Edition Nº 134

Analysis

Opinion

What US voters can learn from Venezuela’s election page 7

Obama’s victory: Populist appeal to swing voters page 8

Friday, November 9, 2012 | Nº 134 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve

Venezuela defends free expression Venezuela writer and intellectual Luis Britto defended the Chavez government against accusations of clamping down on press freedoms during a session held by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Iachr) in Washington last Thursday.

Britto called the continual claims of violations of freedom of expression in Venezuela as baseless and without merit, citing the fact that not a single proven case of repression has been brought before the commission. page 2

ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas

President Chavez calls for greater efficiency in government

Socialist candidates favored for regions Polls show Chavez’s party could sweep regional elections. page 3

Venezuela’s healthy economy Economic growth is on the horizon for upcoming months. page 5 Social Justice

Food sovereignty

Venezuela is now producing 80% of the nation’s food consumption. page 6

Inflation in Venezuela falls for 10th straight month T/ AVN

Politics

Economy

INTERNATIONAL

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez demanded greater efficiency, accountability and responsibility from public sector entities last Monday during a meeting with cabinet members in the presidential palace of Miraflores. “I had said that this must be our best government yet and we’re going to keep our word”, said the recently re-elected head of state. Chavez created a new government department dedicated to oversight and accountability with the goal of improving his administration’s effectiveness and compliance with policies. page 3

Highest cable car Renovations R i to the h cable bl car in Venezuela’s western city of Merida, the world’s highest and second longest cable car, have involved a total investment of $318 million by the government, according to the president of the company Ventel, Jose Gregorio Martinez.

The funds were used to build the cars, remodel the infrastructure and reposition the cable in a process that took nearly two years and employed 500 Venezuelan workers. Martinez said the work is proceeding according to schedule.

During a tour of the five stops along the route, which goes from Mérida to Venezuela’s highest mountain, Pico Bolívar, Martínez said that more than 20,000 tons of materials were brought in for the project.

The cable car will be finished by the end of this year, and will carry over half a million visitors per year, over four times more than it did previously.

Venezuela’s annualized rate of inflation based on the National Index of Consumer Prices fell to 19.9 percent for October, below the goal of 20 to 22 percent established by the government for this year.

A report by the Central Bank of Venezuela and the National Institute of Statistics states: “This annualized rate means that for the tenth consecutive month we continue to observe the drop [in inflation] that began in December of 2011 with 27.6 percent”.

It also indicates an intermonthly variation in the country’s rate of inflation of 1.7 percent for October, slightly higher than the 1.6 percent seen in September, but lower than the 1.8 percent registered for October of last year.

The accumulated variation for October is 13.4 percent, down 9 percentage points from this time last year.

Eight of the 13 sectors listed in the report had an inter-monthly variation that did not exceed the rate for September.

Services went from 0.2 percent to 0.1 percent, communications from 0.5 percent down to 0.2 percent, clothes and shoes from 0.8 percent to 0.7 percent, goods and services 0.9 percent to 0.8 percent. Transportation fell a little faster, going from 1.6 to 1.1 percent, while restaurants and hotels went from 1.9 percent to 1.1 percent, educational services from 4.4 percent to 3.5 percent, and housing rents maintained a variation of 1 percent.

On the whole, the intermonthly variation for goods increased from 1.6 percent to 2 percent in October, while the variation for services fell from 1.6 to 1.2 percent.

2 Impact | . s Friday, November 9, 2012

The artillery of ideas

ual denigration of public officials that occurs with impunity.

“In what country are there headlines of this kind? Insults, affronts, threats coming from the private media. They say that the president is a dictator, a tyrant. I repeat: In what country where there is restriction on the freedom of expression can you say this without consequences?’ Britto interrogated.

DUBIOUS LEGITIMACY

Venezuela fires back at Human Rights Commission, cites extreme press freedoms T/ COI P/ Agencies

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enezuela writer and intellectual Luis Britto defended the Chavez government against accusations of clamping down on press freedoms during a session held by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Iachr) in Washington last Thursday.

Britto called the continual claims of violations of freedom of expression in Venezuela as baseless and without merit, citing the fact that not a single proven case of repression has been brought before the commission.

“It is said that there are a quantity of violations, of detentions, but this needs to be substantiated and proved, not just merely alleged and affirmed”, Britto said.

“In all of these [accusations], what we are talking about are ghosts. There has not been mention of a concrete case... The Inter-American Commission requires that charges be substantiated, that they not be ethereal without names”, the intellectual imputed.

The hearing on Thursday was held in response to a complaint lodged by opposition NGOs who argued that the nation’s President Hugo Chavez misused his legal right to transmit messages on television and radio before the country’s October 7 elections.

The transmissions, called “cadenas”, require all public-licensed broadcast channels on national airwaves to carry presidential addresses related to the work of the government.

They are strictly prohibited from transmitting any electoral advertising or activity through this mechanism.

The cadenas have been used by the Venezuelan executive for years to fight the media blackout that has been employed against the government by the private television and radio stations that continue to make up the vast majority the country’s media landscape.

Without the use of Luis Britto the transmissions, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has said on numerous occasions, news of the government’s achievements would never reach the majority of the people.

Testifying at last week’s session, Britto pointed out that in the discussions of the government’s use of the broadcasts, there has been no reference to another type of cadena that was used by the private media during the failed 2002 coup d’etat against Chavez.

On April 12 and 13, 2002, television stations aligned with the nation’s subversive opposition refused to transmit news that the presidential palace, occupied by the perpetrators of the coup, had been surrounded by residents demanding the return of President Hugo Chavez to power.

Instead of reporting on the failing coup, the private media broadcast a series of cartoons.

Britto charged that similar conduct was employed by the opposition-led media during the three monthlong management lockout of the state oil company Pdvsa at the end of 2002 - beginning of 2003 also with the purpose of bringing down the Chavez government.

“How can you say that there is overuse of the presidential cadenas if there is a permanent cadena from the media that has proclaimed itself to be owned by private political parties?” the writer asked the commission.

Holding up examples of particularly sordid press clippings, the intellectual pointed out the vituperative nature of the media in Venezuela and the contin-

The Iachr belongs to the Organization of American States (OAS) as does the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Last Thursday’s session was part of four plenaries held on Venezuela, two of which covered general matters, one that addressed free speech and another that dealt with the question of the nation’s penitentiary system.

Both the Iachr and the Court have been denounced on numerous occasions by the Venezuela government as having exercised double standards in its criticism of the Chavez administration.

That criticism has been extended by other leftist governments including Ecuador and Nicaragua, members of the Bolivarian Alliance of Our Americas (ALBA) bloc, who have decried the bias and partiality of the OAS in its dealings with countries who represent a challenge to the United States in the region.

Brazil, Argentina, Guatemala and Mexico have also advocated for fundamental reforms to the Iachr.

Venezuela’s official representative to the body, German Saltron, said last Thursday that the human rights institutions tied to the OAS “lack validity and applicability”, affirming that his country plans on leaving the InterAmerican Human Rights Court in the near future.

“Our country is obligated to distance itself from the current perverted conduct of the institutions belonging to the Inter-American human rights system that has repeatedly been discredited”, Saltron declared.

This does not mean that Venezuela will formally leave the Iachr as such a move would require the South American country to voluntarily break from the OAS, something that it has not publicly declared.

“We will continue to defend ourselves when you attack us because we have the historical truth on our side. That’s something that you can’t steal from us”, Saltron asserted.

Notwithstanding the barrage of denunciations, the president of the OEA Emilio Alvarez underscored the Chavez’s administration’s willingness to participate in last week’s hearings, noting the democratic nature of the government’s disposition to debate.

“We are highlighting the fact that the [Venezuelan] state has listened and has given this space for dialogue. There are themes that we do not agree on but we are open to dialogue. It seems positive to us that Venezuelan civil society has presented its arguments and so have the representatives of the state”, Alvarez said.

The artillery of ideas

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Venezuela’s Chavez calls for heightened efficiency in government, “revolutionary quality” T/ COI P/ Presidential Press

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enezuelan President Hugo Chavez demanded greater efficiency, accountability and responsibility from public sector entities last Monday during a meeting with cabinet members in the presidential palace of Miraflores.

The declarations follow on the promises of the recently re-elected head of state who pledged to curb excessive bureaucracy, poor planning and corruption in government circles while campaigning for a third six year term as President.

“I had said that this must be the best Chavez government yet and we’re going to keep our word”, the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) said during the cabinet meeting broadcast on state television.

Part of this emphasis will include random inspections of government projects in order to guarantee “revolutionary quality” in programs being financed by the executive.

“The workers of any development project, any agricultural or industrial project in any part of the country should not be surprised if [Vice President] Nicolas Maduro or another official shows up to carry out an unannounced inspection”, Chavez said.

“This is just getting started but I promise a shakeup as a result of these inspections”, the head of state assured.

To this end, the Venezuelan President made reference to a recently inaugurated ice cream factory in the state

Socialists will win majority of Venezuelan states this December, affirms pollster T/ COI

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he Director of one of Venezuela’s most trusted political polling firms, Datanalisis, reported last Sunday that he is predicting socialist victories in the majority of the country’s regional elections set for December 16.

“I begin from the premise that Chavez supporters will win the majority of the governorships in Venezuela”, said Luis Vicente Leon during an interview on the program Jose Vicente Today broadcast by the private television station Televen.

Leon commented that the opposition strategy for the coming gubernatorial contests would be to hold on to the victories it achieved during the regional elections of 2008 when the right-wing

won the states of Zulia, Miranda, Nueva Esparta, Tachira and Carabobo.

The need to maintain control over these states, especially the most populated regional entities of Zulia and Miranda, has become even more important with the robust presidential victory of Hugo Chavez on October 7.

But victory in these “crown jewels” as Leon called them, is not assured for the Venezuelan opposition.

Aware of the devastating blow that the loss of either Miranda or Zulia could inflict on the right-wing, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is running Elias Jaua, former Vice President of the country against the defeated presidential candidate and current incumbent governor of Miranda, Henrique Capriles.

of Falcon that after only two weeks of operation had ceased production.

The factory was visited by the Minister of Government Oversight, Carmen Melendez, earlier on Monday.

Melendez reported that the plant had suffered from damaged machinery,

Miranda is the second most populated state in Venezuela with a large percentage of its voters living in the territory that extends into the capital district of Caracas.

According to Leon, the opposition must win Miranda in order to sustain its image as a viable political force in Venezuela.

“If Miranda is lost, this will have a heavy impact on whomever is going to build the opposition leadership. It will be very difficult for the opposition”, the pollster said.

Key to the fight will be former Vice President Jaua’s ability to appeal to low-income voters, especially the youth, in the state’s heavily populated slums.

During a campaign rally on Sunday, Jaua made a call to young voters to visualize “another world” as did Venezuelan independence hero Francisco Miranda in the 19th century.

“This other world that is possible is socialism and I want to build it with you. I have put my faith in this and in the fact that we’re going to construct

| Politics

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lacked transportation for its employees, and was in need of basic materials.

Upon receiving the news, Chavez expressed his incredulity over how a government funded factory could celebrate an inauguration yet not have the foresight to deal with basic questions of planning in the event of complications.

The same was true of more than 200 million bolivars ($46.5 million) approved by the President for disaster relief in the state of Sucre that never reached its intended destination.

“They are going to say that Chavez didn’t keep his word, but I did. I approved the resources and we are going to carry out the necessary investigations and find out who is responsible”, he said.

Last Monday’s meeting was attended by Vice President Nicolas Maduro, Minister of Industry Ricardo Menendez, Planning Minister Jorge Giordani, Minister Melendez, and Communications Minister Ernesto Villegas.

During the session, Chavez approved a number of financing measures including the disbursement of funds to public employees to cover end-of-year bonuses, regional funding for governorships, and a number of other productive initiatives.

The recently re-elected head of state also spoke of the economic growth of his country, pointing out that Venezuela’s external debt only represents 25 percent of GDP whereas the debt of the United States is over 300 percent of the same indicator.

Chavez highlighted the fact that when he was first elected in 1998, Venezuela’s GDP was close to a mere $90 billion, a figure dwarfed by this year’s output.

“This year we are ending with $320 billion. The Venezuelan GDP has almost tripled in the past decade. This has never occurred in Venezuela”, he stated.

spaces for culture, recreation, sports and productive, economic initiatives”, the former VP said.

Oscar Schemel, President of another Venezuelan polling firm, Hinterlaces, believes that the socialists have an opportunity to not only win in Miranda but also in Zulia as well as Tachira and Carabobo. “[Chavez supporters] are coming off a strong and clear electoral triumph.

This obviously will keep enthusiasm high as well as motivation and mobilization of government backers”, Schemel said.

The Hinterlaces president also highlighted the PSUV’s current campaign messaging based on improving the efficiency of public services as a simple yet effective tool in convincing electorates to vote socialist.

“The PSUV is wielding an important campaign concept: efficiency and accountability which in a campaign as short as this (8 1/2 weeks) is key. It’s an idea that is more powerful than the candidates themselves”, he stated.

4 Politics | . s Friday, November 9, 2012

The artillery of ideas

Election figures show the momentum is back with Hugo Chavez T/ Lee Brown

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ugo Chavez was re-elected with a landslide in October winning a record number of votes having added 800,000 votes to his 2006 tally, a previous record.

Yet, some media –often the very same outlets that had predicted Chavez would lose or that it would be a very close race– have given the impression that though Hugo Chavez won, it is the Venezuelan rightwing coalition that is the political force making gains.

This impression is given by comparing the 2012 results with the previous Presidential election of 2006. Of course that’s a perfectly fine comparison to make. However, by focusing on this shift over a six-year period this approach misses the important developments within this period.

It therefore omits one of most important developments in this year’s Presidential election: after a few years of stagnating electoral support the momentum is back with Chavez. Chavez supporters are adding votes at a faster rate than the right-wing opposition.

The graph included here shows the numbers of votes won at each election since 2006 by the coalition of parties backing Hugo Chavez and

by the right-wing opposition coalition.

It shows that 2006 was a low point for the right-wing opposition coalition in Venezuela.

Since then it has increased its support at every election.

The picture for the coalition of parties supporting Hugo Chavez is more mixed, including the loss of the referendum in 2007. While Chavez’s coalition of supporters won the 2008 regional elections, subsequently the increase in its numbers of votes was initially matched

by Venezuela’s right-wing coalition and then the number of proChavez votes fell absolutely.

As a result, between 2006 and 2010 (the last election before this year’s presidential vote) the numbers of votes won by the coalition supporting Hugo Chavez fell from 7.3 million votes to 5.8 million votes, albeit that is comparing different types of elections.

Over the same period the opposition coalition increased from 4.3 million to 5.3 million votes.

Clearly then between 2006 and 2010, it was the right-wing opposition coalition that had the momentum and it was gaining ground on the Chavez coalition But in the 2012 election this has been well and truly reversed.

Progress made against violent crime and drug trade T/ Paul Dobson

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Since the last election in 2010, Hugo Chavez’s coalition of supporters have added 2.3 million votes while the rightwing coalition added only 1.2 million votes.

Or put another way, since 2010 the Chavistas have added votes at a rate of 2:1 over the right-wing coalition.

Importantly, this is the first time since 2008, that the Chavistas have added more votes than the opposition.

Moreover, in 2012 the Chavez coalition has not merely reversed the decline in the number of votes it won from 2006-2010 but has now even surpassed the 2006 levels.

That is testament to how in recent years the Hugo Chavez led government has responded to the economic crisis with a series of social programs that have stimulated the economy and addressed pressing social needs.

In contrast, in the immediate aftermath of the global economic crisis and deep recession in Venezuela, there was no stimulus and, as was the case with most governments in the world, the Chavez government’s popularity waned. The correct policies have overcome this.

So, despite the media narrative in some quarters, the 2012 elections showed one thing above all: the momentum is back with Chavez.

Momentum back with Chavez Election results since 2006 / Millions of votes

ß Chavista coalition ß Right-wing opposition ß Chavista lead

2006 7.3 4.3 3

2007 4.38 4.5 -0.12

2008 6.08 4.98 1.1

2009 6.31 5.19 1.12

2010 5.8 5.3 0.5

2012 8.1 6.5 1.6

he Chavez administration has initiated the next phase in the project to completely disarm the civilian population of Venezuela this week, with the first destruction of confiscated firearms in the Caracas sector of Catia.

In the headquarters of the National Bolivarian Police force in Catia, a whole range of firearms which had been confiscated from civilians, or which have served their purposes as evidence in closed trials, were decommissioned and destroyed in the presence the press and surrounding community.

The event was carried out in accordance with decree 4027 signed by President Chavez with the support of the security social mission A Life For All Venezuela, which was launched in June to tackle the problem of crime in the country.

Furthermore, the initiative was presided over by the Presidential Commission for Disarmament, which, answering directly to the President, is responsible for the complete disarmament of the civilian population, as a way to tackle high gun crime rates, as well as homicide and robbery rates. The Presidential Commission has used a combination of legal reforms and educational campaigns to move towards a society where only those responsible for security and crime tackling carry arms.

Luis Fernandez, National Director of the National Bolivarian Police, stated at the event that “for the first time we are going to achieve the goal of the Presidential decree regarding the destruction of firearms which are confiscated and currently kept in evidence rooms”.

The event in Caracas is the first of many. Similar acts will initially take place in those states with the highest firearm levels, where the National Bolivarian Police are concentrating their forces, before being spread to the entire national territory. There are already programs of firearm destruction planned for the states of Aragua, Carabobo, Zulia, Tachira, Lara,

and Anzoategui in the coming months.

Luis Fernandez told media that this is a positive step forward for citizen security and is a victory against gun crime and violent crime. On a similar note, Fernandez highlighted the successes of the security forces during the past month of October. He stated that nationally 42 firearms have been confiscated this month, 709 people have been detained for different crimes, of which 32 were for homicide and 85 for aggravated robbery.

Fernandez also mentioned that during the month of October, the National Bolivarian Police forces have inflicted a hard blow to the drug traffickers, by confiscating 3,600 doses of drugs. This news comes in the same week that the armed forces confiscated 1,400 kilos of pure quality cocaine in Lara state.

The cocaine, which was being transported by truck, and had presumably come from neighboring Colombia, was confiscated by the military after a counter-narcotics operation.

Newly named Interior Minister, Nester Reverol, announced that “it’s an important confiscation, made after good intelligence work, as well as vigilance and follow up work carried out by officials of the 4th Regional Command of the Armed Forces in Lara”.

During 2012, the armed forces have confiscated a total of 36,672 kilos of narcotics, in 6,317 operations carried out by them, which have resulted in 8,166 citizens being detained, of which 188 are foreigners, indicated Reverol. These figures show that due to effective policies from the Police and military in Venezuela, that it is becoming increasingly difficult for those wishing to ship Colombian produced narcotics to other continents through the gateway of Venezuela.

“We are going to carry on intensifying the necessary fight to continue strengthening all the antinarcotic actions. We are one of the few countries which has understood that the drug trade is multinational, multifactorial, and for this reason we need to launch an integral attack against it”, explained Minister Reverol.

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The artillery of ideas

Venezuelan economy showing healthy signs

T/ Paul Dobson P/ Agencies

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enezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, announced yet more positive economic figures this week which show that the Venezuelan economy is in a very healthy state.

Speaking at a Council of Ministers meeting on Mon-

day, in the Presidential Palace in Caracas and on live national television, Chavez presented figures which demonstrated that the external debt of the Venezuelan economy is currently running at a mere 25% of the Gross Domestic Product.

Analyzing the economic figures, and referring to the recu-

peration of the economy from the disastrous situation in which it found itself during the 1990’s when it was strangled by the IMF and World Bank policies, the President stated that “the recuperation of the Venezuelan economy is perfectly sustainable”.

Chavez went on to explain that the internal debt of the

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enezuela continues to see a big surge in housing construction since the government launched the “Great Venezuelan Housing Mission” in April of last year.

According to government sources, around 265 thousand new homes have been constructed since the new initiative was launched last year, with the goal being to construct 3 million new homes by 2019 in order to confront a major housing deficit in the country.

The surge in government investment in this area has been a boon to private sector construction firms. The construction industry has seen 17 consecutive quarters of growth, including growth of 17 percent in the last quarter.

“Venezuela is the only country that has built more than 200 thousand homes in a year,” said private constructor Carmelo de Estéfano Ramírez. “No country has been able to do something like that. The best have made around 70 thousand, if that, in a year”.

Private sector construction companies gathered yesterday

in Caracas to discuss plans to build 100 thousand homes per year in the coming years as part of the government housing initiative.

The objective of the three-day meeting is to bring together private and state-sector companies to form joint plans for producing and supplying inputs to the

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Venezuelan economy currently consumes only 11.4% of the GNP, which itself has risen sharply in the last 10 years.

The recently re-elected President cited figures from 1998, which show the national GNP to be around $90 billion in this year, and compared them to the end of year figures in 2012, where the GNP stands at around $320 billion. “This year we are finishing with a GNP around $320 billion. The Venezuelan GNP has almost tripled in the last decade; this has never occurred before in Venezuela” said the head of state.

He also went on to state that government designated 1.1% of the national GNP in 2011 to pay the interests on foreign debt.

These figures reinforce the positive signs that the Venezuelan economy is showing, as it continues to grow at 6%, and has seen inflation fall from 100% in 1998 to 30% in 2008 and is expected to close the year below the 20% mark.

Comparing the Venezuelan economy to those of the capitalist world, which continue to suffer from the market based problems which have seen recession spread to the four corners of the world, Chavez announced that the Venezuelan economy sees itself in a much more robust state.

“The foreign debt of the United States of America has risen to 300% of its GNP, while Venezuela’s only reaches 25%”, he explained.

According to recently released IMF figures, external debt as a percentage of GNP has risen by an average of 31.8% between 2007 and 2010 in

the major capitalist economies, and across the 10 countries the report looked at, currently stands at 90.6% as a weighted average.

According to the IMF, who’s leader, Christine Lagarde is due to visit Colombia in the following days, France was struggling in 2010 with a debt of 82.4% of its GNP (20% higher than in 2007), while in Germany, much considered to be the most stable European economy, the figure stood at 83.2% (23.45 higher than in 2007). In Portugal the figure stood at 93.4% (33.2% higher than in 2007), while in the UK it was at 75.1% (32.65 higher than 2007), and 142.8% in Greece (69.6 higher than in 2007), 92.5% in Ireland (69.15 higher than 2007), and 92.8% in Iceland (64.3% higher than 2007).

As the world’s capitalist centers struggle to find a solution to their self-created crisis, while inflicting more austerity and cuts to pensions and worker’s rights on their own people, the Venezuelan economy, along with their Chinese and Brazilian counterparts, continues to enjoy significant growth and improvements, as well as sustainable strengthening and increased independence and economic sovereignty. These figures released by President Chavez only go to further give weight to the ideological disparities between such economies and those which are currently on their knees in Europe, such as greater state intervention in key sectors, exchange controls, and a progressive tax system.

rapidly growing sector, while also keeping costs down.

President of the Bolivarian Construction Chamber, Gerson Hernández, noted that although most of the inputs are produced domestically, it has been necessary to import materials from other countries like Peru, Italy, Argentina, and Co-

lombia due to the high demand of the housing projects.

“This is something completely new,” he said. “There’s never been so much construction in so many areas at the same time”.

The private sector, he noted, was not prepared for the explosion in demand for construction materials created by the new push for housing.

Representatives from communal councils and socialist communes were also present at the meeting. Communal councils also carry out many construction projects in their communities and in the process receive technical assistance from the private and state sectors.

At the closing of the meeting on Wednesday, members of the construction chamber will present their joint plans to government officials for review.

Venezuela maintaining surge in housing construction T/ Chris Carlson P/ Agencies

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6 Social Justice | . s Friday, November 9, 2012

The artillery of ideas

Venezuela now produces 80% of food consumption T/ Rachael Boothroyd

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arlier this week Venezuelan Food Minister, Carlos Osorio, revealed that Venezuela now produces 80% of food consumed by the population, with only 20% of the country’s food products being imported from abroad. The new figures represent a 100% increase in domestic food production since the Chavez government came to power in 1999, when 60% of the country’s food was imported.

The minister cited the figure as a result of the government’s successful food security policies, as well as a sign of its commitment to ensure that every person in Venezuela has access to food. The minister also criticized other governments for treating citizen access to food as a “business” as opposed to a human right.

“During the years of the Fourth Republic (1958-1998) and in many countries in the world, the issue of food is unfortunately a commercial one; large scale food processing plants and networks didn’t emerge to satisfy the needs of human beings but rather to satisfy the needs of business”, he commented.

Coming to power in 1999, President Chavez cited the transformation of the country’s highly dependent food industry as a primary goal of his government and set about stimulating the national productive sector.

The launching of Mission AgroVenezuela in 2011 represented a more concrete step towards realising Venezuelan food security, with the mission being specifically aimed at transforming the country’s food production system towards a sustainable and solidarity based model.

Some of the mission’s projects include government sponsored training and small-scale loans for farming cooperatives.

During the interview, Osorio confirmed that one of the government’s main goals over the next six years would be to achieve full food sovereignty, although he also stated that the Chavez administration would continue to import food products for as long as necessary.

“Of course we import what we have to import... because our first responsibility, as the

law states, is to ensure that there is food, that’s our priority, that the people don’t go hungry... we don’t have the basic or natural conditions, nor a starting point or even the right climate to start up the primary production of wheat... that’s why we always have to

import, it’s a weakness that we have”, he said.

Part of the government’s food policy has been aimed at promoting traditional Venezuelan food, such as corn, through advertising and food festivals, including a recent “we are

people of the corn festival” in Caracas, where visitors could sample corn based dishes from throughout the Latin American continent.

The minister went on to explain that one of the government’s most successful projects for guaranteeing access to reasonably priced and readily available food is through its network of government-subsidized food stores known as “mercals”. The mercals emerged in 2002-2003 during the opposition backed oil industry sabotage when the National Guard had to be used to distribute low cost food to the population.

There are currently over 22,300 of the different government subsidized food shops across Venezuela, including mercals, government bakeries and arepa restaurants, where the population can enjoy arepas and lunches at a third of the price on the high street. The mercals are 80% subsidized by the government, which has invested more than 11 billion bolivars ($2,558 billion) in the networks this year alone, said Osorio.

“We are setting up large scale centres for the preparation of bread in some regions of the country, because for the government and President Chavez, one of the most important things that we have achieved is to change how we conceive of food; for us a food system is to do with satisfying the needs of the human being”, he said.

Osorio made the comments as the government released

new figures confirming that Venezuela’s child malnutrition rate looks set to reach 0% over the next few years. The minister informed Correo del Orinoco that in 2011, just 2.9% of the Venezuelan’s child population suffered from malnutrition, a figure that has been reduced significantly since 1998 when it was 4.66%.

Osorio went on to comment that during the 1990s, many Venezuelan citizens resorted to eating “dog food which they sold in cereal boxes”, a reality which seriously impacted upon the healthy growth of the 1990s generation.

“That unbalanced diet is reflected in our young men who are currently in prison”, commented Osorio, making reference to the average age of Venezuelan prisoners, which is between 18 and 25.

Earlier in the year the government also confirmed that the average Venezuelan child had grown by 2 centimeters as a result of improved diet and the government’s social policies in the area of food, including the free provision of nutritious meals to all primary school children.

In a recently published report by the Economist’s Intelligence Unit, Global Food Security Index 2012, Venezuela ranked 41 out of a total of 105 countries in terms of its food security. The report also awarded Venezuela 100% for access to food for poorer citizens and found that financing for rural producers was well above the global average of two out of four, with Venezuela being awarded a score of three.

dorean Amazon between 1964 and 1992.

Chevron says Texaco spent $40 million cleaning up the area during the 1990s, and signed an agreement with Ecuador in 1998 absolving it of any further responsibility.

Chevron has in the past said the original ruling against the

company was a product of “bribery and fraud”.

The company has also dismissed the plaintiffs’ moves to get the ruling enforced abroad, saying that “if the plaintiffs’ lawyers believed they had a legitimate judgement, they would seek to enforce it in the United States”.

Argentina ‘freezes Chevron assets’ over Ecuador damage T/ BBC

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judge has ordered $19 billion of assets held by US oil company Chevron to be frozen in Argentina over an environmental damages claim in Ecuador, lawyers in the case say.

The Ecuadorean plaintiffs accuse Chevron of polluting land in the Amazon region for almost three decades.

Last year, an Ecuadorean court ordered Chevron to pay $19 billion in damages.

Since Chevron has few assets in Ecuador, the plaintiffs are trying to get the ruling enforced abroad.

‘FRAUDULENT RULING’ A lawyer for the Ecuadorean plaintiffs, Enrique Bruchou, said the Argentine judge had agreed to their request to freeze Chevron’s assets in Argentina after they could not get the company to pay up in Ecuador.

The Ecuadorean court judgement originally ordered Chevron to pay $8.6 billion in environmental damages, but that was more than doubled because the oil company did not apologize publicly.

The Ecuadorean plaintiffs say that Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, dumped toxic materials in the Ecua-

. s Friday, November 9, 2012

The artillery of ideas

What US voters can learn from venezuela’s election T/ Keane Bhatt - Nacla P/ Andreina Blanco

O

ver the past 30 years, the top 1% of the United States has experienced a 240% increase in its real annual income, while that of the median household has barely budged.

Imagine if this explosive, decades-long growth of inequality were somehow reversed—and reversed at an even faster rate than its original expansion.

This is, in fact, what has happened in Venezuela, and it goes a long way toward explaining why President Hugo Chavez was re-elected in October, despite many pundits’ predictions of a victory by opposition candidate Henrique Capriles. The likelihood of coming across an accurate assessment of Venezuela’s social and economic advances in the media, however, is about as small as the odds of encountering honest portrayals of that country’s elections.

It’s difficult, for instance, to find any mention in the media of the Gini index for the United States or Venezuela. A standard measure of income inequality, it ranges from 0 (perfect equality) to 100 (perfect inequality).

According to the Luxembourg Income Study, the Gini index for the United States was 29.9 in 1979. By 2010, it had shot up by more than 7 points to 37.3.

Contrast this with Venezuela: the country’s Gini index in 1997, the year before Chavez was elected, stood at 50.7; in 13 short years, it had fallen by over 11 points to 39.4, according to United Nations data for 2010.

This rapid reduction of inequality is largely a result of the Chavez administration’s policy of promoting broadly shared economic growth. Having cut both poverty and unemployment by half over roughly a decade, Venezuela is now the least unequal country in Latin America, according to the UN. The poverty and inequality statistics are based only on cash income. But Chavez also introduced a suite of oil-financed social programs that provide free healthcare, education, housing, and subsidized food, among other benefits. Their effects include substantial reductions in infant mortality and the doubling of the country’s college enrollment.

Chavez’s social and economic agenda has also helped him to win 14 of 15 elections or referenda despite the inevitable voter fatigue that develops toward any incumbent over 14 years in office. On October 7, Chavez won by an 11-point margin in an election process described

by Jimmy Carter as “the best in the world”. This suggests that for voters, continued ad-

vancements in well-being have outweighed ongoing problems like crime and inadequate infrastructure.

The paradigm that has emerged during Chavez’s presidency is threatening to the dominant political discourse in the United States for two related reasons. First, it demonstrates that poverty and inequality, far from being implacable economic phenomena, are primarily political issues, and can be successfully tackled through aggressive public policy. Second, a governmental commitment to improving the general public’s living standards engenders a new kind of politics, distinct from the consensus that prevails under a decadesold regime of ever-increasing economic polarization.

Elite policy circles in the United States have agreed that austerity is necessary: both major parties’ presidential candidates suggested the need to institute cuts to an already-weak social safety net. Unemployment, in Bill Clinton’s incorrect rendering, lies outside the purview of immediate government efforts to spur greater demand. Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke attributed inequality, which has concentrated income within the top 1% and even more so within the top .01%, mostly to “educational differences.” He

ignores Princeton economist Paul Krugman’s observation: namely, “that we’ve become an oligarchy—with all that implies about class relations”. Bernanke’s statement also conforms with economist Dean Baker’s dismal assessment that most in his profession “are paid for telling stories that justify giving more money to rich people”.

The press, in turn, adheres closely to elite opinion. Establishment media have abetted efforts to scale back the anti-poverty program Social Security, while meaningful discussions of poverty comprised a fraction of 1% of the media’s campaign coverage. The reason is easy to see. Baker writes, “while Social Security may enjoy overwhelming support across the political spectrum, it does not poll nearly as well among the wealthy people—who finance political campaigns and own major news outlets”.

While experts in the United States warn that banks have engaged in widespread illegal foreclosures, exacerbating housing insecurity, the US media have disparaged Venezuela’s public housing initiatives as an unsavory political scheme. David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote an op-ed for CNN titled, “Chavez Clown Prince of a Decaying Society”, decrying “massive government votebuying” through “giveaway programs, including one that aims to build 200,000 housing units for Venezuela’s poor”.

The Wall Street Journal’s reporting similarly criticized Venezuela’s housing construction, citing unnamed analysts who wondered “whether the

| Analysis

7

spending spree will buy as many votes this time around as in past elections”.

USA Today’s coverage of Venezuela’s elections included quotes by critics who condemned Chávez’s “patronage machine”, which “unleashed a spending orgy”. The paper also dutifully noted that Capriles considered “new social spending” to be “vote buying”.

Rarely is the US political system similarly condemned as a patronage machine, despite each major presidential candidate securing $1 billion for his campaign, often through $35,000-a-ticket fundraising dinners with corporate executives. Research has also shown that nearly half of all federal lawmakers become lobbyists after returning to private life.

Little wonder Princeton political scientist Martin Gilens’s research finds that “in most circumstances, affluent Americans exert substantial influence over the policies adopted by the federal government, and less well off Americans exert virtually none”.

Interestingly, USA Today’s post-election breakdown for Venezuela failed to mention its historic, 81% participation rate.

Such a turnout would be unimaginable within the United States, even leaving aside vigorous efforts of voter suppression all over the country. In an earlier article headlined “Why 90 million Americans Won’t Vote in November”, USA Today itself offered a reason: it found that six in 10 eligible but unlikely voters said, when surveyed, that they “don’t pay much attention” to politics because “nothing ever gets done: It’s a bunch of empty promises”.

The era that preceded Chavez’s 1998 election has echoes of the current predicament of US politics—two major parties with fairly similar agendas took turns managing the country’s governmental institutions while elites controlled the country’s resources. Venezuela’s democracy, like much of Latin America’s, has meant a break with that past.

The US press help to enforce the status quo in a country whose majority has faced declining living standards in recent years, largely as a result of policies furthered by a bipartisan political system.

So it’s not surprising to see the US media’s hostile reactions to the politics of Venezuela, where citizens expect their votes to translate into genuine improvements in their daily lives—and politicians must deliver on those expectations.

Friday, November 9, 2012 | Nº 134 | 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

Obama’s victory, never much in doubt, based on populist appeal to swing voters T/ / Mark Weisbrot P/ Agencies

P

resident Obama’s reelection was never much in doubt, except perhaps briefly when he took a plunge after the first debate and we didn’t know where the bottom was. But by the end of the campaign, Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium was giving Obama a better than 99 percent chance of winning.

Nate Silver of The New York Times, more cautious, put the odds yesterday at about 90-10 in favor of Obama.

Those who point to the popular vote as evidence of a very tight contest, as much of the media did before the election, should consider two things: first, that is not the way the game is played here (unfortunately).

If the popular vote determined the presidency, the Obama team would have put more resources into big states like California and New York to ensure that Obama would win the popular vote by a wider margin”. Instead, the resources went into swing states, in order to ensure a victory in the electoral vote.

Second, the country is nowhere near as closely divided as the popular vote indicates.

That’s because non-voters, who were about 43 percent of the electorate in 2008, favor Obama by a margin of about 2.5 to one.

Indeed, the resources and political power that Republicans mobilized to deny millions of Americans their right to vote, and to suppress voter turnout, raise serious questions about their legitimacy as a political party. A legitimate political party does not rely on preventing citizens from voting, in order to prevail at the polls, any more than a legitimate government relies on repressing freedom of speech or assembly in order to remain in power.

How did Obama win? In this election, as in almost ev-

ery presidential election for decades the biggest block of swing voters has been white working-class voters (however defined, e.g. without college education). No Democratic candidate has won a majority of white voters for decades, since the Republicans adopted their “southern strategy” in the wake of historic civil rights legislation, and became the “White People’s Party”. (In fact, Obama did better among white voters in 2008 than John Kerry did in 2004 – his race was not a handicap because most voters who wouldn’t vote for an African-American don’t vote for Democrats.) But in this contest he had to win enough of the white working class voters in battleground states to win the election, while winning about 95 percent of AfricanAmerican voters and a large majority of Latino voters.

This he did primarily by making a populist appeal to working class voters, more populist than any major party presidential nominee in decades. In his last debate, which was supposedly about foreign policy, he repeatedly referred to Romney as someone who wants “to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules” as everyone else.

Throughout the campaign, his team attacked Romney for being a rich, unscrupulous politician who didn’t care about working people. Of course it helped that Romney fit the stereotype – a rich corporate raider, a private equity fund CEO who said he “like[s] being able to fire people”, and paid less of his income in taxes than millions of working Americans.

His infamous remark dismissing 47 percent of Americans as moochers – “my job is not to worry about those people”, was a gift from God, and became one of the Obama campaign’s most effective TV ads.

But for those who have followed Obama’s political career, his re-election was always extremely likely – and indeed it would hardly have

been in jeopardy if he had actually debated in the first debate. We knew that he would be as populist as he needed to be in order to win. Even with 23 million still unemployed or under-employed (as Romney repeated endlessly), it’s not that hard to convince a lot of working-class voters that Romney and his party don’t have their interests at heart, if you are willing to make the kind of economic populist appeal that Obama ultimately made. The downside risk, for a candidate, is the potential loss of rich campaign contributors and media; but Obama was willing to take these risks in order to win. This was a historic difference from previous presidential campaigns; Democratic candidates such as Michael Dukakis and Al Gore flirted briefly with economic populist appeals, but backed off in the face of media pressure.

The media are a huge factor in most elections here, and outside of Fox News and the right-wing press, most of the major news outlets were more sympathetic to Obama than to Romney. However they still

helped Romney quite a bit, especially with swing voters, with bad reporting on key economic issues. Most Americans didn’t know that the federal stimulus had created an estimated 3 million jobs; in fact they didn’t even distinguish the stimulus from the unpopular federal bank bailout. They didn’t understand the benefits that they would derive from Obama’s health care legislation. They didn’t know that they had their taxes cut under Obama. And millions believed the hype that federal deficit spending and the US public debt were major problems (for the record: the US currently pays less than one percent of GDP in net interest annually on the federal debt, less than it has paid during the past 60 years).

The confusion on economic issues was probably the most important influence on swing voters who supported Romney against their own economic interests, thinking that the economy might improve if he were elected.

For this and other misunderstandings we can thank the major media, although we

should also include the public relations blunders made by the Obama team. Perhaps the biggest strategic error was President Obama’s refusal to go after Romney’s proposal to cut Social Security, thereby losing the majority of senior citizens’ votes (a big vote in swing states like Virginia and Florida), which he could potentially have won by defending America’s most popular anti-poverty program.

Obama’s silence on Social Security is a bad omen for the future, where political, media, and business leaders will be pressing for a “grand bargain” on budget issues that will screw the vast majority of Americans. It will take a lot of grass-roots pressure to prevent the worst outcomes. Ditto to get us out of Afghanistan and to prevent another disastrous war, this time with Iran; Obama’s foreign policy has been mostly atrocious and the never-ending “war on terror” continues to expand, while most Americans’ living standards have been declining. It’s going to be an uphill fight for progress, but – it could have been a lot worse.