page 7 | Analysis:
page 8 | Opinion
Colombia: The empire strikes back
Luis Britto Garcia on judges and being judged
Friday | May 11, 2012 | Nº 108 | Caracas
People’s pharmacy provides low-cost medicine As part of ongoing efforts to fight price hikes and speculation, the Venezuelan government has inaugurated a publicyowned pharmacy chain that will provide consumers with savings up to 40 percent on medical prescriptions, over the counter drugs and other health and hygiene items. The new Farmapatrias form part of a group of state-subsidized businesses launched over the past several years, including supermarkets, restaurants, cafes and clothing shops, to ensure consumers have access to low-cost, quality affordable goods. | page 4
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
Intelligence chief reveals assassination attempt against President Chavez The Venezuelan President has been a victim of several assassination attempts throughout his two terms as head of state
Politics
Chavez to start campaign President Hugo Chavez affirmed he’ll be on the campaign trail this summer. | page 3 Culture
Dancing Caracas Residents of Venezuela’s capital enjoyed a week of dancing in the streets. | page 5 Interview
Venezuela an “inspiration” to US anti-war movement An interview with Brian Becker of the Answer coalition. | page 6
Venezuela: Promoting Urban Agriculture enezuela’s urban agriculture V program has seen urban communal and family based
food gardens developing rapidly over the last two years, to a current total of 19,000. The program provides free training, information, seeds, and other materials, in order to encourage healthy and environmentally friendly food production and food sovereignty.
Martha Bolivar, president of the Training and Innovation Foundation in Support of the Agrarian Revolution (Ciara), said this week that the urban agriculture program is aiming to produce 18,000 ton of produce this year. The program comes under the government’s AgroVenezuela mission, and aims to take advantage of unused
spaces in cities to produce vegetables, fruit, medicinal and ornamental plants on a small scale, in order to promote self-supply and community and family based micro economies. It is prioritizing twenty products, among them; radishes, parsley, tomatoes, and capsicum, and according to Bolivar, the vegetables are 100% free of agro-toxic products. In Caracas metro stations there are Ciara stalls explain-
Venezuela’s inflation down Venezuela’s National Consumer Price Index recorded a 0.8% inflationary increase in April, which represents a decline in inflation for the 5th month in a row, informed Finance Minister Jorge Giordani. Presenting the results of a report drafted by the Venezuelan Central Bank and the National Statistics Institute, authorities confirmed that accrued inflation during the first four months of 2012 amounts to 4.4%, while the annual rate from May 2011 to April 2012 is 23.8%. This represents a fall from the annualized inflation rate in March of 24.6%. Giordani said this downward trend reaffirms the goal set in the national budget of annual inflation in 2012 of between 20% and 22%. This data “is accompanied by a decline in the unemployment rate (7.9% in March),” and the result of first quarter economic performance, the minister stated. Variation of the National Consumer Price Index rated 0.9% in March. In February it was 1.1%, in January 1.5% and in December 2011, 1.8%.
ing urban agriculture and what individuals, families, or collectives can do. People can also apply for seeds and small parcels of land at these stalls. “We can plant in any available space... on balconies, patios, flat roofs... there are many options available for the people to contribute to food sovereignty”, said Bolivar. Last week President Hugo Chavez approved a further Bs 97.6 million ($22.7 million) to support urban agriculture.
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2 | Impact
NoÊ£änÊU Friday, May 11, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela intelligence chief reveals right-wing destabilization attempts T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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he head of Venezuela’s National Intelligence Services (Sebin), Miguel Rodriguez, revealed last Sunday further details of a plan by right-wing opposition activists to destabilize the nation’s political environment in an interview broadcast on the private television station Televen. While appearing on the show Jose Vicente Today, Rodriguez described a plot uncovered by the Venezuelan government in May 2004 that involved a group of more than 100 Colombian paramilitaries training in the municipality of El Hatillo just outside Caracas with plans to attack the presidential palace of Miraflores and assassinate head of state Hugo Chavez. The irregular groups, discovered in the estate of opposition extremist Roberto Alonso, were dressed as Venezuelan soldiers with the intention of propagating the idea that a domestic military insurrection was taking place in the country. “After a long process of gathering intelligence, On May 9, 2004 in the early hours of the morning 116 Colombians were detained and later identified as paramilitaries brought to Venezuela with the intention of overthrowing the government and putting an end to the life of [President] Chavez. At that time we saw the real nature of the opposition that we’re confronting. Nobody thought it would arrive at such extremes”, the Sebin director said during the interview. Rodriguez’s declarations come in the wake of recent allegations by former Venezuelan judge Eladio Aponte who, working with the Drug Enforcement Agency in the United States, accused the Venezuelan government of fabricating the entire 2004 incident as well as manipulating judicial outcomes in the country. Aponte was dismissed as a Supreme Court Judge by the
Venezuelan congress on March 20 for links to narco-trafficking including assisting the drug lord Walid Makled in the illegal acquisition of an official government ID. In April, Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami announced that the Chavez government had put out an international request for the arrest of Aponte who, according to the minister, “fled because he was dismissed from his post in order to be brought to justice”. The order for his arrest was finally made by Interpol on May 3, requiring “that the respective authorities of any country with knowledge that [Aponte] is present within its national territory must detain him immediately and turn him over to the Venezuelan judiciary”, El Aissami informed last week. Aponte is rumored to be in Miami, protected by the DEA. URIBE’S LINKS TO THE PLOT According to Sebin Director Miguel Rodriguez, the plot uncovered by the Venezuelan government in 2004 reached as far as former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe who the security chief also accused of being linked to the drug trade and paramilitary activity. “Alvaro Uribe surely had his hands involved in this operation... We’ve discussed this with the sources and informants that we have and we’ve evaluated the performance of [Colombia’s former Immigration Director] Jorge Noguera, a man very close to Uribe. When we tie all the information together, we arrive at the conclusion that, with great certainness, Uribe knew of these plans”, Rodriguez said. The Venezuelan official also revealed that the head of the paramilitaries found at the estate, Carlos Ayala, confessed to Sebin that he had worked directly with Venezuelan opposition politicians such as the ex-mayor of Caracas, Alfredo Peña, as
well as ex-general Ovidio Poggioli Pérez. EXTREMISTS STILL ACTIVE Rodriguez mentioned that many of the right-wing radicals involved in the 2004 conspiracy are still active in Venezuelan politics, some of who are current governors and congressmen in the country’s National Assembly. In fact, it was the action of a group of conspirators including Henrique Capriles Radonski, Governor of Miranda state and current opposition candidate for presidential elections this October 7, who hampered the efforts of the national security forces in their intents to break up the plot. “At that time, it was very difficult for us to arrive at the site with greater speed because there was an inner-circle of protection that the police, commanded by the opposition, were providing... they sabotaged the intelligence work that we were doing to find out the location of
the paramilitaries”, the intelligence chief explained. Although Rodriguez referred to the 2004 plan as “without precedent” and that the plot “surprised” the Sebin because of its scale and the levels of foreign involvement, such activity has been characteristic of the Venezuelan opposition. In April 2002, the Venezuelan right-wing in collaboration with the private media and the US State Department carried out a violent coup d’état against the Chavez government which resulted in the death of more than a dozen innocent bystanders. The failed coup was then followed later that same year by a management lock out of the oil industry which brought the Venezuelan economy to a standstill and forced widespread hardship upon the majority of the nation’s citizens. In addition to these acts, opposition-aligned landowners in the Venezuelan countryside have also been employing contracted
killers, many of Colombian origin, to assassinate small farmers involved in the Chavez administration’s far-reaching land reform program which seeks to redistribute fallow estates to agricultural workers. It is also well known that the opposition-controlled border states of Tachira and Zulia are all but overrun by Colombian paramilitaries linked to drugtrafficking and other forms of contraband. On Sunday, Director Rodriguez warned that many of these extremist elements are currently working to sow panic and chaos in the population during the nation’s presidential elections, slated for October 7. “We are carrying out our mission to detect threats against the state. The opposition that we’re up against has a group of radicals that think of violent solutions at the margin of the constitution. But these groups have not had the support of the people nor the military”, he stated.
NoÊ£änÊU Friday, May 11, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Politics | 3 |
President Chavez vows electoral victory in October, prepares to return to Venezuela T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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uring a telephone call to state television last Monday, Venezuelan head of state Hugo Chavez reaffirmed his optimism regarding the nation’s upcoming presidential elections and informed residents on the imminent end of his current cycle of cancer treatment. While calling in from Cuba where the socialist leader has been receiving medical attention for the cancer detected in his pelvic area last year, Chavez reported that he was on “the final stretch” of his treatment and that he was still actively performing his duties as President. “I’m governing and carrying out my functions as the head of state and head of the government in this special situation that will be over in the coming days. Soon I will be [in Venezuela]”, the two-time incumbent said. At the end of April, in compliance with the nation’s constitution, the Venezuelan congress approved Chavez’s absence from the country while he continues his convalescence in Cuba. During his telephone conversation, the 57-year head of state also expressed his confidence that he will attain a favorable outcome in the nation’s presidential elections slated for October 7. “The opposition will never again win in Venezuela. We’re going to knock them out and we haven’t even begun to enter the campaign yet... I’m asking the Venezuelan people that we reach 70 percent of the vote. There’s no way that they’re going to beat us. Even in the United States they know that this [opposition candidate Capriles Radonski] and the backing of the bourgeoisie won’t be able to beat us this year nor in the future. As such, we need to be even more aware of any kind of destabilization plan”, Chavez declared.
With respect to recent revelations made by the head of Venezuela’s intelligence services
that former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe had been involved in plans to destabilize
Venezuela through the use of paramilitaries in 2004, the head of the Caribbean nation said he spoke with his current Colombian counterpart and received the assurance that no such incidents will transpire in the future. “[Current Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos] has told us that our government in Venezuela is a cause for stability in the region... his government will have no role in any plan against Venezuela”, Chavez remarked. Although members of Venezuela’s right wing opposition have tried to portray the situation of the president’s health as necessitating a change in the ruling party’s candidate for the upcoming elections, leaders of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) have been quick to discard speculations of a possible successor to the current head of state. “The opposition has invented an untold number of arguments but we from the PSUV say that
Venezuela calls for regional mechanisms to guarantee human rights T/ AVN
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enezuela’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nicolas Maduro, called on countries in the region to create institutions to defend human rights within organizations like the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) and the Union of South American Nations (Unasur). “We say to all our brothers and sisters of Latin America and the Caribbean that it’s time to dismantle the structure of the Inter-American Court and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. Let’s build from Unasur and Celac new institutions to guarantee, protect, and guard human rights based on our experiences”.
Maduro, who attended a Unasur ministerial meeting in Cartagena, Colombia, last week highlighted the need to dismantle the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and its court because they are subdued to US interests. Last week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez asked the newly-named Council of State to study the withdrawal of Caracas from the IACHR for having demonstrated several times that it is an inefficient institution with double standards. “We have many reasons, many, from a long time ago”, said Chavez after announcing the possible withdrawal. He argued that Venezuela “has to continue strengthening and building full national independence”.
For this reason, Maduro invited the countries of the region to “guarantee and protect human rights from within our own experiences and institutions”, and recalled that the US has not signed any human rights protocols nor is it subject to decisions by the IACHR. Last Monday, Chavez asked Vice President Elías Jaua to speed up the installation of the Council of State, an organism established by the Constitution to recommend domestic policies to the head of state. The Venezuelan President urged the council to present a proposal in the coming days to complete Venezuela’s withdrawal from the commission. The Council of State will be led by Jaua, and its members include Venezuelan journalist Jose Vicente Rangel, Venezue-
there is only one sure candidate for the elections on the 7th of October and that’s Hugo Chavez. We have no plans for any change”, said the president of the nation’s congress and PSUV Vice President, Diosdado Cabello. Venezuelan Vice President, Elias Jaua, also fired back at the nation’s opposition who have attempted to use Chavez’s creation of a new State Council of advisors as evidence of plans to facilitate a transition from the current president to a new leader of the socialist party. “The opposition has to prepare itself to recognize the defeat that they’re going to experience in October by Chavez. There is no transition here, only a strengthening and acceleration of socialism. There will be no pact with the bourgeoisie. There will be elections and the reelection of a new era with Chavez. [The opposition] lives on the dream of a transition, but they will keep dreaming”, Vice President Jaua said.
la’s Ambassador to the OAS Roy Chaderton and attorney and writer Luis Britto García. CELAC AND UNASUR In December 2011, a group of 33 heads of state from Latin America and the Caribbean met in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas to found the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (Celac). Beyond being an institution of political dialogue, this novel mechanism has an agenda to strengthen unity, defend democracy, and promote cooperation in economic and social development in the region and cultural exchange. Unasur is a regional group created in 2008 in the Brazilian capital city of Brasilia. It seeks to foster political, social, economic, cultural, environmental, and infrastructure integration among member states. It includes 12 countries: Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Guyana, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
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4 | Economy
NoÊ£änÊU Friday, May 11, 2012
The artillery of ideas
New community pharmacies to fight speculation, ensure quality medicines for the population T/ COI P/ Agencies
T
he Venezuelan government took a further step forward in the fight against price speculation last Monday when it inaugurated a publicly owned pharmacy chain that will provide residents with savings of up to 40 percent on important medical prescriptions and over the counter drugs. Farmapatria will soon be comprised of 172 outlets throughout the national territory and will supply access to quality medicines, informed Venezuelan Food Minister Carlos Osorio during a public act celebrating the opening of the new chain in Caracas. According to Osorio, the work of the Farmapatria drug stores will be directed towards all residents but will especially serve “those most in need in order to improve the well-being of the people from a health point of view”. “All of these establishments that will be working in different phases of evaluation and preparation are going to be a part of
a system of sustainability that is making sure that every family has access to medicine and which is eliminating the business aspects that are found with respect to medicine”, the Venezuelan minister explained on Monday.
The new Farmapatria initiative follows similar measures by the Venezuelan government to ensure availability of staple food products to the population through its creation of subsidized grocery chains and distribution points.
Venezuela to build household appliance factory with China T/ Ewan Robertson www.venezuelanalysis.com P/ Agencies
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enezuelan President Hugo Chavez has approved the construction of the factory “Haier Venezuela”, which is to produce low-cost household appliances for the Venezuela population. The move was announced Monday by Venezuelan Vice President, Elias Jaua, during an official event in which the Government Federal Council granted 992 million bolivars ($231 million) to community and grassroots organizations over seven regional states.
The factory, which is being built in the central Miranda state and is expected to be up
and running by mid-September this year, will produce household items such as elec-
In fact, 96 of the new pharmacies will form part of the state-owned grocery stores including Mercal, PDVAL and the country’s Bicentennial markets. The remaining Farmapatrias will be integrated into already
trical kitchen appliances, including refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, washing machines and dryers, and even high quality, large flat screen televisions. The goods will be sold through the government program “My Well Equipped House”, which sells household appliances to the Venezuelan people at discounted prices to improve living standards and “defend the people against the greed of capitalism”, according to President Chavez. The program was launched as the result of an agreement between China and Venezuela in May 2010, which included a contract by the Venezuelan government to buy over 300,000 household electrical items from Haier Electric Appliances. The new Haier Venezuela factory is also being built with Chinese assistance.
existent, government-run medical distribution centers belonging to the Health and Commerce Ministries in 15 states throughout the country. Health Minister Eugenia Sader, also present for the inauguration on Monday, informed that the new drug store chain would be comprised of two types of outlets. The first, a smaller distribution point, will provide residents with over the counter drugs and contain a pharmacy annex while the second, larger outlet will not only supply standard drugs but will also ensure access to vaccines, therapy options and medical supplies. Sader explained that the new pharmacies fit into a larger plan of the socialist government of Hugo Chavez to boost domestic production of medical drugs in the South American country. This includes the construction of five new factories that will begin operations in the first trimester of 2013. The new manufacturing plants, to be located in different states around Venezuela, are the result of a series of accords signed between the Chavez administration and the governments of China, Portugal, Cuba, and Colombia. “As the state begins its national medicine production and begins to export in great quantities, we’ll be able to lessen the number of pharmaceutical products we have to import”, the Health Minister said. Sader also informed that the government is moving forward with a plan to better track the production and distribution of medical drugs in the country in efforts to prevent deficiencies and ensure the constant availability of medicine for the population. “Every company that imports raw materials or medicines needs to register. This way we will know the distribution that we have throughout the country, whether they be private or public businesses”, the Health Minister stated.
No 108 U Friday, May 11, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Spreading climate literacy in Cuba T/ Patricia Grogg - IPS
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ocal communities can play a key role in adaptation to climate change if they are helped to properly understand the problem and take it on board. “Climate literacy is needed”, says Angela Corvea, a longtime Cuban environmental activist. “People do not always take these problems seriously, and do not see the risks involved in extreme natural events, which will become more frequent and increasingly severe”, Corvea adds. In her view, “small-scale actions by local communities can help deal with these changes, which are no longer merely imminent, but are already happening”. Rising temperatures and sea levels, recurrent droughts, and more intense floods and hurricanes are some of the consequences of climate change. In 2003, Corvea created an environmental project named Acualina, to raise awareness about the environment, especially among children and teenagers. Every year for over a decade, she has organized coastal clean-up actions to contribute to the global campaign “Clean Up the World”, which started in Australia. “We need to encourage conserving water and other resources, consume only what is necessary, avoid polluting, and try to keep our surroundings clean and pleasant; we need to recycle, and to be informed and teach others, especially children and young people; we need to act in solidarity, and to talk about these issues everywhere in order to draw attention and create awareness”, Corvea says. Enrique Arango, an expert at the National Center for Seismological Research (Cenais), agrees with Corvea that the risks associated with climate change are only apparent in the long term, which makes it difficult to raise awareness at the community level. “It’s like smoking: no one sees the immediate effects, so people don’t give up the habit
even though they know smoking is harmful”, he says. According to Arango, one way to teach people climate change literacy in their neighborhoods is through interactive projects in which a high percentage of the population participates. A systematic approach, strong leadership, and above all political will are required at all levels; “otherwise, results will only be achieved while the programme is under way”, he said. Social networks began to play a definite role in Cuba in creating ecological awareness in December 2011, when users of the microblogging network Twitter convened clean-up action and environmental education at the mouth of the Almendares river. “Big things grow from small things. Everyone worked on their own little patch and helped each other. Ultimately, the issue was not just cleaning up the garbage, but provoking a reaction, raising the awareness of the population of the area itself to clean up and care for their own section of river,” twitterer Salvatore (@salvatore300) commented to IPS. Meanwhile, based on his experience as a photojournalist, Rolando Pujol is convinced that the population must have more knowledge of the risks it faces. Often, coastal dwellers insist on remaining in at-risk areas because their life and livelihoods are closely linked to the sea. “They prefer to rebuild their homes time and again” after they have been destroyed by hurricanes, and they are also influenced by stories of places far inland that have had to be rebuilt, he said. Ramon Pichs, an expert on climate change and development, said the role of the population in adaptation strategies was “essential” in Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean islands. The success of any project will be greater “if the communities have an adequate level of awareness about the problems”, said Pichs.
Culture | 5 |
“Caracas on Foot” dance festival shakes up Venezuela’s capital
T/ Rachael Boothroyd P/ Agencies
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ancers from across Venezuela took to the streets of Sabana Grande Boulevard in Caracas last weekend to round off the capital’s week-long “Caracas on foot” dance festival. Primarily held to commemorate “International Dance Day”, the event was also a celebration of the various public parks, squares and sidewalks which have been regenerated by the government for recreational public use. Celebrated on Friday and Saturday last week, the event saw the whole boulevard come alive with over 180 brightly dressed dance collectives, who performed a range of dances from Argentine tango to Venezuelan traditional folk dance, with hordes of Venezuelans turning out to watch the exhibitions or join in themselves in spite of the heavy rain. “The aim of the festival is to generate an organized platform for dance groups in Caracas which will allow us to show our exhibits in the public spaces which have been recovered by the national government”, said Reinaldo Mijares, one of the organizers. “It’s a way of accompanying the policies which are being advanced by the Ministry of Culture”, he added. Previously considered a no-go area, the once shabby Boulevard
of Sabana Grande was revamped by the government in 2010 and has since become a focal point of public life, with Venezuelan families flocking to the area of a weekend to enjoy the zone’s colourful street culture, including artists, musicians and dancers. Differing from the usual image of the Latin American dance festival and its towering Brazilian samba dancers, last weekend’s exhibitions were given by Venezuelans of all shapes and sizes, with women, men, children and senior citizens all performing for the crowds. “It was a totally inclusive event”, continued Mijares. Throughout the week leading up to the open-air dance event, the government put on a series of free dance activities and shows for the public, including dance classes in the publically owned “La Estancia Park”, dance performances in the Teresa Carreno Theater, and a free public performance by world-renowned flamenco star, Joaquin Cortes, in Plaza Ibarra in central Caracas, where thousands of Venezuelans turned out on Thursday evening to watch the flamenco star give a live rendition of his “Calé” piece, meaning gypsy. The dancer told journalists that he was “delighted to be able to bring dance and music to the
people and not just to representatives of the elite”. “I’m a rebel with a cause, I’ve always wanted to bring dance to the world, and above all to the people... I think this initiative to give the performance in a public space in Caracas is wonderful... What better way to give the people music?” said Cortes prior to the concert. The regeneration of Sabana Grande Boulevard is just one of many government initiatives aimed at making culture and recreation readily available to the Venezuelan people by taking dance, theater, sport and music into the nation’s public spaces. As well as setting up outdoor gyms across Caracas, most barrio neighbourhoods now also have access to sports facilities. Numerous parks and squares, including Plaza Bolivar in downtown Caracas, have also been remodelled by the government and converted into spaces where Venezuelans can receive dance and exercise classes free of charge. “We senior citizens don’t feel old now, and that’s thanks to President Chavez, who made us visible and gave us dignity. We have dance teachers in the senior citizens clubs, and we dance and we’re happy”, said Elcier Sanchez who attended the open-air dance festival.
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6 | Interview
NoÊ£änÊU Friday, May 11, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Discussing democracy: Voices on the 2012 elections T/ COI P/ Agencies
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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 this exclusive interview with leading anti-war activist Brian Becker. As National Coordinator of the Answer (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition and founder of the US-based Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), Becker provides a unique look into the politics of democracy in both the United States and Venezuela. What are your thoughts on the upcoming presidential elections to be held in the United States? It is clear that the candidates from the two ruling class parties, President Obama for the Democrats and Mitt Romney for the Republicans, have some differences in political orientation, agenda and program. But overall, the two candidates have more in common than against. Both support the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan. Both are for maintaining an elaborate network of nearly 1,000 US military installations located in more than 130 million countries as a method to enforce and maintain the American empire. On the home front, both supported the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which provided nearly $7.7 trillion to the largest banks in the form of cash infusions, loans and loan guarantees. While they differ on healthcare policy, both are ardent supporters of a system that puts huge healthcare insurance corporations at the center of the delivery of healthcare services in the United States. The primary function of the insurance healthcare corporations is to maximize profit, not to provide affordable and effective healthcare services for the people. In terms of US foreign policy overall, there is little difference between Romney and Obama – perhaps in the atmo-
spherics or tone or rhetoric, but both will maintain a traditional US foreign policy based on the interests of US imperialism. In the case of Latin America, for instance, both parties and both candidates want to overthrow the governments in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries. As you know, Venezuela is holding presidential elections later this year. What are your thoughts on the Bolivarian Revolution, President Hugo Chavez, and on Venezuela’s struggle to build a “Socialism of the 21st Century”? The importance of the Bolivarian Revolution and the leadership of President Hugo Chavez in particular cannot be overstated. This revolution not only brings hope to the poor and the dispossessed within Venezuela, but has become a magnet for progressive change throughout the rest of the continent. The strategic relationship between Venezuela and Cuba has provided an invaluable counterweight to the designs of Yankee imperialism, which seeks to use economic methods but not economic methods alone to subvert and strangle the Cuban Revolution. The revolutionary process has its own unique national particularities. This progressive government, with socialist aspirations and a socialist perspective, came to office through an electoral victory and h a s been maintained by the expansion of grassroots people power, which allowed the government to win repeated electoral victories. But the government still presides over a class society and the dangers of counterrevolution lurk from within the old privileged classes in Venezuela who are organically tied to US
imperialism, which prioritizes the destruction of the Bolivarian Revolution. In Venezuela, the Chavez government has embarked on a massive campaign to reduce unemployment, end poverty, and build affordable housing. What has the Obama administration done to help working families make it through the economic crisis? While the Chavez government in Venezuela has made a priority of reducing unemployment, ending poverty and providing affordable housing, a particularly daunting task during a global economic contraction, the US government has not succeeded in any of these areas. President Obama came into office in January 2009 as a candidate of change. He was not a Republican. He was not George W. Bush. His election was made possible, at least in part, by a massive movement of African American people, the unions, young people and others who considered themselves progressive. But looking back at the first three years of his administration, we can say, based on factual evidence, that there is more unemployment, more poverty and less affordable housing than when he took office.
Now, the inability of the Obama administration to succeed in ending unemployment, poverty and homelessness is not the failing of an individual or even an entire administration, it is primarily the function of the capitalist system, which puts a priority on corporate and banking profit, and does not provide basic guaranteed rights to the people in social questions. What are your thoughts on the struggle for social and economic justice in the Americas - both North and South? The struggle for social and economic justice has revived within the United States. The Occupy Movement, despite any organizational contradictions, is a true indicator of the desires of the masses of people for
far-reaching change. To reverse the path of growing income inequality, which is so obscene and grotesque in the United States, and to provide working families with that which they need to survive, millions of Americans were excited about this movement and wanted it to succeed. The Answer Coalition, in addition to playing a major role in the US anti-war and antiimperialist movement, is also a vital force within the Occupy Movement. When the Occupy Movement sprang up, it spread all over the world. We live in a new era where that which happens in one country, either good or bad, can become a contagion and dynamically influence the politics of many countries, and perhaps the entire world. The US people, when they played a vanguard role in the struggle for civil rights or against the war in Vietnam, were recognized as an important force in the global movement for social justice and equality. Likewise, the people of Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution and the other great social movements that are sweeping the continent, are shaping the political consciousness, ideology and world outlook of people in the United States. By fearlessly raising the banner of people’s power and socialist in the 21st century, the people of Venezuela are recognized as a source of inspiration for all people in all countries.
NoÊ£änÊU Friday, May 11, 2012
The artillery of ideas T/ Dan Kovalik P/ Agencies
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n mid-April, the Summit of the Americas was held in Cartagena, Colombia. Of course, the Summit will be most remembered for the scandal of the US Secret Service who were there to prepare the way for the visit by President Obama, but who were more interested in bedding down prostitutes and then refusing to pay. However, two important, and equally disturbing, developments also came out of the summit: (1) President Obama announced that the US would be implementing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia this month; and (2) Obama announced that the US would be sending US brigade commanders to advise the Colombian military and police in their counter-insurgency campaign. While the former announcement was widely publicized, the latter was not -- this, despite the fact that both policies are closely related. The FTA is designed to open Colombia up for greater exploitation and penetration by multi-national corporations, particularly by those in the extractive industries such as oil, coal, ethanol (from palm oil), gold and other precious metals. In the past 10 years, 40 percent of all Colombian land has been “awarded or solicited by mining and crude oil companies”. According to a Peace Brigades International (PBI) report, of the 114 million hectares of Colombia’s extensive and prosperous territory, more than 8.4 million have been licensed for mineral deposit exploration and more than 37 million hectares are licensed for crude oil exploration. Moreover, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development more than 5.8 million hectares of land were licensed for mining non-renewable resources in 2010. Colombia is indeed a resource-rich country, with a rich supply of gold, emeralds, silver, platinum, nickel and copper; the “largest coal reserves in all of Latin America”; and oil production comparable to that of neighboring Venezuela and surpassing that of Egypt. However, the price for extracting these valuable resources in Colombia
Analysis | 7 |
Colombia: The empire strikes back
is enormous, with millions of Colombians literally paying for this extraction with their lives, lands and homes. Thus, as PBI relates, “80 percent of the human rights abuses in Colombia in the last ten years were committed in mining and energyproducing regions, and 87 percent of Colombia’s displaced population originate from these places”. Such displacement is unprecedented in the world, with Colombia now possessing the largest internally displaced population on earth at over 5 million (out of a population of around 45 million). In other words, as a direct consequence of the mining efforts taking place in Colombia, over 10 percent of the Colombian population is now internally displaced -- a quite staggering figure. Since 2000, the US has supplied around $8 billion in military aid to Colombia, making Colombia one of the largest recipients of military aid in the world. Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, President Obama is upping the ante, announcing at the Summit of the Americas that the US would
be sending “US brigade commanders with hands-on counterinsurgency experience in Afghanistan and Iraq to spend two weeks with Colombian army and police units being deployed in rebel strongholds” to help subdue those areas. These commanders are in addition to the already 250 US military personnel in Colombia - a figure which, as the Wall Street Journal explains, does not include the CIA and DEA operatives in that country. While the US and Colombia already have “set up about five Joint Task Forces in areas where the FARC” are most active, the goal is to create seven such task forces. Moreover, while The Wall Street Journal claims that the US is merely considering Colombia’s request for drones to help in the counter-insurgency efforts, other sources, including The Washington Post has reported that the US has been supplying Colombia with drones since 2006, though the US continues to take pains to keep this under the radar screen. And, though the US claims it is helping the Colombian mili-
tary to subdue areas to fight drugs, it is in fact clear that those areas are to be subdued for exploitation by multinational corporations in the extractive industries. Not surprisingly, then, the US commanders will be operating out of a base in Tibu, Colombia -- home to vast supplies of palm and crude oil. As an added bonus, Tibu is on the Venezuelan border, allowing the US and Colombia to intimidate Venezuela and its President, Hugo Chavez. The US assistance will include aiding Colombia with “its own version of the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command to conduct hunt-and-kill missions”, again aimed exclusively at the left-wing FARC rebels and not at the right-wing paramilitary groups which are aligned with the Colombian state and which are responsible for most of the human rights abuses in Colombia. Indeed, as Susana Pimiento and John Lindsay-Poland of the Fellowship of Reconciliation explain: US participation in such an aggressive military campaign would undercut prospective at-
tempts to negotiate a settlement of the armed conflict, which has increasing support in Colombia. The campaign which apparently does not target successor paramilitary groups, is also likely to benefit those groups which continue to commit human rights abuses, engage in drug trafficking, and operate in more than 400 municipalities in 31 Colombian states, according to a report by the Institute of Development and Peace, Indepaz. Already, the announcement of the imminent implementation of the FTA, in conjunction with the announcement of the US heightened military role in Colombia, is emboldening those forces in Colombia bent on violently repressing those who non-violently engaged in the struggle for peace, land and labor rights. As Justice for Colombia has reported, on April 26, the Colombian army assassinated a community leader named Duvier Celeita Cifuentes, an organizer with the agricultural union Sintrapaz which is calling for a peaceful settlement to the armed conflict in Colombia. On April 27, a bodyguard to Alfonso Castillo, the President of Andas (the National Association of Displaced Persons), was murdered. In addition, Martha Cecilia Guevara, a local organizer of the national peace march held in Bogota (the Patriotic March) disappeared on April 18 just as she was preparing to go to the march. Similarly, on April 18, Herman Henry Dias, a peasant organizer with Fensuagro, was killed, presumably by the Colombian military, after he had organized the Putumayo contingent to the Patriotic March. With the intensification of the US military and economic push in Colombia, we sadly can anticipate more such violence against peaceful actors in Colombia in order to make Colombian land secure for massive appropriation and exploitation. It is such violence and loss of life which is the true cost of US intervention in Colombia. Indeed, the Secret Service scandal has become an apt metaphor for US involvement in Colombia and the rest of Latin America, for the US continues do to all of Latin America what the Secret Service did to those women in Cartagena.
Friday | May 11, 2012 | Nº 108 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
ENGLISH EDITION The artillery of ideas
A publication of the Fundacion Correo del OrinocoÊUÊ ` Ì À ivÊEva GolingerÊUÊ À>« VÊ ià } ÊArisabel Yaya SilvaÊUÊ*ÀiÃÃÊFundación Imprenta de la Cultura
Judge and be judged
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fter 12 years in office, Chavez remains overwhelmingly favored for reelection in October. Given the alternative, most Venezuelans have a clear choice. In this timely piece translated by Correo del Orinoco, acclaimed author and intellectual Luis Britto Garcia provides a critical look at international attempts to discredit the Venezuelan judiciary. Britto Garcia, who was recently invited to join the country’s Council of State by President Hugo Chavez, is an advocate of Venezuela’s withdrawal from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Iachr) which he asserts “serve only to legitimize imperial actions”. THE REPETITIVE SCRIPT Comedies don’t exist without pre-written scripts. It’s quite rare to find a brilliant improviser – and the mediocre man doesn’t go much further than the autocue and teleprompter. In the great farce that has been set up by the opposition, used to condemn Venezuela within international courts, the scripts have also been written, with their snares and all. Such was the case on September 25, 2009, in direct violation of the American Convention’s Article 46 (which prohibits the consideration of cases which have yet to be resolved by a country’s internal judicial mechanisms), when the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (Iachr) formally accepted a complaint by Allan Brewer Carias. To justify this gross violation of its own statutes, the Iachr recommended that Venezuela “take measures to ensure the independence of the judiciary, making reforms that would serve to strengthen the procedures for naming and removing both judges and prosecutors, thus ensuring stability in their positions and eliminating the provisional situation in which the vast majority of judges and prosecutors find themselves, with the overall
that makes it. And in the case of Aponte Aponte, it’s worth less than nothing. A judge flees the country, in his own words, “to clear out”, or in other words, so as to avoid being charged with crimes he committed. He admits to having issued a military identification card to known drug trafficker Walid Makled. He also admits to manipulating decisions while serving as President of the TSJ Criminal Division “when there was money on a certain side of things. What happens is that I was asked favors and I carried them out”. When asked if he had supported the removal of judges who didn’t consent to such conduct he responds, “yes, I did”. Asked if he ever made decisions that favored drug trafficking, he confesses “only in one case that I can think of at this time”. He alleges that Venezuela’s current National Anti-Drug Office (ONA) Director supports drug trafficking, but when it comes to evidence, says “I don’t have it with me, right now”. He warns that he will soon write his “memoirs”. objective being to guarantee judicial protection established in the (American) Convention”. In other words, the Venezuelan judiciary would not be independent but instead be replaced by the Inter-American Commission and its Court. Editor’s Note: Article 46a of the American Convention on Human Rights stipulates “that the remedies under domestic law have been pursued and exhausted in accordance with generally recognized principles of international law” before any case by considered by the Iachr. Is it then just a casual coincidence that the opposition’s Diego Arria repeated a “special mention to the judicial branch, which now stands on bended knees when facing the Head of State (Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez) and Government, as has been certified by recog-
nized organizations dedicated to defending Human Rights” when he submitted his November 21, 2011 complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague. That same day, following the poorly-rehearsed script, Arria also affirmed to (right-wing Venezuelan journalist) Roberto Giusti, “even the Criminal Division of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) Court has elaborated legislation by which drug trafficking is considered a crime against humanity”. Diego Arria, both a lawyer and a “thinking being”, should know that the TSJ does not write “legislation” but instead issues sentences. It would appear that some blind-eyed undergrad of the School of Law writes up the opposition’s allegations while pre-candidates and international courts repeat them with any indication of reflective thought.
APONTE APONTE Given all of the aforementioned, it also doesn’t seem to be mere coincidence that Eladio Aponte Aponte, the Venezuelan judge who fled the country so as to avoid charges of criminal misconduct, repeated similar claims on US television network Soitv last month: “The judiciary gives autonomy where none exists, that is, it acts like an independent branch – and this is a fallacy”. Asked about the independence of the different branches of government in Venezuela, he had it memorized: “I don’t think there’s that much independence”. His declarations fit like a glove for the international entities affirming that our tribunals aren’t autonomous, the same international players who feel they should draw up sentences against us. A statement, or testimony, is worth as much as the witness
GRANTING THE GAVEL These are confession that would merit a lengthy conviction if presented in a Venezuelan court. But in a US or international court, where testimonies are purchased like stocks in the market, his confessions are to be awarded with immunity, impunity, and protection from extradition. What are we doing submitting ourselves to courts that the United States does not submit itself to and which serve only to legitimize imperial actions? And what are we doing systematically granting power to unpatriotic, delinquent defectors who lack ideology, works, and/or trajectories? The fault is not of the judge, but of he who grants him the gavel. I Õ ÃÊ À ÌÌ Ê >ÀV >Ê ÃÊ> Ê>Ü>À` Ü }Ê 6i iâÕi > Ê>ÕÌ À]Ê« >ÞÜÀ } Ì]Ê >ÜÞiÀÊ > `ÊV ÃÌ ÌÕÌ > ÊÃV >À°