page 7 | Politic:
Investigative reporter reveals opposition “Plan B” to destabilize Venezuela
Friday | April 20, 2012 | Nº 105 | Caracas
Nine years saving lives Venezuela’s stellar health care program, Barrio Adentro, founded with the aid of Cuba and attended by Cuban and Venezuelan doctors and medical professionals has been providing free, quality care to millions of Venezuelans during the last nine years. The program has helped to build hundreds of new advanced care clinics and preventative medical centers in the country in addition to offering free medical care to Venezuelans nationwide. Thousands of new community doctors have recently been incorporated into Barrio Adentro, assuring the program will last for many years to come. | page 4
page 8 | Opinion
US policy on Cuba caught in a Cold War time warp
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
Latin America unity the winner at Summit of the Americas The exclusion of Cuba and regional sovereignty were key topics overshadowing the previously US-dominated Summit of the Americas held last weekend Washington was the big loser at the Sixth Summit of the Americas held in Cartagena, Colombia this past Saturday and Sunday. Once dominated by the US government, this year’s Summit was marked by Latin American and Caribbean nations insisting on the inclusion of Cuba. The Caribbean nation has been excluded from these summits due to Washington’s refusal to engage with the socialist country. Other topics such as Argentina’s sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands and decriminalization of drugs as a solution to narco-trafficking were also hot themes at the Cartagena summit. A scandal involving the US Secret Service and prostitutes during the meeting also made headlines around the world. | pages 2-3
Social Justice
Land reform benefits thousands of families
The redistribution of farmlands has aided agricultural production and family farms. | page 4 Economy
Venezuelan banks have social responsibility State policies require banks make social investments.| page 5
Interview
Venezuela leads positive change in Latin America An interview with Lisa Sullivan of School of the Americas Watch.| page 6
Corrupt Venezuelan judge becomes DEA source T/ AVN
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former Venezuelan Supreme Court justice flown by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents to the United States is likely to be used by US authorities in an ongoing and systematic campaign against the government of President Hugo Chavez. Ex-Judge Eladio Aponte Aponte has direct ties to a Venezue-
lan drug kingpin currently on trial in the South American nation. Aponte was removed from the judiciary in March after evidence surfaced that he assisted accused drug trafficker Walid Makled by giving him a fake credential that said he was a member of his staff and allowed him safe passage anywhere in the country. During an interview to a Miamibased Internet television station
on Wednesday, Aponte stated his reason for becoming a US government informant was revenge. “In Venezuela they will say I am a traitor. I accept that. But I was betrayed too, they betrayed me”. Aponte, also a general and career military officer, was outraged to lose his prestigious position in the court and the benefits such a job provides. Aponte was once in charge of assigning judges in Venezuela’s
President Chavez has 21% lead President Hugo Chavez has a 21 percent advantage over the opposition candidate ahead of the October 7 presidential elections, according to a new survey by North American Opinion Research (NAOR). The survey, conducted from March 26 to April 4, indicates that 58 percent would vote for Chavez, while 37 percent would vote for Henrique Capriles Radonski. The study also says 85 percent of Venezuelans agree with the new draft Labor Law that includes the return of retroactivity in social benefits. Just 12 percent disagreed. The survey indicates that 81 percent of those consulted believe Venezuela is a democracy, while 14 percent disagreed. Regarding political parties, the United Socialist Party (PSUV) to which President Chavez belongs has 56 percent support. The survey was based on 2,000 interviews in homes from different socio-economic strata throught the country. It has a margin of error of 2.75 percent.
border states with Colombia, where Makled and other traffickers arranged for loads of cocaine to be flown from clandestine airstrips to locations in Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Makled, a Venezuelan who was also indicted on drug-smuggling charges in New York in 2010, was arrested that year in Colombia. The US government attempted to extradite him but he was instead sent to Venezuela where he is on trial for homicide in addition to drug trafficking.
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2 | Impact
NoÊ£äxÊU Friday, April 20, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Summit of the Americas ends without declaration, US drifts further into isolation T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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he United States’ fading influence in the Latin America was once again made clear last weekend in Cartagena, Colombia when Washington’s refusal to concede ground on the question of Cuba and the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands prevented a unified declaration at the close of the 6th Summit of the Americas. Hosted by Colombian President Manuel Santos, the summit saw the participation of 30 heads of state from around the hemisphere with notable absences from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa. Both Ortega and Correa boycotted the summit over the exclusion of Cuba while President Chavez failed to attend due to health reasons. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, representing Venezuela during the meeting, spoke of the significance of the event and the growing isolation that the United States is experiencing in the region, specifically with respect to its stance on Cuba. “There has been strong agreement in all of our region that ratifies our support and solidarity with Cuba”, Venezuela’s highest diplomat stated, referring to Washington’s outdated policies towards the island nation as a “show of the empire’s senility”. “Venezuela wants to have the best relations with all the world’s governments, including the United States but only when this relation is based on respect and the lack of interference in internal affairs”, he added. Bolivian President Evo Morales also took aim at US during the conference, blaming the failure of the conference directly on its unwillingness to yield to the democratic demands of member states. “All the counties of Latin America and the Caribbean support Cuba and Argentina with respect to the Malvinas... If the United States could sup-
port or recognize this fact there would be integration, inclusion and democracy. If not, you can be sure that there will be no integration in America and the United States is to blame”, the Bolivian head of state asserted. The island nation of Cuba has been excluded from the proceedings of the Summit of the Americas since its beginnings in 1994. During a meeting of the ALBA regional block in Caracas last February, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa declared his intent to boycott last weekend’s conference in the event that Cuba, as a member of the Americas, continues to be singled out for exclusion. On Sunday, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua also expressed their unwillingness to attend future summits in the event that the situation is not rectified. “For Venezuela and the members of ALBA, things are clear: this will be the last regional summit in which we will partic-
the voice of the majority of Latin American countries. “I and the American people will welcome a time when the Cuban people have the freedom to live their lives, choose their leaders and fully participate in this global economy and international institutions. We haven’t gotten there yet”, Obama said.
ipate if the heroic and dignified Republic of Cuba is not invited with full equality”, said Foreign Minister Maduro on Sunday. Brazil and Argentina also manifested similar positions. These protests, however, were ignored by the United States and Barack Obama who reiterated Washington’s historic refusal to engage with the Caribbean Island, siding with the anti-Castro lobby in Florida and dismissing
US & CANADA STAND ALONE Much of the Summit’s discussions were held behind closed doors and observers note that only the United States and Canada remained opposed to Cuba’s participation in the future. The failure to reach a consensus led to the early departure of leaders such as Peru’s Ollanta Humala and Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez who cited North American intransigence as the reason for the lack of a unified summit declaration. “The regional meeting which finished today did not produce a final declaration due to the lack of consensus and particularly because of the veto that the
United Sates exercised over the question of Cuba”, a statement from Fernandez’s government read. The United States and Canada also opposed the more than 30 countries that backed Argentina’s insistence on a solution to the question of the Malvinas Islands, an issue that continues to simmer in the minds of a unifying Latin America. “The Bolivarian Republic [of Venezuela] and a great number of countries gathered here... demand that the colonization of this Argentine territory is put to an end”, Foreign Minister Maduro said during his speech at the conference. Maduro’s declarations were smuggled out of the meeting and broadcast on Venezuelan state television via video captured on a cell phone. Last weekend’s summit failure marked an important set back for US-Latin America relations as Washington, hoping to reestablish commercial relations and regain some of its waning influence in the region, demonstrated that its policies remain out of touch with the rest of the hemisphere. The added element of a sex scandal involving 11 US Secret Service agents and five military intelligence agents assigned to the meeting served to further discredit the North American government as attention from the proceedings was diverted to the unethical conduct of Obama’s personal security team. In the end, however, what stood out from the 6th Summit of the Americas was the growing confidence that Latin American countries feel in standing up to Washington’s interests and the increasing autonomy that the region is exercising as its economies continue to thrive. “The weak have never been respected by those who arbitrarily exercise power. It’s time to believe in ourselves, to hold onto our convictions and the truth... We must continue the path with our eyes on a new world without empires”, Nicolas Maduro said on Sunday.
NoÊ£äxÊU Friday, April 20, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Analysis | 3 |
T/ Rachael Boothroyd P/ Agencies
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ith both Barack Obama and probable Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s election campaigns now getting into full swing in the United States, and the recent ill-fated VI summit of the Americas held this week in Cartagena, Latin America-US relations have been placed firmly back in the international spotlight. International media and political commentators are currently debating the role Latinos will play in the up and coming elections, as well as how the future President of the world’s only remaining empire will interact with Latin America, which many ominously claim has been “neglected” by the Obama administration. On a national level, it seems that old habits die hard. While Romney continues to court the Florida vote with hard-right rhetoric, the Republican’s stance on immigration reform means that it looks unlikely that this kind of strategy will resonate with the Latino community outside of the anachronistic antiCastro lobby. With well over half of all Latinos now identifying their politics with the Democrat party, Obama on the other hand is obviously pursuing the Latino vote with gusto. It was, after all, Latinos that turned out in droves to elect him in 2008, when he took around 65% of this community’s vote. This support not only has historic roots, but it is also based around the key issue of immigration, which has become a pivotal concern for the Latino electorate in recent years. Although Obama may compare favorably to his Republican counterparts in this respect, it also true that he has emphatically failed to fulfil his promises for immigration reform. From Cartagena in Colombia last week, Obama promised to push through immigration reform within the first year of his second term, as well as lambasting the Republican Party for its support for the Arizona antiimmigration laws. In spite of the damp squib that was the Summit of the Americas, Obama’s short stay in Colombia was in fact efficiently spent. Not only did he take the opportunity to woo Latino voters, but he also met with Colombia’s business sectors and
US Policy on Latin America trapped in the Cold War hammered out the finer details of a free trade agreement (TLC) with President Manuel Santos, with the agreement expected to come into effect on May 15th. Traditionally the lynchpin of US hegemony in the region, Colombia is one of the few countries which continues, along with Mexico, to maintain free trade agreements with the giant of the North. In an epoch in which the majority of Latin American nations have thrown off the yoke of US imperialism, its disastrous Nafta agreements and the presence of its associated transnational financial organizations, mainly the IMF, Colombia has become more strategically crucial than ever for the United States. It is hardly a coincidence that Obama increased US presence in the country with 7 new military bases in 2009. Yet the US stronghold is notably showing signs of dissidence. In an underreported interview with El Universal a week prior to the summit, Santos not only criticized the US for its hypocritical attitude to Cuba, which he said that he would like to see integrated into the OAS in spite of staunch US opposition, but he also said that Latin American
economic relations could no longer be dictated by unequal terms of trade or “dependency”. These kinds of statements from Santos are becoming par for the course. Although by no means a progressive, maintaining free market economics and a bloody and repressive war against the FARC at home, the changing rhetoric from the Colombian government in the international arena and its rapprochement to countries such Cuba and Venezuela are indicative of just how much the political spectrum within Latin America has shifted over to the left in the last 10 years. Paradoxically, this situation is quite the reverse in the US - where a survey conducted by Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal from the University of Georgia and New York University, recently showed that Republicans are now more conservative than they have been at any point in the past 100 years. Yet while all eyes were on the Summit of the Americas, it was actually the preliminary meeting, held in Washington in March to focus on the upcoming summit, which was most indicative of current Latin AmericanUS relations.
Democrat Congressman Eliot Engel accused the Chavez government of trampling on the rights of the independent media, criticized “threats to the OAS from so called alternative regional organizations”, lauded the OAS as an organization that was capable of stemming “democratic backsliding” in the region, and also said that OAS member countries should encourage the Venezuelan government to “invite a robust observation mission from the OAS” to verify the transparency of the Venezuelan elections. Not only do Engel’s comments demonstrate that the US considers developments such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) a threat, but they also prove that the administration is looking to take a more direct and active role in Venezuelan politics as opposed to simply financing and advising opposition groups in the country, which is proving to be a less than winning tactic. Whereas Republican foreign policy under Romney would undoubtedly become even more aggressive, the Obama administration will no doubt try and bring the rebellious continent to
its South back under control. Despite the fact that the Summit of the Americas took place behind closed doors, information coming out from the US president’s meeting with Santos suggests that the current administration is considering stepping up its efforts in the region. As well as signing the TLC with Santos, Obama solicited the Colombian government to increase its presence in Central America in a bid to “aid” the troubled region in its fight against the drug trade. Evidently, as the Southern Cone slips more and more out of Washington’s grasp, the Obama administration is trying to assert a kind of damage control by countering the “pink tide’s” influence and preventing it from spreading into the Central American region. Yet with even staunch rightwing presidents, such as Guatemala’s Otto Perez Molina, opposing increased militarization of the country as a viable answer to its problems with narcotrafficking at the Summit, and even going so far as to broach the topic of drug legalization (a debate which Santos has also said should take place), it is dubious how fruitful the traditional recipes of democracy promotion, market penetration and the financing of “counternarcotics” initiatives and rightwing groups in the region will prove to be in Latin America’s new political reality. Speaking on the upcoming US elections and the role of the Latino vote, Angelo Falcon, president and founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy, commented that the changing politics of the Latino demographic in North America “raise questions about whether the old formulas work today”. Equally, it would seem that the Obama administration is faced with the same problems abroad, where old formulas are failing to yield the same effects as in 1980s Nicaragua. Last week’s summit in Cartagena proved to be just another nail in the coffin for the moribund OAS and US presence in the region. Santos’ declaration that Cuba’s exclusion was “anchored in a Cold War era that was left behind long ago”, provides the greatest insight into where the continent’s dominant political influences really lie.
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4 | Social Justice
NoÊ£äxÊU Friday, April 20, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela-Cuba health program celebrates 9 years of saving lives
T/ COI P/ Agencies
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ice President Elias Jaua inaugurated a new rehabilitation clinic in the state of Miranda last Monday as part of a public act that marked the 9th anniversary of Venezuela’s flagship healthcare program, Mission Barrio Adentro, During the opening of the Villa Tatiana Rehabilitation
Center, Jaua informed that since the mission began on April 17, 2004, more than 1.5 million lives have been saved as a result of the treatment provided by Cuban community doctors working in the South American country. “Millions of people have been cared for thanks to the support of the Cuban people”, the Vice President said. Specifically, Barrio Adentro has carried out more than 745
million medical examinations over its 9 year existence while the Venezuelan government has constructed 6,702 community doctor’s offices in addition to 33 high technology centers with advanced medical equipment. All of the program’s services are provided at no charge whatsoever to the people served. “Barrio Adentro came to change the health care model
in order to make primary care what it needed to be and to guarantee that the assistance needed by families in the communities existed”, said Yadira Cordova, Minister of University Education and Vice President for Social Affairs of the Chavez cabinet. Currently, nearly 13,000 Cuban and Venezuelan medical professionals are working together as part of the agreement signed between Havana and Caracas that facilitates the exchange of health care personnel. Venezuelan community doctors are also being trained by their Cuban counterparts as the Chavez government continues to invest heavily in the education of new, community oriented, health care professionals. As such, more than 8,000 Holistic Community Doctors were accredited through the Bolivarian University of Venezuela (UBV) last February. “Year after year, we will continue to see more doctors graduate. It’s one of the goals of the Revolution”, Cordova said during an interview with state television earlier this week. OPPOSITION CONTRADICTIONS As part of the inauguration of the rehab clinic on Mon-
More than 1 million Venezuelans benefit from land reform program T/ COI
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he President of Venezuela’s National Land Institute (INTI), Luis Motta Dominguez, affirmed that more than 224,000 families have benefited from redistributed farmlands made available through the Chavez administration’s agrarian reform program. The announcement was made during an interview with state television on Tuesday when Motta gave an update on the progress being made with respect to the country’s land redistribution program. “It we take an average of 5 people per family, then we’re talking
about 1.3 million people who have benefited from the redistribution”, the INTI President said while interviewed on the program Toda Venezuela (All of Venezuela). Venezuela’s agrarian reform began in November 2001 when President Hugo Chavez signed by decree the Land Law, mandating the break up of fallow landed estates, known in Spanish as latifundios. The law gives the state the legal authority to expropriate any lands underutilized or illegally acquired and redistribute them to farming collectives comprised of wage workers pre-
viously without access to their own parcels. According to Motta, INTI has been able to regularize some 7.7 million hectares (19 million acres) of land over the past 11 years and redistribute some 1.1 million (2.7 million) of those to rural laborers involved in state projects. “The expropriation of these lands happens when there is a latifundio. We need to act so that these lands that were once concentrated in the hands of a single person and weren’t being used are handed over to the small producer”, the Land Institute President declared.
In addition to providing land and meaningful work to rural laborers, Venezuela’s land redistribution program is also designed to help decrease the country’s reliance on imported food items, a historical problem in the OPEC member state. This is done, Motta informed, by turning the once underutilized lands into productive tracts in line with the country’s needs. “All those lands that are not productive are being rescued. They’re being handed over to collectives or to agro-ecological projects in order to consolidate the food security and devel-
day, Vice President Jaua also drew attention to the Venezuelan right-wing presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski who, alongside his party Primero Justicia (Justice First), opposed the entrance of Cuban doctors in Venezuela when Mission Barrio Adentro began. In fact, Radonski was one of the instigators of the attack on the Cuban embassy during the failed coup d’etat carried out against President Chavez in April, 2002. “[The opposition] thinks that the people have forgotten but they know who was opposed to the arrival of Mission Barrio Adentro. They know who didn’t want the Cuban doctors to come and save lives”, Jaua said. The Vice President also made a point of mentioning the opposition’s campaign to stop a constitutional amendment in 2007 that sought to give the government’s missions a more permanent character with greater funding stability. Now, Jaua asserted, the opposition camp is proposing a vaguely defined “Law of the Missions” designed to co-opt the success that the Chavez administration has enjoyed as a result of its dozens of social programs. “They are not going to fool anybody with their campaign of amnesia. Neither are they going to bureaucratize the missions because they are part of the popular will and the solidarity with the Cuban people”, he declared.
opment. There is a constant monitoring and we’ve seen how production has increased throughout the national territory”, he said on Tuesday. Recently, the government introduced a new program, Mission AgroVenezuela, with a similar goal - to stimulate agricultural production by providing assistance to any farmer willing to dedicate their land to domestic production. The assistance comes in the form of low-interest credits through state financing as well as access to technical aid, supplies and farming machinery such as tractors and harvesters. These initiatives along with continual evaluation and rescue of fallow lands have led, Motta argued, to greater work opportunities and higher living standards for Venezuela’s small farmers.
NoÊ£äxÊU Friday, April 20, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Economy | 5 |
Venezuela increases banks’ obligatory social contributions, US and Europe does not T/ Rachael Boothroyd P/ Agences
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hile the rest of the world’s population continues to pay for the global financial crisis with their jobs, homes, education and health, and as bankers continue to award themselves millions of dollars in bonuses, such as the UK bank Barclay’s Chief Executive, who last year alone earned no less than $26.9 million; the Venezuelan government has increased the percentage of net profits which banks must grant in credit to national social programs, demonstrating what a regulated and socially orientated banking system could look like for the rest of the world. Published in the government’s official gazette, Venezuelan banks will now be obliged to contribute 15% of their yearly earnings to securing housing as a constitutional right for the nation, as part of a government drive to create a social banking system which contributes to the development of society as opposed to simply siphoning off its wealth. The measures specify that of the 15% that Venezuelan banks will be obliged to invest in the public interest, 66% must go towards granting credits for house building projects, 26% towards credit for house buyers and 8% towards credit for carrying out improvements, extensions and self-construction projects on citizens’ first homes. Importantly, of the 66% designated for house building projects, 55% must go directly towards the government’s Housing and Environment Ministry for the government’s Great Housing Mission, which aims to build 2.7 million free houses for low income families before 2019, while 40% of these credits must go towards the construction of houses for families whose household income is no more than 6 times the national minimum wage. Not only will the banks have to file a report each month with the state’s Housing and Environment Ministry to ensure that these specifications
have been met, but the ministry’s bank will also select which construction projects are to receive financing. “These resources are a product of an increase in deposits in current and saving accounts, that is why they should go towards, in agreement with the Law on Banking Activity, the areas that are considered to be a priority and to be in the national interest by the Executive”, said Ricardo Sanguino, President of the National Assembly Commission for Finance and Economic Development. This is indeed a stark contrast to the United Kingdom, where last week it emerged that the government had been forced into handing over £20 billion in taxpayer’s money to UK banks so that they would finally lend to small businesses, which have been denied credit en masse since the financial crisis hit; despite the fact that small businesses provide more jobs than larger firms in the UK and that the government maintains that they will be key to the creation of employment in the future. SOCIAL BANKING It is not that Venezuelan financial speculators and bankers care more about the wellbeing of the national population, but rather that Venezuelans
are in the fortunate position of having a national government which prioritizes their life quality, wellbeing and development over the health of bankers’ and lobbyists’ pay checks. If the 2009 financial crisis demonstrated anything, it was that capitalism is quite simply incapable of regulating itself, and that is precisely where progressive governments and progressive government legislation needs to step in. Following the 2009 financial crisis, the Chavez government undertook a series of measures aimed at reining in the unfettered speculation of the banking sector and subjecting it to state regulation. Today, 10 out of the 25 banking institutions now operating in the country belong to the state, with 6 of them being development banks. As well as nationalizing Venezuela’s third largest bank in 2008 and merging 4 banks in 2009 to create the government’s Bicentenary Bank, the government passed progressive legislation in 2010 with its Law on Banking Sector Institutions, which to the cries of the private media and speculators everywhere, defined the industry as one of “public service”. As a public service, this law specifies that 5% of banks’ net profits must go towards funding community council projects, designed and
implemented by communities for the benefit of communities. In terms of regulation, not only does this legislation limit the amount that banks can lend out to no more than 20% of their capital, but it also prevents banks from participating in brokerage firms and insurance companies, as well as from forming financial enterprises with other sectors of the economy; minimising financial risk taking and speculation. The law also protects bank employees by requiring banks to put 10% of their capital into a fund for wages and pensions that can be used in the event of bankruptcy. According to other legislation also passed in 2010, the Law of the National Financial System, through restructuring the banking system, the government is attempting to “orientate the use and investment” of the banking system’s funds towards the “public interest,” in order to “really create a social state of law and justice”. The Law of the National Financial System also outlines the legal framework through which the Venezuelan people can “participate and supervise the management” of the country’s financial system through “social control” of the sector. Right now in the US and Europe, it is clear that the banks are firmly back in control, with no concrete measures having been
adopted to curb their autonomy. In financial hotspots such as New York and London, banks are what continue to make the world go round for the movers and shakers of the city, perpetuating the myth that banking institutions are great wealth creators and are as such untouchable. In the midst of the human fallout from the banking crisis, it is hard to maintain this mantra. The movement of banks into speculation and stock broking has turned the international banking system into a global casino that has everything to do with the uninhibited flow of great sums of capital but nothing to do with the creation of wealth; much less to do with human development. In Venezuela, this vision is being reconceptualized so that banks have a socially productive role, as opposed to a parasitic one. Whilst funds from banks in Venezuela are going towards the construction of free housing and the maintenance of social programs for the benefit of the country, paradoxically people in the US and Europe are being forced out of their overly priced housing in order to maintain a defunct financial system. Not because there is no alternative, but because their governments continue to be wedded to the great wealth creators for the 1%.
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6 | Interview
NoÊ£äxÊU Friday, April 20, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Discussing democracy: US voices on the 2012 elections T/ COI P/ SOAW
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s part of ongoing efforts to disseminate US and Venezuelan voices engaged in the struggle for social and economic justice, Correo del Orinoco International brings readers this exclusive interview with Lisa Sullivan, Latin America Coordinator for School of the Americas Watch (SOAW). Based in Venezuela since the 1980’s, Sullivan provides a unique look at the Chavez and Obama administrations, the Bolivarian Revolution, and the leadership role played by the Venezuela people and President in bringing about positive change for the people’s of the Americas – both North and South. As an active member of School of the Americas Watch, what are your thoughts on the Obama administration and its foreign policy towards Latin America? I think both the administration and its policies have been a huge disappointment. Many believed that Obama would perhaps be more open to change that would benefit all types of people. However, it has become clear that not only no change in US foreign policy has taken place, but that the Obama administration’s opposition to change has been much more sophisticated. In fact, it’s actually much more aggressive, as we saw in the 2009 coup in Honduras. The coup against President Zelaya showed us an Obama State Department that responds with smoke and mirrors. We saw their initial affirmation of, “this is a coup”, which they later turned into “ah no, these are just ‘problems’ taking place in Honduras”. Eventually, they just lined up with the people involved in the coup but did so in such a subtle way that it didn’t enrage people. The Bush administration, on the contrary, would have been much more direct, much more verbal about its opposition to progressive change. I think that’s the only real difference in terms of US attempts
Lisa Sullivan with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, Father Roy Bourgeos and Pablo Ruiz
to roll back the changes taking place in Latin America. One of my main concerns is that within the Obama administration’s “sophisticated approach” we see the stage being set for aggression with the demonization of all those leaders involved in the struggle for greater sovereignty. This was done very effectively in other parts of the world, with, for example, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. The Obama administration has clearly done this with Venezuela’s Chavez and, to a lesser extent, with Evo Morales and Rafael Correa. So, if and when the situation changes, if the US sees an opening, something could be made to happen. Whether they support direct military intervention or what have you, in the back of people’s minds in the US is the idea that, “oh well, wasn’t he that bad guy?”. I think the Obama administration has really contributed to that drumbeat, to the demonizing of anyone who has worked to protect their country’s economy and natural resources. Tell us now about Venezuela’s role in the struggle to
close down the School of the Americas? Venezuela has been enormously significant for the SOAW Movement. In 2004, prior to the visit by Father Roy Bourgeois and I with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the country was still sending troops to the SOA despite the fact that two leaders of the 2002 coup against Chavez had graduated from the SOA. Now, what we found out in our meeting with President Chavez, who had looked into the matter himself, was that the SOA often sidesteps official channels and directly invites certain soldiers and officers, especially those who are bright and considered “up and coming”. Governments are sometimes unaware of exactly who they have studying at the SOA. Chavez took this issue seriously and firmly said, “That’s it. No more”. A month after our meeting Chavez announced that no more Venezuelans would be going to the SOA and has been faithful to that commitment. Venezuela has been so important for the work of SOAW because there’s just such clar-
ity on the part of the Bolivarian Revolution and President Chavez that this struggle, our struggle, is a question of sovereignty. That word sovereignty truly regained its place with the Bolivarian Revolution and has really taken off. People have begun to understand what it means to be a sovereign nation and to exercise their right to self-determination. That clarity has been extraordinary and has spread out across the continent. Living and working here in Venezuela, what are your thoughts on the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for October 7th and on Venezuelan democracy in general? It’s clear to me that as long as Chavez is healthy, there is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that he will be reelected. Of course, the concern is currently about his health. The opposition has never been able to elaborate what they’re all about – they’ve always just been about what they’re against, Chavez, but they’ve never been open about what
they’re actually for. Now, it’s important to understand that people’s lives have changed as part of the Bolivarian Revolution. People now have access to things they didn’t have before, and they know why. Those people are going to vote, again, and for Chavez. Venezuela is a country where people practice democracy, perhaps more so than any other country in the world. People have voted, voted transparently, including with observers from all over the world. The actual number of elections is just extraordinary. This is a country that is truly living democratically. To mis-portray that, as the mainstream media does, is really just an ugly lie. The people of the US, those in solidarity with Venezuela, must really acknowledge that this country is exercising a true democracy. There’s this concept here that people are full citizens and that they have the right to education, health care, housing, food, basic dignity, and there are efforts to say: “look, this is our country, these are our resources, and how do we harness them to improve our quality of life?” A multitude of creative attempts have been made, some with better results than others, but in general there has been a catapult of solutions aimed at attending to people’s needs. Meanwhile, in the US, people are still entrenched in the “representative” system and people generally feel disempowered. As a result, people often don’t even vote. Here in Venezuela, people had to break apart that supposedly representative system in order to bring about real, participatory change. Since then we’ve had the repeatedly successful elections of President Chavez, the re-writing of the constitution, the reversing of the coup, the grassroots consolidation of the social missions, etc. I’ve been in Latin America since 1977, and have seen atrocities, have visited with hundreds of people who lost family members because in those years peaceful social change was never possible. The loss of life associated with attempts at change was enormous. With Venezuela, currently, we should all be so glad that the society is trying to bring about major social change through the ballot box.
NoÊ£äxÊU Friday, April 20, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Politics | 7 |
Venezuelan journalist warns of opposition “Plan B” T/ COI P/ Agencies
O
ver the weekend, Venezuelan investigative journalist Jose Vicente Rangel denounced what he described as an opposition “Plan B” in the context of presidential elections that strongly favor Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez over US-backed opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. According to Rangel, who is said to have access to internal opposition documents, Venezuela’s anti-Chavez minority plans to use both violent street protests and takeovers of government buildings in an attempt to destabilize the country in coming months. Speaking to viewers during his weekly television program Jose Vicente Today, the former Vice President denounced a new set of destabilization plans being elaborated by the country’s USbacked opposition. According to Rangel, anti-Chavez forces “alarmed by poll numbers that strongly favor Hugo Chavez” are now increasingly counting on a “Plan B”. Having accessed an internal opposition memo titled “Threats in Context”, Rangel described how the opposition feels “they must urgently design and carry out a destabilization strategy” in order to increase their chances of retaking the Venezuelan executive. The internal memo, explained Rangel, “affirms that what is at stake in the electoral contest of October 7th is too important to gamble on one single formula, that of Capriles”. “Dated March of this year”, Rangel added, “the memo describes the non-electoral scenario and a distinct set of actions to be taken in the coming months so as to speed up destabilization attempts against the National Government”. THE G-15 According to the well-respected investigative journalist, opposition strategy now largely depends on the so-called “Group of
15 (G-15)”, an opposition grouping made up of top right-wing politicians and their most heavyweight partners from within Venezuela’s business circles. Rangel warned that the G-15 “now meets periodically to discuss destabilization strategies” and that, expecting to lose the October 7th election, “they are considering an emergency solution that falls outside of the constitutional parameters”. “For the time being”, Rangel said, “they don’t consider it (the Radonski ticket) a viable option against Chavez”. According to socialist lawmaker and National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello, the G-15 “has been meeting and working to instigate violent incidents in the country ever since 2009”. Using their allies in the private media, for example, the G-15 “finances right-wing student movements” and provides them with favorable media coverage to discredit the Bolivarian Revolution. Speaking to reporters earlier this month, Cabello explained
that as Vice President of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) he has been “tasked with meeting” members of the G-15. “Why?” he asked, “To ensure the future of this country and prevent violence from running wild…We believe so strongly in peace that we have called them to discuss what it is they want, what it is they propose”, said Cabello. ANTI-CHAVEZ “STUDENT PARLIAMENT” As part of his warnings to the public, Rangel told voters to expect the launch of a so-called opposition “Student Parliament”. Within the next couple of months, he said, a “coalition” of anti-Chavez student movements will begin carrying out violent street protests, blocking important transportation routes, and occupying government buildings in order to get widespread media coverage. According to Rangel, students from a number of Venezuela’s largest universities have al-
ready committed to the plan, including representatives from the Central University of Venezuela, the Andres Bello Catholic University, the University of Yacambu, the Lisandro Alvarado Central Western University, and the Experimental Pedagogical University of the Liberator. Suggesting he has access to confidential reports, Rangel confirmed that the universitybased launch of national disturbances was agreed upon during a closed-door meeting held late last week. SUSPICIOUS CONDUCT In additional comments he made during his Sunday program, Rangel added that Venezuela’s state security agencies are currently investigating “two suspicious” threats to the country’s democratic institutions. The first, he explained, is the opposition’s “failure to formally state it will recognize the results of the October 7th elections”, while the second, he said, “is a campaign to discredit highranking military officials”.
Asked repeatedly if they will recognize the results of this year’s presidential elections, opposition leaders from the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) have responded with vague and unsubstantiated “concerns” about the neutrality of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE). MUD spokespeople have also highlighted supposed “warnings” by Venezuelan Minister of Defense Henry Rangel Silva that the country’s Armed Forces won’t recognize “just any results”. Part of a widespread smear campaign against the Defense Minister, opposition-owned media outlets and their allies abroad have consistently taken Silva’s statements out of context. Though he has reiterated that “the country’s Armed Forces will of course recognize the winner of the election”, Silva has also affirmed openly that the winner must be determined by the election results and ratified by the country’s electoral authorities. As such, Silva has warned, “the actual winner may not be the same person they (the opposition) claim”. RECOVERING DEMOCRACY? In a troubling “coincidence” detailed over the weekend by journalist Jean-Guy Allard, US President Barack Obama used his participation in last week’s Summit of the Americas to claim “Venezuela is dismantling democratic institutions” while at the same exact moment, in Southern Florida, rabid members of the anti-Chavez minority were meeting to discuss the “recovery of Venezuelan democracy”. Held under the auspices of the Organization of Politically Persecuted Venezuelan Exiles (VEPPEX) and Union of Democratic Organizations of the Americas (UnoAmerica), those gathered received open “letters of support” from none other than former Honduran dictator Roberto Micheletti and former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. In the context of international campaigns against both the Bolivarian Revolution and President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s Jose Vicente Rangel reiterated his warning that groups within the opposition “continue to encourage and stimulate a rupture of constitutional order” and insisted that all sectors of Venezuelan society “must accept that a change in government is only possible through the ballot box”.
Friday | April 20, 2012 | Nº 105 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
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Punishing Cuba 50 years on /ÉÊ i Ê-V Ài iÀ
W
ith the media happily fixated on the sex scandal swirling around the US Secret Service, the Sixth Summit of the Americas held in Cartagena, Colombia over the weekend was left to collapse with little notice. The inability of the some 30 heads of American states to even issue a final declaration on Sunday derived primarily from the growing regional frustration with US Cuban policy. It has now been over half a century since Fidel Castro led a successful armed, popular revolt against USbacked dictator Fulgencio Batista. Washington, though, is long in forgetting those that openly challenge and defy US power (witness US policy towards Iran). Thus, the collective punishment of the Cuban people has long since been cemented as an unquestionable tenet of US foreign policy–the longest and most foolhardy embargo in history remains. However, with the rise of center-left governments through the Americas, coupled with the weakening of US regional influence attributable to its imperial overstretch in the Middle East, a growing pushback against US Cuban policy has finally begun to take hold. In 2009, for example, the Organization of American States (OAS) voted in defiance of the US to lift its nearly 50-year membership ban on Cuba. (Cuba still refuses to seek entry in the OAS, claiming that the organization is a tool of US imperialism). Significantly, this growing impatience with US Cuban policy has not been limited to the continent’s ascendant coalition of center-left governments. In fact, right-wing Colombian President
Juan Manuel Santos, a stanch ally of the US and avid fighter of the Colombian Marxist rebel group FARC publicly expressed his frustration with the obstinate US posture towards Cuba just prior to this weekend’s summit. As Santos warned: “It would be just as unthinkable to hold another hemispheric meeting with a prostrate Haiti, as it would be with Cuba absent…isolation, embargo and indifference have shown their ineffectiveness. It’s an anachronism that keeps us anchored to a Cold War era that’s been overcome for decades now”. Indeed, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa boycotted
the weekend’s summit, directly citing US policy towards Cuba. The foreign ministers of Venezuela, Argentina and Uruguay, moreover, stated prior to the summit that their presidents would refrain from signing any summit declaration unless the US removed its veto of future Cuban participation. Facing such a diplomatic backlash against his government’s failed Cuban policy, President Obama–quite remarkably, we might add–chose to defend the growing isolation of the US by calling for all to move beyond any Cold War era mindset. As Obama declared:
“Sometimes I feel as if in some of these discussions, or at least the press reports, we’re caught in a time warp, going back to the 1950s and gunboat diplomacy and Yankees and the Cold War, and this and that and the other. That’s not the world we live in today”. This, though, is in fact the very world in which US policy remains suspended. And if the past weeks have demonstrated anything in this regard, it is a world in which the US shall long remain. After all, in mid-March, the US State Department rejected applications from two senior Cuban diplomats to travel to New
Y York City to take part in a panel discussion at the L Left Forum. The State D Department cited Cuba’s rrefusal to permit Americ can diplomats freedom o of travel outside Havana a as reason for the travel b ban. But unlike the US, C Cuba has not once tried tto overthrow the US gove ernment. But such is life iin the US Cold War time w warp. And then, of course, tthis past week saw the U US sports world rise to e express its collective outrrage at the supposedly inc cendiary comments made b by new Miami Marlins m manager Ozzie Guillen. G Guillen’s crime: a public e expression of admiration ffor Fidel Castro. For such a grave transgression G Guillen was forced to isssue an immediate apolo ogy, and denounce Castro a as a universally hated tyrrant. Nonetheless, Guilllen was still slapped with a five game suspension ffor riffling the feathers o of the rabidly anti-Castro M Miami community. Free sspeech, Guillen no doubt llearned, has its limits. (Admiration for the Cub ban Revolution, it must be noted, ought not be something to instinctively vilify. Since the 1959 revolution wrestled the island free from the jackboot of US imperialism, life expectancy in Cuba has gone from just under 60 years to just under 80 years. And as governments at all levels in the US take a hatchet to social spending, Cubans continue to enjoy free education and health care at every level). So, as the states inhabiting the Americas look toward forging a future free from Cold War antagonisms, the US remains fixated on the imagined red menace looming 90 miles off its coast. No US war, it appears, is easily brought to a close.