Analysis
Opinion
Richard Gott: Venezuela, the years ahead page 7
Jeremy Scahill explains general Petraeus legacy in the CIA: paramilitarism page 8
Friday, November 16, 2012 | Nº 135 | Caracas | www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve
Dignified homes for Venezuelans Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made a commitment that every Venezuelan family must have a dignified home by 2019 “whatever it costs”. His government began a mass house building program, the Great Venezuelan Housing Mission (GMVV) last year, which aims to build over three million homes by 2019 to close the country’s housing deficit, measured at 3.7 families requiring new or improved housing in a 2011 national survey. page 2
ENGLISH EDITION/The artillery of ideas
Venezuela elected member of UN Human Rights Council
Politics
Venezuela debates socialist plan People across the nation are developing their governmental program. page 4 Social Justice
Tourism up in Venezuela
Venezuela was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council last Monday in a vote that saw 154 member countries of the world’s largest multi-lateral institution ratify the South American nation’s capacity to contribute and strengthen dialogue around the implementation of fundamental rights around the world. “The Bolivarian Revolution is a global reference for justice and the true and authentic exercise of human rights”, said Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Jorge Valero. page 3
London LatAm Film Festival
The South American country has immense natural beauty for visitors to relish. page 5 International
US drug legalization affects Latin America US states legalize marijuana use as Mexico and other nations protest. page 6
The London Latin American Film Festival (LLAFF), going into its 22nd edition this year, kicks off on the 16th of November and runs until the 25th of November. Films will be screened in Bolivar Hall as well as other venues across London including UCL Institute of the Americas. The annual festival, organized by Cuban director Eva Tarr-Kirkhope, showcases the best of Latin American cinema and raises awareness of Latin American issues in the UK. There will be an opportunity to see feature films, shorts, documentaries, experimental films from the cutting edge of Latin America’s film industry. The festival also acts as a launch pad for the distribution of many films including the Oscar-nominated Buena Vista Social Club. For further information on the festival program, please visit the LLAFF website: www.latinamericanfilmfestival.com
INTERNATIONAL Chavez to Obama: forget global wars, fix domestic woes T/ Agencies President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has advised newly re-elected US President Barack Obama to avoid further entanglement in international conflicts and concentrate on fixing internal problems. “He should reflect first on his own nation, which has a lot of economic and social problems. It’s a divided, socially fractured country with a super-elite exploiting the people”, the socialist President said late last Thursday in his first reaction to Obama’s victory last week. The maverick Chavez, who has inherited Fidel Castro’s mantle as Latin America’s most voluble challenger of US power and policy, said it was time Obama pulled back from global affairs. “He should dedicate himself to governing his country and forget dividing and invading other nations”, added Chavez, who has constantly criticized US involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots around the world. To the disappointment of the US government, Chavez was re-elected for another six-year term in October by a landslide victory, providing a continued platform to implement the socialist revolution in Venezuela supported by the majority and keep railing against Washington. The 58-year-old Chavez, a quieter figure these days after a year of debilitating treatment for two bouts of cancer, had backed Obama over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the White House. Nonetheless, Washington and Caracas haven’t maintained direct diplomatic relations since both nations expelled their respective ambassadors in 2008.
2 Impact | . s Friday, November 16, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Chavez: Every Venezuelan to have dignified home by 2019 “whatever it costs”
T/ COI P/ Presidential Press
tion’s new emphasis on greater efficiency in government programs. Speaking directly to his Vice President, Nicolas Maduro, he said “this is an example that we, and all other missions and non-missions in all areas, should take: the efficiency that the Venezuelan Housing Mission is demonstrating”. Chavez further declared that the progress of the GMVV so far “deserves special recognition” and is “one of the great successes of the Bolivarian revolution”.
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enezuelan President Hugo Chavez has made a commitment that every Venezuelan family must have a dignified home by 2019 “whatever it costs”. The declaration came as Chavez made a raft of new announcements last Thursday regarding his government’s mass house building program, the Great Venezuelan Housing Mission (GMVV). Launched last year, the program is an ambitious attempt by the Venezuelan government to build over three million homes by 2019 to close the country’s housing deficit, measured at 3.7 families requiring new or improved housing in a 2011 national survey. Chavez confirmed that 137,106 houses have been constructed so far under the mission this year, including 1,704 new houses handed over to Venezuelan families last Thursday. In a televised meeting with his cabinet members, he explained that there are 417,000 houses currently in construction across the country, and that a special program was being implemented to ensure 80,000 of those would be finished by the end of the year. The Venezuelan head of state added that this would ensure the government would meet its
CONSTRUCTION BOOM target of 200,000 houses built in 2012. “If we finish 80,000, we’ll then be at almost 220,000 [houses]. We’ll be above the target, I’m sure we’re going to achieve it”, he affirmed.
INVESTMENTS President Chavez also announced the increase in the housing construction target for 2013 and 2014 from 300,000 each year to 380,000 and 400,000, respectively. To reach these goals, he pledged a minimum investment into the program of $11.6 billion for 2013. The government invested $19 billion in the program in 2011 2012, while Minister for Finance and Planning, Jorge Giordani, estimated that $10 - $15 billion would be required annually to meet construction targets.
Chavez emphasized the importance of grassroots efforts for the success of the GMVV. “Without the participation of popular power, these [housing construction] numbers would not be reached. Because of that, this needs to be brought to other social, political, economic and industrial spheres, there is huge potential in people’s power”, he said. Under the Integral Transformation of Habitat (TIH) and Substitution of Shanties for Houses (SUVI) programs, communities have taken on a key role in housing construction in Venezuela. Almost 50% of houses built in the first eight months of 2012 were undertaken with the participation of local communities. The Venezuelan President also pointed to the GMVV as pioneering his administra-
The Great Housing Mission is driving a boom in the Venezuelan construction industry, officials have confirmed, forming part of a general upswing in the economy. Minister of industries, Ricardo Menendez, reported to press last Friday that this year Venezuela has broken its record annual production of cement, a key construction material. “We’re doing something historic in the country; with the same machines and installed capacity we’re at the point of breaking Venezuela’s historical record in accumulated production”, he said. “In accumulated production 8.29 million tons [of concrete] were produced between October 2011 and October 2012, the highest production statistic ever recorded in the country”, the minister continued.
The Chavez administration introduced price controls on cement in 2003 and nationalized the industry in 2008 in order to increase production and ensure supply for domestic construction needs. In part due to the GMVV, production has been rising sharply from 2010, when it was 7.1 million tons. Menendez also announced a fresh investment of $1.3 billion by the Venezuelan government in the cement industry, to construct new factories and production lines. This will increase Venezuela’s maximum production capacity of cement, from 9.1 million to 13 million tons annually, the first increase since the 1940s. Menendez further argued that this information reflected Venezuela’s growing “productive sovereignty” in the area of construction. Meanwhile, the VenezuelaBelarus Joint Venture for Production of Construction Materials, a brick factory in Guatire state, has reported the production of 6 million bricks in the last five months, ahead of their December target. The factory was constructed with the aid of Belarusian technicians and uses French and Belarusian machines. It is aiming to produce 25 million bricks in the coming year, estimated at supplying the bricks for 12.1% of new housing in 2013. Environmental brigades and five community councils play a monitoring role in the factory, in which 142 women and men from the local community work. Social programs and children’s activities are also organized in the factory’s premises. A further eight projects under the Venezuela – Belarus Joint Venture are in the pipeline, which will produce planks, floors and ceiling parts for housing construction. The Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) states that Venezuela’s construction sector has grown for the last four quarters, including by 17.6% in the second quarter of 2012. BCV president Nicolas Merentes further revealed in October that Venezuela’s third quarter figures for gross domestic product (GDP) were showing “important growth”, and highlighted that this could “especially” be seen in the construction sector. The Central Bank official continued by explaining that Venezuela’s continued economic growth was due to the Chavez government’s “policies of social investment that have allowed social productivity to increase and the population’s standard of living to improve”.
. s Friday, November 16, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela voted in as member of UN Human Rights Council
T/ COI P/ Agencies
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enezuela was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council last Monday in a vote that saw 154 member countries of the world’s largest multi-lateral institution ratify the South American nation’s capacity to contribute and
strengthen dialogue around the implementation of fundamental rights around the world. “The Bolivarian Revolution is a global reference for justice and the true and authentic exercise of human rights. Today, Venezuela has the possibility to speak with a full voice because it’s a country that has recovered its independence”,
said Venezuela’s Ambassador to the UN Jorge Valero on Monday. During an interview on state television, Valero highlighted the gains that the Caribbean nation has made in protecting human rights over the past decade and the nation’s break with a history of repression and state terrorism that persecuted
T/ AP P/ Agencies
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he UN General Assembly on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US commercial, economic and financial embargo against Cuba for the 21st year in a row. The final tally Tuesday saw 188 countries, including Canada, support the measure. Israel and Palau joined the United States in voting against the measure. The Marshall Islands and Micronesia both abstained. Last year’s tally for the symbolic measure was almost identical, 186-2, with three abstentions. The embargo was first enacted in 1960 following Cuba’s nationalization of proper-
ties belonging to US citizens and corporations. Sanctions against the Caribbean nation were further strengthened to a near-total embargo in 1962. Speaking before the General Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez railed against the embargo calling the US policy “inhumane, failed and anachronistic”. “Keeping this policy in force is not in the national interest of the United States. Quite on the contrary, it harms the interests of its citizens and companies — especially in times of economic crisis and high unemployment — which, according to every poll, are demanding a change of policy”, Rodriguez said. “What’s the point of encroaching on the constitutional and civil rights and the freedom of travel of Americans by preventing them from visiting the Island when
they can visit any other place in the planet, including those where their country is waging wars?” Rodriguez added that although US President Barack Obama had offered a new beginning with Cuba, after the 2008 election, “the reality of the last four years has been characterized by a persistent tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade”. The United States has made clear that although some restrictions on travel and remit-
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political opponents in the 20th century. “Here, there has been no member of the country’s opposition who has been tortured. Not a single political party has been banned. The will of the parliament has not been diminished. The policy of disappearing [opponents] has not been practiced here”, the Ambassador affirmed. The Human Rights Council (HRC) was founded in 2006, replacing the older UN Commission on Human Rights, established in 1947. The advisory body is comprised of 47 member countries, elected by the General Assembly for 3-year terms with the purpose of monitoring human rights around the world and recommending action to the larger organization. Argentina and Brazil were also voted into the council as represents of Latin America and the Caribbean region which is allocated seven seats on the HRC. For Venezuelan Vice President. Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s entrance into the UN council is a victory for the policies of the government of Hugo Chavez, which has been at the vanguard of fulfilling the UN’s millennium goals in areas of education and health care. “Today we have to say that we have a Venezuela that guarantees human rights thanks to the implementation of the con-
stitution and the conviction of President Chavez as well as the revolutionaries accompanying us in the construction of socialism in the country”, Maduro said. The Venezuelan Vice President also pointed out that while the election of the South American country validates the international credibility of the Chavez administration, the need expand and amplify the rights of all citizens does not end with admittance to the HRC. “There is still an important stretch of this path to cover in order to build all rights: economic, social, political, cultural, and communicational”, he affirmed. Notwithstanding, Maduro pointed out the need for the countries of the world to push forth an agenda and build international organizations that “truly promote human rights and not bodies that use human rights to politically attack [countries] and justify even military aggressions against people”, he added. Among the 18 countries elected to the HRC on Monday were the United States, Germany, Ireland, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Japan, and Pakistan. Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil will take they’re place on the council on January 1, replacing outgoing members Cuba, Mexico, and Uruguay.
tances have been eased under the Obama administration it is not prepared to lift the sanctions entirely until the communist-run nation enacts more far-reaching political and economic reforms. Ronald D. Godard, a senior US adviser for Western Hemisphere affairs, defended the embargo as a “one of the tools in our overall efforts to encourage respect for the human rights and basic freedoms to which the United Nations itself is committed”.
“Cuba’s resolution seeks to identify an external scapegoat for the island’s economic problems when they are principally caused by the economic policies that Cuban government has pursued for the past half century”, Godard said. In Havana, as in years past, the run-up to the vote was marked with book launches and conferences discussing the embargo. Officials released their latest tally of the sanctions’ cumulative effect over five decades — just over $1 trillion in damage to the Cuban economy — a figure arrived at using a complex calculus factoring in things like interest and the decline of the dollar against the gold standard. The Cuban Foreign Ministry kept up a constant stream of tweets during the UN session railing against what officials here refer to as the “blockade”. “The US blockade is a permanent threat against the stability of a nation”, the ministry tweeted.
US blockade against Cuba denounced in UN vote Cuba calls US policy ‘inhumane, failed and anachronistic’
| Integration
4 Politics | . s Friday, November 16, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Chavez launches national debate on Venezuela’s Second Socialist Plan
T/ Ewan Robertson www.venezuelanalysis.com P/ Presidential Press
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he Chavez government officially launched a nationwide debate in Venezuela about the Second Socialist Plan of the Nation 2013 – 2019, whose first draft President Chavez had presented to the country earlier this year. Through a range of public assemblies and other mechanisms, officials say the aim of the debating process is to stimulate public participation and to gather ideas and projects to develop Chavez’s proposals into a cohesive plan for national development. “From this moment a constituent process has begun, unprecedented in our history”, declared Finance and Planning Minister, Jorge Giordani, while speaking in an event held in the capital Caracas last Saturday to launch the initiative. “It will have repercussions not only in the coming years, but also an example to those countries that are in crisis and see hope in this [revolutionary] process, to materialize their own”, he continued. Hugo Chavez first presented the Socialist Plan in June when he registered his candidacy for re-election as President. On that
platform, he was re-elected on October 7 with 55% of the vote. The Plan sets out five historical objectives to be worked towards by Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution in the coming period. These include consolidating national sovereignty, the continued construction of “Bolivarian socialism of the 21st century”, and promoting a multipolar world order “to guarantee world peace”.
“Venezuela’s Vice President Nicolas Maduro argued that this “is a process of mobilization, it’s the activation once again of the creative power of the people, of the Constituent Power” Jaqueline Farias, a leader of Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), explained to the press on Sunday that while the Venezuelan President had “presented the framework and general objectives” of the Socialist Plan, “now the specifics will come from people’s power”. She further argued that citizens should participate in the
knowledge that “this is a plan that is going to be executed, not like those of the Fourth Republic (1958-1998), that were fat books that were handed to the National Assembly and then nothing happened”.
MECHANISMS OF PARTICIPATION The Chavez government’s initiative to encourage national debate about the Socialist Plan has five main channels of participation. The first is through the establishment of “cities of debate” in each regional state, where permanent assemblies will be organized in prominent public places. These spaces will have daily discussions around a set and published program, with the participation of a variety of speakers including community leaders and government ministers. A second mechanism is the encouragement of debating assemblies in communities, communal councils and communes, with a suggested structure of three hour debates and discussion groups around each of the Plan’s historic goals. Meanwhile, the PSUV will establish 13,600 “red points” around the country designed to promote the population’s participation through discussions
of the plan, awareness-raising and collection of proposals. A fourth mechanism is “opinion boxes” located in public squares, where citizens can submit their concrete projects and proposals for contribution to the Plan. A special form has been designed for individuals and communities to do this, which can also be submitted to “red points” and debating assemblies. Furthermore, a website has also been set up, where suggestions and proposals can be submitted. PSUV leader Farias stressed that not only government supporters and organisations should participate in the debate, but rather all citizens were welcome, including those aligned with the opposition. “It’s a plan for everyone”, she added. Farias also explained that the debating process would develop in three stages. Over the weekend launch events took place in every regional state, while from November 12-30 days of debate and discussion will be held. From December 1-31 compilation, systemization and presentation of results will be undertaken and reviewed by the government. Chavez will then present the completed Socialist Plan to the National Assembly
10 January for approval, a constitutional requirement.
CONSTITUENT POWER In launch events across the country emphasis was made that the national debate represents a “constituent process”, a phrase referring to key moments of mass participation in the development of Venezuela’s contemporary political process, such as the passing of the 1999 National Constitution. Speaking at the launch event in Caracas last Saturday, Venezuela’s Vice President Nicolas Maduro argued that this “is a process of mobilization, it’s the activation once again of the creative power of the people, of the Constituent Power”. He went on to describe this constituent power as “the power of the people to create and recreate, found and re-found, to build the country, and to permanently exercise their sovereignty with the constitution as a fundamental instrument”.
“Hugo Chavez first presented the Socialist Plan in June when he registered his candidacy for re-election as President. On that platform, he was re-elected on October 7 with 55% of the vote” REACTIONS Supporters of the Chavez government have reacted favorably to the initiative. The Bolivarian Socialist Workers Central (CBST), a progovernment union federation, organized its own event in Caracas last Saturday to begin a national consultation of workers over the Socialist Plan. Carlos Lopez, the CBST’s coordinator general, argued that the Plan “must have the characteristics to make our Bolivarian and socialist revolution irreversible”. Meanwhile, writing in alternative news website Aporrea, teacher Salva Camacho argued that “this debate has a grassroots essence like never before, [where] the main task is to make participation and popular protagonism the sustenance for the construction of socialism”. He also claimed that the debate represents “an attack on the difficult knots that have impeded the advance of this revolution,” as well as being “accompanied by criticism” of underperforming public servants.
. s Friday, November 16, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Visitors to Venezuela up 21% in 2012
credible variety. It has four ecosystems, rivers, mountains, plains, jungle, beaches and islands. There are very few countries that can make this claim”. Industry professionals also confirmed Venezuela’s growing profile as a tourist destination. “We have noticed an upswing in tourism to Ven-
Referring to the quantity of calls her organization “Skirts in Revolution” (FALDAS en Revolucion) receives to their information line, which gives advice on safe abortion methods, Rojas said, “Abortion isn’t a hypothetical situation, it’s a reality, it’s being done by women every day…our sisters, our neighbors; it’s a reality that we have to deal with”. Rojas, whose group was formed in 2011, and whose acronym in Spanish stands for “Feminists in Free and Direct Action for Safe Abortion”, also argued that clandestine abortion is a class issue, as the options available to women opting for abortion differ depending on socio-economic background. “Penalization of abortion doesn’t affect rich women and
those of lower classes equally, because [wealthy women] can access a foreign treatment or pay a private clinic… whereby poor women are exposed to a clandestine market, irregular clinics, [or] they perform it upon themselves”, she said. The campaign is going forward in the context of the legalization of abortion during the first trimester in Uruguay last month, the second country in South America to make such a move. According to a recent study published in the medical journal Lancet, Latin America has one of the highest rates of abortion in the world, at 32 per 1000 women. Meanwhile Western Europe, where abortion is legal, has the lowest, at 12 per 1000 women.
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age is changing, with a 25% increase in the number of tour operators to Venezuela participating at the World Travel Market in London last week. Venezuelan ambassador to the UK Samuel Moncada said, “I am delighted to hear that there are more tour operators present than ever
before and that this has resulted in greater interaction between Venezuelan companies and international tour operators”. Tour operators spoke of the wealth of natural beauty that Venezuela has to offer tourists, with David Mateos from Grupo Alborada Venezuela saying, “Venezuela has in-
Campaign to legalize abortion in Venezuela gains momentum T/ Ewan Robertson www.venezuelanalysis.com
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he campaign to legalize abortion in Venezuela gained greater publicity recently, with advocacy groups showing optimism after a law to legalize abortion was passed in Uruguay last month. In Venezuela the law currently states that voluntary abortion is punishable up to two years in prison. Although the law is rarely applied, the illegality of abortion means many women seeking the procedure resort to clandestine means, with one study by the Central Uni-
versity of Venezuela estimating that 16% of maternal deaths in Venezuela are a result of complications from clandestine abortions. The Venezuelan coalition of left-wing feminist groups, the Feminist Spider, has submitted a reform for discussion in the Venezuelan National Assembly which would modify the country’s penal law to legalize abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy. In an interview yesterday on Venezuelan public television, Tatiana Rojas argued that Venezuela was ready to have a public discussion about the legal right to abortion.
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ezuela in the last year. Our mission is to promote Venezuela as a top tourist destination and we are very grateful for the government’s support in this”, said Fabian Rimmaudo of Hover Tours to Venezuelan embassy press. Promoting national and international tourism has become a priority of the Chavez government in recent years. The tourism ministry was established in 2005, with a tourism law passed in 2008 and the government designing a National Tourist Plan for 2009-2013. The Tourism Ministry has also set up Venatur, a body that runs a chain or nationalized hotels and promotes packages to tourists at reduced prices. Venatur coordinates its work with Conviasa, Venezuela’s national airline. One aim of these policies is to make tourism accessible to all Venezuelans. Venezuela’s 2008 Organic Tourism Law promotes a conception of tourism that “rehabilitates our spaces and re-values our history, as well as our material and non-material heritage” and that should be an “instrument for social inclusion and an opportunity for education”. This notion of tourism aims to replace the dominant practice of tourism inherited from the pre-Chavez period, which according to the law “has only functioned as an entity that receives projects from a minority sector which has enough resources to carry them out, excluding the vast majority from touristic development”.
T/ COI P/ Agencies enezuela’s tourism ministry has reported a 21% increase in the number of foreign visitors to the country between January – October this year compared with the same period last year, from around 508,000 to almost 614,000. According to the Tourism Minister, Alejandro Fleming, the majority of visitors came from Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. South America was the region that contributed the greatest number of foreign tourists to Venezuela, followed by Europe and then North America. However, visitor numbers to Venezuela are lower than its South American counterparts, with the 2011 report by the World Tourism Organization citing that Colombia receives 2.3 million visitors annually and Cuba 2.5 million. Venezuelan authorities have argued that one reason for this is the negative portrayal of Venezuela and its leader, President Hugo Chavez, in the international media. “There’s an international network that says Venezuela is an insecure country, unstable, dangerous and that the [Bolivarian] revolution and President Chavez are coming and that revolutionaries eat people”, said Fleming earlier this year. A recent article on tourism in Venezuela by the British BBC described the country with the header, “the longest Caribbean coastline of any country and the world’s tallest waterfall, not to mention snow-capped Andean mountains and Amazon rainforest. Tourist paradise? Not Venezuela”. Meanwhile, the US State Department warns US citizens considering travelling to Venezuela of allegedly “pervasive” violent crime, possible “kidnap” from the international airport and to “avoid use” of the Caracas city metro system, the latter of which has received significant investment by the Chavez government. Nevertheless, Venezuelan authorities and tourist officials say that the growing number of visitors to the country indicates this im-
| Social Justice
6 International | . s Friday, November 16, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Legalization in US States may prompt changes in Mexico’s anti-drug policy T/ Emilio Godoy – IPS P/ Agencies
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he legalization of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, which will allow the drug to be taxed and regulated, in two US states will prompt debate on anti-drug policies in Mexico as well, and on the coordination of strategies between the two countries, experts say. “The least bad option is legalization”, Jorge Chabat, at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE), told IPS. “It will have an impact on the way prohibition is designed, because there will be a cascade effect, and we’ll see changes very soon”. On election day in the US last Tuesday November 6, Colorado and Washington became the first states to approve referendums for the legalization of marijuana – up to one ounce for personal use for adults 21 and over. Voters in Oregon rejected a similar initiative, while Massachusetts became the eigh-
teenth US state, in addition to the District of Columbia, to allow medical use of marijuana. In Colorado and Washington, the production, possession and distribution of marijuana will now be regulated, and licensed growers will be able to sell up to one ounce to adults. Washington will establish a system of state-licensed marijuana growers, processors and retail stores, and the state liquor control board will levy a 25 percent sales tax on the drug. The tax revenue collected on marijuana sales in the two states will go to state and local budgets, substance abuse and prevention programmes, research, education, healthcare and other areas.
MEXICO LOOKS ON WITH INTEREST “Legalization doesn’t solve the problem, because cocaine generates the biggest profits”, Jorge Javier Romero, a professor at the department of politics and culture in the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City, told IPS. “It has to be approached as a foreign policy issue, because Mexico
doesn’t have a drug use problem – it’s the United States that has a drug abuse problem”. Approximately 30 million of the United States’ 312 million inhabitants use a total of 3,700 tons of marijuana a year, which has a retail value of 15 to 30 billion dollars, according to the report “Si los vecinos legalizan” (“if the neighbors legalize”), produced by Alejandro Hope and Eduardo Clark of the non-governmental Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO). The study says that, of the marijuana consumed in the United States, 40 to 67 percent comes from Mexico, where drug cartels take in some two billion dollars a year from trafficking the drug, which is mainly grown in western and southern states. Mexico is a graphic illustration of the mistaken approach used in the repressive drug control policies backed by the US government, according to the experts who spoke to IPS. The drug war launched when conservative President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 put thousands
of soldiers on the streets. But the catastrophic results of the strategy include at least 90,000 people killed, 10,000 missing, and 250,000 forced to flee their homes, according to the estimates of human rights groups. The legalization of drugs in the United States “would be the most significant structural clash that drug trafficking has experienced in a generation… and would transform the terms of the debate on drugs”, says the IMCO study. The administration of reelected President Barack Obama can challenge the state referendums in court, but has not announced plans to do so. “Even if only one US state were to approve legalization, the decision would reverberate throughout the hemisphere, where the drug policy debate has opened up dramatically”, John Walsh, the drug policy expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, wrote in the article “Taking the Initiative on Legal Marijuana” before the elections. “The new government could copy what will be done” in the
US states that have legalized marijuana use, said Chabat, referring to the future administration of Mexican president-elect Enrique Peña, of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, who takes office on December 1st. Peña has talked about a change in law enforcement strategies, but without giving details. The IMCO study estimates that as a result of the legalization of marijuana, Mexico’s criminal organizations will lose 36.5 percent of the market in the northwestern state of Washington, representing 1.4 billion dollars a year, and 37.9 percent of the market in the western state of Colorado, also representing 1.4 billion dollars. The hardest hit will be the Sinaloa Cartel, considered Mexico’s most powerful organized crime group, and the Los Caballeros Templarios – two of the cartels disputing the smuggling routes to the lucrative US market. “Mexico’s role as a dike”, imposed by the United States with a view to making it a “bulwark against the transit of drugs”, must be reviewed, said Romero, who argued that “the revenue flows of drug trafficking organizations have to be stopped, and that is done by regulating the trade”. According to IMCO, the Mexican government should not legalize the production and sale of marijuana until US federal laws on the matter have been clearly defined. It also recommends that alternative development programs be implemented in the regions where marijuana is grown in Mexico, and calls for guarding against potential “reverse trafficking” of drugs, from the United States to Mexico. The legalization of production and sales of marijuana in Colorado and Washington will take time, because the two states will have to create the necessary regulations and infrastructure in the first half of 2013. “The consequences of a state-level vote in favor of legalization will depend on real-world implementation, and that will in turn depend on how the federal government responds to the state action and to the specifics of the state’s new regulatory design”, Walsh wrote.
. s Friday, . s Friday, November N 16, 2012
The artillery of ideas
Venezuela: the years ahead T/ Richard Gott
H
ugo Chavez has won the presidential elections of 2012; so what now lies ahead in the next six years? After 14 years in power, it is tempting to suggest that he will preside over more of the same, yet in practice the experience of the Bolivarian Revolution over the long haul has been a roller-coaster of unexpected and visionary schemes that have come thick and fast, some utopian others halfbaked, some ideological others pragmatic. Venezuela still has some recognizable characteristics from the 1990s, yet it is a country that has visibly changed, with a population that is more alert and hopeful than in earlier decades. It is too early to say whether these changes are irreversible, but even Henrique Capriles Radonski, the opposition candidate, was obliged to claim during the election campaign that, if he won, the Chavez government’s projects to help the poor would be maintained – and merely made more “efficient”. In previous years, after a significant election victory, Chavez has often quickly announced surprising and farreaching measures that had been held up during the cam-
paigning. This time there has been little fresh indication of what may lie ahead; it is unlikely that any new initiatives will be announced until after the elections for state governors in December, seen as the next crucial test of the government’s popularity. Clearly Chavez hopes to win the opposition strongholds of Zulia and Miranda, where the fate of high profile candidates is at stake. Mayoral elections in April 2013 may also postpone new projects, but in the course of next year we can expect a raft of perhaps half a dozen new initiatives that will seek to fill in the gaps in the definition of Chavez’s project for “21st century socialism”. Already there are some hints of what is planned in the “socialist plan for 2013-2019”, originally drafted as the Chavez election manifesto and then presented to the national assembly at the end of October. One of the preoccupations of the government’s strategic team is the potential disaffection of the substantial group within society who have benefitted from the Chavez reforms. Such people remained loyal in this year’s elections, but will they remain faithful until the next presidential poll in 2018?
I took a pre-election stroll down Sabana Grande, the formerly bohemian street in central Caracas that often gives an indication of the country’s mood. Once a display of intellectual life in the 1940s and 1950s, with cafes and chess clubs, it became a fiercesome arena of cheap commerce in the past decade, every inch of pavement taken over by unlicensed hawkers and peddlers. Today it has been tidied up, losing much of its charm in the process, and the continuing procession of flâneurs are much darker than they used to be, wearing large trainers and cheap and trendy clothes. These are undoubtedly the beneficiaries of the Bolivarian Revolution from the shanty towns that surround the city, but will they remain true to the cause? And how will Chavez address the problem of waning enthusiasm? At one level, the government will continue to provide the huge handouts that have brought much of the country out of extreme poverty. The emphasis on housing in the past two years has certainly been popular and will be continued. The long-term ambition to make the country selfsufficient in food is still on the agenda, spelt out in hopeful government plans, yet it
still looks like a very distant dream indeed. Promoting revolutionary enthusiasm in the midst of rampant capitalism and consumer plenty is yet more difficult. The somewhat utopian plan is to expand the existing embryonic system of communes and communal council, known as “people’s power”. The idea is that some 40,000 councils will be gathered into 3,000 socialist communes, at a rate of 450 a year. By 2019, it is hoped, some 21,000,000 citizens will live under this system, nearly 70 per cent of the population. This might of course happen, yet it may equally well lead to frustration and disillusion. Yet more urgently needed is a major effort to re-invest in the oil industry, the goose that lays the golden eggs. A serious gas explosion at the Amuay refinery north of Lake Maracaibo in August killed more than 40 workers and caused a huge amount of damage. A government report has not yet been published but the opposition has talked of faulty maintenance and security procedures. It has also claimed that the industry has been starved of fresh investment as its revenues have been diverted into the vital social programmes that have defined the Chavez era. The oil industry is traditionally a secretive
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affair, and the government officially claims that all is well, yet the national plan does underline the need for consolidation. More immediately probable is that next year will see a major devaluation of the bolivar. The rate will probably move from 4.60 bolivares to the dollar to 6.30, bringing fresh revenues to the government from the sale of oil, but also making imports more expensive. Abroad, the country will certainly seek to consolidate its friendship with its ideological soulmates in ALBA, but in the short run it will be even more enthusiastic about celebrating its participation in Mercosur, maintaining its close friendship with Brazil and Argentina, the bedrock of its political strategy. The one imponderable over the next six years is the health of the President. Close friends describe his present condition as “convalescent”, and it is noticeable that he does not have the energy and drive that he once had, perhaps to the secret relief of his exhausted cabinet ministers. Yet there is no reason to suppose that his early demise would lead to the shipwreck of his Bolivarian project. After the election, Chavez appointed Nicolas Maduro, his foreign minister, as the new Vice President, the man who would automatically succeed him if he died. Maduro is well-regarded and competent, though not a spell-binding orator. Maduro would be supported by the council of state, selected last May, consisting of Roy Chaderton, the OAS ambassador, German Mundarain, the UN ambassador, Admiral Carlos Giacopini, Jose Vicente Rangel, a journalist and former vice-president, and Luis Britto Garcia, a writer and intellectual. Substitute members of the Council include Ismelda Rincon, the former dean of the University of Zulia, Soraya El Achkar, the dean of the National University of Safety, Miguel Perez, the president of the Federation of Small and Medium Industries (Fedeindustria), Samuel Moncada, the ambassador to the UK, and Jesus Martinez Barrios, the coordinator of the Workers’ University. Like Maduro, these are competent, moderate-minded people, culled for the most part from the foreign service and the universities. What is perhaps noteworthy is the inclusion of only one military figure. Richard Gott is the author of Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution, published by Verso
Friday, November 16, 2012 | Nº 135 | 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
The Petraeus legacy: a paramilitary CIA? It was the CIA director’s relationship with JSOC —not Paula Broadwell— that should have raised concerns T/ Jeremy Scahill
W
hile much of the media focus on l’affaire Petraeus has centered on the CIA director’s sexual relationship with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, the scandal opens a window onto a different and more consequential relationship—that between the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). In a behind-the-scenes turf war that has raged since 9/11, the two government bodies have fought for control of the expanding global wars waged by the United States—a turf war that JSOC has largely won. Petraeus, an instrumental player in this power struggle, leaves behind an agency that has strayed from intelligence to paramilitarytype activities. Though his legacy will be defined largely by the scandal that ended his career, to many within military and intelligence circles, Petraeus’s career trajectory, from commander of US military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to the helm of the CIA, is a symbol of this evolution. “I would not say that CIA has been taken over by the military, but I would say that the CIA has become more militarized”, Philip Giraldi, a retired career CIA case officer, told The Nation. “A considerable part of the CIA budget is now no longer spying; it’s supporting paramilitaries who work closely with JSOC to kill terrorists, and to run the drone program”. The CIA, he added, “is a killing machine now”. As head of US Central Command in 2009, Petraeus issued execute orders that significantly broadened the ability of US forces to operate in a variety of countries, including Yemen, where US forces
began conducting missile strikes later that year. During Petraeus’s short tenure at the CIA, drone strikes conducted by the agency, sometimes in conjunction with JSOC, escalated dramatically in Yemen; in his first month in office, he oversaw a series of strikes that killed three US citizens, including 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki. In some cases, such as the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, commandos from the elite JSOC operated under the auspices of the CIA, so that the mission could be kept secret if it went wrong. One current State Department liaison who has also worked extensively with JSOC describes the CIA as becoming “a mini-Special Operations Command that purports to be an intelligence agency”. For all the praise Petraeus won for his counterinsurgency strategy and the “surge” in Iraq, he says, his real legacy is as a “political tool”, an enabler
of those within the national security apparatus who want to see a continuation of covert global mini-wars. Pointing to the “mystique that surrounds JSOC” and Adm. William McRaven, commander of the Special Operations Command, the liaison says, “Petraeus was trying to implement that kind of command climate at the CIA”. “Petraeus wanted to be McRaven, and now that window has closed”, he said. “We are firmly in the age of McRaven. There is no other titular figure with the confidence of the president that is able to articulate strategies and hold their own in rooms where everyone else has the same or greater amount of intellectual heft. McRaven is everything that Petraeus is not”. Retired Army Colonel W. Patrick Lang, a former senior defense intelligence official, says that Petraeus’s arrogance—“smoothly concealed beneath the appearance of the warrior scholar”—made him
deeply unpopular among the military’s high-ranking officers. Dismissing the media’s portrayal of Petraeus as a “super soldier” and great military leader as “phony bullshit”, Lang describes him as the product of a military promotion system that encourages generals to think of themselves as “divinely selected”. “In fact, he didn’t write the COIN manual, the surge was not the main thing in improving the situation in Iraq…. They sent him to Afghanistan to apply the COIN doctrine in the same glorious way he did in Iraq, and it hasn’t worked. So, if you look beneath the surface from all this stuff, it’s just a lot of hot air. There are great generals, but this guy is not one of them”. Arriving at the CIA, Lang says, Petraeus “wanted to drag them in the covert action direction and to be a major player”. As for Petraeus’s future, the State Department liaison said, “There will be a lot of profits to be made by him and his im-
mediate circle of advisers, as they’re given a soft landing, whether it’s in academia or within the nexus of the military-industrial complex”. Giraldi, the former senior CIA officer, expressed concern that in these circumstances, the “CIA is going to forget how to spy”. He also noted the “long-term consequence” of the militarization of the CIA: “every bureaucracy in the world is best at protecting itself. So once the CIA becomes a paramilitary organization, there’s going to be in-built pressure to keep going in that direction. Because you’ll have people at the senior levels in the organization who have come up that way and are protective of what they see as their turf”, he told me. “That’s the big danger”. Jeremy Scahill is an investigative journalist and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. This article originally appeared n The Nation.