Analysis
Opinion
In Paraguay, the people resist a blow to democracy page 7
Food sovereignty in Venezuela page 8
Friday, August 17, 2012 | Nº 122 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
Free, quality Hospitals This week the Venezuelan government inaugurated two new modern and advanced medical facilities in Caracas and in the central state of Portuguesa. The hospitals are public and provide free medical care to all patients, and offer basic preventive services, as well as dental care and advanced surgical procedures. The new medical centers form part of the Chavez administration’s investment in a national health care system that provides free, quality care. page 5
ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas
Presidential campaign sweeps Venezuela’s streets
Benefits for soldiers Chavez announced increased benefits for the nation’s armed forces. page 2 Politics
A detained US citizen in Venezuela is suspected of destabilization plans. page 3
President Hugo Chavez’s reelection campaign has gained mass momentum across the nation with events this week in western regions, including the border state of Tachira, a known opposition hotbed. Chavez rallied thousands at an event in the Andes mountains, calling on voters to mobilize and work towards victory. He also accused the opposition governor of Tachira of corruption and criminal activity. Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski held smaller rallies in the western border state of Zulia. page 3
Uribe’s war
Science & Technology
Venezuela to build new satellite The country’s second satellite built with Chinese technology is in preparation. page 4
Americas and Americans Festival unites the continents T/ Agencies
Impact
US Embassy sees “mercenary”
INTERNATIONAL
P/ EFE
Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe revealed this week that he had planned to invade Venezuela militarily, but had “lacked [the] time” to do it. Uribe was president of Colombia from 2002-2010, and left office on the verge of war with neighboring Venezuela. In the weeks before the end of his last term, Uribe called for international intervention in Venezuela to crush an alleged “terrorist threat”. “We had new proof of [Colombian] guerrilla camps in Venezuela. We had three options; denounce them, stay quiet or a military operation in Venezuela, for which I lacked the time”, said Uribe. Venezuela has denied ties to Colombian guerrilla’s and reiterated that no refuge for terrorists has been provided. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez responded to Uribe on Tuesday, saying it wasn’t time he lacked, it was “cojones”.
This week Gustavo Dudamel, the famous Venezuelan conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is directing his second Americas and Americans festival featuring artists from across the Western Hemisphere, a project he says is designed “to show that our music, our culture, is one”. The festival, which debuted in 2010 at Walt Disney Hall and is now being held at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, kicks off Tuesday with a concert by Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic with Juan Luis Guerra, a popular singer-songwriter from the Dominican Republic. The series continues Wednesday with performances by Latin jazz legends Ruben Blades and Eddie Palmieri along with his Salsa Orchestra. On Thursday, Dudamel and LA Phil will perform classical music by the US composer Aaron Copland and his student Alberto Ginastera of Argentina. They will be joined by a featured soloist, the young Venezuelan pianist Sergio Tiempo. The Colombian pop star Juanes takes the stage Friday and Saturday along with Thomas Wilkins of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and the series concludes Sunday with Dudamel and the Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo. Audiences are likely to be thrilled by the variety of the festival and the enthusiasm of Dudamel, who sees the program as reflecting the unity of North and South America. Dudamel said: “American classical music is inspired from one main thing: the landscape, the people, the culture, the folklore of the countries. And that is a beautiful connection”.
2 Impact | . s Friday, August 17, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela increases benefits for soldiers T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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n celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of Venezuela’s National Guard, President Hugo Chavez announced last Friday the creation of a new social program directed at increasing benefits for members of the country’s armed forces. The initiative, tentatively entitled Mission Soldier, will raise salaries for all those working in the Venezuelan military, regardless of rank, and will prioritize the housing needs of the members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB). “One of the objectives of Mission Soldier is to ensure by 2014 there is not a single military professional that doesn’t have his or her own home. We’re going to achieve this in 2 and a half years”, the Commander in Chief of the nation’s armed forces said during an act held at Tiuna Fort in Caracas. While the new program is still in development, Chavez commented that the mission will boost “social security, housing,
salaries, loans, special attention, equipment, infrastructure and education” for the GNB’s personnel. The announcement came as Chavez was decorated with the honor of the GNB Cross in the First Degree for his service to the country and his devotion to the nation’s armed forces. The medal was bestowed by Major General Juan Francisco Romero, head of the national guard and Defense Minister Henry Rangel Silva. The Venezuelan President accepted the prestigious distinction and took advantage
of the opportunity to encourage military youth to continue strengthening national sovereignty and fighting to protect the country. “I want us to continue strengthening our spirit as soldiers and I want us to feel proud to be soldiers, to wear the uniform, carry our flags... and do our job with the humbleness of this great system which is the National Bolivarian Armed Forces”, he said to the nearly three thousand members of the GNB assembled before him. “Count on me just as I know that I can count on you to con-
tinue guaranteeing national independence and socialism. Until victory, always”, he added.
CHANGING ROLE OF THE MILITARY As a former lieutenant colonel and firm backer of the nation’s armed forces, Chavez has made it a point to transform the Venezuelan military from a previously repressive institution into one geared towards promoting the development of the South American nation. “We used to be a repressive corp. The horrible phenomenon of corruption had infiltrated our ranks and we need to continue battling against this disease”, the head of state recalled on Friday. To this end, Chavez has increased the role that the GNB plays in civil affairs including employing soldiers and military professionals in the implementation of various social benefit initiatives such as the Mercal subsidized food program. Chavez has also led a movement to transform the expansive military complex of Fort Tiuna in western Caracas into a residential area as part of his government’s bid to construct 3 million new homes in the country by 2019. Under the auspices of the program Mission Housing Venezuela, President Chavez highlighted last week his plan to build 30 thousand homes in the complex to benefit some 150,000 people.
The houses are being built with the collaboration of Chinese, Belarusian and Russian firms and are intended to provide dignified homes to disadvantaged families from nearby shantytowns. “This is to benefit those most in need who are having a difficult time finding a home on the capitalist market”, Chavez said. The idea to put the underutilized terrain of Fort Tiuna to use for the needs of local residents was first proposed after heavy rains at the end of 2010 led to the displacement of tens of thousands and the death of more than a dozen people. After the tragedy, Chavez resolved that the only way to avoid such disasters in the future would be to provide the inhabitants of the precariously built shanties that skirt the capital with well constructed, subsidized homes. As part of the Fort Tiuna initiative, Chavez also informed that a portion of the residences would be directed towards the military personnel of the GNB which “is growing every day”. In terms of the costs to Venezuelan homebuyers, government subsidies will be provided to families based on their income, he affirmed. “The subsidy can be as high as 100 percent without a down payment. This is only possible in socialism with a humanistic government. This is the path to construct a fair nation in conditions of equality”, Chavez said.
ON ALERT FOR ELECTIONS During his address on Friday, the two-time incumbent also spoke of the need to be on alert for opposition plans to destabilize the country in the weeks leading up to and after October 7’s presidential contest. “There are moments, just like in this electoral process, where if it were not for the violent, fascist, and anti-democratic character of the opposition, there would be no threat of danger”, he said. But given the Venezuelan opposition’s history of coup-plotting, foreign financing, and relentless accusations against the democratic process inside the country, Chavez made a point for the nation’s military to be on guard for potential attacks from conservative elites. The socialist candidate called on the armed forces to be on guard “for any kind of unwillingness to recognize [the will of the people]. If [the opposition] tries anything, they’re going to crash against the wall of our national dignity”, he said.
. s Friday, August 17, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Chavez calls on voters to mobilize, highlights economic potential of Andes
T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
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enezuelan presidential candidate Hugo Chavez took his campaign message to the Andean state of Tachira last weekend where he encouraged citizens to work ardently for victory in the nation’s coming elections on October 7. Thousands of red clad backers of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) gathered in the state capital of San Cristobal to demonstrate their support for the leftist candidate and commit their efforts to getting out the vote on election day. Chavez challenged his party activists to mobilize a record number of voters and to take the western state by a margin of 60 percent. “The most important thing is that you are committed to getting the 60 percent in October... In order to do this, we need to work very hard on our organization, unity, mobilization, and logistics. We know very well what needs to be done on all levels and we have to be attentive because the opposition is showing signs of desperation in recent weeks”, he declared.
The state of Tachira has become a conservative stronghold in Venezuela over the years, and is considered to be a major bastion of the country’s right-wing. Representing the OPEC nation’s most important border zone with neighboring Colombia, the expansive territory
has for years acted as a conduit for paramilitaries, smugglers and narco-traffickers seeking entrance to Venezuela. On Saturday, Chavez called for reflection from his supporters, admitting, “the socialist movement has not been able to consolidate itself in Tachira”.
“The blame is not with the people. The blame lies with us, the political leaders who have not been able to develop a real strategy”, he said. While an electoral victory in the western state may prove to be a difficult task, Chavez called attention during his address to the failures of the
US “mercenary” detained in Venezuela, sees US officials T/ Reuters & COI
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S Embassy officials on Wednesday visited a US citizen jailed in Venezuela whom President Hugo Chavez suspects of being a “mercenary” sent to join a plot against him, the US Embassy said. “We have been granted consular access to a detainee. We were just told this morning ‘he is ready to see you now’,” an Embassy official told Reuters. Implying a US-backed, antigovernment plot was afoot less than two months before a presidential election, Chavez an-
nounced the detention last week, saying a US citizen of Hispanic descent had been found entering illegally from Colombia. He sought to destroy some coordinates in a notebook at the time of his arrest, and has resisted interrogation beyond identifying himself as a former US Marine, Chavez has said. The detainee’s passport had recent stamps from several countries where the US is actively engaged in conflict, including Afghanistan, Irak, Libya and Colombia. President Chavez informed Tuesday that his government would allow
the US Embassy access to the detained former marine. “We told the US government they could visit and speak with this man, that is their right. We hope to work together on this”, Chavez said. After the visit to the man, the US embassy said it could give no further details “due to privacy considerations”. “The Embassy will continue to communicate with the government of Venezuela on the case and seek further access when appropriate”, it said. Though there have been constant flare-ups between Wash-
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state’s current governor, Cesar Perez Vivas, and his inability to implement the rule of law, improve services or provide security for residents of the entity. The PSUV candidate also accused the opposition governor of harboring ties with members of the Colombian extreme right and assisting in the illicit activity that persists in the largely lawless border areas. “Tachira is governed by a corrupt, incapable politician who cares nothing and does nothing for the people”, he declared. Yet, while security issues continue to be a problem, the head of state highlighted the commercial advantages that Tachira possesses and the possibilities of greater economic development in the state owing to Venezuela’s recent entrance as a full member of the Mercosur trade bloc. “Tachira is going to be a link between Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN)”, he stated. Additionally, Chavez made an appeal to Venezuela’s middle and upper classes, encouraging the better-off sectors of the nation to join the ranks of the socialist revolution spearheaded by the leftist leader. “The opposition is heading towards hatred and violence. We represent love, the guarantee of peace and stability. It is for this reason that I’m saying to the people of Tachira, the people of Venezuela, the Venezuelan middle class and the wealthy who don’t like me that it is in your best interest for Chavez to win next October 7”, he affirmed.
ington and Caracas since the ferociously “anti-imperialist” Chavez took power in 1999, the latest incident is not mushrooming into a major dispute, even though Chavez said the man was probably a “mercenary” linked to alleged opposition destabilization plans. Privately, Western diplomats in Caracas say the roots of the incident were probably in neighboring Colombia, not Venezuela, with the US ex military officer apparently fleeing some sort of problem there. US President Barack Obama, seeking re-election in November, has kept a low-profile line on Venezuela this year despite calls from his rival, Mitt Romney, to take a tougher stance against Washington’s fiercest critic in the region.
4 Science and Technology | . s Friday, August 17, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela takes to the skies
T/ Paul Dobson P/ Presidential Press
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his week Mariano Imber, Director of the Bolivarian Agency for Aerospace Activities, announced details regarding the upcoming launch of the second Venezuelan satellite, planned for the end of September. “We are on the road to launch activation, all the tests that have been done have shown no technical inconvenience from the point of technological verification, from electronic equipment”, Imber stated. Its launch follows the project VENESAT-1, or Satellite Simon Bolivar, which has been successfully orbiting at 35,784,04 km of altitude since Oct 2008, and is a purely telecommunications satellite. The second satellite is named Miranda, after Francisco de Miranda, the great 19th century Caracas-born revolutionary who, like Bolivar, was influential in the fight for independence of Venezuela from Spanish colonialism. It is an observational satellite, to be used for ecological, environmental, planning, military, and defense purposes. The satellite Simon Bolivar, the first Venezuelan satellite in history, cost $406 million, and was launched to develop the quality and range of telecommunications services such as internet, TV, radio, and phone coverage. The new satellite Miranda is the next step on the road to technological and scientific independence, aimed at social development, which Chavez is encouraging. The Venezuelan President explained, “when we talk of science and technology, we talk of an instrument for the development of the country”.
The satellite Miranda will carry optical equipment to take high resolution images of the national territory and maritime zones. This information will be used for a wide variety of purposes, including the analysis of the effects of climate change and the impact of natural disasters, for urban and rural development and planning, and alongside social missions such as Mission Housing, which builds new settlements and dignified subsidized housing. Jorge Arreaza, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, explained, “[the satellite] will help us have a clear inventory of the natural resources which we have, about the biodiversity that we have in our country, and to have access to the information for the planning of public policies and themes of national interest”. The new satellite, which will also be used to modernize the military defense of the Venezuela, comes at a time of heightened international militarization by the US. Apart from increased intervention in the Middle East, the US military has been using its bases in the Caribbean and Colombia to fly observational drones close to Venezuelan national territory, and the republican candidate for the US presidency, Mitt Romney, described Venezuela as a “national threat”. The satellite Miranda will orbit at a lower altitude than Bolivar, and has an expected working life until 2018, while Bolivar expects to remain in the skies
until 2024. Miranda has an estimated cost of $140 million. Imber went on to state that Venezuela is not far off building its own satellite launch pad, with terrain in the central Venezuelan state of Guarico already being assessed as a possible location.
In contrast to large scale public works conducted during previous governments, the aerospace project is conducted under the terms of ‘technological transfer’, which allows Venezuelans to manage and learn from such projects, using foreign expertise to initiate the projects, but including all necessary training to Venezuelans to continue and replicate them, eliminating the need for modernization or maintenance work to be outsourced to foreign firms. Both satellites are constructed and launched from China, and the technological training of the Venezuelan aeronautical engineers was conducted in the Chi-
nese Academia of Aerospace Technology, with the support from the Aeronautical and Astronautical University of Beijing, and the Chinese Centre of General Control for the Launching and Follow up of Satellites. Both satellites will be controlled by Venezuelan engineers from the Ground Station in Guarico State. Satellites Bolivar and Miranda are intended to be used for public benefits. Minister Arreaza stated that “investment in technology is precisely to strengthen the social investment for the people, with these satellites, it is really social investment”. The Bolivar satellite has allowed programs entitled ‘telemedicine’ and ‘teleeducation’ to be set up, which integrate electronically outlying and isolated communities, such as those in the Amazon basin, into the national health and education network. These are communities where it is almost impossible to transport construction materials to develop infrastructure, nor fiber optic cables to allow electronic integration. Telemedicine has allowed medical appointments to be conducted using telecommunications and for test results such as X Rays to be sent electronically. It has also allowed for video conferences to facilitate greater South American integration and consultation with specialists, training of medical staff through the internet, and access to an electronic pharmaceutical database. Tele-education includes similar training programs, and connects 596 free internet infocenters across the country. In the Andean village of Los Nevados, 5 hours dirt track outside Mérida and at 8,800 feet high, the satellite Bolivar now allows its residents to enjoy mobile and landline phone coverage, cable TV, and even broadband internet, as well as use tele-training to develop their school and community hospital, facilities, which were impossible to develop before its launch. The opposition have criticized the satellites as an economic overindulgence, and have even falsely accused the government of using them to spy on citizens. Opposition presidential candidate Capriles Radonski sardonically asked: “Is it from space that this government is going to solve the problems in the country? Here we have two positions, one that wants to govern from space and the other that wants to govern here in the streets of Venezuela”. He went on to show his lack of understanding of the objectives of the aerospace project by saying: “Do the problems faced by our people get resolved by putting a satellite in space? Can they, from space, eliminate violence?” The new satellite will strengthen the technological independence of Venezuela within South America, Mercosur and ALBA, and reduce their need to depend on US corporate technology to meet the needs of their population and nurture the wealth of local talent and innovation.
. s Friday, August 17, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Caracas residents celebrate launching of new “5 star” hospital
ed funds and have cut back on services. “[The original Perez de Leon] hospital has a tremendous facade but if you go inside, you can see the real conditions that exist in this medical center. The mayor
guarantee the right of all Venezuelans to healthcare”, said Cordova. During the program, Venezuelan President Chavez also went on to inaugurate Hospital “Dr Raul Humberto de Pasquali” in the rural area of Portuguesa, opened 3 months ago after having been out of service for more than 20 years. The newly renovated hospital has a neonatal unit, a birthing room, a radiology service, a dentistry unit and a paediatrics department. Speaking live to the President from the hospital, Governor of Portuguesa, Wilmar Castro Soteldo, stated that having such a state-of-the-art hospital in the countryside would have been “unthinkable” during previous governments, when dental services were a “luxury for the middle classes”. “The Raul Humberto de Pascuali Hospital has been out of action for 20 years and it was the national government that made this huge investment and now we can see the culmination of this great work, a den-
tistry area, 5 operating rooms with high tech equipment and 310 staff, including doctors, nurses and general workers”, said Soteldo. During the inauguration of both hospitals, Chavez highlighted that, prior to the Revolution, hospitals had been “packed” with patients due to a lack of primary healthcare facilities. “Before, the country only had 7,400 outpatients departments, today we have around 11,400 healthcare assistance centers, which is three times the previous amount. In terms of outpatient departments in urban areas, rehabilitation centers and high technology units, before we had only 310 and today we have 1,969, that’s almost a 630% increase”, said Chavez, adding that his administration had also presided over an 11% increase in public hospital construction. “The budget for health, education and social services will keep growing”, affirmed Chavez.
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OPPOSITION MISMANAGEMENT The opening of the new medical center comes in response to the lack of services provided by the municipality’s opposi-
tion mayor, Carlos Ocariz, who residents accuse of blocking pay raises for medical personnel and impeding the timely completing of infrastructure upgrades in the original Perez de Leon hospital.
Socialist councilwoman, Gloria Torres, commented earlier this week that while the national government has provided ample resources for the older hospital, local opposition politicians have divert-
Chavez opens two new hospitals T/ Rachael Boothroyd
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he Venezuelan government inaugurated two new public hospitals on Tuesday, bringing the total number of hospitals opened by the Chavez administration to three since the year began. The inaugurations were broadcast live to the public with President Chavez, who qualified the new high tech medical facilities as “true hospitals of the twenty-first century”. Hospital Ana Francisca Perez de Leon II in Petare, Miranda state, will now be at the service of approximately one million people living in the area, who will benefit from an intensive care unit, an emergency room, a surgery wing, a government pharmacy, a blood bank, a
dentistry unit and classrooms for medical students, as well as many other services. The hospital cost more than 144 million bolivars ($33 million) to build and is furnished with state of the art medical equipment from China. Giving a televised tour of the new hospital, Yadira Cordova, VP of social programs, highlighted the government’s efforts to create a free and universal healthcare system for all Venezuelans while criticizing previous governments for privatizing healthcare and depriving the poor of these rights. “This hospital is a triumph for the Revolution and the people, and is a commitment to continuing to build the national healthcare system... the new national public system which has been developed in order to
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has been eliminating health care in this district just as he eliminated the Mental Health Clinic in [the neighboring area of] California”, Torres said. The representative also pointed out that public safety with respect to the facility’s perimeter has deteriorated in recent years. “The insecurity in the surroundings of the hospital has increased because the police who were stationed there were eliminated. As such, the center closes at about 9pm and they don’t receive emergencies”, she affirmed. According to government officials, the new Perez de Leon II will go a long way in filling the gap in the services that has been left by Mayor Ocariz and that have affected the access to quality health care for inhabitants of Petare. Venezuelan Health Minister Eugenia Sader has also mentioned that the construction of the hospital is part of the Venezuelan government’s massive investment in public health care that has included the hallmark free medical program Mission Barrio Adentro. The minister highlighted the fact that Petare’s new hospital is just 1 of 16 new medical facilities to be inaugurated by the Venezuelan government this year. “Everything that has to do with health is a priority for the Venezuelan state”, Sader said.
T/ COI P/ Presidential Press arking an important consolidation of public health initiatives in underprivileged areas, the much anticipated Perez de Leon II Hospital in the Caracas neighborhood of Petare was officially inaugurated on Tuesday. Dr. Zaira Medina, the director of the new facility, described the government’s latest health center on Tuesday as a “5 star” hospital comprised of 3 floors and outfitted with 130 beds. The hospital’s rooms, Medina told the press, will be furnished with cable TV and wi-fi internet connections for the city’s patients who will be charged nothing for the center’s services. “Our priority is the quality of services and the comfort of the patient”, the doctor affirmed earlier this week. The opening of the Perez de Leon II health care facility represents a major advancement for the residents of the populous and economically impoverished district of Petare, which is home to one of Latin America’s largest shantytowns. Medina reported that the high technology employed in the facility has been secured through international agreements that the Chavez administration has signed with Cuba and China, making the hospital one of the most innovative in Venezuela. This includes four operating rooms, one of them robotic, and advanced diagnostic equipment that will provide the highest level of cost-free services to the citizens of surrounding areas. “[Perez de Leon II] is finished, equipped and in its test phase, providing services such as general medicine, surgery, dentistry, and laboratory functions. It’s a tremendous hospital”, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez said of the medical center at a campaign rally at the end of July.
| Social Justice
6 Politics | . s Friday, August 17, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Opposition lawmaker makes Miami headlines
T/ COI P/ Agencies
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n another attempt to discredit Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, one of the country’s most reactionary right-wing lawmakers recently issued a set of “warnings” that her country is allegedly developing a massive “guerrilla army” to fight against the United States. Published in Miami’s El Nuevo Herald, Venezuelan opposition politician Maria Corina Machado claimed a so-called “Plan Sucre” intends to train several million “militiamen” by 2019. While she failed to provide any evidence, Machado did succeed in catching international media attention just weeks before presidential elections that will most likely secure President Chavez another six years in office (2013-2019). Known largely for her defense of Thatcher-esque “popular capitalism”, a failed attempt to revoke President Chavez’s mandate in 2004, and her open support of the short-lived 2002 coup against Chavez, Maria Corina Machado told El Nuevo Herald of a “secretive plan” she warned will be implemented if Chavez wins this year’s presidential election. First published by the Miami-based paper on Friday, the story was also picked up by Agence France Presse (APF), England’s The Telegraph, Radio Netherlands,
and France 24, amongst other press services. According to the anti-Chavez lawmaker, who claimed an “unnamed” military official provided her a hard copy of the “secret plan”, an electoral victory for President Chavez this coming October 7 will result in the implementation of what she called “Plan Sucre”, or in her words, the “transformation” of Venezuela’s “professional army into a guerrilla army”. Though she didn’t make a copy of the plan available, Machado went on to affirm that “the strategic objective (of Plan Sucre) is to build a new Bolivarian Military Doctrine aimed at successfully implementing a prolonged popular war” against the United States if and when the US invades Venezuela. “Clearly”, she said, “this is a proposal with Cuban inspiration and advice”. Machado warned the plan calls for “strengthening the territorial militias in order to ensure the necessary strength for the overall defense of the nation, targeting recruitment levels of one million by 2013 and two million by 2019”. According to El Nuevo Herald, “the initiative also implies the training and indoctrination of civilians in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution” and “is now part of the Development Plan of the National Armed Forces of Venezuela, an unpublished doc-
ument signed by Chavez and sent to his most loyal followers within the Armed Forces”. El Nuevo Herald went on to cite Profesor Luis Fleischman, of Florida Atlantic University, who affirmed that President “Chavez has been unable to generate the sufficient coercive power he needs to finish his ‘project’”. Leaving said “project” undefined, Fleischman added that the Bolivarian Militia “is the radical change Chavez needs to consolidate his power”.
CHARACTERS IN CONTEXT Understanding the sources of baseless attacks on Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and socialist President Hugo Chavez is an important part of interpreting their intentions. Machado’s background, for example, places her at the center of US-backed strategies aimed at preventing Venezuelan socialism from advancing. With respect to El Nuevo Herald, a brief glance at their headlines demonstrates a clear intent to demonize the numerous democratic transformations underway in Venezuela. Regarding Maria Corina Machado, who represents herself as an “advocate of democracy”, a piece written in 2006 by then Council on Hemispheric Affiars (COHA) Director Larry Birns noted that “claims by Sumate’s leadership of their ideological impartiality and
autonomy from foreign influence are laughed off the stage when one considers that (Maria Corina) Machado, a founding member of the organization and a lethal Chavez foe, met for 50 minutes last May (2005) with President Bush in the Oval Office – an honor that, as of yet, has not been extended to Venezuela’s democratically-elected president or to many domestic NGOs”. “Such cordiality regarding Machado”, he added, “was based on a harmonious special view of the world and a shared odium for leftist values, between the US president and Venezuela’s Madam Defarge, aka Maria Corina Machado”. According to Birns, Machado “didn’t just happen to be accidentally present, as she claims, when the backers of the failed 2002 anti-Chávez coup joined Machado in signing their names on the coup decree, and proceeded to shut down the country’s basic institutions, like the Supreme Court and the legislature, while elsewhere Chavez was being physically seized”. Online analysis website Axis of Logic also pointed out that when Maria Corina Machado “was president of Sumate, Eva Golinger discovered through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that the organization received millions of US dollars from Washington-based Na-
tional Endowment for Democracy (NED) to fund the Venezuelan opposition”. “In February 2010”, Axis of Logic wrote, “Machado resigned from Sumate and won election as a Justice First Party candidate to the National Assembly in Chacao, one of the strongest opposition electoral districts in Caracas”. The opposition’s 2012 presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, is a leading member of the Justice First Party. With respect to El Nuevo Herald, it’s worth noting that the author behind last week’s article, “Chavez Prepares ‘In Secret’ for US Invasion” (August 10, 2012), is Antonio Maria Delgado, an anti-Chavez critic tasked with producing headline after headline of anti-Venezuela propaganda. Apart from last week’s article, other Delgado pieces include “Two of Every Three Venezuelans Live in Fear, According to Polls” (August 14, 2012), ”Iran Has Its Private Port in Venezuela” (June 25, 2012), and “Chavez Cedes Control of Oil to China” (September 9, 2011), to cite just a few. In every one of these cases, Delgado based his articles solely on sources openly hostile to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, failing to provide evidence or at least some degree of balance to his pieces.
. s Friday, August 17, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Social movements mobilize for democracy
In the shadow of Paraguay’s coup T/ Benjamin Dangl P/ Agencies
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ain or shine, every Thursday in Asuncion, Paraguay, activists gather to protest the right-wing government of Federico Franco which came to power in a June 22 parliamentary coup against left-leaning president Fernando Lugo. These weekly protests represent a new spirit and strategy of protest in postcoup Paraguay. The coup gave birth to new corporate agreements, repression of citizens’ rights and crackdowns on press freedoms. It also unwittingly created a new panorama of leftist social struggles and movements. These movements for democracy have risen up against the coup government and the renewed state and corporate assaults on human rights, the environment and small farmers. Some activists are protesting politically-motivated layoffs, while others are demanding a new constitution. Beyond questioning the Franco government, these movements are putting forth a progressive agenda in the debate about what kind of country Paraguayans want, regardless of who is in power.
COLLECTIVE RESISTANCE “What we are seeing are self-organized protests that are organized collectively”, Gabriela Schvartzman Muñoz, the spokeswoman for Movimiento Kuña Pyrenda, a socialist and feminist political movement which organizes the Thursday protests in the capital, explained in a phone interview from Asuncion. This more collectively-organized form of mobilization is a relatively new phenomenon in Paraguayan social movements, and has marked the new protests for democracy in the country. “Before it was the president of the union that organized people for a strike, or a campesino [small farmer] leader marching ahead of a mobilization. Now we don’t see this kind of traditional leadership”, Muñoz explained. “Behind these citizens’ marches, there is no political leader, there is no
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ment’s politically-motivated firing of state employees in a wide range of agencies, ministries, hydroelectric plants and public media outlets. The workers say they are being dismissed for their support for Lugo, or their leftist political beliefs. The fact that this purging of public employees is being committed by an administration that was not democratically-elected has further incensed workers and their supporters.
OUT OF THE DICTATOR’S SHADOW
leader of an organization; these are more spontaneous mobilizations”. Such protests involve “the participation of people who were invisible before, and are now protagonists”. The resistance to the coup is dispersed around the country and typically involves small urban protests (largely in Asuncion) that have utilized colorful marches, art, theater, music, and poetry as expressions of resistance. Notably, youth have led much of the organizing in this movement, and social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter have played a key role in bringing people together against the coup government. “This [urban movement] represents a fresh breeze within the weak and demobilized social sector”, Paraguayan human rights lawyer Orlando Castillo explained to me in an interview. “Paraguay is now in a very interesting period, where a new range of possibilities could strengthen social processes”. Outside the nation’s landlocked borders, the waves of Paraguayan migrants whose numbers have skyrocketed in the last eight years are also mobilizing against Franco’s coup. Castillo said, “These people have organized to make the resistance global. Outside of the country, this is the international face against the coup”.
A FIGHT FOR SOVEREIGNTY Nationally, the Franco government has not improved the outlook for much of the impoverished country’s working class. “The social situation has basically remained the same [since the coup]: poverty and extreme poverty affect nearly 57% of the population”, Raul Zacarias Fernandez, a sociologist and Director of the Department of Social Sciences at the Universidad Católica de Paraguay said in Revista Debate. According to the sociologist, those in the landless movement fighting for their own land “are reorganizing and preparing for occupations”. Meanwhile, Franco has not met with a single social, urban or campesino organization since taking office. Instead, according to his official agenda, he has focused on meetings with business leaders. In the short time that he has been in office, Franco has fast-tracked controversial deals with Monsanto and the Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) mining company, deals which critics charge will threaten human and environmental rights, and the economic sovereignty of the nation. These moves have motivated numerous protests and debates around the country. Speaking of the deal with RTA and Monsanto, Paraguayan economist Luis Rojas told
IPS News that “It’s worrisome that a government that was not elected by popular vote is bringing in these foreign investments without any kind of control”. In the case of deals with both companies, Franco is moving ahead without studies that are typically required for such agreements. On July 30th, the “No to Rio Tinto Alcan’s Coup” campaign was launched by ex-president Lugo, and Ricardo Canese, an engineer and leader of the Guasu Front social organization. They are seeking to prevent the company from arriving in the country, and are working on gathering 100,000 signatures against the RTA deal, which they said paved the way for the coup. In response to the deal the Franco government recently struck with Monsanto supporting genetically-altered cotton seeds, campesino leader Jorge Galeano told the AP that the use of this seed “goes against the economy of small farmers” and will utilize agro-chemicals that only benefit large-scale production. “This is a commercial condition that violates the concept of our fight for Paraguay’s agricultural sovereignty”, Galeano said. A number of protests and strikes have also been organized by workers and unions to denounce the Franco govern-
Much of these recent political and social changes can be traced to the shadow of the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989), which still hangs over the nation. After the fall of the dictatorship in 1989, many of the same politicians from the regime simply re-entered politics with new roles, Castillo said. “While the dictatorship left, the system of power remained intact”. And this power structure – feudal, repressive, elitist and conservative – continues to define Paraguayan politics today. “What the coup has succeeded in doing is basically re-positioning the political actors, unmasking them, allowing rural and urban citizens to be able to distinguish between those who propose to change the status quo and those who want to maintain it”, Castillo explained. Such renewed political awareness has manifested itself in various ways. According to Muñoz, the coup proved that the 1992 constitution was worthless, as it was manipulated by politicians who used it to conduct an illegitimate parliamentary coup. “And so the people say ‘No!’ We have to begin to plant another model of democracy, another model of society, and people are already talking about organizing a national constitutional assembly where we can discuss these issues”. She said the country’s current crisis would not be solved with the presidential elections scheduled for April of 2013. The solution, according to Muñoz, would emerge when citizens can sit down to discuss their future in a constitutional assembly. “There is an urgent need now”, she said, “to develop stronger mechanisms which guarantee that the rights of the citizens are not violated… We are moving toward this, we’re discussing a new paradigm”.
Friday, August 17, 2012 | Nº 122 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
INTERNATIONAL
! PUBLICATION OF THE &UNDACION #ORREO DEL /RINOCO s Editor-in-Chief %VA 'OLINGER s Graphic Design Pablo Valduciel L. - Aimara Aguilera
Opinion
Food sovereignty in Venezuela T/ Heidi Chow - World Development Movement
A
rriving in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, the first thing you notice are the extensive swathes of mountainside covered with poorly built, crowded, ad-hoc homes – known locally as the barrios. Caracas’ shanty-town barrios were built in response to the influx of migrants from the countryside during the twentieth century. As Venezuela struck oil in the 1920s, it became easier and cheaper to use oil money to import foodstuffs and so many small farmers lost their livelihoods and poured into the capital in search of work. Years of agricultural neglect followed leaving Venezuela dangerously reliant on multinationals for their food supply and distribution. Over the last 12 years, the socialist government of Hugo Chavez has been attempting to rebuild Venezuela’s agricultural sector and has included the radical concept of food sovereignty into the country’s new constitution. Food sovereignty is a concept that originates in the global south and presents a positive alternative to our broken global food system which is dominated by the multinational food companies who grow food in a way that is unsustainable, leads to hunger and damages the environment. Food sovereignty is about valuing locally produced food and the work and knowledge of the people who produce it, reclaiming democratic control of our food system and practicing sustainable methods. Being a food campaigner for the last few years I’ve become acutely aware of the problems of the global food system: food speculation, land grabs, biofuels, supermarket domination etc. Food has been reduced to an asset class or a fuel for cars and the value of food has been sucked out by multinationals leaving producers struggling to make a decent living. My trip to Venezuela has provided me with glimpses of what could happen if food sovereignty is given prominence. Where the production of local, organic, fresh produce is prioritized and a decent living is accorded to food producers. Over the next few months we will be sharing these stories and examples in different ways but for now I just want to give an overview of food sovereignty in Venezuela through three of the people that I met on the way: Emiliano Sarmiento, a former landless farmer from Yaracuy state, proudly showed us round his farm
co-op which he and 84 families had received 10 years ago as part of the government’s land redistribution policy. His 690 hectare farm was impressive, boasting an on-site biological lab to develop agroecological organisms to control pests and an administration block. He grows white maize, avocados and has an orchard of citrus fruits as well as cattle. However, everything he showed us came at a cost. After occupying the land in 2002, the local authorities who were from the opposition party used the police to attack Emiliano and his fellow families involved in the occupation. It was only after several years of fighting and obtaining the official papers of ownership, that the attacks stopped
“Food has been reduced to an asset class or a fuel for cars and the value of food has been sucked out by multinationals leaving producers struggling to make a decent living. My trip to Venezuela has provided me with glimpses of what could happen if food sovereignty is given prominence.” and they were finally able to concentrate on building the farm. He is currently waiting for state funding to get hens to lay eggs, get a greenhouse and
open a nutritional centre. “We also want to start a school for teaching agriculture so that people can learn how to grow and feed themselves and we also eventually want to be able to process the food here ourselves”. Nerio Chavez is a fisherman in the remote coastal town of Chuao. The Venezuelan government banned industrial fishing ships three years ago. No longer having to compete with large scale trawler ships, the local fisherfolk have been able to use traditional artisan methods of fishing. This is much more sustainable, has improved local fish stocks and provided a decent living to the local fishermen. The fishermen are represented through their local community council, which is a form of participatory democracy on a local level, and through the council have been given resources such as nets, motor boats and a cool storage facility. The state are also in the process of developing a large fish centre in the next town to help with getting the fish to market. Luisa is a homemaker with four adult sons in El Valle, Caracas. She has transformed a small communal area in her urban housing estate into a growing space for lettuce, avocados, papaya and herbs. She has been supported by Ciara – a state-backed organization tasked with increasing food production in cities which has given Luisa tools and equipment and has even sent her on a course in Cuba to learn about growing food. The food is for her family but she also distributes the produce locally to her neighbors. “The food I grow is much better quality than what you can buy in the shops and completely fresh as the food doesn’t have to travel a long way. Sara [who works for Ciara] brings me the soil and seeds that I need. The course in Cuba taught me about artisan seed production and so I am starting to dry my own seeds and save seeds too for next year”. Luisa’s small plot is just one of 100 city growing spaces in the area of El Valle in Caracas. There’s still a long way to go for Venezuela. It’s got decades of agricultural neglect to reverse and only a few years of agricultural reform under its belt. There are still issues of corruption at every level, issues of rural violence in response to land reform and the battle for agroecology at a national level is still being fought. But Venezuela is a country in transition. Changing a food system involves challenging very powerful and vested interests and is not something that can be done overnight or in just a matter of years, it may take generations. The people that I met on the way are already experiencing some of the benefits of food sovereignty and we stand in solidarity with them to fight for a more sustainable and just food system.