killed in the process.
Felix Rodriguez is presumed to have been one of the CIA agents who captured
Ernesto “Ché” Guevara in Bolivia and who was involved in his assassination in
1962.
For the past several weeks, President Chavez has been saying that he has
evidence that the Bush administration is planning his assassination. Bush
spokespersons, such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have dismissed the
charge, calling it “absurd.” Chavez and officials from his government, however,
have insisted that they have intelligence information about a possible
assassination, but that they cannot reveal their sources, as this would ruin
their investigations.
Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez has also pointed out that the U.S.
denied for a long time its involvement in the overthrow of the governments of
Chile in 1973 or of Guatemala in 1954, but that their involvement was eventually
proven.
Yesterday, the British newspaper Financial Times reported that, "Senior US
administration officials are working on a policy to 'contain' President Hugo
Chavez." the report went on to say, "A strategy aimed at fencing in the Chávez
government is being prepared at the behest of President George W. Bush and
Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, senior US officials say."
The Financial Times quoted Roger Pardo-Maurer, deputy assistant secretary for
western hemisphere affairs, as saying that, "Chavez is a problem because he is
clearly using his oil money and influence to introduce his conflictive style
into the politics of other countries."
Roger Pardo-Mauro became known during the Reagan administration's Iran-Contra
scandal, when he was a spokesperson for the Nicaraguan Contras. He is also said
to have met with Venezuela's top general, Lucas Rincon Romero, in the weeks
prior to the April 2002 coup. |
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Wednesday, 16 March 2005 |
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(Available as a single-sided leaflet or a double-sided leaflet) Most people know that the corporate newspapers, radio, and television exist to serve the interests of the big businesses that own them. In recent weeks, they have opened an all-out assault on the Venezuelan revolution. The U.S. media is flooded with negative appraisals of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolutionary process. Right-wing pundit Robert Novak recently referred to “Latin America’s infection.” At her confirmation hearing, Bush’s secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Chavez a “negative force” in the region. Chavez is often described as “anti-American”, and is accused of “meddling” in neighboring states, harboring “terrorists” and “starting an arms race”. The Financial Times recently reported that a “containment policy” is being formulated by the Bush Administration, aimed at “fencing in” the world’s 5th largest oil exporter. Roger Pardo-Maurer, current deputy assistant secretary for western hemisphere affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense, and former political officer for the right-wing Nicaraguan Contras is at the heart of this renewed attention on Latin America. The reason for these attacks is clear: the Venezuelan Revolution is incompatible with U.S. corporate interests in the region and with the capitalist system as a whole. The fact is, the constant slanders and distortions of the truth reflect the growing fear of the U.S. ruling class in relation to the international repercussions of the developing Venezuelan revolution. What is at stake is the very existence of the capitalist system in Venezuela, Latin America, and ultimately, the world. Due to the quagmire in Iraq and their reliance on Venezuelan oil (providing 15 percent to the U.S.), Bush’s hands are tied for the moment. But they are moving might and main to mobilize public opinion in the U.S. as well as in Latin America in order to strangle the Bolivarian revolution as soon as the opportunity arises. Venezuela has some of the world’s largest known oil reserves and is rich in other natural resources. Yet despite this wealth, 80 percent of Venezuela’s population has lived in abject misery for decades. The Venezuelan oligarchy and their multi-national corporate pals used the country’s wealth to line their own pockets with profits, instead of improving the conditions of life of ordinary Venezuelans - the ones who actually produce all the wealth. This continued for decades, until the International Monetary Fund and the Venezuelan millionaires went too far: in February of 1989 they imposed intolerably harsh economic conditions on the already destitute population. The resulting “Caracazo” popular uprising was finally put down in blood by the state security forces, resulting in hundreds if not thousands of people killed. This was the beginning of a chain of events that continues today. As a result of this brutality, left-wing paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chavez led a failed military coup in 1992 against the right-wing government. Despite being sent to prison, he instantly became a popular hero. After mass support led to his early release from prison, he formed a new political movement and wiped the floor with the long-standing corporate political duopoly in the presidential elections of 1998. A new, far more democratic constitution was adopted by popular referendum, and Chavez was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2000. His initial goal was simply to improve the conditions of life of the long-suffering Venezuelan people. But even the most modest measures on land reform, taxing the profits of the multi-nationals, and increasing spending on health care, education, food programs and housing brought him into a direct confrontation with the Venezuelan oligarchy and their allies in the U.S. In April of 2002, the Venezuelan media, the country's business organization, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and a handful of reactionary generals helped orchestrate a coup d'etat against Chavez. This new "democratic" government, proceeded to abolish the Bolivarian Constitution and dissolve the National Assembly, Supreme Court, and the National Electoral Board. Not surprisingly, it was immediately recognized as legitimate by Washington. There is now clear proof that the U.S. administration knew about the preparations for the coup and collaborated with the plotters. But in an unprecedented uprising, the Venezuelan masses rose up against this illegitimate government and reinstated Chavez.
Since then, the revolutionary process has accelerated - but so have U.S. efforts to put a halt to it. The key to the Venezuelan revolution is the truly mass, democratic, grass roots participation of the Venezuelan workers, peasants, and urban poor. Time and again, they have mobilized and organized to defend the revolution, and it is on their continued participation that the fate of the revolution depends. Hugo Chavez himself has become increasingly radicalized in recent months. He has said that capitalism must be transcended, he nationalized an important paper mill under workers’ control, and called for the “socialism of the 21st century”. This reflects the pressure of the masses from below. The hopes and dreams of millions of Venezuelans are really quite simple and are very similar to the hopes and dreams of working people in the U.S. and around the world. They are fighting for quality jobs, housing, education, transportation, health care, safe working conditions, a decent pension, and a bright future for their families and loved ones. Is it too much to ask that the vast wealth created by working people around the world be used to improve their lives? Despite the repeated provocations by the U.S. government, Chavez and the Venezuelan people are far from being “anti-American”. Chavez always distinguishes carefully between the American people and their rulers. As he declared recently in a speech: “One day the decay inside U.S. imperialism will end up toppling it, and the great people of Martin Luther King will be set free. The great people of the United States are our brothers, my salute to them ... The U.S. people, with whom we share dreams and ideals, must free themselves... A country of heroes, dreamers, and fighters, the people of Martin Luther King, and Cesar Chavez.” It is vital that we counteract the lies and distortions of the corporate media. They are not interested in the truth about Venezuela - they will stop at nothing to demonize the struggle of the Venezuelan people in order to justify the crushing of the revolutionary process. Having been defeated during the coup, during the oil sabotage and repeatedly at the polls, the Venezuelan oligarchy and their friends in Washington are now threatening to resort to terrorism and even the assassination of Chavez himself. It is therefore urgent to mobilize and demand U.S. Hands Off Venezuela! The heroic efforts of millions of Venezuelan men and women to improve their lives proves in practice that it is possible to build a better world. Their struggle is our struggle! This summer, the World Festival of Students and Youth will be held in Caracas, Venezuela. This will be a perfect opportunity for thousands of young people around the world to visit Venezuela and see the revolution up close. This isn’t ancient history, this is a living, vibrant, developing revolution in our own hemisphere in the 21st century. We must defend and spread the Venezuelan revolution internationally! (Available as a single-sided leaflet or a double-sided leaflet)
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Monday, 14 March 2005 |
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A little later, it shifts once again, to an intrepid melodrama,
intermixing looting, holdups, political blackmail, mercenaries,
violence.
When you get to the last page, the reader might well ask if what he
has read hasn't been, after all, a novel of impossible adventures, a
game of imagination unattached to real life, says the Cuban youth
newspaper.
However, not a single line is fiction.
A good part of this book is comprised of documents obtained under
the Freedom of Information Act of the United States, and plenty of time
and doggedness was required of Eva to obtain this material for readers,
and as confirmed in the first page, put her at enormous risk, including
death threats.
Still, the reader shouldn't lose sight that this seminal testimony
documents not only what perseverance is required of investigators, but
the capricious behavior of those who control the secret American
archives, who declassify what they feel like and hide whatever is most
compromising.
Eva predicts scores of years will pass before the opening of these other archives.
And for sure, much more terrifying things remain censored and maybe
we will never know the most secret evidence from the plans against
Venezuela: as we know, we had to wait more than 30 years for the "mea
culpa" of Robert McNamara, to know the evil plans to provoke an
invasion of Cuba by the United States, contained in the plan named
Operation Mongoose.
When will we know what really happened in Dallas, the day Kennedy
was killed? When will we learn what is being hatched at this very
moment against Cuba, Venezuela and the world? Ask Elizalde and Polanco.
Thanks to this sample, that Eva was able to dig up from the American
government, it's possible to prove what the United States denied
repeatedly: it was involved in bringing to fruition the details of the
coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in April of 2002, which
included plans to generate violence during demonstrations, the arrest
of the leader, and its active participation in the coup.
For whoever sees it, The Chavez Code is an instructive book.
Her testimony brings forth a series of documents that illuminate the
truth behind these works, truth that has shocked Venezuelan public
opinion over the last three years.
Details appear in this book about how the United States executed its Plan A for intervention and subversion in Latin America.
What failed this time doesn't necessarily mean that the aggressor
intends to admit defeat. A little after Eva Golinger put her final
touches on this book, evidence began to appear on the public scene that
the government of George Bush is already applying Plan B: a barrage of
dirty propaganda and actions in international organizations to isolate
the Venezuelan government, without ruling out the assassination or
kidnapping of the chief of state, the foreword to a military
intervention.
The denunciations against Venezuela have begun: in the first weeks
of 2005, more than 50 press articles appeared in U.S. newspapers and
television programs, where more than 85% of the "experts" consulted
were affiliated with opposition institutions and publications. So much
for proverbial objectivity of the press.
The most slanderous allegations come from "unnamed sources" in the
Bush administration, adding fuel to the fire of the latest definition,
begun this year by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "Hugo Chávez is
a negative force in the region."
From this cry for war, the United States has let loose the dogs of
prey from the CIA and the media at its service, including the press and
institutions like the Organization of American States, with which they
heat up the scene, and scattered signs, but very perceptible ones,
begin to appear of the new crusade.
As a result, it's likely that within one year, maybe sooner, we will
see a new book from Eva or from other audacious investigators, where
they weave this new chapter in the saga of this sinister soap opera
that we Cubans have suffered for more than 40 years and that has
recently begun for the Venezuelans.
The Chavez Code alludes to an experience that intimately concerns
every society in the world. An experience that brings us to the simple
question: can any government in this world elude the "liberating"
desires of the CIA and the NED, if it takes a road different from that
selected by Emperor Bush for everyone on the planet?
The English edition of The Chavez Code will be available shortly on Amazon.com or directly through the author, Eva Golinger:
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The
Spanish edition is available from Fondo Editorial Question, Quinta
Lilam, Av. La Estancia c/Calle Los Mangos, Caracas, Venezuela,
011-58-212-731-1631 or directly through the author, reachable through
the following email:
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Monday, 14 March 2005 |
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English Translation by Sue Ashdown
"What message do you have for my country?" General Rafael Oropeza had
no answer for the military official from the United States standing
before him on April 11, 2002 in the military barracks of Fort Tiuna in
Caracas. Colonel James Rodgers, military attaché at the U.S. Embassy in
Caracas, repeated the question. In the moment of the coup d'etat
against President Hugo Chávez Frías, General Oropeza was charged with
registering everyone who entered and exited Fort Tiuna, the base for
the Venezuelan Defense Ministry and the premier military installation
in the country. Photographs of Rodgers driving a vehicle around the
perimeter of the Fort during the coup were published afterwards in the
Venezuelan daily Ultima Noticias.
The State Department denied the existence of any James Rodgers, even
though he was registered as a military attaché of the Embassy in
Caracas. But the most compromising moment for the U.S. military in
Venezuela during the period surrounding the April 2002 coup against
President Chávez happened April 8, at a goodbye party for a Chinese
military attaché, held in the luxury Hotel Melía in Caracas. It was
that night, exactly, that an official of the U.S. Marine Corps, David
Cazares, confused General Roberto González Cárdenas with General Néstor
González Gonzáles. It was an understandable error. Both men were bald,
approximately the same height and both dressed in Venezuelan Army
uniforms, complete with medals and an i.d. tag that said simply,
"González".
Cazares sidled up to General González and, accusingly, asked, "Why
haven't you contacted the ships we have off the coast or our submarine
submerged in La Guaira? What's going on? Why hasn't anyone called me?
What are you waiting for?"
General González hadn't the remotest idea what the U.S. Marine officer
was talking about, but before he could respond, a military attaché from
Brazil approached to say goodbye. Cazares took advantage of the
distraction to ask the Marine captain, Moreno Leal, standing nearby, if
this was indeed General González, "the one who was stationed on the
border". Moreno answered: "That is General González, but I don't know
if he was stationed at the border." Cazares continued interrogating
General González Cardenas, demanding to know why no-one had yet made
contact with him or with the three boats and the submarine located off
the Venezuelan coast. Prudently, González Cárdenas limited his
responses to a simple "We'll inquire." On leaving the party, the two
met again in the elevator. "This has an operative cost. I'm waiting for
your answer," said Cazares firmly.
The Venezuelan general Néstor González González was a secret
participant in the coup d'etat of April 2002 against President Chávez.
April 10, the general appeared on national television and demanded the
resignation of the president, "or we shall see". On April 12, after the
failed coup, a television program aired which revealed that González
González made this statement with the simple goal of preventing Chávez
from traveling to Costa Rica, where he was to participate in a meeting
of the OAS General Assembly that same day. The plot worked. Chávez
remained in Venezuela and the coup began to unfold according to plan.
However, the erroneous exchange between Cazares and González Cárdenas
that April 8 was passed to a higher level and uncovered by Venezuelan
investigators after Chávez's brief demotion, while the United States
simply ignored it. Cazares's term in Venezuela was reduced afterwards,
and he was re-posted to Chile when the amazing article appeared in
ltimas Noticias.
Another Piece in Place
On March 5, 2002, something pleasant happened for the United States. A
cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas to Washington, to the CIA,
the DIA
(Defense Intelligence Agency) the NSC (National Security Council) and
others, arrived with the following heading: THE UNIONS, THE BUSINESS
SECTOR AND THE CHURCH ANNOUNCE A TRANSITION AGREEMENT.
The body of the cable said: "With great fanfare, Venezuela's best
gathered on March 5 to listen to representatives of the Venezuelan
Workers' Union, the Chamber of Commerce and the Catholic Church present
their combined democratic agreement, with ten principles to guide a
transitional government. This accord constitutes an important step for
the opposition, which has never wavered in its condemnation of Chávez,
but until this moment had not offered a comprehensive vision of its
own."
The U.S. government appeared pleased with the agreement reached by the
opposition on March 5, taking into account that it had brought an
investment of nearly two million dollars in an effort to strengthen and
unify the opposition parties. A comment in a cable from the Embassy
revealed this satisfaction: "Another piece in place," wrote Cook, an
embassy staffer, "this agreement could well constitute a reference
point in the code of conduct for a transition government."
The remark "another piece in place" should have caught the attention of
some, more than just a little. If the opposition accord for a
post-Chávez transition government was another "piece" of the plan, then
the overthrow of Chávez should have been the final piece in the
conspiracy. The United States, continually complaining of the lack of
opposition unity, reasoned that this called for an investment of some
two million dollars through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
in order to strengthen the political parties and help them unite around
a strategy. The accord of March 5 confirmed that this investment had
brought results: "another piece" had been placed correctly and the day
of the final objective was approaching.
On March 11, 2002, the government of the United States was convinced that the coup had been organized.
The CIA in Venezuela sent another urgent notice to the five
intelligence agencies in Washington, this time in the form of an alert.
The alert was prepared for the Strategic Alert Committee of the
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), a strictly confidential and
high level group governed by the National Intelligence Office to alert
and integrate the director's representatives in the National Security
Agency, the DIA, and the National Mapping Agency, as well as for the
undersecretary of State for Intelligence and Investigation, and the
vice-director of Intelligence for the CIA. The strictly confidential
alert was more specific: "There are growing signals that the Venezuelan
business leaders and officials are feeling dissatisfied with President
Chávez.the military could try to overthrow him."
Absolutely not!
The American ambassador in Caracas, Charles Shapiro, visited (Pedro)
Carmona several times during the coup. He claimed that his visits on
April 12 were to try to convince him to reinstitute the Congress and
other institutions he had dissolved, but Shapiro's answers to questions
about his relationships with the leaders of the opposition and the
participants in the resulting coup were prefabricated and well planned.
Not by him, however.
April 16, 2002, Shapiro received a cable from the State Department in
Washington, with a Press Guide for Western Hemispheric Affairs,
prepared by an L.S. Hamilton in the State Department, and approved by
Richard Boucher, State Department spokesperson.
If they ask "Did U.S. officials meet with Venezuelan opposition
officials prior to the April 11 removal of President Chávez from
power," he was to memorize the following response: "U.S. officials have
met with a broad spectrum of Venezuelans over the past several months
both in Caracas and in Washington. U.S. officials met with business
community representatives, labor union officials, Catholic church
leaders, opposition political leaders, and a wide array of Venezuelan
government officials."
In reference to questions about the meetings with Carmona, the Press
Guide said: "If asked" - that is, don't offer information if not asked
- the proper response would be: "In the course of normal diplomatic
contacts, U.S. officials met with Pedro Carmona, the President of the
Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce (Fedecamaras). Our
message to all Venezuelan contacts has been consistent. The political
situation in Venezuela is one for Venezuelans to resolve peacefully,
democratically and constitutionally. We explicitly told all of our
Venezuelan interlocutors on numerous occasions and at many levels that
under no circumstances would the United States support any
unconstitutional, undemocratic effort, such as coup (sic), to remove
President Chávez from power.
A message of "zero coups" was categorically sent, meanwhile the
government of the United States was filling the pockets of coup
conspirators with millions of dollars, and meeting with them from time
to time to discuss their plans.
Hardly surprising then, that the response to the question "Was the
United States involved in the effort to remove Venezuelan President
Chávez from power?" should be "Absolutely not." [See also the Venezuela Freedom of Information Act web site (www.venezuelafoia.info) where all the documents regarding US meddling in Venezuela are published]
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By Cleto A. Sojo - Venezuelanalysis.com
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Wednesday, 09 March 2005 |
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A group of almost 400 hundred Venezuelan journalists issued a
statement today denouncing what they consider is a "campaign" from the
United States against Venezuela.
The journalists argue that negative and frequent media coverage of
Venezuela in the U.S., as well as the frequent comments by high ranking
officials at the State Department, CIA, and White House, amount to a
"campaign" similar to those applied against countries which were later
invaded by the U.S.
"As it was done in the past to Guatemala, the Dominican Republic,
Chile, Grenada, and Haiti, the government of the United States today
targets the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with all its media and
propaganda power. In those brother nations, such campaigns served as
the preamble for an armed invasion by the main global military power,"
the statement says.
The conservative U.S. Fox News network recently ran a news series
titled "The Iron Fist of Hugo Chavez," in which the twice-elected
leader is portrayed as an authoritarian dictator. Last January, the
U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) featured a report from Venezuela in
which a family described fears of buying a new car for fear of having
it confiscated by the Venezuelan government.
The explosive 17% GDP growth experienced by the Venezuelan economy
and news such as a vehicles sales growth of 47% last year, are often
ignored by the media when reporting on Venezuela, including both the
NPR and Fox News reports.
"The intervention by the George W. Bush administration, as witnessed
during the 2002 coup d'état and the oil strike, lost all subtlety and
pretense during the recent conflict between Venezuela and Colombia over
the abduction of Rodrigo Granda in Caracas. The State Department called
South American nations to pressure the Hugo Chavez administration,
failing to garner a single echo in the region," the statement continues.
Relationships beteween the government of leftist Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez, and the Unites States government, have
deteriorated in 2005. The kidnapping and arrest of a Colombian guerilla
leader in Venezuela sparked a brief, but tense stand-off between
Venezuela and Colombia, with the US siding clearly with the latter.
Chavez often cites evidence of of U.S. support for the 2002 coup d'etat
against him and has complained of funds for groups that oppose him
coming from the U.S. Congress-funded National Endowment for Democracy.
Recent U.S. military presence near Venezuela caused concern and was
taken as an act of provocation by several Venezuelan officials.
A non-official translation of the journalists' statement is reproduced below:
The Truth Is Greater Than Bush
Code of Ethics for Venezuelan Journalists
Article 40 – The journalist has the unavoidable duty of
defending National Sovereignty and territorial integrity. Consequently,
he/she must contribute to this patriotic task through trade union
actions, opposing any practice or campaign that contradicts national
interests, as well as peace and friendship among the people.
As it was done in the past to Guatemala, the Dominican Republic,
Chile, Grenada, and Haiti, the government of the United States today
targets the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with all its media and
propaganda power. In those brother nations, such campaigns served as
the preamble for an armed invasion by the main global military power.
The media campaign against Venezuela and its government worsened in
2005. In addition to the daily comments by high officials at the State
Department, CIA, and White House, a campaign full of lies and
distortions through major newspapers and news channels was initiated.
The intervention by the George W. Bush administration, as witnessed
during the 2002 coup d'état and the oil strike, lost all subtlety and
pretense during the recent conflict between Venezuela and Colombia over
the abduction of Rodrigo Granda in Caracas. The State Department called
South American nations to pressure the Hugo Chavez administration,
failing to garner a single echo in the region.
In addition to this foreign campaign, several sectors within the
national [Venezuelan] media have lost all scruples and joined this
initiative. Under the hypocritical title of non-governmental
organizations, several organisms, financed by the United States, have
supported these dark objectives.
The end result is to overthrow President Hugo Chavez Frias'
democratic government, one legitimated by eight electoral processes and
a presidential recall referendum.
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